Prince of Persia: Warrior Within Review

Anannya Sen ’s Review

Run along walls, slash your enemies and defy the Empress of Time in the next instalment of the classic Prince of Persia series!

Way back in the annals (read that word right people!) of history, one of the first reviews we had here at Mobile Game Faqs was Prince of Persia: The sands of time. To check out that review, click here. This is the sequel to that game, but can it better it? Read on to find out (or not as you've probably already looked at the score).

This is a perfect example of how far graphics have come on mobile phone games. For its time, POP: Sands of Time had great graphics, but in the Warrior Within we are taken to the next level so to speak. The graphics are stunning with well detailed characters, bright colours and background and the coolest animation on any phone game I've ever played. Check out the finishing moves and running on the wall if you don't believe me. The graphics are top notch.

The sound isn't bad either and the tune that plays is quite cool and matches the mood of the game. There are plenty of sound effects in the game and you have the option of turning on vibration as well. Finally we have a game where the developers spent a bit of effort on the sound as well, lately I was beginning to lose hope.

The controls are pretty straightforward, you can use the D or key pad to move your character around. The main button or 5 will attack and there are a few attack combinations you can do. Diagonals will let you jump and I preferred to use the keys for this (1 & 3). If you hold down 1 or 3 you will run along the wall until your special wall meter running thingy (the blue bar at the bottom of the screen) runs out. It builds back up pretty quickly though. You'll find yourself using this a lot in the game. You can drop of ledges, crouch and move around slowly, it's all in there. My one gripe is that sometimes when you have to fight someone, if you don't kill them properly (ie you knock them off a ledge instead of hacking them to death) sometimes your sword doesn't retract and so dropping down onto ledges may involve doing a small jump first so that your sword gets put away. This doesn't happen much although there is some call for having a 'sword retract' button. The main one (5) doesn't seem to do it. The attack combinations are pretty cool and you can unlock them as you progress. Also, when on the floor you can stab your enemies as well, killing them easily. Oh, and one more thing, hold up (2) to block. This wasn't mentioned in the instructions and there is a parry move from it!

The playability is superb, the game has a lot to it. The plot is there or thereabouts, but not overly elaborated on in the game. There are two mysterious sorceress figures, one good and one bad. The aim in each level is just to get to the end, but the levels are very interesting to play. As you go further in the game, some moves become unlocked and so you find yourself doing cool slashing combinations or running along walls to evade some spikes. There are two types of enemies as well, the normal ones you can see which sometimes attack in pairs, and the invisible ones as well!! You can usually still see their swords though (but not always). The game captures the essence of what being a great platformer is all about and I had a lot of fun playing this game.



The one aspect of the game which could be improved is the lastability. The game has seven levels which get slightly longer each time. The levels are more challenging as well, although you should still be able to get through the game at a reasonable pace. As you go further you unlock moves and the game saves progress at the end of each level. There appear to be infinite continues and because there are several checkpoints dotted around the levels, it's quite easy to finish the game if you can spare the time. At the end of each level you get a score and a rating (the number of continues are taken into account) from Novice to Sword Master (at least I think that's the top level). I suppose that you may be a perfectionist like me and want to go back to improve your rating on each level but this is the only real replay value. While the game is a whole lot of fun to play through, once you're finished I think that'll be it. There is no ability to upload or view scores on a network and the game does take a fair while to load. I would have liked more levels or maybe some kind of ending but I suppose you can't have everything can you?

If you like the Prince of Persia series, you'll love this latest addition.