Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Review by: EideticMemory - 7.7/10
"Never Underestimate the Power of Destiny""Never Underestimate the Power of Destiny"
Released in 2010, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands immerses you into a world of evil spirits, powers, and large parkour courses. While the PSP version uses an alternate storyline, you’ll still find yourself facing the same types of challenges featured on other consoles.
In
Forgotten Sands, you try to return the kingdom to its past prosperity by defeating the evil spirit Ahihud and his monster followers. You do this with powers from spirits that allow you to adjust time of mechanisms and elements, like water and sand.
While I will introduce you to the Prince of Persia series, my primary objective will be to help you decide whether it’s worth adding this game to your collection.
So without further ado, let’s jump in!
Graphics: 9 / 10The balanced combination of complex scenery and appealing visuals makes the background an impressive element of the game. Although the movement is 2D, it can be hard to tell when the viewpoint shifts three dimensionally.
The objects, characters, and interactive objects are three-dimensional, so only the movement are restricted.
Luminescence adds to the atmosphere of the game as parts take place in dark areas where candles, fountains of blue elixir, and windows provide most of the light. Some of the candles and stars collectables look overly bright, but they hurt visuals negligibly.
The detail given to every object in the game is apparent and shows the time investment made by the designers. While there is detailed objects, the rooms do not look overly cluttered and you’re able to easily tell the location of the pathways.
The animation of the Prince look virtually flawless as he jumps, falls, and fights his way through the levels. While the gameplay of fighting comes into question, the graphics do not. They kept me interested in the repetitive fighting much longer than I would have otherwise.
With very little to criticize about the impressive graphics, they rate 9 / 10.
Sound / Music: 7 / 10The music tracks are middle-eastern that complement the Persian, sandy setting of the game. However, they are only intermittent with eerie sound effects and silence during other sections. When the music does play, it’s soft and usually drowned out by the sound effects. The music only seem to be present to create an exciting, ethnic atmosphere to the game.
While the sound effects easily drown out the music, they don’t sound excessive. You hear them whenever the prince does an action and whenever spells are cast.
The Prince and his enemies make their fair share of noises when fighting. During the fight scenes, repeated moves replay the same yelling sounds over and over, which I find annoying. With more variation in character sound effects, this problem could have been avoided.
I also found the high-pitched, childish voice of spirit Helem slightly irritating, but not enough to lower the rating.
Despite repetitiveness during fight scenes, the decent sound / music effects bring the score up to 7 / 10.
Addictiveness: 7 / 10Well-made parkour courses with challenging obstacles bring addictivity to the game and you’ll find yourself playing for several hours at a time.
However, the repetitiveness of combat does become pose a problem as the same attacks are used many times to defeat enemies. The strategy required when facing more difficult bosses overcomes this issue. Finding out the strategy needed is rewarding.
While I found myself stuck at several difficult portions, it was a simple matter of putting in extra time until I passed them. However, this game does not provide instant gratification and passing one difficult section often leads to harder follow-up courses.
Playing the game over the course of a few weeks allowed me to come back to sections I found incredibly difficult and the bosses with which I had little success.
While the courses are addictive, difficult portions may limit lengthy playing sessions.
7 / 10.
Story: 5 / 10While there is little complexity in the story-line, it mostly serves to provide objectives rather than be memorable.
The story follows the Prince, who, guided by the spirit of time, Helem, seeks to prevent the evil spirit Ahihud from using all the elixir of the spirit realm. Using the spirit powers of time, you play the Prince who must defeat Ahihud after defeating his powerful servants and their various monsters who try to stop you.
I found the ending a little cheesy but fitting.
With a simple progression with little complexity, the story rates 5 / 10.
Depth: 4 / 10The game takes between 15 and 20 hours to complete and during this time, you’re always actively trying to find ways to continue with never a dull moment.
While the levels offer little other than progression, they offer several innovative puzzles with exceptional complexity. These puzzles offer far more depth to the game than any other facet.
Often you’ll have to think about how to pass through the level using the spirit powers coupled with the Prince’s agility and jumping skills. The strategy required to pass through the long levels provides depth to seemingly short obstacle-filled mazes.
While the game offers depth from its puzzles, little else adds to the depth, lowering the score to 4 / 10.
Difficulty: 8 / 10Without a doubt, the puzzles of the game pose great difficulty. While they require strategy and thinking, they also require adept maneuvering of fingers to use powers while jumping and climbing.
Boss battles are difficult and you may find yourself stuck for more than an hour without headway. Once you finally do win, you quickly run into difficult puzzles, which can get tiresome.
I found the monsters easy, but not overly so. They required timing and carefulness during battle.
The difficulty makes this game better played over several weeks or months instead of a full-night binge. After a while, my fingers felt tired and I made silly mistakes. Often I would leave it for the next day. If it was a difficult boss, I’d try every few days until I finally beat it.
On the other hand, the controls were easy to learn and didn’t pose a problem during game-play.
The challenging puzzles and difficult bosses make the difficulty rate 8 / 10.
Overall: 7.7 / 10My holistic comparison of important categories leads to an impressive overall score of 7.7 / 10.
While there were very few pronounced weakness, the strengths in graphics and gameplay were apparent. While some fight scenes against monsters felt repetitive, larger bosses required strategy. As a player, I felt that the game fulfilled my desire for challenge and fun. I would recommend this game to anyone with similar desires. If you’re looking for instant gratification, this isn’t your type of game.
I’m happy with my buy and don’t mind the increased price of buying it new.
You might buy this game if:
1. you want a challenging game that requires strategy
2. you want a young-adult game with darker lighting and ghostly luminescence
3. you don’t mind playing games over a period of time instead of playing them in one sitting
For these three cases, the game seems an excellent fit. I’m sure that anyone who tries it might feel a change of heart about difficult, strategy-intensive games.
I had much fun playing and re-examining
The Forgotten Sands. If you’ve played it before or have something to say, please comment!
Thank you for reading!
Graphics
9 Sound
7 Addictive
7 Depth
4 Story
5 Difficulty
8
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