Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

"Fluent gameplay and beautifully rendered graphics holds up well to the pedigree of the PoP series."

2003's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time successfully brought the classic gameplay of the original Prince of Persia games with some new age twists. Its whimsical surrealistic look excellently played off of the game's storybook-like theme of a fantastical and wondrous adventure with a motif that was generally light-hearted throughout the course of the game. The Prince was a charming individual working to correct the wrong that he did, all the while trying to figure out his budding feelings for the mysterious Princess Pharah, who helped guide him through the depths of the castle.

In 2004, however, The Prince is a little different. Gone is the fairy tale world encountered in the Sands of Time. From its ashes rises a much grittier, darker and macabre themed Prince of Persia. This rendition of PoP sees The Prince as a matured warrior fighting desperately for himself. All sense of the charming young man is forever lost; he's rude, quick tempered and brutally violent this time. No longer tied down to the “T” rating, The Prince is ready to kick some serious butt in The Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.

Story: 7/10
While in development, Ubisoft Montreal (PoP: WW's development team) constantly spoke about how they were focusing a lot more on Warrior Within's story than on Sands of Time's. In some aspects of the game you could see this coming through, however the game's story seemed to get bogged down by the game's gloomy subject matter; so in this respect SoT's story was a lot more appealing than WW's. This being said, that's not to say that WW's story isn't interesting. It's far from that actually, filled with twists and turns that consistently keep with the dark context of the game.

As mentioned before, WW is a lot darker than SoT. In fact it's story and the Prince's character is almost a complete 180 of SoT. In this adventure the Prince is out to save himself rather than saving his father and the entire castle he was trapped in before. Doing this allowed him to cheat his fated death. From cheating his own death the Prince is seen being chased by a monster called the Dahaka whose mission is to eliminate all who cheat their fate. The Prince, not wanting to die, decides to go to the Island of Time to destroy the Sands of Time from ever being created hoping that from doing this the Dahaka will have no quarrel with him, and inevitably allowing him to live.

This entire back story eventually evolves into one that is more complex than the one presented in SoT, but it still remains consistent with the general theme of The Prince trying to save himself. The selfish theme presented in the game demotes the overall experience of what could've been another outstanding Prince of Persia narrative.

Gameplay: 9/10
The divine gameplay that was presented in SoT is kept intact in WW. This includes all of the incredible platform portions of the game that consists of wall running, hanging from ledges, swinging on bars, etc. All of it is back, and while it may not have changed a lot it's still as awesome as ever. The only changes to the platforming sections come in the all new cloth tear aspect and rope wall run. The cloth tear simply has the prince bringing out his sword to tear through a piece of tapestry, slowing his fall down. The rope wall run is exactly what the name suggests. If there is a rope on a wall it allows The Prince to use the rope to wall run greater distances than he normally could. The biggest change to the platforming portions of the game is in the use of time powers (more on these later on) during some select platforming sections.

As I said before, the game will bring back the use of time powers that were in SoT. The good old replay, which acts as a continue of sorts, is back in full effect as well as a whole new skew of powers. One such power is the slow-down power. This power allows you to slow down the entire world making The Prince move a lot faster than before. This power will come in handy not only during combat but in certain platforming parts as well. A second power is the sand explosion attack. This power allows The Prince to draw in all of the sand that he's collected and make it explode out of him, damaging all enemies around him. This attack comes in three forms, with each becoming more damaging and covering a greater radius of impact; you get these three attacks as you progress through the game. The third sand power that The Prince has at his disposal is a fast motion attack which makes The Prince move at a God-like pace; this attack is reminiscent of the warp attack in SoT. The attack will make the screen turn red and allow The Prince to move instantly to any enemy he wants and then slash him/her up in a series of high speed attacks; each attack does about ¼ of the damage that it would usually make, effectively inserting a good level of balance between the choice to attack using the slow motion or fast motion.

The most noticeable difference in the gameplay between WW and SoT, is the brand new fighting system that has implemented in WW. The all-new fighting system, named the “Free Form Fighting System”, allows The Prince to dual wield weapons, throw weapons and use a series of brand new acrobatic maneuvers during combat. The way the dual wield system works is simple, you pick up a fallen enemy's weapon and you are dual wielding. From this dual wielding system you have an all new attack set to use and you have the choice to chuck your weapon at your opponents. You will find yourself tossing your dual wielded weapon quite often since it has a durability level and will eventually become too damaged to use; making you switch to single weapon combat or to find a new weapon to dual-wield. Dual wielding is great, but that's not say that single wielding isn't either. When using only your main weapon, you have the option to grab your opponents and either throw them or choke them to get the weapon that they posses. Other new moves include wickedly nasty decapitation moves, which zooms the camera in and slows down the game for a dramatic effect, as well as other acrobatic and very brutal looking attacks and enemy deaths. On top of this new weapon system, The Prince can now attack while wall running up and across a wall, adding another new dimension to combat. The beam combat has also gone through some fine tuning, and while it can still be frustrating at times, it's definitely very satisfying when you execute a successful attack while on a beam. The ability to swing around on a pole with your sword out first has also been added to The Prince's repertoire. The last change to combat in this rendition of PoP sees The Prince able to activate traps. Instead of just him falling victims to spike traps, in select areas, The Prince can activate traps to help take down enemies. The brand new fighting system inserted in WW plays off of that “M” rating excellently and is a definite step up from the one found in SoT.

It's good to know that the game will throw you a bone once in a while with the inclusion of traps because the enemies you'll encounter in WW are pretty tough. These enemies will come at you in waves and some, like the ninja girls, have some pretty deadly and cheap attacks. The game even adds in some boss fights to spice things up a bit. There aren't many boss fights and they aren't particularly very memorable but they do offer a good level of challenge, even to the most experienced gamer. The real challenge in WW comes in the game's platforming sections though. As I previously said, the platforming sections of the game are sublime, but they can also be incredibly tough at times, so be ready for a fairly high level of challenge while playing this game.

In terms of exploration, WW has a few cool tricks in its bag. The mold is pretty much the same as in any PoP game; you are The Prince exploring a castle. The twist comes in the swapping timelines. Throughout the game you will have to consistently switch between the present and the past. The difference between the two timelines is in the present the castle is a dilapidated run down ruin, while in the past it is a glorious and beautiful castle. Another major difference in the two timelines is the fact that while in the present a good number of the traps aren't working anymore. However, while in the past, all of the traps are up and fully operational. Another unique element is the inclusion of the Dahaka chases. During certain points of the game The Dahaka will chase you until you make it to a time portal room. These portions of the game can really get your blood boiling and are very exciting. The only problem with this is sometimes the camera can get a little problematic making you screw up a wall run or a jump. This all leads up to terrible frustration and can really spoil the thrill that the chase first gave you. The only other problem with the game's exploration comes in the fact that you will find yourself revisiting areas and, oftentimes, lost, forcing you to take look at your map trying to figure out where your supposed to go and if your going the right way.

All-in-all, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within's gameplay is solid. It doesn't step too far away from the excellent mold that Sands of Time had during the platforming aspects of the game and it vastly improves on the combat system with the all-new “Free Form Fighting System.” If only there wasn't so much repetition and revisiting involved while exploring the castle and if there wasn't a problem with the camera during the outstanding Dahaka chase parts then this game's gameplay would've been perfect.

Graphics: 10/10
Aesthetically speaking, WW is beautiful. The environment changes between the past and present are astounding looking and are stark contrasts to one another, making it feel as if you're exploring two separate worlds. The environments in the present portray a run down castle, slowly being eroded over the course of time. Everything looks gray and bleak, excellently playing off of the darker motif of the present timeline. The past, however, is a completely different affair. The castle is a lush and gorgeously designed piece of architecture with bright and vibrant colours. A good deal of light glow is used to show off some of the shinier and reflective surfaces adding to the general atmosphere of grandeur.

Character design is also top-notch. All characters encountered in the world give off a sense of danger or edge, properly coordinating with the game's overall theme. The Prince especially looks good, with rugged looking stubble and some new body armor, he looks nothing like the curious young man found in SoT, but like a matured, battle-hardened warrior, which flawlessly encompasses what this PoP game is all about. Each character also has a healthy dose of light glow to help bring out certain features of a character, giving that character a certain level of depth and personality. The animations for all of the characters also look very good. Each character has their own move set which all animate very smoothly with no graphical glitches or drop in frame rate – even when many characters are on screen. The animations for some of The Prince's more acrobatic moves look especially cool and the death animations are most certainly satisfying.

The most impressive part of the WW's graphics comes from the game's FMV sequences. Detail is through the roof on everything during these sequences. From every hair on The Prince's head right to every drop of rain, it all looks marvelous.

The graphics in PoP: WW are most definitely some of the best to ever grace a console and is something your eyes cannot afford to miss.

Sound: 8/10
The sound design of WW is really good, but it only appeals to a niche audience. To put it simply, if you don't like rock music and, more specifically, heavy metal rock music, then you're going to absolutely abhor this game's sound. Everything is playing off of the heavy metal soundtrack which was put in to help promote the game's overall theme. This music does work while in combat, and really gets your adrenaline going during the Dahaka chase scenes but while exploring it doesn't fair so well. Throughout the game I noticed a bizarre sound glitch. When I was done combat the heavy metal soundtrack would continue and would act as a real annoyance since I wasn't going through any particularly exciting portions of the game. However when I died then the music would just disappear, almost as if it wasn't meant for it to be there. This problem was rather annoying and while I may not mind heavy metal music, I just couldn't handle it during the exploration portions of the game.

When this sound glitch wasn't prevailing and I was just exploring there was a nice absence of music making the ambient noises heard while running around as the music. This little feature has been over done a bit over the years, but it still adds a good sense of mood and atmosphere while exploring. It's because of this ambient noise that the sound effects had to be so very important. The basic effects like running on different surfaces and the like all sound good, and the impact of weapons during combat also sounds pretty believable, making the effects package pretty complete overall.

A bit of a let down comes from the voice over work. Ubisoft Montreal hired a brand new voice actor for The Prince, and he may not have been completely bad, but he still wasn't nearly as good as the man who previously played The Prince in SoT. It seemed to me that the actor was trying too hard to be rugged and unruly, rather then trying to let the role come naturally to him. It also doesn't help when the written dialogue for the game is less than inspiring, with some flat out un-Prince like such as, “You B***!” I know that the game was trying to drop the inherent sense of charm that was delivered from SoT, but still that doesn't mean that The Prince should be reduced to such barbaric and simpleton language; he is a nobleman after all. As for the rest of the cast, they did alright but nothing mind-blowingly amazing. However, the worst part of the voice work comes from the over emphasized grunts and screams that are heard while in combat. These moans of death are just plain bad. The game tried to add a little sense of humor with the masochistic ninja girls and their love for The Prince slicing them, but the lines that they delivered are just plain creepy sometimes.

Overall, the sound found in PoP: WW is down right good, but not excellent. If they were able to correct that annoying glitch during exploration and get some more talented voice actors then this game's sound would be close to perfect.

Replayability: 6/10
Once the game's 10-15 hours of gameplay are up there's a limited amount of things to do after. The game gives you incentive to go back and replay the game with the varied amount of treasure chests to break open, which carries concept art in them. The game also has a weapon collection feature that lets you see all of the different weapons that you've picked up over the course of the game. If you didn't get everything then you can always play the game over again to try to find these missing pieces. However, unless you're the most hardcore PoP player you won't find yourself doing this. The game also offers Xbox Live support, but the way it handles itself is kind of clunky. The Live support gives you two modes to post onto a worldwide high score board, an arena combat gauntlet mode and a timed obstacle course. These modes give mild amusement but you can't help but desire some downloadable content for the game.

While there may be things to do after the adventure is over, there just isn't enough to hold your interest to make you repeatedly coming back to this game.

Final Recommendation
Overall this is an excellent game that any action/adventure fan should pick up. Long time fans of the Prince of Persia series should definitely have this game in their collection and it most certainly won't disappoint. It's fluent gameplay and beautifully rendered graphics holds up well to the pedigree of the PoP series. Ubisoft has done it again, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is a big hit.

Final Score: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/03/05