As it’s always best to be prepared, a quick roll call is in order: Acrobatics? Check. Spikes that come out of the floor? Check. Big rotating sharp column things and swinging axes? Check. Running up walls and leaping onto helpfully placed poles to swing from? Check. Yep, this is Prince of Persia alright, and it’s back with style.
As good as it was, the last Prince of Persia game received mixed reactions from fans of the series. Gone was the look and feel that had graced earlier games on the PS2, and in their place were more cartoony visuals, coupled with an overall feeling that the game was a little too easy. But Forgotten Sands brings the series back to its roots; gone are the cell-shaded graphics, and there’s a welcome return of some more traditional gaming mechanics and styles which should please those who have fond memories of Sands of Time.
After a compulsory install to the PS3’s hard drive the game begins as you’d expect with an introduction to the story. You arrive at a large palace which is being bombarded and overrun by a huge army, and as you watch the Prince climb and jump up the palace walls undetected you get an instant idea of the epic scale of the battle. Eventually you meet up with your brother, who has a great idea of raising the magical Solomon’s Army to fight off the oncoming fighters. Sadly (and not unexpectedly) this goes a little wrong and this hugely powerful sand army end up trying to kill anything that moves, and that includes you. Having become separated from your brother, you need to find him again in order to recapture the army and put an end to the war. As you can imagine, it soon becomes apparent this isn’t going to be a straight forward task.
The most immediately noticeable change in Forgotten Sands over its predecessor is the game’s graphics, which on the whole look great. Player and enemy models are well detailed while you’re playing, and despite there often being massive numbers of characters on the screen at any one time the frame rate remains rock solid throughout even when your magic sends streaks of colourful lighting across the room. Environments have a fair amount of detail in them too, and although you spend most of the game within the walls of the same bland palace there’s a reasonable amount of variety to be had as you work your way through crumbling halls, luscious roof gardens and areas full of free-flowing water. You get to see a good deal of this from a considerable height, and as you jump and swing across huge drops the camera angles provide an excellent sense of vertigo which adds nicely to the tension. It’s not all good news though. During cut scenes the characters aren’t the most detailed you’ll see, and when PS3 owners have enjoyed the amazing visuals and character models of Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 you can’t help but think a few corners have been cut in the multi-platform conversions. The Prince, for example, looks a little like a cross between a warm Michael Jackson waxwork and a lion – not a great look for someone in his situation.
The main element of the game is the problem solving and route finding, working out how to get out of the room you find yourself in using whatever means you have at your disposal. There are the usual methods of running along walls, swinging off poles, climbing and jumping, but you’ll also find some new ways of getting around. As you work your way through the game you’re provided with various levels of magic to help you get from A to B. You’ll be given the ability to freeze water for a short amount of time, and make sections of the palace reappear by bringing them back from a time before they were destroyed, although only one bit of scenery can be used at a time so don’t think it’ll make life easy. All of this is done using some sensible controller mappings, which are easy to learn but can really test your coordination later in the game. You get chance to use these in fairly easy situations at first, but before long you’re having to freeze and unfreeze water and make sections of walls reappear and vanish again, all while making sure you’re wall-running, jumping and swinging at the right time. If you get through the entire game without getting your fingers twisted into knots at least once then it’s an achievement in itself. It’s never impossible though, and the ability to rewind time has also been reintroduced, so if you really mess it up you can use some of your magic reserves to rewind and try the section again without having to go back to your save point. Phew. This ability to recover from mistakes also comes in very handy when you come across one of the frustrating times that the camera sits in just the wrong place, and makes judging some jumps very much a trial and error experience. It doesn’t happen all that often, but when you’ve successfully sprinted at full speed past spikes, crumbling ledges and lethal arrows only to have to guess when you jump off a wall it can leave you slightly exasperated.
Luckily, after you’ve danced your way to the next section you’ll usually have the opportunity to get your sword out and fight. The fighting system is a pretty simple affair, with the X button doing all of your sword swinging. Other buttons allow you to roll away from attacks and jump away from, or onto, your enemies with the direction buttons assigned to the various magic you earn as you get further into the game. This magic, assigned to the main elements of fire, wind, earth and water, gives you extra strengths or defences which can be unleashed at any time at the cost of a blob of magic. You’ll need to learn to use them wisely as they can make a dramatic difference as to whether you survive the onslaught or not, especially later in the game when you’re facing 20 or more enemies at once, and some of them are big. Really big. Sadly though they all follow the same formula of slicing at their ankles until they drop while you avoid their attacks, so they’re not quite as frightning to face as you might expect which is a shame, but when they’re accompanied by hoards of other smaller guys also demanding your instant attention they do become more of an issue. There’s a nice range of moves available despite the single-button attack system, and before long the fighting becomes just as fluid as the acrobatic movements. You can even use your surroundings to pin enemies to walls or kick them off ledges, giving an extra dimension to your battles. It’s a nicely designed system – simple enough to be easily accessible, but with enough options available to give you plenty to think about and experiment with as you’re doing your killing. It sometimes degenerates into a button-mashing few minutes, but it’s well thought out and gives a reasonable feeling of satisfaction.
As you defeat enemies you’re awarded experience points, with the tougher guys giving you slightly more points. These can instantly be spent on upgrades which enhance your strength, magical abilities, health and a range of other factors. You’re given the choice of what to upgrade, although the higher level improvements only become available when you’ve bought certain other options, meaning you have to carefully consider which options are most important to you. It certainly gives you the chance to customise your game experience; I chose to go full offensive and began with the fire magic, although some might decide it would be more sensible to go with a more defensive use of the earth ability which surrounds you with a swirling shield of stone to pretect you during your earlier clashes.
Having aced the game there are a couple of reasons to go back to Forgotten Sands, but these aren’t massive and won’t keep you hooked for long. The main extra mode is a time-trial based mode where you need to defeat 8 waves of increasingly difficult enemies as quickly as you can, then try to beat your own time. It’s interesting to try, but it’s not likely to make you want to keep going over and over again. The other reason to replay won’t appeal to everyone, and that’s the trophies. Playing through the game normally will earn you a large proportion of the trophies on offer, and most of the others aren’t difficult to get if you know what you need to do.
So where do we stand with the Forgotten Sands? It would look like a step backwards to some, something of a safe bet after trying something new last time round, and it’s true that it certainly takes enormous influences from Sands of Time. But this is no bad thing; that particular PS2 game was hugely popular and a fantastic game in its own right, and the Forgotten Sands takes the successful formula and adds some really nice visuals, builds on the fluid fighting system and provides a good challenge that despite being a touch frustrating at times, is never insanely difficult and will give you a good 10 hours or so of entertainment. It’s a fun game to play, and linking together movements and fighting so seamlessly is generally a great experience and makes you look, and feel, like you’re suddenly amazing at the game. It’s just a shame the close-up models are a bit ropey and some of the camera angles make you resort to guesswork, but this isn’t enough to stop me from recommending it. This is Prince of Persia alright, and it’s back with style.
8/10
Review by Iain Alexander
