It's 2023. Is this game worth it even now? Yes. The game still has lots to offer. A lot of genuine love and care went into it, as is shown by colorful characters, unique atmosphere and an overall mood that not many games have. The studio succeeded in converting a DnD adventure into a 3D RPG adventure. Full of combat, great dialogue, and many creative puzzles and riddles. Fantastic music, art direction, voice acting, and brilliantly written quests that often question your morality and immerse you into this unique world. It is 100% worth playing through!! The whole game is held back by one single horrible decision. Your hero gets stronger by leveling up, by spending XP. To gain this XP, you can either beat enemies, which don't respawn and don't give much, or you'll take and finish quests. Those give out much more, and are your main XP income. Except the quests can very quickly end. If you don't accept it right away, or pick a non-eager attitude, the NPC may not give it to you. Ever. Or they may ask you to kill another character you really like. Or do something your roleplayed character wouldn't do, like stealing, lying, bullying others. Or, on the other hand, pushing nonsense law onto innocent people and making them miserable. But there is no alternative for you. You NEED the XP, and by refusing or missing out on quests, you get SIGNIFICANTLY weaker by not having enough XP to keep up with the game's ramping difficulty in combat situations, which are also forced onto you. There are also "optimal" ways to solve certain quests. You get a choice between A and B, but aren't told that A gives double rewards. So if you happen to symphatize with B, you are getting punished by the game for roleplaying wrong and once again miss out on potential gear, money, and XP. This strange decision together with lower level enemies giving significantly less XP railroads you heavily in an otherwise great RPG with tons of choices. Only some choices are objectively better than others.
What a fantastic game. I couldn't resist replaying this classic after so many years since my first magical playthrough. This game still has lots to offer even today. At the time of its release, it was nothing short of spectacular - time rewinds, solid combat, story, and many hidden things, all on top of what is mostly a 3D platforming puzzle game. I'll only mention one thing that can be pretty irritating, especially considering how the game lacks some of the more modern QoL elements - the automatic targeting system can sometimes pick someone else than you'd want, so in combat, one of the most important things to learn is how to divide and lure enemies around so that you know who you're fighting. Other than that, it's an absolute joy to play, full of fun memorable moments. Gameplay neatly tied to the story, a captivating tale about personal growth, friendship, love, regrets... it does everything well! Out of all Prince of Persia games, this one is right at the top together with the very original title. Full of creativity, imaginitive and memorable scenes, that other games copied and people started taking for granted. This game does everything well, and doesn't have many weak parts - an example of great design from all aspects. Worth every minute!
A visually fantastic game, truly a marvel to look at, with super detailed environment and superb world that can be traversed vertically just as well as horizontally and offers plenty of great details. I love to just run around and explore, and this game has tons of exploring to offer. Night City feels alive, breathing, more than any game in its genre. But you can only partly participate. Most of your interaction is done through quests, otherwise there's little to do. Main questline is fantastic! With many good characters and excellent writing. It offers a solid theme, many happy, fun, sad, tense moments, and hints at many deep topics that really made me think. Great! I even enjoyed a bunch of the sidequests, for the most part, they are done very well. But they bring nothing new. Apart from the main questline, which is obviously a carefully crafted story with little to no input from the player, you are just along for the ride, most sidequests revolve around you killing a bunch of goons or delivering an item somewhere. A bit disappointing, considering the huge potential of a sci-fi world in such a huge city. The AI is alright, not very good or bad, just alright. The menus are obviously made for controllers, which is a shame, because this sacrificed many QoL options for PC players, and the menus feel clunky and old. Overall, I like this game. I'm having a great time playing it. It definitely didn't hold up to the unrealistic, sky-high expectations of the internet, but judging it by what it is, it's a solid game that does many things right, and has great potential. However, I feel like it wasn't ready. The bugs and issues are one thing (I haven't experienced any crashes myself, and FPS hasn't dipped below 50), but clearly there are aspects where the game feels hollow and barebones. It could have been fantastic, magnificent, revolutionary. But it's not. It has great story, but gameplay-wise, stays in line with many older open-world shooters, which is a pity.
