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Elika 2

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Had a bit too much fun with the color correction, so I made two pictures.

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From the 2008 Prince of Persia game.

I really loved how that game let you go with the heroically stupid "always pick the girl, even over the world" optional ending after the credits. Got some mixed feelings on how the epilogue DLC rationalized it, I loved the ending *because* it was all feelings and no rationale. There wasn't even a reason for the player to do it unless they're an achievement hunter, the credits had already rolled. But if they wanted to continue the story it made sense to frame it like you couldn't waste her sacrifice on delaying the villain when you'll need her to kill him.

While replaying it leading up to this picture, I also really took a liking to the animations between her and the Prince. They're really "touchy" compared to pretty much any NPC/PC couple I've encountered (like in Half-Life 2 or Bioshock Infinite): Sometimes she's hanging on his shoulders while climbing, sometimes he's clinging to her while flying, they're constantly holding hands for long jumps, they're doing almost a little dance for swapping positions on a pole, and when she jumps down to where the player character's blocking her landing position, she'll bounce off the Prince's back or chest or he'll occasionally catch her out of the air. Dialogue- and cutscene-wise the romance was so-so, but the ingame animations really sold me on the duo.
Heck, the way you find her after a boss hides her and presents you only with a bunch of illusions of her, is to jump off a tower and trigger the animation where she saves the Prince whenever he falls off a platform. That's a pretty cool trust fall for incorporating ingame mechanics I'd say.

I also found it surprisingly sweet to see that tho she may be an athletic combat mage, she's not above the occasional bridal carry sequence after she overloads or like mentioned above when the Prince fishes her out of the air to let her down gently. Usually these kinda characters are "too tough" for those scenes, so her sometimes going along with them and sometimes making a "thanks, but I'm good" gesture added a bit of depth to her I think.

Shame the core game was too anemic for a sequel it seems. But the default ending is actually closed with no dangling plot threads and the optional open ending is a "and they had many more adventures together" type of deal, which I can live with.

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Views
679
Faves:
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Votes
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Score
4.81 / 5.00

Uploaded
Feb 6, 2017
6:11 PM EST
Category
Illustration

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