Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (2005) (VG)

Director:

Kun Chang

Writers:

Corey May (writer)
M. Dooma Wendschuh (writer)

Release Date:

5 December 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery

Tagline:

One Warrior. Two Souls.

Plot:

The Prince of Persia makes his way home to Babylon, bearing with him Kaileena, the enigmatic Empress of Time, and unspeakable scars from the Island of Time.

Plot Keywords:

Prince | Kaileena | Island | Persia | Sands Of Time

Awards:

1 win & 2 nominations

Cast

Yuri Lowenthal	...	The Prince (voice)
Rick Miller	...	The Dark Prince (voice)
Sarah Carlsen	...	Kaileena (voice)
Helen King	...	Farah (voice)
Harry Standjofski	...	The Vizier / Zurvan (voice)
Hubert Fielden	...	The Old Man (voice)
Lucinda Davis	...	Mahasti (voice)
Alain Goulem	...	Additional Voices (voice) (as Al Goulem)
Eleanor Noble	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Kwasi Songui	...	Additional Voices (voice)
John Topor	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Mark Camacho	...	Additional Voices (voice) (as Marc Camacho)
Sven Eriksson	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Trent Pardy	...	Additional Voices (voice)

Country:

Canada

Language:

German | Italian | Spanish | French | English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:M

Filming Locations:

Montréal, Québec, Canada

Company:

Ubisoft Montreal Studios

Trivia:

Before entering the elevator, Farah remembers hearing that a similar device is found in Azad, a place she hopes to visit once. This is a nod to the first Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003) (VG), when both Farah and the Prince were in Azad (but Farah does not remember that, because the Prince changed the time line).

Quotes:

The Dark Prince: [in a chariot] Are you sure you can control this thing?
The Prince: Let us hope. If I crash, it is the end for both of us.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Life: A Civil War (#1.7)" (2007)

Worthy of a prince, but not the one to crown it all.

The Two Thrones is the third and last installment in the Prince of Persia trilogy that started three years ago with the astonishing Sands of Time, a game that turned the popular 2D platform series into a complete and spectacular 3D adventure. Jumping, swinging, grasping, hanging off ledges, solving puzzles and graceful combat made up for one of the best games I ever played. Now I know that many people weren't too happy with the dark and grim atmosphere in Warrior Within, but I was actually quite satisfied with this new style. The extremely spectacular free-fight system that came with it, allowing the player to battle up to 6 enemies at the same time, was especially noteworthy, as well as the great storyline that kept twisting and turning in unexpected ways.

The Two Thrones returns to the sunny style of SoT, with minimal bloodshed and less body parts flying around. The Prince has defied death on the Island of Time, and is returning to his hometown of Babylon, only to find a fierce army murdering and looting its way through the city. It doesn't take long for the Prince to once again go on a quest to destroy evil and restore peace. The Sands of Time, however, have altered him slightly, causing him to change into a dark alter ego, the Dark Prince, from time to time. This is a nice way of bringing some innovation to the game play, as the Dark Prince makes use of a particularly vicious razor-chain, that allows him to make long jumps and dispose of his enemies much more efficiently. Yet, it does not revolutionize the game play as much as I hoped for. Changing into the Dark Prince happens when the story calls for it, not when the player wants it. Life energy slowly diminishes when playing the Dark Prince, which gives a certain amount of pressure to move and waste enemies fast in order to replenish energy quickly, but we already saw something like this in WW, when playing as the Sand Wraith. Other innovations include the speed kills, which enables the player to kill an enemy with a few strokes, and adds a little stealth to the existing game play. It is nice that you can use this techniques to quickly get rid of a few enemies when you are faced with many, but there isn't much variation in speed kill moves, and it takes away a lot of opportunity to go into an adrenalin-pumping free-fight frenzy. Speed kills become much more varied and useful when fighting the mini-bosses, and the resulting battles are quite spectacular to see.

The same can be said from the chariot races that you can do once every while. But just like the Dark Prince appearances, they come only incidentally and they're over just when they become fun. Most of these innovations feel like nice extras instead of fully integrated new parts of the game play, like the 3D platform action and free-fight system.

There are more aspects of the game that give the impression that development of TT was slightly rushed. The story is very straightforward this time, and lacks most of the exiting twists that were so prominent in SoT and WW. As a result, the game is only half as long as Warrior and can be finished in mere days instead of weeks. The graphics and FMVs are okay most of the time, but the in-game cut-scenes look at best five year old. Did production run out of polygons? When not playing as the Dark Prince or riding a chariot, I found that jumping and running along walls was getting a bit monotonous after the two previous games; difficult puzzles are scarce, and finding solutions to situations becomes increasingly simple, with only speed kills offering some variance most of the time. The influence of Jordan Mechner, who wrote history with the original PoP and rewrote it with SoT, is dearly missed at some times.

But as harsh as this all may sound, by no means does this make TT a bad game; it merely prevents this game from becoming a masterpiece like SoT and (to a lesser degree) WW. Although the thrills I got from playing its predecessors were a bit absent, I still got a good time playing TT. Even though not masterly, it is at the very least competently made.