Angst Poisoning

I got Prince of Persia: Warrior Within for Christmas, and I started to play it yesterday because, well, KOTOR 2 is a really long game.

But lets review PoP: Sands of Time, before I get to PoP:WW.

SoT, released last year, remains possibly the best example of an adventure game. While the combat held a large amount of strategic depth, that wasn't the beauty of the game. It was the platforming. The sweet, sweet platforming.

You go into, for example, an giant aviary, and you need to get to the top. So you jump onto a nearby ledge, run along the wall, grap on to the handy poll, swing around and use it to throw yourself to another one, then you use that poll to jump onto a ladder, climb a bit, jump across the way to a narrow ledge, then you hug the wall until you reach another ladder.

All of that was done seamlessly. You fall to your doom, and its YOUR fault. And even if you do, just use the sands to rewind time a bit and retry that tricky jump.

It was a beauty to behold sometimes, and the game's light mood was very welcome, really.

The main complaint was that there was no real boss, but even then that wasn't an issue, since the last boss was the last level. SImply traversing it was a challenge in of itself.

PoP:SoT didn't sell well.

So, what do they do? Tone down the platforming a bit, boost (and improve) the combat, and make the Prince one angst-ridden SOB.

How angst-ridden?

During the first boss fight, against an enemy who's outfit couldn't be more impractical (think bondage-style, but with nothing covering the rear save for a strap), once you get her health down to a certain point, the game goes to a cutscene, in which she cuts the prince on the face and he utters the two most telling words ever:

"You bitch!"

Yeah.

*cough*

Even though they have deemphasized the oh-so-wonderful platforming, it is still there. The combat is a lot more fun now though, and the addition of boss battles and the Dahaka, the big bad evil thingy that you have to run away from, forcing you to think quickly as you use the prince's platforming abilities to survive, make it an excellent game.

There are some other problems, though. There's a LOT of backtracking, and while each room has two versions, a past and a present version (you do some time-traveling...), it gets old pretty fast. The wonderful premonition aspect from SoT was canned for WW, so you aren't always sure where you're supposed to go, but these issues aren't really major ones.

The big question is, of course, would I rather play SoT or WW?

Well, right now, I'm not sure. The story and mood are much better in SoT, and the platforming is more emphasized, but I do like the enhanced combat system.

So its sorta a toss-up for now. Lets see how I feel when I finish it...

Playing: PoP: WW