Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

"The Warrior Within... The Inescapable Destiny..."

"The inescapable destiny?", I hear you ask. "What does THAT mean?"

Well, I'll explain what it means. When you have a critically acclaimed first game in a series, a game loved and adored by many gamers, a game which was and is pretty much the pinnacle of adventure platform games... the sequel, no matter how hard it tries, very rarely ever lives up to the precedent set by it's predecessor. It can try and be more of the same, or try and be different, but again and again, we have no other way of judging this game except by comparing it to The Sands of Time. That is this games "Inescapable Destiny" - to be compared to a game thought by many to be one of the most well-designed and beautifully tolerable games this generation. There is no escape for it.

... which is a shame, because The Warrior Within is actually a really quite smart little game when you judge it on it's own merits - but as soon as you start comparing this to The Sands of Time, it starts looking a little rough, a little shaky... a little less perfect.

OK, so lets judge this on it's own merits first. The Warrior Within is grittier, edgier, and the combat has been completely overhauled. From using columns to swing round with your sword singing through the air, to the numerous combos and the ever-present 'Jump over foe and slice head off', combat feels cleaner, deeper, and much more attuned to skill rather than running around, hoping to break a group of enemies into smaller, manageable chunks. While you still get larger groups of enemies, the difficulty is finely balanced - even the bosses are well-balanced, as you learn and exploit their weaknesses. The Warrior Within definitely lives up to the title - the Prince has become a much better, much more agile, much more stylish fighter.

It's also worth nothing how edgy the game has become since The Sands of Time. While "The Sands of Time" was bright and slightly cartoon-like in nature, The Warrior Within is grittier, gorier, more detailed and just graphically a little more aesthetically pleasing. The lighting isn't as good in The Warrior Within, but the texturing is sublime. Whereas The Sands of Time was a nice, bright game, The Warrior Within takes the other extreme and moments of dramatic light filtering through the cracks and windows aren't quite as common, instead making do with a gloomy, misty setting.

So, so far I have basically said that The Warrior Within is more "grown up" than Sands of Time. However, while combat was much maligned in Sands of Time, the adventuring and platforming was praised and worshipped as the best example of it in any current game. Sadly, The Warrior Within has addressed the issues with the combat system, but also taken it upon itself to add to the platforming system - and we all know that when you pile up enough blocks, the tower has to eventually fall...

... and it does. The Warrior Within is incredibly detailed, but also incredibly repetitive, frustrating and linear. Repetitive, because the Prince has to return to the same areas time and time again to progress, whereas in Sands of Time, the game led you through a castle and gave you a much more satisfying sense of progress. Frustrating, because the platforming and adventuring sections vary wildly in difficulty from start to finish - with far too much emphasis on pits and big drops and not enough on quality, simple but challenging little sections as Sands of Time threw up. And linear, because you repeatedly venture through the same sections again, and again, and again... always being led back to the same few places over and over... it's tiring and boring.

There is nothing inherently WRONG with what Warrior Within does - it's still certainly a lot more polished and refined than many other so called "Platform Adventure" titles on the market. It all progresses at a reasonably good pace, and it challenges when it feels the need to as well. It's all done very nicely - but once compared to Sands of Time, you realise that the magic of leaping from wall to wall has faded in Warrior Within, the sense of progress gone, the risks far greater, leading to failures which means repeating larger chunks of the game again... progress is no longer market by those beams of light... there is no real sense of where one chapter ends, and where another begins. To combat this, the game introduces a map and an "Objective" - but the map is pointless, as it doesn't really help much, and that and the "Objective" issues only serve to remind you that this game really doesn't flow as naturally and effortlessly as Sands of Time did...

The Warrior Within, on it's own strengths - reasonable platforming, nice combat, compelling story, good chase scenes, nice concepts and clever puzzles - stands very strongly on its own two feet. But sadly, this is a sequel to a game which perfected the very things that this game fails at. Which is almost inexcusable - how that could be possible, how a sequel can so completely get it wrong. It's a crying shame, really, but as long as you learn to take Warrior Within as a game in its own right, instead of comparing it to it's predecessor, then you'll get vast enjoyment out of this - it's a really nice, pacy game with a definite nod towards the combat... but compare it to Sands of Time, and this game will only serve to remind you why Sands of Time was so good... and how they got it so, so wrong in The Warrior Within...

So, there are TWO scores for this game from me.

8 out of 10 if you can ignore The Sands of Time, and judge this as a lone game. Its pacy, more mature, more violent slant and honed combat system really are excellent, only let down by some frustrating adventure spots and a few repetitive moments. But no getting away this is still a stylish, very well-crafted and cleverly put-together game.

However, if you are a Sands of Time fan and you compare the two games, the score has to fall to a 6 out of 10. You compare the feeling the player gets between the two games, Sands of Time always makes you feel like you're getting somewhere, whereas Warrior Within expects you to do a lot of legwork. You compare the platforming sections, and Warrior Within falls short somewhat - with too much emphasis on the pits and the drops, too much focus on tricky jumps, too much attention to changing the different sections of the game between two time periods. While the combat is more satisfying in Warrior Within... as a game, in comparison, Warrior Within falls a long way short of being anywhere close to as polished, as clean and as insanely enjoyable as Sands of Time... which is sad really...

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/12/05