Prince of Persia (1989)

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From Wikipedia: Prince of Persia is a 1989 fantasy cinematic platformer originally developed and published by Brøderbund and designed by Jordan Mechner for the Apple II. In the game, players control an unnamed protagonist who must venture through a series of dungeons to defeat the Grand Vizier Jaffar and save an imprisoned princess.

Much like Karateka, Mechner's first game, Prince of Persia used rotoscoping for its fluid and realistic animation. For this process, Mechner used as reference for the characters' movements videos of his brother doing acrobatic stunts in white clothes and swashbuckler films such as The Adventures of Robin Hood.

The game was critically acclaimed and, while not an immediate commercial success, sold many copies as it was ported to a wide range of platforms after the original Apple II release. It is believed to have been the first cinematic platformer and inspired many following games in this subgenre, such as Another World.[4] Its success led to the release of two sequels, Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame and Prince of Persia 3D, and two reboots of the series, first in 2003 with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which led to three sequels of its own, and then again in 2008 with the identically-titled Prince of Persia.

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Last Modified: May 26, 2023

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Prince of Persia (1989) MS-DOS PC Game Playthrough
Oct 22, 2012
OtakuChest
Prince of Persia (1992 Macintosh) Complete Playthrough - Old Macintosh Game
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Prince of Persia Classic Walkthrough FULL
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Prince of Persia 1: The Resurrection Of Jaffar - Level 12
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PC Longplay [702] Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame
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Original (1989) Prince of Persia reimagined in 3D!
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167,287 items
Composer, Designer
Help in forgotten sands
Apr 9, 2023
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Safe rolling mechanic
Apr 9, 2023
OutsideFunction5400
Original wasn't perfect, but they did an amazing job with those animations in 2003... I just hope they reworked these animations in the Remake.
Apr 10, 2023
OutsideFunction5400
A review of Prince of all three Persia the Sands of Time games:
Apr 12, 2023
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Kindred Blades question
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Prince of Persia (1989) reviews and comments

It took me 30 years to complete this game. I saw and played it in school but never completed it. But now I did. This game will never go out of my mind. It is just great . Everybody should give a try to it. Shouldn't underestimate it due to emerging of new technologies. Senior people who are in need to learn computer but unable to grasp it should begin with this game to understand stroke and movements. Though not heavy in graphics but still very Descent and entertaining. Recommended highly to all. 
«Blew my mind»
Gameplay 9/10. Graphics 9/10. Soundtrack 3/10. Storyline 6/10. OVERALL 6.75/10. (A 7.5)
«Constantly dying and enjoy it»
I'll try to be as concise as possible about PoP, since there's so much for me to say about this lovely game. My review is about the classic 1990 MS-DOS port, which established the game as the reference it is today (and is the only version I've played).

My first contact with Prince was circa 1993/1994, when I was about 9-10 years old. At that time, I had an Olivetti PC1 (https://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/prodestpc1.html) as the only PC, already obsolete at the time and offered by an uncle. It had a small (mono) CGA b&w screen (last row on the screenshot below) and a PC spealer, and Prince ran slow, the movements seemed in slow motion, so of course that if we timed, the 60 minutes lasted much longer. I don't know how much time I've spent till I finally defeated Jaffar and finished the game, I only remember that it seemed like ages.


I only returned to PoP in 2020, and finally played the DOS version in VGA, with a sound card (first row above). It took me like 15-20 attempts to re-finish the game, what a nostalgic joy! This brings up that for me, although is easy to master Prince's controls (only 5 keys, 4 directions + action key) it is a difficult game, one small mistake and you're dead (and if you die too many times, without cheats you easily run out of time...).

Prince of Persia is a masterclass in animation, graphics, level design, sound, controls and storytelling (great story, levels and plot twists along the journey), and was mainly developed by Jordan Mechner alone on an Apple II. I am simultaneously finishing reading his PoP journals (which I also highly recommend), and now I'll play Prince 2. Along with Duke Nukem 3D, Prince of Persia is for sure the most important videogame of my life.

Btw, on Windows 10, if you go to Microsoft store you can grab Prince 1 + 2 for free (and for 2$, remove ads). If you wish, you can even enable load/saved games, for 5$ (no, thank you).
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