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Glitches, design flaws and more, oh my!


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Okay, I got this game for 2 reasons yesterday as of date I'm posting this, 1. Because I've never played a PoP game and decided to start with the remastered PS2 ones to see just how good this game is since it's a majorly popular series, and 2. To platinum it, like I plan to do with next 2 that come out later this month. Well at first I liked this game . . . . that was until I started encountering bad glitches and design flaws. Design flaws are what I call things the developers intended, but make me wonder 'what were they thinking?', as in bad idea.

 

Glitches:

 

-About 2 of every 5 times I use the first-person view by pressing R2 when I leave the view the prince is invisible. I try everything to make him visible but nothing works. It also doesn't let me wall run when this happens though I can still move. So I'm forced to reload from a save point and have to redo everything I've done since last save point.

 

-Like Tomb Raider Underworld (another badly glitched game, ironically same style game), this game has issues when it comes to the environmental puzzles, like how when pole jumping and I line myself up, then I jump, but sometimes it magically out of nowhere suddenly turns me further when I'm not even touching analog and it does this and it's too late as I've already pressed jump and it jumps the way the game turned me and I miss jump and die.

 

Design Flaws:

 

-The camera in this game is one of the worst I've ever seen in a game. Like when surrounded near enemies near a wall the camera tucks down low and up close so I can't see, or it swings around wildly. Or when manuevering environment and you go through opening in wall the camera suddenly does a 180 so you end up possibly dropping off an edge dying the way you came because when the camera does 180 you're still walking way you were which is now the way you came. And yes I know of the landscape view, but you shouldn't have to switch back and forth to that constantly. And even worse is when the camera is completely off screen when you're fighting, as in you and the enemies are under the camera not even seen on the screen, but I can hear the sound of the fighting and have no idea if an enemy is about to attack, or if I have, etc.

 

-The dodge roll is badly designed. For some reason when you want to roll away from the enemy it likes to roll to them or in a circle. Only sometimes does it actually roll the way you're moving analog.

 

-Another issue is that when you're fighting a group of enemies and you get knocked down they often get you in an infinite loop so that you can't get up before each attack so they keep attacking and you can do nothing but wait until you're dead. It's very cheap. So in other words one hit is all it takes to kill you. Only sometimes can you get up before being attacked again. Sure it's more realistic when they can keep hitting when you're down without letting you get up, but it doesn't translate well into a video game since it means 1 hit and you're dead, then do it all over.

 

There's more but I don't want to post a book, lol. The game just seems like some cheap game quickly thrown together by an unknown developer for quick cash, sort of like what Anarchy: Rush Hour was to racing genre. But Ubisoft is a major developer and this game is a major game, but the game seems very bad. I just hope the other ones won't be as bad. It's bad to the point where the glitches and flaws are making playing this game a miserable experience, which is extremely disappointing because the game is easy and getting the platinum is easy, so even more annoying is things not the player's fault (skill) making it difficult. I'm baffled as to how this even got past testing phase to be ready for release. And from posts I've seen around forums I'm not the only one experiencing glitches and flaws.

 

Games like this make me thankful for Kingdom Hearts, as Kingdom Hearts still has the best action battle system ever released in the action/adventure genre. Of course battle system wasn't the only thing wrong with PoP:SoT.

Edited by StarlightDoll
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Amen to that. I haven't encountered any glitches yet, but the camera - oh my God the camera. It send me into hulk rage yesterday. And I can't even remember how many times I've died because enemies simply ganked me. I must also note that Farah is a stupid bitch who can only make moaning noises when being killed instead of moving her butt away from all the rape. I don't like her anymore :mad:

 

Somehow I never noticed those design flaws when I played the game 8 years ago.

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Really?

 

OK, let's address these.

 

Glitches:

- I've now played through the game FOUR times (twice on the PS2, twice on the PS3) and never encountered an invisible prince glitch. This could potentially be an issue with a glitched HDD install rather than the game itself. Just a thought.

 

- Although I know the jumping's not perfect, this is an older game. Control systems have come on somewhat since 2003, so you can't expect every element to hold up perfectly. That said, I'd only say the jumping is a problem one in a hundred or so times once you're used to the quirks.

 

Design flaws

- You do know that you have complete control over the camera, right? If it's going wayward a quick flick of the right stick or pressing the 'centre camera' button will sort it out almost every time. I never, ever use the landscape view. Interestingly the camera does seem a little more loose on the PS3 than I remember back in the day, but no major shakes.

 

- Haven't had the rolling problem personally so can't speak for that. Rolling around an enemy isn't advised anyway - pulling away from them and escaping that way is far more effective. Apart from anything else, there's less than half a dozen encounters in the game where you're forced to roll/dodge; generally it's far more effective to leap over the enemies or wall-charge them.

 

- Again, just a matter of technique. Block while you're on the floor and wait for a clear window to leap back up (it WILL come, trust me). When you time it right you'll escape scot free, but if you mess it up, that's what the sand tanks are for, right?

 

 

Sorry, but it sounds to me like you haven't discovered the intricacies of the game. To compare a wonderful relic of the PS2 era to dross like Anarchy is an insult to the series. The art style and free-flowing gameplay alone are enough to cement it as an all-time classic. Being bad at a game does not automatically equal that game being poor. It DOES have its issues, but in many ways these are much less than equivalent games of the time period.

 

Apologies if this comes across as an attack on yourself - it isn't intended that way. More that I know this game inside-out by now and find it a shame that somebody would have their enjoyment restricted by a couple of bits of knowledge that I hope prove useful. And if you don't like PoP, be thankful that game development has come on so far that the average quality is so high these days :)

Edited by amplifiedAnt
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- Again, just a matter of technique. Block while you're on the floor and wait for a clear window to leap back up (it WILL come, trust me). When you time it right you'll escape scot free, but if you mess it up, that's what the sand tanks are for, right?

 

Yeah, except that the sword dudes and the maul dudes can do a sweeping attack whitch you can not block.

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- Although I know the jumping's not perfect, this is an older game. Control systems have come on somewhat since 2003, so you can't expect every element to hold up perfectly.

 

Well, the OP mentioned Kingdom Hearts, which came out a year before Sands of Time, and the action/fighting system in KH blows Sands of Time away. So there were already good control systems in 2003.

 

This game has a good story, but I didn't think the combat system was very good either. I didn't really have problems with the camera, but I agree that the combat left something to be desired... it's just slow and clunky and not all that fun. But it doesn't really take that long to get used to the idiosyncracies of the fighting and adjust your gameplay to compensate. Once I figured it out battles just became tedious since they spawn twice as many enemies as you really need.

 

As for getting stuck on the ground, just spam :cross: and you'll get up... it happened to me a few times but I was able to get out of it.

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I was thinking that it's possible that these problems could be things that didn't exist in the original PS2 versions. Maybe the extra shaky cam and glitches, etc were a result of the HD redo for PS3. So maybe this game is a gem, but the PS3 version doesn't show the game's true form.

 

@amplifiedAnt:

 

The things I'm saying are pretty legitimate. And sorry my words may have come across too harsh. I meant mainly the battle system and other things makes this seem like a low budget game. Art direction and story are only things that seem good. I've been gaming since I was 5 years old and am now 25 and have played every action/adventure game under the sun, so I'm not someone coming in here saying the game is bad because of something on my end. For example, in the Bayonetta forums I mentioned how I'm not very good with the battles as others are and was asking if there's ways to clear Infinite Climax mode without needing Climax Bracelets since I wasn't very good at avoiding attacks in melee. In this game the problem isn't me. You can't block every attack, and I do use the wall to push off of. As for controlling the camera, moving your thumb to the right analog (away from attack buttons) when a large group of enemies are coming at you from all sides it isn't very realistic. It doesn't do any good anyways because camera is always moving. Most the stuff you mentioned I already do.

 

As for leaping over the enemies, you can't leap over them they are too large and just throw you down, unlike the smaller ones near beginning of game. So leaping over them doesn't work at this point unless you push from a wall, which again is stuff I already do.

 

And as for how you mention games are much higher quality now days, and that I shouldn't blame PoP because it's an older game, the original Kingdom Hearts was released before this and is still superior even compared to new games in the genre and it's not even as good as KHII, so that's saying a lot. That game did everything right, even the camera. Not even modern games like say Bayonetta (another game I enjoy) can compare to it. So I don't think time period had to do with it. But of course I understand not every game should be expected to be perfect, nor do I care if a game is perfect as long as it's flaws don't have a big impact on playing it. But the flaws in this do. Because of these flaws the only enjoyable part is between battles, because even the environmental puzzle glitching is minor and doesn't happen too often, so it doesn't really affect my enjoyment of everything between the battles.

 

Kingdom Hearts is about as 'fluid' as it gets in the genre. So I'm not comparing the games as that wouldn't be fair. I just meant the battle system in this is far worse than expected even for that time period, but again these may be issues that only emerged in PS3 HD redo.

 

@purifico

 

Speaking of Farah, that was one of the other things I didn't mention in topic. That's one of the things that make this game seem poorly made to me is the fact that the AI on her is just horrible. And the dialogue on her is just so bad it's weird (even compared to other games at the time), like "Here I am." even if she's in plain sight or close, and other very dumb comments. The dialogue part is minor and doesn't affect my enjoyment of gameplay, so I didn't mention it. But her horrible AI makes baby-sitting ridiculously tedious in an already bad enough battle system. She points her bow at an attacking enemy, but only shoots after staring at the enemy for the longest time. It's like are you going to shoot or day dream? Only time she moves is if you move to another part of battle area. Extremely annoying.

 

@Vyrastas

 

I do spam X when knocked down, but if more than one enemy is attacking you in a sequence where you're getting attacked faster than you can get up, then it's impossible to get up, so I just keep spamming X until I die. Sometimes I get lucky and one may stop attacking for a moment and I can get up after the prince has been stabbed and bludgeoned a good 6 times give or take. Other times they don't let up.

Edited by StarlightDoll
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Absolutely, I can see where you're coming from and please don't think I was disregarding your opinion. Just in case it's helpful, I thought I'd drop a bit of extra info below...

 

As for leaping over the enemies, you can't leap over them they are too large and just throw you down, unlike the smaller ones near beginning of game. So leaping over them doesn't work at this point unless you push from a wall, which again is stuff I already do.

 

Enemy tactics:

 

- Grey enemies with hooks or chains

- Fat enemies (early in game)

- Tall red enemies with swords

Leap over with 'X,' then quickly press 'Square Triangle.' Instant absorption/death.

 

- Red female enemies

- Tall fat enemies with hammer

Leap over with 'X,' then slash with 'Square Square.' While the enemy's on the ground, absorb with 'Triangle.'

 

- Tall blue enemies with swords

Wall-dive attack - 'X' against the wall, followed by 'Square.' Absorb with 'Triangle' while the enemy's on the floor and none of the others will touch you for some reason.

 

Using these tactics (and 'Triangle' to stop a couple of enemies in their traps and give you breathing space if you ever get overawed), I'd be surprised if you ever take damage again in combat, let alone die.

 

What you can't help of course is Farah being ridiculously weak and feeble! I found that this became more of an issue as I tried to draw enemies away from her however. If you stick close and dispatch the enemies quickly there shouldn't be too many issues.

 

Finally, for the elevator battle it helps greatly if you save your sand tanks and when it's getting too much, hold R1 and press L1. That moves lets you clear the entire room in a few seconds.

Edited by amplifiedAnt
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Absolutely, I can see where you're coming from and please don't think I was disregarding your opinion. Just in case it's helpful, I thought I'd drop a bit of extra info below...

 

 

 

Enemy tactics:

 

- Grey enemies with hooks or chains

- Fat enemies (early in game)

- Tall red enemies with swords

Leap over with 'X,' then quickly press 'Square Triangle.' Instant absorption/death.

 

- Red female enemies

- Tall fat enemies with hammer

Leap over with 'X,' then slash with 'Square Square.' While the enemy's on the ground, absorb with 'Triangle.'

 

- Tall blue enemies with swords

Wall-dive attack - 'X' against the wall, followed by 'Square.' Absorb with 'Triangle' while the enemy's on the floor and none of the others will touch you for some reason.

 

Using these tactics (and 'Triangle' to stop a couple of enemies in their traps and give you breathing space if you ever get overawed), I'd be surprised if you ever take damage again in combat, let alone die.

 

Lol, you just repeated what I said in last post I already do. I said you can't jump over the large ones because they throw you down. Only way is to push from wall, which is exactly what you just said. :p

 

And all other tactics you mentioned I already do. You do same stuff I do.

 

As for sand tanks I am playing through without using them, but I accidentally used them once or twice in the game's 2nd big battle (one after battle with father in same room) to slow time.

Edited by StarlightDoll
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OMG!!!

 

This is getting on my last nerve.

 

Now 2 more issues.

 

I'm fighting the enemies and doing great, haven't been hit yet (this is how it usually goes until I get combod), then something was hitting me 3 times. It turns out Farah shot me with her bow as she said "Oops, sorry". She's done this before, but never continuously. She killed me after hitting me with her bow over and over and the 3rd or 4th shot shot me off the drawbridge to fall to death.

 

Then after selecting retry, I'm fighting and doing great, and then the game freezes when I almost finally cleared the drawbridge battle. I mean seriously, how much worse is this game going to get. That really POd me really bad. Now I have to reload from a save and do everything over just to get back to the drawbridge. I've about had it with this overly bad game after those things happened.

 

I'm struggling to keep myself playing for platinum. But the $15 will be a waste if I don't get platinum.

Edited by StarlightDoll
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Lol, you just repeated what I said in last post I already do. I said you can't jump over the large ones because they throw you down. Only way is to push from wall, which is exactly what you just said. :p

 

And all other tactics you mentioned I already do. You do same stuff I do.

 

As for sand tanks I am playing through without using them, but I accidentally used them once or twice in the game's 2nd big battle (one after battle with father in same room) to slow time.

I didn't really repeat anything since I broke down the exact method per enemy that makes the game an absolute piece of piss. That is not listed anywhere else in this thread.

 

If you can't repeatedly wall-attack the blue ones without getting hit then I'm sorry but you're simply not doing it correctly and are beyond our help.

Edited by amplifiedAnt
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I didn't really repeat anything since I broke down the exact method per enemy that makes the game an absolute piece of piss. That is not listed anywhere else in this thread.

 

If you can't repeatedly wall-attack the blue ones without getting hit then I'm sorry but you're simply not doing it correctly and are beyond our help.

 

Not doing it correctly? There's only one way to push from wall and that's the X button. I never said I get hit while in air, except one time I did. It's after I jump from wall which lands me behind enemy do I get hit. So I x and then square to attack and often before I can do triangle after coming from wall and attacking does a surrounding enemy hit me. The only time enemies don't try and attack is when you absorb an enemy with triangle.

 

I just passed drawbridge battle. Also in my last post it wasn't meant to sound rude or smart allecy. I put tongue face to show I was saying it in friendly way like maybe you didn't get what I said before last post or I didn't explain clearly. But then I realize it could be mistaken as an intentionally rude way of saying it which isn't what I meant. The Lol at start wasn't meant like "Lol, you aren't very bright" (the rude way) but Lol like I would lol to a friend that may have looked over part of what I said on accident. Hard to express things way intended on internet when only words can be seen and not hearing how the person is saying it, lol. ^^

Edited by StarlightDoll
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I didn't really repeat anything since I broke down the exact method per enemy that makes the game an absolute piece of piss. That is not listed anywhere else in this thread.

 

If you can't repeatedly wall-attack the blue ones without getting hit then I'm sorry but you're simply not doing it correctly and are beyond our help.

 

I do the opposite. Bouncing off the wall is not needed. I always just lay into them with a simple attack and kicked arse everytime. You can X attack a group of 4 at a time pretty easy and nearly every enemy can be jumped over and the big blue ones with swords I normally just triangle/dagger them for quick kills. The big blues with spears are easy to take down with just X and if or when they started to surround me I'd just triangle/dagger 1 or 2 or whatever was needed then just attack again. Blocking is also a very important part of the fighting. I find the fightng real easy but then again like yourself I have finished the game 4 times.

Edited by JoshT
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When you get to those really big battles (drawbridge, elevator), make sure you have all your sand tanks and stuff full, then use that ultimate move that freezes everyone and let's you kill them within seconds. Makes those areas easy to pass.

 

I pretty much exclusively used the move where you just jump over enemies then slash them from behind (:cross: :square: I think). For the dudes you can't jump over you just have to block and counter-attack.

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I remember this game being not as frustrating the first go around on the PS2. More or less, the quality of gameplay in third person games has evolved since this first came out 8ish years ago.

 

I don't know, I just remember having more fun w/ this game back then then I am now. Pretty much I'm not going to bother w/ the other 2 PoP games since I already had my fun w/ them on the PS2.

 

Now if they release the Onimusha trilogy, that might spark my interest.

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I couldn't agree more... this is a great game, but it hasn't aged well, at all. And, after playing it a bit, I'm convinced Ubisoft only ported it, so that it was playable on PS3 consoles, rather than actually take time to "HD" it.

 

When you look at the God of War or Sly Cooper Collection, you can see their respective studios put some time into not only making it run on the PS3, but fix issues that persisted within the 5 games, as well as make them look a whole hell of a lot better.

 

But in PoP, I've encountered game glitches, graphical errors and that same annoying camera from years ago... I didn't encounter one glitch, graphical or otherwise, in the other HD Collections.

 

Like I said, great game... great trilogy, even. It just hasn't aged well, and had Ubi taken the time to fix and/or patch a few issues, this could have been a great HD Collection. But like I said, it feels like they simply ported it and didn't do anything else.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have to agree with a lot said here, as well as the combat being much easier once you learn the patterns.

 

This was my favourite game in my memory, not now, i'm starting to hate it. So much wrong with it that going for less than 20 rewinds adds to the issues of checkpoints and takes away from the fun of rewind gameplay. Sucks pretty much.

 

In contrast i thoroughly enjoyed getting the platinum recently on Forgotten Sands. That is a great game, it seems my memory fooled me, and this is not.:rolleyes:

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Seems more like someone havin a pissy fit cause they aren't too great at the game.

Seriously, the gameplay of PoP can NOT be compared to KH saying KH had a better combat system. Sands of Time was not made for combat anyway, it was made for platforming.

Warrior Within was made for combat, and it's combat blows KH out the box to me. I still wouldn't compare them though because it's completely different systems.

 

First off, Kingdom Heart's is rpg fantasy style which means they have much more to work with. They can give you fireballs, let you fly around and what not and it all makes sense.

So you think you have a better combat system, but you really dont. You just have a lot of things you can do. The dodging, blocking and actual attacking in KH was pretty standard along with any other games of it's time. It just had nice flashy cartoony effects.. because it's a flashy cartoony game. They can put long animations with disney characters and amuse your eyes with Simba roaring in helping you because it fits the world.

 

Prince of Persia is in a more realistic world, you cant fly, you cant shoot fireballs. You just have a mystical dagger, and the combat skills of an average soldier.

KH was made to be an action fantasy RPG, PoP:SoT was mainly platform based game. And the combat is extremely easy, i see no reason to ever die. If you're getting hit on the ground i'm guessing you dont know you can block enemies while grounded.

 

As for KH2's combat, it was more flashier and bit more advanced of the same one from KH. They had a system already there and tweaked it.

 

Warrior Within which improved tremendously as the prince is older and more experienced was based upon combat, obviously by the title. This combat system was intricate, there was ways to kill every mob of enemies you encountered fluidly and with style. Jumping off enemies to other enemies which could turn into a grab. Running on/jumping off walls, spinning off poles, and a way to chain all the variety of ways you could attack your enemies.

Kingdom Hearts 1 AND 2 you just rush in and hack away at enemies... simple combat system, just with flashier effects. Only thing you could say in KH's defense is "nu uh, on some of the hard secret bosses if you charge in it get u keeled."

but that doesn't really matter, pretty much any game makes you learn a bosses pattern so you can avoid their attacks and then rush in again anyway.

 

I have cleared everything in KH:1, and KH:2 back on the PS2. Had the secret trailers as well.

Also cleared everything on PoP:SoT, WW (even had all the hidden weapons), and TT.

So my points are valid and experienced as i've fully tinkered with both series. I only say this so that you don't think i'm only making presumptions about KH and PoP.

Edited by CogniVision
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Hmm, i'm playing the PSN version of the game, and it's pretty solid. it has some quirks like when i do the wall jump, the enemies go to the side and i just seriously menace the air, and the camera goes bananas, but everything are just minor quirks.

 

the only major glitches i encountered was some audio occurring while i was saving, and i fell through the elevator after having finished the elevator fight.

 

Other than that, the combat system hasn't aged well but the platforming _more_ than makes up for it, in that it's pretty solid and easy to figure out.

 

when I was playing i tried to rush through the combat as fast as possible so i could platform more. gonna play the other two games aswell, since i never really played Warrior and Thrones.

 

The "Game Master" trophy really bugs me with this game, because when i was allowed to rewind time during my second playthrough it became a _lot_ more fun, because the checkpoints are sooo far away from eachother. hell, once i fell off right before the checkpoint and had to do 10 minutes of platforming to get back, so i hope the other games don't restrict your rewinding.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Gotta agree that the camera during fights is terrible, it sometimes goes behind walls or pillars and you can't see wtf you're doing. I just finished playing Harry Potter Deathly Shadows and that had the worst camera ever in a game but this is not far off it :mad:

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  • 4 weeks later...
I'm fighting and doing great, and then the game freezes when I almost finally cleared the drawbridge battle.

 

I mean seriously, how much worse is this game going to get.

 

I feel your pain. In over 20 years of gaming, I have never come so close to throwing a controller as I did at this drawbridge. I had every bad gaming horror story happen to me within the space of half an hour; Camera angles that would completely obscure all of the characters (including my own), I was killed by Farah, knocked off draw bridge by Farah, Farah was knocked off the drawbridge by enemies, my character decided not to roll around an enemy but instead vaulted over him and off of the drawbridge, I was killed repeatedly because the combat system simply doesn't allow you to tackle this fight effectively, I was knocked down repeatedly and could not block or get up, ...and the game crashed. You name it and it happened - and the worst of it is, after all this faffing about you have to mess around working your way back to the fight to start it all over again! In the end, I just skipped this battle.

 

I'm numb-struck that there are people trying to defend this. It's one of the most tedious and irritating games I have ever played. It's also full of bugs! Even glaring ones like the positional audio problem where distant enemies are loud, and nearby ones are quiet. The dialog during cut-scenes is nearly inaudible. The Prince's arms warp when he hangs on to ledges and it looks worse than the PS2 version. All that's even before you get to issues like the horrifically bad checkpoint placement.

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