A great chance that ultimately falls flat
posted by Node202 (CHICAGO, IL) Dec 15, 2008
Member since Jul 2008
25
out of
40
gamers (62%) found this review helpful
Lets get straight to business and skip brushing up on the series history.
PoP is a new spin on an old theme and genre which attempts to breathe fresh air into the long beloved (by some) PoP series. The game features a new prince who has a on screen companion this time around and last for the entire games duration.
Lets talk about the good first. The new prince, the new art style and SOME of "tag team" elements found in the new companion are great. Well, the art style and world POTENTIAL is great. The new prince...artistically is great but retains some of his smart mouthy nature (not a real problem, dialogue is not unbearable).
It is also worth mentioning that the music is quite good. The story...is cliched a bit and really could be on par with a Disney story not unlike Aladin or some such.
However, then there is the bad. The games biggest problem is its difficulty. To put it short, it is simply far TOO easy. Its not just the often spoke of fact that you cannot truly die(fall off a cliff and get pulled up instantly, fall in battle and get a instant res).
Its the fact that the actual platforming, the very backbone of the game, running, jumping, climbing etc, is all automated. Every jump, every wall run, every grab, is scripted. What this means is the actual control you have over the prince and his actions is cleverly limited. Its hard to explain, but for those who enjoy platforming, making your own way to find things etc. It will not happen in this game. Every single thing you would need to use platforming for has a predefined route to it, complete with predefined running areas-
(take hand of controller while wall running, tap A, tap A,tap A. he just did some intricate stuff and you had little to do with it)
Couple this with the fact the actual game pacing is nothing more than a slight twist on the okami system (Find evil stuff, clean land, collect stuff, repeat) does not help.
The game to me lacks any real enjoyment when the core aspect of it is automated
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