Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones finishes the PlayStation 2 trilogy of the series. It was co-developed by Ubisoft Montreal and now-defunct Ubisoft Casablanca. The game returns in many ways to The Sands of Time -- like with Yuri Lowenthal reprising his Sands role out of fan demand -- yet it does retain Warrior Within narrative elements that make it darker than the first game.

Return to sand

The Prince with Kaileena sail on a makeshift boat from the previous game's island to the Prince's home in Babylon. There an ambush awaits him: the Vizier is alive and, because the Sands were now never put into the container, he is after Kaileena. She is captured and, soon after, murdered to free the Sands once more. The usual sand invasion follows. The Prince is also reunited with the Dagger of Time and Farah, though she doesn't remember, or rather, know the Prince.

The Two Thrones supports 1080p out of the box, which is nice. Less nice was discovering the game being very sensitive to the stick drift my worn-out Xbox 360 controller developed a good while back and that there was no deadzone slider to filter it. I could've plugged in my newer controller but, unlike the previous two titles, the game has support for controller vibration, too, and there's no option to turn it off. I'm not going to use a peripheral that constantly reminds me of its existence and thus I played through the whole game with mouse and keyboard -- which did not provide the optimal experience.

Ubisoft apparently supplied GOG with the European release of the game which is censored unlike the North American one. I assume the censorship is for dismemberment and maybe some blood splatter for the human enemies at the start. I installed Uncensor mod before starting and did have beheadings and enemies cut in half, just like in Warrior Within.

The way it's meant to be enjoyed (not)

There are a few additions to the familiar gameplay, both to platforming and combat. One for the latter is a stealth takedown, or speed kill, as the game calls it, I believe. If you get close enough, either behind or above, to an enemy without being seen, the screen starts flashing and you can initiate a quick-time event to kill the enemy quietly. The tougher the enemy, the more stabbing is required. It's the same button every time but the window to hit it is extremely narrow. I have a strong hunch that it is tied to framerate: at 30 FPS you'd have twice the time compared to 60. I refuse to believe they're meant to be so difficult to execute.

Throughout the game, there are sand wells guarded by enemies. One of the enemies, a sergeant or something, will rush to the well to summon reinforcements when alerted. You really want to speed-kill him because the encounter will otherwise become a lot harder. Of course the QTE for that enemy type seemed to be the hardest one to succeed at even though it isn't even the longest of them. I managed it maybe twice in total. It is possible to interrupt the sergeant by just attacking regularly but you pretty much have to be in his way ready to intercept because the act of summoning doesn't take long at all.

The Dagger is the Prince's primary weapon in The Two Thrones and for a second one you can again pick up low-durability enemy weapons. Towards the end, there is a permanent sword upgrade as a reward for making it that far.

Platforming still a challenge

When trying to save Kaileena at the beginning, the Prince gets a nasty-looking bladed whiptail sunk around his arm. At scripted places, the whiptail transforms the Prince into Dark Prince, which is in effect much like the sand wraith form in Warrior Within. Your health keeps going down and you need sand to replenish it. Combat becomes very easy as the Dark Prince but platforming leaves no time to waste because the health drain ticks at a quite the pace. You quickly need to find more enemies to kill or a jar to break for sand or a body of water that returns the Prince back to himself.

One of the new elements in platforming are springboards that launch the Prince off a wall run. They feel kind of fiddly; they are probably tied to framerate as well. One of the springboards is an infamously bad one, close to the very end of the game when you are ascending the Tower of Babel (?) -- which had been looming on the skybox along the journey, like a promise. The springboard in question refuses to kick you far enough and you end up falling to your death. Your options include installing a slightly bigger mod patch or capping the game to 30 FPS. Or you can alternatively keep trying like me because it is possible to make it even at 60 FPS. On the successful 20th (or more) attempt, my initial wall run to the springboard went pear-shaped, the Prince ending up below it on the wall, yet it that time somehow functioned as intended.

The Two Thrones was the sweatiest Prince of Persia game for me to beat in the trilogy which as a whole is pretty damn sweaty thanks to the janky PS2 era experience. I'd have hard time agreeing with any current day praise aimed at the games' gameplay. It's frankly hard to believe people enjoyed it back in the day either. I guess they just didn't know of any better.