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Of the Sands of Time trilogy, Warrior Within is easily the most controversial of the bunch. Forgoing the whimsical Nights of Arabia theme of the much beloved Sands of Time, Warrior Within employs a much darker tone, replacing melodic instrumentals with blood pumping metal music, and an emperor’s majestic castle with that of some dreadful thing from a metal album cover. Gone, too, is the storybook hero known only as the Prince, who is now a curse spewing, murder loving psychopath, easy to anger and eager to slice open stomachs. Understandably, not all took a liking to the new Prince of Persia, and many either wrote it off or gave up after dying in the first 10 minutes, all while cursing the monsters at Ubisoft who would dare slight their beloved franchise so vehemently. I am ashamed to admit that while I did not join in the publisher bashing those many years prior, I did assume the many fans’ angers as legitimate. After having neglected the franchise for many years since the original, I have finally played through the trilogy’s entirety. Lo and behold, my judgment is thus: Warrior Within is the best of the Prince of Persia trilogy, and one of the most challenging and equally frustrating and rewarding titles I have ever had the pleasure of besting.
Where its predecessor, The Sands of Time, relied on linear level progression, a typically gradually increasing difficulty, and relatively basic (and easy) combat, Warrior Within features a (sort of) open world, varied weapons of combat, and enemies that will break your face if you’re not perfect. It also features a higher emphasis on combat than its predecessor, and some of the most frustrating puzzle and enemy design than any other game I’ve played in years. But understand what I mean by that. Warrior Within, for the entire duration, never held my hand. The moment I felt I had a handle on how to deal with an enemy type, a brand new exploding, near unavoidable dog animal thing would be introduced. Obviously, it wasn’t always an exploding dog thing, but you get the point. WW is never easy or gradual in its difficulty. It’s not typically fair, either, but it also never felt impossible, and that’s what made it fantastic. For comparison, while playing Demon’s Souls, I always felt in control of what I was doing, and typically only died if I was quick to run into a room before checking for barriers to hide behind, traps or tricky enemies in the shadows. WW will put you in a room and deal death unto you until you learn to deal with it, and the experience became infinitely rewarding upon besting said situations.
Puzzles don’t quite follow the same degree of difficulty that the combat does, but the challenge comes in unintended traversal. By puzzles, I refer to the Prince of Persia’s method of travel; running along walls, sliding down ropes and hanging banners, and avoiding the many, many spikes and saw blades inexplicably sticking out of walls. The open world aspect of Warrior Within allows you to re-visit any portion of the island that you’ve previously visited, and you don’t necessarily have to follow the same paths. However, the design of these pathways are sometimes altered by the game’s events, and even when they aren’t, traversal in any way different from the standard is a challenge in and of itself, as the developers clearly did not design these paths to be easily followed backwards (or forwards, for that matter), as you will have to do. Worse yet, enemy spawns remain, especially those bastard dogs I mentioned previously, the ones that can take half of your health. If this sounds frustrating to you, it should. But by the point you should even be considering doing anything like this, you will have already become invested in beating down this seemingly personal hell that the developers have created just for you.
I won’t divulge any of my secrets for passing through Warrior Within, and quite frankly, I would recommend any and all to refrain from guides as much as possible throughout (except for the collectibles, you’ll need a guide for those). Warrior Within is a truly brutal and often unfair achievement in sadistic game design. It’s also one of my most satisfying completions in the entirety of my gaming career. Nearly every instance of combat in this title will chew on your face and kick you in your ass until you really learn to play it. The learning curve can be steep and unfair, and you will want to quit. Don’t. There are no tricks to Warrior Within, and only your skill, and hopefully a share of dumb luck, will see you succeed. What faults it has, of which there are plenty, only add to the experience..