Prince of Persia Review - PS3

7.5

Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 8
Audio: 8
Innovation: 5

Introduction

It is no secret that I loved Prince of Persia. Beautiful graphics, simple but addictive gameplay and a great twist ending. I do know, though, that I am perhaps in the minority. More than one of my friends struggled with the game – one couldn’t get past the American accent, while another was so pissed off at the twist ending that he didn’t play through the last ten minutes needed to complete the game. The Epilogue directly follows these events and provides a coda to the first arc of this new Prince of Persia series.

Gameplay

Okay, spoiler warning.

At the end of the main game, Elika sacrifices herself to seal Ahriman (the bad god) away forever. Unfortunately, the Prince has come to like, and maybe even love her, and refuses to let her go. He breaks the seal, brings her back to life and carries her out of the temple, as Ahriman’s fury unleashes on the world. Like I said, great ending. Other players thought that the Prince’s decision was arbitrary; that they felt no real connection between the characters to justify such a choice. I did. Behind the snarky one liners and bickering lay admiration, and undoubtedly lust too – they’re both quite overtly sexual in dress and behaviour. Plus, she saves his life constantly throughout the game – every failed jump doesn’t end in death, but in Elika’s hand reaching out to save him. Is it so bad for him to save her once too? I can forgive the Prince.

The Epilogue deals with the ramifications of the Prince’s decision. They take shelter from the storm in another temple, and are trying to pass through it reach the other side of the mountains, but Ahriman again infects the building. Elika is furious. She truly hates the Prince for what he did, and gives him a good slap for it. She felt it was their one opportunity to stop the malevolent god, and now he is growing too powerful for any of them to overcome. The Prince, on the other hand, takes the constant onslaught of minions against them as proof that Ahriman fears what they could do to him. The game nicely presents this new dynamic in a compelling and adult way.

I’m torn between feeling that this should have been part of the original game, and understanding the logic behind having it as downloadable content. It would have provided catharsis to those players who felt robbed by the ending by showing the consequences to the world and to the Prince and Elika’s relationship. In the end, I think I fall on the side of ‘break it up’. It was a more powerful ending narratively this way – it’s just a pity a lot of players won’t fork out for the extra content.

Anyway, enough about the story – how does it play? Of course, it’s mostly the same as the main game. The halls are filled with lots of clever acrobatics with an emphasis on constant, ...