So I just recently finished Sands of Time...

[Darth Roxor]

Yes, bugs in WW are uberfun. I managed to encounter three completely game-breaking bugs on my various playthroughs. Two somewhere in the later beginning and one at the very end (and that one in the very end happened on my first playthrough. Much rage was produced)

 

[J1M]

For the story praise, I think I explained it well (at least, for sands of time). It pays homage to the source material of the Arabian nights (by being a story within a story), as well as making the gameplay mechanic of "rewinding" and integral part of the narrative.

In short, the story is tight, both in itself and the gameplay. It maybe simple, but very effective. Still waiting for my Warrior Within copy to arrive though.

Interesting. We both saw the same story and I got this out of it instead:
-Why is this prince so very very french?
-The whole game is reset, why not also say it was just a dream? Maybe they saved that original twist for the 3rd game I haven't played!
-This guy spends the whole game pining over this girl via his pussy of an inner voice, then meets her later after the story reset armed with the knowledge to easily get in the pants of a beautiful princess after saving her life... and instead jumps out the window. What a faggot.

 

[AzraelCC]

1) Well, when the credits rolled a lot fo the guys who made it were French. Or maybe it's just a nod to those anti-Islamic editorials those lovable French made--adding insult to injury :twisted:

2) It would have failed if there was no foreshadowing--but even at the beginning, we see the Prince running through the forest, the Princess suddenly waking up. At this point, you don't know why, but the fact that it was established early on(along with the Prince's realization that time is not a river, but an ocean, meaning there are many possibilities in time, and choice), the twist doesn't come off as lazy, which oftentimes is the case with the "it was actually a dream" twists. Besides, it can't be a dream, since the Prince remembers everything and does prevent the events from happening. Unlike most characters in videogames, the Prince undergoes a change.

3)Because the French are clearly faggots

 

[Vibalist]

I'll just chime in and add that I played and loved all three Sands of Time games. The first one is superior in the mood it sets, it being a fairly lighthearted fairy tale pulled off very nicely, with the quips between the two main characters ("She thinks this is a game!") being especially enjoyable. The second prevails in terms of beautiful graphics and dark athmosphere, along with the well written storyline, where the heavy metal soundtrack is the only thing that seriously pulls it down (I can't stress how much I hate the fucking music. It took so much away from the experience). The third, which I'm almost done with, is a nice mixture of the first two I feel, with many nice inventions, such as stealth kills and the horseback sections adding the last touches.

All three games have in common that the puzzles, combat, jumping, time reversal and the way that these work in unison are very, very well done. It's been a long ass time since I've played platformers as good as the POP trilogy. The games are also very well paced, in that you never feel there is too much of either element. Long stretches of jumping are rounded off with combat, then a puzzle, and then back to jumping again, and you never feel as if one section lasts too long. Ubisoft really hit the spot here, which is why I wonder they then churned out the mediocre POP4. Oh well.

EDIT:

Yeah it is the least gay PoP of the trilogy. Though it has a retarded design choice a.k.a. let's force player to visit the same places again and again.
I do like that it has 2 endings if you pay enough attention to the surroundings.

I'll add to this that while it was cool having two endings, it was pretty nonsensical that the amount of life upgrades you got determined the ending. I'd rather it was some choice you made at some point. It didn't have to be an obvious choice ala Bioware, but still.

DOUBLE EDIT:

I'd also like to add that even though the soundtrack for Warrior Within sucked balls, I can't for the life of me get this track out of my head. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaaOmM8kf7k&feature=related
The grandfather clock sound that they use for the drums is simply amazing.

 

[peak]

Sands of Time is one of the best games this decade has produced, I like just about everything in it. You already said what I think about it Azrael so I'll leave it at that. Jordan Mechner is the man and I hope he will return to video games sometime.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Well, all of the gamnes are great.

Warrior within may have a emo prince, but the story is also great, and the setting of islando of time is very well done, although it has that "one color" type of world like a quake game (brown or gray), but the level design is amazing. Sometimes it may cofuse you, since you go back and forth on the same levels in diferent periods of time.

Combat is an improvement, but now the upgrades are more difficult to find, and missing one of them may make it difficult, or even impossible, to get to the canon ending. So make sure you get all the upgrades.

The game is more difficult though, but combat is fun, and save points work almost like the first one. The look of the prince and his voice changed, but if you liked sands of time, WW is your best option for a different yet similar game to SOT.

WW is less "linear" than SOT and TTT, and is longer. The fact that you have to go more than once through the same levels may feel boring, but sometimes, finding your way, where to go is a puzzle in it's own way.

Then comes two thrones, which has the improved controls of the second game, but it is closer to the first one. The visual of the prince is closer to the second, but they brought back the same voice actor from the first, which is way better than the one from the second game.

The gamne has a feeling of the 1st game due to the similar enviroments and the linear progress. And it has a closure for the story the ties every events of of the trilogy, and has a very nice final dialogue, that makes you feel like playing the whole trilogy again, and again, and again...

People may say WW and TTT to be inferior to SOT, and they are, but that doesn't mean they're bad.

This game trilogy is one of the fewer modern games that I replayed more than once because it was addictive and had a great story. Some games nowadays are long, and even when they're good, once you finish, you're done with it.

 

[bhlaab]

Sand of Time is brilliant

Warrior Within is godawful
Two Thones is okay-ish
Prince of Persia 2008 is godawful

Especially if you're in it for the story. Jordan Mechner (the sole developer of the original Prince of Persia game) wrote the story and all of the dialogue for Sands of Time, but had nothing to do with the next three.
(He did write the script for the upcoming Sands of Time film adaptation, though)

 

[bhlaab]

oh whoops this thread is a fucking year old

 

[Darth Slaughter]

damn!

 

[Reject_666_6]

People seem to be hugely butthurt over the art style of Warrior Within. The music IS generic, though, but it did its job. It built a very middle-eastern atmosphere outside of combat and built a good bit of excitement during the Dahaka chases.

I played all three time-PoP games, plus the new one that was very bad, so I'll give some pros and cons for each:

Sands of Time has the best storytelling, the best developed characters and you might enjoy the Arabic Palace setting the most. Plus, it was the first, so it gets props just for that. I'd say it has the best puzzles too, even though the other two games are pretty much more of the same.

Warrior Within has the most impressive levels, it's much longer than the other games and it has the best combat and acrobatics by far - better even that Two Thrones. The story is on par with the first game (basically the first two games feature their own distinct time-travel trope stories, but both delivered). The Dahaka chases were great, one of my favourite parts of the game. What I didn't like were the shallow characters and the game-breaking bugs I had. I had to find a savegame from just after where I left off to be able to finish the game...

The Two Thrones is a complicated piece of work to describe. It's kind of in between the first two games in every aspect, and excels at nothing that the other games do at. It's still really good, though, and provides for some interesting new gameplay with the alternate prince and it's new speed-kill system. They kind of played it safe with this one. I hated those fucking wall-trampolines that you have to wall-run into and jump from - this game basically removed the semi-believable parkour of the first two games and made it a lot more gravity-defying. The chariot race was kind of like the Dahaka chases, which is good. The game also ends the story in a satisfactory way. You should definitely play it.

The new one is fantasy parkour with a magic safety-net woman and a few bits of colourful Superman-esque feats just to sicken you a bit more. The combat is rare, but it's pretty much press the XYZ button to kill the boss, tap ABC really fast to finish him and if you fail his life bar is full again and you try and try again. The only interesting bits were the final boss-fight and the ending from there. The DLC shit ruined the ending, though, so... yeah it's a bad game.

So, IMO, SoT and WW are at the top, TT is a bit lower and the new one is at the bottom.

 

[Rohit_N]

How did the DLC end the game? I have the PC version, so I don't know.

 

[Reject_666_6]

I played on PC too, but I watched the DLC level on youtube. The prince survives, whatsername is mad at you for bringing her back, she leaves at the end to find her "people" and it's pretty obvious that after another trilogy it'll be a standard feel-good ending.

 

[pipka]

I loved PoP trilogy. It's one of those games with decent story we don't get today.
I appreciated greatly the transition between SoT and WW. SoT ended with supposed juvenile happy ending. But in WW everything had gone too hell with Prince becoming paranoid emo-sociopath.

 

[BLOBERT]

I HAVE AN IDEA HOW ABOUT YOU TAKE YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS CONSOLETARDS THIS FUCKING THREAD IS RETARDED EVEN A COOL GUY LIKE SKYWAY GETS ALL HAPY ABOUT THIS CONSOLE PEACE OF SHIT. MAYBE MOST PEOPLE IN THIS THREAD SHOULD STEP BACK FROM THE COMPUTER, FUCK THEMSELVES, THEN GO TO GAMESPOT WITH THE REST OF THE CONSOLE KIDDIES ESPECIALLY HIPPOCRITS LIKE SKYWAY I THOUGH YOU WERE COOL BRO!!!!!!11

 

[bhlaab]

I remember Warrior Within had a lot of terrible combat, and the platforming often screwed you over with awful camera angles that didn't quite give you the best sense of depth perception. I didn't like the Dahaka chases, the story was full of the standard time travel cliches that Sands of Time managed to avoid, the dialogue was embarassingly adolescent, and the level design was much rougher around the edges (and they made you go through each area multiple times just to be dicks)

As a couple of bonus notes, you have to find every hidden area to get the real ending and I ran into a showstopping bug where a platform spawned 10 feet away from the wall it was meant to be a part of.

On the other hand, Two Thrones re-improved/un-ruined the gameplay and story, but both areas rose to only half of SoT's glory.

 

[Reject_666_6]

Well, at least we agree on SoT being on top and on TT being in between the other two.

I disagree about everything else except the bad dialogue and the bugs.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Warrior Within is godawful

Prince of Persia 2008 is godawful

You just can't put those two games in one box... it's just not right.


For me PoP 2008 does not belong into the SoT Trilogy, PERIOD.

 

[Vibalist]

I remember Warrior Within had a lot of terrible combat

Such as where?

and the platforming often screwed you over with awful camera angles that didn't quite give you the best sense of depth perception.

To be frank, all the games had this fault.

the story was full of the standard time travel cliches that Sands of Time managed to avoid

Such as what?

and the level design was much rougher around the edges (and they made you go through each area multiple times just to be dicks)

I actually liked going back, especially if you went back to a prior area in a different time period. There's nothing wrong with backtracking when an area has something new when you return to it, which was mostly the case in WW.[/quote]

 

[J1M]

For the story praise, I think I explained it well (at least, for sands of time). It pays homage to the source material of the Arabian nights (by being a story within a story), as well as making the gameplay mechanic of "rewinding" and integral part of the narrative.

In short, the story is tight, both in itself and the gameplay. It maybe simple, but very effective. Still waiting for my Warrior Within copy to arrive though.

I don't understand how you can gush about the story without bothering to mention how stilted and awkward the main character is within it. He is very clearly 'french' in his inner monologues and interactions with the princess, etc.

Furthermore, "everything was a dream/we went back in time and changed it" story lines generally feel cheap and I didn't find this game to be an exception.

 

[bhlaab]

I remember Warrior Within had a lot of terrible combat

Such as where?

Are you kidding me? Every 5 seconds you're fighting some asshole.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

I remember Warrior Within had a lot of terrible combat

Such as where?

Are you kidding me? Every 5 seconds you're fighting some asshole.

Combat was too common but combat system itself was pretty good, at least I had fun with it for first few mob gangs at every gaming session.

 

[Vibalist]

I remember Warrior Within had a lot of terrible combat

Such as where?

Are you kidding me? Every 5 seconds you're fighting some asshole.

But where was it ever terrible?

 

[DwarvenFood]

I HAVE AN IDEA HOW ABOUT YOU TAKE YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS CONSOLETARDS THIS FUCKING THREAD IS RETARDED EVEN A COOL GUY LIKE SKYWAY GETS ALL HAPY ABOUT THIS CONSOLE PEACE OF SHIT. MAYBE MOST PEOPLE IN THIS THREAD SHOULD STEP BACK FROM THE COMPUTER, FUCK THEMSELVES, THEN GO TO GAMESPOT WITH THE REST OF THE CONSOLE KIDDIES ESPECIALLY HIPPOCRITS LIKE SKYWAY I THOUGH YOU WERE COOL BRO!!!!!!11

i lolled. bigtime.

 

[Castanova]

Upon reading this thread, I got SoT immediately (having never played it previously). I have to say I'm somewhat disappointed given some of the praise here. The puzzles/jumping is pretty fun but the combat is absolutely dreadful and the camera does nothing to help. Also, the controls are camera-dependent and as such can be quite flaky. Overall, I'm about a third of the way through and I have a hard time imagining the game presenting me with anything that I haven't seen besides harder jumping puzzles. The current room I'm in has about 5 of those golden buttons and it's just a process of wandering around and figuring out what each button controls. Not exactly exciting stuff.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Warrior Within is a lot better in the combat department.