Quicktime events ruin the combat.
The sword combat could feel brilliant and flow with beauty. However, Prince of Persia never lets this happen, as it's interrupted with quicktime events. This was that era. The absolute worst thing of the Seventh Generation: QTE. Quite disappointing. Seriously some of the best swordplay I've experienced in a video game, but the QTE ruins it. Just awful. Sad.
The last level isn't fun.
The variation of perspective and lack of colour for the parkour-ing makes it difficult in an un-fun and un-challenging way. Just annoying. I feel personally insulted when game devs don't respect my time, and don't play-test games enough. Yes, it looks beautiful. Initially. But any game can look dull and uninspiring when you've seen the same stage for the tenth time in the same fifteen minutes.
The levels are too linear.
You can choose where to go, but you really can't take alternate routes to get there. Makes traveling the same areas feel pointless after you collect the spirit things that unlock powers, so it's essential you can teleport to fast-travel. As the paths are so linear the parkour would have benefited from more parts where the route is better defined, which allows for efficient sleekness of uninterrupted gameplay.
...That's really the heart of PoP's problem: in an effort to tell its story, Prince of Persia constantly interrupts itself needlessly. Makes me appreciate something revolutionary that much more, like when The Last of Us showed gamers that story could be told during travel, during breaks in action, without stopping the natural flow of the game. I understand needing to tell the story, but we now know better ways to do this without stopping the player's meaningful interaction completely dead.
Games like Prince of Persia make me angry. It's not just some average game. It's not some forgettable experience. Prince of Persia is a beautiful game with timeless (gameplay) animation and some genuinely enjoyable parkour-style platforming. It's a memorable game. I wouldn't be angered by something notoriously awful like Superman 64. Universally hated, I can watch 10 seconds of gameplay and know that game was a steaming turd. But PoP had so much potential to be a great game. All that held it back were poor decisions. Technological limitations and know-how do not limit Prince of Persia at all. It was simply bad choices. It's incredibly disappointing. I would LOVE a remake that dispenses with the QTE and constant breaks in parkour travel. Fix those things, and you have a great game. Allow the combat to feel continuous. The story should be told in dialogue like it is, but allow it to unfold naturally without interrupting travel.
That's it. Fix these things and you instead have a game that is perfectly-paced and flows with the player, not against her.
I really wanted to love this game. I damn-near did. But I will not be replaying PoP, sadly.
Prince of Persia is remarkable in its animation and some of its gameplay mechanics, but the constant interruption of potential flow ultimately sours the experience.
