Prince of Persia - In-depth Written Amiga Review With Pics
Prince of Persia
Amiga, 1990 (Original Apple II 1989)
Broderbund
$39.95
*Alphabetical list of writings
*Game best played in NTSC mode with 4:3 aspect ratio
When it comes to platformers, my mind tends to instantly wander to thoughts of Super Mario Brothers, Castlevania, or some Sonic the Hedgehog. In other words, I tend to think of console games. It's when thoughts of simulations, adventures, strategy and role playing games pop up where my particular brain goes to the computers. It's not that the consoles didn't have the previously mentioned genres, or that computers lacked platformers, but generally speaking consoles seemed to live and die by their platformers, and the computer was most at home being different.
If I think specifically of computer platformers, my thoughts usually end up to the flurry of 1990's DOS shareware titles. Even a lot of games that were not specifically shareware come off to me as shareware quality when compared to the console market, which did them so well. Even when done well, many computer platformers would be difficult to consider different, often emulating named console titles in style. But if I again turn the settings nob on the side of my head to think of quality computer platformers that did things differently, well I certainly couldn't help but think of a game like Prince of Persia here.
*Game best played in NTSC mode with 4:3 aspect ratio
When it comes to platformers, my mind tends to instantly wander to thoughts of Super Mario Brothers, Castlevania, or some Sonic the Hedgehog. In other words, I tend to think of console games. It's when thoughts of simulations, adventures, strategy and role playing games pop up where my particular brain goes to the computers. It's not that the consoles didn't have the previously mentioned genres, or that computers lacked platformers, but generally speaking consoles seemed to live and die by their platformers, and the computer was most at home being different.
If I think specifically of computer platformers, my thoughts usually end up to the flurry of 1990's DOS shareware titles. Even a lot of games that were not specifically shareware come off to me as shareware quality when compared to the console market, which did them so well. Even when done well, many computer platformers would be difficult to consider different, often emulating named console titles in style. But if I again turn the settings nob on the side of my head to think of quality computer platformers that did things differently, well I certainly couldn't help but think of a game like Prince of Persia here.
^Plot, level one, fluid and lifelike animation
Prince of Persia was originally released in 1989 for the Apple II, the overwhelming result of one programmer, Jordan Mechner. Broderbund would publish the game and take on the role of porting to the Amiga version featured here. While the plot is of familiar fare, where the bad guy is holding your girlfriend hostage, Prince of Persia was revolutionary in the gameplays animation style. Unable to animate himself, Mechner used rotoscoping for the games characters.
He first used this technique for his 1984 Apple II game, Karateka. Using Super8 film in that instance, his brother modeled various sequences, then 35mm pictures would be taken, developed, and then digitized to the Apple II to be worked on. With Prince of Persia, videotape would replace the Super8 film, and along with the return of his brother as the main character, 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood would make an appearance for the in-game sword fighting.
^The first level, sword fighting
While probably best described as a platforming puzzle game, a good section of your time will also be spent in combat. Guards have several color shadings indicating their overall difficulty. Some have more health than others, as well as different fighting patterns you'll need to figure out in order to progress. I'd say that as soon as you figure out what the game is wanting from you in terms of the puzzles, that you'll be spending a slight majority of your game time in combat situations. It's far more challenging to get a sense out of the various enemies than the games puzzles. Multiple guards are usually sprinkled throughout each level, and dying to any of them will usually send you back to the start of that particular level.
Interestingly, according to Mechner, the combat system almost didn't make it into the game. It started life more along the lines of Lode Runner, with over fifty levels along with a built in level editor. It was only after realizing this was not grabbing play testers attention that he decided to shorten the length and add combat. The sword fighting mechanic, much like even simple things in the game such as walking and jumping, will take some getting used to.
^Level two, more guards, level three, more hazards and multi screen jumps
Several magazines of the era felt the controls were awful, one going as far as saying the joystick operation was perhaps the poorest of any action game he had ever played. Not sure how many action games he had played to that point, especially on computer and arcade machines, but difficult controls were baked into quite a few great games from the time period. The controls are indeed difficult, but you will get used to them. Of particular note for me was how, during the combat, I was wanting to thrust the sword up and down (ala Pirates!), but pointing down will aptly cause your character to put his sword in his holster and promptly die from the next hit. The manual combined with a bit of practice, will have you mastering the game.
Mastered for the time being anyway. The "poor" controls are a thumbs up for me in terms of coming back to Prince of Persia. It's one of those games that you've got to relearn if you've been away from it for any considerable amount of time. In fact, I found issues merely coming back to it for the pictures in this written review, only a week after I had collected the footage for my video. While certain people might get a kick out of conquering a challenging game, knowing that after that point they will never have issues with it again, I'd personally rather have a continued challenge.
^Entering the palace/change of scenery, the saga of our other self
There are several unique characters or items you'll run across in your travels. The first of these is a reanimated skeleton that's immune from your sword swings, which means you'll have to figure out a way past. Besides health potions which restore one heart, there's one that takes away a heart, and several well hidden ones which restore all health and add a heart to your life meter. Finding at least a few of these will likely be essential to your survival. There are also a couple of magic potions, one which will cause you to float safely down a chasm where you may have died normally, and another which will flip your entire screen 180 degrees. Most noteworthy of all, upon jumping through what I can only imagine is a magic mirror, out will pop a mirrored version of yourself. He'll pop up from time to time, mostly to aggravate you by stealing a potion, or blocking your exit. All culminating near the end of the game when you battle this other version of you. These little moments go a long way in endearing you to Prince of Persia.
A welcome change from many other games is how anything that can hurt you can hurt your enemies as well. Knock them over an edge so they'll plummet to their death, push them directly into those steel choppers and smile as they get ripped in half instead of you for a change. Take your own spike traps! If you prefer, much of the time you can avoid or at least shorten the fights with enemies. Search out a different path, push on some ceiling tiles and see if they give way, exposing an alternate section. If a guard is blocking your path you can switch sides with him and simply run away as long as you've got the technique down. Maybe take a higher platform and leap over them. It's a puzzle platformer after all, and all of these things are there for you to figure out.
^Using their own traps on them, a knightly mouse, tripping out 180°The Amiga and DOS versions of Prince of Persia were the first ports from the 1989 Apple II original. Ports would follow to many of the computers and consoles of the time period, and up until quite recently actually. Most of the ports are actually quite unique to each other. The Amiga and DOS versions are actually the most similar of all the original ports. I'd point that to simultaneous in-house development of these two versions by Broderbund. They upgraded the game quite a bit from the original. Not just in terms of color, but honestly the animation this game is so well known for is because of these two versions. Broderbund definitely filled in quite a few missing frames from the original.
It might be tempting for some to be disappointed in the Amiga port, seeing how closely it resembles the DOS version, but I actually think it's the other way around. Many modern reviewers will note the Amiga did a pretty good job when compared to the "VGA 256 color" DOS version, being almost identical. Well do the math, and when I'm counting the actual colors on the screen of both versions I'm getting about 16 colors at any one time. DOS might be using VGA, but it's not 256 colors. Both platforms could have done better in terms of the colors, though the ones that are here are quite pleasing, obviously leading many to believe there are a lot more than there are. Other ports would increase the color count, but I'd say it's quite debatable on if those versions are actually better looking. When this game gets ported to modern systems, they're taking the art assets from the DOS/Amiga versions.
^Leaping our way closer, the final battlesThe largest difference between the Amiga and DOS versions are with your other persona that comes out of the mirror. In the Amiga it is a mirrored version, which makes quite a bit of sense considering how he comes out of a mirror. On the DOS version, what comes out of the mirror is actually a shadow figure. I showed off a comparison at this point in my video review. The shadow figure is more accurate to the original Apple II version, but I believe it was a technical limitation that caused that to be used.
Most ports would retain the shadow figure, so it's quite odd that they changed that for the Amiga release, but that would be the most glaring difference between these versions. The other major difference would be in the sound department. The Amiga features very nice samples for the various sound effects and music, where as most soundcards for DOS would be of a lesser synthesized quality. Though it's worthy to note how DOS version 1.3 of this game actually features the Amiga sound samples for the Sound Blaster card, which previously had used syntheses.
^Back in her arms, you are now Prince of Persia!An all out classic game through and through, and I'd say in particular the two original ports to DOS or Amiga. It's really one of those games that's worth playing on any system you can find it on. It would rank as the fifth best Amiga game of 1990 from the American magazine Info, and also the fifth best game of 1991 from the American magazine Amiga World. In 1996 Computer Gaming World named Prince of Persia as the eighty-fourth best game of all time, noting how it let you become the legendary Thief of Baghdad. It received almost universal great reviews, even from the magazines that thought it was the worst controlled game they'd ever played. Many games show inspiration from Prince of Persia through the use of rotoscoping, like Out of this World. Few would copy the gameplay, usually giving the player a lot more control with much faster movements than Prince did. I love that this game exists and consider it a classic, but it might have gotten a little maddening if every platformer had turned into this.
I hope you'll check out my video review, where I'll go into many more topics, such as disagreements regarding the release date for the game, and I'll show off and read passages from American and British magazines from back in the day, including those top games issues previously mentioned. Readers of this article might also be interested in my Out of this World review
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