(Spoiler Alert for the entire
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time trilogy)
And so we have reached the end
of this little series. The Two Thrones, released in 2005, had a major
problem from the get go. While most fans of the franchise vastly
preferred The Sands of Time, there was enough of a positive reception
to some aspects of The Warrior Within that its fans also needed to be
catered to. This new game needed to walk a fine line between calling
back to what fans enjoyed about the first game while taking in the
improvements and knowledge gained from work on The Warrior Within, a
challenging prospect to be sure. The end result was a carefully
balanced compromise that works surprisingly well, more than making up
for its lackluster predecessor.
The Prince himself is one of the
biggest symbols of this compromise that the Two Thrones embodies.
Yuri Lowenthal reprised his role as the titular Prince, with a harder
edge than in the Sands of Time. This is the Prince people knew from
the Sands of Time, as he still uses his old regal speech pattern and
rarely resorts to simply uttering curse words. He also has a fair
degree of snark, self-awareness, and snide confidence. However,
experience has made him a colder and harsher individual than he used
to be. This is a man who is significantly less likely to go out of
his way to assist others unless he has made some form of vow to them
in the past. However, gradually as the story progresses, he learns
the error of his ways and slowly, but surely, returns to who he used
to be, going so far as to literally combat his darker self,
appropriately referred to as the Dark Prince. It is as if the game
is performing a sort of meta-commentary on how the Warrior Within's
take on the character was so reviled compared to the Sand of Time's
take, which I found to be truly fascinating.
The other thing that the story
did right was bringing back the premise of being a retelling a story
that has already played out. However, instead of the Prince himself
telling the story to the player, who is revealed to be Farah, the
sidekick from the same game (due to the Prince's complete rewind of
time, she has no memory of the events that transpired). Rather, the
story is told by Kaileena, the Empress of Time from The Warrior
Within. Though this does give the game all the advantages that it
gave the Sands of Time, it does not make as much sense. The Prince
never dies in the series and is known to be a bit of a braggart, so
it makes sense that he would be the one to tell the story even before
the reveal that Farah is the audience. In The Two Thrones, Kaileena
dies very early on in the game, so it is weird to have her tell
anyone a story. Even though she is brought back to life by the end,
she leaves to go to a different world so that the Sands of Time
cannot be abused again, making it implausible that she is telling the
tale to anyone. Though I appreciate the return to form, I wish that
the conceit of a retelling of the story, like it was in the first
game, was more plausible in the game's narrative context.
One last criticism that I would
make towards the plot to the Two Thrones is that is it completely
necessary to know the plot of the previous games in order to fully
understand what is going on before playing. This is something that
even The Warrior Within did better. One of the early cutscenes in the
The Warrior Within took a few minutes at the most to explain why the
Prince was on his quest and what happened not just in the Sands of
Time, but in the time between the two games. The Two Thrones explains
some of what happened purely through the implications of what
characters say, but without any outside knowledge I am fairly sure it
would be hard to follow. There is no attempt to summarize or explain
what happened in the previous two games to catch new players up. I
weep for the poor fools who went into the game with no prior
experience with the trilogy.
The underlying compromise
between the Sands of Time and the Warrior Within also extended to the
gameplay in a number of ways, the biggest of which is the combat.
Combat in the Two Thrones is taken wholesale from the
Warrior Within, taking the systems of that game
and refining them a bit more. However, the game included a very
interesting addition not present in either of the other two games. In
the Two Thrones, it was possible to sneak up to an enemy and silently
dispatch them without them ever noticing you. Though it is
technically a stealth system, in reality it is a method for allowing
players to bypass combat sections by utilizing their platforming
skills to keep out of sight of enemy groups, picking them off one by
one. This accomplished several things. One, it forced enemy
encounters to be in small groups of 3-4 enemies to avoid making any
one section of the game last too long. Two, it gave fans who enjoyed
platforming more than combat a way to either avoid the combat or make
it a little bit easier by removing a few enemies from the equation.
The platforming also got an few
notable additions. The most visceral of these was the springboard.
While wall-running, the Prince will occasionally end up on a
springboard, which he can use to leap off of in order to change
direction and land in otherwise inaccessible places. The Prince is
also now able to brace himself in narrow wall spaces, allowing to
climb up and down them. Lastly, the prince is now capable of sticking
his weapon into groves in the wall, keeping himself from falling.
Like most of the returning platforming features, all of these
additions also have stealth kills associated with them, allowing
players to ambush enemies from many different positions. Including
all of these new methods of transportation made the platforming feel
much more interesting than it did before.
The game also ditched the
open-world elements of the Warrior Within, opting to return to the
linearity of the Sands of Time. This prevents the repetition that was
present in the previous entry. Also, it allowed the developers to
better focus and improve upon each area rather than worry about how a
given area connects to the world at large. Linearity is not a bad
thing, especially in the context of a platformer. Furthermore, since
the Two Thrones had the same 6 sand tank limit that the Warrior
Within had, there was still a lessened amount of wiggle room for
players. However, the improved level layout and camera positioning
made it so that the game was rarely impacted by it.
The big gimmick included in the
Two Thrones is the Dark Prince. Due to the Vizier from the first game
releasing the Sands of Time, the Prince became corrupted by the
sands. Fortunately, he was able to grasp the Dagger of Time quickly
enough that he did not completely succumb. Unfortunately, he was left
partially corrupted, giving him a new, dark persona that manifests
itself as both a voice in his head and a new, occasionally emerging
corrupted form. Counter to what one would initially suspect, this is
not some form that the Prince needs to gather rage to enter and gain
a temporary boost to combat ability in. Rather, the Dark Prince will
manifest itself at certain points in the story. Once the Dark Prince
emerges, the Prince can only return to his normal form once he enters
a body of water at the end of the segment.
While at first this seems like
an odd choice for a super-powered dark side, it works in the context
of the game. The Dark Prince has his own completely different
move-set and gameplay style, separate from the Prince, and since the
game has discreet sections of the story where he manifests, levels
that include him are allowed to cater to his strengths. The biggest
change that occurs in the Dark Prince's gameplay sections is that his
health gradually drops as time goes on, which is lethal if left
unchecked. However, he recovers full health if he defeats an enemy or
acquires a portion of the Sands of Time. In that way, players have to
work quickly in order to make sure that they get to their next fix of
enemies or sand before they die. Although this could be a recipe for
disaster, the Dark Prince levels space out enemies and sand just well
enough so that getting to them can be a challenge, but hardly
impossible.
The other thing that only the
Dark Prince has is a chain attached to his left arm. Thanks to that
chain, the Dark Prince does not have access to other secondary
weapons like he normally would. However, the chain in and of itself
more than makes up for it. Having a weapon with good range really
changes combat by given players much more options on how to take down
enemies. Furthermore, the chain is also useful when platforming. When
making leaps across wide gaps, the Dark Prince can use the chain to
latch onto hanging structure and gain enough extra distance to make
it to the other side. This can also be done while wall-running to
keep up momentum and stay on the wall for longer periods of time. It
is only one small addition, but it does change the way players think
about the area when going through platforming sections.
The Two Thrones had a lot to
accomplish, bridging together its two radically different
predecessor. Overall, it succeeded in that respect. I do not know if
I would call it superior to the Sands of Time, but it is at least
comparable in my opinion. Someone could make a case for it being the
best in the franchise and I would be open to hearing it. There is a
lot to like about the grand finale to the Sands of Time trilogy. It
represents the combined lessons from the first and second games. If
you guys out there were like I used to be, and avoided the trilogy
for whatever reason, I would recommend that you play the Sands of
Time, watch
someone else play the Warrior Within, and then
play the Two Thrones. If you enjoy platforms with light combat
elements, you will enjoy this series.
