Review: Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is a fun game. It’s just the right length, never repeating itself or needlessly dragging out some section of gameplay, and it represents a whole new genre unto itself: An action-puzzle-rhythm-platformer. It’s also not worth $60.

The action part stems from the combat, of course. Every fight pits you against hordes of enemies, so an effective combat system should revolve around crowd management, but The Forgotten Sands does not have an effective combat system. There’s no strategy necessary, just mash attack and dodge occasionally and you can beat most battles without even taking a hit. The “combo system” consists of a single combo string: Attack five times. You get experience from killing enemies, which you can use to upgrade magic, but since your sword becomes so powerful it can kill enemies in a single hit any additional powers just make fighting even less interesting. Combat has always been the weakest part of any Prince of Persia game, and it’s no different here.

The puzzles are part of the environment. Throughout the game you’ll gain the ability to freeze water and rebuild broken walls or platforms, and these powers are key to solving everything. You’ll come to a chasm with pillars of water falling from above, so obviously you must freeze the water and use the ice columns to jump across. Simple. But over time the puzzles change their focus from movement (”How do I get from point A to point B?”) to timing (”When do I jump from point A to point B?”).

Water spouts will turn on and off, meaning you can freeze the water and jump to the first pillar, but the second pillar won’t exist yet. You must jump into the void, unfreeze the water, wait for the next spout to open, and then freeze the water again to create a new handhold at the last second. Once you get the power to rebuild the environment you’ll be doing the same thing with it: Creating planks of wood beneath you moments before landing. At this point in the game every jump is a leap of faith — faith that you have the timing down.

During these tense moments there’s such a powerful sense of momentum pushing you forward and such a tight focus on timing that The Forgotten Sands feels more like a rhythm game than anything else. Spouts of water, glowing outlines of land, poles, planks, pillars — each is like a colored button flashing onscreen. The fun and skill lies in knowing precisely when to punch it to keep everything moving fluidly.

However, this brilliant platforming can’t support the game on its own. Yes it’s exciting, but there’s simply not enough of it. The ending is epic, but the adventure itself feels small. I’ve never been one to care about length; I think quality is a better gauge of a game’s worth. The problem with The Forgotten Sands is that it’s a six-hour game that’s just okay: Amazing platforming, pathetic action, a mediocre story, and the very fact that it’s an interquel within the Sands of Time trilogy makes it feel like a cynical cash-in. The Forgotten Sands does not warrant a full purchase, but it does deserve to be played.