good gameplay, relevant soundtrack, amazing graphics
Disadvantages:
minor bugs, same as Gamecube
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
First of all, I was never that big a fan when I played the Prince of Persia 1 on DOS. But now, really, hands up for Jordan Mechner the creator, because it has grown on me ever so much in the past couple of weeks. It was almost hard to put it down when I first started playing it! Please do bear in mind, Rival Swords on Wii is EXACTLY the same as The Two Thrones on Gamecube and other consoles. So unless if you really want to get it just to feel the dual-hand combat with the controller and nunchuk, don't bother wasting £34.99 on it! You have been warned. For those that haven't played, not to mention that wii is already rather revolutionary to today's gaming, Prince of Persia's final instalment adds the cherry on top of all the wii goodness.
As the story goes... -------------------------- The Prince is on his way home with Princess Kaileena after the last adventure (Sands of Time) bearing the scars from the Island of Time, when he is confronted with the fact that his home, Babylon, under war, and falling to ruins. It is not long after that their boat is attacked and Kaileena is taken prisoner. Will the Prince be able to save Kaileena from the claws of the Vizier? Unfortunately no she doesn't get saved this time, but the Prince will have to navigate through the streets of Babylon, the Palace, and amongst many other beautifully structured environments towards the Vizier and eliminate him once and for all with the full use of your physical and mental abilities in battling with the monsters and puzzle-solving.
Gameplay -------------- For PoP veterans, you begin with the Prince himself (or as Ubisoft refers him to be the 'Persian Ninja') at the harbor (or harbour) district, for the newbies, it's definitely recommended that you turn on the tutorials as one fall will mean death only. There aren't many enemies at the beginning which lets you get the hang of controlling the Prince dual-handedly and to get use to all the ways that the Prince can travel such as wall run or horizontal wall run. After about 5 minutes of gameplay or so (depending on the speed you are moving about the rooms) a cutscene arms the Persian Ninja with a fish-gutting knife and introduces enemies and the Speed Kill (or Stealth Kill) system (Woo! Learn now as you will be doing plenty of this later...). And because the first two enemies are training for stealth kill, the game literally freezes the frame until you press the primary attack key to strike dead your target enemy. Please note that in the later parts of the game when you require to use stealth kill, if you wait as long as you would to see the screen shots in this training, it will most definitely be too late to deliver a stealth blow -- you will need to rewind time (which isn't available until later anyway) just as your weapon flares in order for the stealth blow to be successful, or just fight them with your sword wielding skills. Throughout the game there will be text at the bottom of the screen to give you tutorials on wall run jumps etc.
As I have already mentioned, the wii console itself is a revolutionary piece of gadget for gamers. PoP just adds to the topping of it; having both the remote and nunchuk is allows the use of all the buttons to its full potential. If you're not doing the sneaky speed kill, you're wall running, avoiding bladed spinning columns, bouncing off walls and slashing your enemies in an instant as the normal prince, you will be faster with your dagger-tail, swinging from the wall lanterns and running around like there's no tomorrow before you lose your life as the Dark form of the Prince in certain parts of the game. If not, there will be beautifully stunning (60 frames per second guys, 60!) cut-scenes for those 1337s out there to totally drool on. There's plenty for you to do! What a manly ballerina he is. =) The only thing I got annoyed about is sometimes how the Prince might just have missed the ledge or touched the rotating blade by a little then just falls and dies or at an area where you were uncertain of the dropping height and he dies from that. But that's about it.
Graphics / Sound ------------------------ Beautiful beautiful beautiful. 60 frames per second! I cannot stress that enough. (quite geeky =p) So beautiful. During gameplay, sometimes there are certain ledges or things that I cannot quite tell whether they are actually ledges or not, but that is just to increase the difficulty of the game, so I'm giving the benefit of the doubt for that. Ubisoft makes use of the graphics engine entirely and provides breathtaking cutscenes after certain areas when the Prince completes them. These cutscenes are unlocked for you hardcores to watch again at Extra Features if you want. The soundtrack in the game is very appropriate, with its eastern european music, but there isn't an overwhelming amount of music to play which balances it out; music is sometimes played when you are (whether it is just coincidence I'll never know) when you are climbing a ladder towards a breathtaking scenery, or whether it may be exciting music when the Prince has his swords wielded out ready to battle. Beautiful.
Technicality ---------------- Throughout the game, I have only encountered a few slower loading of environments that caused the Prince to die in several scenarios, such as falling (literally) 'though' a beam even though he was dead on target because the parameters haven't loaded or something. =/ But there is an apparent bug alert at the 5th sand portal where the game apparently may freeze at one of the ladder if the camera viewing is moved. Camera-viewing-wise, there are two ways of doing it; you can either use your wrist and twist (lightly) left or right to navigate, or you can use the D-pad on the remote, personally, I much prefer the D-pad. Sometimes there were also problems with remembering where the buttons were, as much as the game tries to use both controllers to its full potential. For those that play Zelda's Twilight Princess, the controlling between the buttons B and Z is the opposite way. Annoying ! The same problem applies to gameplay sometimes; there are certain points of the game when it's normally button-bashing, it's continuous swinging of everything that you have in your hands. Kinda painful for the wrist sometimes.....o.o
{Edit, 3 Nov, 2007 - I FINISHED THE GAME FINALLY! (having not touched it for almost 2 months...) overall, I think it was one of the best games I've played, I cannot compare with other Prince of Persia's apart from the DOS, and the GBA one, but yes, beautiful! Just slightly frustrating at the end when it came to killing the Vizier, my nunchuk wasn't functioning properly towards the end so it took a couple of tries, but this is definitely by far one of the best games I've ever played, the graphics are stunning, the music is stunning, the tricks...are classic of Prince of Persia, this is a truly addictive game and would play over and over again. This is the third and final sequel to Prince of Persia, but will there ever be another Prince of Persia: Greatest? or something similar? Only time will tell.}
Prince of Persia: Rival Swords (wii) ------------------------------------------------ Platform: Wii ESRB rating: Teen - Violence,Blood Genre: Action Elements: Action - adventure Context: Fantasy Number of players: 1 Player Difficulty: Medium Learning curve: About a half hour Game Developer: Ubisoft ESRB descriptors: Violence,Blood Release date: 2007-04-03
{UPDATED PRICES FROM 3 NOV, 2007} Ebay.co.uk: £.2.99 with 5 days to go Amazon.co.uk: Buy new: £22.96 31 Used & new (marketplace) from £16.70 Virgin Megastore: £20 (free delivery) HMV: £24.99 + free delivery Play.com: £17.99 + free delivery
Happy playing! =)
More details
Addictiveness
Compulsive
Value for money
Satisfactory - it’s a reasonable game
Longevity/Expected Longevity
ongoing
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