NOTE: I’m still unsure on how I want to format my reviews here but I think I’ll be dividing them into the categories of Visuals (graphics), Sound, Gameplay (controls), Overall Fun (entertainment value), Immersion (how easy it is to feel immersed in the game world) and Replay Value. I’d like a format like that and it’s what I’ll stick to for now but I’m sure I’ll keep it loose and make some changes until I get it just right. Here we go.
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Prince of Persia 2.0
This Prince of Persia game is clearly an attempt at a revival with a taste of the traditional Prince of Persia that we all loved; redeeming the failure from the previous game which was visually beautiful but in every other way a major disappointment. Unfortunately it fails at this. It certainly does bring back the original art style and focused the core of the gameplay on agile combat, acrobatics and puzzles. The only problem is that the puzzles are nothing special and certainly not original, the combat is absolutely atrocious and the acrobatics are good but not nearly good enough to hold up the other two aforementioned failures. It’s great to see the developers bring the prince back to what we loved about him in the first place; but a lack of any innovation makes this game come off feeling painfully stale.
A Tale as Old as Time
Yeah, Beauty and the Beast reference, what of it? The story in this game is very much like the usual deal: The prince comes home to find his kingdom under attack, an evil genie gets released and it spawns sand monsters of no particular origin. The prince gets help from a magical woman whose back story is just as boring as everything else blah blah blah. Everything about this story is predictable and it’s just solid enough to press the game onward but not enough to actually be enjoyable or interesting. If the story was better I may even push through the sluggish combat to see how it plays out but still having not finished the game (something I haven’t done in a very long time) I have absolutely no interest in whatever bits of that dull story I’m missing. There is very little beauty in the visuals of this game but a whole lot of beastly flaws that tear up any of the positive points to shreds. While on the topic of visuals that’s about all I have to say: It looks good but not great. It doesn’t stack up to that stylistic visuals of the last game and somehow even the originals look better than this one. Atmospherically everything’s there but everything about the environments (with only a few exceptions) feel dead and uninspiring. Some areas have more unique styles to them that do look nice but when they’re the backdrop for mediocre gameplay in a snore-inducing story, well they lose any flare they had.
Dynasty Warriors but simplified.
In another review I heard the combat in this game compared to Dynasty Warriors—which is insulting to Dynasty Warriors. Yes, DW has a very simple control scheme and consists largely of button mashing; but it’s actually fun to play. Whereas in Prince of Persia combat always feels tedious and wasteful of your time. So much in fact, that I would consider setting up a Dippy Bird (one of those little bird figurines you hang on the edge of glasses that repeatedly dip in and out of the water) on my controller over the square button and finding a letter use of my time through the combat sections. Maybe a second Dippy Bird on the X button and perhaps an elaborate setup of a laser pointer jumping around the d-pad to lure my cat into swatting at the arrows in order to activate the lame magic powers you get. Actually, setting up that contraption would be a much better use of my time than playing this game. I guess I should explain it a little bit, as fun as just clarifying how horrible it is can be. Square swings your sword in an extremely basic combo set—but wait, you can even hold it for a power attack! Unfortunately said power attack is just slow and boring to such an unexciting that I ended up never wanting to use it. You can kick enemies individually or in groups with triangle and jump over or on top of most enemies to set up a fancy aerial stab or slash (of which there aren’t more than three or so varieties). When I realized that these were the controls I immediately thought, “Oh, well there must be some sort of drastic improvements on the combat throughout the game right?" Wrong. The only other real additions beyond your usual time powers (which you’re more likely to save for puzzles) is a variety of magical powers and upgrades that do a get a bit more impressive as you go on but are never enough to balance out the dull button mashing that the combat is comprised of.
Exhaustion, Surrender—Just Get it Away From Me
Normally, my reviews would be a lot longer and comprehensive than this but I’m almost as sick of talking about it as I was playing it. This is easily the worst nine dollars I ever spent and I once invested nine dollars in BP. Regardless of how true that is the sentiment remains; this is easily one of the most unbearable games I have played in quite a long time. I don’t even remember the last game that I not only couldn’t force myself into finishing but also couldn’t even stand to play for more than fifteen or so minutes at a time.
If you are a diehard Prince of Persia fan there may be enough of the usual atmosphere and the acrobatic feats to keep you interested but in terms of straight up great games; this was just utterly disappointing and barely playable. Don’t get me wrong on this either, I loved the original Prince of Persia games and I can fondly remember my friend mike yelling “Erra Erra!!” as a cue to rewind time whenever I fell into a pit of spikes but this iteration just doesn’t stack up—whether it be to today’s standards of gaming or even stacking up to the original classics. I can’t stress enough how rarely I don’t finish a game (especially one I plan on reviewing) and how even more rare it is that my patience allows me to only play a game in such short intervals. Check this out if you’re a big fan of the series but even then I think a rental would be the best idea.
So onto the scoring. I’ll try it out like this and see how it goes in the future. Keep in mind that as far as I’ve decided now: The overall is an overall estimate from 1-10 from 1 being so bad not a single person of any state could ever enjoy it and 10 being a must have that anyone with any interests should own; and that is in now way an addition of the other specific scores. These other six will probably be accompanied by comments in the future but I have very little more to say about this game so for now just a 1-10 score.
| VISUALS | 7 |
| SOUND | 6 |
| GAMEPLAY | 5 |
| IMMERSION | 3 |
| REPLAY VALUE | 0 |
| FUN | 4 |
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