Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Review (Xbox 360)

[Chaos Raiden]

​

The Prince of Persia from the Sands of Time trilogy is back!​

​

​

The last Prince of Persia game is a hit or miss for all Prince of Persia game fans, since it is a radical departure from the Sands of Times trilogy games. However, the latest one is the return of the Prince from the Sands of Times trilogy, so rejoice to those who are fans of this Prince.

Plot

​

​

Meet Malik, the Prince's brother.​

This game takes place between Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. The Prince visit his brother's kingdom in order to learn his leadership skills. However, his kingdom is under attack, and his brother Malik use the power of Sands to thwart the invaders, but it backfired, and Sands monster appear while the soldiers and civilians become statues.

The plot is easy to understand, without any confusing plot twists. However, this game's story seems irrelevant to some people, because it doesn't connect anything much between Sands of Time and Warrior Within. Regardless, any game with the Prince of Persia from Sands of Time games is fun and awesome.

Gameplay

​

​

THIS IS PERSIA!!!​

The gameplay is similar to the previous Sands of Time trilogy games, except a few things:

- You can't block any upcoming attacks.

- You can only use ONE sword, and it will be your default sword till the later of the game which will be replaced with a new one. So that means no wielding two weapons at the same time.

- You can use Elemental powers to defeat your enemies, like Wind and Fire.

- You can kick your enemies off guard or kick them off the ledge for easy kill.

- You will gain new powers needed to proceed, like making water become solid.

- Experience points are needed to learn new Elemenal powers and power ups, like health increase.

​

​

​

Puzzles and platforming are much more challenging and entertaining compared to the Prince of Persia 2008 game.​

The Prince learns a few new moves, and abandon some of his old skills. He can't block, unable to wield two weapons at the same time, and etc. However, his new Elemental powers are awesome to use, and cool.


The platforming is considered much more challenging, and very creative compared with 2008 Prince of Persia game, except fot the first stages of this game. Because you have the power of Sands, you can Rewind time to avoid death and other stuffs, but is limited to the number of use, which can be increased via power up.

​

​

The combat is fun, but the Prince doesn't look as agile in the old games during battle.​

The game difficulty is slightly harder than Prince of Persia 2008 game, because you can actually die in this game, during battle or falling from high places and by traps. If you run out of magic power to use Rewind, you will still die and you have to restart from the nearest checkpoint.

This game uses an auto-save system, which is a staple in Ubisoft games. However, this annoys me since you don't have the freedom to save just in case you missed something while playing.

The Achievements are easy to get, but some can be a pain to get if you are not good in Prince of Persia games.

This game is kind of short, and you can finish within a day if you are good. I prefer if this game length's are as long as Warrior Within's game length.

Audio

The Prince of Persia is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal, who voiced the Prince in Sands of Time and The Two Thrones. I am happy that he returned to voice the Prince again because he brought the Prince's charm and humour came to live. Other voice actors did a good job too, but unfortunately only two are notable, the djinn and the Prince's brother, Malik.

The soundtrack for the console versions are composed by Steve Jablonsky, who previously scored the Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen soundtracks. Like the Transformers soundtracks, this game's soundtrack is amazing, and is epic to hear. Tom Salta made the soundtrack for the game for handheld versions, and it is said to be as good as Steve Jablonsky's soundtracks, which I can't confirm as I haven't play the game in any handheld versions.


Graphics

​

The monsters are well designed, and so goes to other human characters.​

This game has amazing graphics. The Prince looks real in the first FMV scene, and the in game graphics are great too. The environment are exceptionally well made like the previous Prince of Persia games. The Prince wears clothing like he wore in Warrior Within, but he looks much more lively than that game, which is good since I don't like the emo Prince in Warrior Within much.

Summary

This game is good, but doesn't really top the Sands of Time in many terms. However, any game with this version of Prince is absolutely welcome to me. It is hard to say whether this game is better than the 2008 game because everyone has different opinions. Although I find the 2008 Prince is annoying and lame compared to Sands of Time Prince, the game itself is great, because of Elika. Thus, in my opinion, Forgotten Sands has similar standing with the 2008 game: Not too great, not too bad, but above average.

Score

Story: 7/10

Gameplay : 7/10

Audio: 9/10

Graphics: 7/10

Total: 30/40 or 7.5/10.

Comments

Pros: The Prince from Sands of Time game is back. Awesome platforming and creative puzzles. Cool new powers. Awesome soundtrack. Great graphics.

Cons: Too short. No harder difficulties available. Annoying auto-save system. Lack of variety of enemies.

 

[Angel]

This has come a LONG way since my Prince of Persia days when it was a black and white platform with the enemies wielding scimitars and being able to slide (which was tantamount to revolutionary back then).

Good grief I'm showing my age...

 

[Chaos Raiden]

This has come a LONG way since my Prince of Persia days when it was a black and white platform with the enemies wielding scimitars and being able to slide (which was tantamount to revolutionary back then).

Good grief I'm showing my age...

Nah, you are still young. If you like it, you can play it too.

 

[Angel]

I had a go at the last one - Steve borrowed it from a friend - and even though you couldn't really die in it, I was crap. If it's not Fable, Viva Pinata, Mass Effect or Oblivion, I can't play it :lol:

Looks very pretty though

 

[Chaos Raiden]

I had a go at the last one - Steve borrowed it from a friend - and even though you couldn't really die in it, I was crap. If it's not Fable, Viva Pinata, Mass Effect or Oblivion, I can't play it :lol:

Looks very pretty though

Well, at least you can die in this game. :lol:

I recommend you playing it, but don't expect any ground breaking stuff like awesome gameplay or etc. It is a good game, but not a masterpiece.

 

[aka958]

I thought that maybe I should buy this, but I'm no fan of short games.
I could rush through Two Thrones in two days, one day if I played the whole day. Is this game extremely short to me then?

 

[Devil Bane]

^Well,it's true that PoP games have the suckiest replay value ever,but they are fun.Since this one has some RPG elements,I'd say that it would last a bit longer.Not to much but anyway...

@Chaos : Thanks for the review...ah...Angel is right...I am getting old...I remember one of the older PoP games where the Prince didn't have facial hair and was just a teen for the pc.

 

[Angel]

Ah...memories...

 

[aka958]

^I like the one on Snes more, it had 20 levels of utterly impossible-ness. It was a revamped version of the original... But as you said, memories!

Devil Bane: I didn't think Two Thrones didn't have any replay value, I played it three times over in a week once. After that it was a little boring to play over.
Neither Warrior Within nor Two Thrones had short gameplay. They were long games in my opinion. Games that I savored to the last drip. But is the new prince of persia on par with it?

 

[Ebony]

Ah...memories...

OMG! I thought Prince of Persia was so hard back then - I used to get onto the third screen or somehting and then get impailed falling onto spikes and I thought I'd done well to get onto the third screen! (games back then were much harder!)

 

[Angel]

I totally agree - my sister had to this for me because I sucked so bad...I remember one bit where you fall down to a pit with some stuff in and have to climb up the walls to get back and I just couldn't do it. Then again, I was only 7 at the time...

But Prince Of Persia was unlike anything I'd seen before and I was pretty overawed by it...

 

[Devil Bane]

@aka : No,i didn't mean that.By replay value,I mean like the options that make you want to play it more,not like once in three years or finish it three times a week and then never touch it again.You know,in RPGS it's probably the new game + stuffs etc,in action games it's the whole chapter challenge modes[DMC,NGΣII etc],in fighting games the addiction etc.

It's just that...for some reason...Ubisoft never really bothered for that.Neither did the developers for GoW[I don't know about II and III,but for I,I know for sure],or Dante's Inferno.Maybe they shpould put a new game + feature a la castlevania?Or add new extra options after the game is finished like in the MGS series?

That's not to say I don't like the games,I even find them addictive,but from a neutral point of view,the replay value sucks.

 

[Poroner]

I have all th eprince of persia except 5 well,4 was out of the trilogy but it was awesome to gameplay.I was dissapointed that it wasn't the same story with the sands of time.
I'm going to buy prince of persia 5 no matter what.

 

[aka958]

@aka : No,i didn't mean that.By replay value,I mean like the options that make you want to play it more,not like once in three years or finish it three times a week and then never touch it again.You know,in RPGS it's probably the new game + stuffs etc,in action games it's the whole chapter challenge modes[DMC,NGΣII etc],in fighting games the addiction etc.

It's just that...for some reason...Ubisoft never really bothered for that.Neither did the developers for GoW[I don't know about II and III,but for I,I know for sure],or Dante's Inferno.Maybe they shpould put a new game + feature a la castlevania?Or add new extra options after the game is finished like in the MGS series?

That's not to say I don't like the games,I even find them addictive,but from a neutral point of view,the replay value sucks.

I thought replay value was how you could restart the game without getting tired of it. Guess I'm wrong.

 

[A.$h!nati]

I didn't like the combat system , I hope they don't abandon the old combat system "specially Warrior Within combat system" in the next game if there will be a sequel for the sands of time.

 

[Keaton]

I'm about 1 hour away from a complete Gamerscore on Forgotten Sands.
I adored this title, I truly did.

The levels are beautiful, the gameplay is phenominal and the combat is the best in the series (which is still 'ok' at best), but what has really let me down is its shortness. It ends far too quickly and the boss fights are way to easy aswell.

On completion you can unlock a Survival Mode, where you have to fight 8 waves of enemies, this is intended to be a challenge, but it takes around 5 mins and its a piece of cake. I would've far rathered Ubisoft had acrobatic courses of increasing difficulty, after all Prince of Persia excels at platforming. ^^

 

[Poroner]

^That doesn't sound so good.

 

[aka958]

I'm about 1 hour away from a complete Gamerscore on Forgotten Sands.
I adored this title, I truly did.

The levels are beautiful, the gameplay is phenominal and the combat is the best in the series (which is still 'ok' at best), but what has really let me down is its shortness. It ends far too quickly and the boss fights are way to easy aswell.

On completion you can unlock a Survival Mode, where you have to fight 8 waves of enemies, this is intended to be a challenge, but it takes around 5 mins and its a piece of cake. I would've far rathered Ubisoft had acrobatic courses of increasing difficulty, after all Prince of Persia excels at platforming. ^^

You confirmed it. I won't like this game.

 

[Keaton]

^Which bit.

Its sad, because I LOVE this game, and the PoP-Sands of Time series are in my top five-great epics. But, it breaks my heart that its so short, the Trophies are far to easy to achieve (all of them) and there's even one for lowering the difficulty ¬_¬;

Its only at the very end of the game during the final acrobatic challenges that the real magic of the Prince revives itself, and then it ends. I adored the game, truly, easily a 9/10, but its £40 price tag is steep for less than a days worth of playtime. (Probably around 12 hours for 100% - including a second playthrough for missed Sarcophagi).

Great game, but short. I just WISH they did some more intricate acrobatic sections. :S

 

[aka958]

^Which bit.

Its sad, because I LOVE this game, and the PoP-Sands of Time series are in my top five-great epics. But, it breaks my heart that its so short, the Trophies are far to easy to achieve (all of them) and there's even one for lowering the difficulty ¬_¬;

Its only at the very end of the game during the final acrobatic challenges that the real magic of the Prince revives itself, and then it ends. I adored the game, truly, easily a 9/10, but its £40 price tag is steep for less than a days worth of playtime. (Probably around 12 hours for 100% - including a second playthrough for missed Sarcophagi).

Great game, but short. I just WISH they did some more intricate acrobatic sections. :S

The bit about it being short. I don't like short games, it doesn't matter how good it is. I may pick it up if it don't cost that much, that price tag won't do it, I won't pay that much for twelve hours of good gamepalying. I would want something like the first Final Fantasy for the PSP at the very least, 20+ hours to finish the game once, 60+ hours to finish everything.