Topic: How does everyone feel about combat in Prince of Persia?

I loved Rival Swords (hence the avatar) but hated the combat. I'm not a fan of that whole God of War, Dante's Inferno 3D beat-em-up thing even when it's done properly, let alone when it's shovelled into a platformer, and definitely not when it's shovelled in with tacked-on and clumsy motion controls. I felt like the combat in Rival Swords was just a hindrance that I tried to rush through as quickly as possible so I could get to some more platforming. The bulky combo list was completely unnecessary as I found myself getting through all encounters uncscathed by blindly whipping the remote up and down. This was only on Normal difficulty, but I was put off playing Hard by the idea that the combat would take even longer. This was irritating, as I would loved to have played a Hard difficulty that simply lessened your sands so you only got two, or maybe even just one shot at each section.

All the previews of Forgotten Sands so far mention updated combat. IGN have said there's just as much as in previous Prince games, and now you can level up your character to earn extra combat skills. To me, this implies that a significant emphasis is being placed on this aspect of the game. I'll withhold judgement until I see it, but if there's much more combat in Forgotten Sands than in Rival Swords, I really don't think I'll buy it.

The thing is though, I can't really see how anybody enjoys the combat! From the limited conversations I've had with other people about these games, the combat seems to be universally disliked.. So why are Ubisoft so intent on inflicting it upon us? Does anyone out there feel happy about more combat in Prince?

I've only played the most recent remake of the original and Sands of Time, but I always felt the combat was friggin' great. I don't know why people always complained.

Well, that's not the response I was looking for but seriously, I can imagine the combat was more tolerable with non-motion controls as in Sands of Time. In Rival Swords it was really sloppy imo.

Right now I'm playing through the GC trilogy, and I just beat the first game, "Sands of Time".
I have to say I only have 2 minor complaints with the game.
1. The combat and kill moves take way to long to use. The enemies also spawn way to fast, teleport, and recover from getting knocked down rediculusly fast.
2. The AI for the girl (Jarrah? idk lol) For an archer, she sure doesn't move around or stay away when there's combat, causing her to shoot me, get herself cornered, or even in my way lol.
Anyway, I plan to play the other two in order, but so far I don't really like the enemies and how you have to kill them with flashy long moves lol. (Yes I know there's a "Cancel" button) Hopefully, the other two games improve a little, but the rest of the game was awesome.

The combat changed a lot between the three games. The Sands of Time had a fairly simple combat system, but it got a little annoying on some of the later foes because they suddenly blocked almost everything you used to use. I remember the first boss took me forever to beat because I hadn`t learned much of the combat. The acrobat and puzzle aspect I have always preferred over the combat. However, the system in Warrior Within is amazing; so much changed! You had two styles, single-weapon and dual-weapon. The single weapon, which I preferred, offered more varied abilities like grabbing and throwing foes at other foes or off edges. It offered a smart method of carrying out the combat. I haven`t actually beaten it (still), but I`m close to beating it. Like I said, I preferred the puzzle and acrobat stuff over the combat and Warrior Within had a much larger focus on combat so I just kind of got tired of it. I haven`t played Two Thrones or the newest one however. PoP is about smart combat moves, where as God of War is about racking up combos which I find rather tedious for a game that is almost solely combat.

Oh, and yeah, her AI really sucked, but she was actually useful when she was away from the enemies and shooting (and sometimes stunning) them for a quick dagger kill.

Prince of Persia and God Of War style combat is very different. Prince of Persia is all about being clever and acrobatic, God of War is all about brutality. I like both, but I enjoyed the combat of Prince of Persia more than the puzzling/ platforming.

That said, I'd not want to try it with motion controls.

@shake_zula i think there is a PSP version of Rival Swords as well, so if the only reason you didn't like the combat was the Motion controls, you might want to check it out.

I've only played The Sands of Time and I thought the combat was above average. It worked well with the platforming and character, but on it's own it would've gotten boring and repetitive. As for The Forgotten Sands, I'm cool with what's happening so far.

i'm with V8. only played SoT, but that worked well. hopefully i can find WW used and let you know how that is.

Two Thrones and Rival Swords are the same games. I feel that if you felt the controls in Rival Swords were sloppy, you would find more enjoyment in Two Thrones.

I would certainly have preferred to play Rival Swords with the GameCube controller (I can't believe they managed to omit that as an option, since it was basically a port of the GCN game). If Forgotten Sands is released with GCN controller compatibility, I'll almost definitely buy it.

That said, I still really don't care for the combat regardless of the input method. I dislike hybrid games in general. I'm sure a lot of people would get bored of non-stop platforming, and relish the variety offered by the combat segments, but not me.

On a more positive note, the DIY platforming feature sounds really promising. Building your own paths and stunts should be pretty cool.

The Sands of Time was a game with great atmosphere and platforming that made up for the rather slow combat. Warrior Within trashed that atmosphere and platforming for a hard rock soundtrack, emo prince, and near button-mashing combat. It was terrible and basically ended up as a poor man's God of War: call it (Emo)God of Persia. Two Thrones went back to the SoT formula a bit with the atmosphere and seemed to have a good balance between methodical combat while adding stealth moves. Due to the Forgotten Sands being set between SoT and WW, I'm hoping for it to be more like the SoT and nothing like WW. However, from everything I've seen, I'm still not convinced this is anything but a crappy movie cash-in by Ubisoft. You don't start a new series with a new Prince on next-gen consoles just to pull a new storyline out of your "you know what" for the previous generation's trilogy your company has said they, "moved on from", years ago. I'd rather have a sequel to 2008's Prince of Persia instead of milking a last-gen franchise that already concluded.

Yeah I agree with pretty much all of that, kevohki. I wish Prince 2008 had been released for the Wii.