The game is set in ancient Persia. While the sultan is fighting a war in a foreign land, his vizier Jaffar, a wizard, seizes power. Jaffar's only obstacle to the throne is the Sultan's daughter (although the game never specifically mentions how). Jaffar locks her in a tower and orders her, under threat of execution, to become his wife. The game's nameless protagonist, whom the Princess loves, is thrown into the palace dungeons. The player must lead the protagonist out of the dungeons and to the palace tower, defeating Jaffar and freeing the Princess in under 60 minutes. In addition to guards, various traps and dungeons, the protagonist is further hindered by his own doppelgänger, an apparition of his own self that is conjured out of a magic mirror.
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The platforming, puzzles and traps are introduced and then remixed throughout the game. The combat similarly only features a few enemies but each fight feels like a life or death ordeal rather than dispatching the 200th brainless guard, and every few levels it throws an extra twist at you, chief among them obviously being the creation of your doppelganger.
Visually the game is also limited to a few colors, but manages to create an imposing maze-like feel to the dungeons and the palace proper. Combined with the rotoscoped animations, it has a very distinctive look that also keeps the focus on the platforming and puzzle solving of each screen.
On the whole it's a very deftly put together experience that feels like one long action sequence that would go on to inspire a lot of other cinematic games.
A hardware and technical masterpiece for that time, the way they recorded the animations, the way some pixels on a screen expressed such an atmosphere and the way the 8bit soundtrack sounded so hypnotising.
I feel like its one of the games we all played at some point in our life.
Crazy to think that if this game didn't exist, neither would have Assassin's Creed existed.