Marc Cellucci
Picture it: Texas, 1991. I had spent months poring over issues of Computer Shopper, lusting over various beige boxes and VGA monitors. My venerable Tandy 1000 and its Radio Shack aroma had grown obsolete, and I begged my folks incessantly for a new computer.
Then finally the dream came true — I was gifted a 386SX, with it’s blazing 16 MHz power! I barely left my room for weeks. Coming from DOS, Windows 3.1 was endlessly fascinating, and I became a certified Solitaire and Minesweeper expert. But things really changed when I got my hands on the mighty Prince of Persia.
Prince of Persia was a revelation. I had played Karateka on a Commodore 64 and liked it, but this was something completely new. The animations were so fluid, the setting was so exotic, and the freeform exploration was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was like playing one of those claymation adventure movies they’d show on Saturday afternoon TV.
That right there is a signed print by the great Jordan Mechner, creator of Prince of Persia. To me, Jordan Mechner is just about as fine a designer as they come. This guy is the man. The journals he kept and published during the making of PoP, as well as his design bible for PoP2, are fascinating reads. He’s also an artist, author, screenwriter, and object of a man crush by yours truly.
I love Prince of Persia. So join me as my love is betrayed, rekindled, betrayed again, rekindled again, and over and over as we explore the Prince of Persia Series.
Prince of Tomb Raider
I somehow didn’t get around the game’s sequel (more on that later), so the next one I played was the much-maligned Prince of Persia 3D, where Prince of Persia became a Tomb Raider clone. But you know what? This game wasn’t half bad. It had some cool locales, and classic Tomb Raider style action and adventure. Bugs and jankiness kind of killed it for most people though.
And speaking of jank, it commits what should be considered a cardinal sin of software. See that load screen? It has a progress bar that slowly fills, and you’d think that once it’s full the loading was done, right? WRONG. The bar empties and loops again! It does this several times before the stage actually loads. Who thought this was a good idea?
How to Revive — and Ruin — a Franchise
The series was eventually acquired by Ubisoft, and this was exciting to me. Ubi was ballin’ in the late ’90s and early aughts (see Rayman, Splinter Cell, and Beyond Good and Evil to name a few), and my excitement was warranted when they dropped Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. They wisely brought the mighty Mechner back, and created one of the standout action/adventure games of its generation.
But since we can’t have nice things, Ubisoft then delivered Warrior Within. Oh god. I can see the initial planning meetings now — a bunch of developers in No Fear T-shirts and jorts, hopped up on Mountain Dew, saying how cool it would be to get rid of all the magic and wonder, and replace it with sick dialogue, hella tight guitars, and a metal thong up every female derriere.
The early 2000s were all about being XTREME, and Ubisoft went with that circle of the Venn diagram. I hated it, and I wasn’t alone — Jordan Mechner himself didn’t like the direction. That’s how you know you did something wrong.
Setting aside its edgelord skin, there was actually a good game in there. But the damage was done, they had ruined everything, and their attempt to reconcile things with The Two Thrones wasn’t enough. I was done, the prince was done, it was all over. Good night, sweet prince.
The Prince Will Never Die
But of course I got sucked back in. When I saw the screenshots of the new, cel-shaded Prince of Persia, I knew I had to play it, and I’m glad I did — spoiler alert for the rankings below, but I consider it the best Prince of Persia game of all time.
There, I said it. This game had it all — wonderful worlds to explore, great dialogue and voice acting, and refined action and controls.
Lots of people complained that you couldn’t die, which is true, but let’s break this down. If you fall off a cliff, instead of being put right back to try again, you’d rather wait for a game over screen, then be kicked to the main menu, select the save file, and wait for everything reload? You do you, I guess.
What people didn’t realize about this game is that it is a playground. You are given amazing environments to explore and negotiate, and that’s the core of the game. Not swordplay or boss battles. And certainly not reloading every time you die.
After that, Ubisoft went buck wild, with four completely different games under the moniker of The Forgotten Sands, as well as the PoP movie, which I felt was a perfectly fine excuse to eat a bucket of popcorn and a pack of Sour Patch Kids.
None of it took the world by storm however, and the corporate types at the soul-sucked shell of the once great Ubisoft decided to put the Prince back on the shelf.
Prince of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Then in 2024, a miracle happened — an excellent Prince of Persia game was released! The Lost Crown is as good as you’ve heard, and is one of the most expansive and thrilling Metroidvanias I’ve played. It was also the cause of legit repetitive stress disorder. Especially towards the end, there are sections that require so much controller jockeying that each time I finished one, I had to slowly release the death grip I had on the controller, and then go take some Advil.
That aside, it is a brilliant game that sold decently… so of course Ubisoft disbanded the team. Sigh.
Swimming in the Spikes
As with Tomb Raider, I decided to go back and fill in the holes in the series, so I can say I played through them all. Now we dive straight into the spiky pit.
First up were the J2ME mobile games, of which there are seven. I started with Harem Adventures, and I ended with Harem Adventures. The OG PoP experience is faithfully recreated for your 2003 cellphone, but in between levels you get juvenile interstitial screens, where the ladies from the harem say they’ll “introduce you to Persia and its carnal delights.” I’m guessing the Warrior Within team had some input here. After finishing it, I decided that mobile games aren’t canon anyway, and skipped the rest.
On to the Nintendo DS and The Fallen King. Credit where credit is due — the devs did absolutely everything you could possibly do with the stylus. In fact, all controls are with the stylus, including walking and jumping. While this was an interesting experiment, there was no point where I thought the game was better off for exclusively using the stylus. It was a drab, over-long slog as well. I finished it, gave the turn-based strategy of Battles of Prince of Persia a try, didn’t like it, and decreed these titles to be non-canon as well.
Prepare to Die
Now I was finally ready to play the game that I had been avoiding all this time — Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame. It was a huge upgrade in scope and presentation from the original, but would it hold up after all these years?
The answer is a resounding NO. It is one of the most obtuse and unfriendly games I’ve played in a long time. It outright hates you.
You start by jumping out of a window, and if you don’t immediately turn left, draw your sword, and make with the stabby-stabby, you get insta-killed. And there are tons of scenes that are even more obtuse. Multi-screen blind jumps, usually to death. Enemies that are next to impossible to hit with your sword (I’m looking at you, Medusa heads). Shaking back and forth so your “shadow man” self comes out of your body, which is completely unexplained. An unholy scene with a collapsing bridge that requires godlike timing. Having to get killed intentionally in one part to proceed. A completely abstract ending area. This is a game made to sell strategy guides if there ever was one.
The Definitive Prince of Persia Rankings
I was hoping to end this retrospective having beat a good game, but today is not that day. That said, at least I am able to give you the definitive PoP rankings:
11. The Fallen King: Hope you like the stylus.
10. Harem Adventures: Old school PoP gets dragged into the gutter.
9. Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame: Hateful.
8. Warrior Within: Xtreme suckage.
7. Prince of Persia 3D: Tomb Raider with turbans.
6.The Forgotten Sands: Meh, but solid meh.
5. The Two Thrones: Somewhat cleans up the mess that was Warrior Within.
4. Prince of Persia (OG): A groundbreaking title.
3. The Lost Crown: A glorious Metroidvania that will destroy your hands.
2. The Sands of Time: A wonderful reboot (that Ubisoft summarily ruined).
1. Prince of Persia (2018): Sadly misunderstood, but if you get it, you get it.
Got a series you want me to take on next? Leave a comment and let me know!
