A disclaimer before I start this review: I finished the SNES port, which has around 10 extra levels including ones in a heavily welcome practice mode to get the controls downpat, as well as much more colours, a new soundtrack, and so forth. No doubt it is the version I rec, but I would heavily advise playing it on BSNES with 2 frames of runahead if your rig can handle it. This is about the only game I can think of offhand (barring rhythm games) where I really felt like I needed it to play the game.

Prince of Persia is one of the most legendary and immersive games of all time. The passion project of a kiddo who grew up loving film and comics, he set out to make a game that could really make the most of his love for their worlds, as well as his love for animation and immersion. It really shows in the visual department, which is what I will be covering first.

Prince of Persia was a real triumph in overcoming hardware limitations, as detailed in depth here: https://youtu.be/sw0VfmXKq54
Essentially, Mechner in a pre-Photoshop world traced footage of his brother wearing all white clothing to rotoscope highly fluid animations such that they could be abstract enough to fit in an Arabian Nights-inspired world.

I am pleased to report that this port was very true to the aesthetic Mechner aimed for. The dungeons are still insanely oppressive, ranging from cracked dusty blue-gray walls with no semblance of lighting beyond torches to clean royal palace interiors lined with red carpet after red carpet to suggest the sheer sense of royalty. The character designs are also much more fitting to create a sense of immersion in the setting than the minimalist original sprites, as if this was the world Mechner envisioned in his mind. Truly one of the most visually impressive portjobs in an era where one could not simply transfer source code from one device to another due to the sheer difference in capabilities and programming approaches between different systems on the market.

To boot, it was given an OST facelift that truly created a sense of mystery and danger to epic degrees. I appreciate how the OST for opening levels feels like a calm before the storm, while later levels have music with instruments harsh enough to strike one with fear as everything on screen is stained bloodred in the hellish inferno.
https://youtu.be/1hSDOPmjojE?list=PLAs1Kha_R9dJHE0nwiK_y6VoT6b89BNgl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ_PBUNAjWY&list=PLAs1Kha_R9dJHE0nwiK_y6VoT6b89BNgl&index=8

I will admit the OST is not particularly something I would listen to outside of the game itself, but damn while it's there it truly gets the job done and sticks in one's head for a while. I do wish there was a wider variety of grunt noises for the battles, however since it can be jarring over the game's span.

The story is very minimalist in its approach, but it is integrated so well with the gameplay. Seeing Shadow Man steal Prince's potions, and therefore extending his health bar, really helps to sell that this asshole is your mirror reflection. And to defeat him, one does not swordfight him to the death, but rather... fuse with him and become one, gaining all the potions he stole in the process. The Shadow Man was created from the Prince's own inner demons and reflected through a mirror, so the Prince defeats him by having the courage to face his inner demons. Without a single word of dialogue, Mechner brilliantly created what was perhaps the first true rival figure in a video game and created one of the most genius story moments in the medium without a single cutscene. I was absolutely flabbergasted to experience something like this in a mid-80s game.

The puzzle solving and difficulty are a mixed bag. There are cool moments to be had such as the otherworldly space warps towards the end of the game, or allowing the mouse friend to save the Prince from the cage to signify to the player that the Prince isn't some wish fulfillment badass who can always take care of himself without any help, but rather an underdog. The battles can be rather repetitive, but damn it's always fun when there are opportunities to kill enemies more easily with traps such as making them get decapitated by guillotines. To say nothing of the hilarious gravity glitch I exploited during the boss rush https://gyazo.com/c4c884dacd0e515bd72a54c88c5c522a

Unfortunately, the jumping, even with the runahead, feels too delayed at times especially given the strictness of some jumps. The Prince also doesn't always have the best handling with turns, and the straightup sword battles can get rather dull by the end. I think if there were a few more bosses with gimmicks to them like the 4 armed motherfucker just creating earthquakes with every jump, I would have felt more positively about the battles overall.

That all being said though, Prince of Persia is a real history lesson of a game and holds up stunningly well being one of the first of its kind, especially with the QOL and aesthetic enhancements on the system. Its influence is felt very strongly in countless later cinematic platformers such as Flashback, Another World, and the Oddworld games. Nothing but respect for this classic masterpiece. If you're a masochist like me who has the utmost love for uber challenging games, and enjoys going through influential games as history lessons of sorts, this is the game for you. Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with admiring it from a distance.