Prince of Persia®

Prince of Persia (2008) is a strange beast. It strips the franchise down to its core—a focus on movement and style—then wraps it in a cel-shaded aesthetic that still looks fantastic today. The problem is, it often feels more like a tech demo than a finished game.

Platforming remains the highlight. The animations are fluid, movement is responsive, and chaining parkour moves together just feels good. But repetition sets in: revisiting the same zones to collect light seeds breaks the pacing, and the lack of new traversal abilities hurts long-term engagement.

Combat is cinematic, but shallow. Fighting the same bosses with padded health bars becomes a chore. The story itself is passable, but average writing don’t help the pacing.

It’s short, stylish, and occasionally frustrating—but if you’re into breezy platformers with a unique look, there’s still fun to be had.

please i want. no i NEED a sequel of this game, i miss Prince and Elika, let them see the world together

Really good game, even though it's frustrating and stressful in some parts
Shame they never continued the story after that NDS game that most players never heard about or bothered playing

Unlike most old games I have recently played, I haven't actually played this before - so I can actually be unbiased here. The 2008 PoP title does give you a feel of how the 3d Ubisoft parkour games came to be.


The story is very info-dumpy. In fact, the entire story is nothing but info-dumps. However, it isn't forced onto you. You want to know the lore of the lands? You stop at a plain surface and press 'T' to talk to the info-dumper, Elika. Save for some cutscenes, most of the substantial world building is done through these optional conversations. It isn't bad persay, as the info-dumps aren't snorefests due to the chemistry between the titular prince and Elika. Now Elika is not just an info-dump. In fact, she is the in-game reason why my clumsy arse doesn't die at every pillar jump. And did I mention her chemistry with the prince is awesome? Their banter is quite fun and you can feel their relationship growing through the game. The other characters are just boring to be honest, including every single villain. But that didn't matter to me as I was quite properly held on by the main characters.
*SPOILER STARTS* The story is a very basic 'save the world' trope, but with a Last of Us twist. It is basically the exact same storytelling device and executed the exact same way. The only difference is that TLoU had access to better technology and better writers. *SPOILER ENDS*


It is important to note that both the prince and Elika are your playable characters. Sure, you directly control the prince but in both combat and exploration, you use Elika's skills atleast 30% of the time. The main essence of the gameplay is exploration and parkour and NOT combat - so any Sands of Time trilogy fans should not come into the game with this expectation. And the parkour is adequate for 2025. For 2008? I think the og Assassin's Creed did it better. But it does give you more satisfaction to pull it off if you do a perfect run without Elika's save. The world itself is created solely to serve this parkour system. To the extent that you will move through the sections of the world more than twice, with quite a bit of backtracking. That and the collectible system being directly locked into the progression of the story does incentivize a fair bit of backtracking exploration. However, the collecting requirement is not strict at all - with the required collectibles being around 40-50%. So you won't explore to the point of exhaustion...unless you want to collect all 900 of them.
The combat, although not the main draw of the game, is pretty fun. It is more like the QTE in Warrior Within and Two Thrones, and seems to be the basis of those QTE kills. They have a fun combat system with cool animations with quite a lot of their own QTEs. Hence, combat - though scarce, was always fun. And by scarce, I mean that each region will have at most 2 enemy encounters - a short recurring boss of the section and a regular goon.

_____

tldr: Parkour heavy game with sparse combat and quite repetitive exploration, flavoured by an average story. Fun main characters, extremely forgettable side-casts. No encountered bugs.

5.5/10 - It is an extremely average game, but was definitely pretty fun for me (I like old games). Playing it for the first time in 2025 does show its age a lot, but I didn't find myself being offended by any of the dated mechanics.

This game is an underrated masterpiece

Do not buy. This game does not start in 2025. tried changing settings.
the game get stuck on loading screen with some settings and do not show any menu or ui in another setting.
its not playable.
maybe there is a way to make this work but nobody have time for that shit when you can just play other games without any bugs.
the game also dont support 4k resolution as i have checked on launcher setting.

This was one of the first videogames I played back in 2009, I might be biased but I really enjoyed it. It is a quite easy game, even if you take away Elika who prevents you from dying (many times because of your own stupidity). I like it to relax and enjoy the panorama, they put amazing views and you can do parkour across all the map. Also, despite the map not being that large, you can perceive the difference in the design for each place. It's different from other Prince of Persia games, but iI enjoyed it nevertheless
The story could have had a different ending or a sequel, but if I understood well, it didn't sell good so maybe that's why we didn't get more

i hate my self now

At least better than The Forgotten Sands

This is an old X360 game and its still as good and fun as I remember. Its different from the rest of Prince of Persia games. It looks good, you can play it even in 4K and has full controller support, runs perfect on modern hardware and Windows 11. Some of the dialogs between the prince and princess are hilarious, remember to make them talk to eachother frequently.

unpopular opinion, this is the best PoP

intresting art style

very beautiful visuals, good story and characters. lots of parkour - "press the right key at the right moment", the whole game is like this, not everyone might like the game for this reason. level design is something out of this world. the game looks fresh even today, unlike other Prince of Persia games. it is repetitive though, it took me multiple sessions to finish the game.

we need prince of persia 2008 part 2 w

peak

This is NOT Prince of Perisa. This is a Semi-Open World Shadow of the Colossus, Gravity Rush and Ico inspired collectathon video game, with Prince of Persia name slapped on it. They should have named it "Princess of Ahura: Light Seeds of Omazd". Man, you can't hate Ubi enough.

Good Things:
1) No Uplay so you can play it offline.
2) The Map design is very good as everything is connected to everything else.

Worse Things:
1) Unskippable Cutscenes and dialogues
2) The Combat sucks. Gets repetitive real quick. All you do is "Run, Jump, Die, Repeat." except you CANNOT die, the princess will bail you out of the ether for every fatal mistake.
3) The dude's NOT even a Prince.
4) They turned Farah into a literal Donkey. No they did NOT show the donkey, not even for a "that's cute ass" joke.
5) You have to fight the same 4 bosses 6 times each before you fight the final boss.
6) I played it for the story and I found out that there's an "Epilogue" DLC, that Ubi did NOT include in this PC port and never will, citing "business" reasons. So even the story is incomplete. I am not saying the story is not good, I am saying that the story has no proper ending.

Not as good as the original 3 but I enjoyed it none the less.

"Prince of Persia®" is an ancient game from 2008. It's a whopping 17 years old at the time of this review. The game lacks support for any modern gaming display resolutions, hasn't been modernised or updated to run smoothly on modern gaming PCs. Despite this lack of modernisation, it carries a pretty high price tag for such an ancient game. This seems to have been put on Steam as a nostalgia gouge, or just a cash grab to try profit from abandonware.

"Prince of Persia®" is a console ported third person parkour platformer and hack and slash brawler that completely fails to capture the essence of the old 2D platformer designed for PC back in 1989... a heady era when game developers and consumers came to realize how amazingly powerful the PC was as an almost untapped resource for quality gaming. And I say that because it helps us explain why this 2008 reboot is so bad.

See, Ubisoft, and it's hard to review a Ubisoft game without considering where it came from, are monstrously derivative and they just keep on digging up their franchises and making them shuffle around Weekend at Bernies style... they'd rather get 50c from a rehash of an old franchise than millions from a new one... risk averse is fine for shareholders but not great for gamers.

Hand in hand with this, Ubisoft tilted away from making excellent PC games towards catering to console peasants, again something they saw as more reliable in terms of income... but as we know, consoles suck.

And you can see where this is going... the console centric Prince of Persia was very poorly recieved on PC as a result of these poor decision from Ubisoft, something we'd seem them double down on over the following decades, letting to terrible share price performance... and terrible, derivative games, soulless corporate (N+1) iterations. Like 2008's Prince of Persia.

It's just not fun. It's a clunky console mess, infested with long, unskippable cutscenes (because even today consoles lack the power to properly allow developers to relate game narrative through the game itself).

A couple of technical issues here, too.

The developers didn't design the game for modern gaming PCs, as such the display resolution caps out at around 1440p, there's no support for the state-of-the-art 4K or higher resolutions. The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers.

The game is very badly optimised, with low framerates and janky gameplay even on a high end rig. Developers must take the time and polish their games and ensure they are optimised and will play well on any potential customers system.

Because this is designed for consoles, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the inferior console gaming appliances that the game was designed for. These are unfortunate compromises and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was a second thought for the console-centric developers. The game is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for consoles forces upon a game. Once more, console peasants have made gaming worse for everyone.

These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 110,000+ games on Steam?

"Prince of Persia®" is relatively expensive for an abandonware nostalgia gouge, at $10 USD, and it's not worth it. The game is just too old, hasn't been modernised. And as the old saying goes, you can't go home again.

For comparison, the $10 asking price for this game could get you games like "Project Zomboid" or "Metro Exodus". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.

Peak nostalgia trip, absolutely loved this game when I was a kid and I can proudly say I still do.

5/10

Cringey dialogue, repetitive gameplay, below average combat.

I picked this up after seeing it on a 'best games of all time' list, and it absolutely lived up to the hype. The main characters are well-written and memorable, and the gameplay hits that perfect balance between fun and challenge without ever becoming too frustrating.

not for all

Cool game 👍
Sad no sequel 😞

Buen juego si lo miras como un juego de plataformas. Es la segunda vez en mi vida que lo juego, y el gameplay me entretiene. El final le resta un monton de puntos, y como es un juego de vergisoft, el epilogo decidieron no lanzarlo en PC, aun asi me gusta menos el final del epilogo asi que.. 6/10

beautiful and calming

Graphics are good but it's a baby game. I'll update this review if I change my mind

Awfully boring.

An oldie but a goodie. Super satisfying gameplay and great soundtrack. You'll definitely like this game if you're into fantasy.

played this for 16 years on ps3. my childhood and favourite game of all time.

love.

Doesn't work on my win 11 .
"Touch button to start" doesn't show up

A work of art.

A game worth revisiting! I played it many years ago on my Xbox 360 and now I’m playing it again casually. It has aged pretty well!

I remember playing it way back in 08. This is still the gem it was back then.
It's mind boggling how much better the movement and "parkour" are in this game compared to the more recent assassin's creed games.
Runs great out of the box on the deck. The music is amazing, was chilling throughout the entire game.

I played this game in 2010 after playing through each SoT, WW and TTT several times and didn't like it because it was too casual and had nothing to do with the prince we knew before. I went through 75% before my saves got corrupted and didn't want to play again back then. Saw it on sale now and decided to give it another go. Well, I have to say this has dumbest tutorial I ever had a displeasure to witness. I walk towards the edge and it tells me something. I would assume probably something about running on walls, except that I have no idea since I've pressed spaced and fell and now it doesn't tell me the message again and I have no idea what it were saying. Space allows me to run on walls it seems but on the second obstacle I was only able to do it properly after 4th try. May be a skill issue but it seems I just lack some important info I have to read that the game skipped because I kept moving or something?

I remember this game being casual so maybe it is not that big of a deal but I also remember fleeing from Dahaka where 0.1s delay wait the difference between a success and death and my reaction is not the same it used to be 20 years ago, so I don't feel it was necessary to introduce the "lack of knowledge" delay because the tutorial was present on the screen for 0.4 seconds and coundn't be brought back by walking around the place where it was first encountered or something.

A great attempt at bringing a new vibe to the Prince of Persia format. I know some people weren't fans but I really liked the art direction. Would love to see a modern remaster of these older games.

Completato raccogliendo tutti i 1000 semi, peccato non abbia achievements. Gioco davvero rilassante e bellissimo nonostante gli anni.

Refreshing

A far step down from the previous generation of PoP games. Controls are clunky, combat is one dimensional and the free running has lost a lot of its skill, mostly requiring you to push one button to win a fight or complete a map.

Enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Plays really well, and seems designed to make your life easy. You can't die unlike in the other POP games, you only get reset to an earlier point, which makes failing so much less annoying. It feels like it was designed to be super accessible, though not easy per se. It may feel repetitive in some places, but that is just because the difficulty curve is so gradual. You have a lot of time to get gud.

Characters are nice too.

(I've beaten the game previously on other systems.)

The game is good, overlooked. Inspired some feelings.

The flashing lights REALLY need to be toned down though.

I never played the Prince of Persia games before this but had heard a lot of good things about them. The parkour does feel a bit dated and janky at first but after a few hours, it felt natural and satisfying to figure out where I was supposed to go and how I was supposed to get there.

I was worried about the combat from some reviews I read prior to playing, but the combat was surprisingly on the easier side for me, particularly with the parry function. I feel like I could reasonably parry at least 7 (or 8) of every 10 times I tried to. The combat was okay for what it was but not the reason to play this game. I played this game for the parkour platforming and the banter between the Prince and Elika.

I had a lot of fun with this game and look forward to checking out the rest of the series.

Backlog Games Beaten 2025
10/50

it cool

This game is a blend of Legends of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Prince of Persia, Borderlands... If you like any of these games then you'll love this one. I highly recommend it, specially if you liked Breath Of The Wild.
It's vey fun and puts your brain to work.


---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☑ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☑ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

Good game, but after watching the Epilogue DLC, the writers cannot fucking write a good ending to save their lives.

Any slightly above average game that isn't heaped with praise or extraordinarily successful will always end up being hailed as a hidden game cult classic genre defining watershed deeply emotional and beautiful. This game is fine for 2 or 3 hours but it is not worth the double digit hours you'll put into it, forgetting how much you pay.

The gameplay is nearly braindead, and if you have played any uncharted or assassins creed game, the charm of fluid parkour wears off extremely quickly. The same goes with the unbelievably shallow dialogue that seems forced to be comedic and constantly undercutting anything interesting or serious. The story itself is generic, the characters have zero arcs and never get to know each other properly which leads to an embarrassingly unearned and elongated ending. The open world format destroys any last possibility of a good story since it is complete random chance what bosses you choose to face first, making the characters seem bi-polar.

The music and visuals are decent, but dont waste your time and instead play other games in the series, I heard the newest one was pretty good.

Edit: Holy shit I forgot, theres a terrible and janky combat system as well that slow everything to a crawl. The fights are so easy to beat, every enemy/boss has the same timing for a parry and enemies can be autokilled, that when I wrote this (right after beating the game) it immediately left my mind. Seriously, don't bother, its not awful, but its not worth your time.

This game sucks!.

Prince of Persia (2008) by Ubisoft Montreal

Release Year: 2008
Genre: Action-Adventure
First playthrough length: 12hrs

Prince of Persia is the 2008 remake of the classic Action-Adventure series, this time with a new setting, open world to explore and a revamped and cinematic combat system


Positives:

Visuals - The game looks amazing even in 2025, and the animations are straight up gorgeous

Platforming - Traversing the world is very fun due to the game's varied arsenal of movement techniques

World Design - the looping and intricate nature of the world makes for enaging platforming


Negatives:

Story - The game's story is bland and forgettable, until the last ten minutes where it becomes simply bad

Combat - While not bad per se, combat is clunky and not as polished as the platforming

Characters - This Prince is an unlikeable cad who I was bored with by halfway through


Final Thoughts:

Struggling under the weight of it's influential predecessors, PoP (2008) is a game feeling the burden of expectations. Gameplay-wise it works, but the characters leave much to be desired, and the turn to an unearned downer ending leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Final Score: 6/10

This game is very fun! Good parkour, awesome combat, flashy combos, but there's one issue. I got my PC reset, so naturally I wanted to re-download it. I was gonna pause it to do something else, but just then the second part showed up and the "cancel" button w as right over steam's "pause" button and it didn't give me all the files. Re-installed about 5 times now, still won't give me the files! Anybody know what to do? Could use some help.