The Sands of Time is a must-buy for anyone with a love for action, platforming and great humor
The Sands of Time kicks off when the Prince and his father travel through India to reach their destination, Azad. With the help of the king's cunning vizier they conquer the land and leave after acquiring two artifacts: the dagger of time and a mysterious hourglass. When getting to Azad the vizier deceives the Prince and makes him release the Sands of Time contained within the hourglass turning, in the process, every human being within the palace's walls into sand zombies. The only survivals of the disaster are the Prince, the vizier and the king of India's daughter who had been taken prisoner during the conquering of the kingdom.
After regretting his irresponsible action the Prince sets on a journey to undo the harm caused by the vizier's tricks. Navigating through the numerous corridors and locations of the Sultan's palace the Prince will come across many puzzles, enemies and challenges that need to be surpassed with the aid of his acrobatic prowess and battle skills. The hero has more acrobatic maneuvers then Mario himself as he can wall-jump, hang onto poles, ledges and ropes, wall-run either upwards or forward and swing like a circus trapezist. This wide array of moves allows developers to create unbelievable levels that can only be completed by using a combination of the Prince's many moves.
The game's puzzles are very refreshing as some of them stray away from the formula set in stone by Zelda games. While you will still come across your average block-moving, mirror-placing traditional puzzles players will also encounter unique mental challenges. A big part of the game's puzzles deal with being able to reach a door or ledge shown to you as you enter a room or environment within the palace. At first some of the locations will absolutely look impossible to reach, but by investigating the area with the game's amazing camera work players will be able to find a way out by using many of the Prince's exciting abilities.
With such a ridiculous amount of fast-paced movements one would expect the camera system to eventually fail. However the game provides the players with so many camera options that it is pretty much unlikely there will be an area within the palace you won't be able to properly see. Players can either rotate the camera around the Prince on a traditional fashion or choose to watch the action from a panoramic view that displays the whole ambient where your character is located. Besides it is always possible to zoom the camera so you have a first-person view to better locate important spots for your platforming abilities.
The exploration is pretty much linear. The Palace is set like a huge Metroid-like overworld where everything is connected and divided into rooms and corridors that work as the game's levels, separated by checkpoints. The whole place is filled with enemies and the battles are very thrilling due to the Prince's movements that include the ability to block by pressing R. Enemies will team up on you and the Prince will automatically lock onto the closest foe, after defeating it the creature will fall to the ground and a final blow is needed to finish the enemy. Sadly the process can become frustrating for as you are delivering the final blow on the zombie other creatures will approach and hit you, taking advantage of a moment when you can't possibly defend.
Fortunately though the developers were smart enough to let you restart the battle right away after you die, erasing any need to go back to the previous save point and once again go through a lot of platforming before reaching the enemies. Another amazing solution to do away with annoying backtracking is the Prince's ability to use the Dagger of Time to slowly rewind the game. For example, suppose a jump was times incorrectly and the Prince fell into a spiked pit. All you need to do is press the L-button and the action will slowly rewind in front of you, allowing players to go back to right before they made the wrong jump. This ability however is limited by the amount of sand tanks you have available, sand that can be collected with the killing of enemies.
The Dagger of Time will also come in handy during battles because it allows the Prince to freeze enemies in time, slow the motion of the battle or simply super freeze all enemies in place while the Prince takes care of them one by one. Obviously each one of those abilities costs a certain amount of Sand Tanks and can't be used whenever the player feels like it.
Visually The Sands of Time is a very charming adventure with amazing art work. All of the environments, it doesn't matter how big they are, look astonishing especially when the panoramic camera is activated. There is a lot detail to everything and the game still manages to run smoothly at all times, unless of course you are using a time slowing ability. Character models are smooth and full of expression, and the textures are excellent as well. The game also features wonderful cutscenes that do a great job in bringing personality, depth and emotion to the game's plot.
The storyline is told in a storybook fashion as the Prince is telling tale, and during the development of the facts the character makes rather humorous comments about certain situations. Unfortunately, the game audio has been strangely mixed because sometimes the dialogues get way too buried in the mix of music and sound effects, making some rather interesting lines, and the good work of the actors, almost impossible to understand.
The soundtrack is arranged in a different way than you would expect from a game that takes place in Arabic soil, especially when it comes to the instrumentation. Instead of exclusively using "local" instruments to perform the very nice songs the team behind the game decided to give some of those tunes a different rock treatment with the use of guitars and other instruments that are not common to those cultures. That may bother some players, but the fact those songs are great, despite the way they have been played, is undeniable.
The Sands of Time is a nearly flawless game. Its replay value almost solely depends on how fun players will find the experience as there are barely any collectibles to be found, and chances are once you get to end of the game – something that will happen within 10 to 15 hours – you will have already seen it all. Still, its high production value and pure platforming puzzle-solving fun mixed with exciting battles are sure to make players come back for more. The addition of the original Prince of Persia is a bonus to long time fans and an opportunity for those who are not familiar with the origins of the series to get to know them better. Overall The Sands of Time is a must-buy for anyone with a love for action, platforming and great humor.
Actual Score: 9.2