Prince of Persia

The sand in the hourglass drains away relentlessly, and you have exactly one hour to fight your way through treacherous dungeons, rescue the princess, and overthrow the evil vizier Jaffar. Prince of Persia on the Super Nintendo is a polished console version of the game that forever changed the idea of what character movement in a platformer could look like.

The original was created by Jordan Mechner and first appeared on the Apple II computer in the late eighties. Mechner used rotoscoping, filming his brother's movements and animating the hero from the footage, so that running, jumps, and falls looked unusually fluid and realistic. The SNES version took that fluidity up a notch, adding more colorful graphics, new levels, and improved sound, making it one of the best console conversions of the entire series.

The gameplay rests on a combination of precise platforming and sword fights. Every jump must be timed, because floors collapse, spikes lurk, and blades spring out. The fights require a feel for attack and parry, not frantic button-mashing. All of this under the pressure of a time limit that turns the game into a tense race against your own memory and dexterity.

Prince of Persia had a fundamental influence on the entire cinematic platformer genre, and its rotoscoped animation inspired a host of later games. The brand later grew into the sprawling 3D series The Sands of Time by Ubisoft, which breathed new life into the genre in the modern era, but the roots of it all lie in these tense two-dimensional dungeons.

The console version for the SNES is still beloved today precisely for its expanded content and its refined feel of control. It is a title that rewards patience, memorization, and precision, and where every successful jump brings a small victory.

Why play: A model example of the cinematic platformer with timelessly fluid animation and tension that grips your heart to this day.