After the Prince messed with time in his last adventure, The Sands of Time, the lord of time, the Dahaka (a huge jet black demon with long tentacles and bright yellow eyes) is rather annoyed, so he goes out chasing after the Prince to kill him. He must put a stop to this, so the Prince figures if he travels to the Castle of Time where the Sands of Time were created, and destroys the sands before they can be made, they can never cause problems in the first place, and the Dahaka will have no reason to go chasing him. Obviously this will completely erase the first game from existence, and surely create a Back to the Future Part II type paradox, but that’s not the worry right now.
Your adventure starts out at sea, on your way to the island where the Castle lies. Enemies from the Castle of Time board your ship, and you must face them and destroy them. This level basically serves as a fight tutorial for you to get used to the new combat system, and not worry about camera switching, winding time or platforming (none of which is possible in this first section). This works great as the combat system has changed, so it’s good to learn one thing at a time and not have everything thrown at you in one go.
You soon come to the end of the first area, and you are greeted by a female warrior. You must defeat her to complete the level. The difficulty suddenly spikes at this point, and from what was very easy with just a few enemies to attack, you are suddenly thrown right in at the deep end with an extremely hard boss fight. Well actually, the boss is very easy to beat, but unless you learn very quickly how to block and wait for the right moment, you’ll pay dearly for your mistakes. I think perhaps this was a little too tough for the first few minutes of the game, and I think a fair few people might even give up on it and take the game back. It is a very boring boss though, with very little imagination put into it, and you even fight the exact same character later in the game, and she uses the exact same moves on you, plus some all-new evil ones which seriously damage your health. Added to this some of the other boss fights are all a bit similar too, which is a great shame. Very weak indeed, especially considering later on you fight giant ogres, and even a huge flying Griffon, which is an entertaining battle. But when compared to the likes of Legend of Zelda and Metal Gear Solid, the boss fights aren’t quite up to the same standard.
Once you reach the castle, it’s Prince of Persia business as usual, as the platforming really takes off, and you are puzzling, wall running, jumping huge gaps and spinning-buzz-saw-evading your way through the game. This is where the first game excelled, with truly outstanding platform sections, which were beautifully designed and built. The ideas were great, and the puzzles, which complimented the platform sections, were excellent too. Sometimes very simple, but they were highly enjoyable and satisfying.
The combat system has changed quite dramatically since Sands of Time, with a much more complex and detailed set of attacks and combos that you can pull off (pages and pages of them in fact, if you pause the game have a look). You can now use two weapons at a time and do some serious damage to the enemies, and some of the moves are very bloodthirsty indeed. The combat in Sands of Time was criticised a lot by the media and gamers, as it had quite a lot of flaws and was generally frustrating, and there was definitely too much of it. Ubisoft have changed things for Warrior Within, but it still has issues and still really annoys you at times.
Gone are the teleporting (i.e. cheating) enemies from the first game, which would happily stand there battering you to death as you desperately tried to regain health from a water fountain, and gone is the seemingly endless spawning of enemy after enemy. What’s in its place are enemies, which I think, are tougher than before, and although there aren’t as many as before, there are more sections with enemies in. There seems to be a serious imbalance with how much energy they take off you when they strike you too – some do more damage than a hit from a boss character, which doesn’t seem quite right. They still attack you once you have been knocked to the ground, and they still surround you at times. This is most frustrating part of the game for me, especially when you’re in a new area. The Library section later on is a good example. You reach this new area, with lots to see and do, and you just get enemy after enemy after enemy dropping out of the sky attacking you. It’s not very enjoyable at all, and really dilutes the otherwise excellent Warrior Within experience.
Every part of the game has had a serious graphical overhaul, and gone is the East-European Arabian theme from last year’s game, and in its place is a very dark and evil look. The Prince himself now looks completely different, sporting dirty and torn darkly coloured clothing, and his face has lost the schoolboy image from Sands of Time, and now he too looks dark and fearless.
The game has received quite a lot of criticism for this new take on the graphics, and I think this is rather unfair, as the game doesn’t always look like this, and the story certainly justifies the new, moodier environment. Later in the game, you get to a Forest/Garden type area, with huge outside sections, and it really reminded me of Sony’s Ico. Over-saturated lighting bouncing off incredibly realistic wall and ground textures, and some of the most beautiful looking buildings I have ever seen in a videogame. The sense of scale is incredible too, equally matching the likes of Ico and the original Tomb Raider, with huge views out to sea with ships docked way below, and rays of bright sunshine striking through the trees and clouds - it’s outstanding, basically. Unfortunately you do pay the price for it at times with stuttery frame rates and tearing, but it never actually affects game play.
The beginning of the game may be very gothic and dark, but it certainly has many different areas of variety. Add to this, every area in the game is played in both the present and past time lines, and further differences are added here. In the past, the castle is immaculate, with shining gold coloured walls and lush green grass, and in the present, time has taken its toll, and part of the castle and surrounding areas are damaged and ruined. The Forest/Garden areas mentioned previously really stood in memory, as it’s completely overgrown with moss covering the walls and a strange mist hanging in the air.
The game’s music has had a change too, and gone is the Arabian Nights-style from Sands of Time. In its place is a guitar-nu-metal soundtrack, which I really, really disliked. For a few seconds – just sometimes – you think it works, but then you realise it really doesn’t, and you hope you reach a new platforming area soon which has classic ‘Persia style music. And very nice it is too.
The past and present time lines require you to play through the areas differently, as things are different to how they used to be. The game does require backtracking, as you go back and forth through time lines, and revisit areas to do new tasks. It’s odd having a non-linear platform game for a change, but it’s certainly different, and I think it works well.
The game still has the ingenious option to wind back time if you fall off a cliff or die in battle, and it’s so helpful you wish every platform game had something similar. You now have more offensive time-based attacks you can unleash on your enemy which work really well, especially against the boss battles you find yourself in.
I loved Warrior Within, I thought it was a truly amazing game to play through. It has all the things you loved from Sands of Time, and more of it too. It’s much bigger than the first game, and the story is interesting too, with a decent twist in it as well. Unfortunately, the combat doesn’t get much better as you progress through the game. You occasionally meet a couple of guards to fight, and have some fun with them, and that’s great, but for every instance of that sort of combat there’s an equal number of areas where you’re surrounded by enemy after enemy, and I got tired of it very quickly. The Dahaka chase sections in the game are brilliant, as the demon chases you down corridors and you must escape from him – these are really exciting and enjoyable, and add a sudden bit of suspense and panic into the game. Added to this, there are a few occasions where you must battle the giant ogres – these work well too, and you never feel cheated if you get beaten. I’d have been happier with more of this sort of thing and if they’d dropped some of the other combat as I really think it dilutes the quality of the game - you end up getting fed up with it. “Oh a new area to play in” moments are frequent, but the combat soon puts a stop to that feeling as you get battered by an ultra-fast invisible ninja or get killed by a wolf that explodes when it dies, often ripping into your health gauge at the same time – was there really any need for that?
I have to admit, the game doesn’t do itself any favours by having what is quite honestly an average first hour or so. Not much happens, you’re in fight after fight, and you have a really crap sword. But then you get a decent sword, and the proper platforming that you know and love is everywhere, and any fan of the original will be in love with it. A fantastic game, but if the combat had been less frustrating and bosses better, it could have been so much more. Hopefully we’ll see a sequel with further improvements in the future.
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