Prince of Persia was a wildly popular game and it was released for almost every system released at the time. The sequel was released only on DOS systems and people had mixed feelings about it. Basically it’s a lot like the first game but with improved graphics and a storyline that is told between levels in. The intro tell the story of part one where the prince falls in love with the sultan daughter and the evil vizier has the prince put in the dungeon so he can take power for himself. However the prince finds a way out of the dungeon and defeat the vizier and the sultan allows him to marry his daughter. They don’t live happily ever after however but as the story says only for eleven days and thus the start of another adventure for the prince.

On this day the prince walks into the palace but magic has transformed him into a beggar and his place taken by the former vizier who you thought was defeated. The fake prince tells the guards to capture you but with amazing skill you jump out the window. You get control directly after the jump and there are guards waiting for you so you must act quickly. Pull out your sword with the CTRL key and slash at the guard or you can parry his attack by pushing up. The guards at the start are easily dispatched with a single blow but there are several of them and you have little health. After taking out some guards it’s time to run and you’ll have to jump from building to building to escape. Once you are able to reach the harbor you have to run and grab onto a ship to complete your escape. The vizier isn’t finishd with you though and he conjures up a storm that shipwrecks you on an island and from there on you will have to go through dungeons and solve puzzles to eventually once again defeat the vizier and claim your rightfull place. The puzzles are mostly focussed around opening doors and getting to them before they close. Later on you will encounter other problems as the prince is cloned as a shadow and he will annoy you by closing doors and drinking potions you might other get. This adds a nice touch as you will build up real anger towards your protagonist and you will relish the chance at the end to take him out.

Prince of Persia 2 or the shadow and the flame plays alot like the former game and this is by no means a bad thing however some people might feel it’s a bit too similar. This is were much of the critisisms come from and another is the difficulty of the game. Overall the game is very unforgiving as even at the start of the game when you jump out of the window and you don’t turn around and pull your sword fast enough you die. Expect to die a LOT more during the course of the game as a single mistake is enough to send you back to the beginning of the level and you’ll have to start over again. I myself however don’t think of a difficult game as a bad thing as there are plenty of easy to complete game these days. And seeing as you have unlimited time and lives it’s a real test of skill and puzzle solving abilities. Despite what some people say I still think this game is great and a worthy sequel so if you liked the first game definately give this game a go.

Overal rating: 8/10

Erde Kaiser

This game was released for one system here are some notes:

DOS Released in 1993.
Game has been tested but not completed on a DOS PC.
There are some problems under dosbox which stopped me from playing the game and under windows it doesn’t work either for me so the only way to play this is to try to get it to work under XP or use a pure DOS machine which I did.
In case u need some keys: CTRL is attack and SHIFT is for walking slow/grabbing ledges.
Date added Dec-16-2005 20:30
Name Prince of Persia 2
Developer Broderbund
Publisher Broderbund
First released 1993
Genre Action