After the major success of Sands of Time, there were many potential directions to take the new Prince of Persia series in. Maybe something that ironed out some of the issues, maybe make it a bit deeper, maybe go in a new direction. So the obvious next step was Godsmack.
Not that I mind, I think it's fucking awesome. It creates a really bad whiplash effect if you play SoT before this but I find that it works fine for what it's going for. It's not just a change in art direction though: now the game takes place in an interconnected world instead of a typical linear game, and there's much more of an emphasis on combat, which has been reworked.
The problem is that because of this the fantastic sense of pacing and escalation of the previous game is completely gone, since you're constantly going back and forth through the map. Since this isn't a metroidvania or anything, but a completely linear experience, that means tons of backtracking, tons of seeing the same few sections (I counted, there's a few that you'll have to see about 5 times), and generally a lot more repetition, as the game starts wearing itself thin around the end.
What about that reworked combat? Well, there's more going on technically. But with that added depth I don't believe much was actually gained, as the combat itself remains on that level of "fine" that SoT was on, but now there's a lot more of it. I even skipped a bunch of encounters towards the end because I got quite tired of fighting the same enemies for the 423rd time.
But the major sin of this game is how unpolished it is. Glitches everywhere, in combat especially, music that at times doesn't seem to know if it should play or not, sometimes doesn't even know what track it should even play, it's a mess. There's a specific enemy that I was supposed to attack while wallrunning but a combination of the awful camera angle, the awful hitbox and the game not registering my attack annoyed me so much that I just used a friend's save. I never do this for games, but I did it for this one.
Warrior Within is ultimately a good game (the platforming is as good if not better than Sands of Time, sans some really badly thought out moments, and in general the gameplay beats and controls are still there) but it left me a bit disappointed when it was all said and done. Completely opposite to Sands of Time, which did the absolute best with what it presented, this feels like a game that was rushed to market and did what it could while also trying to introduce new ideas and improve the formula. Worth playing, but be prepared to ask "what was that?" about once every half hour.
Not that I mind, I think it's fucking awesome. It creates a really bad whiplash effect if you play SoT before this but I find that it works fine for what it's going for. It's not just a change in art direction though: now the game takes place in an interconnected world instead of a typical linear game, and there's much more of an emphasis on combat, which has been reworked.
The problem is that because of this the fantastic sense of pacing and escalation of the previous game is completely gone, since you're constantly going back and forth through the map. Since this isn't a metroidvania or anything, but a completely linear experience, that means tons of backtracking, tons of seeing the same few sections (I counted, there's a few that you'll have to see about 5 times), and generally a lot more repetition, as the game starts wearing itself thin around the end.
What about that reworked combat? Well, there's more going on technically. But with that added depth I don't believe much was actually gained, as the combat itself remains on that level of "fine" that SoT was on, but now there's a lot more of it. I even skipped a bunch of encounters towards the end because I got quite tired of fighting the same enemies for the 423rd time.
But the major sin of this game is how unpolished it is. Glitches everywhere, in combat especially, music that at times doesn't seem to know if it should play or not, sometimes doesn't even know what track it should even play, it's a mess. There's a specific enemy that I was supposed to attack while wallrunning but a combination of the awful camera angle, the awful hitbox and the game not registering my attack annoyed me so much that I just used a friend's save. I never do this for games, but I did it for this one.
Warrior Within is ultimately a good game (the platforming is as good if not better than Sands of Time, sans some really badly thought out moments, and in general the gameplay beats and controls are still there) but it left me a bit disappointed when it was all said and done. Completely opposite to Sands of Time, which did the absolute best with what it presented, this feels like a game that was rushed to market and did what it could while also trying to introduce new ideas and improve the formula. Worth playing, but be prepared to ask "what was that?" about once every half hour.
JabroniAbuser677
3 years ago
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