The Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is the third installment of the Prince of Persia series created by Jordan Mechner. The story began in The Sands of Time where the hero, simply referred as the Prince, created chaos by releasing the sands of time. In the second game, The Warrior Within, the Prince set out to undo the damages and chaos he had released. Since the series is supposed to be a trilogy, gamers should expect that The Two Thrones will see the Prince to finally fix all the damages for good.

This time the Prince has to save his kingdom.

In this game, the Prince returns home from the Isle of Time with Kaileena, the Empress of Time. All the joyous feeling of finally undone the damages he had unleashed from The Sands of Time is wrecked when he found his kingdom of Babylon is set on fire by the army of the Maharaja. Their ship is destroyed and the Prince once again found himself washed up ashore (as far as I can remember, having a shipwreck has always been a mandatory since the first Prince of Persia in 1991). Kaileena is taken by the enemies and now the Prince must go to save her (it would be interesting to have the Prince captured instead, and Kaileena takes the role of the saviour here, but heey..).

Graphics

I always consider graphics as the fail-safe insurance or the last justification in considering wether buying a certain game has been a waste of money or not. The graphics in The Two Thrones seem to par my expectation of a PS2 quality, i.e. character details, lighting, structures details, extra bits here and there are well done. It also helps that all these fine details are rendered with almost no loading time, just like Soul Reaver.

Shipwreck: a longtime honored tradition in the series.

Sound and Music

The music is so-so. OK, I admit that I was too busy running, jumping and swinging to pay any attention to the music, except for the fighting mode. The positive note is that I found the music to be non irritating.

The sound effect is well placed, I haven’t seen any mismatch between the sound effect and the gameplay during the platform action and the fighting.

Unfortunately, the voice cast for the Prince is rather annoying, with sometimes his voice sounds and feels like an annoying teenager. It surely doesn’t suit the overall dark surrounding and his serious facial expression. The internal discussion between the Prince and his alter ego, the Dark Prince, is amusing enough, but it was the voice of Kaileena doing the narration throughout the game, “And so the Prince …”, which gives the best impression.

Gameplay

Since our prince is one helluva acrobatic hero, it’s a good thing that the control in this title is non-threathening enough to be able to execute all kinds of the platform actions. As a first time player of the series (the 3D ones at least), I spend some times to accustome myself with the Prince’s bag of tricks. Platform actions like running up a wall, running along a wall, jumping off a wall, climbing a pole, using the dagger to stab on a certain stab-point on a wall, swinging from one stab-point to another, sliding down a curtain, spring-jumping, and others are truly defying the law of physics. But once I get a hold on the control, I really enjoy doing all these stunts. Other not too stunning actions include grapping a ledge and climbing a ladder.

Boys and girls. Don’t try this at home. It’s very dangerous.

The Prince’s alter ego, the Dark Prince, has some extra platform skills using his chains, such as extra-far swinging and pulling a certain block on a wall.

Extra far swinging while you’re playing as the Dark Prince.

Power of the Sands

Imbued with the power of the sands, our hero can rewind and slow the time. Each use of these requires one sand point. The time rewinding is especially useful when you happened to fall, sliced by death traps or crashed during the chariot mini-game, and saves you from repeating all the way from the last save point.

Slowing the time can be used to move much faster than your enemies or to prolong a certain door-opening mekanism.

Fighting System

The fighting system gives much room for players in making their own fighting style. There are single-weapon mode and double-weapons mode, each with their own combos. Different choices of weapons give different sets of combo. Some special attacks require stepping on an enemy, running up a wall or swinging on a pole, which sometimes lead to a devastating blow.

Step on your enemy and hop!

My favourite in The Two Thrones is the Speed Kill attack, in which you can kill your enemy instantly by pushing the square button with the right timing, given you manages to sneak up behind the enemy at first. In certain parts of the game, where alarmed enemies can keep spawning their friends, direct assault is a no-go. Instead, you must execute a Double Speed Kill or even a Tripple Speed Kill to wipe a group of enemies without raising the alarm. This can be very difficult, but a successful Speed Kill can give so much satisfaction.

Timed right and the player will be rewarded with a nice Speed Kill animation.

In the other hand, it is far easier to wipe out a crowd of enemies while you’re controlling the more powerful Dark Prince, who’re equipped with a deathly chain. The only drawback is his constanly diminishing life-bar, which means you have to keep killing or breaking to replenish your life-bar (Soul Reaver anyone?).

The Dark Prince has no problem dealing with a crowd, you just have to do it quickly.

My Biggest Frustration

Thanks to the camera movement, sometimes it can be very difficult to control the Prince. One example is when I tried to swing left from a certain stab point. Instead of swinging left, the hero ended up swinging right, which lead to a certain death. Or when facing the enemies, controlling the Prince movement can be a real patient-enduring test (move to the right, the right, god damned you! Aaargh!).

I throwed my controller more than once, thanks to this nauseating camera and control adjustment.

A rather unforgiving chariot race, one of the mini games.

Conclusion

If you’re a long-time fan of the series, then buy this game to complete your collection. And if you’re a first time player of the series and looking for an alternative platform action other than the Tomb Raiders series, then I suggest you to buy this game too. You won’t be dissappointed.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Genre: Platform Action
Developer: Ubisoft
Release Date (US): 12/01/05

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