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Prince of Persia "being paused"
- Thread starter AHA-Lambda
- Start date
Glass Rebel
Member
It all depends on the budget. They probably threw way more money at it than they should've just based on the legacy of the franchise and didn't end up turning THAT much of a profit off of it.
Meanwhile the AC series is making them ROLL in it, hence the annualization of it.
I guess it could've been worse, we could be getting shitty yearly PoP filler titles using 2008's assets.
I loved the original Jordan Mechner game on the Mac back around 1995:
...really disliked the PS2 games (the Disney-ish art style just didn't do it for me), but liked the bits of PoP '08 that I played. I got stuck and never went back to the game -- I really should pick it up again.
...really disliked the PS2 games (the Disney-ish art style just didn't do it for me), but liked the bits of PoP '08 that I played. I got stuck and never went back to the game -- I really should pick it up again.
Well, actually we DO know what happened next. We got that Epilogue DLC, and it pretty much showed what could've easily been implied from a sequel - Elika gets pissed and leaves 'The Prince' and goes off on her own. Why did we have to see that?
Really interesting. How did it acquire the rep of being a bomb? I've never questioned the general assumption that it didn't sell well.
Acquiescence
Member
The solution is simple Ubisoft, just give the world what it wants - a sequel to Nolan North of Persia. That game was ace and long overdue another installment.
Leon S. Kennedy
Member
POP 2008 was one of the worst games I've 'played' this generation. It makes pong seem complex in comparison. I hope they take the series in a direction that has more emphasis on gameplay. I thought sands of time was good
The epilogue kinda destroyed that game's story for me. The original ending is perfect the way it is.When do we get the sequel to this?:
That epilogue didn't answer shit. I need more.
SeriousApes
Member
I really thought Ubi were going to alternate between AC and PoP each year. But then Brotherhood came out that year and so on.
I liked PoP'08 kinda... Mostly for the art style and Elika (I have a crush on Kari Wahlgren's voice). They could have improved on it with a sequel.
I thought Forgotten Sands was pretty enjoyable. It had more involving platforming. Though I would have preferred those mechanics worked into the Nolan North PoP universe.
I liked PoP'08 kinda... Mostly for the art style and Elika (I have a crush on Kari Wahlgren's voice). They could have improved on it with a sequel.
I thought Forgotten Sands was pretty enjoyable. It had more involving platforming. Though I would have preferred those mechanics worked into the Nolan North PoP universe.
jediyoshi
Member
But how did it make you feel?
Put out 'unqiue art style with no gameplay - the game' and Gaf will buy it
revolverjgw
Member
Forgotten Sands was a fine game that redeemed the series after the insultingly bad PoP2008, but I can see why they'd want to put the franchise into cryo for now. The popularity isn't what it used to be and it needs more than just a "fine game" to make it relevant again, really.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
That's probably for the best. Let the recent guffaws fade out of memory, and bring it back refreshed.
Acquiescence
Member
Truly a game that lives up to its title.
revolverjgw
Member
I ain't even mad. Might be alright.
My support for Ubisoft honestly paused as soon as they abandoned PoP 08.
That was easily the best PoP yet, and I honestly can't believe they didn't finish out the story. For about 3 years I was sure they wouldn't leave it like that. Got excited every single E3 and was always let down.
That was easily the best PoP yet, and I honestly can't believe they didn't finish out the story. For about 3 years I was sure they wouldn't leave it like that. Got excited every single E3 and was always let down.
Yep. And they should also include multiplayer - Uncharted like. Oh hell, make the whole game Uncharted. Just like Tomb Raider.
PoP 2008 had Nolan North + semi-automated platforming already. That's how advanced they were back then.
Expected, but fuck. PoP was one of the last big console franchises that I still cared about, and I'm really skeptical that Ubisoft will ever actually revisit it.
The epilogue only served to ruin what is one of the most daring endings in gaming.
...damn.
The epilogue only served to ruin what is one of the most daring endings in gaming.
When I realized what I had to do
They were hardly evolved, but rather sharply devolved. AC is not a platforming substitute for PoP.
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Osiris does not equal PoP
Fixed and I agree.
Throughout the game, you're trying to cleanse this kingdom of this spread evil darkness (sounds fucking generic when I say it...), but in the Okami-style of cleansing where everything is now super pretty and not grimy and dead.
But to finally put the bad guy away, Elika (your partner) has to sacrifice her own life. She does, and the Prince is super upset. But then you make the same decision her father made which started all of this - you release the villain and his plague for the sole purpose of saving her life. It ends with you carrying her revived body away from the kingdom, with her realizing what you did. She then asks why you saved her life, and what it's worth when compared to the cost of letting the villain go, saying "What is one grain of sand in a desert? What is one grain of sand in a storm?"
But to finally put the bad guy away, Elika (your partner) has to sacrifice her own life. She does, and the Prince is super upset. But then you make the same decision her father made which started all of this - you release the villain and his plague for the sole purpose of saving her life. It ends with you carrying her revived body away from the kingdom, with her realizing what you did. She then asks why you saved her life, and what it's worth when compared to the cost of letting the villain go, saying "What is one grain of sand in a desert? What is one grain of sand in a storm?"
I actually think that's one franchise that might be a good fit for Ninja Theory.
I even got this just for the story and the game is damn near unplayable, and hideously ugly. What a joke.
Plot synopsis
Setting and characters
Prince of Persia: The Fallen King is set in ancient Persia, in a fictional city-state called the City of the New Dawn, where Zoroastrianism is the dominant religion. In the City of the New Dawn, the recently-liberated primary antagonist of the game, the god Ahriman, runs rampant and begins infecting the land. The game primarily focuses on the Prince character, and his companion, Zal, as the duo attempt to locate the king of the land, who they suspect can help stop Ahriman.
Story
Following the events of Prince of Persia and Prince of Persia Epilogue, the story begins with the split of the Prince and Elika. While Elika stays with the Ahura, leading the resistance against Ahriman, the Prince departs in search of the king of The City of New Dawn, in the hope that he can summon Ormazd, due to his affinity for the remnants of Ormazd's power. But here, the Prince finds a new ally, Zal, who introduces himself as one of the king's Magi and teams up with Prince to save the City of New Dawn from corruption and ultimately stop Ahriman.
Later on, Zal reveals that the King was split in two by the Corruption: into a corrupted beast and into himself. The Ancestor, a character that had occasional helped the Prince and Zal, guides them to find a special power to save the city. This power then fuses the Prince and Zal into one being that preserves both Zal's powers and the Prince's acrobatics. Together they face and defeat the king's monstrous half. The defeat of the beast frees Zal from the Corruption, but also causes him to perish. The Prince then frees the land from the Corruption by reaching the city's seal. In the end, the Ancestor leaves a message of hope for the Prince, promising that, in time, an inner power would be revealed and new ally would be found.
Setting and characters
Prince of Persia: The Fallen King is set in ancient Persia, in a fictional city-state called the City of the New Dawn, where Zoroastrianism is the dominant religion. In the City of the New Dawn, the recently-liberated primary antagonist of the game, the god Ahriman, runs rampant and begins infecting the land. The game primarily focuses on the Prince character, and his companion, Zal, as the duo attempt to locate the king of the land, who they suspect can help stop Ahriman.
Story
Following the events of Prince of Persia and Prince of Persia Epilogue, the story begins with the split of the Prince and Elika. While Elika stays with the Ahura, leading the resistance against Ahriman, the Prince departs in search of the king of The City of New Dawn, in the hope that he can summon Ormazd, due to his affinity for the remnants of Ormazd's power. But here, the Prince finds a new ally, Zal, who introduces himself as one of the king's Magi and teams up with Prince to save the City of New Dawn from corruption and ultimately stop Ahriman.
Later on, Zal reveals that the King was split in two by the Corruption: into a corrupted beast and into himself. The Ancestor, a character that had occasional helped the Prince and Zal, guides them to find a special power to save the city. This power then fuses the Prince and Zal into one being that preserves both Zal's powers and the Prince's acrobatics. Together they face and defeat the king's monstrous half. The defeat of the beast frees Zal from the Corruption, but also causes him to perish. The Prince then frees the land from the Corruption by reaching the city's seal. In the end, the Ancestor leaves a message of hope for the Prince, promising that, in time, an inner power would be revealed and new ally would be found.
Agreed. One of my favorite games this gen and I hope they give the game a proper sequel with improved combat and less collecting.
Pachterballs
Banned
Good.
Getting really long in the tooth
Getting really long in the tooth
I never got the hate for Elika saving you.
They eliminated the 'Game Over' screen as to promote exploration via the platforming, which is the whole point of the game. Some of those platforming sections go on for fucking ever. Having a 'Game Over' screen would only slow things down even further. The bullshit that "you can't die" was so dumb. You failed, you fell, and now you have to do the section over again. You died. They just didn't make you press a 'continue' button and make you go through a loading screen to reset you.
And in combat, if you "died", the enemy got all their health back. Which y'know, is what would happen ANYWAY if you had to reload after a 'Game Over' screen.
People need to fucking think about their criticisms.
Sentenza
Member
It sells loads and it doesn't even need to be remotely good to achieve it, so why they should pause it?
PoP 2008 I believe only got so much flack because you can't die in the game.
It certainly was an easy game, but man the concept could have difinitely been built upon. The combat and traversal improved would have been great.
All dying is in PoP is waiting for a load screen to start you over. PoP elegantly cuts out anything that takes you out of the game world and made it into a completely seamless experience.
Not only was it smart gameplay design, but they incorporated it into the whole story in critical ways.
You can only get past one boss by taking a leap of faith off the edge of a cliff and trusting that the real Elika will save you, like she always does.
Then of course all of this plays into the emotional impact in the ending as well.
Honestly, people who couldn't appreciate any of that are straight up idiots, and I've been playing the series since the first one on SNES. The game was brilliant.
Glass Rebel
Member
Copying myself from a previous thread:
It's true that the game was insultingly easy at times but they went around that somewhat with those shiny thingamajigs. Sadly there was very little incentive to actually collect the remaining ~200.
It's true that the game was insultingly easy at times but they went around that somewhat with those shiny thingamajigs. Sadly there was very little incentive to actually collect the remaining ~200.
She doesn't say that. Ahriman does.
Wait, what? Rewatch it dude. I am so certain she's the one who says it. Even if she doesn't say it TO the prince, it's her narrating it.
Whatever they do with the franchise, I'm definitely voting against a follow-up to PoP 2008. The game was really pretty, and the story was acceptable, but almost everything else about it was ill-conceived.
* Platforming was almost completely challenge-free. It looked cool, and felt OK at first, but before long the mile-wide input windows made it feel like you were playing an enormous quick time event. The environments required no ingenuity to traverse -- the intended path was usually spelled out for you to an insulting degree. (There were some optional "light seeds" that were hard to get, but that's a pretty lame place to hide the challenge.)
* I think the fantastical environments, which bore no resemblance at all to real places, were a mistake. They looked kind of neat, but an element of the appeal of the earlier games was the feeling of... transgression, as you traversed somewhat-recognizable architecture in a creative way. (Of course, this was an illusion, and you were using the levels exactly as the designers intended, but that's kind of just the nature of videogames.)
* What few puzzles there were weren't very interesting. The "magic plate" segments were also lame. Most of them required such lenient, minimal inputs that they were practically cutscenes, and the rest were just tiresome.
* The non-linear level progression was a gimmick -- the order in which you did the levels had no discernable impact on the game, making your "freedom of choice" totally pointless. Moreover, it seemed to destroy their ability to craft a decent difficulty curve, or to construct a satisfying progression for the story -- the build to its climax, the characters' reactions to their situation, etc. felt disjointed.
* I thought the choice to restrict combat to only 1-on-1 battles was interesting. But, it didn't amount to much. The enemies had limited, lame patterns, and the battles were riddled with "random button prompt" QTEs. There was a combo tree, but there weren't really enough battles in the game to let you learn and explore it.
(I had no problem with the maligned “no death” aspect, beyond its contribution to the overall lack of challenge in the game. It’s effectively just a really generous checkpoint system, with a cutscene to mask the reload.)
* Platforming was almost completely challenge-free. It looked cool, and felt OK at first, but before long the mile-wide input windows made it feel like you were playing an enormous quick time event. The environments required no ingenuity to traverse -- the intended path was usually spelled out for you to an insulting degree. (There were some optional "light seeds" that were hard to get, but that's a pretty lame place to hide the challenge.)
* I think the fantastical environments, which bore no resemblance at all to real places, were a mistake. They looked kind of neat, but an element of the appeal of the earlier games was the feeling of... transgression, as you traversed somewhat-recognizable architecture in a creative way. (Of course, this was an illusion, and you were using the levels exactly as the designers intended, but that's kind of just the nature of videogames.)
* What few puzzles there were weren't very interesting. The "magic plate" segments were also lame. Most of them required such lenient, minimal inputs that they were practically cutscenes, and the rest were just tiresome.
* The non-linear level progression was a gimmick -- the order in which you did the levels had no discernable impact on the game, making your "freedom of choice" totally pointless. Moreover, it seemed to destroy their ability to craft a decent difficulty curve, or to construct a satisfying progression for the story -- the build to its climax, the characters' reactions to their situation, etc. felt disjointed.
* I thought the choice to restrict combat to only 1-on-1 battles was interesting. But, it didn't amount to much. The enemies had limited, lame patterns, and the battles were riddled with "random button prompt" QTEs. There was a combo tree, but there weren't really enough battles in the game to let you learn and explore it.
(I had no problem with the maligned “no death” aspect, beyond its contribution to the overall lack of challenge in the game. It’s effectively just a really generous checkpoint system, with a cutscene to mask the reload.)
Collecting all the light orbs was awesome, and it was really challenging to get to all of them. The final light orb was during the ending too and if you actually got them all it added to the impact. Many were unique platforming mini-puzzles to figure out. That's part of where the difficulty was in this game.
There's also an achievement for beating the game with Elika saving you from death only a few times, which isn't insultingly easy. People just ignored it.
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
Why do I feel this is a weird glimpse into the future of DMC too?
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