Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones XBOX Review

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is a high-fantasy action-adventure video game developed and released by Ubisoft Montreal. It was released in the month of December, year 2005 in North America for the major gaming platforms. It was released under the title Prince of Persia: Rival Swords for the Wii and PS2 version.

Following the second installment Warrior Within, The Two Thrones is the final chapter in the Prince of Persia trilogy.

After the events of Warrior Within, the Prince has returned to Babylon. The city has been ravaged by war and Kaileena is kidnapped in an attack on their ship.

The events so turn that we come to know that The Vizier is not dead and he kills Kaileena with the Dagger of Time before the Prince can rescue her. Following this, The Vizier impales himself with the Dagger, thus making himself immortal. The Prince also gets injured, having a weapon known as Daggertail embedded in his skin, with the Sands festering the wound. From here ensues the Prince’s hunt of The Vizier to avenge Kaileena’s death.

However, the most interesting part of the game is the Prince’s altered aspect. He has basically been split into two: one which strives to be righteous, even though it is fueled by vengeance; and the Dark Prince, which manifests in the form of an internal voice that speaks to the Prince. Cruel, arrogant, evil and wicked, the Dark Prince plays upon the Prince’s vengeance to convince him to achieve his own means.

Upon finally finding the Vizier, the Prince is cast into a well, where the Dark Prince tries to take control of his soul. The Prince, however, escapes the well, and once again confronts the Vizier in a final battle. The Vizier is killed by the Dagger of Time. Kaileena comes back to life and heals the Prince of his infection by the Sands of Time. In what seems to be the conclusion of the game, as the Prince reaches for his father’s crown, he is confronted by the Dark Prince inside his mind, and the two struggle for control. The fight ends with the Dark Prince vanquished.

Exploration and combat, like always, make the game curiously adorable. The player gets to run across walls, make various types of well-timed leaps, solve mysteries, and do numerous acrobatic moves: jump between walls and ascending and descending chasms by combining moves. The game’s design is visually captivating and the rendering of manuscripts on the walls and pillars makes for beautiful viewing.

During combat, one can rebound off walls, make acrobatic leaps in the air, jump over enemies’ heads and finish them in one move, do some of the most uniquely graceful swordfights in the gaming world, and combine a pantheon of languid moves into amazing combos. The Dagger of Time on the other hand provides a completely different range of options of finishing off enemies.

If such a thing could be imagined, the Prince’s acrobatics have improved even further in the Two Thrones. The designers have also worked upon the stealth-feature of the game that provides for usage of invisibility even in normal combat now. The Two Thrones has even introduced a speed-kill mechanism to support stealth. However, because of this new feature, the strangle option which featured in the Warrior Within has been removed from the system.

The Prince also develops a split personality, known as the Dark Prince, and this alter ego occasionally manifests in real form when the Prince is transformed into his counterpart. The player can still control the Prince’s body but loses the ability to wield a secondary weapon, and instead uses the ‘Dagger tail’, a bladed whip fused to his arm. One gets to pull the enemy closer, slash at them and swing off poles.

Compared to the previous games of the series, it has a more complex one to play but makes for more violence than the last one and has a rather ‘cinematic’ style, attributed to the impressive speed kills, and the usage of slow motion, which was originally introduced in Warrior Within.