The Prince of Persia series, for me anyway, has always been the benchmark for other platformers to reach due to it’s complexity and beautiful level design. Ubisoft helped to bring the Prince into the 21st Century, while still keeping the game’s original charm and adding a decent storyline into the mix. The first installment, The Sands of Time, was an absolute classic, with an option to rewind lethal mistakes and try again, innovating the genre.

The second game, Warrior Within, was somewhat of a mistake by Ubi. They tried to go for a gritty game with a Wolverine-esque character who didn’t seem to fit the profile of the games before. Thankfully we see the return of the Prince we all know and love in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones with a game that all fans of the genre will love.

The game resumes with the Prince and Empress Kaileena sailing into Babylon, planning to finally rest after some tiring escapades on the Island of Time. To their surprise, the City of Babylon has been invaded by the Grand Vizier of Egypt and lays in ruins. Instead of a hero’s welcome, the pair’s boat is hailed by volleys of fire arrows and torn apart by a boulder from a trebuchet. The Prince and Kaileena are separated, and upon seeing her again, the Prince sees Kaileena slain by the Vizier, so that he may gain eternal life.

During this process The Prince was tainted by the spreading of the Sands of Time that Kaileena controlled. Part of a daggertail whip is embedded in his arm, and upon encountering fire he is transformed into the Dark Prince alter-ego, a more powerful, but selfish form. He is then caught up in a fight for his own soul, as well as trying to free Babylon.

Gameplay

The unique selling point of PoP:TT has got to be the way that the platforming flows into battles and even incorporates the two into seamless gameplay. The main way that this is achieved is via the quick kill mechanic. When positioned correctly, which could be hanging from a chain or springing from a window shutter, which then has the Prince engaging in coordinated slashes, which you need to time correctly to complete the kill. If you don’t manage to time the quick kill right you’ll have to fight the enemies as normal, unless you decide to turn back time using the Sands.

Sand powers make up an integral part of the Prince of Persia series, and help you to recover from lethal (or inconvenient) mistakes, saving you from going to the Game Over screen or helping you out in battle. The most common power that you’ll use is the Rewind function, which let’s you rewind eight seconds of gameplay (except in certain circumstances). There is also the Time Slow and Whirlwind powers which are generally used to aid you in battle, although the Time Slow power helps with doors which only open for a few seconds. These powers aren’t unlimited however, and require you to have collected enough sand (from dead foes and crates) to fill your sand tanks. They are also limited by the power bar, which refills itself after each use of a sand power or a cut-scene.

Quite possibly the worst part of The Two Thrones is when the Prince is transformed into his darker alter-ego. Although he is immensely powerful, and the daggertail weapon is fantastic in combat and for platforming, playing as him has a huge flaw. The tainted sands draw from the Prince’s health constantly, requiring you to find sands constantly to top his health up, often meaning you can die in the middle of a long platforming section. While this is fine when you’re battling enemies, having to smash every object in sight in a vain attempt to stay alive for a few more seconds is inconvenient to say the least.

It’s almost a prerequisite of the platformer genre to include a variety of bosses to battle against, and Two Thrones offers a quintessential selection. Each boss will require you to use a mixture of your acrobatic and combat skills to overthrow them, often mixed in with quick kill sequences – such as running your blade through the spine of a giant ogre. Which is nice. The last boss is actually a little disappointing, you can beat him pretty easily, if you have good evasion skills but overall they’re as challenging as the rest of the game. There are also chariot chase sequences, where you are pretty much trying to stay alive as you leap across chasms and engage in those classic ‘try and be the one to go through the narrow gap’ tussles.

Control / Playability

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is a game that is very easy to control, but does suffer from technicalities that always seem to dog 3D platformer/adventure games. Firstly we have the camera, which fortunately you can control and has different angles available (first-person and wide angle), but it still gets stuck behind things, especially in quick kill situations when it has to pan or dolly quickly. Character movement is also mapped to a mathematical grid rather than the motion being calculated in a fluid environment. This often means that you might jump in the wrong direction, or fall of a ledge in certain areas. Yes, you can rewind these mistakes, but this wastes valuable sand tanks.

The game also has a steadily increasing learning curve, with a variety of platforming moves and sequence that you’ll learn throughout the game, along with steadily increasing enemies. You’ll also have various puzzles to solve, which often require quite a bit of lateral thinking, or often just flicking a switch. Some of these might leave you scratching your head for a while, but nothing will take too long for you to work out (unless you get a mental block).

Graphics / Presentation

The graphics in The Two Thrones are excellent, for a game that offers a sprawling area with plenty of environment interaction. There’s a large draw distance that allows you to survey the streets of Babylon, and the surroundings (maybe with the exception of plant life) has been rendered superbly. The Prince has a good amount of detail on his character model, although his shoulders look rather weird.

The enemies also look suitably sinister, in their Egyptian themed masks and armour, showing off the matte reflections used in the game. There’s also fantastic use of lighting (especially in the latter stages of the game) with dynamic shadows aplenty. There are quite a few clipping glitches, and the occasional bug that’ll get you killed, but these things are forgivable for such a complex gameplay model.

Audio

The music in Two Thrones tessellates with the game perfectly, a mixture of eastern-inspired strings and ethnic drums really build up the atmosphere of a war-torn city (ironic, seeing that it’s set in ancient Iraq). Sounds effects are also good, from the clang of your blade against stone (or armour) to the satisfying rip of banners as you literally tear down them. The voice acting is good, the Vizier sounds like he’s out of a B-Movie Horror, and they are a believable fit to the characters.

Replay Value

There isn’t really much in the way of replay value in PoP:The Two Thrones, mainly because the story is very linear. This means that unless you want to play through the game repeatedly to try and unlock the glut of artwork and other unlockables to do with the game, then you’d be best off trading this in after completion.

Overall Score

Overall Score: 8.9/10 [not an average]

Additional Comments

I’ve been a fan of the series since the originals, and this is a return to form after a comparatively disappointing Warrior Within, with plenty of new moves and an interesting plot. The Dark Prince probably could have been implemented better, as he can often be more of an annoyance rather than a joy to play with, which is fortunately countered by the downright coolness of the daggertail weapon. This is a must-buy for all of you who still play your last-gen Xbox, and I hope Ubisoft will release a new installment on the 360.

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