Prince of Persia Review (Demon27248)
As a fan of both the original Prince of Persia and The Sands of Time Trilogy, I didn't really mind 08 when I first played it, despite finding the game vastly inferior to them. I've later come to realise that the game was host to a myriad of bad design choices and consider it amongst the worst games Ubisoft put out in the era.
Firstly, the combat. I was actually quite excited when I heard the series was returning to the one on one fights of the original Prince of Persia, which I preferred to the combat in the Sands trilogy. What the combat turned out to be was the most rudimentary dial a combo bullcrap I've seen. Gameplay boils down to memorising the button sequences for the most highly damaging combos, mindlessly spamming them, and doing little else. You have commands for blocking, dodging, and parrying attacks but you end up spamming them mindlessly as well since for lack of a better way of describing it, there's no rhyme or reason to the combat when you're on the defensive. There's also no consequence for getting hit since you can't die. Occasionally you'll run into enemy types that force you to use a combo starting with a different attack button, and that pretty much sums up all the game has to offer. It's clear that no care was taken in creating a good 1 v 1 fighting game within PoP 08; it feels no deeper than the 1 v 1 fights in the Sands series with its 1 v many combat system. That would be okay if it weren't for the fact that everything else also sucked.
The platforming... What acts as the core of both this game and the rest of the Prince of Persia series just doesn't feel as interactive as the older games. I've been trying to pinpoint exactly what was done wrong, and I think it basically goes something like this: By having long winded animations such as wall running triggered by just tapping a button and watching (as opposed to holding it down); then by using as the main type of obstacle, sequences where you have to chain multiple of these actions together before you hit solid ground and reach safety; the platforming feels sort of like a glorified QTE. Except it also feels like a rhythm game since you can anticipate what button to press well in advance. I'm reminded of the game Kickbeat, a rhythm game - beat 'em up hybrid, where the rhythm part takes precedence, and it ends up not feeling like you're fighting at all. Here, the QTE-like sections that the bulk of the game is comprised of don't feel like you're platforming at all, rather just dialing in a button sequence and watching the animations play out.
As a game released in 2008, Prince of Persia was naturally another unfortunate victim of the trend during the mid to late 00's of making games easier and more casual. 08 did this by making it so that you literally cannot die. Sure, this is acceptable for adventure games and the like, but an action platformer? Surely not. The Sands of Time's limited rewind system had the balance perfect by giving you something to help cope with the inherent imprecision of 3D platforming, but where you still had to be cautious with your actions. 08, by removing death, lets you play completely carelessly. One of the lesser mentioned issues with this is that because it means you have no reason to care about what's going on with the characters on the screen, you can end up becoming removed from immersion in the game world. It turns into one of those talk shows you throw on the telly for background noise while you go off and do other stuff, and the game doesn't fill in the gameplay void with any steady narrative progression or meaningful dialogue like an engaging drama would have. There isn't much story at all throughout the 12 hour campaign apart from at the very beginning and end of the game.
That leaves us with the game's biggest flaw. If you've played the game before, I'm sure you can already guess what I'm about to say. After your first completion of a level, orbs spawn in it for you to collect, and collecting them is necessary to progress in the game. Ubisoft seemed to draw inspiration from the Banjo-Kazooie line of platformers here, which featured open-ended levels for you to explore and collect stuff in. The only problem is the level design in Prince of Persia 08 is linear. Yes, some branching paths do open up after your first completion of a level, but they're still very much made up of linear platforming gauntlets, only with orbs dotted along them now. This essentially just means you have to play through each level twice, at the least. Of course, 08 isn't the only Prince of Persia game that had you backtracking and going through the same obstacles multiple times, but it's the only one where it felt tedious and forced.
The one thing I did like about the game was the art direction. It had a unique look, and was all around very pretty. But at the end of the day, you're not looking at a painting, you're playing a game, and the visuals can't redeem the very poor gameplay on offer here.