Prince of Persia (Series)

[Lingus]

I'm playing through the whole series right now and thought I'd bring it up for discussion. I'm referring to all four games here. Sands of Time, Warrior Within, Two Thrones, and the most recent which is kind of separate from the others simply titled "Prince of Persia" (because it's so special). I'd ask that at this time we refrain from discussing plot elements as I have only just started on Warrior Within and would not like any of the story spoiled for me. If you have to discuss the plot, please tag it as a spoiler. On to the discussion...


Sands of Time

This was fun. I'll say that I'm playing the whole thing on the computer as I don't have a console. This is important because these games are ported and don't have the greatest keyboard/mouse controls, but the game controller is not calibrated well enough to work. It works, but running doesn't quite work the way it should. So I was forced to use the keyboard/mouse for the entire 1st game.

The combat was interesting. I never really got the hang of it, and it was frustratingly inaccurate. This could be due to my controller issues though. But basically you do sort of acrobatic moves utilizing your sword and dagger. Certain combinations will quickly kill off the enemy. Some moves work better on different monsters. For instance, attempting to vault over some monsters is impossible and will land you on your butt. So you have to sort of memorize which moves to use on which monsters.

When you aren't fighting, you're doing sort of platform/puzzling. You have to vault around the room, running along or jumping off of walls, grabbing ledges, swinging from polls. The goal is to get to a certain point in the room so that you can either get to the next one, or trigger some event. The platforming is not free flowing like Assassin's Creed for instance. You have to follow a nearly linear line to get to the next point. Which is not bad, just interesting.

And the major element of the game, as evident in the title, is time. Your dagger, the dagger of time, allows you to manipulate time to a certain extent. You use this ability in combat as well as during platforming stages in order to correct mistakes you have made. If you fall of a ledge, you rewind time to before you made the leap. If you get hit in combat, you can rewind to recover your health. You can also use it during combat to slow down time in general, or to "freeze" individual enemies.

The story was okay. Had a nice twist. The character development was pleasantly subtle. Overall I enjoyed it.


Warrior Within

So I just started this the other night. I'm able to use the controller now as it seems the calibration was done better on the new game. I don't have much to say yet about this. I'm extremely frustrated by games when I hit a wall. Especially early on. The first major battle came after about 5 minutes in, and I simply cannot beat it. I clearly don't have the hang of the combat system. Which is, so far, similar but slightly different than in Sands of Time. When this happens (as it did in Sands of Time now that I think of it) I have to set the game aside for a time and revisit it later. I'll probably try again in the next couple of days.


So, anyone else play any of these games? Like to discuss them? Have any pointers for me?

[Lucifer]

Ooooh that sexy B!tch. I hated her. To beat her just remember to block after you hit her with a combo, and to time your blocks well because sometimes she does that thrust while you're beating on her. I bought Warrior Within AGGGESS ago, when it first came out, but my computer didn't run it very well >_<.

Sands of Time was a pretty fun game, although I never did finish it. I got a little bored by how repetitive it got, and how you could basically press the same buttons to kill everything. (Except those dudes that you couldn't vault over, but for them you could just jump off a wall at them or something.) The puzzles, although they did get more difficult as the game moved on, were never very hard, the only hard part was positioning your character well enough so that he didn't try to commit suicide by jumping the wrong way, and forcing you to use one of your sands :/.
I was able to use the keyboard/mouse controls on my game without any trouble, by the way.

Haven't played any princes past those two.

[Lingus]

Thanks, I'll try that. I seem to remember not being able to do anything but vault over her, attacking her while I'm in the air. Whenever I try to attack her head on she blocks. Also, after each mini cut scene during the battle (which is kinda retarded to be honest) she somehow already had me in the crazy thrust attack as soon as the action started back up. I'm all, "Hey that's so unfair!"

Yes, the combat in Sands of Time was a bit repetitive. It was a matter of vaulting or wall attacks. Using the normal attacks was not as effective since vaulting and wall attacks are one hit kills for the most part. The only time vaulting isn't a one hitter is if the enemy blocks the second attack. Then you can't hit them with the dagger after.