There are some times when I just feel like playing a damn series for some reason. For this urge, it was the Prince of Persia Sands of Time trilogy...well, before Forgotten Sands came along but I don't think people are counting that one. Anyways, the point is that I didn't really know what to expect. I know you controlled time and you ran across walls. Those things are enough for me to buy it though so here we are now diving into Prince of Perisa: The Sands of Time.
Now obviously you play as the Prince, who's just starting his warrior ways when he and his father invade some kingdom. The Prince goes into the city for some glory and a war souvenir in which he finds the Sands of Time dagger...and some big ass hourglass. Those things get taken back to the palace and the Prince gets to keep the dagger but with a treacherous, evil Vizier and some WACKY HIJINKS, the Sands of Time from the hourglass gets unleashed and turns almost everyone into horrible Sand Monsters. The only "survivors" is the Prince, the evil Vizier and the conquered Princess Farrah. And now the Prince and Farrah must navigate the palace to find the Vizier, kill him and set things right.
The big draw of this was all the fun acrobatics you could do. You, obviously, can run across the walls. You can do the wall jump just like in Super Mario 64. You can swing on stuff and then hang on ledges. And the best part of all that fun stuff is that it's all smooth and fast-paced. There's very little slow-down when you doing these things, which is great since one moment you have to run down a wall and then the next you have to wall-jump to the next platform. This is the part of playing this game, just doing all these stunts just brings out the MAN in me. And then on top of that, The Prince is a very endearing character so we care about him and want him to make those jumps. The Prince is very sardonic and has some great, funny lines. I won't say he's one of my favorite video game characters but he's a guy I would love to see more of.
And then we come to the big flaw in this game. A flaw so massive that it splintered into many tiny flaws. That is the combat system which is the worst one I've played since the first Devil May Cry. A system so frustrating that I threw my controller at the wall once or twice....or five times in utter rage. Why this over-the-top anger? First off, there is no auto-targeting so while you want to finish one monster, the game decides you want to attack another monster. Then you get trapped and the monster you wanted to finish off gets back up and you have to fight him all over again. What else....OH, the camera system is horrible. It's not the best during the acrobatics but it gets the job done. In combat, the camera wants to go behind barriers so you don't get to see what's going on half the time so you get combed to death by the monsters. Which leads to my next point, the monsters catch you in a combo, kiss your ass goodbye since that's going to be the end of you. You can't block it and if you get knocked down, they still hit you which really sucks. But wait, you can use the Sands of Time to reverse, get this, time and get away from the onslaught right? You can but it's so finicky that, while not useless, is a pain to get right since you have to go back to the moment of your downfall and then a little before since it takes a couple seconds for time to catch up to the player. And you really have to hold the L button to reverse time since a light hold will have you wasting an ungodly amount of sand tanks necessary to back in time. The there's Farrah who makes this game an escort mission half the time. Granted, she can attack and does so with competently...she's too stupid to move. So you can't go off picking monsters off one-by-one. No, you have to be attached to Farrah's hips and protect her from the monsters. Also granted, they come after you but when a few gang up on you, one goes after Farrah. It's almost always going to be a horrible time fighting with her.
Like Devil May Cry, this game is overrated, thanks solely to the horrible combat system. Unlike, Devil May Cry the rest of the gameplay is pretty good. Running around and jumping is all great fun. The Prince is a great character. The script is great with many funny lines. The puzzles are decent enough. I want to like this game but the horrible combat won't let me....sorry.
6/10
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