‘Twas many a year ago, in middle school. There was an old Mac sitting in the back of the room, gathering dust. So, I asked to use it during school breaks. Permission granted, said oh illustrious Math teacher man, Mr. Bronstein (I actually remembered my 6th grade Math teacher, how about that). On this little system were four games: Risk, Warlords, Swashbuckler, and Prince of Persia. I originally thought Prince of Persia was some girly game because of the name, and spent most of my time on the other three (each ruled by the way) until I accidentally clicked on the PoP icon. So, I let the thing load, and was treated to a little man standing, 2D side scrolling like, in a room. I moved around, climbed down this wall, and was immediately impaled by spikes. I was hooked. I spent many an hour fighting bad guys and avoiding deathtraps on my way to the end, which didn’t seem to have a story other than get the hell out of the place.
My next encounter with our nameless Prince was nearly 10 years later in Prince of Persia 3D. It still involved many traps and enemies to fight, but it was plagued by crashes (it was PC exclusive as far as I know) and a really stiff control mechanism. Nonetheless, I still managed to have some fun with it.
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was the next on the agenda, and I was hyped just because the Prince was coming back, this time to home consoles. How did he fare this time around? Did he make the jump or fall into the spike trap?
Let’s leave the best for last and talk first about the graphics. Visually, PoP is not the best on the market, but still really darned nice. The most impressive portion of the game is the animation. The fluidity of it is absolutely astounding. People move realistically, draperies from the ceiling and wall flap when you run through them, and the clothing on the Prince flows with the air. Even getting wet will change the way the Prince is animated as he slogs around until drying off. Details abound as the idle animations show the Prince dusting his clothing off after a day spent climbing up a ruined castle through sand. The best and most impressive part, though, are the combat effects. The Prince moves around like water as he dances with his sword, flies through the air over enemies, off walls, and even deals cartwheel deathblows to the Sand Zombies. This sheer athleticism is exactly what the Prince needs to make the action feel right.
Model complexity is rather nice. Hands are the worst portion as they suffer from Shovel-Hand syndrome that should have died out about the same time 3dfx went out of business (not to slam on 3dfx, as they had some good stuff). The other portions, like sinuous clothing and hair as well as the overall poly count and skeleton model are impressive and meld well into the feel of the game.
Texture work is decent as well and does a wonderful job of skinning the models and levels to create an authentic Middle Eastern feel. Sand is, well, sandy. Trees and tan stone walls are crisp and clean up close. There is little texture shimmer in the distance and is only noticeable at all when the Prince is swinging from a flag pole. Shiny things are shiny at the right times and in the right places based on your vantage point. Wonderfully well done.
The next portion is the sound, which is also well done. Voice acting is good, though a tad overdone at times. The musical score managed to combine traditional Middle Eastern music with modern rock to make a truly wonderful composition. The music isn’t overdone either. It is purely used for combat purposes and cut-scenes, and combat music frequently changes around so as not to play the same tune twice. The rest of the game is eerily quiet, where the lack of music is a good move as it added to the atmosphere of being one of the only three living things in a deserted castle filled with Sand Zombies. Small sound effects make this game, though. The Prince has a variety of footstep sounds ranging from metal grates, stone floors, carpeting, and sloshing through water. Other effects, like swinging from rusting poles, ropes, and hitting a wall in preparation for a rebound jump are also well done. Even enemies let out appropriate grunts and screams. Swords and clashing metal are also well done.
Now, on to the very meat of this game, the gameplay. I have to say, I am straight up astounded and surprised by the complexity, variety, and overall skill required to play this title. This, my friends, is a platform fan’s wet dream. PoP’s claim to fame is exploration and defying gravity to get from point A to point B, all while avoiding traps. Let’s say you are on a ledge and you need to get to another ledge that is just in the distance. It is too far to jump to directly, but there is a wall connecting the two ledges. Easy enough; just hold down your R button and run along the wall. Is a ledge just out of reach above you? Run up the wall and grab hold. The moves are also frequently combined with one another, and timed in some cases. Say you see a hand hold on one side, but can’t reach it directly. The trick is to run across the wall, jump to a flagpole sticking out of the wall, swing against the wall, do a rebound jump to another flagpole, then swing to the handhold so you can shimmy your way along it. That isn’t even the most complicated of sequences. Try doing that while avoiding circular saws going through the wall and then get through a door that is slowly closing on you. The impressive thing is, no matter how huge the level may seem (and believe me when I say this, but some levels are gigantic), all locations you see are accessible; they may just take a little creativity to get to.
Combat is equally impressive. On the surface, combat is rather simple. R trigger blocks, B attacks with your scimitar, and Y attacks with your dagger. The combo system, though, is stellar. Say, for instance, you have a pesky enemy in front of you. Hit the A button to catapult over the Zombie, use the B button to hit him in the head, and land with another swipe to finish it off. Then, use the Y button to do a back flip and stab him in the back to steal the sand. What if they have a pole arm? That won’t work too well, but bouncing off the wall and torpedoing into the enemy or using the wall to rebound jump is just as effective. There is even a nice counter system, though difficult to use, to quickly and efficiently dispatch enemies into your sand dagger. Just hold R, and, as the swing is coming, hit B (for scimitar strike) or Y (for your instant sand stealing ability) and watch the fun ensue.
All that is cool and stuff, but wait, there’s more! Your little dagger that you keep stealing sand with has a variety of powers at its disposal. The most notable one is the ability to reverse time, which uses the large sand colored balls on the side of the screen. These represent your “lives”. Screw up a jump or get whacked by an enemy, and a simple hold of the L button will reverse your mistake by 10 seconds so you can try a different approach. The other three abilities use a second gauge, small white crescents on the side of the sand bubbles. The second ability is to stop time. You stab your dagger into the enemy, and they basically freeze where they are. You can then dispatch them at your leisure by sandifying them. The third ability is to slow time. This allows you to better time a counter or time a crucial jump from wall run. This is a very useful skill when surrounded by enemies or in a difficult to traverse area. The third is a fast forward kind of maneuver. This speeds up the Prince’s molecules really fast and can dispatch many enemies in a blink of an eye. Be wary with this one, though, as it takes all your crescents to use, and won’t work unless all are filled. Throughout the game, whenever you fill up a new sand bubble, you start working on a new crescent. This will not fill, however, until you dispatch enough enemies to create the full crescent. Until then, don’t rely on your fast-forward attack.
The control feels absolutely perfect, as if the game is specifically developed for the GameCube and then ported elsewhere. There are no wasted buttons, and no excessive multiple button uses. Everything is silky smooth and works perfectly.
There is one flaw with the gameplay though, which is the box puzzles. Boy, do I ever hate the box puzzle. Luckily, there aren’t many of them to ruin the enjoyment of the game. The game also takes a load of manual dexterity and concentration to play through. Gamers used to slower paced platformers, like Mario or Jak and Daxter, ahould prepare themselves. Luckily, PoP slowly raises the difficulty bar along the way. The other flaw is in combat difficulty. The game throws the easiest enemies at you from the start and begins to pick up the pace. The problem comes in the first boss fight. They take you from wimps that succumb to the “vault over the enemy” attack easily to fighting a room full of guys you need to use a wall torpedo or wall jump to finish off. The main boss is in the bunch and cannot be harmed until the rest of the group is dispatched, and even then can only be hit once or twice after dodging an attack. I spent a good two frustration filled hours trying to figure this guy out, so I don’t feel so bad giving this one away. The rest of the game will beat you senseless from then on.
Prince of Persia is nice and long, but unfortunately, the timing system during saves doesn’t portray that well. I spent maybe 14 hours on my first run through, but the game only listed 6:40 as the play time. Apparently, with every death and every use of rewind, the clock goes backwards, too. It’s a bit deceptive, but trust me when I say you are playing longer than the timer lets on. For comparison, I went through a second time and purposefully timed it. The game claimed that I spent a meager four hours on the second run, but my personal timer showed nine (not including bathroom breaks of course).
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is by far the best platformer this year. Period. End of discussion. If you disagree, you’re wrong. Sands of Time embodies everything the Prince is and should have been in previous games, and is the best of the series. Combining a strong combat system, smooth graphics, and wonderful dexterity puzzles, Prince of Persia should be in everyone’s library. Even if you don’t have a GameCube, you can still get the PS2, Xbox or even PC versions of the game (though I hear the PC version isn’t worth your time unless you have a good game pad…in which case you’d be better off with a console version). Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is well worth the purchase price.
