My Impressions of the new Prince of Persia

As my first real post, I want talk about what I think of the new Prince of Persia. I'm going to talk a bit about what I've seen and heard about the game as well as what I think of the different elements of the game. First, for those not familiar with it, this new PoP is set to release this holiday season for PS3, 360, and PC as well as a complimentary DS game. This is a new start for the series with a new prince and new artstyle with no connection to either the original PoP series or Ubisoft's Sands of Time trilogy. This new tale follows an adventurer who has not yet become a Prince (though I'll refer to him as the Prince for the time being). The Prince gets caught in a sandstorm while traveling home and ends up in an oasis. When an evil god is released and begins to spread corruption throughout the oasis, the Prince must stop the corruption from spreading into the rest of the world.

A look at PoP's new main character (top) and his new friend Elika (bottom).

This brings us to the gameplay. The Prince will set out with his new partner Elika to rid the oasis of the corruption by going around and defeating guardians and bringing light back to the world. The level design has a new, more open approach. The game will allow you to choose which direction you want to go first, but the levels themselves will be more linear to keep the flowing platforming that the last few games had. The new Prince will still be an acrobatic swordsman like before and the gameplay will still focus platforming, combat, and puzzles, but all of these will have new twists.

Since the platforming is most important part of PoP to me, I'll start with that. Unfortunately, Ubisoft hasn't released any gameplay videos, but I still gathered a bit of info on the platforming. Things like wall-running, pole-swinging, ledge-shimmying, and bounding between walls will be back, but there are some new twists to make the platforming even deeper. The first is the new glove that the Prince wears on his left hand. This allows him to slide down vertical surfaces sort of like how you could slide down curtains with your sword in the last couple games, but with the glove you can do it on any vertical surface. Your new pal Elika will also be involved in the platforming. Ubisoft hasn't revealed too much yet, but they did say you would be able to cooperate with her to do things you couldn't on your own. I'm thinking things like boosting each other or swinging off one another to reach places you wouldn't normally be able to. These new ideas sound really neat and should add some more depth to this section of the game. I also hope they bring back stuff like balance beam walking and some of the other platforming tricks from the last few games.

It wouldn't be Prince of Persia these days without some wall-running.

While the platforming is just adding some new elements, combat is in for more of an overhaul. Combat will now have you fighting one enemy at a time instead of a bunch like in previous games. They say each fight will be more like a boss fight with one really tough enemy. You'll use a sword and your glove as well as your environment to fend off enemies. Elika will play a role in the fights, too. She will strafe around out of harm's way, but you can call her in to strike the enemy, use magic attacks, or to do cooperative attacks with you. While the new teaser trailer doesn't contain gameplay footage, it does give a better idea of how Elika's role in combat might play out. While these are drastic changes to the combat, I think that it could be really interesting. This could give the combat it's own feel as opposed to having to compete more directly with games like Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, or God of War. I won't really know how the fighting will be though until I've either played it for myself or at least seen some gameplay videos of it.

The Prince vs. The Hunter...I'm taking the Prince.

The developers have also pointed out how integral Elika will be to other elements of the game like puzzles and the story and that they have spent a lot of time on her A.I., so, that she'll never get in the way. Hopefully, they can make her as cool and fun as they say she will be.

There are a couple other things worth noting about the new PoP. One thing that is pretty clear from the screens I've put in this post is that the game will feature a new artstyle. The devs call the style "illustrative." I really like the way it looks. It's a sort of cel-shaded look, but more realistic than the usual type. It includes this black outine around a lot of the colors that gives it a cool look. I think the two new character designs are really good as well as the one enemy we've seen called the Hunter. Another thing is that the game will have many more outdoor environments to go with the indoor environments that were more prevalent in the last few games which should be a nice addition.

Vast outdoor environments play a larger part in this new installment.

While I'm still not sure how all this will work out, overall the game looks to be coming along quite nicely so far. I'm really looking foward to seeing more on this game as well as the DS version which I'm hoping will be some kind of 2D platforming type game that combines elements of the new game with old-school PoP.