Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Game)

If there’s one series that has unfortunately faded into obscurity, it’s Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia, created by Jordan Mechner. Despite the prestige brought on by the Sands of Time trilogy, Ubisoft’s focus shifted to other endeavors, like Assassin’s Creed, and the general public stopped talking about it. With a remake of the first game, The Sands of Time, in the works, I finally played the original release, which has a reputation as one of the best games ever made, plus a script written by Jordan Mechner himself. Fortunately, this game lives up to its reputation and combines story and gameplay in ways that I wished more games had attempted.

In 9th century Persia, the Prince and the army of his father Sharaman are passing through India to visit the Sultan of Azad. On the way, the Vizier of the Maharaja convinces them to ransack the palace, where the Prince steals the Dagger of Time and the Maharaja’s daughter, Farah, is taken as a gift for the Sultan. During their visit to the Sultan, the Prince is tricked into releasing the Sands of Time from an hourglass, turning almost everyone into sand monsters. The Vizier tries to take the Dagger, but the Prince escapes. In his confusion, the Prince runs into Farah, who knows what’s happening and allies with him to undo the curse he accidentally unleashed.

The Vizier has tricked the Prince into unleashing the Sands of Time.

The Sands of Time really hits the ground running, with a unique premise and simple, yet solidly executed and highly engaging personal story. Throughout this story, the Prince goes through a great character arc where he starts off cocky and arrogant, but his personal loss and remorse over his actions, as well as his growing bond with Farah, change him for the better. There’s also some well-timed humor at certain points and, in one of the better choices, the story is integrated into the gameplay. Considering that this game is an action-filled platformer, the cutscenes are appropriately short and highlight some of the bigger character and story moments while allowing the Prince and Farah to develop during the actual gameplay segments through well-paced actions and dialogue. All of this is additionally framed like the Prince telling a story, an element that comes back at the end with a new context.

Gameplay heavily revolves around parkour, which opens up a lot of platforming possibilities and adds an interesting layer to combat. Areas that are designed around the parkour elements continually introduce new mechanics and challenge the player’s knowledge of them while also subtly guiding them toward proper environmental puzzle solutions through differently-colored symbols or light stains on the ground. As such, any mistakes you make feel like your own fault. It helps that the parkour moves themselves have a button mapping that feels very natural, with smooth transitions from one move to the next. In addition, some fixed camera placement looks carefully thought out and the player can alter the camera to a “Landscape” view if they want a more complete view of their surroundings, which comes in handy for puzzle solving.

The parkour feels very smooth.

During the combat sections, the Prince uses a free flow combat style that feels like a precursor to the one famously featured in Batman: Arkham Asylum. While fighting enemies, players can quickly change the Prince’s target with a directional input or incorporate dodges and vaulting attacks until he can perform a finishing move. For the most part, this system felt fun, thought vault attacks can absolutely tear encounters apart if you use them well. There are also sections where Farah aids you with a bow, which can help in certain sections, but you also have to defend her at the same time. As part of the narrative, she’s not perfect, meaning that she’ll sometimes hit you if you’re in her line of fire, though this thankfully doesn’t happen very often.

Vaulting is very effective in combat.

Of course, the biggest innovation at the time was the versatile power of the Dagger of Time. Apart from a health gauge, players must also track Sand Tanks and Powers Tanks, as each of the Dagger’s powers require them. Retrieving sand from defeated enemies or sand clouds will refill both Tanks, as well as gradually increase the maximum amount of sand in the Dagger.

The one sand power that player will use the most, rewinding time, requires one Sand Tank for each activation. This power gives players a reset button should they make a mistake or even die while platforming or during combat, though the limited time players can rewind and the limited number of Sand Tanks encourage conservative use of this ability, as dying with no Sand Tanks means restarting from the last checkpoint.

With the Power Tanks, the Prince can also freeze a single enemy in time or slow down time for everyone, including himself. The former has extremely useful applications when surrounded by multiple powerful enemies, though the effect doesn’t last forever and you can’t retrieve any sand from an enemy defeated this way. As for the latter, it never really came up and it’s not that effective of a power.

Freezing enemies in place helps deal with larger crowds.

By far the most powerful ability, however, is the Mega Freeze, which stops time for everyone except the Prince, who can now rush between targets and attack at lightning speed. This power can really help in a bind, especially some more difficult sections near the end, but it comes at an equally steep price. You can only activate it when all Sand and Power Tanks are filled, at which point you’ll completely lose all of your sand. As such, while this power works as a great trump card, the timing is crucial, since you’re otherwise defenseless when time resumes once more.

When the Prince inevitably loses health, the player can restore it by drinking water from pools and fountains sprinkled within the environment. Pressing a button while near or in the water will work, but holding the button will repeat the drinking animation and increase the amount of health restored. Though the Prince can heal during combat, which some areas outright encourage, he’s vulnerable to attacks during the animation, adding another layer where the player must time when they should heal and how much they can gamble on before reacting to an approaching enemy. During normal play, the Prince can also periodically enter hidden areas that lead through a veiled hallway and into a room where he drinks water that increases his maximum health. Finding these can prove vital, though if a player wishes, they can intentionally skip these rooms.

In an interesting twist, whenever the Prince reaches a save point for the first time, he’ll see a vision of the next area, providing a glimpse of what will happen along with subtle clues on solving certain puzzles. Players can also view the visions again if they need help passing through a certain area, but only if they can get back to the same save point. I didn’t do this very often, however, since the environment itself mostly does a good job of communicating what to do.

Graphically, The Sands of Time held up pretty well after nearly two decades, with simple, yet effective character designs and great environmental work. Level layouts are very clear and have a nice Arabian flair, with great lighting that adds a realistic touch and some details that help the world feel lived in. The Dagger’s time powers apply a filter over the screen, but some additional details add an extra oomph that sells the bending of spacetime. I also like how the water sources the Prince uses for healing are placed pretty naturally within the environment so that if you look around during combat, it’s not too difficult to find one.

Environments have a nice Arabian flair.

Among the great voice acting, Yuri Lowenthal’s take on the Prince really helps tie everything together, as he convincingly portrays multiple emotions throughout his character arc and plays off Joanna Wasick’s Farah really well. One touch I liked was how the narration is integrated into the gameplay, with natural sounding tutorials and playful ways of addressing saving, loading, pausing and quitting as part of the framing device. Gameplay also includes some tutorial or guide language, though it still sounds like a natural conversation on account of not mentioning button inputs. As with the dialogue, the score is fantastic, fusing rock music with middle-eastern influences into a unique hybrid that perfectly matches the setting.

As much as I loved the experience, however, I noticed a few rough edges that bugged me every once in a while. The noticeable lack of subtitles could be explained by how that feature wasn’t yet standard in gaming, but it felt odd after coming off several games that do have them. While the combat was truly innovative for its time, it’s not perfect, as attacks at specific enemies feels dodgy at times and fighting birds without Farah’s aid can be a pain, not to mention the difficulty spikes that pop up in a handful of areas. I’ll also admit that while the wall jumping felt great, the timing felt a bit too precise, especially when trying to go down. Wall jumping downward only happens twice during the whole game, but the second one, towards the end of the game, has the Prince without any sand. This sounds challenging, but is a little frustrating since it happens at the very end of a lengthy platforming section, meaning that if you fail at the wrong moment, you have to repeat everything you just did.

It’s also hard to deny the impact that Sands of Time had on the industry, even if the franchise fell off the radar to the point these contributions are overlooked. Apart from inspiring the sequels that would follow, the original Assassin’s Creed actually grew out of a concept for a Prince of Persia title where you’d play as an assassin guarding the Prince. Assassin’s Creed would then receive a franchise of its own that emphasized parkour in its exploration and embellished on the concept that you’re replaying a story that already happened. Sands of Time also pioneered rhythmic free flow combat, though Batman: Arkham Asylum, which is credited for introducing this type of combat, would expand on and perfect it. Notably, the show How It's Made featured The Sands of Time in a segment on video game production the year after the game's release.

After nearly two decades, The Sands of Time has truly stood the test of time. Gameplay and narrative are intertwined in very interesting ways and the story, despite its simplicity, is solidly written and well-executed. If you want a great platformer with an Arabian flair, then rewind time and pick up this game.