Like many others, I was a big fan of Ubisoft's original 'reboot' of the Prince of Persia series, released in 2003 and subtitled The Sands of Time. The game did an excellent job of capturing the elements of the devilishly difficult original that made it enjoyable, transposing them into a highly enjoyable 3D world. Unfortunately, both of its sequels, The Warrior Within (2004) and The Two Thrones (2005), utterly failed to impress me. The designers had obviously not realized what elements of Sands of Time had led to its success, e.g. the excellent puzzles and platforming, and instead chose to focus almost entirely on boring combat, learn-by-dying gameplay, and frustrating quick-time events. Many within the ranks of the gaming press felt that the series had grown stale, and thus Ubisoft felt that it was time for another franchise reboot.
Hence we received the unsubtitled Prince of Persia (PoP; 2008), featuring all new characters, setting, and story. I'm going to spoil the review and establish from the outset that while I think that the new PoP is a decent game, it has quite a few design choices that just don't work - if you've played the game you may assume that you know what choices I'm talking about, but you're probably incorrect.