Prince of Persia

So I just played the game Prince of Persia released in December 08 by Ubisoft. The first thing I noticed when playing this game was that the graphics looked like strikingly like those of Assassin's Creed which was done by the same group. Big surprise there.

Anyway, I thought that this was a big step up from Assassin's Creed in terms of the options for combos in the combat system. However, I thought there definitely could have been greater variety in combos, and maybe have them learned over time like in a game like Xenogears. Of course, that require an increase in the frequency of fights, but then again, I also thought there weren't enough enemy encounters.

***spoilers below***

One other thing, though, was that it was NOT the storybook ending that so many other games are. In the end, after about a week's work (the game was pretty easy) of healing the lands of the corruption and seeing them transformed from dark, dismal, and dreary into expansive, beautiful, and rich; I was developing an emotional attachment to the lands in the game. When I would heal a land, I would think to myself "Yes! Only 2 more in this area! Take that, Ahriman!"

And then in the end of the game, Elika sacrifices herself and the only presented option is the only one that makes sense: destroy the trees of life, destroy the temple, take the life force, and give it to Elika to revive her while freeing Ahriman in the process, the dark god you'd worked so hard to imprison. While you're chopping down the trees, Ahriman is whispering in the background things like, "Choose life. The light burns. The darkness soothes. What injury have I done to you that you have not done to me? I will be free." etc. 

After perusing some different gaming forums, the overall consensus is that the prince, arrogant, and self-serving as he is, eventually fell in love with Elika and would rather destroy the world than see her die. But one thing it seems that everyone overlooked was the role of Elika's father, the intiator in corrupting the lands and releasing Ahriman to save his daughter, previously dead.

And in the end, after getting into a fight with the father and condemning everything he'd done, the prince is forced to take up the exact role that he'd decried. Interesting juxtaposition of roles, I'd say.

One final thing I'll comment on that was present both in Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed was that both games seem to be forming the first part of a "TV series" type of game. That is, a very in depth and extensive story that is simply too much to be told in one game. Especially one as detailed, visually, as these. Sure, Final Fantasy tells a detailed and extensive story over the course of three or four discs. But then again, they've never had the graphical beauty that these two had. So, I'd say it's interesting to see what lays ahead with games so in-depthly designed and I'm excited to see the next installments.