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The Prince of Persia video game series, started off long ago in 1989, and has since achieved a massive fanbase with it’s various iterations and storyline reboots through the sequels that have followed since then.
But does the N-Gage version of Prince of Persia live up to it’s name ? Is it worth the buy ?
Read on for the review and find out.
Backstory, Game Modes and Gameplay :
The Prince of Persia series has gotten a few storyline reboots over the years, and by now has more twists than a bag of pretzels. A good read through it’s Wikipedia Article will catch you up on it though, because it’s really way too long and complicated to post here.
Moving on, there’s only one actual game mode here, and that’s single player storyline, where you have to basically fight through a bunch of baddies, use your acrobatic skills or magic, pilot flying creatures and basically just try to pass each level.
Luckily the game also lets you replay any level that you’ve played through before, which should add to it’s replay value.
There’s 3 main difficulties. Easy, Medium and Hard, with their Prince of Persia type names.
When it comes to the gameplay, it’s your typical Prince of Persia. You control the Prince, and at times your partner for this storyline, Elika.
When you start a level, there’s a brief introduction to it, telling you what you’ll have to do and your reasons for being there, etc.
If your character happens to die in the middle of a level, you can start that level over from it’s last checkpoint. There are no indications when you pass a checkpoint though, so this is sorta random.
The game sees the Prince running along walls, fighting bad guys with his sword, jumping all around the place, vaulting off poles and generally being so athletic, it’d put an Olympic gymnastic to shame.
There’s a bunch of combat occasionally thrown in, which is nothing more than a button mashing session, really. The combat in this game is incredibly clumsy, and gets annoyingly so at times. There are few situations where this varies, but even then with the last boss, its just a case of following a stupidly simple pattern.
Elika, however, has the ability to fly, which comes in very useful to access switches that are outside the reach of our Prince.
When you do reach these situations, the game automatically transfers control to Elika, so you know you’re supposed to use her abilities. These Elika sections add nothing to the experience, really. While they’re not entirely aweful, they’re executed without any style or ingenuity at all, and only serve as brief character switching interludes, which will come to annoy you.
There are also coins scattered around the game which you can find to get bonus points.
To be honesty, it’s your basic platform side-scrolling adventure, but with a bit of 3D thrown in at times.
Oh yes, I said 3D. There are a few (thankfully) 3D flight levels, which you have to occasionally play through.
In these levels, you’re mounted on top of a flying dragon which you have to steer and in the process, avoid obstacles and incoming enemies. You can attack these aforementioned enemies with a magic fireball projectile, or by swiping them with your sword. Both attacks feel very clumsy, sluggish and unsatisfying (particularly the sword swipe) which basically leads to another button mashing session. We could have lived without this session, to be honest.
Orientation :
The game can be played in both portrait and landscape modes, according to which, the controls can be flipped to be on the other side of the phone.
The game feels a lot better and more like a “console game” in landscape mode though.
Of course, some phones like the N82 only allow you to play in Portrait though.
Controls :
Controls are how you’d expect them to be. Directions are controled by the Dpad, while Gaming button A and button B control the character’s actions (which defer between the Prince and Elika).
Graphics :
Barring the 3D flight levels, the world is rendered in 3D polygons on a 2D plain. To show this off, the camera occasionally swoops around to show you where you should be heading next, or to show the Prince pulling off a cool move. This doesnt happen too often though, so it’s not overly distracting.
The graphics of this game could best be described as “Too much happening on screen at the same time and ultimately failing”. The screen appears very cluttered, and because of this the characters appear even less detailed than they actually are.
It’s also worth mentioning that the game isnt too laggy on N-Gage devices with 3D gfx builtin (Eg: the N82), but has mildy annoying lag on the newer devices without 3D gfx (Eg: N96, N85, etc).
Sound :
The Music and sounds in this game are pretty okay. The usual atmospheric background sounds, etc.
Multiplayer :
Once again, another game with a missed opportunity. The N-Gage Arena feature in this game is unfortunately, only score uploading to leaderboards.
We’re beginning to wonder if Nokia’s really serious about N-Gage’s multiplayer capabilities at all nowadays.
There is however, as usual, unlockable NGP (N-Gage Points) as you play through the game.
Conclusion :
With it’s clunky gameplay, un-fun button mashing combat and bad graphics, it’s hard for us to find a reason to recommend Prince of Persia on N-Gage at all really.
I’m a huge fan of the Prince of Persia series, but playing through this game felt more like a chore than fun.
It’s saving grace might be it’s semi-interesting storyline, but even then you’d probably want to avoid this title.
This one only gets 2 out of 5 stars.
[rating:2]
You can find out more about the game over on its Official Game page or if you need tips or help with the game, head on over to the Official Prince of Persia N-Gage forum.
Clinton is currently based in New Delhi, India and is executive editor for UnleashThePhones. He is responsible for all editorial decisions, and covers all forms of Mobile things.
Cj is addicted to caffeine, social media, and technology. Always up for a good conversation, you can reach him through the contact form, his website, on Google Plus 
or on Facebook or Twitter: Follow @clintonjeff
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