Prince of Persia 1989

Is it still worth playing?

Jordan Mechner's 1989 cinematic platformer for the Apple II, set in medieval Persia. The unnamed hero is thrown into the palace dungeons and has 60 minutes to escape, reach the tower and defeat the vizier Jaffar. You advance, back off, slash and parry, and your health is three red triangles that sword cuts, falls of two or more floors and falling rocks take away. Spikes, deep pits and guillotines kill at once, and the small blue potion is poison while the red ones heal. Guards can be slashed or pushed into traps. Dying restarts the current level without resetting the timer, and you can save once you reach level 2. Movement is tied to animations, so there is a delay between a changed input and the character responding. A fixed clock that keeps running through your deaths, and traps that kill at once, still reward careful, repeated attempts today.