I’ve been a big fan of Prince of Persia since the beginning of the previous generation’s remake series (I’ve never completed a Prince of Persia game, but I am willing to live in blissful ignorance of that fact). Needless to say, I was excited at being able to try out the new game a few months before release, and also needless to say, it is a worthy successor to not only the previous series, but the originals to.

From that, I mean that the game holds features more common to the original Prince of Persia than the previous series, while still including the acrobatic thrill the last-gen games offered. In this, you might argue that it feels a bit like Assassin’s Creed (it does run on the same engine after all).

In the new Prince of Persia, the time-shifting TiVo system of old is replaced by a new gimmick. Her name is Elika. She is magic. That’s about it.

While you might expect Elika to be the star of the new game, she factors into the gameplay as little more than a weapon - being assigned to one of the buttons much the same as acrobatic attacks, or sword attacks are. This plays into combat interestingly as you jump around using deadly combinations to surprise and defeat your foes.

Talking of combat, in the new Prince of Persia you only fight one enemy at a time (an homage to the original? Or perhaps an example of the limitations of the Scimitar engine). This means that you need to think a lot more about every move you take, as you face death after one connecting strike to your vulnerable body and means that blocking is key to the game. Blocking is also key for the enemies, which is why the variety of attacks becomes so important to  surprise your enemy and get through his defence. It also makes for tactically engaging boss battles.

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Many questions arise from these gameplay shorts: Will there be any wacky super-powers this time around? Who’s this lady-type? Who keeps leaving that sand lying around in slopy areas?

One thing we’re sure of though is that Prince of Persia looks ruddy gorgeous - and it takes a lot for us to say ‘ruddy’.

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French gaming magazine Joypad have secured an exclusive, bearing the first ever in-game pictures from the new Prince of Persia game. It looks… different. Different in a good way, that is. It appears to have the art style of Okami (sloshed around with a bit of Street Fighter 4) meets Ico meets Twilight Princess and the amalgamation of styles has resulted in what looks to be an amazing new game from Ubisoft Montreal. Scans of the feature have been lovingly uploaded by twobrothersandasister.com and we’ve uploaded crops of the individual in-game screens for those who don’t read French!

This visual reboot appears to signal a reboot in the series in general, with signs hinting that the next game will be titled “Prince of Persia”. This is in no way a bad thing. Throughout the previous games the art-style was starting to tire, and the plot was starting to wear a little thin. We have really high hopes for this new game, and we look forward to some hints at the gameplay itself (which may be described in the article. If any of our readers can read French we’d appreciate if you drop us a line if there’s any useful info there).

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Source: TwoBrothersAndASister