Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

"The Prince looks cool, but what about the Gameplay?"

Prince of Persia is a fantastic action game. It's very impressive for this genre with only a few flaws that doesn't drastically ruin the gameplay.

The moment you start up the game, you are hit with a jaw dropping FMV that tells part of the story. You can see that the game designers had put in some extra effort into the graphics. It shows each nimble movement of the character, each hair that twitches in the wind, the sky and stars surrounding it. Although these are just the beginning graphics, you can tell that the effort is going to lead to a good game.

Story: 10/10
The story opens up with the Prince. He makes a crucial mistake of opening an hourglass that should never be opened or bad things will be released out of those sands. Reminds you of Pandora's Box, no? Well, this one man, the antagonist of course, tricks the Prince into getting the Dagger of Time, the only thing that can open the hourglass, and open it. The sands of time are now released, killing everything and everyone in sight except for a few people who are protected by some force or another. The prince soon realizes his mistake as he watches his father get eaten by the sands and all of his people. He is protected though by his dagger which can control time for a limited amount. He teams up with Princess Farah who appears to be the only other good living being in the castle and tries to go through all the traps in the gigantic castle and slaying the man who tricked him into letting loose all evil.

Gameplay: 9/10
The Prince can do all sorts of things. He can run up walls, slash enemies, jump enormous heights, and so on. The game runs off of mostly puzzles which can satisfy the brain, but there's also some fighting so you won't get so bored of the game. The gameplay is very unique. See, this game has voices and the Prince talking to himself while you solve puzzles. This can be both good and bad. Good because you can listen while you do puzzles and it's interesting with rare cutscenes. He talks as if he was telling a story to you and it's quite funny what he says when you die.

''No no no...that didn't happen.''

Of course, that leads right up to the bad part. When you die, you miss some of the dialogue which means part of the story which you can't get back. I suppose it promotes carefulness, but either way I don't think any gamer would purposely die. That's one of the only flaws in the gameplay though.

The puzzles are careful crafted in this game with switches, moving platforms, swinging pendulums, and so on. What's cool is that the Dagger of Time that you hold has special powers which can enable you to reverse time, slow down time, or just freeze it so whenever you die, you can go back in time and change that mistake. Of course, there is a cost. You can only do this if you have enough sand tanks which you get from enemies.

Now speaking of enemies, there are some in the game. People who choked up the sand turns into Sand Creatures or Sand Animals. They can only be destroyed by being weakened then sucking the sand out of them with the Dagger of Time. Of course, the people don't turn back to normal. This fighting can be both fun and frustrating as you can use all sorts of cool tricks on the enemies. Some of them are unbelievably strong though and come in thick waves and be a pain to beat. You can use every trick in your sleeve to kill them. There are a couple of bosses. It's nothing too difficult if you keep trying.

Graphics: 9/10
As said before, you can see that the creator has put an obvious effort into the graphics. In game graphics are great, the game shows many details. The Sand Creatures were pretty cool and creative, and you could see the difference in each one. There are many colors mixed in with the browns of sand in the castle.

Sound/Music: 8/10
Well, I thought that the music could use a bit of works. There's not too much music, only when fighting and during certain scenes. I felt that it could really have spiced up the game and set the mood. It's pretty quiet most of the time. The sound is great though. The voice actors have done an excellent job, they're some of the best I have seen. This game doesn't have cheap, fake accents or laughs, or at least it doesn't sound like it. The sounds are also good. You can hear the clings and clangs of swords, weapons missing, switches being pressed down, and more. I guess the sound can make up for the lacking music.

Replay Value/Play Time: 2/10
This is the only big thing the game lacked. This game is so short it's not funny. I've heard some people beating it in a day. The puzzles aren't too hard and you can easily get through it again with no extra events, considering the game shows you hints to puzzles when you get confused. The only reason I didn't give this a 1 is that there is one secret you can get and play afterwards. But that's basically all there is to this game! Once it's beaten, it's beaten.

I highly recommend that you try this game first before buying it. I doubt you'll want to play it again afterwards and if you put some time and effort into a few days, it can be beaten. You can beat it in about 12 hours.

This game is worth renting. The great graphics and interesting storyline will definitely get you interested in playing this game. However, due to the short playing time and no replay value, it's not worth buying. If you honestly like playing a good, but short, game over and over, be my guest and buy it. However, I assume most people don't.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/30/04