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As the title might suggest, the game is set in ancient Persia. On the way back from his trip to the Island of Time (see Warrior Within), the prince returns to his home city of Babylon to find the place being ransacked and destroyed by an invading army. On further investigation he finds that Zervan, the evil Vizier from the first game, is up to his old tricks again, and the prince vows to stop the crooked old mystic from completing his (no doubt sinister!) plans. In daring fashion, the prince takes to the streets, rooftops and dungeons of Babylon to stop the old Vizier. As if his home city being destroyed and pillaged wasn't enough, prolonged exposure to the sands of time has 'infected' the prince with the sand's magic, causing him to periodically transform into a sand monster at key moments. As a sand monster, the prince becomes more aggressive and his health is constantly draining. Fortunately, health can be regained by recovering sand from fallen foes, and he's armed with a firey whip that is more than up to the task of supplying them.

For those unfamiliar with the prince's previous antics: it is, in basic terms, some of the purest platforming you'll ever see. The prince is possibly the greatest video game acrobat to ever exist, and could run circles around any portly Italian plumber. The bulk of the game involves overcoming huge trapridden platforming puzzles, through which the prince has to run, climb and jump to reach new areas. Just about everything in the environment can be utilized, and the prince can run up and along walls, climb up to overhanging beams, swing from flag poles, and monkeyclimb from pillar to pillar. To mix things up even more, the time travel mechanics from the previous two games have made a return. Using the Dagger of Time, the prince can rewind time by several seconds to correct fatal mistakes. If you find yourself slipping and falling into a spike pit, you can just hold C on the nunchuk to rewind time to a point when the prince was healthy and happily standing with both feet on the ground. Don't worry, this doesn't make the game too easy, as time effects are limited and can only be gained by acquiring more sand.

As well as the superbly done platforming system, the game features the same free form fighting engine that's been in use since Sands of Time. Fighting is smooth, with slashing, blocking and flipping meshed together seamlessly. It's one of those games that makes you feel incredibly stylish while in action, while keeping the controls relatively simple. The prince battles primarily with the Dagger of Time, and wildly waving the Wii remote around will cause the prince to slash at his enemies, much like in Twilight Princess. In addition, the prince can pick up the weapons of fallen foes and wield them in his other hand, which naturally, is controlled by waving the nunchuk. Hitting A in tandem with the analog stick will make the prince leap into the air, either by leap frogging over an enemy or kicking off of a nearby surface, and this is where the majority of the variety in the fighting comes from. It's not the deepest fighting engine in the world, but being able to chain up fighting combos with each hand independent of the other is admittedly pretty cool. Rival Swords also introduces the brand new ability to launch sneak attacks, which are triggered by waving the nunchuk when behind an unsuspecting opponent. This then triggers a series of attacks that require you to wave the Wii remote at very specific moments to strike. If you time it incorrectly, the enemy will counter and throw you across the room, and all hell breaks loose.

As previously mentioned, Rival Swords is in fact a port of the GameCube game Two Thrones, and with the exception of the Wii controls, the game doesn't really seem to have benefited much from the Wii's additional power. Graphically the game is fairly typical of anything you'd see on the GameCube, which honestly might have been disappointing had anything else on the Wii not been the exact same story. Character models are fairly blocky by today's standards, and textures vary from blurry to average. The game also suffers from considerable slowdown in a few areas, which, considering it's a GameCube port, is a little strange. There are also a few weird little glitches, such as characters' hair clipping through their bodies. I thought poor Farah was reenacting a scene from Alien when her ponytail suddenly decided to punch through her chest midconversation during a cut scene. A cutscene! How do these things get through the testing stage?

Audio is quite a step up from the graphics. Aside from the standard sword slashes, grunts, screams and crashes, the game is fully voiceacted throughout. The prince will break into a monologue while climbing huge towers, telling of ancient stories and adventures, or his feelings and contemplations for his objectives, and for Farah. He's also joined by a sinister, somewhat villainous voice in his head, and the two seem to break into some kind of argument every five minutes. He'll yell at the prince for taking too long on a puzzle, or laugh at his pitiful efforts in fighting a horde of enemies. It's great fun to listen to. To top it off, the game is narrated by Kaileena, the Empress of Time (from Warrior Within), as she tells the story of the game as if it were an ancient tale. Even when saving the game, she asks you if that is where you'd like to continue the story next time. Little touches like that, to me, really bring the whole thing to life, and make you want to keep playing just to hear more of the dialog.
 
While the game doesn't really introduce anything new to the series, Rival Swords definitely stands shoulder to shoulder next to Sands of Time as one of the best games to bear the name, and the Wii controls do genuinely make the game more fun than on a regular controller. It's also one of the very few Wii games I've played with no noticeable control issues. That said, many may be put off by that aside from the controls, the game is a straight GameCube port. No new or additional content has been added, and the game's visuals haven't received much in the way of polishing. But honestly, any Wii owner should be used to that by now. Rival Swords is a great title for adventure, platforming and beatemup fans alike. It's a near perfect mesh of the three genres, and it's all glued together with an entertaining story to boot. If you're a fan of the series and haven't played Two Thrones, definitely check this game out.

 

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