Prince of Persia | Cinematic Platformer Paradise

[00:00:03] In an ancient age known as the late 1900s, a video game subgenre took root that dared to be bolder, dreamed to be bigger, and reached for the stars.

[00:00:15] Did they wow us with expensive productions and advanced graphical techniques? They absolutely did.

[00:00:23] Were they any good?

[00:00:25] Uh, you know what? Don't worry about it. Let's just relax and revisit Cinematic Platformers of eons past. This is Cinematic Platformer Paradise.

[00:00:50] Hello, cinematic people. It's your boy Dre, and I am here with my boy Steve.

[00:00:57] Andre, you didn't butter the popcorn.

[00:01:00] Sorry. I don't usually have popcorn at the movies. Are you a big popcorn guy?

[00:01:06] Almost every time.

[00:01:07] Yeah, I don't know. If someone's having some and they offer me some, I'll have a couple bites, you know, but I'm not like too into it.

[00:01:13] I know it's basic bitch, but I feel it's like it's ubiquitous. You gotta have it.

[00:01:17] Yeah, I understand. I need the big ass soda at the movies.

[00:01:21] Yeah, that too.

[00:01:23] Thank you.

[00:01:23] We are here. Thank you for joining us.

[00:01:26] What this is going to be is a mini series of shows from now through the first week of January, where we talk about one of the games in the cinematic platformer subgenre, mostly in chronological order.

[00:01:41] And we're just going to explore the life and times of that game the best we can in each episode, the techniques they may have used the way they were received or marketed or and of course, we're going to evaluate the games too.

[00:01:53] It's not going to be all technical, but I it's not just about the game, you know, because like anything else that was primarily known for its graphics and presentation at the time.

[00:02:05] These games largely don't hold up that well today, I would say so.

[00:02:11] And that and that's fine because we think they're fascinating anyway.

[00:02:14] And that's why we're doing this cinematic platformer paradise.

[00:02:18] Steve.

[00:02:20] Well, Andre, what is a cinematic platformer?

[00:02:24] Glad you asked.

[00:02:26] Should I have like a man when we do like a really cheesy segue, we should have like a sound effect, like a crappy like a crappy like a crappy.

[00:02:35] Like NPR podcast.

[00:02:36] So it's like super boring and it's like, hey, speaking of ducks, you know, we have to have that.

[00:02:45] But yes, speaking of that, I think a cinematic platformer, it's like the famous Supreme Court judge.

[00:02:53] What he said about pornography, you know what, when you see it, I kind of feel like that applies.

[00:03:00] I know what I like when I see porn and yeah, he was going off his own shit.

[00:03:05] And it's like, oh yeah, I like that.

[00:03:07] That's porn.

[00:03:07] I like this one.

[00:03:09] Yeah.

[00:03:10] In other words, I do think it's a bit hard to nail down because they're rooted in a lot of things, right?

[00:03:17] They're largely they're largely rooted in the adventure genre, right?

[00:03:21] But platforming obviously is a main focus in all of these realism seems to be a key factor, too, as in like you're like a regular person for the most part.

[00:03:34] And you move like a regular person.

[00:03:36] You can't do super high jumps like like Metroid.

[00:03:39] Yes, her name is Metroid and like other stuff like that, right?

[00:03:42] You're just like a dude.

[00:03:44] You also take damage like a real person.

[00:03:47] It seems like you sometimes in some of these games you die in a couple hits or sometimes one Steve.

[00:03:52] Yeah, really kind of depends.

[00:03:55] Yeah, it really depends on how generous the game wants to be.

[00:03:58] You know, well, never mind.

[00:03:59] I don't want to blow our future episodes.

[00:04:01] I'll get there when we get there.

[00:04:04] Real time cut scenes also seem to be a thing in most of them, at least the 90s ones where it's like, oh, we're doing a real, you know, this is a real movie now.

[00:04:16] You know, so all those it's true, man.

[00:04:18] That's what all these things try to say, especially in the advertising.

[00:04:21] So, yeah, that's kind of a messy way of saying it.

[00:04:23] But all those elements come together, I think, to make this subgenre that dare to be bolder dream to be bigger.

[00:04:31] Yeah, I think you nailed it.

[00:04:32] I mean, if you were going to ask me, I'd say, you know, I'd break out my stupid New York accident.

[00:04:37] Be all, hey, you ever play out of this world?

[00:04:40] Yeah, it's one of those.

[00:04:44] But Steve, that's your regular voice.

[00:04:50] Look, you know what? I'd also bring up, you know, what the now defunct Cinemaware does.

[00:04:56] You know, it's not what this is.

[00:04:57] It's they present cinema adjacent things and, you know, with a video game skeleton.

[00:05:03] And you know what?

[00:05:04] If all of you aren't good and listen to this show, it's going to be a Cinemaware Christmas next year.

[00:05:09] So watch your backs.

[00:05:10] Tell everyone about Cinematic Platformer Paradise or you're all fucking dead.

[00:05:15] But note to the audience, I don't know what Cinemaware is.

[00:05:18] So don't tell Steve that I don't know what that is.

[00:05:22] Oh, you're in for a treat, Andre.

[00:05:24] Once I send you the defender of the crown, Rob.

[00:05:27] Oh, were they just like a company who made like FMV games at the time or something or?

[00:05:32] Oh, no, they were not FMV games.

[00:05:35] They are something.

[00:05:36] No, we got to move along.

[00:05:38] No, I got to know what they are now.

[00:05:40] What the hell was Cinemaware?

[00:05:41] They like tried making things that sort of looked like movies, but they had.

[00:05:46] But they were they were video games, real video games underneath.

[00:05:49] They weren't this.

[00:05:50] OK, OK.

[00:05:52] Well, let's get started with our first one.

[00:05:56] As you already know, because you clicked on this, we want to talk about Prince of Persia.

[00:06:08] Prince of Persia was designed by one Mr. Jordan Mechner, and it was released in October 89 for Apple to developed and published by Broderbund.

[00:06:19] Remember Broderbund?

[00:06:20] My God.

[00:06:22] I miss Broderbund.

[00:06:24] Fuck you, Mr. Wonderful.

[00:06:27] What the fuck are you talking about?

[00:06:29] And Prince of Persia was released for every platform, basically, that I can think of in the in the early 90s there.

[00:06:37] I mean, I don't think you were allowed to have a platform.

[00:06:40] It was like Zoop.

[00:06:41] It was on everything.

[00:06:43] I don't know.

[00:06:43] Based on our experience here, I'd rather play more Prince of Persia than more Zoop.

[00:06:49] I watched a long play of Zoop for PlayStation one one time, and I for like 15 minutes, I was like, this is I can't.

[00:06:59] How was there a long play of Zoop?

[00:07:00] I don't know, man.

[00:07:01] And it was a really long video.

[00:07:02] So I watched like a good 15 minutes.

[00:07:04] I was like, OK, I think I'm good on Zoop.

[00:07:08] But yeah, Prince of Persia, man, I you know, we almost didn't cover this, but it's so iconic.

[00:07:14] It's so classic.

[00:07:15] And it basically started the genre that I felt like we had to is kind of a late addition to this series.

[00:07:22] But you may as well start at the beginning, right?

[00:07:24] It's almost cheating because it's good.

[00:07:26] Wait, wait, who said that?

[00:07:28] What?

[00:07:28] It's actually good.

[00:07:31] So Prince of Persia and almost every game in this series uses a technique called rotoscoping.

[00:07:40] And we're going to mention this technique here and there throughout this.

[00:07:44] So, Steve, you're the animation guy.

[00:07:46] You love animation.

[00:07:47] Why don't you tell the people what rotoscoping is?

[00:07:51] Oh, boy.

[00:07:51] Oh, boy.

[00:07:51] Oh, boy.

[00:07:53] All right.

[00:07:54] All right.

[00:07:54] I'll be good.

[00:07:55] Rotoscoping is at its heart.

[00:07:57] Basically, when animators will draw over existing footage, usually it's going to be of over live performers frame by frame so they can get realistic action in the process.

[00:08:08] Max Fleischer, yes.

[00:08:09] That same guy who had the studio that brought Popeye and Superman, those cartoons to the screen for the first time, they pioneered this technique.

[00:08:17] And, you know, they bought out a lot of rotoscope glass projection equipment to use for that.

[00:08:23] We use computers for this now, obviously, but, you know, we still call it rotoscoping.

[00:08:29] I'm glad we still do.

[00:08:30] It's kind of one of those legacy things.

[00:08:32] So, yeah, rotoscoping was used throughout the game as the base for animations.

[00:08:37] I'll just read right from the wiki here.

[00:08:39] To create the game's sword fighting sprites, Mector rotoscoped the final dual screen from in between the Adventures of Robin Hood.

[00:08:46] Though the use of rotoscoping was regarded as a pioneering move, Mector later recalled that when we made the decision with Prince of Persia, I wasn't thinking about being cutting edge.

[00:08:55] We did it essentially because I'm not that good at drawing or animation, and it was the only way I could think to get lifelike movement.

[00:09:02] I mean, fair enough.

[00:09:05] I mean, I think he also used I think he said he also used his brother for some of the like animations yet.

[00:09:11] He filmed him doing like some of those actions.

[00:09:14] But yeah, the Adventures of Robin is a great base because that movie fucks.

[00:09:19] So, yeah, excellent inspiration there.

[00:09:22] I mean, you can do worse.

[00:09:23] We will come up with all kinds of inspiration later in the series.

[00:09:27] Stick around.

[00:09:29] Um, Prince of Persia was not immediately successful, apparently, but it became successful over time after again being ported to like every system under the sun that existed at that point.

[00:09:42] Steve, are you surprised that Prince of Persia wasn't actually successful right away?

[00:09:47] Because that does surprise me.

[00:09:48] I feel like if I had an Apple II at that time and I played it, I would have been blown away by this whether the game was good or not.

[00:09:55] And it is good, but damn.

[00:09:59] I'm not surprised by this and not because people thought it would be bad because I do believe the game circulated quite a bit because let's be real.

[00:10:09] No matter how many times you tell us not to or whatever kind of campaign you run, everybody copied that floppy.

[00:10:18] I didn't have a computer back then.

[00:10:21] I'm a little younger than you, obviously, but a bunch of cousin folks had computers running DOS and I'm sure it was like this everywhere.

[00:10:29] One or two real purchases and dozens and dozens of, uh, you know, blank discs hastily marked in Sharpie that may or may not have contained whatever they said it did.

[00:10:41] I know it was a pain in the ass porting things to home consoles, but you know, in the time that there were less copiers for said home consoles, I'm sure it was, you know, worth the shot to, you know, license that out and, you know, do that.

[00:10:53] And clearly it was, I know eventually people were happier with the home sales for consoles of the, of the game.

[00:11:01] I guess that's true.

[00:11:03] And it, like the Apple two at that point was already like definitely aging.

[00:11:08] I don't want to say old necessarily, but it was very like, you know, not the most high powered thing.

[00:11:16] It was kind of the game boy of its era.

[00:11:18] It's like, yeah, it just kind of looks like this and that's it.

[00:11:21] Um, so the fact that he pulled off Prince of Persia on that system is interesting.

[00:11:27] So I guess I should say I actually did play Prince of Persia on Apple two sometime in the very late nineties.

[00:11:35] Like, yeah, I had an Apple two until damn near the year 2000, because I always thought it was fun to dink around with and like play ancient games on it.

[00:11:44] Um, whoever I got it from just had this.

[00:11:47] Bevy of floppy disks that they gave me like two crates of them.

[00:11:51] And not crates, but you know how like we used to hold floppies, five inch floppies and that like flip thing.

[00:11:56] You know what I mean?

[00:11:57] Like two full things of those.

[00:11:59] I can still hear them.

[00:12:01] Some of them were, a lot of them were unlabeled.

[00:12:04] It's, you know, so it was kind of a crapshoot and Prince of Persia was on the unlabeled ones.

[00:12:08] I'm like, oh yeah, I know this.

[00:12:09] Cause my friend a few years prior had Prince of Persia two for super Nintendo.

[00:12:13] So I recognized it.

[00:12:15] And so I played it on there, but I did not know that was the original version.

[00:12:19] I figured the original version was MS-DOS or something like that, but nope, I was playing the original all along.

[00:12:25] And yeah, I thought it was cool and impressive looking, but at that time I was not into that type of game.

[00:12:30] So I never got super into it.

[00:12:32] What's your history with Prince of Persia, if any?

[00:12:34] You know, I thought I played it, but when I actually finally did get into play with it, I realized I never did.

[00:12:41] You know why?

[00:12:42] And it's really funny because almost everyone I knew had this on something, but you know, we never played it because, you know, it's not multiplayer.

[00:12:52] If we're at a console, you know, play a two player game.

[00:12:54] Prince of Persia is definitely not that.

[00:12:56] And it's not an immediate crowd pleaser, like something like, you know, Wolfenstein or Doom.

[00:13:01] So, you know, it's like, let's play Prince of Persia where you got to gingerly walk and think about it for a minute.

[00:13:08] You're going to lose people's attention that way.

[00:13:10] So this is somehow new to me.

[00:13:14] That is interesting.

[00:13:15] I'm surprised that you had never even came across the Super Nintendo version as much as you or even the NES version as much as you've collected games over the years, especially stuff from that era.

[00:13:25] It just never surfaced here for me to collect either.

[00:13:28] It's just weird.

[00:13:30] Anyway, how did we play it for the purposes of this podcast?

[00:13:35] Mainly Genesis and SNES for me.

[00:13:38] But I took a spin with a few different versions for contrast, including Sega CD and TurboGrafx CD.

[00:13:44] So I played the field with Prince of Persia, but I mostly did Genesis.

[00:13:48] Steve?

[00:13:49] You know me, Super Nintendo, baby.

[00:13:52] But, you know, because this is what this show is.

[00:13:55] I did take some time playing the DOS version and it's good, but I'm not used to playing computer games.

[00:14:01] Don't tell them.

[00:14:02] Well, we are telling the people I'm not used to play.

[00:14:04] I'm not used to playing computer games.

[00:14:07] Yeah, that's that's both of us.

[00:14:08] And I insisted that you play another version that wasn't Super Nintendo because the Super Nintendo version is really, really, really different.

[00:14:17] So it is.

[00:14:18] It is the most unique version that there is.

[00:14:22] So I was like, you got to play another one to play the real thing.

[00:14:25] Anyway, I figured it would be funny if we introduced the premise or story or both of these games in an announcer voice over funny music.

[00:14:35] So how about we do that now?

[00:14:36] How about we tell people the premise of Prince of Persia?

[00:14:42] Once upon a time in medieval Persia, Jafar the wizard sees his power over the Sultan's land, coveting the Sultan's daughter.

[00:14:51] Jafar orders her to marry him or she will die within 60 minutes or 120 minutes if we're playing on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

[00:15:00] The man the princess loves, the unnamed protagonist who we will facetiously refer to as the Prince of Persia is locked in the palace dungeons by Jafar of which he must escape traps and pits galore in order to climb to the top, defeat Jafar and rescue the princess before time's up.

[00:15:16] This is the story of Prince of Persia.

[00:15:22] Bravo.

[00:15:23] Thank you.

[00:15:24] Bravo.

[00:15:27] All right.

[00:15:28] So what did we think of Prince of Persia?

[00:15:31] Like we said it's good up front.

[00:15:33] We spoiled it.

[00:15:34] Oh, no.

[00:15:36] Most of the games are going to play or just, you know, not not really that good.

[00:15:39] But this one's actually for real deal.

[00:15:41] Good.

[00:15:42] Steve, I know the Super Nintendo one is super different, but I need to say up front.

[00:15:46] It's Super Nintendo as fuck on there.

[00:15:48] Ours is on behalf of Konami really understood the assignment.

[00:15:52] We need to make this Middle Eastern thing.

[00:15:56] And they really did.

[00:15:57] They really did, man.

[00:15:59] No, the Super Nintendo one does look great.

[00:16:01] You know, I don't know the story behind how it got to be so expanded because even the level design is obviously very expanded from any other version.

[00:16:12] Like they really there's a reason why you have 120 minutes instead of 60 minutes.

[00:16:17] Then there's extra bosses, too.

[00:16:19] Like there's a there's just a sword lady that suddenly appears like what do you do?

[00:16:24] Okay.

[00:16:25] It is.

[00:16:26] Yeah.

[00:16:27] Sword lady definitely doesn't appear in any other version.

[00:16:29] Can we talk about the Sega CD version intro real quick?

[00:16:36] Because that shit is crazy.

[00:16:40] That is it's like anime ass cut scenes for Prince of Persia.

[00:16:44] It's the only version that does this.

[00:16:46] Yeah.

[00:16:47] Jafar is just one of those Zoltar fortune telling machines.

[00:16:50] You know, the those that guy in the box where they just spit out the paper.

[00:16:54] You just see him in hands and he's like, I will seize Persia.

[00:17:02] It's so good.

[00:17:03] I loved it.

[00:17:05] It's fantastic.

[00:17:07] It's very, very cool.

[00:17:09] I kept going over the story, you know, several times, not really thinking much of it, but it's around watching this particular intro that occurred to me.

[00:17:18] The Prince of Persia.

[00:17:19] He's not really the Prince of Persia yet.

[00:17:21] He's just a guy.

[00:17:22] He's the brave adventurer, according to the manual.

[00:17:25] Just some asshole goofing off in between gigs.

[00:17:29] All Jafar really needed to do is just wait for him to fuck off to the next adventure.

[00:17:33] And he really would have just, you know, walked in and had an easy coup.

[00:17:37] If he really needed the Prince of Persia trademark gone, he could have just made something up with an alluring reward and he would have, you know, been out of town.

[00:17:46] And, you know, he really fucked himself there.

[00:17:49] He really did.

[00:17:50] He could have just had this guy put his, oh, I hear there's lots of harem babes in the next town.

[00:17:56] And he's like, oh, got to go.

[00:17:58] And he would have just scooted off and that roll credits, right?

[00:18:01] Jafar going to have whatever he wanted.

[00:18:02] Yeah.

[00:18:03] You'll be in the dungeon.

[00:18:04] Yeah.

[00:18:05] Dumbass.

[00:18:06] Yeah.

[00:18:06] He's as if he's not going to escape that.

[00:18:09] I would say that more than most of the other games that we're going to talk about in the series, Prince of Persia really puts the platformer in cinematic platformer.

[00:18:19] Because boy, howdy.

[00:18:21] The amount of jumping you do in this game is fucking wild.

[00:18:25] And it's actually fun to do.

[00:18:28] It's really fun stuff to jump like to see like a creaky floor and you recognize as a creaky floor.

[00:18:34] It's like, okay, I need to cinch up to the edge here and get that perfect jump.

[00:18:37] And it always gives you that nice arc, right?

[00:18:40] Okay.

[00:18:40] I need to get a jump up on this and climb up on that.

[00:18:43] Oh, I need to take a running leap from here to there.

[00:18:46] And again, this is something a lot of these games do.

[00:18:49] But Steve, I think in Prince of Persia, outside of Blackthorn, it probably feels the best.

[00:18:54] Yeah.

[00:18:54] You can really set your own pace.

[00:18:56] And well, it's a little clunky.

[00:18:59] It feels a little clunky at first because, you know, he kind of just shimmies along when you need when you really need to set it.

[00:19:04] But in the end, once you figure it out, and again, this is going to be a point across all of these, you really need some time to wrap your head around how these controls work.

[00:19:15] Once you do, you really make a move.

[00:19:18] Although, like I said before, I tried playing the DOS version in the DOS way.

[00:19:23] Steve, why didn't you just cheat and use a controller?

[00:19:24] Because I was going to play the DOS way, damn it, with a keyboard.

[00:19:28] I wanted the authentic experience.

[00:19:30] What was the point if I was going to use a controller?

[00:19:33] Exactly.

[00:19:33] That's what I did on Apple II.

[00:19:34] So I've been there.

[00:19:36] So, and I'm like, I just not equipped for this.

[00:19:40] I'm sure everyone in that did at the time great, but I'm like, wow, I just couldn't.

[00:19:47] It's tough.

[00:19:48] It's really tough to get used to.

[00:19:50] And holy shit, the swordplay is pretty damn impressive for 1989.

[00:19:58] Yep.

[00:19:59] You can attack and parry.

[00:20:01] You cannot parry.

[00:20:02] Well, just being able to parry already makes it different than cinema wear.

[00:20:05] And guys, I'm sorry.

[00:20:06] This is the only time I'll bring up cinema wear in this entire series.

[00:20:10] Thank you.

[00:20:11] Other than my joke in the intro.

[00:20:13] Where Defender of the Crown, where they also had raiding the castle and doing pretend swordplay, where you just kind of shimmy forward and you do little pokes and you just hope for the best.

[00:20:26] Here, it really feels like you're doing deliberate moves and every button press matters.

[00:20:32] Like, you're really fighting for your life.

[00:20:33] It sounds stupid to say, you know, for a 1989 computer game that was ported to everything.

[00:20:40] Well, I guess you're fighting for the princess.

[00:20:42] You know what I'm trying to say.

[00:20:43] Don't look at me like that.

[00:20:44] It really.

[00:20:45] It's great.

[00:20:46] It's great.

[00:20:47] You were out here swashbuckling.

[00:20:49] You know what I mean?

[00:20:50] Like, you're really sword fighting out here.

[00:20:52] Like, and I like that it's like deliberate combat scenes, which is, I don't think any other game has this where it's like you, you have an enemy on the screen.

[00:21:00] You pull out your sword then, and then you go into combat mode versus like the other games where you have a gun and you just shoot them or like whatever.

[00:21:09] Or even if you have another implement like a sword, you're not, it doesn't go into combat mode.

[00:21:13] You're just hacking.

[00:21:14] You're just hacking away.

[00:21:17] And Prince of Persia is very deliberate approach to combat is refreshing.

[00:21:21] And I like that it's tough and it feels fun to do because like that peri window is tight.

[00:21:28] Like you better, you better be on it.

[00:21:30] It's so satisfying when you land it though.

[00:21:33] Otherwise in DOS version, you need to get a little.

[00:21:38] And there's lots of health around.

[00:21:39] It's fairly forgiving.

[00:21:40] Like even if you can get poked a few times and still fairly make it, you know, it's not, it's not a complete asshole difficulty game.

[00:21:49] Um, but yeah, it's very fun and very inventive for a thing from this time period to be doing.

[00:21:55] If there's any other game that had anything like this, I don't know of it.

[00:21:59] From this time.

[00:22:00] I can't think of a one.

[00:22:01] Yeah.

[00:22:03] Yeah.

[00:22:03] Um, okay.

[00:22:05] Either Aladdin pulled directly from Prince of Persia or this is just all one big coincidence and they both read the same story in Arabian Nights or something or a thousand and one tales because like, holy shit.

[00:22:20] They're the exact same story right down to the villain being named Jafar.

[00:22:23] Jafar, like get the fuck out of here.

[00:22:27] I, I feel bad for anyone named Jafar from 1989 to year 2000 when they kept making Aladdin and Aladdin sequels.

[00:22:38] Oh yeah.

[00:22:39] Man.

[00:22:39] If you're from that part of the world and your name was Jafar, sorry.

[00:22:43] Oh man.

[00:22:45] I owe you a beer.

[00:22:47] Yeah, man.

[00:22:48] It's.

[00:22:48] I didn't even do anything to you, but man, I just feel bad.

[00:22:52] The, the, the turbographic CD version was actually my favorite.

[00:22:56] Believe it or not.

[00:22:56] It didn't have the crazy intro of the Sega CD, but it had very interesting music and it felt the best to control in combat to me.

[00:23:05] Not that the other ones were bad.

[00:23:06] It's just that this one felt great.

[00:23:08] I didn't want to tell you to play that one.

[00:23:10] Cause I didn't want to add another emulator to your plate, but like I, it was a, it was my favorite one to play.

[00:23:16] I watch what you, I guess you'd consider a track screen.

[00:23:19] I mean, they had Zoltar Jafar, like standing there, like trying to be imposing and stuff, but it wasn't the FMV intro.

[00:23:27] So I'm trying to figure out what the hell's going on there.

[00:23:30] I don't know.

[00:23:31] And I, and I'm trying to figure out what the hell's going on with a lot, what the hell's going on with the gates just looks completely different from the Sega CD version.

[00:23:40] Yeah.

[00:23:40] Yeah.

[00:23:40] I guess they were developed.

[00:23:41] I mean, like, I'm sure each one of these had a different developer.

[00:23:44] I can't imagine.

[00:23:45] I bet they just said, Hey, who wants to make a Prince of Berger for Game Boy?

[00:23:49] And they just found somebody.

[00:23:51] And then, you know.

[00:23:52] Speaking of, I'm going to admit that I pulled an Andre for this show.

[00:23:58] Uh-oh.

[00:23:59] In that, I listened to a bunch of different OSTs to this game.

[00:24:04] Oh my god.

[00:24:05] Because a lot of these were made by different teams.

[00:24:09] And that meant everybody had their own spin on what this game was supposed to sound like.

[00:24:15] And the short answer is, there were no wrong answers.

[00:24:20] If you picked up a Prince of Persia game, it was going to sound right.

[00:24:25] You know, the MS-DOS version.

[00:24:26] There's like a few sound cues, but it's not.

[00:24:28] They didn't have music.

[00:24:30] It's not until it hit consoles or like, well, it needs to sound like something.

[00:24:34] Throw music in there.

[00:24:36] Yeah.

[00:24:37] I will almost always agree with adding music to stuff.

[00:24:40] I always think music is better than no music.

[00:24:43] I'm sorry.

[00:24:44] I'm playing a video game.

[00:24:45] I want BGM.

[00:24:47] But yeah, from the versions I played, they all had fairly different soundscapes.

[00:24:52] And I think that's good.

[00:24:53] Like you said, with the DOS version.

[00:24:55] Right.

[00:24:55] Or the sound effects even.

[00:24:58] Yeah.

[00:24:58] It's all different.

[00:25:00] Some of them were gruesome than others.

[00:25:02] I feel like that spike death on Genesis is fairly like, yikes.

[00:25:07] But they all have their own quirks.

[00:25:08] I even gave the Game Boy one a brief shot.

[00:25:11] It works.

[00:25:11] It's Prince of Persia.

[00:25:12] It's good.

[00:25:14] Really?

[00:25:15] Yeah.

[00:25:15] It works.

[00:25:16] I'm always surprised to see Game Boy punching above its weight.

[00:25:20] I don't know if I do that on purpose.

[00:25:22] Like, man, Steve, what kind of game do you want for the Game Boy?

[00:25:26] I want to play Prince of Persia in the dark.

[00:25:32] Okay.

[00:25:33] Not on that system.

[00:25:35] But no, it actually does work.

[00:25:38] It's very good.

[00:25:40] Yeah.

[00:25:40] Speaking of, I already posed this to Andre when we were trying to archive, you know, this game.

[00:25:48] But, you know, we all know Digital Eclipse has been on top of their game with the Gold Master Series.

[00:25:53] The last one being for a fuck ton of Tetris as of the other week.

[00:25:57] Yep.

[00:25:57] But just as of, yeah, as of this recording just came out.

[00:26:00] Yeah.

[00:26:01] So, you know, why not one for Prince of Persia?

[00:26:04] Everyone knows that Prince of Persia was snapped up by Ubisoft in the broader bond garage sale for, I don't know, probably nothing.

[00:26:11] But we all know they could probably use a PR when, you know, as many of these scattered old releases as they can in any package.

[00:26:18] Plus a bespoke new definitive edition by the people doing that sort of thing lately.

[00:26:25] How could you not?

[00:26:26] Oh, wait.

[00:26:27] The new one didn't meet sales expectations.

[00:26:29] So, I guess we can't do anything nice for Prince of Persia anymore.

[00:26:34] We just have to keep borrowing it from the internet.

[00:26:39] Don't we?

[00:26:40] Yeah.

[00:26:41] It is so weird that Ubisoft, I think, I mean, obviously they had that game early this year.

[00:26:48] The action adventure one.

[00:26:50] And, like, again, who knows how it's, if it actually sold like shit or if they're just being themselves.

[00:26:56] But I don't, I don't know why we don't have this.

[00:27:01] Sometimes with, like, old games like that, they're not.

[00:27:04] I feel like the original Prince of Persia came out on, like, Xbox Live Arcade back in the day.

[00:27:09] I feel like that existed.

[00:27:10] I don't think I'm crazy.

[00:27:12] It did.

[00:27:13] But it wasn't by Ubisoft.

[00:27:14] It was, oh my, there was that weird Game Loft company.

[00:27:19] Oh, it was a Game Loft game?

[00:27:21] They were making weird knockoff things that were resembling other games.

[00:27:27] They got the license from Ubisoft.

[00:27:29] So, you have emo Prince of Persia doing 1989 Prince of Persia shit.

[00:27:35] And it looked weird.

[00:27:37] And no one liked it because Xbox Live Arcade game, LOL.

[00:27:42] And that's the most modern version we have.

[00:27:45] Yeah.

[00:27:45] That's just, again, I remember that existing.

[00:27:49] And it was after Prince of Persia 2008.

[00:27:52] Which is not the game, which is not the official game of the movie.

[00:27:55] It's just called Prince of Persia, okay?

[00:27:59] And then they had another, didn't they have another game?

[00:28:02] Not the Sands of Time, but the something Sands.

[00:28:04] It was also Sands in, like, 2011 or 12 or something like that.

[00:28:09] And it's like, okay, you guys don't actually care about this.

[00:28:12] Was that Forgotten Sands or something?

[00:28:14] Forgotten Sands.

[00:28:15] Yeah, that was Forgotten Sands.

[00:28:16] See, we forgot all about it.

[00:28:18] Yeah, we forgot the Sands.

[00:28:20] Sands something.

[00:28:22] Shit, I think that's it on Prince of Persia.

[00:28:24] Do you want to rank these as we go along?

[00:28:26] Obviously, we only have one game here so far.

[00:28:28] So, like.

[00:28:29] So, we have to put Prince of Persia on the top.

[00:28:32] Okay, Prince of Persia is our new champion on Cinematic Platformer Paradise.

[00:28:39] Woo!

[00:28:40] Prince of Persia, you're the best.

[00:28:42] We love you.

[00:28:42] Yeah.

[00:28:43] We love you, Prince of Persia.

[00:28:45] We love you, unnamed protagonist.

[00:28:47] Next week, though, on Cinematic Platformer Paradise.

[00:28:52] In the shadows.

[00:28:54] Therein lies a beast.

[00:28:57] What?

[00:28:58] Was that too subtle?

[00:28:59] They'll never figure it out.

[00:29:01] They'll never figure it out.

[00:29:02] See you next week on Cinematic Platformer Paradise.