By any means, the Gamecube was not a very successful console, but it still remained in the market and received many of the third party games. One of these was the last in the Prince of Persia Sands of Time Trilogy (SoT), Prince of Persia the Two Thrones (TT)
Prince of Persia over the years has had its ups and downs over the past couple of years. For those of you who are new to the series, here is a quick recap:
In SoT, the prince attacks a Persian city with his father and discovers the ‘dagger of time’. The Vizier then tricks the prince into unleashing the sands of time upon all of humanity by stabbing the dagger into the hourglass of the sands. The only people unaffected are the Prince Himself (due to the dagger) Faara (due to her necklace) and the Vizier (due to his staff). The Prince and Faara co-operate in order to restore humanity back to its former glory with Faara losing her life in the process by doing a master rewind. In Warrior Within, the story line is based upon ‘whoever shall open the sands must die’ and has the Dahaka (scary dark beast like thing) chasing you everywhere. You also meet kailina, the empress of time who you save from her fate and kill the Dahaka. Venturing fourth from this, we enter the realms of prince of Persia: the Two Thrones.
Upon starting the game, you notice that the prince has left his grunge and rock and roll self behind, the first pointer as a return to formula. It brings back the acrobatic prince with a few new twists. The first one being the split slide, allowing him to slide up and down two narrow posts.
The second being the addition of the dark prince and the third being the addition of speed kills.
The first of these options that is introduced to you is the speed kill (being shipwrecked again means no weapons). This is used to sneak up on an enemy, trigger a speed kill when you hear a heartbeat and execute some timed button presses. They even have the addition of double speed kills which look also look awesome. This feature is useful when trying to take down guards that protect a sand gate, but the technique becomes virtually useless later on in the game.
Probably the biggest addition to this game is the dark prince. An alter ego from the part corruption of the sands from earlier on in the game. This addition brings a newer way to fight and fight you must to stay alive, as the dark prince will continually loose health and can only be replenished by the sands themselves. The weapon choice is now a spiked chain which allows for whip like attacks and garrottes around poles. It also introduces some new puzzle mixtures and in essence a timescale as the prince gradually looses life. You can now wall run for longer by latching onto available mounts on the walls, and also pull out blocks to jump onto. All in all a very sound system combat and acrobatic system.
The game incorporates a couple of chariot races, while some people may find this cheesy and naff, I fell it is a decent break from the formula and gives you something different to do. The first race releases a very familiar ally also...
The puzzles are back in full swing, and many new additions help to make the game flow nicer such as dagger holes which allow you to stab your dagger into them to stop yourself falling and continue on your way acrobatically.
Overall, the game is a return to the much loved SoT formula that many veterans craved. It flows as well as the first, but it still can’t beat the originality of the formula. The game goes from strength to strength the more you play and eventually comes full circle back to the first of the trilogy which was a nice finish to the series. So I leave you readers with a quote that you have seen so many times on the forums: ‘time is like a river that runs swift and true, but I have seen the face of time. It is an Ocean and a storm...’
Who owns this game?
Uberpid
Craigory
Laurelin