Prince of Persia: Warrior Within Review

If you want to play Warrior Within, it is very smart to have played the first one that Ubisoft developed for this generation first. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time tells the story of how the Prince’s “warrior” family invaded the enemy Maharaja’s palace in order to steal 2 invaluable artifacts, the Dagger of Time and the Sands of Time. This led the Prince to go on a solo effort of gaining access to both, only to find himself caught in a web of deceit and pain. He meets the Maharaja’s daughter, Farah, along the way, and she tries to prevent what the Prince is about to do from happening. The Prince does retrieve the Dagger, and because of someone’s deceit, he ends up opening the Sands of Time.

This causes an evil to sweep over the land, turning everyone who wasn’t protected by it into sand creatures. This basically included everyone but the Prince, Farah and the man who tricked the Prince.

With having had opened the Sands, the Prince drew himself into a destined fate of his own death. “Who shall ever open the Sands must die, that is what is written into the timeline.”

The Dahaka, a mystical beast and the guardian of the timeline, is after the Prince full force and wants him dead. The Prince defied his fate after first opening the Sands, and it’s the Dahaka’s job that the Prince meet his certain doom. How will the Prince defy his fate this time around? He must go to the Island of Time itself and face the person who created the Sands of Time in the first place, and stop it from ever happening. Only then will he be able to escape his certain fate of death……or will he?

All alone, with no one he can trust, and nothing but his weapons and agility to aid him, the Prince must` do everything in his power to escape what is indeed his certain fate…..

When you start your first adventure, you will view an opening cinematic scene of the Prince himself dressed in a brown cloak running for his life through the narrow streets of what looks like an abandoned village. He is running as fast as he possibly can, and using all of his strength and agility to evade the sea of black evil that is after him. He does encounter a very scary and realistic looking wolf creature, but he runs right past that.

When he eventually gets trapped at a dead end, he slowly turns around and you can see the “gruff” look in his eyes and lower face. You then see the Dahaka speeding closer and closer to him as he pulls out his two in preparation to defend himself.

As soon as you would think the Dahaka takes him out, you see a quick transition to a cinematic of a boat on the sea. Apparently the Prince is the captain of this vessel, and he orders various crew members on what to do against a pretty heavy storm that’s setting around them. Then shortly after, a pursuing vessel attacks his ship and hooks onto it. This is when you meet Shadee, the scantily clad female servant of the Empress of Time. She is pretty much there to kill you and prevent you from ever getting to the Island of Time, and your adventure ensues!

The beginning of this game is definitely great and fun to watch, and very interesting. You get a small tutorial on the game’s newly introduced battle mechanics as well as a glimpse of the Prince’s new “personality.” It does seem a little out of place for him, especially considering how he was in Sands of Time, but when you eventually fight Shadee on her boat, he will soon call her the “b” word. Now that’s one of maybe 3 curse words that I can remember him saying throughout the game, so if you don’t mind that kind of thing, it shouldn’t affect your experience too much.

I liked the beginning of this game, as it excellently sets the tone for the rest of the game, “you’re alone,” and I definitely like how Ubisoft chose to start it!