A great game that, despite popular opinion, takes the franchise back to its roots!
Graphics - 9
So, you might be wondering why I'm giving this a near perfect score. That's easy enough to explain. I've been playing this game, and I just can't find a single thing about it that doesn't scream "Next-Gen", except for one thing that I will get to in a moment. Otherwise, this game really delivers in every comprehensible way on this aspect.
People complain about the "black lines" and the cel-shading. Beleive me, I was one of them, and all i can say is the screenshots do not do this game justice - even though they are pretty nice depending on your attitude.
Maybe it's because I'm playing it at Max Settings for Resolution and Textures. Even so - in all honesty, I don't even notice the black lines or the cel-shading anymore. In fact, I have to really try to see them. It's all rendered so beautifully that you either subconciously forget about them... or maybe it's just that those tidbits aren't so "game-breaking" that it matters much.
It's very reminescent of the first PoP: SoT in that everything has a very surreal fantasy fairy-tale vibe to it. Now, I know most people hated that about the game, which is why they completely went in the opposite direction with the other two. Personally, I liked the first one better, because it was something you didn't see in any other game - you still don't see it. It was nostalgic to play SoT because it reminded me of games like Legend of Zelda. Much is the same with this new PoP, and I personally don't want them to change a thing. Besides, you do have the whole "dark world" thing going on for people who enjoy that sort of tone. I think it brings the best of both worlds.
I took one point away for the simple fact that even though the game looks and runs great, it doesn't compare to the shere amount of onscreen goodness from such games as Assassin's Creed. I mean, AC looks superb even now... but it had a million things on screen at once. This game just doesn't have that, and as a result, doesn't meet the benchmark.
Overall, the game runs smooth, and it looks good - damn good.
Sound - 10
It's getting harder and harder these days to even rate this portion of a game. I mean, Sound is one of those things that will always be good, no matter if you have a killer set up or not. Things like environmental effects just aren't as prominent as they once were - it all has been working pretty much the way it should be for the past few years now.
However, it is important to take note the two more common sounds you hear in the game - the VO of Prince and Elika and the music.
First the music... I think it's gravy. I mean, seriously... it's like the cherry on the best ice cream sundae ever created. It's so... fitting... you just don't realise how good it is until you don't hear it anymore.
The Voice Acting is something else that needs to be commented on, but I think it is largely in part due to the script the actors follow. Any exchange between Elika and Prince is just spot on. Their voices are perfectly in tune with one another, which is important since they have the sole responsibility of carrying the story. Everything revolves around them, thus, this has to deliver. If this were anything short of perfect, it would make the whole game fall flat on its face.
Gameplay - 8
Alright, so I've spoken about how wonderful the Graphics and Sound are - but how does it play?
Well, you've read the other reviews... you know that it's a (somewhat) easy game. I think a lot of reviewers do a little more than over-simplify what's actually going on. You see, the game is broken up into 2 different categories: platforming and combat.
The platforming part of the game does tend to hold your hand (literally) in that there are no deaths, or reloads, or any sort of "end-game" concept. I personally have mixed reactions about this.
I mean, on the one hand, yeah, now that I've played a game that doesn't have a "game over" screen, I can see how completely useless they are, since as a gamer who wants to win, I'll eventually overcome that obstacle that got in your way. Plus, most games use this as a false game lengthener. On the other hand... I dunno... it almost seems just wrong not to have some sort of risk vs reward - which this game definitely does not have. I mean, it works in this game, because everything else about it is so rewarding in and of itself. But in a game that doesn't have the perfect marriage of story, character development, and excellent gameplay... you just couldn't do this. I still don't have a solid opinion on this matter.
At any rate, what is misleading about this whole "the game is too easy because I can't die..." ordeal, is that there are a few challenging cases within the game. For instance, in the platforming, there are quite a few times where you must navigate through an entire room before you get to the next checkpoint (a place where Elika will bring you back to, should you fall.) These can be tricky if you aren't paying attention to everything, plus, it all usually happens relatively fast. If you make one mistake, it could mean having to redo the whole thing over again - which is fine. But in traditional methods, that would involve going to a "game over" screen, then the load option, then selecting the file, then waiting for it to load up - so it really isn't any worse that what we already do in any other game... it just cuts out the bull crap. However, I will say this - the only reason this game gets by with this is because this feature is actually woven into the story - so it makes sense everytime.
Also, the combat (which isn't as non-existent as I was lead to beleive) can sometimes be difficult, simply by how fast it occurs. However, I think that is more of a problem that PC users face when using a Mouse and Keyboard - it can get a little confusing correlating the "Green Button" to one of the buttons on the mouse. I blame this on the fact that it's a multi-platform game. At any rate, the game definitely could have used some other fighting ordeals - which leads me to...
I mentioned earlier that this game brings the franchise back to its roots - and I'm talking 8-bit era. if anyone here is old enough to remember the original Prince of Persia, then you know all to well how frustrating the controls were, and how 90% of the game focussed on navigating through the dungeon, and the last 10% focussed on combat - specifically duelling. Basically, that's the same thing that's going on here - and I don't hate it. However, given that gamers have changed since those days, I think it would be okay to see the series grow into allowing more frequency of combative scenarios.
Value - 10
The game wreaks of top quality polish. It's a bit disheartening to know, however, that the Prince is no longer Ubisoft's flagship hero (the crown now belongs to Altair.) But, it just goes to show you how he still has some aces up his sleeve. Ubisoft gave the developers the resources they needed to make the game they wanted - and it paid.
Tilt 10
I'm a fan of PoP... always have been. This new title hasn't changed my mind, but in fact the new design theories has given me hope that there is so much more they can do with the franchise. I mean, the gameworld is so hugely inspiring, that it just makes one wonder just how far they can go with this idea of free-roaming.
Lastly, I want to give this section a perfect score, because of the thing you hardly hear about in a platformer - story. This sotry is no less epic than the SoT, and in fact, could be even bigger.
Overall 9.4 (Average)