Review : Prince of Persia, Rival Swords

jesta

Moderator
As a complete newbie to the Prince of Persia games, I was filled with expectation when I first bought The Rival Swords, as the game has many sequels, dating back to 1989. The original developer was Jordan Mechner and his inspiration came from "the first ten minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark" it had "been one of the main inspirations for the character's acrobatic responses in a dangerous environment."-Wiki It is said that Mechner had filmed his younger brother running and jumping dressed in white gowns to make sure that everything looked correct.

Prince_of_Persia_Motion_Capture_Jump.jpg

The games were released on a whole load of platforms (Amiga, Apple Macintosh, DOS, NES, Game Boy, Sega Mega Drive, Game Gear, SNES, Sharp X68000, Atari ST and SAM Coupé.) and were surprisingly a massive success. 'PoP' gave the player a whole new way of playing games; instead of guns and projectile weapons the Prince fights his enemies with a sword or two, while trying not to set off traps and finding his way out of multi level platform scenery.

Here's the Prince through the ages...
ST_Prince_of_Persia.png

...on the Atari
800px-PrinceofPersia-Mac.png

...Mac
Princep.png

...NES
533px-Prince_of_Persia_SNES.png

...SNES
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...Xbox 360
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...Wii

Piccies from Wiki and IGN

So once I had bought my Wii, I saw Rival Swords and thought I'd give it a go. It was being advertised as the only game with 'Free form fighting', that is to say, you use your wiimote and nunchuck as your first and secondary weapon, with a simple swing or slash. You end up developing your own unique fighting style. This I thought was incredible, but this wasn't even the best bit.
In the game you get to play two characters, The Prince and The Dark Prince. The Prince is obviously your main character, and you start off meeting him on his way home to Babylon which has been "ravaged by war and invaded by a powerful enemy."-Instruction manual. The Dark Prince is kind of an alter ego, except he is ruthless, reckless and sadistic. When you play the Dark Prince you health is constantly dropping, which means there is no time to stop, you have to keep moving until the Prince can shake off the possession. Both characters have their unique skills and weapons. 'The dagger of time' is the Prince's main weapon and with this sword he can pull off many 'Time Powers' like, Recall, Eye of the storm, Sand winds and Sand storm. Whereas the Dark Prince has a 'Daggertail', a chain-like weapon that is permanently stuck in his arm. He uses this like a whip to get around the epic, high rise, environment, or as a chain to pulverize the enemy. Also unlike the Prince, the Dark Prince cannot pick up any more weapons.

The gameplay is a mix between Spiderman and Splinter-Cell; you have to find your way around incredibly tall landscapes, buildings and roof-tops, mainly by using acrobatics, like wall runs and huge leaps of faith, and using many different elements like ledges, columns, close walls and curtains to get about. And if that isn't enough you have to defeat the enemy. To do this you can either run in and attack with your swords blazing, or if your a bit sneaky, you can sneak up apon an enemy to use the Prince's 'Speed Kill System'. This smart little function means when your close to an enemy that cant see you, (maybe facing the other way, or maybe your flying through the air at great speed towards the enemy) the screen goes into a 'Matrix' mode where everything slows down, if you are quick enough you quickly shake the nunchuck and the Prince starts one of a number of slow motion death scenes which can also be linked together into combos or you attack, and hopefully, destroy more than one enemy. Awesome!

All in all I found myself stuck to my wiimote flailing my arms about and generally having a great time. And although this is just The Two Thrones remade with new control for the Wii, I thought...

The graphics were good 7/10.

Game play, incredible (bearing in mind I have never played a PoP game before) 8.5/10.

Controls, I found them easy to pick up but my girlfriend does struggle, 7/10


Overall 7.5/10

I will be buying the next one!!
 
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GoldenAssassin

New Member
Good review. The pictures made it. you should cite your sources/quotes next time.

Unfortunately, I bought Rivale Swords when it was on Gamecube. Otherwise I would have definitely picked this one up...it sounds a lot more intriguing with the free form fighting of the wii.
 

jesta

Moderator
GoldenAssassin said:
Good review. The pictures made it. you should cite your sources/quotes next time.

Unfortunately, I bought Rivale Swords when it was on Gamecube. Otherwise I would have definitely picked this one up...it sounds a lot more intriguing with the free form fighting of the wii.

Hey thanks Golden I'll edit it now!
 
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pkf0rtzh4ar

New Member
cool review...i have the first on emulators...and than i got the first 3D game for pc...than i got sands of time on computer + on gameboy advance / ds ( cant remember ) than warrior within for the cube...and also two thrones...and i be getting rival swords soon to...great previw mate...its my fave game :)
 
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