Prince of Persia Warrior Within Torrent carries on the story of the prince from the Sands of Time game. Now, because the prince has set free the magical Sands of Time, he’s being chased non-stop by a scary time monster called the Dahaka. The Dahaka is a creature that eats up everything in its way like a walking black hole. So, to run away from it forever, the prince decides he must travel to the past to stop the Empress of Time and stop the sands from being made at all. Sound tricky? Well, if you can understand Back to the Future, you shouldn’t have any problem believing the story in Warrior Within… though the game might want you to take it more seriously than the Michael J. Fox movie.
The prince’s journey brings him to a ruined fortress on the Island of Time, where you’ll be battling inside the castle, in mysterious caves, and in the outdoor gardens, where some of the game’s best level designs can be found.
Warrior Within takes a cue from the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in that you’ll explore the same areas in two different periods. Special rooms scattered around the fortress let you switch back and forth between the past and the present, and parts of the castle will change depending on the period. So, for example, the clock tower that had delicate machinery and giant working gears in the past looks old and broken in the present, with tree branches sticking out of walls and broken pieces of machinery all over the floor. Of course, the way you navigate each room also changes depending on the period you’re in.
The new time travel idea makes the game longer, but it also means you might have to go back through places you’ve already been, which wasn’t part of The Sands of Time. This doesn’t mean that Warrior Within has as much wandering around as, say, a Metroid game. Mostly, the game still follows a very straightforward path, but in some of the later levels (which feel like they were made in a hurry), it’s not always clear which way you’re supposed to go. There’s an in-game map that shows where you are and which period you should be in, but it doesn’t give enough detail to know exactly how to reach your next destination.
The biggest new thing in the game is a more complex combat system. The prince can now do lots of different moves with his weapons, and what he does depends on whether he’s holding one weapon or two. With just one weapon, you can grab enemies and throw them or even strangle them. Using two weapons means you can’t throw enemies, but you can do stronger weapon moves. What’s cool is that the effect of your moves changes depending on what type of weapon you have in your left hand, which is the prince’s weaker hand.
Prince of Persia Warrior Within Torrent doesn’t have all the wonder that made The Sands of Time one of the great games of this era. Despite this, it keeps the main gameplay of Sands, improves the combat, and adds a lot more playtime. Most people who liked The Sands of Time will enjoy Warrior Within, but some might think the dark look is too different from what they expected. Ubisoft Montreal should remember that people play prince games for the feeling of adventure, not just for the fighting. If anything, I’d prefer a combat system where the Prince fights just one or two enemies at a time, but with the intensity of a fighting game.
Prince of Persia Warrior Within Torrent System Requirements
- OS: Windows 2000/XP/7/8/10/11
- Processor: 1 GHz Pentium III
- Memory: 512 MB
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 3
- DirectX: DirectX 9.0c
- Hard Disk: 1.5 GB
