DVD Talk Forum - Prince of Persia Prodigy - "Next-Gen" Graphics Redeemed

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I played this over my Christmas vacation.

Something about how Ubisoft designed this game and Assassin’s Creed just doesn’t mesh with me. They start with a great premise or idea, with a conclusion that is also well thought out, but somehow they seem to run out of steam in the execution. My impression is that they spent so much excitement and energy coming up with points A and B, that the tedium of creating the actual meat of the game, the path to get from point A to point B, is completely uninspired and repetitive. I guess the most frustrating part for me is that the game is built on such a great basic foundation of mechanics, art style, and story.

I guess the biggest complaint I have read, is how easy the game is. I think a lot of gamers are confusing difficulty with how punitive a game is. Maybe gamers have become such masochists from years of pumping quarters into games or the very concept of having a certain number of lives, but I never found that the game was too easy. It just doesn’t punish you very much for messing up. I certainly didn’t come anywhere close to getting the achievement for being saved by Elika less than 100 times. I am really impressed with how Ubisoft handled death in the game. You never actually die and restart in some arbitrary manner completely disconnected from the game; they incorporated the restart within the actual game so you are never taken out of the experience. It’s something other games have toyed with (Prey and supposedly Too Human), but Ubisoft’s method is so simple it’s brilliant, and it actually adds to the relationship between the Prince and Elika.

If I had to concede one point about the difficulty though, it’s that the game does take a little too much control from the player during the platforming. It’s a little too on rails at times, meaning sometimes you want to try to create your own route, but the prince will automatically jump into some predefined route even if it seems somewhat unnatural. For me though, it didn’t ruin the experience.

I was really impressed by the ending.

Spoiler:

All that being said, the fleeting moments of brilliance were bookended by hours and hours of repetitive platforming. I didn’t really need to heal sixteen fertile grounds, four would have been just fine, especially when there wasn’t much variety in between. And although graphically impressive, the level design felt completely disconnected. I never really felt immersed in the world, because it felt like a series of random platforms with fancy artwork painted on them, not a place where people used to live their lives. Even worse, they added the powers as just fancy ways of throwing your character to a new ledge. The game world and objectives felt very copy and paste.

Too Human is the same way in regards to dying. You are taken by an angel and resurrected. It's nice to know you can't ever die, but still very frustrating because you can't skip the scene.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PopcornTreeCt (Post 9166561)

Too Human is the same way in regards to dying. You are taken by an angel and resurrected. It's nice to know you can't ever die, but still very frustrating because you can't skip the scene.

Yeah, but the death scene was very punishing because you see it so often and it takes so long. I got so sick of it and Too Human in general I stopped playing in the 2nd act.

The one thing I really appreciated about Prince of Persia was how quickly it gets you right back to playing. You fall and boom she quickly grabs you and you are right back to playing in seconds. The death in Too Human was meant to do this, but they made it so long it completely removed you from the experience. I'm glad the developers of the new Prince of Persia finally realized that a game could be fun without punishing a player with tedium and repeating the same level over and over because of death.

Some have said PoP was just as repetitive as Assassin's Creed, but I never felt that. You go through once to reach the fertile ground and then once more to find the light seeds. It all went by quickly and even a third trip through when I got more powers was no real chore. The world was so beautiful I wanted to explore it again. The combat was repetitive, but they kept it to as much of a minimum as possible. This is where Assassin's Creed went very wrong for me. I loved the exploration of that world, but all the BS sneaking and/or fighting tons of the same jackasses over and over killed that game for me.

i really enjoyed this game, i hadn't played any previous prince of persia titles

Yahtzee seems to be giving it a recommendation, but not without a lot of criticism.
Although I think his problems with the game are all quite valid.

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