Prince of Persia

One hour. That is how much time you have to hack your way through a labyrinth of dungeons full of spikes, pits, and swordsmen, reach the princess, and stop the cruel vizier Jaffar. Prince of Persia on the SEGA Mega Drive brings the legendary rotoscoped action to Sega's sixteen-bit console.

The original game was designed by Jordan Mechner and first appeared on the Apple II in the late eighties. Its fame rests on the incredibly fluid animation of the hero, which Mechner created using rotoscopy, that is, by tracing footage of real movement. The character thus runs, climbs, and survives falls in a way no one had seen in games before. The Mega Drive conversion carries this legacy and offers it to players in the Sega ecosystem.

The gameplay combines a precise platformer with sword fighting. Jumps over chasms must be timed to a fraction of a second, spikes require patience, and duels a feel for both attack and defense. All the while the time limit keeps pushing you, so every needless death and every wander down a dead end hurts. The game rewards the player who remembers and who learns from their mistakes.

Prince of Persia went down in history as a key work of the cinematic platformer genre, and its realistic animation influenced an entire generation of creators. The brand later transformed into the successful 3D series The Sands of Time from Ubisoft, but the atmosphere of a tense journey through oriental dungeons remains strongest in the original conception.

The Mega Drive version is a solid way to play this classic on Sega hardware, with all the tension and precision that earned the series its reputation. It is a title for players who like a challenge and appreciate the elegance of movement.

Why play it: A gripping race against time and refined action with timeless animation that defined an entire genre.