Reply To: Prince Of Persia 2

[dr_st]

#1605

I kind-of agree with everything you guys say, but disagree with the bottom line. 😉

PoP2 is not flawed. It’s just HARD. It’s harder than the first, and I think it was completely intentional. For example: PoP1 also has puzzles where you only have one chance and can end up in an unwinnable situation – they are just far, far simpler (both in figuring them out and in execution), so you don’t get infuriated as much.

The levels are also much shorter in PoP1, so there are fewer puzzles –> fewer traps –> fewer restarts and shorter duration of average restart –> less frustrated players. 🙂

Combat is also harder in PoP2 – PoP1 had only a couple of guards were you really needed to combine block and strike – PoP2 has many more of these (pretty much all the bird-headed temple guards, and a few of the skeletons in the caves). The goblin heads require very precise timing and rhythm, although I did not notice that initial position mattered as much (and you can always inch a bit forward/backward if needed).

All in all, I think the developers just wanted to make a harder game, that will be challenging to players who already mastered PoP1, and they succeeded. If it had been toned down to the same level of difficulty, newbies would be happier, but oldtimers may have been disappointed that the game did not provide enough hours of play time.

The only aspect where I’m not sure that the change was intentional, is the timing on running jumps. The game really requires it to be much more precise – jump too early or too late and you plummet to your death either at the near or at the far edge. It may be that they took out the position adjustment code to make things harder, or it may be an actual bug. It is also the thing that annoyed me the most in the game, and I wish it was back in.

As Pix noticed – pausing and starting the jump from the correct location usually allows you to make the jump safely, but there are a few sequences where you don’t have the time to pause, because some door is closing, and this is very annoying, especially since often you have to restart way-way-back if you miss.

FWIW, PoP2 does allow you to save in the beginning of every level, like PoP1, so at least you after all the exploration and learning is done, and you pass the level on the first try, you can save your progress. This will guarantee you will not run out of time before the end of the game.