Back To Babylon; The Trilogy Concludes

The Two Thrones brings to a conclusion the "modern" Prince of Persia trilogy, which have thusfar more than lived up to their considerable heritage. Which such success behind them, and no plans announced for a fourth game, Ubisoft were under pressure with this release to both continue the quality of the series and tie up the ongoing story neatly. I don't tend to obsess too much about release dates for this sort of thing, but in this case, I found myself eagerly awaiting getting my hands of the Prince (so to speak) once again.

The Two Thrones

The final part of the trilogy picks up almost exactly where its predecessor, Warrior Within, left off. Having travelled back in time and prevented the troublesome Sands of Time ever being created, our hero is sailing back home to Babylon with his new love, Kaileena, the Empress of Time (which will be utterly confusing if you didn't get the alternate ending in WW ...)

However, things are as rosy as usual in the Prince's garden - which is to say, not terribly rosy at all - Babylon is burning, the city is over-run by an unknown force, and the boat is attacked and sunk. Separated from Kaileena, the Prince is washed ashore, an enemy in his own kingdom, facing a journey through the city in a bid to rescue the Empress and re-claim his throne.

True to form, this is to be anything but a simple journey. The Prince must not only deal with the usual pitfalls of hordes of enemies and treacherous traps, but with significant figures from his past, and most crucially of all, a battle within himself which will decide just what kind of leader he will ultimately be.

New Tricks

The previous two games have both featured notable innovations which have made great differences to the gameplay, and distinguished each adventure from the other. T2T is no different - and in order to elaborate on them, certain minor spoilers are required, although it's unlikely to be anything you won't already know before getting to the relevant part of the story.

The first major innovation, and the most publicised one, is of course the introduction of the Dark Prince. In a homage to the original PoP games, and as a reflection of the inner turmoil of the central character, we take control of two "heroes" here. On the one hand, our regular Prince, who, despite his troubles, is a bit jollier than in the previous installment. Although I'm sure all that time-travelling and destiny-meddling is enough to get the chirpiest of souls down ...

Anyway, on the other, the Dark Prince. Mean, malicious, and intent on consuming the Prince from the inside, the shadowy fella is awesome in battle, wielding a barbed chain reminiscent of the Hookshot from Zelda and cutting through all enemies with gloating ease. On the debit side, he's slowly dying, much like the Sandwraith from WW, and needs constant feeding with Sand to live. As such, sections involving the Dark Prince tend to be fast, furious affairs; a hackfest interrupting a desperate search for water (which turns Dark Prince into normal Prince again).

Our second new feature of the game is less dramatic, but is still has substantial emphasis placed upon it in the course of the adventure. Speed Kills bring a stealth-aspect to the gameplay, allowing the Prince to swiftly execute opponents without the need for a prolonged, messy battle, providing the player can match a series of visual cues. Initially, it can seem a contrived nuisance, but although I'm still not wholly fond of it, there are occasions when sneaking up behind an Archer and silently slitting his throat can be advantageous. It certainly adds an extra tactical weapon to the Prince's armoury - if there is a negative to it, it's that the system is sometimes relied on too heavily on in Boss battles, when it is the only way to progress - perhaps it would have been better remaining an option, rather than a mandatory demand.

Babylon ...

The past two games have been stylisticly stunning - in very different ways, they have excelled in creating atmosphere. Preceded by the Arabic finery of Sands of Time and the heavy Gothic presence of Warrior Within, the artistry of T2T falls somewhere in the middle. The city more closely resembles the kingdom featured in the first game, but the Prince, though jollier than before, is still nearer in character to his WW self, inwardly torn and desparate. The re-introduction of a main character from the first game lifts him somewhat, and brings out his brighter side, but the Dark Prince is always at hand to take the game in the other direction. Insomuch as the game as a whole revolves around these contrasting pulling forces, this works superbly (the title is of course a metaphor of sorts, that becomes explicit at the climax of the game).

The gameplay retains its brilliance - a wide array of moves allow the Prince to navigate the varying terrains of Babylon; criss-crossing the narrow streets, swinging about the Hanging Gardens and ultimately scaling the exterior of the Tower of Babel. Doing fine justice to this, the graphics are once more exceptional - perhaps not as dramatic as in WW, and lacking the impact that SoT had, by merit of its position in the series, but nonetheless, beautifully rendered and showing incredible attention to detail. Alongside the backdrops, the characters here are better animated than they have ever been - the only exception perhaps being the final boss, who I didn't feel was quite the terrifying figure that the Dahaka of the last game was.

A Fitting Finale?

Excellent game though this may be, there are still drawbacks. Although I criticised it at the time, having gone back and played SoT, WW showed substantial advances in getting away from the linear style of the original (of this series). This, sadly, is not continued here. Partly, the simple quest-style story of the game is responsible here - WW's complex, time-travelling premise was conducive to a more roaming gameplay, whereas this is very much an A-to-B style affair, with few deviations.

Nonetheless, I would have liked to have seen a bit more inventiveness used when it came to designing the game - a bit of back-tracking, or free exploring in wider, more expansive areas would have been welcome. I can see how this wouldn't have sat easily with the story or the location, but something to break up the pattern of the game, moving from room to room to room, would have been extremely welcome.

Are there other negatives? Apart from the aforementioned issues with the Speed-Kills, few. Those remaining reservations that I have are hard to pinpoint - the game is a great one in its own right, but compared to the previous one, it doesn't really make great strides. Though there are some neat new features, the simple story doesn't really compete with that in WW, however strong the Prince/Dark Prince battle is. It is, though, good to see the links that this game has with the first one, and as a whole, it ties up the trilogy very nicely - indeed, it finds a way to finish the series with its opening scene, which was quite neat. Perhaps this isn't quite the experience that WW was, and doesn't make quite the entry SoT made, but it strengthens the series very well as a whole, and with such brilliance before, that has to be some achievement.