THIS Prince of Persia game is a very visually-pleasing, well written and overal one heck of an enjoyable game. In fact, some of its strengths are its very own flaws, but may not bother you depending on the other games you have played.
You play an entirely different "prince" this time around, and the game throws you into the action (and great humor) very quickly. You start off having the beautiful Elika falling from the sky to land on you as you call for Ferah, hoping to find her. I don't want to spoil some of the jokes, so I'll leave it at that, but the humor that is so well written and is very enjoyable seems to suffer from one flaw, the prince is voiced by (or someone that sounds JUST LIKE) the person that voiced the lead character from Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. While it isn't expected that each and every game has its own new leading voice actor, the actual drawback comes in that some of the dialogue has you thinking very much about Uncharted and its lead instead of the prince, since the jokes and other story that is said sounds like it could have been pulled straight from Uncharted. Now, Uncharted was a great game, and the sequel is looking to be a great game as well, but to try and get into a game where the main voice constantly pulls you toward a different genre of game altogether can be a bit of a put off, but still, it isn't a huge thing, just something I wish they'd have worked on with anything from a minor accent to slightly different scripts.
With that flaw out of the way the rest of the game is very fun, and sometimes very difficult. While you no longer have the ability to slow down, rewind, or manipulate time (a gameplay feature that made the first trilogy very well received) you do have the magickal powers that Elika has suddenly developed to save your bacon if you get into too much trouble or get into a fight you aren't ready for. The fighting has been made to be more set around combos, and this can be fun, but I recommend that you go online to a guide or two to look up some of the combo helping tips. If needed, I'll post them here. The bad part of the combat comes sometimes when a "mini-game" enters into the combat. Some of them are fun and visually adding to the combat, but others are so sudden that you are already failed because you have pressed a button. Thankfully, none of these cost me a fight, but it does get a bit annoying. If they'd have added a small flash, glint, or some fore-warning that the minigame would happen it would have likely been perfect, but still the fighting is fun.
Now, fighting is not what the PoP games are usually known for, it is instead the running along walls, leaping and sliding and figuring out where and how to get to places that require fast wits and fingers. This game has those, but my one complaint on the new "method" in which they are done is that it feels a bit "automatic". Instead of needing to hold a button to wall run, once you have begun a wall run you simply do it. It is hard to explain how and why this is less fun for me, but it is also less difficult, which can be good when you've spent almost two solid minutes running and jumping with no "save" point to fall back on should you make a mistake. Overall I don't think this new system is a bad idea. I think to have to keep track of everything would likely be very overwhelming and would require a difficulty setting that would make the very gameplay it already has available. It's just different, so if you're used to the other games like me, you may actually make mistakes because you're holding in buttons, etc... Just relax and think of yourself as helping the Prince do his thing instead of completely taking him through it.
There are other additions to the gameplay in the form of freedom to start at nearly any point and do the areas in almost any order you like, and you also can chat up with Elika to learn more about the area, its enemies and the like, as well as see and hear a very well written story.
I have not yet been able to buy and play the Epilogue available on the PSN, but I plan to. This game is a great buy if you liked the other PoP games and you can find it cheap, or buy a good-quality pre-owned game. If you ONLY buy new like I tend to do, just wait, the game's price has been dropping steadily, but you can also rent this game and finish it with a simple fun weekend set aside for it. This is a game where you don't likely want to shell out the 60+ dollars for the newest games (and I don't see it for that much anywhere anymore) but you will probably find it very worth 25 to 30 dollars, or a good weekend rental as I said.
Overall view: Solid and encompassing story, fun but a bit complex (at first anyway) new fighting combo system, great voice acting, but sounds too much like Drake heh.
Rent? If you liked the other PoP titles, you will HAVE to rent this one. It does the series very proud. If you aren't into the others but do like fast paced and fun games involving movement and keeping momentum, you may also want to try this one.
Own? For fans I recommend it. For anyone else, you may want to rent it first. I really think the changes they made were to try and open the series up to a wider audience.
Personal Rating (out of 10): 7.5
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