Prince of Persia: The Fallen King

Overall, Prince of Persia: The Fallen King for the DS is a fun little game for gaming on the go.

Prince of Persia: The Fallen King even convinces on the Nintendo DS. The first part of the game, which is used as a tutorial, is a bit boring, but the rest is very entertaining.

Though there are issues with the game's controls - and character dialogue is often dreadful - there is, undeniably, a wealth of PoP goodness here.

By sticking to past success The Fallen King can stand up and hold its head high. [Jan 2009, p.83]

When it comes to control, though, this is the model of a fun all-stylus action game--easy to pick up, not so easy to put down. [Jan 2009, p.89]

While it may not have the staying power of a New Super Mario Bros or creative juices flowing out of every orifice, it’s enough to put a big smile on most gamers’ faces.

The development team has created a title with mostly high production values. Although I'm not fond of the character design, the animation is fluid and the make-up of the levels he travels through is extremely varied and beautiful by DS standards. It's all the more painful then that the control scheme is entirely stylus-based because the setup simply isn't as precise, comfortable or enjoyable as a traditional configuration.

This stylus-only control scheme can also make the game more difficult and even a little frustrating.

Prince of Persia: The Fallen King is a game that just sort of falls into no man’s land. It’s not bad, and it’s not particularly good. While there are a lot of good ideas, the execution isn’t polished enough to realize that potential.

Prince of Persia: The Fallen King has some good ideas but ultimately is let down by being rushed out the door.

Prince of Persia: The Fallen King is an ambitious but ultimately unimpressive platformer. Its interesting control scheme can be very fun and immersive when everything is running smoothly, but as soon as those moments end and frustration sets in the game ceases to be fun.

Touch-screen controls prove to be a double-edged sword in this alternately compelling and frustrating side-scrolling adventure.

Prince of Persia isn't bad. You'll need to turn down the music, get used to the touch-screen controls and deal with the fact that you'll often die for no reason. Accept all of that and you might just like this game.

You'll double-tap to roll him under things, tap along walls to jump, draw a slash mark in the middle of objects to slice them and so on. While novel, it makes precision jumps nearly impossible. This results in a lot of trial and error, and if you beat the game, there's little reason to play it again.

Despite high production values, Prince of Persia: The Fallen King's awkward stylus controls means this is one Arabian night worth sleeping through.

We'd like to recommend The Fallen King, but because of the stylus control scheme and the unforgivable lack of an alternative, we can't.

Surprisingly you can find way better games in this segment – Prince is quite a boring adventure with inaccurate controls. A potential was there but unfortunately was... wasted. [Issue#174, Jan 2009]

Combat is stale and repetitive outside of boss battles, and several stages are filled with copy and pasted sections and artificially lengthening collect-three-gems-to-open-door setups. [Feb 2009, p.87]

Sadly, Prince of Persia: The Fallen King has far too many shortcomings to recommend it to anyone.

If the team behind The Fallen King had just made it a lot shorter and perhaps added some additional challenges, like time trials, it might have helped with the diminishing returns I felt from each successive level.

Kudos for embracing the stylus, but you really need to have the basics of gameplay down before the snazzy controls. [Jan 2009, p.72]

The Prince of Persia: The Fallen King is not a terrible game, but it is a very bland and mediocre 2D platformer. The touch screen controls add little to nothing to the genre and looking beyond the control scheme, you will find an incredibly boring game. The presentation values are top notch, but they feel a tad wasted on a game that could have been a lot more.