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Prince of Persia

NES

NES

The Grand Vizier Jaffar has thrown you into a dark dungeon and plans to marry the girl of your dreams in an hour. You're not going to let that happen are you? Try to escape from the dungeon, take out Jaffar's guards, find your way through the Sultan's palace and defeat Jaffar himself. Now go, you...

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Developer
MotiveTime

Released on
1992

Size
1 Player

Version
NES

Requirements
Nintendo Entertainment System

Downloads
Platform

Publisher
Virgin Games

ESRB Rating
Not Rated

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Description

The Grand Vizier Jaffar has thrown you into a dark dungeon and plans to marry the girl of your dreams in an hour. You’re not going to let that happen are you? Try to escape from the dungeon, take out Jaffar’s guards, find your way through the Sultan’s palace and defeat Jaffar himself. Now go, you’ve got 60 minutes!

Prince of Persia is a 2D platformer with run and jump gameplay. Your hero must avoid deadly traps, solve some simple puzzles and engage in sword fights with the guards. The player has an infinite amount of lives, but has to restart at the beginning of a level each time he dies, and must complete the game within an hour. An especially noteworthy aspect of the game is the very fluent animation of your character.

Prince of Persia

Overview & History

Released by Broderbund in 1992, the NES port of Jordan Mechner’s cinematic platformer was a monumental technical achievement. Handled by developer Tengen, squeezing this rotoscoped masterpiece onto Nintendo's 8-bit hardware required a complete programming overhaul. Set in ancient Persia, the Sultan is away at war, leaving the wicked Grand Vizier Jaffar in charge. Jaffar imprisons the unnamed protagonist in the dungeon and gives the Princess a brutal ultimatum: marry him within sixty minutes or die. Players must guide the Prince out of the subterranean labyrinth, scale the heavily guarded palace, and defeat Jaffar before the hourglass runs completely out.

Gameplay Features & Mechanics

Unlike standard arcade platformers of the era, Prince of Persia emphasized calculated, puzzle-like progression and physics-based momentum over mindless jumping. The Prince starts with zero combat gear, relying entirely on his agility to run, crouch-walk, grab ledges, leap across bottomless chasms, and dodge lethal traps like swinging blades, spiked floors, and guillotines. About midway through the quest, the Prince acquires a scimitar, introducing a tense, one-on-one fencing mechanic where players must time sword thrusts, parries, and strategic retreats against Jaffar's palace guards and his own shadowy Doppelgänger. The game is famously infamous for its unforgiving real-time sixty-minute countdown timer; dying simply respawns the Prince at the nearest checkpoint while the clock ruthlessly ticks downward, creating a uniquely stressful race against time.