Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

The Short


Pros
- Acts as an interlude between The Sands of Time and Warrior Within
- Original Prince is back, with the same crazy platforming as the previous games
- New powers in platforming are super cool and make the game harder (freezing water, etc.)
- Easily some of the best platforming puzzles in the series, and has great pacing throughout
- Unique story that focuses a lot on Persian mythology rather than the Sands of Time's mythos
- Scenery looks good and uses the next-gen hardware well

Cons
- Story doesn't flow well from Sands of Time or into Warrior Within; seems like a side-story
- Prince's character model (especially his face) looks awful 
- Sparse cast of characters and dialogue
- Combat is a dull mess
- Aside from being a fun throwback, I really see no reason why this game exists

The back of the box says "Find your Power, Unleash your Destiny." Um...shouldn't those verbs be switched? Anyway, on with the review. 

The Long


Six years after Sands of Time showed up and blew my mind, it seems this Prince of Persia thing is actually sort of a big deal. Jerry Bruckheimer (you know, the guy who made one good Pirates of the Caribbean movie and three awful ones) and Disney were working together to make a Prince of Persia movie in 2012, and Ubisoft realized they didn't actually have a game that they could sell along with it. Since it was based off a game that was already out (Sands of Time) and their last PoP game was a reboot (imaginatively titled just "Prince of Persia"), they needed to get something out there to cash in. Since The Two Thrones took place right after Warrior Within (and The Two Thrones pretty much ended the whole thing neatly), they decided to slam an interlude game in between Sands of Time and Warrior Within. I was actually sort of excited about this: we'd finally see why the Prince went from a witty, dapper young chap into emo goth Johnny McHardcore, and maybe then I'd actually not totally hate his character in Warrior Within. When I heard they were bringing the original voice actor back that was also a plus: I was pumped.

So...is The Forgotten Sands really all I wanted it to be? Or is it just a movie cash-in? Well...it's sort of in the middle.

But hey, it looks pretty good. 

The story doesn't do anything I described above. If anything, it's so far distanced from the original Sands of Time story threads it really is a "forgotten" story. The Prince decides to go hang with his brother Malik, who is some king somewhere, and when he shows up the entire place is under siege. His brother stupidly decides to unleash Soloman's Army, which makes a bunch of sand zombie guys show up and require killing. Then there's a good Djinn and a bad Djinn, and the good one gives you time-reversing powers (because why not) and the bad one wants to blow up everything. Pretty simple.

Again, this really has no ties with the other games, and doesn't bleed over in either direction. I'd have loved to see a Dahaka cameo or something in here (since he is supposed to have started being hunted around this point) or at least an explanation as to why he became so emo, but the Prince is just as lighthearted as ever (even if the script isn't particularly great) and just rolls with all the punches without getting all worked up over it. Alright, I guess.

It's a story more seeped in Persian mythology than the mythology the Sands of Time people created, and I'm fine with this. It makes it a very unique side-story, but it is just that: a side story. There are no revelations here, and because of that you can pretty much play this game without having played any of the other ones. So if you were holding back because you were worried you'd ruin the other games: don't. There are no spoilers to be had at all in this game, and no reoccurring characters, nothin. It opens and closes neatly, which makes it kind of feel like a cash-in. 

Yet another beastie to suffer not living. 

Luckily, the sort-of-pointless story is held up by the best platforming the series has to offer. The Prince of Persia reboot in 2008 was like the other games really in name only. Aside from offering a whole new world and set of characters, it also streamlined the platforming and changed the focus on precise button presses and more on exploration of the environment. The Forgotten Sands ignores that game was made and goes right back to classic Prince of Persia: holding triggers to wall run, precise jumps, and more. This game is made better, however, by implementing lots of the improvements made in Prince of Persia 2008. For example, you can now wall jump from wall to wall, neatly chaining them together. There's also lots more things he can do on ledges, and he can wall run up from a ledge, which is nice. Basically it was everything they'd learned from the previous Prince of Persia games put into this one, which makes it the best in terms of difficult puzzles.

But that isn't even the best part!

Swinging on water. OH YES. 

In addition to the regular stuff, the game ramps up the difficulty further by giving you new powers. My favorite is the ability to freeze time so all water becomes hard, turning fountains into poles to swing on and waterfalls into walls to run up. You have to be holding the button for it to work, though, which means it turns it into controller twister. There are also more powers, like the ability to air-dash to enemies to close long gaps, and a power to recreate broken bits of scenery. All these require extremely fast reflexes, with the final climb up the tower that is a culmination of all these one of the craziest, most challenging, and funnest experiences I've had in all the Prince of Persia games. The combination of all the old moves with these new powers (and smoother controls) makes this easily the best Prince of Persia game in terms of platforming, and I really hope they do something with this in whatever the next installment will be.

Then we get to the bad stuff. 

But it isn't an Ubisoft game if they don't counter something really good with something stupid (exception being Rayman Origins, where it's all good) and for this game it's the combat. Gone is the sand-sucking system from Sands of Time, the multi-weapon system from Warrior Within and The Two Thrones, and the one-on-one battle system from Prince of Persia 2008. Instead, we have a weird, Dynasty Warriors style hack 'n slash, which pretty much consists of pressing X to attack a lot, sometimes pressing Y to kick shield guys over, and jumping on enemies' heads if they surround you. Yeah. That's really bout it. It's focus is on group zombie killing, and it gets button-mashy extremely fast. While I guess it isn't bad (you do get tons of magic powers that make things stupid easy, though you should only use the invincible armor and whirlwind) its just tedious. Fights seem like they happen just to keep you from the next batch of awesome platforming, which is exactly what the fights shouldn't do. Bosses are the same: not focusing as much on the platforming as they should, instead just mostly hitting stuff by pressing X over and over. Dull.

And there's LOTS of fights. Seriously, it's ok to make a Prince of Persia game without swordplay. I'd be totally fine with that. 

Graphics look pretty good, fitting to the theme set in Sands of Time and The Two Thrones. It all has that sandy, lush look, and they use environmental effects effectively to spice up a lot of the areas. The magic looks pretty lame, though, with fire-trail just leaving a red mark on the ground (where are the flames?), and ice attack doing the same thing but blue. The Prince's model looks good, but his face...urrrgh! What did they do to your face, Prince? Did they forget to play the previous games before making the model?

Who the crap is this guy?

Music is good and voice acting (what little there is) is also decent, though the script is lacking. The sounds throughout the environments work and, as a whole, it sounds on par with the rest of the series. There's also no Nolan North which, as much as I love the guy, whenever they put him in a lead role I just think "Nathan Drake" and the whole game is ruined. 

This isn't a Sands of Time game, but whatever; I'm fine with it. 

I really liked The Forgotten Sands. Sure, it didn't actually do anything story-wise that I wanted (totally ignoring my and other fans' desires to figure out what the crap happened to the Prince before Warrior Within) and it really is just a "best of with change" from the previous series, but that series was awesome and a chance to revisit its fantastic platforming (even in this weird side-story sort of way) is a chance I will always take. Adding in all the new stuff from Prince of Persia 2008 as well as more original content, and you have a solid gameplay experience from start to end. You can play through it even if you haven't played the other games, so if you want to try these but don't want to invest in an trilogy, this might be a good one to check out. It is still pretty sad, though, that after making Prince of Persia games for six years these guys still can't make a good combat system to save their life (even Assassin's Creed's sucked). Oh well, maybe next time. 

If you like Prince of Persia, you'll love The Forgotten Sands. And it's stupid cheap now, so you really have no excuse. 

Four out of five stars. 

Now stop making stupid Assassin's Creed II spinoffs and give me a new Prince of Persia game, dang it!