Prince of Persia (2008)
After replacing a bad hard drive and a failed attempt at flying home for the holidays, I'm finally able to play my new Prince of Persia. And it's almost worth ruining Christmas! In all seriousness, it is a great game, and I'm very glad I've got it to keep me busy this week.
The basic concept is the same as the previous PoP trilogy: use gravity-defying acrobatics and fancy swordplay to save a magical kingdom from destruction. The story in the new Prince is nothing remarkable in and of itself, but it is told very well, through in-game cutscenes, optional dialog sequences (with heaps of character development), and the environment design itself. Together with the haunting soundtrack and unique graphical look of the game, it really does feel like playing a storybook.
Taking a note from previous criticism, the new PoP has de-emphasized combat somewhat. Enemy encounters are rare, you only fight one at a time, and the battle system is very free-form and forgiving: it reminds me a lot of the final boss battles in Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. While far from difficult, the system is as fast-paced as you want it to be, and is very cool in the sense that it allows you to strike, parry, and so on at your whim. The system also rewards you for stringing together creative combos, encouraging you to consistently try new things in battle.
The non-difficulty is a persistent theme in the new Prince of Persia. If you've read anything about the game, the one thing you're most likely to know is that, thanks to magical female sidekick Elika, you cannot die. If an enemy gets the better of you in combat, she'll save your ass, the only caveat being that her magic powers become unusable for a (very) brief time. And if you leap to your doom while navigating through a level, she'll pick you up and put you back on solid ground. You may be wondering, well, what the fuck is the point of the game then? The point is of course, to get to your goal and defeat the bosses.
If you're worried about the effect this has on the challenge of the game, don't be. Think about it: what's the difference between Elika saving you, and your last save file saving you? This system removes the hassle of incremental "just to be safe" saves, and the time involved in "dying" and reloading. Simply put, it cuts the crap out of the game. If anything is lost here, it's some of the catharsis of finally getting that jump sequence you've failed to do a dozen times. But you also don't have to deal with as much frustration from those dozen misses; and the forgiving retries also encourage you to take risky maneuvers, just to see where they lead you. What's the worst that could happen?
Warrior Within and The Two Thrones did a lot to mix up the game's pacing in the form of Dark Prince segments. These segments were super-fun because they pushed you to move as quickly as possible, pumping your adrenaline as the Prince jumped from falling ledge to falling ledge. The new PoP does something fairly similar, but again leans toward the side of forgiveness. Certain elements of the level design, such as slides and wall-running handholds, require you to move and think quickly: combine this with the hazardous objects you have to avoid on your first run through a level, and you're encouraged to keep the pace swift (although more often than not, there is no harm in slowing down).
"First" time through? Allow me to explain. Once you get to the boss of an area and defeat him, you can heal the land there, which removes the hazardous elements and opens up new paths. Glowing items called Light Seeds appear throughout the area, which you need to collect to help Elika learn new magical powers. So now your goal is to survey the land, see where the Light Seeds are, and try to figure out how to reach them. Thus, the basic pattern is: acrobatic platforming, then a boss battle, then acrobatic puzzles. Very cool.
Though the land is divided into distinct regions, they are all connected, Metroid style, into one large world map. You can get to any region from any adjacent region, which is a cool explorational touch. And to ease the collection of Light Seeds and the progression to new areas, you can use the map to instantly teleport from any healed area to any other healed area.
All in all, this Prince is a really impressive game. The theme and setting are great, the gameplay is great, even the length is looking great at this point (I've put in a few hours already, and I've only healed four of the game's 24 areas on the map). The only thing keeping me from giving it a perfect score is that I have yet to encounter a really thrilling combat situation. But I also haven't done any of the game's main boss fights yet!
Progress: Healed four fertile grounds!