Prince of Persia®: The Sands of Time

Easily one of the best platformers of the sixth generation. This is a fantastic game from the ONCE great Ubisoft. The best part is easily the platforming just because of how smooth it is. Running along a wall to make across a pit and then wall jump to a bar to swing off of to make it to a ledge is incredibly rewarding. And failure isn't very common in these parts because of the power to rewind time, so falling off a cliff isn't so much an annoyance as much as it is a temporary break in flow. The characters are also a main draw, mostly because they are presented to the player as real human beings with arcs. The prince is snarky yet flawed, and Farah is presented as a useful sidekick without being beefed up to be an action girl or the usual princess that needs rescued. There are only two criticisms to be had in this game. The first is that the combat is incredibly annoying. The enemies gang up on you and take forever to defeat, especially considering that the block button is the one button you should never not press. However, this would probably be improved a good bit if the camera wasn't so dreadful. which is the other major problem. It doesn't control well and often sets itself up in either awkward positions or in positions where you can't see what you are doing. Aside from the two issues, this is still a game i'd recommend, because the platforming and rewind ability are so much fun and the characters are so likable.

At the time it was released, this game was amazing- it featured death-defying parkour that made Lara Croft look like an arthritic old lady, fluid combat in an era of Resident Evil-style tank controls, beautiful graphics, a kick-ass soundtrack, a great story with fun, vibrant characters, and the innovative time-reversing power of the Dagger of Time, which allows you to rewind the game a few seconds and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. For the most part, it still holds up today, but there are a few problems: The graphics are a little dated, particularly the character models, but not bad at all, and the environments are well-designed and atmospheric. The controls don't translate all that well to a keyboard. Navigation isn't too difficult, but you'll probably have a little trouble pulling off shortcuts and may have to spend some extra sand when the controls send you flying in a direction you didn't intend. The combat hasn't aged well. While still thrilling, it can be frustrating- enemies can stun-lock you if there are enough of them, you have a very limited number of moves and it's hard to finish off downed enemies because the Prince will often ignore them and attack other enemies nearby. The camera is the worst aspect of the game. It's very stiff, awkward and uncooperative, especially in combat. The battle in the elevator was like fighting blindfolded because the camera kept slipping behind decorative cloths on the walls. The port has sound problems- one cutscene played without dialogue the first time, forcing me to reload and try again, and the Prince and Farah's conversations are very difficult to make out sometimes. Even with all that, this game is well worth your time. The Prince and Farah have great chemistry and banter in a way that most modern games still can't match, the time rewind system is unique and satisfying, the acrobatics are great fun, and the environments and music are beautiful. Most of the flaws are only in comparison to modern games.

In Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time, you play as an anonymous Prince battling his way through a zombie-ridden palace. While almost all of the adventure takes place inside an oriental castle, you will go through a wide variety of environments, from luxurious gardens to sinister caves: the cartoonish art direction still holds up well and the overall atmosphere is magical. The writing is also good, with solid narration, likable characters (Farah: best deuteragonist ever!), fun dialogues, and a few neat twists. Like the original PoP, Sands of Time's gameplay heavily relies on platforming sections, but this time, they're on steroids! The Prince indefatigably runs on walls, jumps at inhumane heights and performs acrobatics: the controls are solid, and each of these sections feels like a puzzle you must solve using an awesome set of moves. In general, they're also integrated credibly in the environments, often resulting in great set pieces. At the core of the game is an artifact called the Dagger of Time, which gives you access to a bunch of cool powers, like Max Payne-styled slow-mo, magical attacks, but most importantly, “rewinding” time for a few seconds, allowing you to correct your mistakes! It's a bit gimmicky, but an interesting mechanic nonetheless. So, we have an awesome atmosphere, quality storytelling, fun and innovative gameplay... and in fact, Sands of Time would be almost perfect if it wasn't for its combat system. You get constantly trapped in arenas, trying to dispatch wave after wave of foes. They often have high health, can parry your attacks, and can only be destroyed with a finishing move: fighting them quickly becomes tedious due to a bad camera and rather limited set of attacks. It's not really hard since you can always rewind time when in trouble, just tedious and not very fun. If you can get past this, you still have a fantastic little game that somewhat shows its age, while still feeling fun to play, as well as refined in its world-building!

Old picky gamer here and I am going to tell you that when this game first came out on consoles this would easily be a 5/5 game. I did play this game when it first released and it exceeded all my expectations at the time. Now coming back many years later to this PC port and clearly this game was not given much love by Ubisoft. To start, there is no official controller support so I was stuck with keyboard and mouse and this game clearly suffers for that, especially in combat. Next, I encountered many audio bugs where music would cut in and out and dialog would be off. I also had textures act weird with the Prince's hair flying around wildly. Lastly, I did have a few occasions where my movement and the camera angle made for some were clipping issues. Now don't misunderstand me, I still think this is a good game it just seems that this version of it has many technical problems. I will ignore combat for now and get to what makes this game still stand out after all these years. The developers of Sands of Time didn't seem to get the memo that plagues many games and instead crafted a story that is outstanding with real character development and charm. Add in some excellent voice acting and dialog and I would say that the games story is strong enough that it will stay with you long after you have finished the game. The music has a great ethnic/authentic feel to it that sets the mood and visually the game has this nice dream like/Arabian nights quality to it. The main gameplay gimmick, reversing time, actually works well in the game and you will find yourself relying on it for both puzzle solving and combat. Watching the Prince run, jump, swing and slide looks and feel great from a gameplay perspective. Now the part of the game that has aged the worse, combat. While I can appreciate the combat being simplistic however, combat is at best boring, and at worse tedious. Near the end of the game in particular were you constantly fight large numbers and in tight spaces

Xbox One controller isn't recognized only in this game