When you're not in combat you can learn a lot about the world, Elika and the current situation by using the left trigger to talk to her. Elika is pretty chatty and her dialogue is superbly written, there's a great sense of character to her and whilst the prince comes across as standoffish, typical of the anti-hero of his type in these kinds of stories, he still manages to be a likeable character in my opinion. I don't hate him as much as I despise some of the video game characters that have flitted across my screen in the past.

The game will let you know when you can learn something useful by flashing up a small hud icon of the woman's face. This is another thing about PoP, there's no hud to speak of. Health in combat is denoted by a change in stance and a flashing red heartbeat effect that warns you that the next blow to land could be the one to end it. Of course since you can't die, it will give the enemy a chance to recover some health if you miss the correct button in the quicktime event.

Elika has magic outside of combat and apart from her ability to throw you greater distances, point the way and catch you when you fall. She is the only person that can heal these sacred lands by finding the right place in which to cast her magic. The healing points are often protected by the Corrupted of Ahriman and things like the Hunter will fight with all they have to make sure you can't purge the darkness from the area. Once you have purged the darkness, the colour will return to the land, the life with it and you'll find 45 or so Light Seeds to collect meaning that you're going to have to backtrack into areas you've previously cleared, since Light Seeds allow Elika to unlock magical powers to get you further into areas you normally can't reach.

For example, she can activate certain magical plates that let her jump you around like a pinball. You'll be shown on the map what powers allow you to get to where and how many seeds you need to collect to unlock that ability. To summarise in terms of gameplay and design, the core mechanics of the game are intuitive and easy to learn. You'll be leaping around in no time and exploring to your hearts content, stopping to admire the wonderful world that Ubisoft have managed to create and battling to purge Ahriman's Corruption from the lands.

Oh and it is a beautiful world, the graphics in Prince of Persia are gorgeous. They have a theme for every area and when the corruption is driven out it's worth stopping for a minute or two to just admire the view, listen to what Elika has to say and take a breather. After all, there's no real rush to finish the game unlike the first ever PoP game where you had a timer, ah the joys of the old 'old' 2d platformer days. It uses an illustrative style that's akin to a vibrant watercolour painting, it's bright and it's cheerful when you're in a healed land. When you're not, it's like someone has sucked all of the life and colour out of the world and the darkness feels truly oppressive.

The level design is fantastic, the areas are all unique and there is something impressive about the sense of scope. Since you don't need to load an area, you can run from one side of the world to the next, taking the areas as you want as long as you have the right powers. From the broken majesty of the Royal Palace to the eerie heights of the Windmills, these vistas are truly awe inspiring, much more than Assassin's Creed.