3/5 ★ – Empyrean's review of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within HD.

Man, this was jarring to play and not hit any game breaking bugs! I’m not sure if the HD collection “fixed” things or if I just got super lucky. Warrior Within had the potential to be the best PoP, or at least on par with Sands of Time. Combat and enemy variety, whilst still not great, are vastly improved, the story is more engaging, the level design more intricate. I even dig the edgier tone and soundtrack (even Godsmack!). It’s refreshing to have a previously quippy protagonist no longer be slinging jokes when his entire existence is threatened with being erased. Parkour is as fun as ever, and the Sandwraith section decently mixes things up. All of that sounds good, so what’s the problem? Well that’s easy. IT BARELY FUCKING WORKS. Whilst I didn’t encounter any game breaking bugs this time (that’s basically all of what my memory of the PS2 release was), it still feels like it’s held together by tape. As an example: There are more things missing sound effects than those that have them. Whilst the level design does a good job at keeping you going on the linear path, as soon as you’re off it you’ll be completely lost (mostly thanks to the utterly useless map.) It’s also just fucking ugly. There’s a great game lying somewhere inside Warrior Within, but chances are we’ll never get to see it. Perhaps in an alternate reality, where the IP ended up with a better company than Ubisoft, we could’ve had something truly special.