The Highs & Lows of Prince Of Persia Sands of Time Trilogy -- A Critical Analysis

Introduction

You may wonder who I am and why I am writing this, Know first that I am among the veteran Prince of Persia fans. An old-school generation of gamers whose first love was POP and that was where it all started for me to play video games on the famous Atari, 386 to Pentium Computers to XBOX360 & PS3. This is my first blog on Prince of Persia game and it is about POP Warrior Within, The reason of writing this that before this blog, I don't think any such thing has been written on this game before. Its about the debacle of what could be great game its implications on the entire POP Trilogy. The views are right from a gamer's heart!

What's this Blog About?

I have divided this blog into two parts i.e. The Gamers Take, The Reality Check
In the first part of the blog i.e. The Gamers Take, I will opine the 5 big reasons for the debacle of this game. I will only talk about from the gamer's eye. What was his perspective? How a hardcore POP fan received this game? What were his expectations and What he wanted from this sequel and what they actually received in the end?

At the end of the day, The gamers don't care about the ground realities of a certain experience, They only care about the ultimate experience and that is the hook and fun factor. Rightly so, as gamers have nothing to do with business and marketing stuff. They just want a satisfying performance from a product like every other product of any other industry in the world.

In the second part of my blog, I'll opine a little bit about the positive side, a little bit of business side, The Warrior Within's side effects on the later part of the trilogy and finally the final verdict. This blog is a critical analysis of the entire game and its impact but I have also given some recommendations that what should have happened which surely can't applicable to this day until or unless in future Ubisoft decides to recreate this game. I hope you will enjoy the read and come up with your comments and feedback. Without further ado Let's get started

Quick Flashback

Master of All Action-Adventure Games Till Date

"Most people may think that why there is a need to write on this topic about a game which released 12 years back? You may wonder who I am and why I say this. Sit down and I will pen down a note right from the bottom of a hardcore POP fan's heart"

Pardon me for twisting the hallmark quote of a legendary game trilogy known as Prince of Persia The Sands Of Time. 


Back in early 2004, I remember when the fans of Prince of Persia got the chance to experience the first game of this epic trilogy (after a virtual demise of POP post ill-fated Prince Of Persia 3D) they were flabbergasted with the kind of return Prince made. It's a known fact that Prince of Persia is the brainchild of Jordan Mechner.

 PRINCE OF PERSIA - A Game with humungous ports & adaptations 

It was a game which revolutionized the action-adventure gaming back in the late 80's and early 90's. I believe that to this date, POP became the benchmark for platformers, action-adventure games across the board. Thousands of 3D games which came later by other developers took inspiration from classic Prince of Persia. 

Background

The Prince Returns Big Time

Fast flashback to 2003, The prince returns with POP Sands of Time, A new prince, a new story with all new characters. The fans mesmerized with the beautiful adaptability of Sands of Time by the POP team from Ubisoft studios. Not only it looked relevant to the time, but also it connected well with the POP fanbase, A fresh take on the game while keeping the original theme intact i.e. Storybook Arabian Nights Tale The fans around the globe hailed for this strong comeback. They rejoiced that this brand new POP game is according to the current generation of games and technology. It became huge fun to play and won a massive critical acclaim all over as well as some gaming awards. Sands of Time brought some new things into the game world on a mass scale like the Time Rewind and acrobatic gameplay especially the Wall Running. The acrobatic fast-paced young Prince soon became the favorite for every POP fan who wanted a return of POP for the past 4 years.

Sands of Time served as perfect tribute to the Originals

Just like the 1989 POP arrived with some features never developed before, Sands of Time replicated that essence in a big way in the 3D form of the platforms of those times. A kind of return which Prince deserved when the side-scrolling 2d adventure made its first entry into the 3D World first time back in 1999 which couldn't happen successfully, unfortunately.

POP Team Delivered Fun

The POP team from Ubisoft delivered to their promises and they give the much-deserved tribute to the original Prince of Persia via Sands of time covering virtually all aspects gameplay, storyline, animations, magic, combat and Arabian Nights theme. The fans were hungry for a brand new POP game. Little did they know that Jordan Mechner won't be the part of the sequel.

The Dagger Of Time did revolution in this Critical Acclaimed Adventure

They instantly demanded a sequel to see how Prince and Farah's story unfolds when Prince left Farah's shocked by saying the magical word "Kakulukia" which Farah heard from her mother in her childhood. They knew that the character who revolutionized the action adventuring gaming back in 90's can't die like this. He has to come back again and win hearts all over again with the current and next-generation of platforms.

Kakulukia Never Came Back

The Prince killed vizier, Kissed Farah, rewinded the time after seeing her expressions and then left her shocked by saying the magical word "Kakulukia" in response to the question of what was his name. Farah left wondering how in the world Prince came to know about this deep secret between her and her mother.  A code word Kakulukia which can open the gate in the time of need. Just like the famous "Open Sim Sim" in one of the classic tales of Arabain Nights.

This climax was such a great cliffhanger. A perfect end to the first adventure. Magical, surreal, highly romantic with mixed emotions of happiness and grief that it took over the POP fans hearts. After we played Prince of Persia Sands of Time, All the fans were anxiously waiting for its sequel. The expectations were immensely high this time around. Kakulukia magic will never make a return no one expected though.

Forums Mania

During those times, The official Prince of Persia forums used to pump hot, there were no facebooks and other social media platforms. Forums was our first social media. I can remember the excitement and eagerness we used to have with respect to the sequel to Prince and Farah story. We were very excited that the story of the Prince despite being an amazing cliffhanger it was quite open-ended as it reached the climax of sands of time because nothing has happened despite everything had happened, Farah doesn't even know Prince, The Prince yet changed her life by narrating the complete story and killing the Evil Vizier, So we are back to where we are waiting for an exciting adventure of Prince and Farah as to everyone expectations.

Ubisoft announced a sequel soon after and it was like a thunderstorm in forums. A lot of fans out there posted threads about the sequel. They wrote stories according to their opinions and wishes. I can remember that literally, every fan wrote their story drafts keeping in view the bonding between Prince & Farah. The Vizier was killed, What would be the reaction of Maharaja now, What Farah would tell to his father? What would be Prince's next adventure, What would King Sharaman move after this, What must be the emotions of Princess Farah regarding the mysterious young Prince etc... I don't remember a single story draft where anyone discarded Farah, storybook theme and the essence of Prince of Persia from the main storyline. Everyone was excited to move forward the story keeping the roots intact. Little did everyone know that Jordan Mechner isn't involved with the sequel and Ubisoft has some other plans.

Let's take a look at those core reasons that lead to the debacle of Warrior Within which ultimately put a dent into the trilogy that even remained in the last chapter of the trilogy POP The Two Thrones.

THE 5 BIG REASONS FOR DEBACLE

1. The Storybook Theme Aborted

It is widely accepted fact that the cornerstone of a video game is gameplay because at the end of the day, Gameplay is the directed towards the player and it is the end result so it should be fun. However, even that cornerstone sets on something to balance itself and that is what we can call the setting and in a video game, it is called "The Game Setting" Difficult to understand? Consider a simple example, Just a like a House needs solid roots upon which the structure is built. A game setting is like roots upon which the entire structure of video game works and the entire structure can't deviate itself from its roots, it's like the basics of the house. So, your art direction, gameplay, music, sound effects, storyline all depends upon where and how your game setting is. Want another example? Tomb Raider is all about exploring and adventuring Tombs, The moment it deviated from it in Tomb Raider 6, It was a debacle among fans. Indiana Jones revolves around exploring global places for pure archeological purposes, Resident Evil crux is Zombies Survival Horror, Enough examples? Now, what is Prince of Persia? Prince of Persia is a rich story-based action adventure platformer sets in a  classical magical Arabain Nights environment. I believe this was the first and foremost reason for a drastic change in the feel of Prince Of Persia Warrior Within i.e. The Game Setting, The Roots of the game were no more Arabain Nights. The storybook feel was replaced with a hardcore, darker, a much mature theme to the extent that the game setting deviated from the thing which made Prince of Persia unique in its own place. I don't think so that there is any game which deviated drastically from its roots in this way till date.

The Prince wasn't the same anymore

Adding more specific detail to this point, Prince of Persia has always been known for its storybook feel, Arabian Nights theme, Setting, relatable culture, Magical and exotic environments and a rich storyline. Those ingredients have been the essence of POP. Those seeds crafted the roots of POP Tree from where a classic gameplay and other branches emerged which gave sweet fruits for people to enjoy. This is not to say that POP never went darker or mature, rather POP 2 Shadow & The Flame was much darker but it was made within the original setting, atmosphere, and theme of the series. If we talk about the 3D aspect, even if we look at POP 3D which came in 1999, it was despite a commercial debacle and ill-fated with bugs and all sorts of problem, It was quite a darker game in terms of setting but its setting was connected to its roots. The point is that you can achieve a mature and darker theme and cater that audience keeping your game intact with the basics of the game.

2. The Endless Backtracking

To understand this major flaw in WW, Let's go back to the past and take a look at the 2D original Prince of Persia series. Prince of Persia 1 (1989) was confined to a huge fort of the King of Persia where Prince came across prison and palace and rescued the Princess because the Princess was jeopardized by the Vizier right in the palace. The game went with blockbuster sales due to all of its great elements which players witnessed for the very first time on this scale. POP 2: Shadow and the Flame banked on the greatness which POP 1 created and advanced itself to present a massive scale and liberty in terms of environments where Prince can apply its wits to climb the ledges and encounter different elements on his journey like lethal heads, dangerous skeletons, traps, magic carpet, horse and palaces which connected with the storyline so cohesively that it made the game much bigger than POP 1 in terms of likeness. Consider the example of Uncharted 2, It banked on what Uncharted 1 built and advanced itself to the next level keeping the roots intact.

If Only I won't be visiting them 1000 times!

Likewise, POP Warrior Within was a huge opportunity for POP Team to build upon the great elements which POP Sands of Time created and take the game to the next level. However, The opposite happened, The eagerness to create a real part 2 went way too much off direction that it limited the scope of Prince's adventure. The Prince reached the island of time quickly at the start of the game after the ship battle and once he entered into that big empire which the empress of time created, Little did the player knew that he has now entered into the painful endless backtracking saga which one can only get rid off once he will reach the climax of the story. The storyline demanded Prince's to backtrack in the same levels perhaps, No matter you have awesome platforming mechanics in place in the gameplay but if you are moving in the same environments time and again with your two versions, It feels boredom because as a player you want different things to happen in environments, you want different settings and levels, but it remained a wish in Warrior Within. Hence, The backtracking further led the game to boredom and it didn't help the cause for the Prince. On the flipside, the player did want longer hours of play after Sands of Time but the majority didn't want the longer journey in repeated number of environments, again and again, It made it too long to handle and likeable.

3. Hardrock Music

Know first that the hard rock music in Warrior Within was good in its core, but it doesn't suit Prince of Persia. POP was never made to have this kind of fast-paced music with rock bands and all that stuff. It was simply not relatable to the theme and story even. It looked forced. If you are making a darker game, it is not necessary that Hard Rock music is the only way to go. The darker theme could be supported by the kind of music that resembles the roots of the franchise. A techno, with little rock and Arabian nights darker music, could have been the solution but on the contrary, the Music was yet another major shift from the essence and hence played a role in further drastic changes which players were already receiving. It is not to say that all tracks were off-track, but the majority of the music wasn't suiting.

4. Cuteness Underloaded with Confused Character Development

Prince of Persia Sands of Time created some beautiful looking characters who were not only representing the classic Arabain Nights tale but also the fresh start, the youthful and naiveness of Prince and Farah relationship helped in crafting an epic romantic tale which the players still remembers.  

The Chemistry was one of the hallmarks of the success of Sands of Time.

In Warrior Within however, The Prince turned into a badass bully, All the cuteness from the predecessor was scrapped and took over by evil darker characters like Shade, Dahaka, and other enemies, While Kaileena was a bit different she got trapped between being Empress of Time or Prince's Love and couldn't get developed to her potential. The relationship between Prince and Kaileena felt confused. The culprit was the main storyline and screenplay which didn't allow the two characters to develop. The mature scene in the climax had no basis and it just worked like you too much sweet in the tea just for the sake of it which tasted sour in the end. On the flipside, As a suggestion, It would have been a lot better story if Kaileena would really be the slave of Empress of Time and Empress of Time would be a different character, The Prince and Kaileena must stop the Empress together to create the sands of time. Remember, that before the release of the game, The Marketing side did promote to us Empress and Kaileena as separate characters, In the game, you get the surprise which couldn't save the story, however.

5. The Unexpected Hit To High Expectations

After finishing POP Sands of Time, If I summarize the feedback of the players, The expectations were real high as I wrote before, The fans loved Prince & Farah relationship like anything, they loved the entire setting and overall game elements. What they wanted? They wanted a longer version, some long hours of play, they wanted to see how the story takes a further step after Prince went back to his hometown leaving his Love to shock about the magical maternal word Kakulukia. 

It had a chance to be epic like POP 2 Shadow & The Flame

The fans were more excited about the story and characters than anything. I believe in my humble judgment that the fans were expecting an advanced level of Sands of Time adventure rather than expecting a 360-degree turn-around, which actually happened as Warrior Within info started to fold before release. There is no doubt that Prince is the main character in a POP game for sure, but the fans equally loved Farah as well. It was huge surprise and disappointment to them when they came to know that Farah wasn't in the game at all and this thing did make a hurting dent in the game. Warrior Within hit the expectations in an unexpected way and hence paid the price of massive dislikeness among the major community of Prince of Persia and game critics.

These were the 5 big reasons for the debacle in my view, lets come to the second part of the article by having some positive points of the game as well as Warrior Within's implications on the rest of the trilogy to conclude the article.

The Positives Of Warrior Within

Despite the roots of the game had been distorted which actually affected all other elements that make a POP game great. Warrior Within was still a very much better game if you forget that it was Prince of Persia for a moment.

The Free-Form fighting system was probably the best feature of the Game

You can say it's a good game but as a POP title, It was the worst POP game from 1989 to 2005. Ubisoft's POP Team sort of revolutionized the platforming action-adventure genre by integrating some innovative gameplay consisting of how the Prince runs jumps ledges and do the wall run. The acrobatics were superb, moreover, the brand new free-form fighting system was enough to make a gamer feel good about the combat system so as a game it was worth to play for one time but it couldn't achieve the greatness due to the elements discussed which were immensely missing from the game. 

Free-Form was the biggest leap forward in the combat system of POP

Credit must be given to the Ubisoft's dev team who made Sands of Time in a way that the gameplay, rewind feature and Prince as character saved Warrior Within from going towards a huge commercial and critical flop. Warrior Within with its mature rating, darker theme, and hard rock music must have captured some new fans so the audience actually got widened, but the developers realized that this was not the direction to carry forward for the last part.

POP The Two Thrones, The Face Saver!

We can all remember the last chapter of POP SOT trilogy, POP The Two Thrones was 90% Sands of Time and 10% Warrior Within in its all content, Setting, Gameplay, Voice Acting, Story, and Music. Perhaps The team, as well as hardcore POP fans, could not afford another Warrior Within. The damaged however done and POP Two Thrones literally felt like it has come to fix the damage which Warrior Within has done to the trilogy, which is why Two Thrones couldn't get the success equivalent to Sands of Time, It fell into the category of a satisfying end of a Trilogy but not something blockbuster or the kind of happiness which Sands of Time generated.

WHAT?

With Warrior Within, Ubisoft clearly lost a huge opportunity to create something even bigger. The message which we got from this debacle is that Don't fix the thing which is not broken.

The Reality Check


As a POP fan and web savvy, I came to know from internet sources gaming websites, blogs, forums etc I came to realize that POP WW direction was more a commercial than a creative decision. The mature rating, violence, hard rock music and Hollywood style voice acting and dialogues with longer hours were planned to capture a wider audience to increase sales, to delight the existing as well as capturing a much broader fanbase. It didn't work though, the sales must have increased but the value of the series went quite down as far as the feedback was concerned from the loyal POP fanbase.

Final Verdict

I genuinely believe that Warrior Within side effects was too strong that it even hurt POP The Two Thrones which was another opportunity for Ubisoft to win the critical and commercial acclaim all over again. Every problem has a solution but Ubisoft tried too hard to resemble the Two Thrones with Sands of Time which seemed a lost connection all over in the end.

The right way in my view was to keep the positives of both games to make a perfect blend. For example, The free-form fighting system was the must to keep in place, The Voice Acting should have been the same of Characters to the entire thing more believable, The Prince face was resembling his looks in the first chapter suddenly, How Come? There was no need to change the face back. The Prince didn't have a single sword in his right hand throughout the journey, As far as the storyline was concerned, Farah and Prince once an epic relation turned into a souring confused one.

The Storyline was the biggest confusion that now the Prince has actually done a biggest rewind of the entire trilogy that without the sands nothing has happened, Not even the Kakulukia climax scene of the first chapter Sands of Time. It felt so annoying that Farah and any other character doesn't know what the Prince has gone through. Kaileena suddenly transformed like a shy eastern girl. It all messed up in the end which eventually didn't make happy the Warrior Within fanbase and the SOT fans were also not too satisfied in the end. What happened is that Prince went to the Island of Time to rectify his biggest rewind and eventually the solution was to do another giant rewind? Not a cool storyline, I am afraid.

Personally, I believe the first reveal of POP 3 in the E3 2005 trailer and first demo was the right direction to go, It felt more like a perfect blend of two games, Some call it Kindred Blades, For some odd reasons and that maybe the market ones I am not sure, Two Thrones got too close to Sands of Time and ultimately lost its own originality. 

The trilogy finally wraps up in 2005 and after a three year break Ubisoft brought a brand new storyline with a brand new Prince once again. The Sands of Time Prince and characters were gone leaving many fans sad probably saying in their hearts "It was cool, it was cool, but If Only and If Only....."

I'd love your comments and feedback on the article. Till next time, Goodbye :)