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The Timeless Classic Comes to an End

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 18
Date: December 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The Prince of Persia series has left a huge mark on the gaming world. The newest in the series makes that mark permanent, keeping true to the entire series. Fans old and new alike, should be satisfied.

The prince has returned from the Island of Time to Babylon with his new love Kaileena. To those who didn't see the alternate ending to the previous title, Warrior Within, you may find yourself a little confused here. As they come into the harbor, they're ship is invaded and Kaileena is captured. You soon find that the man behind the attack is the vizier from the very first game. He then murders Kaileena and unleashes the sands of time on Babylon. As the prince, you're going to battle to save your kingdom and avenge your lover's death.

The prince has to worry about more than just the sand creatures and the viziers warriors. Because of the sands of time, he'll also have to confront his arrogant self from the past. There will be moments in the game where the prince will have a conversation with... well... himself. The darker version of himself. This stems from the fact that Warrior Within suffered heavy criticism and complaints from fans about how arrogant he was in Warrior Within. This in and of itself would be easy to poke at were it not done so well. The voice acting is A+ material, and the change is consistent throughout the entire game.

You're also given the oppurtunity to play as the Dark Prince from time to time. As the Dark Prince you'll have an interesting weapon that resembles a chain. The Dark Prince is much more aggressive in combat, and a lot of fun to play as. The downside, however, is he constantly looses health. Luckily for you, this isn't a problem at all. Every enemy you defeat drops health to restore you. You shouldn't run out of health very often. The only hard part about playing as the Dark Prince is his acrobatic moments. You'll eventually get it down, but you'll probably die several times first.

There's a new technique added in The Two Thrones. This tactic is known as "speed-killing." By sneaking up behind an unsuspecting enemy, you can grab them. This begins an animation known as the speed-kill. The game will then pause for a moment and you'll have to press a button to execute a strike. You'll execute anywhere from one to five strikes. If you don't press the button, the speed kill will fail and you'll have to fight the enemy the normal way. But hey, if you mess up, you can rewind and try it again. The animations are incredible looking, and they're a lot of fun to pull off.

You can run across walls and perform some really awesome jumps of course, something Prince of Persia is very well known for. Several puzzles throughout the game require you to run along walls and jump to switches to get through. Again, some of them are done by a bit of trial and error, but they are, for the most part, fun.

There are also chariot races, but they're not much fun, really. A simple mistake could cost you your life. Once again, trial and error will be the key in succeeding. The good news is that you've got the sands of time on your hands. If you horribly screw up at any of these trial and error moments, you can easily rewind back so long as you've still got some sand.

The game looks gorgeous. The environments are a lot of fun to explore and sulk in, and the character models look good too. It's obvious at some parts that it's the same graphics used in the previous two games with almost no changes, but the previous games were gorgeous anyhow. Some of the pixels don't quite fit in with the environment, and that's okay. You probably won't notice them.

If you're looking for what is the best of the three versions, there's no clear winner. The XBOX version has great load times, but a few lighting effects cause it some problems, and the PS2 version suffers from slow down in some areas. There's almost nothing wrong with the Gamecube version, but it depends on what you want. If you want fast load times, go with the XBOX version, it's lighting problems aren't really that noticeable.

Overall, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones marks a thrilling conclusion to a remarkable trilogy. Any holes it left in the plot are neatly filled. Any fan of the series will be satisfied.

The Good
+Still has gorgeous graphics
+Fun Gameplay
+Speed kills bring new style to the game
+Long game
+The story ties up all loose ends
+Fantastic Music
+Fantastic voice acting

The Bad
-A LOT of trial and error moments
-This is not for newcomers to the series. Newcomers to the series should start with the first game: Sands of Time, otherwise the story will just confuse the hell out of you

Wow

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: December 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is a wonderful return of the series to it's roots. At least for the most part. There are shadows of warrior within but not many. YOu do have to do the dark prince bit. THese parts are fun, but nothing compared to the brilliance of The light prince parts. The light prince parts are just like sands of time. THankd Goodness. Only this time they are better and prettier. yes, I said better and prettier. This game is well worth the price of admission. Buy it and you will love it. THE GOOD PRINCE IS BACK.

A strong ending to a great series...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: December 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Finally, the ending to the Prince of Persia series! A few new twists, a new alter ego, but still the same core experience that gamers have come to know and love. While there are a few areas that could have been better, overall this is a great title.

Gamers who have played the previous PoP games will feel right at home with the game. The controls are the same, save for the new Speed Kill system which is extremely easy to use. Combat is similar to how it was in Warrior Within, with one base weapon that you cannot lose and a free hand that you can use to pick up various other weapons that are strewn about. The speed kill system, the new way of disposing of your enemies adds a new experience to fighting. Instead of taking on hordes of baddies in traditional hack and slash style, you can sneak about and dispose of your enemies silently one at a time. The animations for these kills are an absolute delight, if somewhat limited.

The boss battles are a nice touch, as they were hardly memorable in the previous games. With two bosses in the first game and two or three in the second, all of which required you to simply run up to your enemies and do what you always do...mash buttons, there was nothing really special about them. In The Two Thrones, most of your boss battles will require speed kill actions at some point or another. This is wildly entertaining, as often you will be heaved high into the air and must use a well timed speed kill attack to stab your opponent and stop from falling to your death on the way back down.

At various points in the game you will use a chariot. This is quite simple and generally easy. If you die...use rewind to try again...not much thought required. I feel that this aspect of the game was thrown in as an after thought, and could have really been fleshed out more. It feels almost forced at points, and can get annoying.

The prince has returned with the mentality he possessed in the first game. He feels much more noble and inclined to help others. I was a bit put off by his "bad boy" attitude from Warrior Within, yet this time around he feels much more like the original prince.

For fans of the first game, you will be delighted to find that Farah is back...with an attitude. She doesn't come off as the same innocent girl that she was in the first game, and she has a more commanding voice. She doesn't do any fighting for you, although at various points in the game she will aid you in completing puzzles.

And finally, the most interesting character in the game makes his first appearance...you. Well, the dark you...whatever that means. The Dark Prince is a corrupted version of the Prince of Persia who is much more adept at combat, can access areas that the Prince cannot reach, and who has a much more evil attitude. Punish and kill, that is what he enjoys. While in the normal prince mode often the park prince will talk to you in your head. While in dark prince mode, the normal prince will have his say. The Dark Prince cannot pick up vanquished enemies weapons, but hey, who cares. He uses a weapon called the Daggertail which is essentially a bladed chain that you can whip about. This weapon deals serious damage and allows you to vanquish enemies at a great speed...

For first time plays this game may feel long, but for veterans of the previous games it may come off as somewhat short. It felt shorter than Warrior Within to me, and with the Speed Kills much of the time you spent battling baddies will be taken away, as speed kills usually take 2-4 seconds to complete, with a few lasting a good bit longer. There is not as much emphasis on combat as in Warrior Within, and more on story.

The environments are great, spanning from dungeons to rooftops to the famous hanging gardens and Tower of Babel. Graphically the game looks very good, if somewhat technologically dated.

The audio in the game is also quite good, although herein lies one of my biggest gripes. I with they would pick a voice for each character and stick with it throughout the series. The voice for the Prince is the same as the voice from the first game, but different from the second game. Farah's voice is different. Kailena's voice is different. And...an old enemies' voice is different as well. The voice acting is good, and the sound effects are, in my opinion, much better than in the previous games. The hard rock music from the second game that seemed so out of place is gone, replaced with Middle Eastern sounding music which fits much better.

Overall this game is highly entertaining and well made, if someone short, and should provide both fans and newbies to the series with lots of entertainment. Although if you are new to the PoP series I highly suggest you purchase and play the first two games before getting into The Two Thrones so that you have an idea of what's going on. I am sad that this is the last Sands of Time themed Prince of Persia game, although hopefully the makers will continue to produce great PoP games in the future.

Wonderful end to the series!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is WELL worth the buy. The story doesn't have too many surprise twists, but still is a lot of fun. Rather than the story supporting the game, it seems like the game supports the story (always a good sign.) Game play is easy to learn. However, it would be highly recommended to start with the first in this series (Prince of Persia: Sands of Time) as there very little recap in this game or the previous one (Prince of the Persia: Warrior Within.)

Truly Awesome Fun.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've been a fan of the Prince of Persia series since I was a little kid. PoP 1 was great, Pop 2 was absolutely unreal. PoP 3D was ehhh....but then two years ago, along came a game that changed everything. "Prince of Persia The Sands of Time," the first game in this amazing adventure game trilogy took everyone's breath away. The gameplay was original, flawless, and beautiful. The storyline sucked you in and didn't let you go even after you'd beaten it 6 times over. It was a flawless game.

Last year, the first sequel, "Prince of Persia Warrior Within," was released. While the game contained improvements in the quality of the graphics and the "freeform fighting" techniques, the game was less pleasing to both critics and gamers. Ubisoft had turned the humrous, witty, intelligent prince from "Sands" into an angry, nu-metal-rocking, humorlous scoundrel who seemed hellbent on ruining everyone's time. While the story was equally as engaging as "Sands," "Warrior" failed because it simply was not as much fun to play. Luckily, Ubisoft saved the best for last.

"The Two Thrones" is easily one of the greatest games I have ever played. In concluding one of the greatet videogame trilogies ever created, Ubisoft have developed a near flawless game. It is as though they took the strengths from both games, removed the weaknesses of the second game, and created a thing of pure brilliance. "The Two Thrones" contains all of the witty, punning elements from the first game and mixes them with the exciting, more violent elements from the second game while removing everying that ruined the prince's demeanor in the second game. The original, fun, saracastic prince is back, and largely because Ubisoft has also brought back one of the things that made "Sands" so great: Farrah. Farrah is the perfect foil to our hero. She adds humor, power, creativity, and definitely a sexiness to the game that "Warrior" was lacking. Farrah's relationship with the prince is by far my favorite relationship I've ever "played" in a videogame and Ubisoft deserves big brownie points for bringing her back.

The gameplay in "The Two Thrones" is amazing. Throughout the game, the gamer is occassionally forced to play as the "Dark Prince" as there are situations where the "normal," original prince is unable to get through. In other games, playing as two characters often appeared more of a gimmick than an actual, integral part of the story, but in "The Two Thrones," the reasoning behind the Prince's frequent changing from Prince to Dark Prince and back again is very well explained and very important to the overall story that "Two Thrones is telling." The fight scenes are epicly fun to play. This Prince has more moves than he had in the two last games combined and his battle techniques are a joy to use. The new "speed kill" method of killing some opponents adds a certain amount of skill and brutality to many fights that otherwise would have seemed boring and taken far too long to complete. I welcomed the addition of the speed kills once I fully learned how to use them.

The Prince still moves as acrobatically as ever. There is still wall-running, jumping, flipping, handsprings, etc....the only real notable movement difference is when the gamer plays as the Dark Prince. The Dark Prince's chain/weapon/thing can be used to grab onto bars that are are away or objects that would otherwise be out of reach and the Prince can then swing over to them. It's not that different from anything the Prince has done before but it was definitely fun to do and worked well with the flow of the game.

All in all I rate this the best of the new Sands PoP trilogy. It's an awesome game that should be played by anyone who has ever enjoyed a 3rd person adventure game. If you haven't played either one of the first two games be warned: the storyline is actually rather complex and you will be missing much of the story if you haven't played the first two games. If you have played the first two games, this story is a terrific conclusion to the Prince's tale, and the way it wraps around back to the beginning of the trilogy floored me when I finished it. Buy this game.

(something worth noting...after you beat the game you unlock many videos, chief among these is the "alternate/real ending" to Warrior Within that was formerly only available if you beat Warrior after collecting all the life upgrades....so if you beat Warrior without all the life upgrades and didn't see the "real" ending...beating this game shows it to you in the video collection)

Exciting

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I really loved this game and the overall conclusion to the whole trilogy. It was really fun and the atmosphere was beautiful (just like the first one). But the reason I gave it 4 stars was because, although the loading sequences didn't take long at all on Gamecube, the graphics weren't that great they were kind of choppy, but I think it's because it was on the Gamecube. I don't know if it was just the game that was designed for gamecube or if it's for all the systems but there were some bad qualities in the characters too (such as Farah's hair moving through her chest when she moved and the voices being off sync). I'm totally not downing the game though. I loved this game, I loved it more than the second one but the first is still my favorite. This one took the atmosphere of the first one, dreamy and beautiful, and the prince has the same voice from the first one. Also the gameplay is fun and the storyline is great. But it was way too short if I should say so..It was fun, I recommend it.

YES IM A KID

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

SO what. it dosent have any nudidy it doesnt have anything not bad words nothing i think because they made warrior within was M
so they dont want to change it back to teen .so if you think that the gore is why the blood isnt that bad the only time it has blood it when you have a quick attack and the gore not that much only when you do combos this is a great game its fun the story a little weirder than the warrior within but its a fun game

A fitting end to a great trilogy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The first game, Sands of Time, was a 3D platforming classic with a lovable hero, a great story, and it was fun to play. The sequel, Warrior Within, had an improved battle system but now our hero got turned into a nu-metal rawker wannabe who says stuff like "you *****!" with Godsmack music blaring. Well to cap off the trilogy, The Two Thrones expands on both games providing not only a culmination of the good parts but some new ones as well.

Story: Taking place directly after Warrior Within, the Prince and Kaileena are travelling to his homeland of Babylon when they find it under siege. He and Kaileena are separated, an old enemy is back, an old friend is back and the Prince has been stricken with a dual personality...sort of.

Graphics: It's Prince of Persia so of course they're gonna look great. Detailed, immersive and has an art direction that would look great on the big screen. There's a couple glitches though in some of the cinematics and one boss gave me a hard time because a certain graphic never actually appeared on screen(I'll explain the graphic later).

Sound/Music: Ditching the heavy metal(yes!) and replacing it with a Middle Eastern flavor was the perfect way to go. Also returning is the VA for the Prince who's not as wisecracking and funny as Sands of Time but he's still as likable.

Gameplay: It's the same thing pretty much, platforming, puzzles with the occasional fight but there's some new additions. First is the "Speed Kill": get behind an enemy(or above) and you'll start a series of time-based button presses which'll kill your enemy before he can alert others. But don't think this will constantly happen though. More often than not, you'll stealth kill one before the other 2 are onto you. But it's still a welcome addition, especially since your main enemy tends to block your sword hits like mad.

Speaking of maddening, one serious misstep is the use of continues. If you die than a game over is reached, prompting you to restart. Well it's bound to happen right? Except the game tends to push you waaaay back. In one instance, I went from top to bottom of a room and left into another one and fought some enemies but a miss timed jump made me restart, but not at the space just before the jump or even the enemies, nope I had to start at the top floor again, make my way all the way down, kill enemies than start the jumping again. It's a serious fault.

Another new aspect which isn't as frustrating only if you let it, is that at a certain part in the story, the Prince is infected with...something, so in certain parts you transform into the Dark Prince: all black and glowing tattoos and instead of a 2nd dagger, it's Daggertail, a chain wrapped to his arm. He can use it to swing to far away places but there's a downside: his health constantly lowers unless you fill it with Sand. Enemies and sand tend to be plenty at these times but it's still frustrating when you clear a puzzle with no Sand only to come across a group of enemies with very little health left.

If it sounds like I'm being too negative, sorry cause this game is fun, just as fun as Sands of Time. This game is certainly better than Warrior Within but it doesn't reach that awesomeness the first one had but this is awesome too, just not classic awesome.

Quality control anyone!?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

PoP is a great series of games which has come a long way (technically speaking). in many ways, you can't go wrong with any of the four games now out there. the focus on dexterity makes them fun in the spirit of the original. but The Two Thrones continues a theme that began with the sequel: a lack of attention to gameplay.

The Two Thrones doesn't seem to have as many stranded-in-the-game bugs as The Warrior Within. it does, however, suffer terribly from the problem of rotating view and view-dependent movement. I've gotten so tired of dealing with the controls not keeping up with the orientation of the camera, that I've put the game down -- I just can't take it anymore!

a few others: the Quick Kill feature is pretty contrived; hiding necessary life upgrades(!?); a really lame permanent weapon; and boring puzzles.

I think I'm going to pull out my SNES and plug in the original.

Dont Get it if you didnt get sands of time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: August 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

very good. loved the new dark prince and all the combos. but seriously....DONT GET IT IF UV NEVER PLAYED ANY "POP" GAMES

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