Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

aka: Bosi Wangzi: Wuzhe zhi Xin, PoP: Warrior Within, Prince of Persia 2, Prince of Persia 5, Prince of Persia: Dusza Wojownika, Prince of Persia: El Alma del Guerrero, Prince of Persia: Kenshi no Kokoro, Prince of Persia: L'âme du Guerrier, Prince of Persia: Spirito Guerriero, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within HD
Moby ID: 16156
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Description official descriptions

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is the direct sequel to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Seven years later, the Prince is hunted by a monster known as Dahaka. He finds out that anyone who manipulates the Sands of Time is destined to die shortly afterwards; but the Prince has escaped his fate, and that's the reason for Dahaka's rage. Now the Prince must travel to the mysterious Island of Time, where he hopes to find the Empress of Time and, through time manipulation, somehow prevent her from creating the Sands in the first place...

The game comes with a new, darker look for the Prince and his surroundings. The fights are more brutal and take a larger part in the game, as the Prince now has enhanced fighting moves including new attack moves via walls and poles.

Even though the fights make up a large part of the game, the puzzle sections are still present and more complicated than before. A new move in the puzzle sections of the game is the curtain slide, which allows you to slide down to the ground slowly. There are still plenty of options for time manipulation and the storyline also lets you travel back and forth in time, visiting the same locations in an alternate time period.

Spellings

  • Принц Персии: Схватка с судьбой - Russian spelling
  • 波斯王子:武者之心 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

457 People (435 developers, 22 thanks) · View all

Executive Producer
Producer
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Art Director
Lead Level Designer
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Lead PC Programmer
Animation Directors
Director of Photography
Lead Sound Designer
Art Production Manager
Programming Technical Director
Modeling Technical Director & Special Effects
Animation Technical Directors & Character Special Effects
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 63 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 108 ratings with 5 reviews)

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (PoP:WW) Stunning, all-around triumph

The Good
I'm not sure to what extent the original game's design team had a hand in this game, but it is a solid entry. As much as I enjoyed playing "Sands of Time," there seemed to be something painfully repetitive about the combat, excellent graphics and sound notwithstanding. "Warrior Within" overcomes those problems by making combat into a decision tree -- the sequence of buttons pressed, up to six-in-a-row, determines the finesse (or lack thereof) in the prince's fighting style. The excellent sound and graphics from Sands of Time are back, along with the riveting cut scenes, so if you like a game that truly feels like an interactive movie, this is it.

The Bad
Decision tree-based combat is better, but combat is still largely about button mashing. The only question that remains now is, "Which buttons should I push?" The cut scenes may be astonishing, but there can be long puzzle-solving interludes between them.

The Bottom Line
If you didn't like "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time", this one may be worth a look. If you did like PoP:SoT, then "Warrior Within" is a notch above in almost every respect.

PlayStation 2 · by Ryan Kelly (9) · 2005

This game is really bad, in the good sense

The Good
I was fond of the old 2D Prince of Persia games, so was quite happy to see the series get the full 3D treatment. The Sands of Time is one of my favorite games and I believe holds up as one the best 2D --> 3D adaptations.

The sequel delivers largely more of the same with its elaborate jumping and platforming puzzles, which isn't a bad thing at all. There are several new kinds of traps, and best of all, the new chase sequences where you have to complete a section very quickly as a monstrous beast called The Dahaka is on your tail.

My main complaint about The Sands of Time was the combat. It was quite simplistic and the final boss fight was the easiest I've ever seen in a game. I beat it on my first try and only got hit once. In Warrior Within, the combat system has been completely revamped to have a great deal more depth. Rather than simply blocking until the enemy quits attacking, then attacking until they start blocking, you now have a wide variety of combos that grows and you progress.

Be warned though, this is only for ordinary combat. After the first couple bosses, you shouldn't be fighting bosses the regular way anymore. Don't waste time trying to figure out how to counter their attacks like I did. Bosses are fought almost entirely with sand powers. The game is insanely difficult if you don't realize this.

Everything about the presentation is masterfully done from the acting to the small graphical details that make the world come alive. I do have some issues with the creative direction though.

The Bad
The prince is now a complete stone-cold bad-ass, which frankly has been done to death. In The Sands of Time, he was a humble man forced into greatness by his circumstances. Here, his face seems to usually be stuck in a sneer and he taunts enemies with lines like "You should be honored to die by my blade," or "Death! Death, to to those who stand in my way!" Honestly, he was far more likable before. The game in general suffers from a lack of likable characters. There are, in essence, only three characters, all of whom seem only interested in saving their own hides. This doesn't work particularly well in the Prince of Persia IP.

That is a relatively minor complaint, though. My big problem with this game is glitch, glitch glitch. I beat the game once after finding about half the life upgrades. I then read online about a different ending you can get if you find all the life upgrades, so I restored from an early save and went searching. I was only two upgrades away from a whole set when I got stuck in the upper sacrificial chamber/past-southern passage (present) area by a glitch that makes it impossible to grab a certain ledge and therefore impossible to leave this section.

I restarted and played through again to get the other ending. I ran into another game ending bug toward the end of the game that stuck me in the mechanical tower with no way out. Luckily, this time I had learned to create multiple saves and only lost about an hour's time instead of the whole thing.

I also encountered several lesser bugs, such as doors I could walk through without opening them in several places and a cutscene that played when it wasn't supposed to. Reading around online makes it clear to me that my experience is far from rare. This game contains numerous bugs, several of which are fatal and will force you to scrap your saved game and start from scratch.

The Bottom Line
Prince of Persia: Warrior within is essentially an unusual combination of platformer, 3D weapon-based beat-em-up and heavy metal. This unfortunately narrows its appeal somewhat from its predecessor, but it still an excellent game if you are prepared to possibly have to use a walkthrough to avoid game-ending bugs.

Xbox · by Ace of Sevens (4479) · 2006

Prince of Persia - Badass style

The Good
Warrior Within, the sequel to the groundbreaking and excellent action-platformer Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, sees the franchise returning with a much darker, mature, moodier and harder edge episode - this time the prince is out to save himself, no matter the cost.

Starting with the biggest change, we'll start on the visual appearance of the Prince, obviously designed to 'sex him up' a bit. I like this new version of the prince compared to the wet and foppish younger Prince from the Sands of Time, you'll see this Prince brooding and 'tough guy' strutting his way through multiple levels of heart pounding action utilising all the leaps and acrobatics of the first game, plus featuring a vastly expanded 'free-form' combat system. In the combat system, combos can be performed using not one but two hand weapons allowing a sophisticated and very satisfying slash n' cut 'em experience. You'll awe in amazement as you slice your enemy in two, complete with a nice shade a red blood. :D The sands power is present, allowing a couple of special powers (rewind time, slow down time etc) that can be VERY handy.

Graphics are excellent all round, similar to Sands of Time but with a darker, sombre tone to it. Cut scenes look brilliant, will faces on the characters showing the right facial expressions. Note also that pretty much all the female characters have very revealing attire!

Music and sound are top notch, as you spar with your enemies, the Prince and enemies will utter tough guy quips - some can be unintentionally humorous ("Can you hear it? .. My blade calls for you..") and this is what makes the game a keeper for me. Great hard rockin' tunes from Godsmack complete the experience. I like the musical direction taken in this game compared to The sands of Time, at least it certainly appealed to my headbanging instincts!

The Bad
To be honest I can't really find a fault with this game. Everything blends into a seamless, easy to play action game. The difficulty in spots can be frustrating and I try to not swear in fury at these moments, but this could be construed as a positive for this game.

The Bottom Line
With this game being part of a fantastic trilogy of PoP games to revive the legendary Prince of Persia franchise, this is a must for any fan of action games. Its more violent, grittier, no-nonsense incarnation of a Prince is a great character as well.

Windows · by bogan (2) · 2005

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Discussion

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An Enigmatic Photo Behind the Credits Rifatul Islam Mar 1, 2019

Trivia

Two endings

If the players is able to collect all live upgrades, he can retrieve the final sword upgrade (Water sword) from the hourglass chamber and unlock the canonical ending (The Two Thrones) by fighting the Dahaka. Whiteout the upgrades the sword cannot be retrieved and the player is forced to fight Kaileena the Empress of Time. This also happens if one chooses to not take up the Water sword.

Jordan Mechner

In the December 2005 issue of Wired Magazine, Jordan Mechner(the developer of the original Prince of Persia who was not involved of the development of this game) was not happy with the direction of Warrior Within. He said "I'm not a fan of the artistic direction, or the violence that earned it an M rating. The story, character, dialog, voice acting, and visual style were not to my taste." However, he was quite happy when the direction taken by The Two Thrones.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2004 – Best PC Action-Adventure Game of the Year
  • GamePro (Germany)
    • 2004 - Best Console Action-Adventure in 2004 (Readers' Vote)

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Erwie84.

PlayStation 3 added by Charly2.0. iPad added by POMAH. iPhone added by Ben K.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Zovni, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, John Chaser, karttu, Johnny "ThunderPeel2001" Walker, Sciere, Xoleras, formercontrib, COBRA-COBRETTI, Klaster_1, Patrick Bregger, Flapco.

Game added January 4, 2005. Last modified March 7, 2024.