The new PoP game is different but this doesn't mean it's bad, it's actually pretty good start for a new trilogy.
There are no sands of time, the character are different, basically everything has changed (except the wall running ^_^). The new story is ok but what steals the show is the support character Elika. She is a magical guardian of an ancient tree of life that keeps an evil god imprisoned. As usual the evil is about to escape its prison and it's up to Elika and the prince to save the day.
The animations between the prince and Elika while doing wall runs, swing on polls, climb vines, etc. are AWESOME! It's so realistic and enjoyable watching them perform all kinds of acrobatic moves. The game has outstanding presentation.
The combat is always 1 on 1, actually 2v1, but it's cool and cinematic. It's like watching an awesome anime fighting scene. The trick is to chain sword attacks and Elika attacks. The comboes look awesome and they deal a lot of damage. The platforming is great and they've added some new stuff to the old PoP platforming formula like walking on the ceiling, sliding down walls with the gauntlet and moves which you can only perform when you use one of 4 different coloured plates. After 4 or 5 hours you will use different plates in a single running sequence and I must say that the end-game running sequences are just awesome.
The game is all about healing areas from the influence of the evil god. After you heal an area you have to collect light seeds and do some backtrack. When you collect certain amount of seeds you can unlock a new plate skill. There are four plate skills in the game and to unlock the last you need 540 light seeds. There are total of 1000 seeds in the game for those who want to "collect them all" but make no mistake, collecting light seeds is nothing like the BORING flag collecting in Assassin's Creed. You need to think and plan you jumps to reach every seed. By doing this you will extend the game to 20 hours (12 hours to complete the story).
The game has the old Prince of Persia: Sands of Time storybook style and the visuals are excellent (like a watercolour painting). Overall the game is great and the story makes has a unexpected ( at least for me) twist in the end. It's a great start to a new chapter in the "Prince of Persia book".
The things that I didn't like are:
- the game is too easy.
- the prince does most of the platforming all by himself. You just need to press a certain button every 3-5 sec, it feels like Assassin's Creed lazy-ass controls. I really miss the old prince of persia platforming style and the rewing time.
- the game is mostly platformer. The old PoP games had perfect mix of platforming, combat and puzzles.
Great new start for the franchise and now I have a 4th PoP game to play every 3-5 months.