Creating an imaginative art direction for a world is no easy feat. When you stretch your imagination too far the result could appear too foreign that the audience would have a hard time trying to connect with the world as the audience would not feel like they belong there. Ground your imagination too much and the world would appear too similar to our own that it would no longer be considered an imaginative world. Prince of Persia successfully created a world that is both imaginative in its art direction and enjoyable to be whisked away into. Picturesque vistas filled with lavish lakes and waterfalls admist lush foliage makes up the setting of the world. Great old buildings of Persian and Moorish architecture inhabit these secluded areas of the desert. However, a dark menace threatened to consume all of this and the rest of the world.
Apparently the locals had abandoned the state many years ago and the buildings were left to decay. The enemy known as the corruption spread throughout the lands, further damaging the structures. Only a strong and agile warrior could circumnavigate around the labyrinth that was these ruins. And that was where the prince comes in. It was not his choice but rather his fate that brought him to meet the princess, for she wished to cleanse her land from corruption---what man could resist a damsel in distrees? The prince founds himself running, sliding, and jumping along the floors and the walls of an abandoned city, but never feeling completely alone as the princess followed him behind closely.
The princess could do nothing less of what the prince can do to traverse the vast areas. And in some ways she could do more, as she was capable of partial flight through her use of magic---a lifesaving ability for every time the prince missed a jump; the princess would fly down and catch him by the hand. Coupled with her assistance in battle when magic was needed, a bond of attachment seemed to naturally form between the prince and her. But it was subtle, for the two never voiced their affection towards the other throughout the entire journey.
I had thought that the story would conclude the way I predicted it to be. I was wrong. The event I estimated that would occur as an ending did happen but the story did not conclude there. What followed caught me off guard as the true ending of the game was unveiled. The ending does not wrap up the storyline that made the setting but it does conclude the essence of what the story is about. A very well made cliff hanger for a very well made game.
