In November, we shocked a lot of readers in choosing Valkyria Chronicles over the much hyped and anticipated sequel to Resistance: Fall of Man. With a beautifully crafted watercolor style and a strategic element blended into a third-person shooter mentality, Valkyria Chronicles is easily one of the most underrated titles of our generation. We didn’t have too much of a debacle this month. Nor can it compare to October with LittleBigPlanet, Fallout 3 and Dead Space. Within the limited releases of December, one AAA title shun brightly.
Ubisoft released the only true AAA title this month, Prince of Persia, and while it was a great game, it faced minor competition in Sonic Unleashed. Regardless of the lack of titles released around the holiday season, Prince of Persia is a title worthy of this honor. As many of you may be aware, the Prince has been around for quite some time; the Sands of Time Trilogy is perhaps one of the greatest trilogies in gaming history. Considering the fan following, many were skeptical of the new direction that Ben Mattes and the creative team at Ubisoft Montreal took with the new iteration.
In the end, they delivered a masterful title filled with vibrant color, a variety of detail, strong voice acting and game mechanics that were nearly flawless. Of course, it would be foolish not to mention Elika, easily the greatest A.I. partner ever created. With the ability to save you from plumetting to your death or taking a deadly blow from an enemy, Elika enables you to stay streamlined within the world of Prince of Persia without being forced to sit through infinite loading screens. Futhermore, Elika offers her delightful insight into the plot that leaves our humorous hero carefully rethinking his place in the entire ordeal.
Our beloved Nathan Drake, better known as Nolan North, lent his voice for the Prince, resulting in a superb voice acting display despite the criticism expressed about his accent. Real-life friend Kari Wahlgren matches up perfectly with the Prince as her chemisty with North is exceptional.
As always, we turned to our forum readers to find out what they thought about the game.
“I play a bit every night between bouts of Resistance 2 co-op, and I like it. Beautiful graphics and good gameplay. I don’t find it that easy, as Elika has to save me a lot. The boss fights take me a long time to finish also. I guess I’m just crappy at this game, as I don’t know how so many people say it’s easy. I like the challenge of exploring the environment, and figuring out how to get all of the light seeds.
Graphics are really nice, and the dialog and voice acting is just fine.” – Alpha
“I’m about half way through with it and as one other poster stated, I don’t find it easy either. I have the urge to get EVERY light seed so not being able to reach some or figure out how to reach them gets me frustrated and causes Elika to do double-duty on saving my sorry ***. Aside from that, there is a bit of repetition, but thankfully it’s fun. It’s worth a rental and if you are into acrobatic games and collecting stuff, this is your kind of game.“ – MartiniMan
“Overall, the game achieves what it set out to achieve: a total remodeling of the Prince of Persia franchise. Even the ease of difficulty ends up contributing to the goal; it enables you to focus on the vibrant environment and great atmosphere. The combat is satisfying because of the length of the later fights and cinematic feel, and it also ends up being frequent enough. The platforming looks cool and is rather fun, even with the extreme amount of hand-holding. For the lasting appeal, you get to collect light orbs around the levels which doesn’t feel tedious at all; you end up exploring the levels in new ways and get such great views of the beautiful game.” – darkswordsman
“Prince of Persia had mighty large shoes to fill after Sands of Time. I’ll be honest – SoT has been my favourite incarnation of the series. It embodied everything you’d want in a Prince game. It got pretty much everything right and besides a somewhat repetitive combat system, it was spot-on in game play. It looked great.
Ubisoft however, have raised the bar. I didn’t think it was possible to equal the titanic achievement they made with Sands of Time – but here I am, after 5 hours or so of the new, next-gen PoP experience, amazed that they have indeed matched the innovation and game play success that was my favourite PoP title.” – -Deadpool-
It’s no secret many have enjoyed this great game. Now we look forward to January and, of course, in our crosshairs is Skate 2. Can anything topple it for Game of the Month for January? Let us know below.