How do you rate a game that doesn't do justice to its prequel but is still a ways above the competition?
First, let's get one thing out of the way. This game is worse than Sands of Time. Artistically and storytelling-wise, this series became crap the moment Mechner went away and some pseudo-gothic action game influence came in. If the last two games in the trilogy had been a film adaptation of Sands of Time we'd all be pissed as hell.
I don't know how much these last two games sold relative to Sands of Time, either, but the second must have done worse, because you can definitely see an attemt to scale back the whole MTV videoclip look of that one... just not quite enough.
The gameplay is still there, though, and this PSP version even manages to improve on its portable predecessor by avoiding some of the technical issues with framerate in it. I did say SOME, mind you.
Then there's the controls. Navigation is fine and stays true to the console versions, even having to resort to the D-pad for things that were mapped to shoulder buttons on the PS2. Camera controls, on the other hand, are not any better than on other PSP ports. Prince of Persia has always had a pretty clever camera, and you can go to a wider, zoomed out view on certain parts that really helps, but being unable to move the character and the camera at once still makes the pace of the game slower and prevents long acrobatic combos when navigating the environment, which is the coolest part on PoP.
I really wish they had used the face buttons for camera control instead of the D-Pad. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance did, and it works great as long as you're only moving and not fighting or jumping. But that's when you move the camera, anyway, when you've landed on a platform or avoided a trap and are on your way to the next one. Other than that, it's impressive that this game is packed on a PSP on its entirety without losing much in the process. If you can't access any other version, it's a good purchase, and way above most other games out there for the PSP (I'm talking about you, Free Running).