Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is a strange beast. On the one hand, Ubisoft released a new, “rebooted” version of the franchise with 2008’s Prince of Persia, but Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands takes place within the storyline of the older series. On the other hand, the game is suspiciously timed with the release of the new movie based on the franchise, and yet Ubisoft claims that it’s not a movie tie-in. So what is it? Does this continuation of the old story mean that the new series is a failure? Will players see a return to the rebooted series, or is the old series back and here to stay? And if so, is this game really the best way to mark this bizarre new rewrite of the series?
The Interstitial Game
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands takes place between the events of The Sands of Time, released in 2003, and The Warrior Within, released a year later. In-game chronology, there was actually a seven-year gap between the two titles, but Forgotten Sands is largely self-contained, with brief references to Sands of Time and no insight into how the Prince became the angry, selfish thug of Warrior Within. Here, he is sent to visit his brother’s kingdom, ostensibly to learn how to be a better ruler. His brother, Malik, is currently fighting off a siege of his palace and in his desperation unleashes a demonic sand army that devastates the entire region. It is up to the Prince to set things right.
Like so many things about Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, the story and graphics fall somewhere in between. Multi-platform games like Capcom’s Resident Evil 5 have proven that games that aren’t exclusive to one console can still boast stunning visuals, but while Forgotten Sands is by no means an ugly game, The environments have obviously been given a shiny new coat of high-definition paint, but a certain familiarity begins to set in for fans of the series as yet another bathhouse level is revealed, or the tower-climbing level, or the dangerous halls of traps. It’s almost as if Ubisoft simply went back to the original concepts and designs of Sands of Time and reworked them for today’s generation.
“Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is a strange beast.”
The same goes for the game’s audio, with Nolan North, aka Nathan Drake of Uncharted fame, not reprising his previous role, and the return of Yuri Lowenthal, who voiced the original Prince in Sands of Time and The Two Thrones, the happy-go-lucky, good ol’ boy delivery has been restored to a more sophisticated tone. Lowenthal is still comfortable in the role, and it shows in the dialogue. The music makes a return to the more orchestrated, fairy-tale and ethnic qualities of Sands of Time, and the sound effects, while appropriate, don’t add much punch or exercise a surround sound system.
Rewinding To The Start
In large part, Forgotten Sands feels like a paranoid rebuttal to the tepid response both gamers and critics gave to the 2008 Prince of Persia game. There was some criticism of the radical changes to art direction, story and play mechanics, in particular the reduction of difficulty, the removal of “death,” and the semi-automated acrobatic process.
“Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is a bag of potato chips or a slice of pizza. “
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands largely addresses all of these complaints by simply returning to the mechanics of the original Sands of Time and throwing in a few new tricks. The game still feels slightly slower than the original Sands of Time; it wisely borrows some of the more efficient control developments from more recent games, with much-needed tweaks, such as jumping from pole to pole with a flick of the analog stick in the desired direction, rather than laboriously shimmying around the pole to get to the desired position.
Players will also be able to “rewind time” to overcome obstacles, turning the clock back a few seconds before the point of death to try again. Players will definitely need this, as the puzzles can be fiendish in both design and the high level of timing and hand-eye coordination required, so a very real chance of death and failure is back in the game. The new mechanics, namely the temporary freezing of water, the re-materialization of “past objects” in the present, and some new elemental attacks add some variety to the proceedings, but basically this is just a high-definition update of the same Prince of Persia games played seven years ago.
It’s clear that Ubisoft played it safe and gave players what they wanted with “more of the same”, and it works. The controls and obstacle navigation of Sands of Time were some of the best in the genre at the time, and they still hold up well here. The new environments look better, but aren’t quite as well-designed in terms of size and complexity. However, this could simply be another concession to a less familiar audience, as the overall difficulty of the game also feels easier than its predecessor, though not quite the “automatic win button” situation of the 2008 game.
Combat has always been the weakest part of the franchise, and unfortunately, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands continues that tradition. It’s more responsive and better designed than the one-on-one melee combat of 2008’s Prince of Persia, surrounding the prince with over a dozen enemies at once.
Unfortunately, while it attempts to emulate the frantic combat of other third-person shooters, it fails to capture the visceral impact of a God of War or the technical complexity of a Devil May Cry with simple combat that isn’t particularly engaging or difficult. Combat here is merely a distraction to get you to the next obstacle, rather than a meaty entertainment experience in and of itself.
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is a bag of chips or a slice of pizza. It is comfort food; safe, familiar, enjoyable, but not artfully done. The wonderful controls and sense of agility from Sands of Time return, as do many of the elements of that earlier game. It’s a short game that can be finished in eight hours or less, with a challenge mode added to extend its lifespan, but the main draw here is that this is the old Prince of Persia that gamers mis. If you’re looking for something competent and more familiar, this is a safe buy, and for gamers new to the series, it’s a good place to start.
