Prince of Persia: In Desperate Need of a Subtitle, was a big risk for Ubisoft Montreal. After POP: The Sands of Time won numerous accolades in 2003, the series went in a different direction, opting for a darker, more mature prince. Which, ironically, made for a shallower, less mature prince who only thought he was mature because he did a lot of brooding. The Two Thrones alleviated this to a great extent, but by then the brand name had worn stale and it was just another in a long line of action-platformers. Ubisoft knew it was time for a revival of the series and the advent of next-gen (actually, now current gen) consoles was the time to do it. Opting for cel-shaded graphics, a free roaming environment, and an all new cast of characters, does the new prince have the acrobatic chops to make it a worthwhile change?

About the new cast… The "Prince" here is not really a prince, and I’m not entirely convinced that the game takes place in Persia. He’s aided by a magical royal hippie fairy girl named Elika. Or rather it’s the other way around. This is really Elika’s story. The plot revolves around her being given mysterious magical powers around the time an evil god has been resurrected, and it’s her duty to put things right. The Prince is merely along for the ride. The new cast takes some getting used to. I was especially turned off by their modern day yank accents which felt woefully out of place in this illustrious fairy tale setting. Initially, I found myself hating the Prince with his obnoxious, sarcastic retorts, but after a while I found myself really caring about him. Sure, he’s brash and immature, but you get the impression that it’s all a facade and that he really is a deep, if pathetic character. Elika is far more serious and smarter, and her reaction to the Prince echoes our own; hating him at first and then warming up to this plucky, wannabe tough guy. It’s not a game romance for the ages, mind you, and it’s certainly not as good as the former Prince’s relationship with Farah in The Sands of Time, but it’s better than you might expect given the game’s first few hours.

The other most striking change about the game is its art style. The cel-shaded graphics bring to mind Okami, something echoed in its story regarding replenishing the land of a dark curse. Each area is varied and unique, and the cel-shading does a wonderful job at painting this storybook setting. The lush color palette conveys an idyllic sense of wonder, but also lonely isolation; something reflected in the new Prince. While the different environments may sound rather bog standard for this type of game -- derelict temples, deserts, windmills, etc. -- the fact that they all look so different from what we’ve seen before is truly an achievement. Simply put, the game looks amazing. The best graphics of the year, in my mind.

The game mechanics have also been revamped, and for the better. The Prince, who already had a Spider-Man-like level of agility, has even more here. He can now climb on ceilings, for example. Fancy that. He’s also got a cool claw/gauntlet thing that allows him to slide down walls, as well as employ his tried-and-true wall-run. The controls are extraordinarily streamlined with a more than generous timing window to pull off the fancier maneuvers. Even the most extraordinary platform sequences amount to little more than hitting the right face button at anywhere near the right time. While naysayers will complain that the game is too dumbed down and easy, I like to think of it as the most well-realized iteration of the concept of "little input/big output" that we’ve seen yet. And really that’s what Prince of Persia boils down to: a game about doing cool shit.