Prince of Persia: The Fallen King Hands-on Preview

We get so hot and bothered about upcoming ‘next-gen’ titles’ fancy graphics and brain-bending physics that it’s easy to forget that there’s probably a DS version kicking about somewhere. While the Xbox 360 and PS3 version of Prince of Persia is enjoying the game media’s flashing light bulbs and rolling red carpets, Ubisoft’s new kid-focused Casablanca studio is hard at work getting The Fallen King on DS ready for its Christmas release. The obvious questions present themselves: How does it differ to its big brother version? Does it tie-in in any way with the main story, and just what are the controls like? We grabbed some hands on time to get you the answers.

The game opens with some nicely drawn still frame cut scenes which show a cartooney Prince pledging to stop the evil Corruption big bad boss man Ahriman has wreaked on Persia. He’s travelled to a desert kingdom in the hope of finding people who wield powers given to them by Ormazd, the God of Light. They reside in the City of The New Dawn – the Prince reckons that if he can find them there is a chance that Ormazd can be summoned and the light can be saved.

Early on in the game the Prince comes into contact with a DS-exclusive character called the Magus, whose magical powers make him something of a bad-ass. The Magus, however, doesn’t have much time for the Prince – he’s out to kill the corrupted King, his old master, who he feels has passed the point of no return after naively trying to defeat Ahriman with the Seal of Ahura. Soon after that encounter the Prince rescues the Magus from certain death at the hands of a nasty beastie. In return, the Magus reveals that he too is infected with the Corruption, and that Ahriman’s followers have broken the seal to pieces and scattered it through the kingdom. Consumed with guilt over the King’s demise, the Magus tells the Prince that he is the only one who can reassemble the seal, a piece of which our plucky hero has already recovered in a previous fight with one of Ahriman’s servants. This convinces the Magus of the Prince’s worth, and he agrees to join forces in the pursuit of the King.

The DS game’s art style was never going to mimic the lovely ‘illustrative’ design of the ‘next-gen’ version, but it does have an appeal of its own. It’s cuter, with nice, cartooney character designs and colourful environments. The Fallen King actually rekindles memories of the original Jordan Mechner-developed 1989 Prince of Persia. It’s a side-scrolling platformer at its core, which incorporates some at times fiddly but on the whole intuitive touch screen controls to recreate the famous acrobatic shenanigans the modern day Prince is known for. Simply pressing in front or behind the Prince will get him to move in that direction – press far away and the Prince will leg it at top speed, press up close and he’ll tip-toe. Tapping on a vertical surface will make the Prince jump on it. Using the Gauntlet, the same one that he uses in the ‘next-gen’ versions, he’ll stick to the wall momentarily, allowing you to tap a little higher to wall run or tap on another vertical wall to wall jump. It’s quick, easy, and a lot of fun.

He can even hang on ledges, drop down, climb up and forwards roll (for sneaking underneath cracks in walls). In fact, the Prince has an impressive array of moves, all well animated, that allow you to have a lot of fun swinging about the levels.

It’s not all pixel perfect platforming however, there’s a decent amount of combat you’ll have to engage in if you want to work your way through the levels. You’ll come up against everything from bats to sword swinging monsters that are twice the Prince’s size. In combat, a simple tap on the target will make the Prince swing his sword, a double tap will make him swipe twice, a vertical slice triggers his charged, powerful attack and pressing and holding on the Prince will make him block. The combat is largely simple and easy – blocking and striking after absorbing a hit is enough to get you through most fights. It gets tricky when a bad guy is on the edge of an above platform though – here you need to jump onto the vertical surface and quickly tap on the enemy, which makes the Prince do a satisfying jump attack.

In The Fallen King, the Prince is accompanied by the Magus, who follows him wherever he goes. For the Elika button (as found in the next-gen and PC versions), see the Magus button (press and hold any button), which triggers the Magus’ magic. Because one of your hands will be reserved for the stylus, it’s much easier to press one of the shoulder buttons for this. From there, you simply tap at your target and the Magus lets fly a magic fireball attack. This is used for activating switches in otherwise impossible to reach areas, and to push back bits of the Corruption, clearing a path for the Prince to progress. As you work your way through the game, the Magus will get even more useful abilities.

As for the levels, there’s over 50 in the game, some large, some very small. They’re all broken up by checkpoint flags, which act as respawn points for when you die – and you will die – this is more Mega Man than it is Phantom Hourglass. The Prince has a health bar of sorts, made up of a number of red orbs. A hit from an enemy will cause him to take damage, as will a hit from a falling rock, or from the Prince falling or walking into spikes. Luckily, there are a number of items that will help him out. A power pack will replenish his energy, an upgrade pack will add a red orb to his health bar, in classic Zelda style and the revival orb will bring the Prince back to life once he’s down. These items you’ll collect more or less as you come across them. It’s the gold coins that you’ll actively hunt out, and that’s because the game’s best treasure is protected by large gold doors that only open once you’ve given them the appropriate number of coins.

The Fallen King is shaping up nicely, and should satisfy any retro side-scrolling platforming desires that resurface this Christmas. It’s definitely too difficult for younger gamers, but anyone from the age of, say, 10 up should be able to get something out of it. There’s the odd concern from a technical point of view: There’s a touch of slowdown in the build we played, which may or may not be ironed out before release, and you’ll sometimes suffer a frustrating death because you haven’t managed to get the Prince to do exactly what you wanted him to do, despite the fact that it feels like you’ve tapped precisely the right pixel. But, on the whole, there’s much to look forward to here. The Fallen King’s definitely worth keeping on your handheld radar.

Prince of Persia: The Fallen King is due out for Nintendo DS this Christmas.