The Prince of Persia Sands of Time trilogy was critically acclaimed for bringing the classic platform game into the modern era for a new generation of gamers. As you may well know, there’s a movie on the horizon based on the first instalment of this series – The Sands of Time is set for release on 28 May 2010. Having waxed lyrical about the original series it’s time to have a look at the second outing for the Prince of Persia.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003)

When we last left the Prince in 1999 he was flying off into the poorly rendered sunset with his lady, in a somewhat disappointing end to the original trilogy. Ubisoft picked up the development and publishing rights for the series and what resulted was a critically acclaimed action-adventure-platforming title.

The reboot brought with it snazzy graphics, a slick, acrobatic platforming and combat system, interesting puzzles and a captivating story. The Dagger of Time was introduced along with the magical and corrupting sands. Ubisoft also rather ingeniously introduced the concept of backtracking through time, using the magical powers of the sand, granting the player a reprieve after making deadly mistakes in combat or platforming segments. 

The Prince of Persia absorbing an enemy with the Dagger of Time

This allowed the player to correct their mistakes without interrupting the flow of the game, and it looked pretty cool as well. The sands also allowed the player to slow down or speed up time, required to survive many combat and platforming challenges.

The story itself begins with the King Shahraman and his son, the Prince, conquering the Maharaj of India. Finding good Viziers is tough, and King Shahraman’s inevitably turns bad, betraying the King and tricking the Prince into activating a powerful artefact – the Hourglass of Time. The sands released from the hourglass corrupt the entire kingdom, turning all living things into sand monsters. 

The Prince, Farah (the Maharaj’s daughter) and the Vizier remain unchanged thanks to the magical items in their possession. Feeling a bit guilty about the whole thing, the Prince sets off to repair the damage, and manages to woo the lovely Farah in the process.

Farah always plays hard to get

Unfortunately, Farah meets her death along the way and the angry Prince eventually smashes the Hourglass of Time, reversing all the changes to a point before the invasion even took place, and bringing Farah back to life. The Prince attempts to warn Farah of the possible future, but the Vizier shows up and promptly gets his ass kicked all over the desert. The Prince leaves Farah with the Dagger of Time and wanders off into the sunset.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (2004)

With Sands of Time being a smash hit, Ubisoft wasted little time in churning out a sequel. Warrior Within contained all of the great elements of the prequel, but did a lot to spice up the combat systems. The Prince showed up with the ability to dual-wield a variety of weapons, and even steal enemy weapons and throw them. 

In a move that displeased series progenitor Jordan Mechner, the game introduced a more violent combat system, with combination attacks for strings of different moves and entertaining and gruesome finishing attacks. The Prince also gained a new sand power – the ability to unleash a blast of sand that knocks enemies down.

The Prince executes a bad guy

The story and visuals took on a darker tone for Warrior Within. Many years after the events of the first game, the Prince is hunted by the Dahaka, a manifestation of the magical sands, and guardian of the timeline, which the Prince had completely buggered up thanks to his previous shenanigans – apparently the Prince was supposed to die and the Dahaka is there to make sure of it. 

The Prince learns of and flees to the Island of Time, which is ruled by the Empress of Time, Kaileena. The Prince intends to prevent the sands from ever being created, thereby avoiding his fate. During the adventure, the Prince discovers the Mask of the Wraith, which grants him the ability to coexist in a timeline with his other self.

Warrior Within had grimier visuals

Thanks to some complicated space-time continuum hocus-pocus, the Prince manages to force Kaileena into the present timeline. There are two endings to the game – one sees the Prince killing Kaileena, preventing the sands from falling into the hands of the Maharaj. The second ending has the Prince saving Kaileena from the Dahaka, and the sands uncreated. Both endings conclude with the Prince returning to Babylon, which is apparently under attack by an ‘unknown’ force (no points for guessing who’s behind it all).

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (2005)

Stylistically, Two Thrones was a return to the Sands of Time form, with a mixture of Warrior within for good measure (and a chariot race). Critics lauded the fantastic visuals and environments, and generally agree that this was a well executed conclusion to the trilogy.

The only way to travel through war ravaged Babylon

Following on from the second ending of Warrior Within, the Prince has returned to Babylon with Kaileena in tow. The city is in flames and ravaged by war. Their ship is destroyed and Kaileena captured. The Prince attempts a rescue and discovers the Vizier is behind it all. The Vizier kills Kaileena with the Dagger of Time, filling it with sand. The Vizier then impales himself with the Dagger, gaining a form of sand powered immortality. The Prince is caught in the backwash of this event, being melded with a sand infected weapon known as the Daggertail.

The Prince begins to realise that having fiddled with the timeline back on the Island of Time, the events of Sands of Time never actually took place, and the Vizier was never slain. The sand infection also starts to give life to an alter ego – the verbose Dark Prince – perhaps an homage to the Shadow Prince from the original series.

Never ask the Dark Prince for a neck massage

Along the way, the Prince encounters Farah and the two spark their romantic interest once again. The Prince also discovers his father’s body, and has an epiphany of sorts, allowing him to silence the Dark Prince in preparation for the final battle with the Vizier. Having defeated the Vizier, Kaileena reappears to rid the Prince of his sand infection.

The Dark Prince embraces his Daggertail deformity

Just as one thinks it is all over, the Dark Prince makes one last appearance, forcing an inner struggle for control, which is eventually won by, you guessed it, the original Prince. The Prince then begins to weave the tale of events to Farah, and we can assume some sort of happily ever after.

The next reboot by Ubisoft saw the emergence of a game simply titled Prince of Persia. Despite the beautiful stylised graphics, critics complained that game was a bit too simple. Rumour has it that we can expect a return to the story established in the Sands of Time trilogy when the sequel – The Forgotten Sands – arrives on 18 May.

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