"Short, but very sweet"

The Prince of Persia series had become what the Kid Icarus series has been of late by this point. Early on, for Nintendo and Super Nintendo (as far as Nintendo systems go) there had been a couple of games that had been pretty popular in their time, but by this point it had been largely forgotten. In order to revive the series it was going to take something that really gave video game fans something to remember. That is what happened with the release of this game. We got something that not only was different from just about anything out there, but one of the best games to come out around that time.

The story is very good. As always I am as vague as possible with the story so that I don't spoil anything. However, the ability to make time go backwards does play in with a lot of what goes on in it. As with every good story, there are a lot of twists and turns and unexpected things which happen throughout the game. A little bit of romance, family tragedy, and anything in between. There is a point around the very end which really had me wondering why he didn't do that in the first place, but then again, I'll just say that if he had, there would be no reason for the game to have been made. Either way, the story moves at a good pace with the rest of the game, as even in parts where it seems like it's just more moving forward and moving forward, other things happen to keep it interesting.

As for the gameplay, the game is pretty linear. The main focus on this one is solving puzzles without getting hurt to bad and also not dying in combat. The puzzles are often very complex, and for most people a lot of the puzzles will take a few tries before figuring them out, as there are often unexpected things which occur such as traps coming out of the wall or floor. The combat, while not horribly difficult, is still quite challenging at times, as there are some creatures which are just plain hard to kill and require a lot of strategy instead of just button mashing, which is all that some of the other creatures require. Some of the difficulty in the fighting is just the number of guys you're going against, both as a whole and at once. This isn't like Starfox Adventures where the creatures politely wait for you to battle one of their allies and then go after you next once it's their turn, all of them will attack you at once, and once you think you've pulled off a great move on a creature there can be another to knock you right out of your move before you can get that move in.

The only real problem I have as far as the sound and the graphic go is that I find the Prince's personality to be quite annoying. Sure, it's fine if they make him into a bit of a cynic with a sarcastic attitude, but it's piled on a little bit too high. Anyway, as the game goes on you get used to it a little bit more. The graphics are very good and are able to really capture the essences of the different places where you may be throughout the game. The camera can at times be tricky though, and in a couple of points it's just plain annoying, but it's nothing that breaks the game.

Other things that I enjoy about this game really circle around the pacing of the game, the sequencing of battles and puzzle areas, and just the overall difficulty not being too bad, but being hard enough to be interesting throughout the game. While the game is very linear, there's still some room for exploration throughout the game, and you can almost always go back to places where you've already been if you want to explore that badly, although I don't know if you'll really find much of interest.

What needed to be done with this game, in order to bring back the Prince of Persia series was something that was done to perfection with this game. It's a game whose linear nature makes it more appealing to the mainstream video game fans, especially ones like myself who do have pretty good video game abilities, but just don't spend a whole lot of our time on them. This is why I feel the game was also left so short. Someone who's played it a couple of times before can probably beat the game in only two or three sittings if they want to. Anyway, back to what I was saying, it was a game that was made very mainstream friendly, but with enough of a challenge to bring in the more hardcore gamers as well. It has a great story, the graphics are very good, especially for when it came out, and the bottom line is that this game is just plain flat out fun.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/14/10

Game Release: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (US, 11/18/03)