Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Review

As in the Legend of Zelda there are puzzles where you have to manipulate light by reflecting it on various mirrors in order to activate switches and open new areas. There a few puzzles where you will need to pull levers and push stuff around in a certain way so that you can gain access to new areas of the room and complete puzzles but it’s never really difficult and the developers give you hints through visions that you can see at each save point. It gives you a glimpse of what’s going to happen and reveals various parts of the puzzle so if you get stucked you can always go back to the save point and see how to complete it. My 12 years old step brother was able to complete it so it’s not that complicated but still offers a certain challenge.

One of the big aspects of the game are the fight sequences. The prince is a skilled warrior and he is incredibly acrobatic. You can jump over ennemies and hit them at the same time or roll around to dodge their attacks, perform flips and jump on walls and then jump again to really hurt your ennemies. Once your ennemies are laying on the ground you have to hit them with the dagger of time so that they desintegrate and become sand again which is really nice. Some of the battles were kind of difficult but you can also block and since the prince can do nearly everything and attack multiple ennemies at once it makes things a little bit easier. Farah also fights with you so you’ll have to protect her in various battles because if she dies then it’s the end of you too. The battle system is very well done and Ubi Soft must have worked a lot on it as it is one of the most polished battle systems I’ve seen in a long time!

Since it’s developed by Ubisoft Montreal, the same team behind the succesful and gorgeous Splinter Cell (well, not exactly but they still work in the same building anyway!), you know it has to deliver on the technical side of things. First of all, let me tell you that this game is huge! There are outdoor environments that were enormous and yet, the game still ran smoothly at nearly always 60 frames per second and I am not joking! Ubisoft’s Montreal team is clearly becoming one of the best there is not only because of the content of their games but also because everything in their games seems to be optimized so much that everything looks spectacular and still runs great. The art style is also mind blowing and it really has that persian feel to it, and I don’t know if I’m the only one to think that it kind of looks a little like Aladdin, but that’s how I felt when playing. A more mature Aladdin though that’s for sure! The only major framerate drops were in battles but nothing big enough to make me angry.

The character models are detailed even though the ennemies can be a little blocky at times but that’s to be expected because of the amount there are on screen at the same time and because of all the details found in the environment. Textures looked very good to me and not that much blurry, and there were some very good lighting effects. There is also some kind of filter applied to the screen or something, I don’t really know what it is but it gives this game some kind of exotic feel to it which is really nice. Also, the way every environment was built and how the puzzles were implemented, it never really feels like it was put there for fun and nothing looks out of place. I bet they spent lots of time thinking about how it could be done.

One thing that deserves it’s own paragraph is the prince. I don’t know how they did it but he moves so incredibly well! You can link any of the moves in the games and it always looks fluid, especially in combats. You can jump over ennemies while attacking them at the same time and then jump on a wall to attack them again and then perform a backflip to land in front of another guy and hit him, it really feels like a choregraphed action film except it’s all performed in real time and it’s absolutely superb! It doesn’t feel like there were a few frames of animation missing in some places and everything was done so that you could link every move in the game without any problem at all! There are other little details like when you jump onto ledges sometimes one of the prince’s feet will slip or when walking straight on small ledges depending on how you control the princes he will have a harder time keeping his balance and will be moving more from left to right like if he was gonna fall. He looks very natural and I think that’s what makes him so incredible.

The game’s sound is equally impressive. Lots of sound effects were used in this game, lots of which really set the mood for the environments you’re in. There are some creepy voices here in there when it needs to be more ethereal and the sounds used in the rewind effects or when the camera moves really fast are great and gives this game some kind of matrix feel to it as it’s really slick. The voices are of good quality and I think the actors did a great job portraying the characters. The music though has to be my favorite aspect. It’s some kind of persian/arabic music mixed with rock and it’s used so that the more hardcore tracks are used in combat while the soft tracks will be used in times of puzzles or when exploring environments. There are also vocals in some of the tracks so that it adds more variety to the music in this game.

So overall, should you still buy this game considering that the sequel is coming soon? I think you should more ask yourself if you are willing to pass on one of the best game experiences of this generation or not. It doesn’t cost much and even though it doesn’t last more than 6 to 10 hours, the puzzles are so well done and this game looks so good that you’ll want to go through it at least one more time when you are done with the main quest. There is also the original Prince of Persia available as an unlockable for the more nostalgic gamers. Go buy it, it’s worth your money and you’ll be more trained for the sequel!