Prince of Persia Rival Swords

"Never liked Prince games. I gave it another chance. I still dislike Prince games."

After renting this game, and also seeing that it hasn't been reviewed too much, I decided that it might be a good idea to state my own opinion for this game. Prince of Persia has quite a few games. They started back on the side scrollers, and here it is today, in 3D. I've always hated Prince of Persia, so I decided to give it another chance when I rented this game. I still hate it.

Graphics 4/10:
This game, by no means pushes the graphics of the Wii. The people's fingers are barely discernable from one another. Honestly, it reminds me of something just a bit worse that Game Cube graphics. The ridiculous landscapes should at least have some decent graphics, but they don't. The graphics are not good.

Sound/music 6/10:
Nothing entirely noteworthy about the music in this game. Luckily the music isn't annoying. I barely noticed the music actually, which could be a good or bad thing. Something really does bother me though. The sound effects are incredibly loud. When you smash a bag of grain, a loud explosion-like sound will shoot across the level. When fighting, the sounds of you hitting the opponent is also blaringly loud you wonder why every other opponent doesn't notice what is going on.

Controls 6/10:
The controls are hard to get used to and the directions given about the controls are often so bad that you can't even understand what the game wants you to do. Once you get the hang of it, controlling isn't too hard. I laugh when the game tells you to remember a huge combo, they are hard to remember. All you really have to do is shake the remote and nun chuck as fast as you can, and you can kill just about anything. The camera is terrible, it angers me.

Game play 6/10:
The most important part of the game is the game play. The game is based around you jumping off of walls and pillars. You are just like a ninja warrior. A real mix between Splinter Cell and Sonic (because you run on the walls so often). This game is about speed and stealth. It is hard to die other than falling off of a cliff. Cliffs are everywhere though. If you fall off, you can just rewind time and you are safe. I found this game confusing, then easy, then confusing, and so on. Fighting feels like it was thrown in the game so the creators of the game could call it a fighting game. The fighting is rudimentary, amplified by the fact that it is so hard to die. Why would the prince, in his own city, have traps that can only hit people on walls? Why are there infinite arrows that shoot at you while you are in a hidden underground cavern? I don't know. Many of the things in this game are completely pointless. This game is playable, but nothing is special about it.

Story 5/10:
There isn't much of a story, though it does progress throughout the game. Many of the things you do, are not explained at all, or take a long time to explain throughout the game. The story isn't really great. You return home from somewhere, and your hometown was destroyed. Soon you gain powers of some sort of demon or something. You can also rewind time. Why? I don't have a clue. When you transform, you constantly lose life. This is just a good excuse to make the game harder. But it really doesn't make the game cooler at all. This is an unneeded feature, but necessary to the not-very-good plot line.


Replay Ability: No. Rent this game if you must. Other than that, leave it alone.

Total score 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/01/07

Game Release: Prince of Persia Rival Swords (US, 04/03/07)