PSP - Prince of Persia: Rival Swords

Format
PSP
Publisher
Ubisoft
Developer
Pipeworks Software
Country of origin
US
Release date
April 2007
Genre
Platform

Prince of Persia: Rival Swords

By David Rasmussen
17th May 07

How long has it been since I last fell in love with a Prince of Persia game?
It seems almost an eternity unto itself since I last raved about the first PS2 interation of the Prince of Persia franchise from UbiSoft, Prince of Persia : Sands of Time.
After that time, and my critique, proved to be most unkind to the franchise.
After the excellent Sands of Time we were burdened with the ridiculously hard, cuss word riddled, buttrock soundtrack filled with buttock cheesecake shots left and right themed nightmare that was Prince of Persia : Warrior Within. After that you can understand why I was more than a bit gunshy about making another Prince of Persia review.

But time passed, and soon the 3rd game of the trilogy, Two Thrones, came out. I missed that, but it seems UbiSoft is not going to let me go that easily because, as if they wielded the Dagger of Time for their own ends, they have turned back time and re-released Two Thrones once again on the PSP.
Yes, if you look at the cover of Rival Swords and wonder why it looks familiar it’s because you’ve seen a version of it for Two Thrones. Basically Rival Swords is a punched up version of Two Thrones for both the next gen of consoles (expect a Wii review in the near future from me) and the present gen of handhelds, hence this review.

This isn’t the first Prince of Persia for the PSP, no, there was another game before this. But since I totally missed that outing let’s forget about it and focus on Rival Swords.
As you probably expected, as it is an amped up version of Two Thrones the story is basically the same. The formerly foul mouthed prince has returned home with his new bride, who seems in this version to… is it me or does the PSP put years on you (as much as TV puts pounds on you)? Somehow she looks… older than him… maybe it’s the way he swings.

Anyway as he returns home he finds the city of Babylon is in flames (no, Frank Miller isn’t burning it to the ground in retaliation to those anti-300 remarks made awhile ago) and the city is under attack by strange men wearing stranger gear. I thought it would be the Sea People, an actual reallife race of maruaders that nearly brought the ancient world to it’s knees, but it looks like this people (Sea People or not) are in the palm of your old friend the Vizier who (exposed to too much Sands of Time… or too much Final Fantasy XI Online according to CBS Evening News latest anti-culture bashing video game slash porn hating one sided rant “Caught in the Web“)) is out to take your Empress… guess that’s the chick you bought from Warrior Within… and become immortal… which he seemingly does after he is transformed into a weird pretty boy looking bug human thing.

With the return of the Vizier comes the return of the good old days… in a sense.
While the Prince won’t revert back to his Star Trek : The Next Generation make Riker jealous of his facial hair clean cut personality uniform wearing “Make it so” days, find out how he isn’t cussing every five minutes anymore and seems to have gone back to his dialogue in his head ways from Sands of Time… almost. His internal dialogue will never measure up to the original enjoyably written dialogue of old, but at least it’s back as once again you are drawn to sit (stay) and hear another tale of the Prince of Persia.

If I have any problem with this game it is that, sadly, this isn’t as well thought out as Sands of Time, as he rarely interjects any narrative as he used to in Sands of Time. Also the two women of his life (his new girlfriend who isn’t going to live very long so that she can live out her purpose to bring back the Sands of Time, as well as Farah who we haven’t seen since Sands of Time but who has forgotten the Prince since the events of Sands of Time didn’t take place) now makes the notations for saving progress but doesn’t make any witty comments at times of death (unlike the Prince from Sands of Time).
Also once again the “sneak preview” mode which showed you what was to come in flashes of sand driven “visions” (at each checkpoint/save point) from Sands of Time is gone (again). Apparently that, along with the rest of the charm and joys of Sands of Time, will forever be associated only with the Sands of Time.

One thing that is (for the most part) gone, and you should be grateful for it, is the impossible difficulty level. You should have no problem hammering away at the evils in this game even on Normal mode, as the game mechanics is easy to pick up and easy to master (to a degree). The Prince is back to his Gymkata style aerial acrobatics and you’ll find pulling these off on the PSP (as well as his large bag of acrobatic tricks) is quite easy on the PSP as they have mapped out the controls easily so (once you get the hang of it) it’ll be almost second nature to pull off the tricks in this game with little or not effort.
However with the arrival of a certain female sand creature (who probably was in Warrior Within) you’ll find an impossible to win fight on your hands (which represents the only nigh impossible part of the game to get caught between your teeth). Mostly, however, it is far more pleasing to play this game than hardship.

There are a few shortcomings past the small tastes of impossible gaming that sits in this game (even when you reach certain areas that seem impossible you‘ll be able to push on with enough playthroughs and practice). Grafting the camera onto the L button you’ll need to hold this to look about, and use of the D-pad allows several viewing options at any given time from first person to a wide view (in certain areas), this is nice but at times it becomes almost claustaphobic to use the camera and since the game seems to be in love with the Prince you‘ll sometimes have to change the angle yourself so you see where your going, not get really good views of the Prince standing about or whatever. Also the camera is going to be your bestest of friends since the game no longer has the panning cinematics that show you area by area (from Sands of Time) which gave you an overlay of how to progress through each area, so try to take the time to stop and smell the background.

Furthermore while the PSP is powerful (which shows in the excellently done cut scenes and overall good graphics) at times you’ll find yourself easily misjudging gaps and leaps (just because you can see something above you you better go into first person mode to make sure you‘re standing under it especially if you‘re required to wall rebound onto it lest you miss it by accident), things looking flat and featureless on first glance (especially if your trying to just quickly glance and assimilate your surroundings) at times making it important to really look about for every hand hold and grip you can exploit. Also it pays to go slow and look because sometimes you might go the wrong way if you didn’t take the time to totally scope out an area, falling to your death.

The Dagger of Time is back, but it takes awhile before you start to charge it (your new girlfriend needs to die and unleash the sands of time before it happens) so you’ll have to be patient on that one. But once you start charging it you’ll find that you have your old powers back which makes this a true trip down the proper memory road which Warrior Within should have been. Speaking of patience while the Prince is totally agile in the air he is abit lumbersome on the ground, especially when you’re trying to rush an enemy and take him out quickly. This means while Sands of Time you could have ran into trouble with half a dozen or more enemies, in this game about two enemies could overwhelm you quickly due to the not so quick Prince. Not good especially if you’re caught in a major fight. The best way to avoid this is to treat this game mostly like a stealth game.

Besides the large amount of platforming content, Prince of Persia : Rival Swords has a bit of a stealth gaming side as you’ll use the Prince’s agility to perform God of War style button tapping quick kills (which only happens when you sneak up on enemies from behind unseen, once they see you you‘ll have to kill them the normal way with hacks and slashes which at times don‘t seem to hit the target requiring several running patterns of hits just to widdle down an enemy until he falls over). Unlike God of War however, where you watched for button marks on the screen to denote when you tapped the button, you’ll watch for a shift in the screen lighting. When the lighting shifts to a dramatic mode of lighting tap the attack button once, which happens twice for most normal enemies and once only for archers (so you have to be patient for the right moment when quick killing archers).

And this is so far only with the Prince. You also have to deal with his darker side, the Dark Prince.
Yes, he’s back and available for play here in Rival Swords.
He is more of a burden though as while he has a tough fighting style which works rather well along with his dark whip which is the reason his “affliction” arose… (Briefly, during the scene the Vizier kills your former fiancee to be you get several shards of a dark throwing star like whip stuck in your arm. When the sands of time are released it fuses with the dark matter bringing out your dark side, probably from Warrior Within, and making it a fully functioning “personality” in your mind that you “talk” to in the game. There, I said it.)
HOWEVER since the Dark Prince loses strength the longer he is without constant doses of the sands, you’ll constantly have to move giving you no time to scope out a layout of an area as you have to quickly get from point A to B, fighting and collecting sand as much as possible to keep the Dark Prince alive.

Two good things about this is the fact that the Dark Prince has an ultra easy fatality mode that basically just has you strangling your enemies with the triangle button (much like how you shove your blade down the minotaur’s throat in God of War I & II), and the second is that the Dark Prince is allergic to that which brings life to the Prince, which means once you find a source of water to “dunk” the Dark Prince in you’ll change back to the Prince… good. That means you can take it slow again.

Oh, and all the places you’ll go. Since Babylon is a big place you’ll get to Grand Theft Chariot : Babylon somebody’s ride and do a bit of racing through the dead streets of your hometown swapping metallic “paint” with rival chariots. Only the controls stink, it’s not easy to control this lumbering craft and way to easy to clip a wall or something and crash. And the few levels go so fast you’ll never be able to get through it on one turn as turns come up in split second choices and turning is hard (especially with rivals at your throat which make it hard to keep your ride on the road). Thankfully there are only a few of these chariot things so it’s not an entirely murderous affair taking yourself out for a little Grand Theft Chariot : Babylon.

Yes, Rival Swords does come with a nice optional extras package to keep you playing for awhile.
1 - Yes, it does feature multiplayer mode, however sadly it doesn’t utilize WiFi as you can only play against one person via AdHoc mode. Another sad neglection of the PSP’s ability to go online.
2 - This function only allows two players to race one another on foot. There is no option to play Story Mode as a two player co-op ala Crackdown on the XBox360 (which would have opened up lots of fun options that isn’t being exploited).
3 - As you gain sand for the dagger you’ll earn Sand Credits, which allows you to unlock a gallery of extras. However you might as well unlock it by playing (which is slow going) since earning “sand credits” is a ponderously slow affair. Also unlockable galleries is abit low on content.
4 - The game sports new chariot races, new maps and levels, and expanded storyline. But since I didn’t play the original Two Thrones I wouldn’t notice the difference between the two (neither will you if this is your first time playing a Prince of Persia game). Considering however that it seems to only have a few chariot races, however, how many did Two Thrones have?

Overall Prince of Persia has corrected all the ills of Warrior Within (though it does have a hint of that hardness once you catch up to a certain female sand creature), returning us for the most part to the golden era of the game when we cared about the Prince (and loved the game he knew how to play).
Sure, while it is not a 5 out of 5 perfect game there is more than enough good gaming here to keep you occupied as a splendid little platformer that could for sometime to come.
Prince of Persia : Rival Swords beats out a score of 4 journeys to the Prince side out of 5.

-- David Rasmussen 17th May 07

PSP Prince of Persia: Rival Swords Images