I can't express just how nuts gaming media went for
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in late 2003. They fawned over the
remake of the 1989 computer platformer like it was the second coming of
Ocarina of Time, and even after that, they couldn't stop talking about
it. "Why isn't
The Sands of Time selling better?" was a frequent headline
in the months after its release. Eventually, perhaps willed by the media blitz,
the game made money and spawned two direct sequels and even a 2010 action film
adaptation, starring sentient jar of mayonnaise, Jake Gyllenhaal, as the titular
Middle Eastern royal. I filed the game back in my "maybe I'll play this one day"
mental cabinet, and now that 20 years have passed, I've finally taken out the
folder and played it. I'm not sure if that metaphor worked, but now I'm at least
ready to answer this question: was
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time worth all that adulation?
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I want to see you bleed...
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The game's presentation is certainly stunning. The start menu features a
sultry looking palace balcony seen through jungle, and when the player starts
their game, the camera moves into the scene, revealing the player character's
presence on the balcony...and at that moment, the player is given control over
him. It's a neat, immediately immersive trick, leading into the game's
surprisingly complex and satisfying story. Your character...The Prince of
Persia is tricked into stealing an ancient artifact, The Dagger of Time. The
Dagger, as titled, purportedly gives the wielder control over time itself.
However, another artifact is also discovered, The Sands of Time, and for some
reason releasing the Sands in the royal palace transforms everyone in the
surrounding area into a hideous monster. Now, along with a young woman named
Farrah, the Prince must fight the evil Vizier who tricked him, along with the
hundreds of monsters he's unleashed, in order to restore order in the kingdom,
and set things back to how they were before the sand was unleashed.
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Look at me, I'm fancy
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The graphics at the service of this story are pretty good, even though
they're dated by a very '03 blue and gold color tint. They've got that
patented 128-bit look, where the jagged edges of the previous gaming
generation have been smoothed away and polished, but the imagery still
contains that slightly unfocused blurriness of pre high-definition.
Environments contain a fair amount of lush detail, with shimmering,
translucent curtains blowing in the breeze, ancient, generally upturned plush
furniture, glimmering pools of water, and some nifty lighting tricks. Slick
cinematic cutscenes are plentiful and also look nice, and thankfully don't
overstay their welcome.
Prince of Persia is not the best looking game
on the GameCube, but it looks quite good.
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Cutscene Princess
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Sands of Time also sounds pretty good. While music is generally
limited to mere ambience, it does makes its presence more concretely known a
few times. In those instances, it generally contains a lovely Middle Eastern
flavor, though there's also a little bit of "edgy" electric guitar thrown in,
as well. I particularly enjoy the very early-00's nu-metalish track over the
end credits. The voice-acting is the sound standout here, though, as the work
for the Prince and Farrah's voices is excellent, and a credit to this era of
gaming. The sound effects are also on point, as is the general sound design,
the best aspects culminating in moments where Farrah's voice echoes hauntingly
to the player from other points in the palace. The atmosphere created by the
audio-visual interplay is
The Sands of Time's greatest aspect...because
it isn't the gameplay.
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Clean Up The Palace Simulator
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I'm not sure if the previous statement is controversial in 2023, but
while I found
The Sands of Times' gameplay to be satisfying at points,
I found it to be extremely frustrating at others. As an action-adventure
platformer,
The Sands of Time has to do many things well, and
unfortunately, that's not always the case. The basic gameplay loop here is:
enter a new section of the palace, complete several platforming challenges,
fight some monsters until you've killed them all, a save point appears, save,
move onto the next part of the palace. The issues don't necessarily come from
the structure, but rather the implementation.
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Could you all just die so I can save and turn this off
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I don't want to give the impression that I think
Sands of Time is
a bad game. It's actually a fairly good game with some bad flaws. For instance
the parkour-like platforming is mostly very fun. The Prince can perform a
plethora of moves, from running, to jumping, to rolling, to running on walls,
running up walls and backflipping, wall jumping up crevasses, climbing along
ledges. A lot of the time, the control system at the service of these moves
works, but when it doesn't, it's infuriating. The most guilty aspect is the
button-mapping scheme, the same problem affecting both the platforming and
action segments. For some reason, despite the GameCube's roughly 400 buttons,
Ubisoft decided to map rolling and jumping to the same button. In a game where
you have to both roll and jump so frequently, this choice is extremely
frustrating.
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I'm not sure, but it seems like freedom of movement might be kind
of important in a game like this
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Essentially, the only time you can jump is if you're running toward the
end of a platform and are right at the edge. Otherwise, you'll just roll. I
don't know how many times I tried to jump from one ledge to the next and
instead rolled over that ledge and barely hung on for dear life. I mentioned
Ocarina of Time above, which famously does not feature a jump button,
but that game flawlessly integrates an auto-jump, and jumping isn't a major
element in its gameplay anyway. Here, in such an acrobatic game, I should be
able to jump whenever I want. However, this button-sharing fiasco plays out
even more frustratingly over the combat segments of the game.
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I will cut you
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Most of
The Sands of Time's combat involves the Prince having to
fight his way through large crowds of constantly spawning enemies. The Prince
performs combos with his sword as the player presses the attack button, though
unlike
Ocarina of Time, there's no utilization of a lock-on system,
which probably would have improved the experience here. The Prince can also
roll around foes, as well as perform a spectacular leap over enemies to then
hit them from behind. The problem? The roll and leap moves are mapped to the
same button! Again, I lost count of the times I tried to roll around an enemy
and instead jumped over him. This becomes particularly frustrating later in
the game, when many enemies can easily block the leap move, causing damage,
and throwing the Prince into the ground where he is even more vulnerable to
attack. All I wanted to do was roll around an enemy! I wanted to break my
controller several time because of this, even though it's not the
GameCube controller's fault--it's Ubisoft's!
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Well excuse me, Princess
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The player can also use the Dagger of Time to rewind their actions in
the game for a few moments. The Dagger must be full of Time Sand, which can be
replenished at points around the palace, and from killing enemies. The Dagger
mechanic works well if you employ it right after you've fallen off a ledge,
but it's hit or miss if used during combat. Sometimes, the player can only
rewind for a second or two, to the exact moment they were hit and died, which
is almost as infuriating as the control issues. When it works to take the
player back before they were hit, it's a neat mechanc...it just doesn't always
work. While I'm complaining, I also wish there were collectibles of some sort
strewn around the palace to more fully flesh out the gameplay. While there's
nothing like that here, you
can unlock the original 1989 game, which is
hidden behind a breakable palace hallway. However, the lack of collectibles
makes the palace. and to some point the gameplay, feel empty.
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Couldn't they have put a coin or a banana or something up here?
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While all of my complaints ARE frustrating, and DO lower the
enjoyability of the game,
The Sands of Time is certainly nowhere near
awful. Overall, the control system is pretty satisfying, outside of the issues
I've presented. Running up and along walls is thrilling. Pulling off the leap
over an enemy sword attack is exhilarating when it works.
Prince of Persia's production values and atmosphere are fun. When the
game works, which is often, it
works. It's not the masterpiece the 2003
gaming media pushed, but it's a solid way to pass 15 hours of your life before
the
Sands of Time run out.
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