Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame

Gameplay

Similar to the first Prince of Persia, the character explores various deadly areas by running, jumping, crawling, avoiding traps, solving puzzles and drinking magic potions. Prince of Persia 2 is, however, more combat-heavy than its predecessor. In the first game, enemies appear only occasionally and are always alone, while in the sequel, up to four enemies may appear at once, sometimes flanking the player, and may even be instantly replaced by reinforcements when they are killed. As in Prince of Persia, the trick is to complete the game under a strict time limit from 65 minutes in the game that passes in real time. Lives are unlimited, but time cannot be regained (except by reverting to a previously saved game). In other areas, more significant improvements have been made. The graphics are far more complex than the simple look of the game's predecessor, the areas explored are larger, and the variety of backdrops is greater.

Plot

The game takes place eleven days after the events of the first game. During this period, the Prince was hailed as a hero who defeated the evil Jaffar. He turns down all riches and instead asks for the Princess's hand in marriage as his reward, to which the Sultan of Persia reluctantly agrees. The game begins as the Prince enters the royal courts of the palace. Before he enters, however, his appearance changes into that of a beggar. Nobody recognizes him, and when he attempts to speak with the Princess, a man who shares his appearance (Jaffar, who is magically disguised) emerges from the shadows, ordering him to be thrown out. With guards pursuing him, the Prince jumps through a window and flees the city by way of a ship.

Falling asleep on the ship, the Prince dreams of a mysterious woman who asks the Prince to come to her. At this time, the ship is struck by lightning, cast by Jaffar. When the Prince regains consciousness, he finds himself on the shore of a foreign island. He comes to a cave full of reanimated human skeletons that fight him. He finally escapes on a magic carpet. In the meantime, however, in Persia, Jaffar seizes the throne in the guise of the prince. The Princess falls ill under Jaffar's spell of gradual death.

The magic carpet takes the Prince to the ruins of an old city filled with screaming ghosts, snakes and traps. Arriving at what appears to have once been a throne room, the Prince loses consciousness and the mysterious woman, revealed to be his mother, appears again. She explains that the Prince is of a royal lineage and the only survivor of the massacre by "armies of darkness". She implores him to avenge the fallen.

The Prince rides a magical horse to a red temple, inhabited by warrior monks wearing bird headdresses. There, he finds that the shadow, created in the events of the original game, can now leave his body at his will. He wields his shadow to obtain the magic flame of the temple, at which point the bird warriors kneel before him. He flies back to Persia on the magic horse and confronts Jaffar. With the shadow and the flame, the Prince burns Jaffar, killing him for good.

With Jaffar's spell broken, the Princess awakens. The Prince orders the former Vizier's ashes to be scattered. The game ends on a cliffhanger when an old witch is shown watching the happy couple through a crystal ball. According to Jordan Mechner, the engineer behind the game, the plot of the old witch and the "armies of darkness" were set to be resolved in a sequel, which never came.

Ports

Titus Software ported the game to the SNES and released it in 1995. It has some missing features and lacks several levels, including the last one. On August 11, 2006, the Mega Drive port was leaked. Ported by Microïds, this conversion was going to be published by Psygnosis, as depicted in the leaked version, but it was canceled in an almost complete state for unknown reasons. The game can also be unlocked in the Xbox NTSC version of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time by finding a secret area. However, the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox PAL versions feature the original Prince of Persia instead and the PC version lacks the secret area entirely.

The Macintosh version has high resolution graphics (640×480), the DOS and SNES version only low resolution graphics (320×200) and (256×224) respectively.

Remake

On July 25, 2013 a high-definition remake of the game was made available for iOS and Android mobile devices. The game includes options for both virtual buttons and gesture-based controls.

Reception

Charles Ardai wrote in Computer Gaming World that "Prince of Persia 2 not only is in every dimension better than Prince of Persia, but ... is the cruelest, most infuriating, least merciful—in short, the best—game of its type I have ever played", with "an appeal that is absolutely irresistible". He criticized the imperfect savegame feature that forced him to replay areas dozens of times, and other aspects of gameplay, but concluded that the game "merits nothing but salaam after salaam ... a virtuoso performance by Mechner, one of the field's most devious puzzle constructors". Power Play gave both the DOS and Macintosh versions a 68% score.