The first of them, Princess of Persia made it to the second place, in a draw with another Prince of Persia re-imagining. Although I don't like Shin's display of the female character, I have to admit that his/her game is quite a funny take on Ubisoft's 2008 reboot of the franchise.
Some time after the results were published, I found a forum of female gamers/game designers in which they discussed the finalists*. I would have loved to get something from there, mainly because they criticized my Princess. Unfortunately, I got the impression that most of the critics barely read the first two paragraphs.
However, their point that women are not that much interested in the archetype hero journey made me wonder. In the end, and judging from best-selling books, movies and classics, I think women do connect with the archetype about as much as men, but from a different perspective. But this is another story which shall be told in another moment.
* Being the pile of shit google search is starting to be, I am unable to find it again. If someone stumbles upon it, notify me in the comments and I'll gladly update the post.
Princess of Persia
After 30 minutes, only two choices remain: marry the Vizier to save your lover's life or after his execution. Your last hope for rescue dead, you call the Vizier to submit, but suddenly realize it is up to you to save yourself. The Vizier grinning in front of you, you slowly manipulate your braid, look him in the eyes and smile when your small dagger rips the vermin's chest. After seething it back in your braid, you leave your royal chambers, with one half of the sand silently waiting to reach the bottom of the clock.
"Marry me... or he will die within the hour."
From here on, the princess will have to find her way down to the cells, the path guarded by mostly unkind soldiers. The few guards still loyal to her will be useful in such confrontations, keeping her enemies busy while she progresses. But she soon runs out of allies; the more traps, abysses and thorns overcome, the less royal her dress will look. The princess will finally resort to stripping a corpse off its robes, making all enemies suspicious at first sight. The moment this happens is a function of the princess deaths, close calls avoiding traps, jumps performed and hits received.
But even when dressed as a soldier, the princess can still use sedduction as a weapon, as lonely soldiers can be lured and silently killed with the dagger. Carrying a sword is not an option, since she never received proper training.
As she progress, her sedduction will be less useful, most guards being violent thugs, identified by their rugged clothes, inmune to her charms. The only way to pass them is finding an alternative route or defeating them in combat, when the princess' flexibility and agility can be used to her advantadge. When in combat, the arrow keys make the princess perform acrobatic jumps, rolls or dashes to dodge attacks and, once she is at touch distance, execute a deadly stab with her hidden dagger. Bigger enemies will be harder to dodge and can withstand more than one dagger wound.
After freeing her lover, both will flee from the castle (Prince of Persia 2 opening style) and reach the square before the gates. There, the prince is hit by a poisoned arrow and the princess confronts the Old Man of the Mountain**, who explains her lover is but one of his trainees, convinced to be the hier to the Persian throne and forced to rescue her as a final test. After saving the princess, she'd be killed and he convinced of having reached Heaven, becoming one of the Hashashins.
In her final battle the princess has to defeat her lover, who believes he is commanded by Allah, and the Old Man.
In the sequels, the princess would wander through Asia and Europe, looking for the source of all warrior female tribe myths, including the Valkiryes, the Amazons and the supposedly dissapeared Iceni, descendants of Boudicca.
** Involuntarily, I might have merged Hassan-i Sabbah and Rashid ad-Din Sinan's lifes. Both commanded the Hashashins and the legends of the their training probably had both as responsible at one time or another. I mostly took as inspiration a short story whose writer I cannot remember. Borges? Bukowski? Ecco?
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