I finished the game last night and was surprised it had a pretty good length. It must've taken me around 16 hours.
Here's my take on the positives and negatives:
+ Graphics: Nice graphics, but the main deal is that the quality remained about the same, albeit, this version had more slowdown than the previous. That said, the level architecture/design was simply superb. Majestic seems to be a proper word to describe it.
+ Platforming: Fantastic. Better than the first one in this respect. Some platforming/trap levels were created by truly sadistic individuals. I'd end up laughing at how ridiculously hard a section would seem many times. Fun stuff.
+ Animation: Great, just as the first.
= Sound: Same ol'. Nothing changed much here.
- Art: The art designers seemed to have been locked in a room with only RED CURTAINS. A little variety please. The areas, while varied, in architecture, were not very diverse in terms of their 'decoration'. Most enemy designs were decent, with a few being quite excellent (e.g. Dahaka, Sand Wraith.) Overall, I just didn't get the revamping they made to the game to make it mature. It just felt out of place considering this is the sequel to the Sands of Time.
- Puzzles: Too few localized puzzles. I would've liked more 'smaller' puzzles rather than the usual switches. These people have very good level/architecture design concepts, and I'm sure they could've done much better/varied puzzles to spice up the game a bit more.
- Story: Clichéd and unsurprising. Not a bad story, but I saw the twists coming very early in the game. The dialogue was uninspired and seemed to have been written by angsty adolescents. Get Mechner to pen the next PoP UbiSoft.
- Combat: Dear UbiSoft: PoP is about platforming and figuring out ways to go from one point to another. Any combat should not be intrusive. KThxBye! Anyway... the combat was just an extension of the first game's combat system (albeit much deeper,) but at times feels unresponsive and buggy, and some other times, the Prince feels like he's being controlled by Satan and driven to suicide, by means of jumping off a cliff. I, frankly, didn't care much for the combat until it became the obstacle to get to the next platforming area. Then it was just annoying and bothersome. The bosses seemed nice, until the end boss, which was just cheap and annoying.
--- Music: AWFUL. AWFUL. AWFUL. Did I mention it was AWFUL? One of the worst soundtracks this generation. I usually don't mind when the music is unnoticeable. I just continue playing and the music just does nothing... plays in the background with no effect whatsoever. This game's music was so very annoying. Figure this: You go into a room, see the wonderful architecture and the imaginative platforming, and suddenly, a few enemies spawn. A rock riff lasting all of 4 seconds plays, and repeats itself until you beat all the enemies. Not only you have to deal with the flaky buggy combat, but you have to stand the awful music. The first game's (PoP: SoT) music felt organic and fitting. The sequel's music feels uninspired, forced and incredibly repetitive.
