Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is the final chapter of the Sands of Time trilogy, in which the Prince returns to a Babylon seized by a treacherous vizier and must confront the dark side of his own personality, gained during the previous adventure in Warrior Within. The gameplay is built on free movement across the city's architecture, fluid acrobatics between walls, pillars, and ledges, and a newly introduced Speed Kills system, where quietly approaching a weakened enemy triggers an instant, cinematically staged kill. Horse-drawn cart chase sequences through the streets of Babylon were also added, alternating with the classic platforming sections and giving the game a pace closer to action spectacle, setting it apart from the slower, more contemplative pace of the previous two entries in the series.

The GameCube version was released at the same time as the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions and does not differ from them in content – the same story, the same levels, the same enemies and boss fights, the same range of unlockable bonuses, the same chapter structure, and the same dialogue and narrative framing told by the Prince himself. However, the Nintendo console's weaker hardware showed on the technical side: the game ran with lower-resolution textures, and in more demanding sections, especially during cart chases with larger numbers of enemies on screen, frame-rate drops were more noticeable than on the more powerful Xbox, which was most apparent during transitions between level sections. Loading times between areas were also somewhat longer, which showed mainly when repeatedly passing through the same sections while searching for hidden items. It was therefore a full port without trimmed content or a shortened campaign, just with a noticeably more modest technical presentation, which was a common occurrence for multiplatform games of the time on GameCube, given the console's weaker graphics chip compared to the PS2 and Xbox – something players of many titles from that era simply had to accept, without it detracting from the gameplay itself.

Why play it: Anyone who prefers complete content over technical polish gets the same story, levels, and combat on GameCube as on PS2 and Xbox, just with somewhat lower resolution and frame rate.