Essentially, following the events of Prince of Persia, Prince and Elika are held up in a large tomb outside of the land of Ahura, trying to weather the storm of their local angry evil doomsday god, Ahriman's, fury. The entire game basically consists of their escape from this tomb, believing that it will take them further away from Ahriman's influence. Considering what took place at the end of the last game, there is a bit of tension between the two characters, although the Prince is remarkably aloof considering his previous actions. This story doesn't get much more complicated than that, and before anything can be fully resolved the game ends on another cliffhanger that leaves considerably less of an impact than the previous one.
Spider-Prince, Spider-Prince, does whatever a Spider-Prince does.
If you've played the first Prince of Persia (and you will have, seeing as it's required to play this content), you'll soon realise that Epilogue is a fair bit harder. The developers have obviously listened to some of the complaints about the first game being too easy, and have upped the difficulty, assuming players will have already finished the main game. Essentially, the corruption that Ahriman spreads has completely taken over the tomb, which means many, many more black-ooze pits populating the walls of the tomb. Of course, you still have Elika which means you still can't die in the game, so what the developers have also done is introduce several more sections where you'll be required to perform complex tricks without landing on firm ground. Since you need to land to re-spawn, you'll find yourself relying on trial-and-error a lot more than you may have done in the past.
There is also a new magic power introduced in the game, 'Energize'. Activating these magic pads launches the Prince and Elika across the environment, similar to several of the other magic pads from Prince of Persia, before producing glowing-blue magical barriers for you to use to wall-run against. It's an interesting addition, although not a completely original one. The other magic pads are recycled in this game as well, so you can expect to be doing plenty of platform-leaping and wall-sprinting before Epilogue's end.
Sword goes to face.
Also importantly, the combat in Prince of Persia: Epilogue has been tweaked. In an obvious response to complaints about slow combat, a new sprint move has been introduced that allows the Prince to rush his opponent, resulting in a split-second quicktime event where you must hit a button to complete the move. In all honesty, the move doesn't change up the combat that much, and you'll rarely find yourself relying on the move or needing it that often. In fact, while the enemies first appear to be tougher, it's now easier than ever to beat them if you rely on Elika. For some reason, the state-shifting that was present in Prince of Persia which prevented you from using certain weapons at certain times is toned down, which means that most of the time you can easily spam magic with Elika for a quick win. In fact, we don't think we actually ever encountered the enemy state where you must use the Prince's gauntlet.
Boss fights also return in Epilogue, although sadly they're all re-treads of previous encounters. Throughout the duration of the game, you'll encounter the Mourning King several times, as well as a corruption-fueled mimic who alternates between the forms of the Warrior and the Hunter. What's interesting is that the other two bosses from Prince of Persia, the Concubine and the Alchemist have not been recycled, potentially signalling another downloadable episode on the horizon? In any case, these battles are fairly simple if you remember how to beat their incarnations from the previous game, and kind of make us wish that we'd been treated to a sneak peek of upcoming villains for the sequel instead.
Them two got stuffs to work out.
One of the major draws of Prince of Persia was the gorgeous cel-shaded graphics, which transitioned from dark and foreboding to colourful and vibrant when you 'healed' the various lands. Seeing as Ahriman is stronger than ever in this game, and there are no 'healing land' sequences, the whole game keeps to the dark vibe and colour-scheme, making for a more underwhelming visual experience. There are touches of grandeur in some of the tomb's locations, but they are unfortunately few and far between. However, there is some ingenuity in the design of the puzzles throughout the game, although they are far simpler to solve than they initially appear.
All up, Prince of Persia: Epilogue has about three to four hours of new gameplay for adventure fans to enjoy. So is it worth the dosh (and it is worth a fair amount of currency)? That depends on what you'd like to get out of it. If you're looking for an interesting extension to the story, what's here is quite slight, and could be easily predicted by fans. If you want to see where the sequel might be heading, there's not a whole lot here to indicate that either. If you're after a vastly different combat experience, you'll probably come away disappointed as well. But if want to test your skills with the Prince and tool around some slightly-harder environments, with some new puzzles and a new power, then you'll most likely enjoy Epilogue. In fact, we'd say it's hard not to enjoy Prince of Persia: Epilogue, after all it's built on the rock-solid foundations of its predecessor. It's just that, depending on your expectations of the game, whether they be based on hype or price, you may find less than what you were hoping for. It's fun, but we're ready for Prince of Persia 2 whenever you are, Ubisoft.
Worth buying? Maybe
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Downloadable content ratings system
We've given a 'buy' rating of 'Yes', 'Maybe', or 'No'.
Yes means that the content is either great value or brings some substantial additions to the game, or possibly both.
Maybe means that the content may be fun while it lasts, but may either be too short or not enough to fully justify the price tag.
No means that we don't recommend downloading this insubstantial content.
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