Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Review

8.0

Review Score:

Okay, I admit it. I was very sceptical for the release of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands – between the 2008 reboot not doing it for me and how close the game was to the Disney movie release, I just didn’t expect much. However, I was wrong. Yes, you heard right – me, wrong. I’ll give you a few minutes to understand that, I’m aware it’s not often that it happens. But seriously, if you enjoyed the Prince of Persia games prior to the 2008 release, then you’ll love The Forgotten Sands.

The game takes place in the seven year gap between Sands of Time and Warrior Within. The Prince is visiting his brother’s kingdom only to find it is under attack from an army bent on its destruction. The Prince’s brother, Malik, decides to use the ancient power of the Sand to save the kingdom, but of course; the ancient power wasn’t quite as useful as he expected and it’s the Prince’s job to save the kingdom from destruction.

The Forgotten Sands throws everything that the 2008 release implemented out the window and revisits the gameplay mechanics present in the Sands of Time game only with gorgeous visuals, an overhauled combat engine and effortless free-running. Visuals are sharp with stunning textures and great character models. Although it has to be noted, there’s definitely some inspiration from Jake Gyllenhaal when it comes to the Prince’s new model. As much as you spend most of your time in Malik’s palace, there is still a wide range of environments from bright throne rooms to dark basements. The open-world aesthetic that the 2008 release had is gone with more linear, platforming levels taking its place with huge rooms filled with puzzles to test your wits and agility. Upon entering a room, the camera will pan showing you all possible routes and the exit to the room, from there you will be left to plan your route and then execute it without falling to your death. This is where the game really excels, the fluidity of movement is superb and changing one jump to the next is smoother than ever and best of all; looks and feels great! The games story will take around 7-8 hours to tackle and features various cutscenes, boss fights and the usual. The only thing I was a little disappointed with was the lack of a script, sure, Yuri Lowenthal made a return as the voice actor for the Prince but he had very little to say and the banter in Sands of Time was one of the great parts of the game.

The obstacles and puzzles in the game all start off fairly easy but do increase in difficulty as the game progresses and make use of the main addition to The Forgotten Sands, elemental abilities. The most predominant of which is the ability to freeze running water, allowing you to turn waterfalls into walls to run across and vertical streams of water into climbable poles to progress through levels. This soon becomes one of the more difficult tasks in the game as you have to freeze water, unfreeze it to jump through a waterfall, then re-freeze it to grab onto a pole – timing becomes essential. Another ability that is given to you allows you to launch yourself a great distance to an enemy; this becomes another mode of transport and is another mechanic that complicates things a little more. There’s also a power that will spawn pieces of the environment into place but only one object can be active at one time, which often means spawning a ledge, jumping from it then spawning another to land on. Now all this may sound a little complex but thankfully Ubisoft have reintroduced the classic ability to rewind time, which is guaranteed to save you many times during the game. The addition of all of these new abilities really adds a skill requirement to complete the game and the game’s difficulty comes from the movement and not the combat unlike the 2008 game.

The combat system isn’t great but it’s not awful either, it serves its purpose but is very simple, Ubisoft have tried to spruce it up a little with the addition of various upgrades and powers but at the core of it, it’s just simple button mashing and you’ll be looking to kill everything as fast as possible to move onto the next breath taking obstacle sequence. Enemies are fairly varied in difficulty, some with shields that must first be kicked to knock them down and summoning enemies that will keep spawning more skeletons until killed. The combat engine has been overhauled since the last game and up to 50 enemies can be on the screen at one time, this is great but it pretty much renders any strategy pointless. Some of the added powers are fairly useful, one being a whirlwind that will pick up and knock down all nearby enemies, a very useful ability when you’re in the middle of 50 skeletons. There’s also a stone skin ability that will give you temporary invulnerability to attacks, this makes the combat even more mindless and easy but is welcome during certain boss fights. That’s another great thing about The Forgotten Sands, there aren’t many boss fights but the ones present are of epic proportions, although a few sword slashes to the ankle and most bosses will soon fall at your feet.

What really pleased me with The Forgotten Sands was simply the return to the Prince of Persia gameplay I had come to love. It’s the Sands of Time in HD. It may not offer much in the way of innovation but it uses a winning formula that we’ve not seen since 2005’s The Two Thrones and it does it well, there’s no slight tweaks or changes that ruin anything and the only real change is the addition of the elemental powers which were welcome for me as they increased the difficulty of the free-running and created a more interesting experience. If you enjoyed the Sands of Time, Warrior Within or The Two Thrones then there’s no doubt that you’ll love The Forgotten Sands.

NXT Score: 8/10

Pros

• Revisits the award winning classic Prince of Persia gameplay
• Great visuals and textures in a variation of environments
• Addition of elemental powers increases the skill-level required to pass obstacles

Cons

• Combat system is rather mindless and can become tedious
• Lack of any scripted dialog and banter present in Sands of Time