Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Let's get this part out of the way: this Prince looks weird. Something is wrong with his face. There's a very, I don't know, chimpanzee quality about it. But anyway.

Forgotten Sands makes the ending of Sands of Time seem exceptionally ironic, because this is basically the same game. Same art style; same voice actor; same composer; same enemies; same time-rewinding power; same basic plot. Sands of Time was a great game -- in 2003. This many years on, I expect a little more, not to mention some sense of newness. So what makes Forgotten Sands different from Sands of Time?

For one thing, the combat is worse than ever. Now, SoT was known for having workable, if slightly awkward, combat mechanics; while Warrior Within exacerbated its problems, and Two Thrones had no choice but to work around them with instant kill moves. And the 2008 iteration had an interesting new combat engine, that just wasn't executed quite right. So the Prince of Persia team has had plenty of chances to learn from its mistakes, here.

Forgotten Sands implements some outsourced component called the TAG Fighting Engine, and I can't say whether the engine or the integration is at fault, but the execution is terrible. Until you get magic fighting powers, it's nothing but mashing the X button, and sometimes the B button to dodge; once you get magic fighting powers (specifically the instant-win Whirlwind power), you'll mash the X button inbetween using those. The mechanics just aren't deep enough to be even slightly interesting, and the hordes of enemies thrown at the Prince are tedious rather than difficult.

Another difference is, as above, the magic fighting powers. But I've already described just about all there is to those. There are four, one for each element, and on the whole they're pretty uninteresting. (The upgrade system for unlocking them, though, can also be used for other things - such as a larger health bar - which is a plus.)

One legitimately new and interesting concept in Forgotten Sands is power over water. Once the Prince attains this power (in a story cutscene), he can stop flowing water in place, and incorporate it into his acrobatics. Since the power has a time-limit, it generally serves the purpose of forcing the Prince to move swiftly, which is when the game is at its most fun. Sometimes, it's used to create scenarios where the Prince needs to time very carefully - stopping, re-starting, and re-stopping water at specific intervals to avoid plummeting to his death - which adds an interesting twist of challenge to the established Sands of Time formula.

Unfortunately, the last major difference between Forgotten Sands and Sands of Time is that the story just isn't very engaging. The acting isn't half-bad, and the Prince's idle chatter is as amusing as always; but the story scenes are dull, formulaic, and seem like they were written over a weekend. The ending might surprise me, but frankly, I don't expect much.

Forgotten Sands is a fun game, and feels like it fits in perfectly with the Sands of Time trilogy. But that's just its problem -- those are old. If this had come out in 2004 in place of Warrior Within, everyone would have been a lot happier; but six years on, it isn't that impressive. And given that PoP 2008 was a refreshing reboot for the series - even if you didn't love it like I did, you must admit it showed amazing potential - it's baffling that this new franchise entry eschews that completely.

Progress: Jumping around the observatory