Forgiving that slight mishap that was the appalling ‘3D’ instalment, The Prince of Persia series has long held top spot on my list of favourite game franchises. Guided by Jordan Mechner since the original and frustratingly difficult 2D version back in 1989, the Prince has fought numerous evil viziers and countless enemy-shaped sandcastles only to find his way back to a chapter situated somewhere in between the awesome Sands of Time and the subsequent Warrior Within.
While a return to the successful trilogy may be seen as lacking imagination or creativity, or even retrogressive after the cel-shaded (mis)adventuring in 2008’s Prince of Persia, The Forgotten Sands is still a great title regardless of its chronological misalignment or the fact that we’ve seen most of it before.
The story itself will smack of time-rewind syndrome itself for series veterans: Prince takes detour to large, excessively-booby-trapped palace, Prince’s foolish power-hungry acquaintance releases army of disgruntled sand warriors, Prince fights said army and saves the day, Prince spends following few weeks finding stray sand in strange crevices.
Gameplay is slightly different this time around though, with a few new additions that surprisingly manage to freshen up what may appear to be a Sands of Time DLC at first glance. Combat now focuses on large gang brawls instead of smaller punch-ups, and flashy moves like backwards aerial slashes off walls and other such fluff are replaced by a variety of magical abilities. These powers are unlocked by collecting experience points from crumbling enemies, and are progressed through a typical skill tree with various improvements like more health, more energy, and of course, more powers.
These displays of Princely power are based around the four elements, and can be summoned at will depending on the situation: a large boss baddy may be felled more easily with a protective layer of rocks around the Prince, though it may be a smarter move to go with a huge whirlwind blast if surrounded by a horde of smaller foes. Combat constantly feels like it’s changing with these gradual upgrades, so the player never feels like things are growing stale.
The biggest change to gameplay mechanics though comes from the palace’s rather impractical plumbing system. Huge water fountains and spray jets are dotted around every area, and while initially seeming rather pointless and, quite frankly, rather wasteful, our protagonist soon discovers the power to solidify water and render these decorative displays into useful climbing pillars, walls and poles. Not only are these cleverly disguised as puzzle elements and quick-thinking acrobatic obstacles, being able to insta-freeze water is just totally bad-ass.
The Forgotten Sands is also a lot less forgiving than 2008’s eponymous game. While the rewind ability still undoes mistimed jumps or faceplants into spike pits, players will only have a few chances to get things right as using time manipulation costs energy, a resource definitely better spent in combat. The hectic chains of jumping, shimmying and general monkeying about are all easy enough to allow room for error though, but still demanding enough to retain the thrill absent from the last game’s immortal Prince.
On the technical side The Forgotten Sands is nothing too spectacular. The visuals are not too far off quality-wise from Sands of Time, which should be considered a bad thing considering the seven year gap between them. Environments are also quite standard issue for your average luxury Persian palace and surrounding areas, and locales range from lush gardens to murky sewers to quadruple-volume ceilinged rooms i.e. most of what we’ve already seen during the Prince’s previous escapades.
And that’s the ‘thing’ with The Forgotten Sands: most of what you see feels like it’s stuff you’ve seen before. Ubisoft clearly brought the Prince back to his roots because of previous successes, but, even though it’s ultimately just more of the same save for the tweaked gameplay mechanics, it’s definitely not a bad thing.
There’s an old saying that if something’s ‘built on sand’ then it’s not firmly established and likely to fail. Ironically, the Sands of Time foursome (yes, I just made the trilogy into a quadrilogy) is built almost entirely around sand but is still one of the best action adventure franchises around. And, despite being nothing revolutionary, The Forgotten Sands is not only a welcome addition to the series, but a welcome return.
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