Time spent with the first couple of hours of Prince Of Persia, Ubisoft Montreal’s reimagining of the series, reveals a smorgasbord of influences. There’s a twist of Ico in the physicality of the relationship between the Prince and Elika, his female sidekick, as well its brand of spatial orienteering. There’s Shadow Of The Colossus in its structure – an open world spread around a central hub – as well as in Elika’s ability to show the direction of the next destination. There’s Okami in the showers of flowers and light as evil is cleared from an area. More western inspiration comes in the form of Uncharted for the Prince and Elika’s relationship and decidedly American countenances, though the script hasn’t yet proved as sharp, and the characters are hardly as charming. Elika, in fact, displays little character in these early sections, while the Prince’s wisecracks and semi-permanent toothy smirk make him goofier than seems apt for this portentous world of mysterious life forces and shadow beasts.

He’s much better in motion, of course, with moves as fluid as Assassin’s Creed’s Altaïr, but with a more extensive set of fabulous abilities, including the wall running and jumping that defined Sands Of Time’s Prince. The difference with that predecessor is a much more streamlined set of controls: the right stick and A pretty much cover everything. Like Assassin’s Creed’s control scheme, however, it demands that players bend to its own rules – an errant stab at A to prompt the Prince to pull himself on to a ledge will make him jump back off the wall instead. When you relax into the scheme, you’ll find him bounding effortlessly through the assault courses that he’s given to traverse, but there’s often the nagging feeling that you’re not fully in control. Even timing jumps doesn’t need to be very precise.



The Prince will still fall often, however. Most obstacles require a distinct set of commands to negotiate, which demand a combination of instinct and trial-and-error to determine. Failure is rarely penalised, thanks to a very forgiving checkpoint system in the guise of Elika. Replacing Sands Of Time’s rewind, Elika grasps the Prince’s hand in a blaze of magical blue light as he plummets and deposits him on the nearest solid ground that he passed. Elika is present from the game’s very outset, sweeping up the Prince in her flight from her father and his soldiers. The action follows them as they run to the game’s central hub, where they’re confronted by her angry parent who, in an ensuing struggle with the Prince, destroys a mysterious blue glowing tree and thus causes the spread of the Corruption. This dark force subsumes the verdant beauty of the world and turns the soldiers into hulking stony beasts. The story is mainly told though its short, focused cutscenes, which, oddly, don’t feature the nominal interactivity of those in most other recent Ubisoft games. By pressing the left trigger, however, the Prince can talk with Elika at any time while walking around to add more detail to the tale and their relationship.