I downloaded Prince of Persia: Classic to play with my friend over the weekend. He had told me that it was supposed to be great and he was very excited to try it out. Assuming that it would be worth the $10 or so, I decided not to waste my time with a demo and go straight for the full version.

First, my friend and I took turns playing. When one of us would complete a level or die repeatedly, we'd switch off. This worked pretty well through the first few levels. The visuals looked great and the Prince moved swiftly. The combat mechanics seemed a little rough, but I thought that I just needed more time to get used to it.

We progressed until the fourth level, when suddenly we got stuck. Perhaps it was the fact that we had found so few of the health increase potions. Maybe it was the combat system. Whatever it was, we both got frustrated because we had an incredibly hard time defeating a common enemy. Once in a while we did beat the enemy, but there was no checkpoint right afterwards, and a misstep in a difficult jump sequence made it all worthless. Prince of Persia: Classic is very unforgiving.

I stopped playing the game after multiple attempts at the fourth level. I was ready to give it up entirely. Fortunately, my friend is more patient or perhaps just more stubborn. After a short break, he continued to play through the game and is nearly finished now. However, it was not without repeated swearing and complaining that he progressed that far. While he did not face the same block that we found earlier, he still didn't seem to be having a lot of fun.

It seems that we may have run into such frustration for two reasons: not finding the life potions and the lack of consistency in combat. The fact that we didn't find all the potions to give our Prince more health was entirely within our control, but the combat was not. Although we could have looked up the secret locations to extend our health or explored more on our own, many of the potions were well-hidden. Areas that don't appear to be accessible until you jump to them suddenly become visible. However, this leap-before-you-look philosophy can be very dangerous. As I mentioned earlier, one bad jump can set you back several minutes, especially when there are difficult enemies. While the areas become very obvious once you discover them, it seems to work well only upon repeat plays of the levels. I am not the kind of player who enjoys returning to games over and over, and I think this type of play may have worked better in the arcade setting.

The second most frustrating part of the game was the combat system. If you tried to counter an attack one way and it failed, the next time that same method would work (and vice versa). It was incredibly inconsistent and lacked a cohesive pattern. In this way, it felt less like a skill-based game and more emphasis was placed on chance. Also, attack animations could take a long time, and button mashing would cause the Prince to execute all the commands in order, but slowly. It felt like watching a slow computer, clicking away while the cursor spins and you just have to watch while your Prince dies.

Although I did not play the game for as long as my friend, I experienced enough frustration to show me that Prince of Persia: Classic is not my type of game. If you want to read a more in-depth review from my friend who played with me, check it out here: Design Review: Prince of Persia Classic.