Ubisoft tries to appease both the fans of the first and the second Prince of Persia by combining the two games together.
The story of this game begins where Warrior Within ends. The Two Thrones refers to both of the endings, but the “real” ending is referred to as a rumor, whereas the “alternate” ending appears to be canonical. Either way, the Prince returns home, to Babylon, only to see that it is being torn apart by war as a result of his actions in the previous game. The Prince rushes to undo his mistake only to be nearly corrupted by the magical sands. From that point onward, the Prince is in for a wild ride of self-discovery and reclaiming of his throne. As opposed to the first two games barely relating to each other, The Two Thrones is closely tied to both. Alas, after the last two games, the story of The Two Thrones feels inferior – it feels less streamlined, no new characters are introduced and reused characters aren’t given more depth. In addition, the developers got the right idea with an inner battle of good and evil, but it feels too much like it’s “behind the scenes”.
The Sands of Time that have nearly turned the Prince into a sand monster give birth to his evil alter ego, the Dark Prince, or the Prince we knew in Warrior Within. Occasionally, the Prince will transform into the Dark Prince that is played similarly to the much-praised Sand Wraith in the second game. As a sand creature, although your health constantly drops, you do not recreate sands, but instead, you get a daggertail. Not only does this daggertail have long range and inflicts serious damage, but it also plays a part in the acrobatics part of the game. A change from the Sand Wraith is that your health does not drop to a certain point – you can actually die if you don’t make it to water to cancel the transformation, or gather sands to replenish your health. Sadly, the Dark Prince remains an inner voice until the end of the game and the transformations are scripted events that the player has no control over, which is disappointing altogether. On the bright side, the Prince’s bickerings with his alter ego are highly amusing, and playing as the Dark Prince is awfully fun.
Combat remains nearly the same as it was in Warrior Within. Even most (if not all) combos remain the same as in the second game. The game isn’t as gory, however – there is only little blood at the very start of the game, and from then on, they’ll “bleed” sands. You can’t slice your enemies in half as you did in Warrior Within, since your primary weapon throughout the entire game is a dagger. You can still pick up your enemies’ weapons as long as you’re not turned into the Dark Prince – then, your secondary weapon, if any, will be lost and replaced with the daggertail. As the Dark Prince, you’ll be able to bust some new cool combos involving the daggertail, effectively mauling everyone around you and giving them your corrupted evil middle finger.
The shining star of the game – the daggertail – also plays a part in the acrobatics part of the game, as mentioned before. While it’s nothing amazing, it does add variety to that particular element of gameplay. Using the daggertail as the Dark Prince, you’ll be able to pull blocks that are out of reach closer, swing off poles that are too far or high for the Prince to reach and wallrun farther. Multi-purposed daggertails aside, a “stab square” has also been introduced – these are odd squares placed on walls that you can stab and thus hang onto. Then, you can jump up or wallrun in either direction.
With such a broad selection of acrobatic moves, it’s really a wonder that the developers haven’t made the game more open-ended by giving the player several approaches to a location, which would have made the game more challenging – loyal fans of the trilogy may find the acrobatics less of a challenge than they were in the first two games. Luckily, fun and tough challenges are met in other aspects of gameplay. There are new sorts of traps, and fewer old ones make a return. The traps are placed in spots that pose an even more formidable challenge than in Warrior Within.
Additionally, stealth and “speed kills” were introduced in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. In the second game, stealth was an occurrence, but in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, you can sneak up on your enemies and initiate fancy, scripted kill sequences. It’s not Splinter Cell – if there are unalarmed enemies in the vicinity, you can sneak up to them by simply avoiding their field of view. Sometimes, there will be some birds that you can unwittingly scare away and cause noise, temporarily alerting the guards. Simple, but mildly fun. Is it rewarding? It sure is – in some instances, not only can you avoid a fight, but you can prevent backup from arriving. Moreover, you get to pull off a speed kill!
Speed kills are performed with the press of a button on an unsuspecting victim, and as the Prince is slashing at his foe with incredible style and skill (or snapping their necks brutally with the daggertail), you have to click your left mouse button every time the dagger flashes and a specific sound is played (or simply click it repeatedly to snap that neck). Sometimes, you’ll be able to kill numerous sand addicts that way. This feature allows you to quickly ruin your enemies’ day (or life, for that matter) and avoid lengthier fights. Speed kills play a prominent role in boss fights as well, and that makes boss fights a lot of fun. Outside of boss fights, they’re not mandatory, so if you don’t want the game to do your job for you, you can take over.
All in all, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones offers a fun experience, tough challenges, a decent closure to the trilogy and manages to surprise players not new to Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia series. Ubisoft merges elements that made Sands of Time and Warrior Within fun, and add new features that save the game from the dreaded clutches of repetition. Admittedly, it may not have next-gen graphics, it may be linear and its story feels a bit shallow, but it is an unarguably fun time-waster for both a younger and older audiences.