Prince of Persia Classic has great updated graphics, compelling puzzles, and plays great; it's only flaw is the combat.
User Rating: 9.4 | Prince of Persia Classic X360
Gameplay: PoP (Prince of Persia) Classic is very reminiscient of the original Sands of Time, and for good reason. This PoP is a remake of the 1989 NES version, and it really makes you feel like the Prince while telling a fairly straight-forward story. As stated, you play as the Prince; you can jump, climb, fight, do backflips, and all sorts of tricks that can get you up walls, over spikes, between splicers, and just generally help avoid death. That's basically the premise, escape 14 levels of traps-filled craziness along with guards only to reach Jaffre and inevitably defeat him and save the Princess. The longer you press a direction, the faster you'll run, you can force yourself to walk, hang off of ledges, jump up to higher ledges, do long jumps or quick jumps, etc. Basically if you've played any Prince of Persia game in the series, think that, but with side-scrolling and a different combat system. In terms of the combat you can either attack or parry, this makes a lot of passing any of the guards a reflex or a guessing test. You'll constantly have to press parry just to avoid being hit, and you'll miss many opportunities to attack; once you pick up the system it becomes much easier. As for some tricks the Prince can do, they aren't always explained (i.e. you can jump toward a wall to run up it and you'll automatically jump off the wall to a platform; this makes scaling faster). Once you play through the game, play through it again and you'll really feel the flow this game can have and you'll realize how it all strings together.
Graphics: Probably the best graphics of any Xbox Live Arcade game, they are greatly updated from the '89 NES version. In terms of comparison, they could be equal to that of the Sands of Time for the PS2; spot-on.
Sound: The soundtrack makes you really feel the flow of the game and will keep you going, other than that there's the occasional grunt or a sword slice, even spikes, splices, and the basic sounds. Generally all of these sounds are great.
Value: Once you play through this game and learn the levels; and master them, there is really no reason to play it over again. The achievements are somewhat easy (10 of the 12 are achieved just in a playthrough). Achievement 11 is to find all 9 Life Potions (a bit tricky) and Achievement 12 is to finish Survival (beat the game in 60 minutes without dieing... very hard). There are 3 playthroughs of this game: Normal (play the game), Time Trial (beat the game in 60 minutes), and Survival (beat the game in 60 minutes without dieing). That's about it; worth 800 MS points? If you love these kind of platforming games, yes, if you're starved for money, give it a try via the Trial version.
Reviewer's Tilt: I love these PoP platforming games and this reminds me very much of the 3 on PS2; it also has a nostalgic feeling (it has the exact structure as the original NES game). Try it and if you like it, buy it.
