Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (GameCube) Reader Review

Every once in a while a game comes along that shocks the socks off players around the globe. That game was Prince of Persia the sands of time. It had fresh new combinations that had never been explored before, it worked brilliantly. Several years after that masterpiece, players are treated to the sequel; Warrior within.

After the finale of the past game, players are left wandering “how can they do a sequel, the game was completely closed at the end of the game”. Ubisoft have exploited some of the subtle words presented throughout the game. These came during the flash forwards at save points and at health upgrade fountains in the form of the words “You Shall Die” or “who so ever open the sands must die”. This leads us to Warrior Within. The protagonist (who coincidentally is stubborn and won’t accept his fate) is trying to escape his fate after being continually chased by the guardian of the sands; the ‘Dahaka’ a mystical creature that appears frequently throughout the game and is rather deadly, more on that later. The objective: prevent the empress of time ever creating the sands of time; therefore none of the events of Sands of time ever happened and no Dahaka

The game opens (tutorial) on the Princes ship travelling to the island of time (inventive name) and is ambushed by another fleet and a scantily clad woman with a sharp attitude and blade to match. This is where one of the biggest factors changed become apparent, the new improved fighting system. This time the prince wields an extra sword instead of a dagger which leads to some pretty impressive combos which can be pulled off allowing the prince to take down many enemies at once. Your secondary weapon can be picked up and thrown; and each weapon has a slightly different speeds and strengths.

The tutorial level also introduces the player to something else new as well; boss fights with the addition of health bars. Sands of Time only gave two major bosses, warrior within however has quite a few shattered throughout the game. This already puts forward the point that the game is more combat orientated. Ubisoft have also made the return of the most famous aspect of Sands of time, the ability to have control over time courtesy of the medallion (a relic of the sands) that Farah gave to him in the previous game.

The game play also incorporates some new ideas, and as with many other games released at this time (Metroid Prime 2 Echoes included), Warrior Within lets the prince travel between two worlds or two time zones via the use of time teleports. There is the present time where everything is broken and everything just has an old feel about it and the past; which feels new and bright and the best bit, all the deadly traps are active. This helps when solving some of the puzzles in the game and warping between the two time zones to make differences to past/present so that the prince is able to move on. As with Metroid Prime, the prince is stalked by a mysterious black clad writhing person along with the Dahaka, can things get any better?

In sands of time, the game was very linear, with the prince only visiting one area twice within the whole game. However with Warrior Within, Ubisoft have tried to implement a more open world environment to allow the prince access to both towers in the game at any one time as different swords (some swords can break walls) and time manipulation powers allow greater access to complete your aims. This theoretically works, and feels nice at first but soon becomes tedious and bothersome as you have to navigate many of the same traps and routes repeatedly, not great.

The idea of the prince running (literally) from his fate comes in the form of the mysterious creature of the Dahaka who chases you increasingly throughout the game. This means that quick thinking and initiative must be presented here in order to survive. Initially the player can only expect these chases in the present (the prince’s original time) but the Dahaka eventually finds you in the past. To escape you have to pass through a waterfall which sub sequentially is the Dahaka’s only weakness, and typically lies at the end of a long hall of traps, switches, poles and deadly spikes.

Some of the major sticking points are the games general aesthetics. The Prince now
looks like he should be part of a grunge band and doesn’t have the same feel as the past generation. The music is reflects this style and instead of the previous Persian music, it feels to ‘rocky’ for its own good. To get a picture of this, instead of forking out £40, listen to some metal and read a copy of Nuts or Zoo! Another disappointment is the camera. Gone is the cinematic zooming in for cool kills, this is substituted for slowdowns for some kills which doesn’t look as epic as the previous game.
The biggest disappointment of this game however is the loss of the I.Q challenging puzzles that Sands of Time shovelled at you. There are a few puzzles but none as good as its predecessor, this somewhat undermines the charm of the series. The games general graphics have also taken a turn for the worst. They seem less sharp than that of the sands and feel extremely murky and dark. The character models have also been effected with some of the enemies looking rather blocky, something that should have been sorted out, it seems unfinished.

If you liked the previous prince of Persia game you will like this game for the sheer joy of making death defying acrobatics and flipping between obstacles as well as some cool kills. However, Ubisoft took some chances which did not benefit the game greatly, making it feel too much like a hack and slash instead of what the prince was good at in Sands of Time. The games storyline will reward you if you stick to it and it is surprisingly longer than it initially seems. The groundwork for an amazing game is there, it just wasn’t followed through and it feels rough around the edges compared to Sands of Time. Even that said, it’s still fun to play and rewards you with some jaw dropping twists.