Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

[frogbeastegg]

Anyone got it? I remember there was a small following of POP devotees back when Sands was new, and again when Warrior Within came out. The general verdict of those players matched my own: Sands = great, WW = gah! So glad I heard enough about WW to rent it instead of buying, as was my original instinct.

The new one is supposed to be a return to what made Sands great with the few good bits of WW added for good measure, but without nasty rock music, blood (from creatures made entirely of sand ... ), barely clad jumbo-assets women, grautious swearing and all that 'I'm 12 and pretending to be mature' nonsense.

[lancelot]

So, to clarify there is no-

-barely clad jumbo-assets women, grautious swearing and all that 'I'm 12 and pretending to be mature' nonsense.

Well, thats a letdown...

[Lehesu]

I actually enjoyed WW. The puzzle design was simply much more advanced than the Sands of Time, not to mention the combat. I have TTT in my possession, but am not playing it as I am rather booked on games. I purchase them when the prices go low, often times before I have finished my latest acquisition. Real life and a job also inhibit playing time. But the Prince is definently in the queue.

[Kraxis]

My GF's youngest brother is an absolute fan of it, bought it and completed it in less than two days, not because it is short, but because he was insane about it, and a good PS2 player. After four days he had completed it on Hard as well.

I have played it some... And it is very much a return to the old game (style and narration), but the persons look a bit different, and sadly there is no longer any chopping enemies apart, they all die pretty much the same way regardless of combos (generally slit throats, even if you do a scissorcut at the abdomen).

But it also has new ways of killing, those sneaky kills can be quite interesting and sometimes long and somewhat hard (no frantic buttonpushing with them, timing is everything).

Does it compare to Sands? I don't know, I guess I will leave that up to true fans.

[frogbeastegg]

It's a rather terrible thing to have to admit, I know, but I only played WW for about an hour. I couldn't stand any more. I tried, I really did. I even started the game twice, making it two different play sessions. I liked all the other POP games, even the rather bashed POP3D, but I couldn't stand WW. I have never felt so completely ... out of place in a game before. I felt like the only frog at a hedgehog party.

I loved the atmosphere and story of Sands, and the platforming and puzzles. The combat was always the part which held least interest for me, for all that I am a bit of a sword fighting nut. I liked the little things, such as the way the Prince became increasingly threadbare as time passed.

Short games I don't mind. I have never understood the insistance that a game be at least 30 hours long, or more. It should be as long as it needs to be, even if that is just 5 hours. In many ways short is good; I have a job and other things to do, and not much time for games. It has been months since I even turned on one of my consoles.

[Fragony]

WW is pretty good, it just lacked that magical vibe that the Sands of time had. Combat was a lot more fun, the gore was a bit out of place but I don't really mind, fun game. I heard the Two Thrones is more like the first, definatily going to buy it.

[LeftEyeNine]

New gen POP was always thrilling to me. All mystic storyline and characters aside, I can listen to Stuart Chatwood's (Tea Party) Sands Of Time Soundtrack forever. The WW soundtrack was handled by Godsmack, a hardcore band, but SoT soundtrack was just better.

Actually it seems that Ubisoft is nearly at the end of their planned progress of PoP. You see how our baby face prince turned into a dark metallic lord by the trilogy. I expect another game from PoP that will be the ending to Ubisoft's quest.

[Geoffrey S]

Definetly getting Two Thrones at some point, as I really enjoyed its predecessors. Sand of Times got this whole Arabian Nights vibe going, and managed to be an excellent game with endearing characters and plot. Warrior Within I actually enjoyed a little more; the game mechanics were more refined, despite the backtracking, and the rougher tone worked very well with the story the makers were trying to tell. The new style was something of a shock to start off with, but once the story got going it became clearer that it was certainly not as immature as it may have seemed at first: the Prince is as complex a character as possible, and his relationship with the Empress is almost as interesting as with Farah in Sands of Times, particularly after the halfway point when the plot adds a nice twist to things. The tone fit in with a plot focusing on people who are trying to escape their fate at any cost, but find themselves confronted with the consequences.

Frogbeastegg, I have to try to convince you of the merits contained in Warrior Within. My sister felt much the same about the game initially, but was pleasantly surprised when I insisted that it does make sense later on; later on it turns out the Prince is nowhere near as one-dimensional as it might seem at the start. As for the point about a game being no longer than is necessary, couldn't agree more.

[lancelot]

God of war is also an excellent prince of persia style game, with puzzles and traps n stuff.

Oh yea, and boobs.

[frogbeastegg]

:sighs, and resigns herself to renting both TTT and WW tomorrow: If I like then I'll buy, and play through the entire trilogy in order ... or such is the plan, time permitting. WW gets 3 hours. If I'm still having to force myself to play after that then it gets dropped and for good.

It's not like I have a real problem with the typical jumbo asset women that appear in games; if I did then I'd have virtually no games to play at all, because they are literally everywhere. It's the fact Sands had Farah, who was a) actually human, not some kind of bio-engineered boob machine, and b) interesting, while WW had the thing wearing tiny strips of black leather who shrieked "Oh, that feels so good!" (or similar) as you hacked her up with a large sword ...

[Lehesu]

Ummm....yeah. About the black leather. She is no longer a real big deal in the storyline once you kill her. And besides, the storyline is very well done. Becoming the sa--wr---- and seeing the storyline from a different viewpoint was very cool, added that crazy *time has no meaning any more* effect.

[Geoffrey S]

Yup, she plays a very minor part. Another large-sized young women does play a larger role, but she is far more interesting as the story develops, carrying a similar burden to the Prince.

[Kraxis]

If you look at the Prince in TTT you will see how he has become almost horribly scarred with all the adventures he has seen. That is good...

Also this time he has to accept that he can't just keep backtracking when things go wrong. A nice growing up aspect...

[frogbeastegg]

Rented.

TTT is nice; I'll buy it. Feels a lot like Sands. The stealth kills are nice; I like the way they allow you to avoid combat. Funny; I used to love the fighting in the original POp and POP2, but never much in any of the three modern games.

WW ... er, I'll try it later.

[frogbeastegg]

And now a little of WW has been played. Er ... hmm. It's about as I remember it: absolutely terrible music (now all but muted; huzzah!), muffled and almost inaudible speech and SFX which remain muffled and hard to hear even when you treble the volume on your TV (though to be fair this is a problem with the whole series), the loss of the likeable prince and atmosphere from Sands, a camera which is seldom where I want/need it, and stupid combat controls which keep on getting me hit or killed because the prince insists on jumping all over the shop no matter which buttons I hit. And whenever I want him to jump in combat he always does the wrong one. Usually sending me off a cliff. Even when I follow the tutorial combat instructions it doesn't do anything remotely useful for the situation, for example that shadowy-thing mini boss at the start of the castle: it tells me press [whatever], and I know I need to jump over it and hit it in the back. So I hit what it tells me, and princy-boy vaults sideways and/or backwards, well away from the enemy and certainly in no way behind it. And there is a dirty great chasms in the room you’re fighting in. Princy-boy seems to love that chasm. Sands might have had limited combat, but at least the small number of moves meant you always managed to do exactly what you wanted to.

I know it’s been months since I last played anything on a console, but I didn’t have these camera and control problems with TTT.

I have got further than I did before. I'm in the past now, 1 save point in after the one that's next to the portal thingy which brings you there. The traps and so on are beginning to appear, so hopefully it will pick up. I can’t say that I’m enjoying it, unlike the other two POPs; I liked them both from the start.

[Lehesu]

Press on, my amphibian friend! The environment puzzles in WW are pretty good, and the backtracking really gives the environment a sense of permaneance, rather than some trivial part of a level to be played and then never seen again.

[frogbeastegg]

Thanks to today being a bit of a short day, I was able to play a little before I left for work. It's getting better. I'm now several save points into the past, just at the bit with the large floor of spikes combined with spiked logs rolling down the walls. Getting through there promises to be fun ... I also mildly enjoyed the section before that, featuring traps and platforming with few enemies.

It's improved enough that I'll buy it. It's not even £10 any more. So I'll stop playing this one, go back and re-play Sands, then WW, then finally TTT. That should only take ... oh, maybe 3 months, given the amount of time I've got left over for games these days, and I'm trying to play civ 4 as well.

[Geoffrey S]

Glad you're enjoying it a bit more. Strange about the sound though, in SoT I could barely hear the voices, but in WW it's perfectly audible.

[jeffreyLebowski]

i'm currently playing through warrior within before i tackle the final installment. i can definetely understand why people would dislike the art style and atmosphere of WW, but in my opinion, the puzzle/level design of WW is FAR superior to the original. SOT basically pointed you to exactly what you needed to do in every area... and strung those areas together in a linear fashion. WW has some pretty clever puzzles, requires you do go all over the island, backtrack, and i like that it's not so blatant in showing you the solution to rooms. they give you an area, and it's up to you to figure it out.

the plot has been somewhat interesting as well, especially now that they've revealed who the empress is and what her motivation is. i'm looking forward to the two thrones however, as the level design of WW combined with the bright art style of SOT should be quite impressive.

[Microwavegerbil]

So, the Empress of time made the sands of time that flow into the dagger of time and we go to the Island of time. Okay, I get the picture, the Prince loves time.

But seriously, if you can get past the slightly less-engaging story, squeeze by the rediculously proportioned ladies, and take the time (They haven't copyrighted the word yet have they?) to learn your combat, the game is loads of fun. Some people have complained about the new combat because, I guess, it's too complex. IMO, the combat is actually much more enjoyable with some more depth to it, and that alone could keep me going through the whole game. It is far, far better than I expected, I just had to deal with some rediculous parts of the story.

[Sisco Americanus]

With TTT coming out, I too just recently returned to WW. I've had it for almost a year now, I think, but I only played through about half of it. I'm really getting back into it, though, and the story line, while somewhat shallow and straightforward in the beginning, grows much better once you get a ways into the game.

WW is probably a more solid game than SoT, but WW isn't quite as fun to me. First and foremost, the music is absolutely dreadful. I know they were trying to harden the Prince up a bit, but the bad metal was both unnecessary and sophomoric. Moreover, while I understand that this game is supposed to be darker and that the Prince has become jaded and cynical over the years, sometimes it does seem a bit much. Also, I don't care too much for the fighting system. I appreciate that they were trying to add more variety and depth to it, but now it seems more like I'm trying to unleash Guile's sonic boom than fight with a sword, and I end up just mashing the two attack buttons in varying combinations as much as I'm jumping around, etc.

I don't know... honestly, as silly as it sounds, I think I miss Farrah. Having to two together for most of the game allowed for more conversation, obviously, and it really helped to develop the characters more and bring the audience into the story. Throughout WW you just feel so terribly alone. Perhaps, though, that is precisely what you're supposed to feel.

Anyway, Froggy, you should be told up front that WW is considerably longer and harder (at least I think so) than SoT, but SoT was pretty short so I guess that's not a bad thing.

[AquaLurker]

I thought I was the only guy who loves POP? Well I didn't play sands of time, I started with WW and fall in love with the gameplay immediately. Espcially the parts where I have try to run away from the Time Guardian in long tedious flawless stunts(after dying countless of times), which is much more scarier and exciting than most horror survivals games!!!

[Microwavegerbil]

Got The Two Thrones yesterday, and have only had a little time to play, but I'm already addicted. Can't wait to delve a little deeper into this game.

[Geoffrey S]

Hmm. Got Two Thrones for Christmas, and have to say I'm somewhat disappointed. I haven't played for long, but the game is a far more frustrating experience than its predecessors, due to too many leaps of faith, an opening hour without the rewind option, and extremely frustrating gameplay from the Dark Prince due to his constantly declining health. It looks great though, but somehow it doesn't seem as intuitive as it should. More when I get further.

[frogbeastegg]

15 days later and I still haven't even started my replay of Sands, let alone moved on to WW or TTT And today is the last day of my week off; back to work tomorrow.

Right! Time for action! :starts copying down the list of sand pools and life extensions in her rubbish handwriting, because her printer is broken and she's a perfectionist player who would have a small coronary at the thought of missing even one boost:

[Microwavegerbil]

Yes TTT would be frustrating if it just wasn't so much darn fun! Combat really has come full circle in this game, and it's MUCH more challenging than I remember in Sands or WW.

Haven't had the problem of too many leaps of faith (R2 has always prevented that so far) but I can see how that would be a pain.

[Lehesu]

Finished TTT. Seemed short, especially in comparison with WW. The storyline was probably better than WW, but it didn't have quite the charm that the SoT had. Still, Farah is a much more dynamic character than Kaileena.

[Geoffrey S]

Having now finished the game, I can say it's disappointing to start off with due to the frustrating lack of the rewind move for the first hour or so, but it picks up soon afterwards and is great the rest of the way through. Thankfully using cheap moves to kill enemies is slightly more difficult than in WW, but it's still possible too often. Also, I'm not that keen on the lacklustre exposition of the final movie in WW was all about. Seemed a bit tacked on at the end, although the final parts of the game are some of the strongest in the series.

So, a real good game, but not quite as good as its predecessors.

[frogbeastegg]

Meanwhile the frog who started the thread is still only 12% of the way through her Sands replay ...

Just too busy ...

I have found that this time around adjusting the TV's volume in rather radical ways (music and SFX practially off, treble the normal volume on the TV, and then it all ends up sounding as it should on normal settings) has allowed me to actually hear the dialogue. It's good stuff; I had really missed out on my first play through when I was straining to hear.

[Geoffrey S]

Yeah, I always ended up turning the SFX and music right down. It's shocking that that kind of thing wasn't fixed after playtesting. It was slightly better in WW, but for dialogue outside the Prince and Farah it's worse in TT again.