Handheld gaming is more than a compromise of power and portability. Whether it’s the ability to play anywhere, multitask or hold an entire console in your hands, it’s a special experience consoles have never replicated. In a world where high resolutions and teraflops reign supreme, we take a look at a portable relic every month and reflect on what makes it memorable. Be warned, spoilers may occasionally populate these articles.
One of the measures of a game’s success can be based on how many different platforms it gets ported to. Prince of Persia is such a game, though its success didn’t come early. This may be hard to believe based on the number of ports, sequels and reboots, but when it was initially released on Apple II computers back in 1989, it was a commercial failure. It didn’t gain traction until appearing on other platforms in different markets, at which time its success exploded which led to being ported to just about every console and computer platform in the early ’90s. Game Boy was one such place where the unnamed prince’s adventures found a home.
The slow burn that led to the massive success of Prince of Persia seems appropriate as this was not a game that was quickly slapped together. Development began in 1985. Drawing influence from many tales of adventure with the Arabian Nights stories being the most obvious influence, Prince of Persia was intended to be an adventure in puzzle. Originally progressing through the game was intended to be a pacifist’s mission, but peer pressure eventually led to the inclusion of sword fights, the reasoning being that the game was too boring without it. Would Prince of Persia had succeeded if it was completely nonviolent is something we’ll never know, but it does raise some philosophical questions about human nature and being entertained by violence.
One of the more notable elements of Prince of Persia is its animation quality. Compared to its contemporaries, the animation is considered lifelike and detailed, even groundbreaking for its time. This was achieved through a technique called rotoscoping where footage was used to animate character movements by tracing footage of an actor wearing clothing similar to the protagonist. The animation quality may have been more noteworthy in some other versions of Prince of Persia, but the quality is exceptional for a 1992 Game Boy game. Some other useless trivia – a few years later another game for Sega Genesis with a common story influence, Middle Eastern setting and antagonist named Jafar was also getting a lot of attention for raising the bar for video game animation quality.
The plot of Prince of Persia does follow what has become an all too common video game trope, which involves a woman being captured with the intent to marry the villain against her will. Taking place centuries ago in Persia, the Sultan is away leading the charge to the war. His mistake was leaving his vizier in charge who happens to be a wizard named Jaffar. Jaffar takes advantage of the sultan’s absence and decides to overthrow his kingdom. He locks the princess in a tower, demanding for her hand in marriage or suffer the pain of death. She has only an hour to make up her mind. The protagonist, the man the princess truly loves, is held prisoner in the dungeon. It’s up to him to break out of jail and put an end to Jaffar’s nefarious scheme.
The player needs to not only escape from the dungeon, but also overcome various hazards in his quest to free the princess from Jaffar. To make matters more challenging, that sixty minutes thing is incorporated into a time limit for the game, giving the player one hour to get to the palace tower and slay Jaffar. There are various traps that can hinder his progress such as spike traps, guillotines and pitfalls that all require agile maneuvering and jumping to avoid. There are also armed guards who are none too pleased with their prisoner’s escape attempt, but thankfully there’s a sword conveniently left lying around. Combat isn’t the main focus of Prince of Persia, but the sword fights are interesting. The player can fight with a combination of slashing, parrying, advancing and backing off making the combat feel more choreographed like something that would be seen in the movies that inspired this such as The Adventures of Robin Hood. There are a few encounters that give credence to Jaffar’s claims to being a wizard, such as an invincible skeleton swordsman and a magic mirror that creates an evil doppelganger of the protagonist.
Prince of Persia is a fun platformer. It can be challenging to newcomers, but once the player spends some time to get familiar with the mechanics, the sixty minute time limits becomes a lot less intimidating. The animation and obviously color palette are better showcased in other versions, but the original Game Boy port showcases that great animation can happen even with limited technology. More importantly, it’s a one of those games that seems to remain fun regardless of how far gaming technology advances. Some games are unfortunately good when they are released, but the passage of time is not kind to the tech limitation in which they were developed. Prince of Persia is no such game, as while it may be simple by modern standards, its simplicity may be the key to its timelessness.
The 1992 Game Boy Prince of Persia holds up well enough where it’s still worth playing today, although there are few if anyone who would say this is the best version of the title. Just sticking with handheld console ports, some may recommend the Game Gear or Game Boy Color versions, or perhaps even the TurboGrafx-16 version via TurboExpress. The original Prince of Persia has been ported to numerous platforms, including mobile, so playing it on some platform is easy. Since its release it has generated a few sequels and reboots, though the reboots stray far from the original gameplay. Many of these are worth experiencing, but even if just for a piece of gaming history, everyone should at least check out the original Prince of Persia on some platform.
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