365//365: Day 356 – Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (Xbox)

"Likes sands in an hourglass, these are the thrones of our lives."

While The Sands of Time featured swordplay without many hints of blood, it was rated T. The Two Thrones is rated M, with a larger emphasis on violence and bloodshed. The changes go deeper than the violence and bloodshed boosts, as The Two Thrones rights the wrongs of nearly every shortcoming that Sands of Time gave us, and built upon its successes.

Starting with the the visual direction, you’ll notice the decisively darker overtones TTT takes compared to The Sands of Time. The world around you is darker, with your adversaries sharing the same decisively grim look to them. The Prince takes a drastically different look, with less emphasis on bright, prime colors and more muddier shades. Each character model looks leaps and bounds better than the first title, creating for more of a realistic character model, as opposed to the somewhat cartoon-like avatars provided from the first title. The environments take a more serious look as well, with a stronger water and fire effects, as well as more detail and better texture work throughout. The color palette is expanded somewhat as well, though we’re going from plain, simplistic colors and lacking texture work, to a murky, mostly evil and cold palette with must more impressive texture work.

The Two Thrones is decisively more adult oriented, and the world around you reflects it, without looking like a cartoon.

The Sands of Time and TTT both have some powerful musical scores that not only fit with the action and mood, but are genuinely fulfilling on their own right. TTT however, has an audio performance that’s got more clarity than the original effort. Although The Prince’s voice isn’t as whiny, his line delivery can be quite hammy at times. Moments where there should be pure emotion behind what is said, feels forced and contrived. The fact that everything doesn’t sound like it was recorded in mono means it’s already a step above the previous audio performance as a whole.

Building off the predominantly strong mechanical and battle system, TTT shines in such a brilliant light. The occasional screen transition still lead to some maddening moments where you’re almost ripping the analog straight out of the socket in order for you to get the right perspective. Every other aspect though, has been improved upon. The overall camera control outside those transition moments, are decisively more refined this go around, leading to an easier manipulation and overall command of your field of view.

The two big stars from the previous two games, the fluidity of the controls, as well as the combat as a whole, have made some strides forward in its development. While the controls are not changed up much, they still retain the clean, easy to do wall runs, jumps and so on. The combat though, has been tighten up, adding in some more combos and grace with how each combo is performed. The Sands of Time had you rely on switching targets mid fight, along with acrobatics during each battle. The same can be said with The Two Thrones, though the look and feel is considerably more gratifying to not only pull off, but to watch.

Some of your attacks can be brutal.

About the only things that TTT clashes with has to do with difficulty and replenishing your health. Even during the early portions, well after you’ve become re-accustomed to how the battle mechanics work, the aggression of your adversaries, as well as the amount of damage you take, are both considerably high. Then you’ll go through points where your enemies won’t put up much of a fight. It’s a mixed bag of challenges, but in a general scope, it won’t really annoy most gamers. Then the latter issue with health replenishment locations — they are just a bit too spread out, which also shares the save point mechanism as well. Not a huge deal breaker, but it would have been ideal if there were more opportunities to refill your health at will.

The overall package of The Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is a strong one, which certainly eclipses the first attempt made years before it. It feels like a more mature installment than the first title, with more refinement to each of its previous weaknesses. The trilogy as a whole is worth the price of admission, especially given the fact that they should each be dirt cheap. More than worth the time invested into it.

Rating: 8.2