Unpopular opinion but Warrior Within is my favourite, followed by the cell shaded Reboot and Sands of Time being about equal for me.
Warrior Within had such great gameplay, just some slightly cringe choices of tone, which particularly unfortunately, were especially apparent in the first half-hour of the game. It generated a load of negative talk for a really good game.
For me the tone is big part of why I love it. It’s such a perfect distillation of what it was like being an angsty teenager at that moment in cultural time. Even looking back I still think it is just cool AF.
The closest comparison I can think of how I see it is like Brandon Lee’s The Crow, which is also still one of the most badass films ever made.
"I am the architect of my own destruction" spoke so much to the teenager in me back in the days. Hands down the best Prince of Persia.
I think it really depends which stage of your life your played those games at - beeing a very dark and brooding 15-year old who was into all kinds of "edgy" teenage media at the time, the metal soundtrack and darker themes of Warrior Within made it seem like the coolest videogame of all time.
Maybe it’s rose tinted glasses but WW holds up much better today as well, in my opinion. The combat in that game is just absolutely wonderful.
Sounds like nu metal lyrics, so it tracks.
Those two are my favorites as well.
I doubt that. Sands of Time trilogy was very well received. Jordan Mechner was also involved in production in those, I'm just not sure in what capacity.