Prince of Persia Classic

[miffy495]

So I downloaded it earlier tonight. I'd been looking forward to it for a while, having been 2 years old and not very interested in gaming when the original came out but loving Sands of Time and wanting to try it out. It's quite fun, but for one thing.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IS THIS GAME HARD!!!!!

I know we're talking 1989 here, but was the timing on parrying and jumping always so damned specific? I keep having this one guy on the third level hand my ass to me because I can't quite get the timing of a second parry down. The one time I managed to beat him, I over shot a ledge I meant to hang down and fell to my death, taking me back to a checkpoint before I'd fought him. At that point I gave up for the night lest I destroy a 360 pad in frustration.

I saw Aussie Ben on my leaderboard, so from him and others, thoughts? Those who have played the original, how does this one hold up comparatively and/or nostalgically?

[JoannaDark]

oh dear god, i remember that game. i had it on my amiga and would literally spend hours just on the first fight. i don't think i ever got past it, actually. (bear in mind i was like seven). so, uh, sorry, nothing constructive to say! except maybe that to keep p of p a happy event in ur life, just replay sands of time.

[elmuerte]

I don't remember the original PoP being very difficult, specially not in the beginning of the game.

I managed to finish the game when I was 10 or something.

[JoannaDark]

I don't remember the original PoP being very difficult, specially not in the beginning of the game.

I managed to finish the game when I was 10 or something.

I bow to your superior gameplay

[miffy495]

Well, maybe I'm just horrible at it. I honestly wouldn't rule it out at this point. I should really dig up my copy of Sands of Time though. Anyone know if it's compatible, or is it just Two Thrones that works on the 360?

[DanJW]

PoP 2 was notoriously difficult, maybe you had that.

[SiN]

The one time I managed to beat him, I over shot a ledge I meant to hang down and fell to my death, taking me back to a checkpoint before I'd fought him.

Uhh, there were no checkpoints in the original. So to answer your question, no the original wasn't this hard, it was HARDER!

I got my first PC (a 33MHz 486, 4mb ram) when I was eight years old, and I got PoP soon thereafter. I never did beat it ... I did get to level 7 though, which (I think) is further than most people got.

SiN

[elmuerte]

no check points?

I thought you simply had to redo the level when you got killed.

[SiN]

Yeah, in the original you'd start at the beginning of the level when you died. But from what miffy said, it sounds like Gameloft added checkpoints within each level ... I could be wrong.

What annoyed me more about the original is that if you quit the game, you'd have to start all the way back at level 1 when you got booted it up again. I think I would've beaten if it wasn't for that.

SiN

[miffy495]

There's one checkpoint in the middle of a level. If you die before the checkpoint, you go back to the beginning of the level with the timer where it was when you died. If you die after, you can choose to do this as well, or you can restart at the checkpoint with the timer still running. Seems like a fair tradeoff to me. Although I'm tempted to go back and restart the game now as I'm three levels in and only have 40 minutes left before Farah (or did she even have a name back in the day?) chooses death.

[elmuerte]

there were some cheats back then that would allow you to skip levels, so that you at least could continue at a certain level

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yeah, but the cheats reduced the time limit to 15 minutes! I LOVE this game! I'm going to download it ASAP!! I hope it's as much fun as the original!

(Sorry for the excessive '!'s, I'm very excitied! )

[Salka]

I completed Prince of Persia 1 when I was 8 or 9. It was definitely before I was 10 years old anyway.

It took me many many attempts. My mother was living in a foreign country at the time, so I was very lonely and spent most of my time playing games to take away the pain of not having a mother when you're 8 years old. I also completed Gods before I was 10, and most of the good adventure games that ever existed.

Just to fill in that empty hole in my heart where my mother used to be. And of course, to help me forget the pain of the beatings my father inflicted on me every day.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Ok, quick impressions: It's good, not bad at all. It's fun playing those old levels again. The movement is more fluid (you don't have to be facing the right way to do something anymore) and the gameplay more forgiving (the jumps are a lot easier). The graphics are very nice and the whole thing is pretty damned good fun.

Excellent job, really.

The downers: The sound effects aren't as good or satisfying as the original game, oddly. The animation isn't as good, either (mostly to do with the changes being made to the fluidity of the game - so that's forgivable), especially the deaths... They look pretty silly now. "Ooh, I've fallen. Ooh, I'm standing for fraction of a second. Ooh, I've collapsed and died."

The 'jaws of death' (as I've just decided to call them) aren't as terrifying either. They don't even look metal, and the sound they make is a rather pathetic "swish".

The animations featuring the Princess (who is now in the most ridiculous bustier) aren't as subtle as the original - something to do with the timing, I think. Nothing major, though; it's only someone who worshiped the original like me would notice.

All these problems are aesthetic, though. It's a shame that Mechner couldn't have just come in at the end and tweaked it slightly. (Ahhh... fanboy dreams )

One thing I would have really loved would have been the original as an unlockable feature... I'm hoping it might appear once I've completed the game in some impossible time..... but I'm doubting it.

[elmuerte]

is this the game:

it really looks completely different, weird new moves and stuff.

[Rado]

What annoyed me more about the original is that if you quit the game, you'd have to start all the way back at level 1 when you got booted it up again. I think I would've beaten if it wasn't for that.

I could be crazy, but I'm pretty sure you had a save, like ctrl +s or something. Just one slot. On Amiga at least. But as I say, I could be crazy. Back then everyone was playing pirated copies and no one knew how the fuck the games worked unless they figured it out for themselves

[Aussie Ben]

Yeah, I've been playing through it - this game is seriously awesome. Nice to see that they didn't dumb down the difficulty for it. I initially thought that for the regular game, the time limit wasn't going to be there. But man, it's getting so hard now! You have to set off a switch two screens away, go into the next room where there's another switch to activate (to exit the room), then quickly navigate through the blades, go through the first door that's closing, and finally exit through the second closing door. That is TOUGH.

And yeah, like others have said, the game is actually more fluid now. You don't have to turn the Prince around the right way to grab a ledge above him. You can also do things much more quickly thanks to stuff like the wall jump and the backflip. The wall jump, in particular, lets you reach a wall and grab a ledge behind you in one smooth motion - which is quite handy when the clock is ticking.

But yeah, I wish those blades were as gruesome as they were in the original:

[Rado]

I initially thought that for the regular game, the time limit wasn't going to be there.

To be fair, not much hapens when you don't get to the princess in time.

[Aussie Ben]

What, not even game over? That blows, what's the damn point of putting the time limit there? *sigh* Oh well, I suppose it is pretty hard already. =)

[Rado]

What, not even game over?

Not even? What would be wose, if your X-Box crashed?

There's a little cutscene if you don't make it and there's another in the end that only appears if you do. But one way or another, you get the girl.

I'm hoping Electronic Arts will take notice and we'll have enchanced Flashback before long.

[miffy495]

Thunderpeel: The original isn't unlockable. They were apparently hoping to get it in there, but the game was made before MS upped the Arcade size limit from 50MB, so there simply wasn't room to include it as well. Pity, but there it is.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Thunderpeel: The original isn't unlockable. They were apparently hoping to get it in there, but the game was made before MS upped the Arcade size limit from 50MB, so there simply wasn't room to include it as well. Pity, but there it is.

The original was only 600K... plus PoPC only just got released... *sob* I'm sure there were rumours of MS upping the download limit... couldn't they have waited a week? *sigh* Maybe in a patched update or something?

I hope they do a version of Prince of Persia 2.... but make it easier! That game was impossible!

I have to say, that despite knowing all the levels off by heart, I'm having real difficulty completing PoPC because of the hardness of the fights. I'm sure I must be doing something wrong, and it's a shame that they removed the "switch around" thing you could do in the original (often allowing you to force baddies into the jaws of death or off ledges). Bah!

Anyone else having difficulties?

This is the original (sorry, I'm a sad geek, I know):

[elmuerte]

600k!? that large? That's almost a full 3.5" DD diskette

[miffy495]

You can do the switch around. I've done it a few times myself. By accident, mind, but it happened. I'm really not sure how I did it each time that I did. Maybe the timing has been made more precise now or something. All I know is that I've seen it first hand, so go for it. (I believe it was also shown in

.)

[Fayk]

You can do the switch around. I've done it a few times myself. By accident, mind, but it happened. I'm really not sure how I did it each time that I did. Maybe the timing has been made more precise now or something. All I know is that I've seen it first hand, so go for it. (I believe it was also shown in

.)

Move against them, as close as you can, and do a parry (up or A button). You might have to parry their first attack then move in, but it can be done on almost any opponent from what I've seen.