Before I start this retrospective, I should mention that I am not including the original two games or Prince of Persia 3D as I've never played them...
Nearly ten years ago now, way back in 2003, my family's PS2 broke, as such we ordered another one, and that came with a copy of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. A game I was not familiar with and didn't know what to expect when I thought I'd give it a go. I soon fell in love with it and it became the start of my favourite series of games to date.
Sands of Time is a reboot of the classic Prince of Persia series, and as such is a platform based game with numerous vicious death traps and puzzles. Since the nature of the game caused several instances of unavoidable death to try and figure out how to traverse areas, Ubisoft Montreal came up with the idea of giving the Prince the power to rewind time, therefore giving you several chances to try each area before dying for real.
The story is as follows. You are the Prince of Persia, the arrogant, hard headed son of Sharaman. Sharaman's army attack the palace of a Maharajah with the help of a treacherous Vizier. The Prince finds his way into the treasure vault and takes the mysterious dagger of time as his prize, this is what grants him the power to rewind time. Upon arriving in Ahzad, Sharaman presents the Sultan with the hourglass of time, also taken from the vaults; The Vizier then tells the Prince that he can unlock the Hourglass' full potential with the dagger. The Prince does what the Vizier says, but this unleashes the sands of time, which engulf the palace, turning all but The Prince, The Vizier and Princess Farah, daughter of the Maharajah to sand monsters. From here The Prince and Farah must navigate their way through the death traps of the palace and return to the Hourglass so they can set right what he did wrong. On the way they must solve puzzles, kill the Prince's father and climb through various difficult puzzles. However once they arrive, The Prince hesitates and they fall to a mysterious chamber where they possibly have sex, however it may well be a dream. The Prince wakes to find Farah has taken his sword and dagger, he manages to make his way back up to the hourglass, but is too late to save Farah, who falls to her death. The Prince, in his distress over the death of Farah, leaps to the hourglass and rewinds to before it all started, he then tells Farah his story, which acts as a framing device for the whole game. He then kills the Vizier and leaves, with Farah not knowing if his story is true or not.
The story is very well played out with both main characters going through a lot of development, which admittedly is erased for Farah by the end of the game, but still is is very good and holds up to multiple playings.
The gameplay is the best feature of this game, with the most unique and fun platforming abilities in any game series ever. Wall running, pole swinging, column climbing and a host of others make just getting through every room a great joy to figure out. However the combat at this stage was a little blocky and repetitive, and needed clear improvement.
In short, a fantastic game and a start to a brilliant series. A must play.
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