Let's get the unavoidable out of the way. This is the cute Prince of Persia. Characters have big eyes and even more disproportionate heads. There is nothing gritty about the game. It has a bright, vibrant art style that lends itself well to the DS screen. The environments are bit sparse, even for a DS game, but remain attractive and fit the series well. Quite simply, it works on aesthetic and functional levels. All those that simply can't play a game because it looks cute can move on now.

I have not been a the biggest fan of Ubisoft's latest approach to storytelling in the series, and was enraged by the complete lack of an ending to last year's console game, so I can't exactly say that I was thrilled to see that The Fallen King takes place an undetermined time after the craptacular conclusion of the PS360 title. Hopefully this isn't spoiler territory, but the game begins with the Prince looking around for the King of the City of the New Dawn, in hopes that he can help the Prince and Elika (thankfully not seen) stop Ahriman for good. By the time that the Prince gets there though, it appears as though it is too late and the land is already corrupted and under Ahriman's control. Along the way, the Prince discovers a magus named Zal, who has different types of magical control over some of corrosive elements. Together the Prince and Zal rush into the city and hope to rescue the King before Ahriman's control becomes permanent. I found the story quite enjoyable as I spent more time with the title. It wasn't intrusive, left elements open for me to interpret myself and for once the game's sidekick wasn't an obnoxious character I wanted to kill halfway trough the adventure (Oh, Farah, how I long to never see you again).

The most fascinating aspect of The Fallen King has to be the very unique game design it features. Playing from a side-scrolling perspective similar to the 1989 original, the game uses a small set of touch screen commands to control the Prince and Zal. Running is a matter of holding the stylus down to the left of right side of the screen. Jumping onto a platform is as simple as double tapping on it. Of course, there are special moves from the modern PoP titles such as the roll, wall jump, and wall slide that are typically handled by either single or double tapping on them. I'm not going to lie. Getting into this game's groove isn't the easiest process, but after going through the first few levels you'll be stringing together long combo of jumps and attacks. There's a few times where you'll pull off the wrong move, but thankfully the game is littered with checkpoints. At worse, you've only lost ten to twenty seconds of effort. Like the recent console game, there is no lives system so failure and death aren't so much of an issue here.

The many of the modern PoP series seem to heavily rely on a sidekick to help the Prince vanquish ancient evils and this title is no different. However, unlike Elika or Farah, Zal didn't bother me so much. In fact, I kind of liked the guy and wouldn't mind seeing him pop up in future. Zal becomes useful in the game as a kind of magical backup for the Prince. Using his powers, he's able to manipulate some of the corrosive environmental environments to help the Prince reach high cliffs, move objects. And even kill bad guys in combat. Wisely, they didn't leave all this up to AI, but instead let the player take control of Zal by holding down any button on the DS. During sequences that require action from both of the characters, an unspoken rhythm to gameplay develops that is reminiscent of the original PoP's longer jumping sequences. It's something that is hard to define, but has been missing from the series for quite some time and made a little too automatic in the latest console game.

The game's biggest design blemish has to be its ill-conceived bosses. None of these instances are remotely fun and should have been replaced with the simple combat featured in other spots of the game. Over the course of the game, you'll run into some frame dropping and slowdowns that really put a damper on the action. Notice that, unlike most reviewers, I'm not complaining about the gesture control. While not perfect, they present the player with a fun experience that wouldn't be the same using a traditional d-pad and face button control scheme. Touch controls are not simple to implement from a technical perspective (I know this from personal experience) and given the specific challenges the game's design presents, the team at Ubisoft did an adequate job of addressing as many concerns as possible. It's far from flawless, but certainly not terrible.

Perhaps, it is best to summarize all of this by stating that The Fallen King is years ahead of its time in terms of design, a product of its time graphically, but unfortunately held back by technical limitations and not yet perfected gesture recognition. During the game's smoothest sequences, the Prince leaps, bounds, and strikes enemies with an ease and flow that its console big brother wishes it could mimic. Sadly, the game's low points of control intricacies and quirks will anger most players beyond the point of return. The resulting experience is one that will push many away but will be a game that a few will be able to intensely cherish. Because of this Mirror's Edge-like divide, add a point to my score if you are capable of seeing past a game's obvious flaws to see its "inner beauty," otherwise subtract a point.

7 out of 10