#Cinematic - Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour Intro

Here's something different.
It's the cinematic intro opening to Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour.

Why do I find it blog-post worthy? Because it mostly features Wario and Waluigi prominently.
And since it seems we're aren't getting closer to ever have an actual Waluigi game (or a game by Miyamoto starring Waluigi in it - does he really hate the character?!) and Waluigi only appears in sports/party games, let the man shine in this little funny intro video!



Fantastic animation!
And pretty funny.

Your time will come Waluigi...someday.. (in the meantime, enjoy his various fanarts over the interwebs or his non-official fangames for now)

VGR PoP: Two Thrones

Taking directly after the previous PoP Warrior Within, The Two Thrones is the direct sequel and the final chapter in the "Sands of Time" series.

Sure, Ubi decided to ignore a perfectly closed and well rounded series to offer fans more spinoffs/episodes (I blame the fanboys). But was TT a good closing act to a well loved trilogy of modern platforming games?
What's good about it, what's bad about it?
Brand new review, below!

VGR: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

From Ubisoft/Ubisoft Montreal

Played on Gamecube

Also available on PS2, Xbox, PC, PS3, PSP and remake on the Wii as "Rival Swords"
 

Type 3D Platformer/beat 'em all

Year 2005

It only took Ubisoft a year to produce another Prince of Persia.
But could you really blame for their haste? It seems everytime Ubi has perfected an engine, as a gameplay established like a well oiled machine and a series popular enough, they always try to keep the ball rolling as long as they can, while such series is popular enough to score high sales with new yearly. (see the current Assassin's Creed franchise)

The original Sands of Time had a fantastic reception but didn't sell enough.
Warrior Within met a great success commercially but is still considered a sub-par Prince of Persia due to its combat oriented gameplay and lack of any PoP classic features (besides SoT own time mechanic).
How could they please both camps and still make a good enough new entry in this world renowned franchise?

And the Prince is back for all-new platforming oriented adventures all over Persia!

The closing chapter to the SoT series takes place directly after the "real" ending of Warrior Within.

If you missed it, fear not, the game will both recap the true ending and even acknowledge the other one.

After killing the Dahaka, the guardian monster protecting the "timeline", the Prince escaped the Island of Time with the Empress of Time herself, Kaileena. 

The Prince returns home, to the Kingdom of Babylon, only to find that a war seems to have erupted.

As soon as they arrive, Kaileena is made prisoner by the old Vizier who seems to have been brought back to life after the events of the first game. The Prince prevented the Sands of Time from being created in Warrior Within, so the original story never took place as well.

SAND! Lots of it! And here we go again!

Long story short, the Vizier kills Kaileena with the Dagger of Time which in turn releases the Sands of Time afterall... Then the crazy old man impales himself with the very same Dagger which makes him immortal now!!

And the Prince is infected but not turned into a Sand Creature!

And one of the creatures' weapon gets embedded in the Prince's own arm, which glows infected!

More twists than you can count all in a beautiful CGi sequence!!

The Prince steals the Dagger and escapes finally....

 Supâ platforming action!

This time around, Kaileena narrates the events of the game (a return of the narrative as presented in Sands of Time, only not the Prince this time around).

The main objective in Two Thrones is to travel all over the city back to the Palace and kill the Vizier once again. Simple story once put down like this, but a similar plot didn't stop Jordan Mechner's original from being a classic. Speaking of which, he didn't come back on the production as he did for Sands of Time. (oooh...)

During the game you'll meet again Farah, the Indian Princess from the original Sands of Time whom The Prince never met since taking Kaileena alive from the Island of Time prevented the adventures in Azad from every happeneing. (and a funny dialogue will take place as the Prince remembers her anyhow)

The gameplay is much of the same anyone who's ever played any of the 3D Prince of Persia games has already seen before.
Which consists of lots of exploration, 3D platforming around and combat.
The game does a great job of combining the best element of both past episodes.
The platforming is part of (I'd say) 50% of the game. Lots of acrobatic maneuvers. Most moves are returning from past games (wall-running, climbing, jumping..) which will come quite in handy to avoid all the vicious traps and dangerous obstacles.
There's some brand new controls like sliding down close walls (Splinter Cell style!) etc..
The combat compose (like) 40% of the rest of the game. You can still grab & steal weapons left from your enemies. Using the Dagger of Time to attack/block or play around with the usual "time" powers. (rewinding, energy bursts...)


The rest of the game will be broken by some rare unusual gameplay sequences. Never dull, be it the surprising ending or the Chariot scenes..

Introducing, the Troll of Time! Seriously though, look at his glorious hair!!

A new side of the Prince is made palpable. The Dark Prince starts to emerge as soon as the Sands are released. He will first made his presence aware by speaking through an internal voice..but soon this evil form (first glimpsed near the end of Warrior Within) will manifest itself by taking the control of the Prince's body.
The Dark Prince help shake things up every now and then (in scripted sequences).
He has some different moves and doesn't play 100% like the classic Prince.
For one his health bar his always decreasing. Which forces the player to spend less time enjoying the background and make haste. It gives a much more stressful tension, not unlike the original Prince of Persia (where you had only 1 real hour to escape and defeat the Vizir).

He also uses a different weapon, the Daggertail (a chain-like sword) which is quite stronger than the Prince's own regular weapons. (apart from the final sword at the end of the game)
Which makes big dense fights pass by easier killing enemies fast (a positive point) even though there's a lot of fighting with him in this form (minus point here..).

Finally to restore health you have to collect constantly sand, by breaking stuff or killing enemies like before.

Besides that?

The game still has a lot of fighting, enemies will protect spawn points you have to defeat large group of foes... Leftovers from Warrior Within, to please WW fans.

But thankfully, Ubisoft thought about bringing in a brand new feature to the series, which made the game so much more pleasant.

Since the series became more like a brawler in the hands of Ubi (the original was more duel-oriented) you can now perform all new stealth kills to avoid combat!

A very fun and useful feature. It's sort of like mini "Quick Time Events" where you have to press a certain button at the right moment, either killing the foe or continuing the sequence. Boss QTEs will result in death but enemies QTEs will break the attack and you'll have to go by the usual way, through hordes of creatures to fight. It's a great stealth system which is a nice addition to the series.

The game is all about this duality, be it the Prince and his alter ego.
The fans of SoD or the ones from WW.
The funnier full of life charming Prince and his gritty emo-ysh Troll-haired Dark opposite.
Platforming and combat.
Water (which reverts the Dark Prince to his normal self) and Sand.

The story is pretty good actually. It ties the plot nicely back to the original Sands of Time in a very well thought way, a perfect story coming full circle, closing the series on a good final chapter.

Side note: the game made me think a lot of the original 3rd Prince of Persia, Arabian Nights.
Be it stylistically or content wise. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't made on purpose by Ubisoft, it just happened.

Like PoP3D, this "SoD3" see the Prince not trying to escape a foreign place or dungeon (PoP1, 2, Sands of Time, Warrior Within) but his very own palace because of a trap that closes upon him.
In both PoP3D and TT, the Prince gets thrown of his own palace at the start, as to make his way from the bottom of the palace, travelling across the local town, the streets, the docks..ends up in catacombs/caves. And the final lap is run across thousand of stores high over the city.

I was glad to also see the much needed Persian/Arabic theme brought back to the series.
Visually the game looks splendid, though more so in exteriors and the palace than the boring city and dull caves.

The music is done by returning composers Stuart Chatwood and Inon Zur. Splendid. Magical. Much more epic than SoD and trued in spirit than WW. Quite fitting for an Arabian Nights-esque tale.
(and to bring that above point back, pretty close to PoP3D fantastic score in a way, particularly some early themes like the streets)

 
It brings back elements from both Sands of Time and Warrior Within.
It closes the tale of this Prince.

"Most people think time is like a river, that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have seen the face of time, and I can tell you, they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm. You may wonder who I really am, and why I say this. Come, and I will tell you a tale like none you have ever heard."

Overall, it's a pretty darn' good game!
There! I said it! And I didn't even think I was going to like it a first...


It's sort like a "best of" both past games.
It takes the best of Sand of Time along the best of Warrior Within and works as well by itself as the closing chapter of this trilogy.
Two Thrones keeps the fun Arabic theme and the classic platforming the series' known for
plus

The combat and a bit of the angst of the former game.


But it is not without its own problems.
By bringing half of its foundations from Warrior Within it also brought back its combat focused, hordes of enemies, tricky combos (with enemies that either respawn or never seem to die) and half-assed boss fights...

It gets also a bit boring, repetitive and almost painfully difficult by the mid-point. But if you survive past that it gets better near the end. And the story and pace picks up for an incredible final act.


The game was still made on the Jade Engine (by the by, I want to recommend you play it on the Gamecube, the system it was designed for, for the best experience). The graphics look great and the acrobatic/parkour-ysh gameplay was pretty well tweaked by this episode to be smooth and easy to master.

Two Thrones was ported on various system, most ports pretty identical. Apart from the PSP & Wii remake Rival Swords which tweaked elements of the game, fixed and changed the gameplay a bit and added some zones.

Great game, not perfect but a must play for PoP fans and platformers aficionados alike!

I give it:

 2 / 3 Quacks!

VGR PoP: Warrior Within

Finally!
I decided to continue my on-going reviews of the PoP series.

In the past, the second episode of the classic trilogy wasn't near as good as the original. How did this second episode of the second trilogy far off?

VGR: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
From Ubisoft/Ubisoft Montreal/Pipeworks Software (PSP port)
Played on Gamecube
Also available on PS2, Xbox, PC, PS3 and PSP

Type 3D Platformer/beat 'em all
Year 2004

Only a year after Sands of Time, Ubisoft was back with a sequel to that well appreciated reboot.
But this time, well decided on making Warrior Within a commercial success unlike the way SoT fared in the market.

For this, all details of the game itself were designed specifically to make it sell at all cost.
This game, with a bigger budget behind, was to be the definitive blockbuster the Prince of Persia series never had until that point.
Did it end well?

He sees your every move.

The story takes place about seven years after the previous installment.

The Prince is now on the run.
Since he escaped his fate at the end of the Sands of Time, he's been trying to escape a monster called the Dahaka who's been after him since he escaped his fate.
For you see, playing with the "Sands of Time" themselves, one usually ends up dead. But through time shenanigans in the past episode, the Prince was able to play around with time, find a loophole and escape death (by "resetting" the timeline).
And now, this Dahaka-creature is after him trying to "correct" this error as is his role of protector of the timeline.

So the Prince finds only one possible way out of this.
He has to find his way to the Island of the Sands of Time, where the giant Sands of Time' Hourglass was created, prevent it from ever being created and thus escape this new "destiny" befallen upon him.
But easier said than done, as soon as he arrived near the island, a mysterious woman, Shahdee, unleashes an army on the Prince to prevent him from reaching the island...

That's when the game starts...

He's back!....But who is "he"? He doesn't look like the guy from the last episode??

After a short prologue, the game drops you in the middle of the this plot right away.
And it takes only a second to guess how things will be heading compared to Sands of Time.

Like another Prince of Persia 2 in the past (The Shadow and the Flame), Warrior Within leaves the puzzling and the platforming to the background and is all about combat this time around.
Ironic turn of events?

The game leaves his exotic and arabian feel in the prequel and is instead full of grey-sh tones and monochromatic filters.
More adult, less fantasy, loads more grittier and even, dare I say, "gore".

Exit Jordan Mechner as well.
The Prince of Persia's original creator wasn't involved with this sequel as he was in Ubisoft's first PoP attempt.

HACK AND SLASH!! HACK AND SLASH!! DUUUUR~

For this reason I would prefer to consider this sequel as beat 'em all with platforming sequences rather than the other way.
This sequel is a lot more combat oriented. For that matter, you'll often have to fight against hordes of enemies instead of the usual duels 1-on-1 of the series.

But fear not, the Prince, all buffier and sporting some manly beard, has become sort of a combat expert.
He can steal enemies' weapons, wield two weapons in each end, throw them back at the enemies...
His fighting movements are more acrobatics, there's lots of combos to experiment in combat, etc..

YOU ARE DEAD!

Though you'll still die easily if you forget to play around with time like before.

But even his time manipulating abilies have expanded. Back are the stopping/rewinding/fastforwarding abilities with some new details like the sand/time blast....

Classic PoP? Not quite, but not that far!

What about the platforming?

Well it's still here, to a much important degree.
First of all, the game is now built around an open-ended sandbox type of world. No level based progression this time.
But it isn't necessarily a bad nor a good thing. It's different from past games, sure, but it's sort of natural when you reconsider the original 2D sidescrolling Prince of Persia (where you were running around the dungeon, trying to escape a prison that seemed to go on and on in a "free" environment)-

The Prince will have to survive and explore the palace of the Empress of Time, both in the present and the past. For doing so, there's some time warps which also serves as checkpoint where you will be able to play around with time in a natural progression.
Progression. For you see, it may be an open-ended map, but you can't go play where you want to, there's a sort of natural order, as though the game was guiding you by your hand.

Also on that note, the game will offer two endings.
Based on either you'll get all the collectibles or not. Most of those can be acquired whenever you want to, backtracking if need be..apart for some (or just one?) which if you'll miss it the first time around, due to the level designed being affected during the story, you'll never be able to get it back later on. Which reaaaaally annoyed me might I add.

A story of precision, concentration, memorization and endurance.

All in all, it's all about taking your time to note everything in during your playthrough, being able to endure waves after waves of enemies (and giant sand creatures), not losing your cool and never, ever losing track of where you are or where you've already been.
For so there's an in-game map which at first seemed a bit confusing, empty and silly...but in the end turned out pretty useful to not lose yourself, be it in the past or present.

There's also some pretty kickass action sequence à la Resident Evil: Nemesis where the Dahaka will pursue you through long fun platforming scenes (and altering the level structure!!) which will usually end up with you running across water the Dahaka won't be able to cross over..

All in all, the platforming's not really that difficult and you will usually fly through anything in the first try easily. But it's seeing through all this game's filters and grey tones that will have you miss details, objects to interract with or structures to climb to.

And most of your deaths, outside combats, will be because of the game, not because of the player.
It's not your precision during platforming, not lack of brains solving puzzles, nor missing a jump, a timed trap or running out of sand....

....
But missing a switch in the back in a not well-designed room or some obscured details in the background.
Or one of the game's many bugs.
Less so than there was in Sands of Time, but just as deadly - seriously.
That's why I also recommend the use of 2 saveslots, just in case a glitch will let you go through a passage, but end up trapped because of that.

Other than these annoying recurrences, the game's pretty good.

The idea of a sandbox world is good for the series (even if myself, I'm not a big fan of these).
The tone of the game doesn't ring right to me, it's called Prince of Persia afteral. They tried too much.
The game doesn't have that Arabian Nights-atmosphere, that fantasy.
It's like a comic book from the 90s, it's too much grim 'n' gritty.
The music is again by Stuart Chatwood for the most part, but he want more guitar-ysh and rock and Godsmack (the band!) provides the rest of the soundtrack. It's edgy, it's kool for teh kiddies. Don't misunderstand me, listening to the music of this game outside the game is alright, but I find it quite mismatched in the Prince of Persia universe. I miss the more scenic atmospheric score.

The story seems really confusing at first, but going through it again, it all makes more sense.
I'd say the story is pretty good, looked from afar.
Play it a second time (maybe while you try getting the 2nd ending!) if you want to give this story's a second chance!
(aren't all Prince of Persias about second chances?)

Overall, it's not a bad game, it's even pretty good for it's combining of time altering-mechanics and combat.
But it's before hand not a really good Prince of Persia.

Like PoP2 The Shadow and the Flame in the past, they tried to expand upon the prequel's fighting elements, shake things up, make it harder and more violent...and the result ended up pretty far from the rest of the series.

Prince of Persia is a classic and cult series of the world of platformers (cinematic platformers), and I think the future of the series lies up in the more acrobatic parkour platformers. Not beat 'em alls!

The 2 endings are a nice touch (only one's canonical with the follow-up!)
The story is probably the best part of this game.
The manipulative Kaileena, the Prince's use of the mask of the wraith turning him into the Sand Wraith during a replay of this game's earlier events is a great twist (but if you didn't play it yet, hush~), the loophole used by the Prince to escape the final act of this game... it's all good, though a bit confusing at first like I said.
On the PSP,  under the name Prince of Persia: Revelations the game was kinda expanded upon. It's still the same game overall. But some rooms were added to make it longer.

The game least favorable elements are the fact it was designed mostly to sell copies...to kids!
Girls wearing the skimpiest costumes they could afford in a PG game (which kinda degrades and destroys any attempts of making either Kaileena or Shahdee important players in the Sands of Time universe), kickin' ass "cool" music which doesn't work much in this game's settings, emo Prince, tons of grey filters on the screen, combat, combat and more combat...

I'd say, try it...if you're interested..or too young for the original games or Assassin's Creed :P

I give it:

 1.5 / 3 Quacks!

VGR PoP: The Sands of Time

I've actually already reviewed the original Prince of Persia trilogy.
Prince of Persia, The Shadow and the Flame and Arabian Nights.
I guess it was finally time I decide to move on the Sands of Time trilogy.

For most (younger) players, it was their first introduction to the PoP series, for me I was decided to not like this usurper. Brought to mainstream audience by Ubisoft of all the teams? (it was long before they became that huge blockbuster developer known for excellent titles such as Assassin's Creed and the likes nowadays)

So.... verdict?

VGR: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
From Ubisoft/Ubisoft Montreal
Played on Gamecube
Also available on PS2, Xbox, PC, PS3 and as a stand alone unrelated 2D spinoff on Game Boy Advance

Type 3D Platformer
Year 2003

After a hiatus of approximately 5 years since Prince of Persia 3D, the series seemed to be lost, dead alongside Broderbund, the studio behind the port of the original game and its two sequels, and the fact that the original creator had long gone away from the gaming scene.

Then, in the early 2000s, the French developer Ubisoft took up the series where it was left, rebuild a new universe and concept around it and brought back the name Prince of Persia to recognition.

The team charged with this impossible task was Ubisoft Montreal, the makers of the modern well liked Splinter Cell series. They wanted to bring back the platforming genre to a more mainstream audience, while trying to innovate at the same time. For so, Jordan Mechner himself was brought back on this subject
Almost 15 years had passed since the original...
Did they succeeded?

Enter a new prince...

 The story opens in Persia. Some unknown time after the original trilogy of PoP I would say.
(note: PoP3D ended with that original prince leaving the kingdom with his princess on a magic carpet ride~)

We're introduced to a different sort of Persia. Now following the tales of another unnamed  Prince.
The King Sharaman is passing through India in his way to Azad. As they're leaving yet another conquered city with the help from a local Vizier, the Prince wants to prove himself and decides to go straight fro the treasures. By a great coincidence, he is able to instead find the mythical Sands of Time!

Long story short, he takes off the Dagger of Time out of an Hourglass.
With it, the Prince is able to turn back in time using the so-called "sands of time".
When he shows it to the King, the Vizier wants to keep it but the Prince refuses to give the dagger.
The Persians also take a prisoner, the local Maharajah's daughter, Princess Farah.
The Vizier is able to trick the Prince in using the dagger, it releases the Sands of Time all across the kingdom.  The people are turned into sand monsters and only the Vizier, the Prince and Farah escape this curse.

The goal of this game is to help free the kingdom.
The Vizier wants to take the dagger and all its power it represents and is awaiting in a tower.
In his journey, the Prince is helped by Farah who as protector of the Sands of Time also wants to preserve and keep the dagger.

The warrior within!

Yes, that is a lot more thought put into the story than any previous episode of the series or even most games anyway.
But a game's not all about its plot. How does it play?

The game is true to its roots, that is, a challenging more cinematic platformer. And unlike those arcade platformers such as Mario & co, it's all about timing and taking your time to go through the level.
Despite its new direction at Ubisoft and on modern systems, the game still feels like Jordan Mechner's classic. Probably thanks to the fact Ubi took him in early on the project to assist the direction.

What is new is that the game takes a more acrobatic approach.
It still is about precision and calculated jumps, like the classic Prince of Persia or games like Flashback, but in this 3D era of platformers such as the Tomb Raider series, Sands of Time takes a more athletic and flexible gameplay.
The Prince can wall-run, jump to various type of objects and grab onto them or swing by, etc..
An early attempt of bringing parkour into gaming. (which Ubi perfect in the Assassin's Creed games and many other copied these days)

A story with a twist!

Unlike the original PoP or PoP3D, Sands of Time embraces its duel scenes and is a lot more combat-oriented too.
The Prince carries a sword and knows how to use it! (which gets upgraded along the story)

But wait, how does the dagger of time gets in all of this?!
Well it's the second "big" part of the gameplay here, and a big innovation to the series and gaming in general.
The Prince is able to rewing time with it! But we'll get right to this in a little moment below.

The story is also told by the Prince from a certain point set after this game.
And the game plays with this fact, if you die you either will have to rewind time a bit to un-die the Prince or the Game Over screen will have the Prince telling you "Wait a minute...that's not how it exactly happened..."
The Prince-narrator will also have plenty of fun "breaking the 4th wall" moments when you'll pause the game and such...

Sometimes...bugs happen...

Making its debut in the franchise is also co-operation.
But not with another player, but with the CPU which will control Farah.

As Farah helps the Prince in the game's plot, she will also be there in the game as you play.
In combat she'll use her arrows to keep enemies away. Which isn't that useful all in all.

And to resolve some puzzles, you'll have to use her to activate doors, drop platforms, release objects, open the path, etc..
Oh, I mean, you'll have to hope SHE decides to help you.
Yeah, because there's literally a TON of bugs and glitches in this game. Not just on the game itself, level design and gameplay, but on the AI. Farah's AI to be exact. Which is annoying. Specially when you'll be trapped in some places because nothing will change even if you'll load the segment a hundred times.

Why am I making a big story of all this? Because it happened to me at some crucial point. (there's like 4-5 crucial moments where her AI will be decisive on whether you'll be trapped in a bug/loophole or will be able to continue the game...)
And I had to restart the whole game.
Which since I learned, made me keep 2 savegames always, in case a new save becomes corrupted and I had to go to an earlier part of the game....
So annoying :/

Run little Prince, run!!

Anyway, this didn't affect my relation to this game. I kept on playing it.
I've seen worse, much worse. and wasn't expecting much from Ubisoft (at least, back then...).

Now, on the dagger of time itself.
It makes this kind of cinematic platformer so much easier. Because you'll never fear to have huge segments to replay and will always throw yourself in the middle of danger, which is a big part of how this game works.

A misstep happens so easily...

Jumping from cliffs, running across uncertain walls, playing from ropes in any direction without fear of the consequences going in such ways will have on the Prince...

Game OVER! Again?! Hopefully, the game doesn't keep track of those...

...since all you'll have to do will be rewind time.

Speaking of which, that is not all the dagger of time can do.
You'll have to keep track of how much sands it has in stock. For this, killing sand creatures (doesn't it kill Persia's population too??) will replenish the sands of time. You see, they are "sand" creatures now.

There's various sort of powers you'll be able to trigger, as you play.
Such as slowing down the time, rewinding/fast forwarding, freezing time (and then striking frozen enemies down easily).

 Back to the Future! Huh, I mean, 3 seconds ago!

Collecting sand clouds from defeated enemies recharge the dagger. But you'll also be able to collect extra sand and augment the gaughe.

Be careful to always keep an eye on your sand gauge!

This gameplay mechanic works great in concept and helps make the whole concept go easily on gamers, which helped bring the series to a more mainstream audience.

It still feels Prince of Persia-ysh, as difficult as the classics, and taking as much time to finish. (the original takes one hour, but on repeated playthroughs!)
But it is a lot more accessible too.

Now you DIE!!

All in all, it's both part classic/faithful and part new ideas/original innovations.


The game plays around with the time as main thema, and the story will have plenty o' surprises and twists.
It's a great new episode, and great new starting point despite its many, many flaws.

End of the line.

Overall, it's a great experience.
Not my personal favorite of the series, but even though, I gotta admit its qualities.

I was decided to hate it, but in the end even I fell for it.

Farah as a character is a bit void of any real personality, and a real pain in the butt gameplay-wise.
The game has various glitches and bugs.
But its own of those game you can't really hate for its flaws and only remember its qualities in the long run.

A perfect new start for a new trilogy of PoP.

The game was made available on a lot of 128-bits systems.
The original version is the Gamecube one. It also features the original PoP in bonus and some featurettes.
And the first level of the classic game remade with the Sands of Time engine as a bonus.
The Xbox port offers the classic PoP1 and PoP2 as bonuses and most of the featurettes. (only PoP1 on Pal releases)
The PS2 features also only has PoP1 has bonus but the 3D remake of the first level of the classic game is back from the Gamecube.
Finally the PC only offers the remade level. All those ports looks and sound pretty similar without going too much into the details. It has also been released recently in HD for PS3.

The Gameboy port is a completely different unrelated sidescrolling game. (apart from the sands mechanic)

The music in this game is a bit generic and not that memorable but works as background "noise". Not my fav.
(I prefered PoP3D or some later game's score over this one)

It's more accessible and less difficult than PoP3D and less complicated than the original, but just as fun and entertaining.

I give it:

 2.5 / 3 Quacks!