When Ubisoft relaunched the
Prince of Persia series six years ago with its titular hero reborn as a rugged, strapping prince who had more in common with Shinobi than Ali Baba, you’d probably never have guessed the visage the character has now taken on.
Enter
Prince of Persia, 2008’s confusingly self-titled next chapter (and latest reboot) of the series, starring a new prince who is evidently steeped in legend. Although the prince is simply known as just that, he isn’t a nobleman as his predecessor was in 2003's
The Sands of Time. Actually, the new prince has little to with the princes of old.
No, the new prince, delivered via the series' development team at Ubisoft Montreal, is everything the old one wasn’t—a dusty, smartass scoundrel who earns a ragged living robbing tombs. He’s part Aragorn, part Indiana Jones and part Captain Mal Reynolds of
Firefly fame.
The prince is good at climbing. This is a good thing, 'cause there's a lot of it.The prince’s new rough-and-tumble look is only part of the equation, however. Although handy with a sword, his combat skills are tempered by the presence of Elika, a devoted princess (and priestess) who wields magic powers against the ‘corrupted,’ demon-like beings who pledged their loyalty to the dark god, Ahriman, who is (sort-of) let loose from his prison at the beginning of the game.
Together, Elika and the prince must cleanse the corrupted lands of…wherever they are, and when not effortlessly swinging and clambering across gorgeous landscapes, they're forced to face off in a series of heavily-cinematic battles with Ahriman’s would-be brood in order to save Elika’s nigh-abandoned kingdom.
Combat has also been modified and tweaked in the new
Prince. Far more artistic than technical, there are only two attack types (gauntlet and sword), acrobatics and Elika’s magic. The result are often-climactic, film-like deathmatches that show the prince and his companion in various dazzling acrobatic signatures which highlight the game’s stunningly stylized art direction.
Unlike it's predecessors, combat in Prince of Persia is a one-on-one, cinematic affair.So, if you’re expecting to find an evil vizier in this
Prince of Persia, you won’t.
Call it the
Batman Begins of the gaming world—And like Christopher Nolan’s take on the Dark Knight, Ubisoft Montreal’s recreated prince is emblematic of just how much
everything old is new again in this game.
It’s actually a near-completely different interpretation of the series, similar in some respects to when Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura reimagined Hideo Kojima’s PS one classic
Metal Gear Solid in the Gamecube’s
MGS remake
The Twin Snakes (although a bit more drastic).
But unlike
The Twin Snakes, which could have been called “
Metal Gear Solid: Ridiculous Action Movie,” (a jab I make lovingly—games wouldn’t be the same today without Kojima’s precedent-setting series)
Prince of Persia may actually be something else entirely: an “art” game.
Take, for example, Elika. Her presence seems to draw some vague parallels to Sony’s PS2 title
ICO, which paired a hero (a little boy with horns) with Yorda, a defenseless princess, on a quest to escape a mysterious castle.
Despite its fantasy setting,
ICO feels and plays like an indie film (and rightly so, considering the game has been lauded for its unyielding originality, and many feel it’s responsible for starting the whole ‘games as art’ debate). And while Elika is an actual asset in battle,
Prince of Persia doesn’t exactly feel like your run-of-the-mill adventure game, either.
The prince and Elika's travels take them through beautiful, lush environments.The game actually has more in common with
Shadow of the Colossus, Team ICO’s “boss-battle-only” spiritual successor-cum-quasi-prequel to
ICO—also added to “art game” canon because of its unique combat structure.
Like
Colossus, fighting in the new Prince amounts a series of simply-controlled, one-on-on boss and mini-boss battles that pit the prince and Elika against the guardians (as well as the occasional minion) of each of the game’s distinct, open environments, whose areas become more accessible as you progress.
Also like Team ICO's god-killing masterpiece,
Prince of Persia’s open-ended world is vast and beautiful, although you won’t be felling monstrous beasts on horseback. Instead you’ll be spending most of your time traversing across an increasingly vertical world, whether you’re exploring, talking with Elika or healing corrupted lands, in a mix between adventure game exploration and straight-up platforming.
But perhaps the biggest thing about
Prince of Persia which is suggestive of “art game” status is that you can’t die. Every time you fall down an endless chasm or are about to feel the rough blade of a corrupted in your chest, Elika’s mysterious light-based powers intervene.
In theory, this isn’t really that much of a departure from most any other game—you make your way through the game, fall down a pit, get attacked by a monster, are shot up by terrorists, whatever—after game over, you either start from a checkpoint or a savepoint.
Without Elika, the prince would be dead. A thousand times over.It’s understandable why some might throw up red flags over my claim that a
Prince of Persia could really be an “art game” to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Team ICO's efforts or those of
Killer 7 creator Suda 51. To some degree, I wonder how it could be possible, too.
But hear me out: it's all in the game’s approach. Since the prince can't die, you can’t lose. And if you can't lose, the developers were obviously hoping gamers would find another emphasis on something other than the challenge.
Luckily, there’s myriad parts of the game with which to distract you. Gameplay is smooth, the world sumptuous and absorbing, and its unique mechanics, with a focus less on crossing blades than on running across cliffs and leaping over chasms make for an exciting time.
The prince himself is well developed, swashbuckling, and unlike his
predecessors, often laugh out loud funny—particularly during in-game banter sessions you can choose to have with Elika (which makes sense, given that his vocal cords are supplied by none other than Nolan North, who brought Nathan Drake to life with same smart-ass personality in PS3’s
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune).
The game’s script often has the spirit reminiscent of the original
Pirates of the Caribbean, complementing the new
Prince’s high-end production values, its gorgeous cel-shaded character models and the wonderfully organic world rendered around them. The result is a game brimming with humor and heart.
Clearly, the prince has been through a lot. And he's got a smart mouth, to boot.Ubisoft Montreal are also clearly a bunch of cinema lovers, which is evident in more than just the combat. Watching Elika cleanse the corruption from filthy, polluted wastelands into brightly lit, lush, colorful landscapes is a major visual treat that show off the game’s technical prowess and artistry, as are some of the game’s epic setpieces. Both bring to mind the kind of unique vision and execution of rousing adventure films.
Would the old prince ever have been able to springboard through the sky between giant globe-like flying machines ripped from the imaginations of Jules Verne and Tim Burton? I don’t think so.
However, as fun as the new
Prince is, it isn’t perfect. Some players may find it hard to subscribe to the game's no-death philosophy, and others may be turned off by its “tap a button”-style combat and the general ease given with essential immortality.
Healing corrupted lands is just one of the many unothordox things you'll spend your time doing.In it’s own way,
Prince of Persia does still feel like you’re living out an ancient legend, albeit one that displays a different kind of storytelling than in
The Sands of Time. But if art is defined as “thinking outside the box” then
Prince of Persia is certainly worthy of such a description.
Like
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which Russell Crowe once called “an arthouse movie with a big budget,” the gameplay in
Prince of Persia isn’t your typical mainstream industry fare. Hell, the villain isn't even really present, aside from being a much talked about malevolent force.
There are snatches of industry standards, to be sure, but what Ubisoft Montreal has really done is taken the series, stripped it down to its bare essence, and rebuilt it from the inside out with a new, completely different body.
When not dealing with dark gods, the prince enjoys quiet walks in the countryside.True, without the promise of death, the presence of real tension in the game is questionable, but maybe it’s not the point, either. If more games would take more risks like this, video games could very well develop into the same kind of multifaceted medium that film industry has become.
And if Ubisoft can do it to the new
Prince, an unabashedly high profile game which wears its budget on its sleeve, maybe more companies should be able to take such chances. It’s likely that's precisely the message the game is trying to get across, otherwise such drastic changes probably wouldn't have made it beyond the stage of concept art.
It’s rare that art games move that many units, but it doesn’t make them any less important—such may well be the case with this game.
So, will the industry listen? Only time will tell. But even if
Prince of Persia isn’t perfect, it too is important. It's bold and brassy, and most notably, tries something different. Do yourself a favor—don’t ignore this one.
Prince of Persia
4.5 out of 5 stars
Ubisoft
PS3, Xbox 360
$39.99
- Princely quips
The prince definitely has a way with words, as is clearly seen in his conversations with Elika and elsewhere in the game. Here's some of our favorites:
P: - "Ugh! I was on my way home. I had more gold than you could--I'd'a had wine! Women! I'd had carpets this thick!"
P: - "Hey, you're cute, but not 'stay and fight a dark god' cute."
E: - "Would you have helped my father if he had asked you?"
P: - "He's not that cute, either."
P: - "Anything else you think you should be telling me?"
E: - "You're an idiot."
P: - "I like your top."
E: - "I think I have a spare if you'd like it."
E: - "Just be patient. Patience brings rewards."
P: - "So does walking into a harem covered with chocolate."
P: - "Do you often go falling out of the sky on to men? I mean, you're a good-looking girl and all...obviously pretty high maintenance, but you shouldn't need to go dropping out of the sky on to men."
P: - "Do corruption stains come out?"
P: - "Gods, monsters, crazy women...what's the difference?"
P: - "Run, jump, die, repeat. Run, jump, die, repeat. I'm starting to get the hang of this!"
P: - "She's not my girlfriend, she's my donkey."
