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By doing this, Ubisoft created one of the finest puzzle platformers ever made. With an engrossing story, memorable characters, fun combat, unique gameplay gimmicks and some of the most satisfying platforming of any video game, \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d is undoubtedly one of Ubisoft\u2019s best titles, and a landmark in the action-adventure genre.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPrince of Persia: The Sands of Time ” was released in November 2003 for the Xbox, Playstation 2, Nintendo Gamecube PC, and Game Boy Advance. The game was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, and published by Ubisoft. Ignoring the events of the past three games, \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d serves as a clean slate for the Prince, sending the franchise in a new direction. It would receive high praise from critics and fans alike, and while sales were initially slow, it would sell well over the years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d became the first in a trilogy of games within the same continuity, starting with \u201cPrince of Persia: Warrior Within\u201d in 2004, and \u201cPrince of Persia: The Two Thrones\u201d in 2005. Ubisoft decided to reboot the franchise again with the 2008 release, simply titled \u201cPrince of Persia,\u201d before returning to \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d continuity with 2010\u2019s \u201cPrince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands.\u201d Although the series lay dormant for years, a new game in the series, \u201cPrince of Persia: The Lost Crown,\u201d was revealed in 2023 and is slated with a January 2024 release date, featuring a brand new protagonist and story. A remake of \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d is also currently in development, with as of yet no definitive release date. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d follows an unnamed Prince, who rides along with his father’s army as they go to visit the Kingdom of Azad in Ancient Persia. While passing through India, they decide to sack a nearby city at the behest of the treacherous Vizier, in order to find the local Maharajah’s treasure vault. While exploring the vault, the Prince discovers an artifact known as the Dagger of Time, while his father\u2019s men collect a massive hourglass containing the mysterious and otherworldly Sands of Time. While presenting the Sands to the Sultan of Azad as a gift, the Vizier tricks the Prince into opening the hourglass using the dagger. This unleashes the Sands across the palace, turning all of its inhabitants, including the Prince\u2019s father, into vicious sand monsters. Left as one of the only survivors, the Prince allies himself with Farah, the Maharajah\u2019s daughter, and scales the palace as he tries to contain the Sands and correct his mistake, all while making extensive use of the Dagger\u2019s time-manipulating abilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the beginning, the stories for \u201cPrince of Persia\u201d have been inspired by classic swashbuckling and adventure films, such as \u201cThe Adventures of Robin Hood.\u201d The story in \u201cSands of Time\u201d is certainly no exception. While it does have its fair share of dark and serious moments, it is balanced out by fun writing, great character moments and an overall lighthearted tone. I would best describe the story in this game as being akin to \u201cRaiders of the Lost Ark\u201d; a fun, enjoyable ride, with dark and even scary moments, contrasted with a fun sense of adventure, an excellent and memorable protagonist, great villains, and an excellent ending, with a blossoming romance at the center of it all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the main focuses of the game is the relationship between the Prince and Farah. The two start off distrusting each other, and for good reason; the Prince was one of the big reasons behind the fall of Farah\u2019s kingdom, and his father was going to sell her into slavery. Despite this initial mistrust, they gradually grow closer and ultimately fall in love as the game nears its end. It\u2019s a romance you see develop firsthand through the eyes of two interesting, fully-developed characters, making it that much more enjoyable. Sure, the story is full of plenty of tired tropes; the hero hesitating at the last second, or the hero and his companion getting separated for weird reasons, but it never takes away from the experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Prince, as a character, has gone through numerous versions over the years, considering just how many revisions the series has gone through. However, I think this version of the Prince is the definitive version, and one that is a joy to both play and watch. Sure, the Prince did commit a pretty despicable action at the beginning of the game, and he radiates the arrogance and entitlement you would expect from someone of his status. Despite his flaws, however, he has so much charm and charisma that it\u2019s hard to hate him. His arrogance also gradually fades away as the game progresses, brought on by his relationship with Farah and his realization of the greater good. He\u2019s a great protagonist who experiences genuine development as you play through the story. He is amplified by an excellent voice performance from Yuri Lowenthal, who gives the Prince plenty of charm, attitude, and genuine heroicness. The Prince also serves as one of Lowenthal\u2019s earliest roles, paving the way for an excellent career in voice acting.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, the main area where \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d stands out, aside from its story, is its gameplay. The \u201cPrince of Persia\u201d series has always been considered a landmark in the action-adventure genre, and \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d just solidified its place in that category. While the original \u201cPrince of Persia\u201d games were side-scrolling puzzle platformers, \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d is a fully realized 3D puzzle platformer, which corrects the mistakes of \u201cPrince of Persia 3D\u201d and then some. The entirety of the game sees the Prince using various acrobatic abilities to navigate the palace, while also fighting the sand-infected inhabitants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Combat, while simple and admittedly a bit clunky, can still be quite fun and presents some unique gimmicks. Players can vault over enemies, as well as jump off walls to strike them. In order to kill the enemies, players must use the dagger to consume the sand infecting them while they are knocked to the ground. Farah also assists the Prince during combat by shooting arrows at enemies, which can come in handy when surrounded; however, players also need to keep an eye on her, as if she dies, the game is over. You also need to be careful, as her arrows might even hit you if you get in her way. All in all, though, there are cool and interesting elements that add to an otherwise simplistic system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The platforming is where \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d truly shines, however, and it is the part that has aged the best gameplay-wise, despite the game being 20 years old at this point. Outside of the combat sections, you\u2019re going to be spending most of your time scaling various parts of the palace, solving environmental puzzles and dodging dangerous obstacles. The Prince uses a variety of different moves to accomplish this: wall running, wall jumping, swinging from poles, balancing on beams, jumping from ledges, swinging from ropes and much more. All of these moves feel incredibly smooth and satisfying to pull off, which can be chalked up to the reported 780 animations the Prince has. Because of this, everything he does feels polished and realistic, making it that much more fun to pull off genuinely ridiculous acrobatic feats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What makes \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d distinct from other titles in this genre is the use of the Dagger of Time. By collecting sand from enemies or by finding various Sand pillars hidden throughout the levels, the Dagger of Time\u2019s power bar will fill and increase. This gives the player access to time-manipulating abilities they can use throughout the game. The first, and easily the most recognizable, is Rewind; if you make a mistake during gameplay, whether you miss a jump while platforming, get hit by spikes or spinning blades or stumble during combat, you have the option to rewind up to 10 seconds in order to correct your mistake. Later on, players also gain the ability to slow and eventually freeze time, giving you a greater edge over combat as you can freeze enemies in their place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n None of these abilities are get-out-of-jail-free cards; however, you have a limited amount of both sand chambers and power gauges, which are used to freeze enemies. When you run out and make a fatal mistake, you have to restart at a checkpoint as normal. In the game\u2019s final chapter, you even completely lose the Dagger, and therefore lose your time manipulation during one of the most difficult platforming sections in the game as well. It is a unique and incredibly cool system that has been implemented, giving it its own identity while also incentivizing players to use it wisely.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n As much as I love this game, there are some areas I\u2019m more critical of, although admittedly, one is much more egregious than the other. The first shortcoming is the final boss\u2026if you can even call it that. Yes, the final boss battle against the Vizier is beyond easy, and you\u2019ll beat it in a matter of minutes; however, while this is an area I think the game falters, it\u2019s not really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d did not really have any true boss fights; the closest the game got was an early battle against the Prince\u2019s sand-infected father, although he was merely a much tankier enemy. This is not something like \u201cBioShock,\u201d which had so much buildup and focus on Frank Fontaine as a character,<\/a> only for the final boss to be beyond disappointing. Rather, the lack of a cinematic or difficult final boss makes sense given the type of game \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d is, and plus, the Vizier didn\u2019t get a lot of screentime – just enough for us to know how evil and treacherous he was. So yeah, it is a bit of a weak spot, but far from a dealbreaker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the second big criticism is much more annoying. Being a PS2-era game, there are certain levels of jank that can be expected when you pick up this game. Some of these I\u2019m more than willing to ignore; Farah getting stuck on some geometry when she\u2019s supposed to be avoiding enemies, or an annoying but ultimately harmless glitch where walking into a save point results in an instant game over. However, one aspect that is not so easily forgiven is the camera. Often in these older games, the camera can be a bit cumbersome to control, and \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d is, unfortunately, one of the worst offenders. While it is fine 90% of the time, when it does decide to screw up, it\u2019s at the worst times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, while the camera will adjust itself accordingly for particular platforming sections, sometimes it just won\u2019t move. You try to adjust it manually, but it still doesn\u2019t get into the correct position. Needless to say, it\u2019s very hard to jump to an area you can\u2019t really see. Then, it decides to mess up during combat sections. There were some, not frequent but several, times when the camera would get stuck behind a pole or a curtain, preventing me from seeing the enemy and more often than not, getting me killed or knocking me to the ground. This will result in me getting stuck in a loop of trying to get up, and an enemy knocking me down again before I have to rewind time just to get out of the situation. While it thankfully doesn\u2019t happen on a regular basis, it\u2019s still an annoying problem that does happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of the day, \u201cPrince of Persia: The Sands of Time\u201d is still a worthwhile experience. Featuring an entertaining and charming story, a great protagonist, excellent gameplay and plenty of unique gimmicks to make it stand out, \u201cThe Sands of Time\u201d is an amazing puzzle platformer, action-adventure title, and just as a game in general. Even with the passage of time, and certain aspects of the game not aging as well as others, The Prince\u2019s journey is an adventure you absolutely should play through yourself. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY NICK McCOY By all accounts, \u201caction-adventure\u201d is an incredibly broad genre that can encompass many different games, with a variety of subgenres to go… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":73430,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,55,10490],"tags":[14765,15310,442,1729],"class_list":["post-73423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-opinion","category-video-games","tag-nick-mccoy","tag-prince-of-persia-the-sands-of-time","tag-reviews-2","tag-video-games"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Prince-of-Persia-Feature-e1689696469750.png?fit=339%2C432&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73431,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73423\/revisions\/73431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/73430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/POP-Sands-of-Time-Review-Pics-3.jpg?resize=628%2C766\")
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