The Prince of Persia enters the 3D world with a fantastic adventure.
The Prince's story begins when he and his father attack a sultan's palace. Their goal is the treasure vault that holds the Sands of Time. The Prince ventures into the vault ahead of the soldiers and finds the hourglass, as well as the Dagger of Time. As the Prince grabs the Dagger, a boulder falls from the ceiling to crush him. Just as he thinks his life is over, time rewinds itself and gives him time to escape. The Dagger has some serious power and he decides to keep the Dagger for himself. This angers the Viser, the old man that helped them into the palace, and he tricks the Prince into opening the hourglass.
As the Sands of Time pour from the hourglass, the people in the throne room change into something horrible. The Prince flees, seeing as he is unaffected by the Sand. He runs into another survivor named Farah. They end up working together, aiming to defeat the Viser and seal the Sands away again. It's a great tale that deals nicely with choice and personal growth. It uses the Arabian theme well and it'll take you to interesting places.
The gameplay is quite different from other platforming games with combat being a very important part of the game. You run and jump from platform to platform, but you also climb cracked ledges and poles to go vertically as well. Jumping is almost automatic, you just push the A button as you reach the edge of a platform, and most of the challenge comes from angling and timing. After a certain point in the game, the traps in the palace are turned on and you have to deal with them. These traps consist of spikes and buzz saws. The spikes come in the pole variety and both can move along a track making a lot of hallways a test in timing. Another thing to add to the platforming is the Prince's ability to run up and along the walls. This allows you to make it to farther platforms if a wall if connecting them and it can let you reach higher ledges.
The combat breaks up the platforming sections and it's mostly good. You automatically target the nearest enemy when your weapon is drawn and you can vault over with the A button. You can block and counter, though it isn't required of you. Just hacking at enemies isn't always going to work since most enemies require certain techniques to defeat. Some can easily be beaten by vaulting and attacking and some can be easily defeated by attacking near a wall. No matter how and enemy is defeated, you need to strike it with the Dagger of Time to truly kill it. You can either stab them while they are down on the ground or after the first attack of a vaulting strike. This can get annoying since they'll just get back up if you leave them for a while and you can easily be interrupted during the animation. Once you learn you can easily kill the enemies by vaulting, the combat becomes an annoyance more than fun.
If you happen to die when leaping or fighting, pressing and holding the R button will rewind time for a short period, saving the Prince's life. This is something for the player to rely on, though you better watch your Sand Tanks, they empty with each sand power used and refill with every enemy defeated. As you go through the Palace, you'll see white glowing sand clouds that, if you absorb them, give you more sand tanks if you collect a bunch of them. There are only a few boss battles in the game and they are nothing special. The big appeal here is the platforming, even if the mechanics are really simple. The level design carries the torch here and it's fun to climb and jump around.
The audio is mixed, at least on the GameCube. The music is excellent and fits the setting and theme but the audio mixing for the sound effects is terrible. During the cutscenes it's fine but during gameplay, the voice clips echo. The sound effects are also pretty poor. It brings down the audio portion of the game, even if the music is great.
The visuals are pretty excellent, though the facial animation is pretty average. The environments looks brilliant and the animation is fantastic. The character models look fine but the crazy lack of variety in enemy designs makes the environment the star. There are some visual glitches and the Prince can get caught on the environment every now and then, but these situations can be prevented by rewinding time. Overall, it looks good.
PROs:
- Story is interesting
- Platforming is fun and combat can be challenging
- Time powers add a lot to the game
- Environments and animations look great
- Voice work is great
- Wall running is a great mechanic
CONs:
- Platforming feels too automatic
- Combat gets really annoying
- Audio mixing is terrible, sound effects are poor
- Story pacing can be a little off
- Character models have poor faces
- Controls take some time to adapt to
Overall, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a fantastic first-time 3D entry into a long running franchise. It brings itself to the forefront of the action genre with it's slower, more thought out combat and the platforming style allows the level design to shine. The animation also looks brilliant so you'll always enjoy seeing the Prince do his stuff. If you are looking for a different type of adventure game, give the Sands of Time a whirl.
Story: 9.0/10
Gameplay: 9.0/10
Audio: 7.5/10
Presentation: 8.5/10