To begin, a very brief overview of the storyline is that the lovely princess has been kidnapped by the evil vizier, and you the prince have to escape from the dungeons and rescue her, this incredibly short synopsis has been presented in game in revised cutscene style to give us a little more purpose than the original game had.

Though honestly the storyline has hardly ever been important, what was important was the uniqueness of the game, the style of combat, and the craftiness of the various traps you must overcome as the prince finds his way through several levels of dungeon and palace to reclaim his beloved.

For those of us who played the original, the thing which stood out all those years ago was how immensely difficult and yet how rewarding this game really was.
With puzzles and traps at every turn, and smooth rotoscoped animations which for the age were incredible to watch, even if it was just to plummet onto the same spike trap fifteen times in a row, the players goal of course was to rescue the princess within a sixty minute time frame, this was an incredible amount of pressure to be placing on us, but the challenge made it all the more fun.

So here we are almost 20 years later, and the prince has had a facelift, and yet not lost all of those things which made the game so lastingly enjoyable.
With new animations and models based on those found in the new Prince of Persia games by Ubisoft, and new textures on the levels themselves, this old classic looks and feels like a brand new game.

But for those of us who played the original we are not without a head start, since the levels stick fairly closely to the originals, and all of those things we used to glare about and retry thousands of times have now become achievements, which they certainly were all along so I have to say that the developers were absolutely right in their choices here.

New to the game are checkpoints on every level which makes for a little more forgiving gameplay and really come in handy for some of the later levels, for the true fan however there is also the option of a survival mode game where you must complete the game without dying.

Also new are a few of the moves we are familiar with from the modern games, these moves are rather just time savers really and don’t change the game mechanic of the original game too much, and just add to the fluid feeling the prince has had since the old days.

Another recent addition which did surprise me was the golden butterfly which leads you around the level if you are lost, this makes things perhaps a little easier than they need to be but in the larger levels could be a life saver to someone not familiar with the original titles.

All in all I would say that this remake offers everything that a good remake should, enough new freshness to keep us playing, but with enough of the original spirit which made the game a classic all those years ago, and all for only 800 MS points.

My rating for this title is 9 out of 10, simply because I don’t like to automatically give things a ten unless they are truly exceptional, this game is not far off that though.

Considering the number of similar games which appeared not long after I think the game truly deserves its new title of Classic.