A lot of people disagree, but I don't see how anyone could (be fully opposed anyways). It was VERY bold of Ubi to create ONE ending for a game, when crappy alternate endings are used endlessly nowadays in an attempt to satisfy everyone. Well, classic, great storytelling doesn't involve this. Movies don't have alternate endings (except crappy ones tacked onto the dvd to boost sales), and books sure don't either.

The point of the ending is to remind us all that human beings are selfish, but that isn't good or bad, it's just gray! Every person on earth is morally gray, and if you could save the world, or save the one you love, 99 people out of 100 would not choose the world.

While playing the ending, I for one did NOT regret re-releasing Ahriman for ONE SECOND. I knew what to do without any hesitation whatsoever. This is probably because I've had very strong feelings for a few people in my life, and if something like this were to ever happen I'd never be ever to live with myself if I let them go.

In a nutshell, the ending is extremely human and realistic. If push comes to shove, and you couldn't have both, which would you pick? I'm seriously betting on the one close to you.

Ubisoft succeeded because they knew some us better than we knew ourselves.

Excellent explanation! *clap*

quote:

Originally posted by xCaptainAmazing:
A lot of people disagree

And I'll be the first to step up to the plate!

Just because a game only has one ending doesn't automatically make that ending good.

And regardless of the message that the ending portrayed, the developers should have approached it from another angle. Because of the angle used, a lot of people including myself felt like everything they'd worked to accomplish had been pointless.

If it comes down to choosing the world or the one I love, I'd choose the last ten hours I spent busting my hind end to get that thing back in its cage.

@xCaptainAmazing

Actually, according with official statements, the game has two endings.
Either way, for most of the people who played the game (me included) the game has only one ending (Elika revived, Ahriman released). And by me, it's the best part of the whole game.

But of course, they blew it up with the Epilogue's ending, which is the definitive ending of the first game's story.

quote:

Originally posted by mornegroth:
@xCaptainAmazing

Actually, according with official statements, the game has two endings.
Either way, for most of the people who played the game (me included) the game has only one ending (Elika revived, Ahriman released). And by me, it's the best part of the whole game.

But of course, they blew it up with the Epilogue's ending, which is the definitive ending of the first game's story.

Hey, the epilogue ending is cool. It leaves you shocked! What would happen?? oh no now i have to wait some more years to see it!!!! Really, it kills me XD But i cant wait to see what happens next now!!! O_O

I´m sure that when the date is near i will be like before this game came out XD but please no more threads about what did i do when i got the game XD


The end is good for me, but open endings ... i have too much imagination for these thingsXD

The Epilogue ending sucks.

It leaves nothing for imagination, what happens next is already explained on the DS title.

quote:

Originally posted by LaurenIsSoMosh:

quote:

Originally posted by xCaptainAmazing:
A lot of people disagree

And I'll be the first to step up to the plate!

Just because a game only has one ending doesn't automatically make that ending good.

And regardless of the message that the ending portrayed, the developers should have approached it from another angle. Because of the angle used, a lot of people including myself felt like everything they'd worked to accomplish had been pointless.

If it comes down to choosing the world or the one I love, I'd choose the last ten hours I spent busting my hind end to get that thing back in its cage.

I understand, but respectfully disagree. I think the brilliant part is that ubi didn't want the game's feeling of accomplishment to be associated with the player's progression, but more about character progression (or their emotional development). This game is by all means a character piece, and to have an ending that focused on anything else would have smeared the entire point of the game. And to answer why they felt the need to select such a drastic (mandatory) choice to end the game on, it was the only way to show how powerful his feelings were for Elika. He was so head over heels that he would do ANYTHING. that's why I think it was the way it was.

quote:

Originally posted by xCaptainAmazing:
I understand, but respectfully disagree. I think the brilliant part is that ubi didn't want the game's feeling of accomplishment to be associated with the player's progression, but more about character progression (or their emotional development). This game is by all means a character piece, and to have an ending that focused on anything else would have smeared the entire point of the game. And to answer why they felt the need to select such a drastic (mandatory) choice to end the game on, it was the only way to show how powerful his feelings were for Elika. He was so head over heels that he would do ANYTHING. that's why I think it was the way it was.

In hindsight, I suppose Ubisoft had hoped everyone would have seen the ending the way you have, see the Prince's progression from selfishness to selflessness. But I guess not everything goes the way we hope, as apparently a lot of people ended up not sharing the Prince's feelings towards Elika.

Personally, I saw the qualities in the ending and appreciated them for what they were, but overall I still think it comes down to the technicalities of what angle with which it was approached. An overwhelming theme for this generation of gaming, and especially in Prince of Persia, is extensive use of innovation to prevent punishing the player while maximizing the feelings of reward and accomplishment. But for as much emphasis as Ubisoft put on never showing us a death screen, the ending felt like an inevitable, unavoidable punishment.

"Congratulations, you've just beaten the game! But instead of be rewarded, you'll be forced to undo all of your hard work!"

I agree with the OP. I thought the ending was fantastic.

I have a reaction to all of you who think the ending of the new PoP is stupid because it feels like u accomplished something, then released it anyway to save a girl.
1) Prince finds girl and tries to save the world with her
2) prince feels an attraction to the girl but is forced to see her die
3) prince decides to save her

what most people miss is, in the epilogue, the prince states that the prison wouldn't keep ahriman that long any more anyway, because with elika gone, nobody would be there to save the temple again and ahriman would just grow stronger untill he breached, but ahriman is in fact scared of elika, since she has the powers of ormazd. after all, after reviving her, she still has the powers, meaning she is the only way to stop him, not by putting him in prison, but by destroying him with ormazd.

Now, if you still don't see my point, listen to this:
1) Prince of persia: Sands of Time: prince falls in love with farah, who dies at the end of the first game before the big rewind. What most people don't hear, is the prince mumbling to himself that he cannot bring back the dead. He too is selfish in a way that he would rather save her than the world. What's different from the new game here, is that the prince, by saving the world, also saves Farah, + he kills the vizier. I know, this gives a feeling of accomplishment, but keep on reading.
2) PoP:WW: a big example of a selfish prince. He would do everything to save himself, even kill an innocent woman (or goddess). but here also, luck is in his favour and he can save kaileena from her fate.
3) he returns to babylon, where he immediatly loses kaileena, who he did so much for to save. Didn't this give you a feeling of losing everything u worked for in PoP:WW? "Great, changed my fate, saved the girl, i get back, girl is dead, my fate is even worse..." also, to add a little bit more of failure in that, the prince accidently revived his most deadly enemy, who now has the power of a god. So, ALL of this, the fact that POP:SOT didn't happen and the efforts on the island of time were in vain, didn't give u a feeling of dissapointment?

Sorry for the long text, i'm just saying that:
-PoP let's u accomplish something, but let's u lose elika, so u want to find another way of battling evil with a superwoman rather than wait for the god to return
-PoPsot and ww were big accomplishments for the prince, but ALL of those accomplishments were swept away with the start of the third game, and this didn't feel like failure?

Wow, it feels weird posting here after a few years. I finally bought the new Prince of Persia and I'm really liking it, despite the negativity it has gotten around me. Can't wait to beat the game!

I just made an account to emphasize that what ubisoft was doing towards the ending was great, but it was a little lacking. I love RPGs, and took it on me to talk to elika at every chance I got, but I never got the sense that there was a sense of romance that was reciprocated. Sure I got the feeling that the prince was interested, but whether or not the feeling was mutual was never investigated.

The prince was a bit of a jerk at times, and Elika seemed apathetic to her emotions; she just cared about saving the world. That may have been the reason why people didn't feel that it was justified to undo everything you did for a girl that didn't really share any romantic moments with you in your journey.

QFT
It was indeed one of the factors that contributed for the failed attempt people call POP:NG!

I think the fact that there's so much controversy and difference in feelings for the ending is true testament to how simple, yet complex it is. Like it or not, it was completely original in how it (quite unexpectedly) unravels everything the Prince has done.

Regardless of whether or not you are someone who liked the ending, I don't think it's debatable how truly different it is to most (if not all) other games I can think of. Because I personally liked it, as you can imagine the originality amplifies my feelings for it exponentially. Maybe even enough to deem it my favourite ending ever.

Note: I never played the epilogue, so I can't comment on whether I like or disliked it.

It definitely stands as one of the more memorable endings, absolutely. If you do have the opportunity to play the epilogue let us know what you think; I'd be interested in hearing your take on it. : )

@CptAmazing

In my opinion (and according to my experience) the ending of POP:NG was something understandable and expected right from the beginning. Yes, it was cool and in some way a "mature" ending, but... It wasn't a chock/surprise for me.

This game followed a storyline extremely similar to the one of SOT.
The Prince finds the secondary character (let's name it SC), the SC seems receptive at first but later on both Prince and SC join forces to fight evil and complete an objective together, a romantic relationship grows between them, the SC at one point tries to do it all for his own, the SC dies, the Prince puts aside is anger/selfishness/arrogance and demonstrates his love for the SC, the SC is resurrected by the way of magical forces...

As you can see, I wondered about this linear plot right from the beginning of the game and in the end I revealed a bit of disapointment for the lack of originality. The romance is basically the same, the characters and environment are the only factors that changed.

Now... Don't get me wrong, I liked the ending of POP:NG (the original and not the crappy Epilogue ), the only problem is that it wasnt that twisty as the devs wanted it to be...

@mornegroth

I absolutely agree that the game's storyline itself wasn't completely original. It followed s similar PoP formula. I personally have no gripes with that, as it usually works fairly well.

The fact that you had it figured out from the beginning blows my mind though :P. I can always see things coming in movies/books/games, but for some reason this one eluded me. Must have been the very murky visions that kept showing the same thing...

breaking off into a bit of a tangent, I really liked the visions (after just thinking about it). For me they were effective because it was right in front of my face the entire time, but only after seeing the final one did I understand.

Basically, everything that Ubi intended the player to experience happened to me (and some others no doubt). From some of the posts here I can now clearly see that this was not entirely the case for everyone, but lemme tell ya it's a great feeling to share their vision .

Addition: I'm actually kind of interested what everybody thought of the game as a whole, whether you liked the ending or not. For me, the game was noticeably (a bit) repetitive, a little short, and not all too challenging. I also thought the existing combat system could work great against up to, say 3 opponents? using RT (R2) to counter as usual, but everytime you did your target focus would shift (or something like that).

@ CaptainAmazing
well there's a special sticky thread discussing the game as a whole (and this whole debate about the ending should've go in there as well ) you can check out people's reaction towards the game in there...I personally loved it with the exceptions that you mentioned - a bit repetitive, a little short, and not all too challenging, I like the 1 on 1 combat tho

@xCaptainAmazing
Yeah, and well... That formula repetitiveness wasn't just used on the storyline. Gameplay aspects and storytelling methods were overused, why? I don't know.

In both games you get to collect "mystical clouds", you find vortexes that mark a new checkpoint, you have visions, the world you know is changed by a corruptive force that change persons into monsters, etc.

It's a game incredibly clichéd and well... Very repetitive, not just in gameplay (because you basically do the same thing from the beginning of the game to the end) but storywise as well. Like someone once said: "Prince of Persia is definitely worth a look, but don't look too hard or you'll see the stitches."


If you still wanna know my overall opinion of the game check out my review, some of my opinions changed a bit since then (for worse after my second playthrough) but you can read it if you're still interested

quote:

While playing the ending, I for one did NOT regret re-releasing Ahriman for ONE SECOND.

You're being very short sighted, just like the Prince was. What good is having that person back, when you've re-released the evil as well? You'd be running for the rest of your lives.

Up to the point where Elika comes back to life, the only way that we and the prince know of to defeat Ahriman, is to keep him trapped. I know there's a subplot about the seals weakening, and he'd be free sooner or later, but at the moment it is the ONLY solution. So he basically frees her without even thinking of the consequences, and perhaps prays that some alternate way to defeat him shows up in the future. That's a huge gamble.

The ending also shows that the prince has learned NOTHING from the adventure. He remains as selfish as he was at the beginning. You spend the whole game learning about honor and duty, and how those things are important to Elika. The prince should have understood this by the end, and respected her decision to sacrifice herself. Instead he goes against that and frees her. Now he has a ticked off girl who doesn't want to be with him, and an evil unleashed back into the world. And to add to that, the audience has lost respect for him as a heroic character. Great job.

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