Weakest combat, worst checkpoint placement, buggiest gameplay, and the poorest sound mixing (with once again no subtitle option to help your straining ears) out of the Sands trilogy. Yet, it's hard to be any less enamored with the experience given how it brings the story of this iteration of the titular character full circle. No longer the prideful young man we met in SoT or the angry, desperate individual he was in WW, The Two Thrones finds the Prince more solemn in demeanor. Seasoned, weary, and haunted by his past adventures and mistakes. This concluding chapter of his tale is all about him learning to face the consequences of his actions and overcoming the evils of vanity and selfishness in his heart to become the king his people deserve. It's themes of personal growth are powerful and add an emotional component to the story that was missing in its most direct predecessor, as our hero struggles with the temptations offered when the darker aspects of his personality are literally given a voice of their own and a returning love interest (herself having been a bit hardened by events) brings his honorable qualities back to the surface. That final segment before the credits roll where the two halves of his soul battle it out for supremacy, which I had honestly completely forgotten about, really spoke to me and brought about some personal realizations, allowing me to grow alongside the protagonist.

So the writing absolutely delivers in all the ways you'd hope, even exceeding expectations in terms of depth, and luckily while I do have my minor qualms the gameplay does as well. Triple T takes the best received elements from Warrior Within (the combo system, secondary weapons, etc.) and places them in the structure of Time. Although it is a little disappointing to see them forgo the second entry's larger scale rather than further refining and expanding upon it in favor of returning to a linear format, the title's new inclusions to the formula keep things from ever feeling like a total retread. Challenging chariot chase segments have been introduced alongside a variety of original twists on traps and platforming objects such as plates for stabbing your dagger into to hang on walls and panels that can launch you at angles. All of which come off as right at home in the series. Heck, the ability to now perch atop the bars you could previously only swing on is so natural I truly wondered why no one had thought of it sooner. Then there are the creative and exciting scenarios you'll encounter, from making your way through pitch-black ruins by only the glow of a magic sword to scaling the exterior of the massive Tower of Babel, that are memorable enough to help distinguish it in the minds of the players.

I suppose now would be the time to address my comments at the start of this review made in regards to the combat. It's not bad since the game basically uses the same system as Within, but attacks don't carry the same weight, there's a severely smaller pool of secondary weapons, throwing said secondary weapons is entirely unreliable now in terms of whether they'll hit the target or not, and despite looking cool the enemies aren't much fun to actually fight. As a result, I really only enjoyed battles when playing the "Dark Prince" segments. Two Thrones takes the relatively brief Sand Wraith section from the previous outing and runs with it. At regular points you'll swap over to this ancillary character who's devastating chain whip is a blast and can even let you swing across large gaps, more than making up for his constantly draining health. Most of the time you're the standard Prince however, so you'll probably want to avoid engaging with the local threats as much as possible. I imagine this was done to emphasize the new "speed" QTE stealth kills you can trigger by approaching an unaware enemy from behind, which on top of being a solid way to bypass the tedium of clashing with aggressive bands of soldiers also serve to reinforce why I love this title's location so much in a way.

Babylon might be my favorite setting in the franchise thus far. Not just because it's gorgeous and features fantastic level design with stellar environments that have remained etched in my brain for years, but thanks to its phenomenal tone as well. The vibe of being a lone, underequipped individual in a city being overtaken by hostile invaders who's only surviving the war going on around him by sticking to back alleys and streets less-traveled is near-perfectly captured. It reminded me a lot of Call of Duty missions I've played where you're sneaking through some Middle Eastern town to eliminate a high-profile target, stretched out into an entire campaign with that same sense of tension and insurmountable odds.

My point only other complaints stem from the technical side of the package. I've encountered a ton of minor visual goofs (locks of hair poking through faces, swords facing wrong angles in hands, and so on), foes inexplicably walking in circles and becoming invincible in corners rather than attacking me, and it's always annoying to have constantly toggle the volume on your TV because you can't hear what's being said in a cutscene or over the background noise all of the sudden. Stuff like that alongside how this apparently backtracks on the plans for increasing the property's scope the prior installment started should mean this is the weakest of its trilogy for me. Instead, it's currently my second favorite entry in the franchise overall as of this writing. The Two Thrones is a worthy conclusion for Prince of Persia's Sands storyline that takes the brand's always exhilarating parkour platforming and pairs it with some of its strongest writing thematically to give its protagonist the satisfying send-off they deserve, and create another standout gaming experience in the process that defies its age to remain a must-play for any and everyone.

9.2/10

I wouldnt adore this trilogy so much if it weren't for this game.
Two Thrones paves the way to conclude the trilogy, while respecting both of its predecessors by assimilating what is best of both into its own final journey of retrospect and resolve.

Both Sands of Time and Warrior's Within's two opposing tones are mutually captured throughout this game, both gritty and lighthearted in ambience, strong writing and characterisations with banter dialogues and monologues harkening back to Sand of Time, while retaining that dark edge which reflects through the more isolated moments of the game.

Two Thrones progression is in similar fashion as The Sands of Time always directing itself forward to new areas with diverse environments through fantastic level design combining parkour platforming, combat and puzzlesolving into a balanced rythm that flows exceedingly well.

Apart from a few missable life upgrades and some minour jank, this game is one of a kind doing an excellent job in concluding the trilogy.

pretty inventive and straight to point finale, incredibly fun gameplay loop, the addition of stealth kills and the more urban enviroment fits very nicely into Prince of Persia, interesting variety too ranging from carriage races or the addition of an transformation for the Prince which brings even more spice to the gameplay, the tight pacing and narrative are also great changes of pace after Warrior Within that felt lacking on those departments.

unfortunely the game still lacks a bit of polish and I dunno if it was the engine being old or because Ubisoft had only an year to develop this, the visuals are still very dry just like Warrior Within, weird animations especially on cutscenes, sound design is awful and the PC version has lots of different problems which can thankfully be solved by implementing fan-made fixes.

overall an gem on the overaching array of the PS2's incredibly rich library, everything is really solid and consistently fun to play.

The prince gets schizophrenia, and has a badass black guy tangled with chains inside his fucking head, who uncontrollably takes over his body to murder enemies. How can u not like that.
Besides, as far as i remember, it's the first game I've ever played in my life, on my PS2. I remember launching this game with my older brother excited as shit, just to take turns while playing (i was the last one to play of course).
The game and basically the whole series, is what got me into parkour/stealth/action games in general.
Huge love and nostalgia, is what I have for this game.

The Two Thrones traz a formula utilizada no jogo anterior, porem acompanhado de algumas melhorias e novas mecânicas, e mesmo gostando mais da trilha sonora warrior within este ainda segue sendo o meu favorito da saga.

Uma boa sequencia, e um bom desfecho. A trilha sonora como em todos os outros segue muito boa, a jogabilidade e gráficos segue o mesmo padrão de seus antecessores.

Este sofre dos mesmos problemas dos outros jogos também, talvez ate mais problemático na versão da steam. Uma dica pra quem for jogar é: limitar o fps em 60 para evitar que o personagem fique preso nas paredes, e também evitar que ele fique preso nas correntes onde tem que escorregar nelas, dentre outros pequenos problemas.

No geral o jogo é incrível e vale muito a pena pegar caso tenha jogado os outros.
NOTA: 8,5/10

Another video game from my childhood !
I originally played the Wii version "Prince of Persia - Rival Swords". It's a different name that is exclusive to the Wii release, but it's exactly the same game.
I remember spending more time watching my father & brother play it, rather than playing it myself. It was too hard for 10-years old me. I don't even remember if we ever finished it.
Tho to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if playing with my Xbox controller made the game considerably easier than playing it back then with a Wiimote & motion controls.

The PC version is janky and I had to do some workarounds when I started the game.
Setting my controller correctly was troublesome, and there was an issue with the graphics:
When you set the special effects to "High" the game has an extreme bloom effect that makes it considerably less pleasant to look at.
But if you set the special effects to "Medium" or "Low" your character's shadow turns green (don't ask me why).
I chose to stay on "Low" cause the bloom effect is just terrible.
The audio is also fucked up. In several cutscenes, there is a delay between what you hear and what's happening on screen.
Despite all those technical issues, the game was definitely playable. None of them were too much of a nuisance.

I was very happy with the gameplay. The controls are intuitive, and your character's movements are very fluid. He jumps far and he climbs ladders & ledges quickly.
It was a lot of fun to hang onto those curtains, and traverse the platforming sections full of traps. You need to have good timing, and dodging all those contraptions is really satisfying. The Prince definitely feels super agile!
The rewind mechanic was also welcomed. It was an interesting way to justify having a few extra chances upon failing a jump, and it also serves a purpose in the story & the Prince's character development.

The combat was engaging for the most part. There is an infiltration aspect to it, with an execution QTE everytime you manage to land a surprise attack. You also have plenty of combos, and you'll need to be clever to defeat some of the enemies. For example you can insta-kill the dogs if you attack them while they have their mouth opened.
You can also avoid direct confrontation. Whenever there is an enemy encounter, you aren't locked with them, and you can actually ignore them entirely by rushing to the next platforming segment (well, most of the time).
Another option if you want to avoid fighting is to knock the enemies over the rooftops. It works like a charm!

I wasn't a big fan of the Dark Prince transformation. I understand the idea of forcing the player to play more agressively to change the pace a bit, but it was kinda stressful to lose HP constantly. It's like having a timer, which I've never been fond of. And the combat itself isn't exciting. You can just spam the whip over & over until every enemy is dead.

The game has well designed Boss fights, and all of them are really challenging:
- The 1st Boss fight in the arena was great, I like that it relies a lot on platforming.
- The 2nd Boss fight against Mahasti was equally good. It involves a lot of melee combat with the use of parry & the Dark Prince transformation to get rid of her. Plus she has a sick chara design!
- The 3rd Boss fight against the Twin Warriors was probably the hardest in the game. But fun nonetheless.

Games that ask you to choose a difficulty before beginning your adventure, but don't let you change the difficulty again afterwards are a big no-no for me. I don't recommand starting the game on the highest difficulty if you ever decide to give it a try.
I keep thinking that if I started the game on Hard, maybe I would have never made it to the end 😅

The endgame areas were my favorites. I love the atmosphere in the Hanging Gardens.
After that, you have to make your way through the Palace's old well, and it's just as good. After a tough parkour segment, the Prince finds his dead father, and he finally manages to take control of his alter ego. It was a really cool story moment!

The final Boss fight, just like all the other ones, was very entertaining. It mixes melee combat, platforming & QTE, and it was so rewarding to defeat him.
When I thought I had finished my adventure, the Dark Prince reappeared out of nowhere to try and get rid of us. The end consists of a final platforming segment in the Prince's psyche, and the visuals were pretty neat.
Honestly, the last hours of the game went so smoothly, it was such a satisfying ending.

I'm surprised I enjoyed the game so much. The fact that Prince of Persia isn't a huge franchise that isn't talked about a lot, and the fact that the game came out in 2005.. I didn't expect it to be so good. It holds up really well!
I'll definitely play the first two games of the trilogy in the future: Sands of Time & Warrior Within.

----------Playtime & Completion----------

[Started on January 14th & finished on January 15th 2024]
Playtime: 14 hours
Main story complete.

The finale of the Sands of Time trilogy is one that combines the best of both previous games in a package that is ultimately a bit less than the sum of its parts in comparison to the first game. It certainly outpaces the second game for me however, and that's partly thanks to them righting the ship from last time with the game's tone, writing, and the prince as a protagonist.

Funnily enough, The Two Thrones is in many ways the opposite of how Warrior Within was for me—I vastly prefer this game's narrative and writing to its gameplay. Not that the gameplay is bad by any stretch, but more so that I most of all appreciated the concerted effort to right the wrongs with the darker, edgier flavour of Warrior Within.

Of course, I acknowledge that not everyone was a detractor of that game and its tone, and many people did get a kick out of it, so to kind of have their cake and eat it too, the tone of The Two Thrones manages to find a satisfying midpoint between the adventure and wit of Sands of Time and the grit and darker tones of Warrior Within.

This creative experiment pays off, and I enjoyed the prince and his dynamic with other characters, including the returning Farah and the dark spirit that resides within him (which I assume is a metaphor for his drastic change in character during the last game), much more than I had before. The story isn't anything new, of course, but the prince's journey of reconciling with everything he's been through and trying to find a way to accept and make peace with himself is genuinely compelling.

As said, the gameplay isn't bad at all; it's a decent amalgamation of the best parts of the last two games in terms of combat, platforming, level design, and puzzles. The new platforming moves of wall climbing and springboarding are fun and provide opportunities to use the new stealth systems this game flaunts—they're a fun alternative to hacking and slashing if need be, and are paced to help break up the action and platforming by combining both at these intervals. It's a neat distraction and doesn't overstay its welcome, or vice versa.

The non-linear Metroidvania structure of Warrior Within is traded for more linear Sands of Time-esque level design this time, and honestly, I feel indifferent about it. Yes, there were navigation issues during the last game with the lacklustre maps and tightly packed areas, but the issue with Two Thrones is that both the levels and environments are the least interesting thus far. 

The rooftops and streets of Babylon are where you spend the vast majority of your time in Two Thrones, with very little in the way of variation in environments sprinkled in. Structurally, the levels are fine enough, but they're never quite as interesting to look at and explore as they were in the previous two games. 

Overall, the gameplay in Two Thrones is fine. It doesn't rewrite the book, though it didn't really need to. Instead, the combination of elements from the previous two titles with a smattering of new mechanics works well enough to sustain the <8-hour runtime. The return to linear SoT-esque levels is appreciated; however, as I've said, they're never really that interesting. 

What was interesting, however, was the narrative and writing, which are the strongest in the series. The prince himself is in full form, and his arc here is more compelling than it has ever been, and the story does a great job of wrapping up the trilogy and tying up loose ends in the way a trilogy finale should.

7/10

Overall, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones has aged incredibly well from the perspective of someone playing the trilogy for the first time in 2023. The platforming is very precise and the presentation, music and setting hold up even by today's standards. I also like the change of being able to stealth kill enemies, just because combat is its weakest part, and every tool that helps to minimize combat made the game more enjoyable to me. The bosses are absolute garbage, though. I played the entire trilogy on Steam Deck, and it played really well with community controller layouts.

This is the first time I'm revisiting The Two Thrones since the PS2. Having now replayed the whole Sands of Time trilogy within the last couple years, I'm surprised to say that Warrior Within held up the best.

All three games hold a special place in my heart, especially The Sands of Time, which beautifully blended acrobatic 3D platforming and puzzling with a charming aesthetic and story.

The weakest part of SoT of course being the combat, which is slow and repetitive, and boils down to killing every enemy by vaulting over and slicing. It's flashy at first but outstays its welcome by the end.

Warrior Within massively improves on the combat by adding secondary weapons, combos, more environmental interaction, and generally being faster and flowing way better.

So it's bizarre to see The Two Thrones take such a step backward and return to slow, awkward, clunky combat. This probably has to do with my choosing hard mode, but enemies have way too much health and take an eternity to kill. Taking several minutes to chip away at two or three enemies just to see another appear when you finally get one down is exhausting.

There's also the strange addition of a stealth takedown QTE system, which works fine and can be quite satisfying taking out an entire room nearly instantly. But if you fail or are detected, your punishment is having to fight every enemy plus reinforcements, which takes eons longer than stealth would've. There were multiple occasions where I'd opted to get killed and try again than even attempt the combat sequence.

At the very least, many enemy encounters aren't actually required and I found myself simply running past them whenever I could.

Besides the combat, everything else I like about PoP is here and done as well as usual, i.e. the platforming and light environmental puzzles. The story is serviceable, mostly a return to form to the style of Sands of Time both in how its told and returning characters like Farah and the Vizier. Glad to have Yuri Lowenthal, the original voice of the Prince, back as well.

The ending was also very cool, with the dreamlike sequence fighting the Dark Prince and being transported to locations from throughout the trilogy. And reenacting the Prince telling the story to Farah was a nice touch.

I had a good time revisiting these games. Nostalgia aside, they all had their frustrating moments, but mostly hold up as very solid with some of the jank expected of the early 2000s.

I just found it funny that Warrior Within, what I expected to come away thinking the black sheep of the trilogy, with its comical shift in tone from lighthearted to overly edgy, held up as the best experience overall. I started to miss the metal soundtrack in The Two Thrones!