Guys, you'll never believe it! The crummy J2ME version is somehow better than the main Prince of Persia '08 release! 😱🤯

Naturally, this being an older phone game means that it doesn't have the same scope, but it's easily the more consistently enjoyable of the two and despite its brevity feels no less like a fully fleshed out experience. The amount of stuff they managed to squeeze in here is honestly kind of staggering given the technology. From multiple boss battles and forward-scrolling rail shooter sequences, to gameplay for both the hero AND Elika. There's even music throughout the entire adventure, which was something of a rarity in these type of Java titles back then.

The action is just more fun and engaging than its bigger, technically superior home console counterpart in general. They even managed to include that stupid orb collecting element without the tedious backtracking repetition. That's because, similarly to its predecessors, you can tell the devs weren't given too much to work with in terms of what the official outing was going to be like so they had to concoct the majority of their own unique material to fill in the gaps. I mean, there weren't any sequences where you ride on the back of a dragon and shoot fireballs in the PS3/360 option, after all. It ultimately turned out for the best though, leading to a far more exciting package overall. The ending surprisingly hits harder too. Leaving out the cliffhanger aspect meant to tease future installments that never arrived and focusing solely on the heartbreaking nature of the duo's ultimate fate.

This marks a huge step up from what the previous PoP mobile tie-ins I've played have offered as well, which were entertaining novelties but really didn't provide much to talk about. Warrior Within, for example, featured strong level design and combat fluid enough to rival Kratos's cellular bloodbath, yet was over so swiftly it ended up feeling more like a demo for a particularly promising GBA game than anything else. The Two Thrones certainly packed entertaining set pieces and a general flashiness, but the heavy reliance on automated platforming and fact that it could be beaten in mere minutes made it clear Gameloft put more effort into crafting the still images of the sexy Babylonian babes the prince rescues than creating actual content for the thing. While this can be finished fairly quickly as well, the difference is that it comes off as featuring a complete, wholly realized campaign that covers an entire fulfilling journey regardless of the speed in which its conclusion arrives. Truly impressive stuff. Yes, at the end of the day this is still a short, breezy little retro cellphone romp, but in that context it's genuinely superb.

9/10