E for Effort: The Artist formerly known as Prince

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2008 marked the beginning of a reboot for the Prince Of Persia franchise. Despite three critically acclaimed titles in as many years, Ubisoft decided that wiping the slate clean would ultimately improve sales and reignite interest in a series whose “Sands of Time” story arc had effectively been completed with release of The Two Thrones just three years prior.

Ubisoft set about making wholesale changes in a bid to attract new audiences while also placating fans of both the original series developed by Jordan Mechner and the more recent games released on the Xbox and PS2.

As a huge fan of the series, I awaited the new Prince of Persia game with bated breath and once the game arrived in stores I was one of the first to claim my copy. After playing the game for a while, I almost wished for my own dagger of time so that I could rewind my life and not waste my time playing it.

Purple Reign

Clad in a bright blue and red headscarf, brown attire and wearing a gauntlet on his left hand, the new Prince couldn’t be more different than the one from the older games. Whilst I am aware that this is a reboot (and that Ubisoft is therefore free to do whatever the hell it wants to) I couldn’t help but be disappointed by the new design of the main character.

I still feel that a more suitable compromise would have been to take some design cues from the protagonists of previous games and place him in a new story, which would still have allowed the developers the freedom to introduce new characters, enemies and gameplay elements while maintaining a sense of normality and cohesion. Garish you have become, the bright side I sense in you.

Gold Experience

Another area that has changed is the Prince’s character. Gone are the days where the Prince is depicted as a nobleman or someone who enters into the aristocracy following a tremendous act of courage and selflessness. Instead, we now have a prince who loots tombs and catacombs without a moments notice. A man who wouldn’t hesitate to steal diamonds and pearls if it meant being able to purchase carpets this thick.

Providing the voice work for the new prince is non other than Nolan North, a man who has worked everywhere from Final Fantasy XII (as Vossler) to Dark Void (as Will Grey). Now don’t get me wrong, Nolan North is a fantastic voice actor and he plays the “lovable rouge” character impeccably. The problem is that the man has almost become the de facto standard for male voice acting and as a result can be heard in an ever increasing number of video game franchises.

Simply put, North’s voice provides a familiar sound to a new character the audience have (supposedly) never met before. This is only exemplified further once you realize Prince Of Persia was released just under a year after the popular titles Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Assassin’s Creed, both of which featured Nolan in a major role.

Casting a lesser known voice actor in the lead role would have reinforced the fact that this is a brand new Prince with different motivations and ideals. It’s difficult for me to care about the plight of the Prince because after hearing him speak, my mind starts to wander.

“I’ve heard this guy somewhere before. Was he in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance? Or was it Halo 3: ODST. I’m sure he also voiced a character in a Ratchet & Clank game. He was definitely in Uncharted and Army Of Two: The 40th Day but I’m sure he played a guy in TMNT?”

The answer of course is yes, Nolan North played characters in all of those games.

Around The World In A Day

The size of the areas in which you play have also been the subject of Ubisoft’s revamp, with the developers seemingly all too keen to jump on the open world bandwagon. The world on offer here is no more open than the one available in Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland. That is to say there are multiple areas interconnected via traversable corridor sections as opposed to the open world on offer in Oblivion for example.

Prince Of Persia straddles the line between an open world and a linear one, with the finished game feeling worse due to Ubisoft’s apparent indecision. Venturing into the fertile grounds to eradicate corruption doesn’t have the sense of scale that the story implies it should have because the lands themselves are not vast or expansive.

Not that you’ll be doing much sightseeing. Once you reach the rain-slick precipice of corrupted areas the Prince will regularly encounter enemies, another source of hatred for the game.

Rainbow Children

Every once in a while the Prince will come face to face with one of Ahriman’s lackeys and it’s here where my enjoyment of the game really starts to nosedive. Though battles take place within the same environment as the platforming, the fights are very much detached from the rest of the game. Control of the prince is drastically altered as action shifts to combat.

Movement is reduced to a slow walk as the Prince inches toward his foes and the actions of the face buttons are altered as well. The Prince is also frustratingly fragile, often taking less than a handful of hits before his life expires.

Considering the previous games contained a healthy mix of combat and platforming, it was strange to see the two styles segregated in such a way. Throughout, the combat felt sluggish, dragging down the otherwise fast paced gameplay so much that fighting felt like a chore. Whilst you can prevent enemies from spawning if you get to them quickly enough, the opportunities I got to do so were few and far between.

Besides, it’s not as if the Prince can actually die or anything…

Controversy

Perhaps the biggest and most reviled of the additions was the Prince’s new found “immortality” provided by his new companion. Whenever you missed a jump or got killed by an enemy, Elika (the Robin to the Prince’s Batman) steps in to save the day.

Every. Damn. Time.

I can understand why Ubisoft added this feature (so that you can re-attempt a section quickly) but there should have been a cap on the number of times it could be used. As is, Prince Of Persia is completely devoid of risk and danger with Elika always ready, willing and able to deliver you safe from harm.

During some cutscenes the game clearly shows that Elika is physically drained after she uses her powers so it would have made sense to impose a limit on the ability (by claiming that saving the Prince drains her energy somewhat and that she can’t rescue the Prince if she’s knackered), thus introducing an element of peril that all platform games should have.

A Sign Of The Times

The final bugbear I have with Prince Of Persia is that the structure of the platforming never changes. Ubisoft manages to show their hand within the first hour and fails to produce any aces (or tricks) from it’s sleeves to hold your interest during the later stages.

Platforming, thy name is repetition.

At least other games have the good grace to mix things up a bit or add new gameplay elements to keep things fresh. Elika does learn several new powers throughout Prince Of Persia, but the impact they have on the game boils down to pressing the triangle button once the Prince finds a power plate. Not exactly what you would call engaging by any means.

Crystal Ball

As my rant draws to a close I’m reminded of Ubisoft’s recent decision to abandon the reboot of the series in favour of a continuation of the Sands Of Time story, a decision seemingly motivated solely by the upcoming big budget film adaptation and the extra revenue a tie-in can provide.

This abandonment could be seen by some as an admission of guilt, with Ubisoft effectively burying Prince Of Persia under the garden patio and pretending it never existed. Meanwhile, they release The Forgotten Sands in a few months and claim the revert back to the mythos of the older series is because they’ve been “listening to the fans” and this is what they asked for.

Prince Of Persia was not a terrible game, it was a great concept poorly executed and the majority of my complaints could have been solved with a few tweaks to the gameplay. In its current state, Prince Of Persia is one of the few games that was less than the sum of it’s parts.

I could’ve had class. I could’ve been a contender.
I could’ve been somebody, instead of a prince, which is what I am…

This promoted blog was written for our April Monthly Musing assignment, “E For Effort.” You too could get promoted if you write something about games you hate but respect over on the Community Blogs.


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