ESRB RATING: T
DEVELOPER: Ubisoft Montreal
PUBLISHER: Ubisoft
REVIEWER: A.D. Olson
DATE: 2007-06-11
GAMEPLAY REVIEW
This is the third game in the modern Prince of Persia series, which began on last-gen platforms with Sands of Time. Of course, last-gen systems also had the follow-up title, Warrior Within, as well as a game you might be aware of called The Two Thrones. Well, Rival Swords for the Wii is the same game as The Two Thrones. Why Ubisoft changed the name, nobody seems to know. I have my theories, but I'd rather not say what they are.
You play as the Prince of Persia (shock!), and you do a lot of cool things - running on the ground or along walls, jumping and climbing up ledges and platforms, fighting enemies, all in classic Prince of Persia style. It's what makes the game, and Prince of Persia does it better than the rest. It's a great time, really. You get some cool abilities such as slowing down time, reversing time, and a powerful attack, all of which consume sands you collect. You can expand your life meter and your sand tanks at various points in the game as well. As the boxart for the game gives away, you do play portions of the game as the Dark Prince, transforming into him seemingly randomly. His abilities are pretty much the same as the regular Prince, but his health drops quickly over time, and needs to be re-filled by picking up some sand. The difference between keeping each of the characters alive gives you a bit of variation to help keep the gameplay fresh and keep you on your toes.
Unlike TMNT, which was based on this game engine, combat in Rival Swords is actually quite fun on the Wii. For weapons, you get a little indestructible knife/dagger/bladed thingy right at the start, and you keep it through to the end of the game. It works rather well, and you do get to pick up secondary weapons which come in handy for combo attacks. These weapons can also be thrown, and they will degrade the more you use them, forcing you to keep an eye out for new ones dropped by enemies or sitting conveniently in racks. As the Dark Prince, you have a built-in chain in your arm that you can use as your secondary weapon. Another combat feature you might already be familiar with is the Speed Kill. These work in your favor, especially if you are in need of conserving health, as the enemies are helpless if you are nailing your strikes on time.
The boss battles are few and far between in Prince of Persia. In fact, I can only remember about two or three of them throughout the entire game. This is good though, because it's less predictable and bosses are not overused. They are, for the most part, pattern-based, and once you figure out their patterns, you should be able to pass all of them easily. There is some good AI used in the game, as the enemies actually come at you and attack, rather than walking into a wall, like in some other games (Far Cry, I'm looking at you!). Bosses tend to cut you off at the pass if you're not quick enough, which makes the fights more frustrati--er, I mean, "realistic". Speed Kills are used extensively against the bosses, so always try to go into them with full sand tanks, and save them for the harder stages of your fights.
Rival Swords is exactly the same as The Two Thrones, which came out in 2005. A couple of years don't change the fact that this is still a great game. The storyline in the game is pretty basic and predictable, yet you keep playing and pushing forward because the game is just really fun to play. It is very linear, and has only a few places you can branch off (usually for health upgrades), however, due to the fantastic level design, the game feels much more open than it truly is, and in the end, it works.
Crave Factor: 9
GRAPHICS & ANIMATION
Sadly, Rival Swords is one of the better-looking games on the Wii so far. The art direction is phenominal, and the later levels (especially right at the end) look great. The character animation looks great, and most of the textures look good - stone textures especially look great, even up close. The light that floods in through windows looks nice, folliage looks good, water looks decent. As a whole, the game looks really quite slick. For a game that came out two years ago or so, it's great, even now. However, the GameCube was capable of this, and I am hopeful that we start seeing games released that take advantage of the improved GPU and CPU in the Wii.
Rival Swords has two types of cutscenes: one is animated using the game engine, and they usually look pretty bad, with all sorts of clipping and popping issues... Hair clipping through faces, for example. It really highlights how dated the engine is, although it doesn't really detract from the overall enjoyment of the game. The other type is fully-animated videos, used in the intro, the ending, and a few places in-between. These, on the other hand, look really great and makes me wonder why they didn't spend a little more time properly animating and rendering all of the cinematics in the game.
One strange thing of note is that the blood found in The Two Thrones was replaced with orange/yellow sand instead. I suppose this fits the game, but I'm not entirely sure of the motivation for this change, aside from lowering the rating from M to T, expanding the potential buyer base.
Crave Factor: 7
MUSIC & SOUND
The music in Prince of Persia: Rival Swords is great. It always matches the situation in the story, and adds atmosphere and drama to the game. It never really gets in the way, and has a good, recognizable style to it.
The positional audio of the character voices is good, except if you change the camera angle to a wide view in the middle of speech, it makes the voice quite quiet, which is strange, especially when it's the Dark Prince talking to you, I guess from inside your head. The voice acting itself is well done, convincing, and not over-used. The only problem, which is quite minor, is that the voice in the pause menus is slow and gets cut off, but that's not really important to the game.
The sound effects of weapons, environments, enemies, and so forth all fit well and sound accurate to me.
Crave Factor: 8
CONTROLS
If you have ever played a modern Prince of Persia game, you know basically what to expect here. Standard stuff, thumbstick moves, A button allows for jumps, rolls, and such. But the real question is this: it took Ubisoft many months to port and release this game for the Wii, and with no noticeable changes to the engine or graphics or sound, they must've spent that time working on the controls... So how do they feel?
In a word, good. They probably could have done more with them, but really, I played through the entire game without any issues, and I found the motion controls that they did implement were done rather well, and I had a great time with them.
Basically, if you slice downward with the Wii Remote, the Prince performs a slicing attack with his dagger. Do likewise with the Nunchuk, and the Prine swings his secondary weapon, whatever that may be. If you raise either controller for a second and then swing, it'll perform a powerful attack, which is also good for destroying walls and piles of rubble. Stringing together combos has never been more natural than in Rival Swords, since you aren't just pressing buttons, but actually making the motions. It feels like you are actually doing SOMETHING rather than wagging the controller constantly.
The motion controls are also used to stab into wall plates and during Speed Kills. These are just performed by swinging the Wii Remote down at the correct time, just like a basic attack.
There is an option which allows you to rotate the camera by twisting the Wii Remote left or right. It might feel awkward at first, but thankfully you can turn it off if you wish to do so. The d-pad is always active for rotating the camera and controlling the pitch as well.
The issues facing Ubisoft's TMNT game do not exist here, and it is a major relief. The motion controls might be tacked-on like almost all other Wii games currently, but they really do work well in Rival Swords.
Crave Factor: 8
EXTRA VALUE-ADDED FEATURES
Ubisoft spent no time adding anything new to the game, which is unfortunate, especially given the full-price tag of the game.
There are some unlockable features in the game, in the form of artwork and, once you complete the game, videos. These video clips are not really anything much, just the cutscenes from the game and a bloopers reel.
Another thing, when you complete the game, you unlock new weapons, but really, I don't think a Telephone of Sorrow is going to motivate me to play through the game one more time, especially when I have 20 others sitting on my shelf.
Crave Factor: 5
CONCLUSION
I was very hesitant to pick this game up, given that it was yet another "Wii-make" from Ubisoft. But I loved the game and played it straight through, and it was enjoyable and fun, even. But would I say this game is worth the price tag? Conditionally, yes. If you have never played The Two Thrones, or any Prince of Persia game for that matter, and you think it might be something you would play through to the end, then pick it up. It is a great game from a couple of years ago, and the new controls work to the immersion of it all.
But otherwise, considering a much better game like Resident Evil 4 is being ported and released for $20 less than this game, I can't help but feel a little bit ripped-off. Maybe people wouldn't be so upset about having all of these "Wii-makes" instead of new games, if the prices were actually set appropriately.
Overall Crave Factor: 7 out of 10
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