My first game review: Prince of Persia Sands of Time GBA's Version

[Zapages]

Well guys I just finished beating the whole game. All I can say I can't wait till PC and console versions ship.

Here's my review:

Prince of Persia fans all over the world were filled great amount of joy when the Ubisoft announced that the new Prince of Persia Sands of Time will have 2D GBA version counterpart from the Console and PC versions. The joy they once had was utterly shattered when they first saw the videos of the game at many Gaming sites like IGN and Gamespot, because the whole game looked like an Aladdin rip off. Well everyone I got the chance to play the game on my new GBA SP when I bought it with PoP Sands of Time yesterday. All I can say is there's still hope. Well on to the review.

Although this adventure is a prequel, the game has no storyline connections to the original that could have been deducted after completing it. The game sets you, the Prince, at the Sultan's Palace with Farah (as a slave girl), the Vizier, your father, and the Sultan. King Sharaman offers the Sultan the Hourglass and tells his son keep the dagger as token of your first battle. The Sultan is amazed by the shiningness of the Sand, so the Vizier suggests that you can open it by letting Prince place his dagger in the special key hole. Thus turning everyone into Sands creatures except for the Prince, because the dagger protects him, Farah (the magical necklace she wears) and the Vizier (his magical staff). Thus starting your new adventure for redemption.

The game sets you off in just gorgeous backgrounds all around you. The environments range from yellowish palace, bluish yet haunting surroundings, to greenish corridors, to a small colorful zoo, outside the palace, then back inside, on the pillars of the palace, small caves, and around the Palace. In the GBA version the most noticeable difference from the Console and PC version are, that the Prince is striped of his shirt from the get go, but the shirt appears to be there in all the cinematic, which is a little strange but understandable as its 2D action/adventure game. As for the enemies of the Prince, they are wonderfully animated; it appears to be cell shaded, but I could be wrong. Unlike the previous Prince of Persia games there are no potions instead there are life potions which you can pick up, but they are few and far in between. So they have placed life rejuvenating mechanism after each levels end and various parts of each level. Also the game feels like one whole castle instead of levels making you feel the environment of the game.

The pacing of the game is quite weird, yet being surprisingly wonderful. The Prince reacts to touch of the button thus being making it as fun as the original. As for realism that was present in the original, it has been literally eliminated except for a few. For example the only ruminants that remain from the classic are being able grab onto side of the walls, but being only able to pull yourself up and trying to walk on horizontal ledges, and being able to walk slowly by pressing ‘r’ and control pad. This touch of the old Prince of Persia shows that the developers were trying to please the veterans as well the newcomers to the series. As for running it seems very much like Aladdin at its best without the prince going ‘crazy’ for second when you change directions when running like in the original or hitting his head on the wall when running. The jumps in the game are almost exactly like in Aladdin, but this around you get swing your sword around giving you more air time or reversing time through your magical dagger giving you even more possibilities to fix your jumps or alter them in air. As for swing from poles is concerned it’s exactly like Aladdin from the yester years of our childhood. Now the new addition to the franchise, I feel like that replaced crawling from the original or I should say the Prince of Persia 2 is rolling its faced and can be used as weapon. The new Prince can grab onto walls that sometimes have some slippery surface, thus making you slip, it’s a nice add on to platforming aspect of the game. The new platforming aspects that I felt that were perfectly translated from the console and pc versions are being able to run on walls and jump from one wall to another until you reach the top. This is all excellently portrayed in the game, but not letting you do these maneuvers from the get go but having to find scriptures and using Sands of Time with special apparatuses you find on your adventure. There are many unique traps in the whole game, but only floor spikes, pit falls and wall spikes make a return from the original two PoPs. The new traps like the horizontal/vertical spinning blades, destroyable flames ports, and undestroyable flames ports; make the new Prince of Persia game refresh and robust from its 2D predecessors. As for loose floor plates are concerned, the Ubisoft team has replaced them with something similar to fast dropping plates from the Red Cathedral in PoP 2, but more forgiving. Well that wraps up the platforming aspects of this new adventure.

Now the combat of the game can be said in two ways. Let’s start with my one side of my body saying that it’s repetitive and too simplified. While my other side of my body is saying that the newcomers of today will be bored to death by complexity of the original, thus throwing their GBA/SPs on the ground in frustration. The functions of your sword are divided into three categories slash, reflect, and absorb. The slash aspect of your sword is that you are able to destroy some objects and fight your enemies; there’ll be more on it later on in this review. As for the reflect aspect, you are able to reflect fireballs, iceballs, or any projectiles that your enemy fires are you back toward them. The final aspect of your combat is absorb you can absorb all the projectiles and launch them toward them in horizontal fashion. Now onto the combat with your enemies, this part of the game, I felt was to a degree was weakly executed, the enemies have set boundaries like PoP 1, instead of PoP 2 in which enemies followed you until you were dead. All you do is slash at them until they collapse and die or absorb them with your magical dagger. Luckily Ubisoft has made the enemies come with different moves and multiple moves for some as you go deeper into the game, which gives you a little bit more enjoyment. A couple enemies that I felt unique in this genre; paper skeleton type creatures would reverse your controls if you got hit by them, a male sand creature with a staff that you had to jump and then kill them, female sand creature that had beads type things and did a Scorpion type move of “get over here” and stab you, the only way to kill her was to destroy the beads and then slash away to kill her, a genie/bats that spit something that would turn you into ice or poison you were a nice touch as well, and male sand creatures that carried swords but when they lost their swords would do bear hugs. But the central focus is still remained slashing and killing them, which hinders some aspects of the enjoyment found. Some parts of the game become repetitive, for example all through out the game there are heads fire iceballs or fireballs just for the sakes of protecting a gate or entrance to the next room. Balance wise the battle system just crumbles upon the boss battle, but for newcomers to the series it’s an abrupt reminder that Prince of Persia franchise was never an easy going game. As for myself, I found the first and the second boss battles tolerable. While the third battle was hard as more hard than beating rest of the game. As for the forth boss battle is concerned it was at par with the first two battles. The first last boss battle was homage to Prince of Persia 2’s Jaffar Battle. Then in the final last boss battle it felt more mixture of Jaffar’s Battle and Spider region from PoP 2.

It looks like I have talked too much about the fighting system of the game, now its time to check best part of the game the puzzles. Just like the original Prince of Persia games this new version doesn’t lower itself to mediocrity of some puzzles in today’s action/adventure games. The first puzzle that I enjoyed was puzzle in which you had to match the correct sequence of sounds with the right bells to open the gate to the next level. Another one was when you use both Prince and Farrah to open gates, opening a new world of opportunities to solve basic puzzle. For on instance you had use both the Prince and Farrah to jump onto the next portion by having tube push either one of you up and down until you manage to get both of the characters up to the next level, very creative thinking by Ubisoft. There was another instance where you the Prince became invisible and you had to get through all the areas without the invisibility running out so you could go into the next section. The last type of puzzle that enjoyed was with the Prince hearing some type of magical music thus making him able to go over some red/green spikes plates without getting hurt as much prior to listening to the music.

As for replayability is concerned there is suppose to be Prince of Persia 1 and 2 locked somewhere in the game. I’ll try to find it but I guess it’ll be unlocked using GBA connectivity feature with Nintendo’s Gamecube. As for total numbers of hours in gamplay is concerned, the game contains a good 6 to 10 hours.

The Music of this game was awesome as well, very fluid. But the only thing missing was sword clashes and some grunts.

The story between the Prince and Farrah can be summed as a wonderful love story but sad one in the end, that hopefully will be told in more detail in Console and PC counterpart of the Prince of Persia Sands of Time.

In conclusion the new Prince of Persia is great game. The Sands of Time’s story, puzzling and platforming aspects shine. While the fighting and battling mechanisms could have been implemented slightly better. As for the comparison to Aladdin, I would say it takes a great deal of ideas from Aladdin but retains some core elements of a Prince of Persia game that makes the Prince of Persia franchise stand apart from the rest of the crowd.

Graphics -95%
Gameplay: -87% - Total for Platforming, Puzzle Solving, and Fighting/Battling:
*-Platforming - 85%*
*-Puzzle Solving -95%*
*-Fighting/Battles -80%*
Story- 90%
Replayability -70%
Sound -85%
Appeal -85%

The Verdict is a 85/100.(average)
-Zapages

PS: This is the first review I have ever written and I haven't checked any of it for gramtical/spelling errors.

Enjoy
Zapages

[Zapages]

Come on guys there has to be a little prince in you. :anime: