Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame Longplay (PC DOS) [QHD] [Roland MT-32]

Developed and published by Broderbund in 1993

The 1993 sequel to Jordan Mechner's masterpiece should have been a triumph. More levels, varied locations, not to mention impressive production values and scripting for a 1993 DOS title should have resulted in a fantastic experience.

Unfortunately, thanks to a host of poor design decisions and technical issues, my experience with the game was total opposite.

Whereas most of the levels in the first game could be completed without prior knowledge (albeit with careful exploration), the sequel features more elaborate traps that sucker the player into unwinnable situations. Gates often lock you inside inescapable prisons, and shattering a loose platform at the wrong time leaves the level unbeatable.

This isn't so bad in itself; much of the challenge is learning and overcoming these particular obstacles, but what I did find so objectionable was the stilted animation system and unresponsive controls. Combat is a complete and total nightmare, thanks largely to the game ignoring repeated key stabs to initiate parries and lunges. Earlier enemies you face are far less prone to counterattacking, but the Birdmen in the temple levels are extremely tough, often forcing you to face multiple opponents at the same time.

Having twenty minutes of painstaking progress wiped out by the janky controls is something you'll need to get used to. The grid-based movement system doesn't always detect when the player initiates a running jump correctly, which results in the prince plunging to his doom on a regular basis.

It's interesting to note that three versions of the DOS release exist, each with their own host of bugs. The initial release (abbr. to IR) is an almost-complete version of the game that never reached store shelves, but was leaked to FTP and bulletin boards ahead of the official launch. It misses certain sound effects (e.g. prince's footsteps), and buggy AI that results in guards happily throwing themselves off cliffs or wandering into traps to get to the player. It still persists online to download, and has been the focus of other longplays (   • PC Longplay [702] Prince of Persia 2:...  ).

Version 1.0 (the version used in my recording) fixes the guard intelligence problems, adds the missing audio effects, and lacks the graphical issues found in the later 1.1 release. However, it features a bug that prevents the cutscenes from playing until you trigger a restart of the game (ALT + R).

Version 1.1 was included with the Prince of Persia Collector Edition CD, released in 1998/1999. This fixed a couple of bugs found in 1.0, but added a glitch to the exit level animation, with the prince walking through the back wall, rather than the door.

Credits
Coding: Lance Groody, Jeffrey Charvat
Graphics: Michael Baisuck, Daniel Goodwin, Wendy Johnson, Stephen Peterson, Nicole Tostevin
Music: Jonelle Adkisson
Sound: Michael Barrett, Ralph Marsh, Tom Rettig

Time Codes
0:00:00 - Intro
0:03:18 - Level 01
0:05:40 - Level 02
0:06:19 - Level 03
0:10:37 - Level 04
0:13:25 - Level 05
0:21:15 - Level 06
0:25:20 - Level 07
0:31:00 - Level 08
0:38:29 - Level 09
0:43:50 - Level 10
0:53:04 - Level 11
1:01:45 - Level 12
1:11:57 - Level 13
1:19:05 - Level 14
1:19:39 - Level 15
1:23:24 - Ending
1:24:28 - Death Animations

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