| Developer: | Ubisoft Montreal | | | Release Date: | 2003 | | | Systems: | PS2, GameCube, Xbox, Win (HD on PS3) |
This week on Super Adventures I'm playing the fourth of the legendary Prince of Persia games, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time! Okay technically it's the fifth of the games, but no one ever talks about Prince of Persia: Harem Adventures and I'm sure there's probably a reason for that.
Sands of Time is the second 3D Prince of Persia and the first of the Ubisoft trilogy, which lasted for four games in the end (after being interrupted by a temporary reboot part-way through). Ubisoft still owns the franchise to this day, but we haven't gotten a new Prince of Persia out of them since 2010. They got a bit distracted after a planned sequel called Prince of Persia: Assassin became too powerful, took on the name Assassin's Creed, and launched its own series.
By the way, my gimmick on Super Adventures this year is that I'm only playing games which have appeared on someone's 'top 10'. Well it took some serious research, but I finally found Sands of Time at #8 on stuff.tv's 10 faithful video game to movie adaptations list! I have the feeling it's probably on a few other top 10 lists too, seeing as it's got 92 on Metacritic. It's in the top 2% of PlayStation 2 titles!
Alright, this isn't my first time playing the game but it might as well be. I tried it out for 20 minutes or so back when it was new and didn't really feel a need to keep going with it. This time around I'm going to try to stick with it a little longer so it has an actual chance to win me over... or give me a real reason to quit.
The game starts with a bit of a video showing a woman lying asleep in her room while a man runs through the jungle in the rain, but there's absolutely no clues given to what that's about.
It leads to the main menu, which is currently lurking in the trees below her balcony for some reason.
The game came out on every major system of the time just a few weeks apart, but each version features slightly different extras for whatever reason.
The PlayStation 2 version includes an unlockable version of the original Prince of Persia based on the Apple Mac port... which I can't show you because I haven't unlocked it. The GameCube version also features the classic game, but does one better by adding a 'Making Of' documentary. The Xbox version includes even more content as it gives you all of that, plus you can unlock Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame as well!
Oh, the GameCube version also lets you connect the GBA version of Sands of Time and use that as an alternate method to unlock classic Prince of Persia instead. Connecting a GBA also gives you regenerating energy during the main game apparently, for some reason.
And the PC version gives you nothing. No bonus content for PC owners! Well, maybe a bit of bonus awkwardness when you're setting up the controller (I used Steam to map my Xbox One pad to mouse and keys in the end).
You can walk around in 3D here for some reason, but I didn't realise it at first and slammed straight into the first column of bricks. I couldn't figure out why he wouldn't walk past it!
There was actually another classic-style Prince of Persia created for Sands of Time, as there was a free promotional Flash game you could play in a browser. It's a bit harder to play that this days though, with Flash dying at the end of 2020.
Anyway, I decided to start up the actual game I'm playing and the camera zoomed in on the balcony to reveal the guy standing up there, and I can control him! With nothing better to do I stepped inside through the curtains...
"Most people think time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction, but I have seen the face of time and I can tell you they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm. You may wonder who I am and why I say this. Sit down and I will tell you a tale like none that you have ever heard.We see King Shahraman's troops standing in the rain looking at a giant fortress. Inside, a Jafar-from-Aladdin cosplayer stabs a dude then fires a catapult to signal the troops outside, who march up to lay siege and kick ass. The mysterious Jafar cosplayer approaches King Shahraman outside and persuades him not to slice him open by reminding him of the promise he made. He also mentions that the Maharajah's treasure vaults lie within, and Shahraman's son speeds off on his horse to grab some loot... and immediately gets knocked out by falling debris.
Know first that I am the son of Shahraman, a mighty king of Persia. On our way to Azad with a small company of men we passed through India, where the promise of honour and glory tempted my father into a grievous error."
Here, have a comparison of three of the different versions. They're all basically the same thing, there's no difference in the level geometry or gameplay, but there are a few subtle differences.
The Prince pulls himself off the floor in an in-engine cutscene and gives us a bit more narration:
"Do you think I felt regret as I gazed upon the destruction we had wrought? Or at least humility at the speed with which a world can be transformed from a good world into a hell. If you think so you are mistaken, for in that moment I thought of one thing only: the honour and glory I would bring my father by fighting like a warrior in my first battle."I wondered for a moment if I was supposed to be sneaking over there to hit those soldiers while they're preoccupied with bashing that door down, but then it occurred to me that they're probably on my side. I mean if it was their castle they'd have the key. It didn't really matter in the end though as they all got blown up with a lucky catapult shot. Well unlucky really, seeing as our side that's firing the catapults.
Seems that my jump button is a bit context sensitive, as if I press it standing still I jump straight up, if I press it while moving I roll, and if I press it while I'm running up to an edge I leap... at least that's the theory. I've also got a run button, but it doesn't make me run faster, it makes me run on walls. Which is cool. Very handy for getting across longer gaps or up to high ledges.
It's interesting how there's no music so far, just the sound of people fighting on faraway walls.
The original Prince of Persia makes you go find a sword at the start, but thankfully this Prince already has one and he seems to know how to use it. This sword fighting is way better than in the classic game, at least for me, as it seems streamlined to minimise awkwardness. I don't even have to worry about targeting him as the game handles that for me.
Plus I've apparently got a block button, though I don't see myself using it much. Dodge sounds more my thing.
The enemies are pretty good at blocking all my attacks, but if I can get behind them I can land a few hits. This has the added bonus of making it harder for them to get behind me. The combat's a bit basic otherwise at the moment. No combos to memorise here, I'm just tapping the attack button until they die and melt into the ground.
Though mostly what I'm doing right now is shimmying across ledges, which was going great until I pressed 'jump' instead of 'drop' at a part where I needed to drop down to a lower level. Fortunately I didn't have to replay much; the game's not nearly as punishing as the classic platformers.
I stepped through that doorway behind him and the game gave me an option to make a proper save. Which was nice. Then when that was done I carried on through into the Maharajah's treasure vaults.
2 - THE MAHARAJAH'S TREASURE VAULTS
I'm going to need to get to the next room, which means using acrobatics to get around to the exit on my left. I can wall run across smooth walls and leap from them across gaps, so that'll get me to the window above the hourglass at least. Unfortunately I can't repeat the same trick to get to the next platform as the wall isn't smooth, so I have to wall run up to a higher level and wall run across from there. Easy!
The Prince apparently had the biggest move set in any 3D action-adventure at the time, and I can believe it. Prince of Persia's agile rotoscoped protagonist was one of its main selling points and they've continued the tradition here. I'm getting a bit tired of having to press R1 to run all the time though. It's not uncomfortable to press, I just wish I was using R2 instead.
There's a nice ripple effect on the water though and I like how he's dripping wet when he climbs out. Plus the water is how I recover health in this, and he'll just reach down and drink it without giving a damn where it came from or who's been wading through it. At least I can be fairly sure none of it's radioactive, so it's a definite step up from drinking out of a toilet in the Fallout games.
Hey I just noticed this place has pictures lining the wall. I wonder if this is doing a bit of environmental storytelling here.
I guess the important thing is that the hourglass has started glowing now. Or maybe it's all irrelevant. Either way, I'm going to get back to trying to reach this bloody ledge.
SOON
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| PC |
There are a whole lot of ledges in this place as well, and now I have to make my way across them to reach those giant columns over on the left. The fortress's basement hasn't been very well maintained though, which is making things awkward for me as the ledges I need keep crumbling away. This bit isn't really a challenge or a puzzle though, I just have to stop when I run out of ledge and move to the next row.
This is a really big fortress by the way and I'm glad I've got my landscape view button to get a good look at it. Being able to switch to a fixed Resident Evil cam at any time is more helpful than I would've expected and now I wish other games did it. I also like the first person cam, even though I can't move while using it. Plus it's kind of redundant as the third person camera lets me see everything I need to already. I don't know when third person cameras started getting really good, but I've got no complaints here! Well, okay maybe it's a little awkward sometimes, but not much.
Seeing this place so run down has me wondering what when it would've been built and when the game takes place. The series was inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, which takes place between 200 to 650 AD, so it might be set a long long time before even the first Assassin's Creed game. But that's still like 3000 years after the construction of the pyramids, so this place could've been here for millennia. Or maybe they just got it finished last week and the bombardment above has really wrecked the place.
I do know when the game was constructed: 2003, same year as Ubisoft's Beyond Good & Evil, and it's even running on the same engine (the Jade Engine). Despite that, Sands of Time came out first... by 1 day. You might think it's a little strange for the company to release two action-adventures back to back like that... and so do I! I don't know what they were thinking, it seems crazy. But I do know that Sands of Time got most of the marketing focus and BG&E ended up bombing.
I did it, I found the Dagger of Time! It belongs in a museum, so I'll be taking it with me I think.
You can see here that there's still a surprising difference between the versions, with the GameCube version being brighter and the PC version having more model detail and higher resolution textures. I haven't got screenshots for them, but the Xbox and PS3 versions also have better models. In action though they all look basically the same to me.
The Prince notices a button on the dagger and presses it without hesitation, which is good, because if he'd left it a second later he would've been crushed by the falling chunks of ceiling coming down. Instead the dagger rewinds time, giving him a chance to dodge out of the way. Handy dagger, I want one.
It wasn't all that much of an effort to acquire, as it only took around 12 minutes of death-defying Persian ninja acrobatics.
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| Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (GBA) |
I don't usually make my GBA screenshots so big but I want you to fully appreciate that amazingly scruffy outline on the Prince's sprite. I know that pre-rendered 3D was fashionable for GBA sprites, but it's like they didn't bother to do any clean up on it. Beautiful animation though.
It's just occurred to me that I'm on the other side of that window now. I could peek through and see the hourglass room I scribbled all over a few minutes earlier.
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| GameCube |
The game's clever with its dynamic loading, moving between areas seamlessly without making you wait, but the hourglass room's long been cleared from RAM.
Alright there's one last bit of wall running above some classic Prince of Persia spikes and then I'm out of here.
It's revealed that a mysterious woman in red is observing all this from the upper level, but she's captured by one of Shahraman's men and loaded up onto a wagon.
Oh damn, is that Azad over in the distance? It's massive. I bet they don't have to struggle with many sieges up there.
Inside King Shahraman presents the hourglass to the sultan as a gift. The sultan's curious about why the sand glows, so the Jafar cosplayer tells them that inside is a marvel no living man has seen, and suggests that the Prince open it up with his dagger. The Prince agrees without hesitation and his dad doesn't seem inclined to stop him. I have no idea what they expect is going to happen.
The mysterious woman in red seems to know and yells out for him to stop, but she's ignored.
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| Prince of Persia (MS-DOS) |
Fortunately this one doesn't give the player a time limit, though everyone who wasn't immediately killed by the sand spilling out is now an undead monster, so that probably didn't work out like they expected. RIP King Shahraman and the Sultan of Azad.
Now the Prince is trapped in a room full of sand monsters, and I'm the one that has to deal with them.
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| PC |
Oh, there's something else different about the sand monsters: they keep spawning in! I tried running away after a while, enticed by a glowing beam I spotted down by those big windows, but it didn't help. It did put me in a good place to spot that mysterious woman though, still watching me from behind a gate.
It didn't take too long to kill all the enemies and more of the ceiling came down right afterwards, encouraging the woman to make a run for it. So now the Prince is finally free to investigate the energy beam in peace!
I checked the save afterwards and it says I'm 5% through the whole game! It also says "You have unleashed the Sands of Time".
3 - "YOU HAVE UNLEASHED THE SANDS OF TIME"
The Prince indulges in a bit more of his narration, saying:
"You think me mad! I can see it by the look in your eyes. You think my story is impossible. Perhaps I am mad. Who would not be driven mad by horrors such as I have seen? But I assure you, every word is true."While he was talking I continued on and found that the woman was actually still there after all, waiting a little further down the hallway. I ran up to meet her, but she ran away! Then hallway-blocking debris came down from the ceiling and forced me to take an alternative route.
It wasn't long before the Prince caught up to the mysterious woman... but then the ceiling fell down and separated them again! It's enough to make him question if she's even real and if he'd really seen her.
4 - "HAD I REALLY SEEN HER?"
I've also been finding sand clouds (not to be confused with SoundCloud) which can be retrieved by the dagger to refill the sand meter. Each one also brings me closer to upgrading the meter, which is handy. Though it also means I'm going to have to explore every side path from now on in case it leads to a sand cloud or a portal to the health upgrade dimension.
SOON
She's Farah, daughter of the Maharajah they stole the Sands of Time from, and she wants the dagger so she can fix this mess. The Prince points out that's what the traitorous vizier wanted as well, and he's not feeling inclined to trust anyone at this point.
Hang on, that guy was a vizier? Damn, he really is Jafar! Wait, parts of my memory are starting to wake up... wasn't the villain of the first two games a vizier as well. And wasn't he actually called Jaffar?
Anyway, the Prince tells her to go back to the reception hall and wait for him while he deals with the beetles. Turns out they weren't much threat though. Even easier than the sand creatures, as they don't need a finisher to finish them. Just gotta tap that attack button until they're dead.
The Prince mentions in his narration that they were the only two survivors of this disaster, then corrects himself and says that there were three survivors. Well, yeah, the Vizier survived right?
But then I somehow inexplicably fell short and crashed into the distant floor below! The acrobatics are so solid in the game that I rarely ever screw up something straightforward like this. Fortunately death doesn't prevent the Prince from hitting the button on the dagger to rewind time and get a do-over! Though I had to press it again, and hold it this time, because it only rewinds for as long as it's held down.
I've seen a few racing games with a rewind feature before, but this has to be the first action-adventure I've played that does it. Unless it's not. I was actually put off trying the game because I assumed the limited rewinds would make it too difficult, but it's seems to play fair with its checkpoints and there are enemies and sand clouds around to get a refill.
This time though I'm facing new enemies, with these ladies taking off a ton of health in one go if they ever catch me. On the plus side, the text on screen is telling me I've got new combat powers of my own. I can't use them for free though. I've got two dagger meters on the top left, Sand Tanks and Power Tanks, with one fuelling my time powers and the other fuelling my special moves. They're a bit tiny at the moment so I've been retrieving sand to slowly upgrade them.
The fight dragged on for so long that I started to wonder if enemies were just going to keep spawning in until I'd used my powers enough times to satisfy the tutorial. But I think the fights just take ages whatever you do. Annoyingly.
5 - A SECRET PASSAGE
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| GameCube |
I was trapped in the room with no obvious means of progressing, but fortunately I remembered one of those fly-throughs earlier finished by focusing on a cabinet, and pushing it aside revealed a secret passage. Oh damn, now I have to push every cabinet I come across now in case there's health or sand behind them!
A little further along I also found a box I could push onto a switch, so I guess that's going to be a thing from now on as well. Block pushing puzzles - very Soul Reaver.
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| GameCube |
Fortunately the third survivor is here to walk me through the process. I guess the Vizier isn't the third survivor then... though if this guy rips off his disguise to reveal he was the Vizier all along I won't be too shocked.
Right, I'm on a giant circular rotating platform with two levers at the top and four connectors around the outside. There are four detached axles stuck into the grooves along the wall and it's my job to grab them and move them all to where they should be by raising/lowering the platform and spinning it around.
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| GameCube |
My brain doesn't like this at all. It's not immediately obvious what I'm supposed to be doing.
Though I tried grabbing the new moon axel first and the third survivor shouted down that I'd made a mistake, so that simplified things a lot! In fact it basically gave away the whole puzzle.
6 - THE PALACE'S DEFENSE SYSTEM
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| GameCube |
The bad news is that the circular rotating mechanism actually activated the palace's defence system, which right now includes spiky floors and spinning blade pillars. The other bad news is that the third survivor got killed off-screen by enemies spawning in. I never even got to find out how he survived!
The even worse news is that I hit a switch and heard a timer sound. If there was one thing I really didn't miss from Prince of Persia 1 it's timers.
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| GameCube |
Also saw blade traps are a thing now too. Yay.
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| GameCube |
Unfortunately I didn't come here with much health and these enemies won't give me ten seconds to have a drink from the sink.
This particular arena is a tutorial for rebound attacks and rebound jumps, which involve leaping into a wall first, but I can still go into bullet time or freeze an enemies with the dagger. So there are a few more options available to me in combat now. I just have to remember to get my sword back out after having a drink, as it turns out you can't acrobatically evade enemy attacks until you're in sword mode. That lesson left me with even less health.
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| GameCube |
Despite my constant screw ups and my irrational dislike of the block button I actually managed to survive all the waves of enemies and finish the fight! I also reached another save point, but I think that's enough for me now.
CONCLUSION
The weirdest thing about this article is that there are barely any curtains in the screenshots. There are curtains and banners everywhere in this game, all modelled so you can interact with them or just watch them swing in the breeze. If the game is about anything, it's about curtains. And also narration
Curtains, narration, unskippable fly-throughs and collapsing scenery is what this came is all about. Though it'd be fair to say you also do a lot of gymnastics and fighting. Fortunately the game does both of them pretty well for 2003, I can see why people like it so much! I can also see how it was an influence on games like Arkham Asylum, though the combat doesn't quite match up so far. Even with the extra abilities I've acquired it feels more limited to me, and fights have been really dragging on.
I got on better with the gymnastic side of the game, even if I did have to sit through a preview each time. Two of them actually, as there's also the flash-forward at the beginning of the chapter. The Prince has always been one of the most acrobatic heroes in video games and this does not let him down. It helps that there's subtle hints to help you out, like shadows on the wall to tell you when you're lined up with a pillar during a wall run, and (optional) text at the bottom of the screen to remind you of your moves.
The game has the polish and slickness of a top tier video game, though it came out a bit too early for some AAA trends. There are no QTEs here, thankfully. No collectibles or RPG elements as far as I can tell either (though there are upgrades), and it's been incredibly linear so far. More so than the original Prince of Persia, with its maze-like levels. The game's definitely not a straight translation of the classic platformer gameplay into 3D, but it's faithful when it makes sense to be while also telling a brand new story with a new protagonist. I never played Prince of Persia 3D, so I don't know if this is iterating or inventing, but it's a much more successful jump to 3D than the early Castlevania games.
There aren't any difficulty settings though, so if it's too hard or too easy for you, you're stuck with it. Personally I've found it to be far less punishing and frustrating than its predecessors, due in part to its convenient checkpoints and general lack of a timer. Plus it's got that rewind button to take the sting out of messing up a jump. I rarely ever had reason to use it, as I got most of my stupid jumps out of my system before picking up the dagger and I never lost a fight, but rewinds are a fun alternative to quick saves and I was happy to have that safety net. I can imagine some other players were less keen, but hey at least this allowed them to die at all, unlike the later reboot! Except not really, as it's all a story told by the protagonist, Monkey Island 2 style, so any errors on your part are non-canon. A bit like Assassin's Creed now that I think about it.
The narration does a great job of adding some narrative to a game that's mostly about jumping around and hitting things, and helps to make the protagonist more sympathetic. And he really needs it, seeing as he starts off invading someone's fortress, murdering the guards and stealing the treasure, which he then uses to (inadvertently) murder everyone in another palace. Despite the bleakness of the plot and the distorted guitars on the soundtrack, the actual tone is more light and adventurous than gritty. I've seen a bit of the sequel, Warrior Within, and I have no idea what they hell they were thinking with that one, as Sands of Time is way classier in every department.
Which version should you go for though?
The GameCube version is like the PS2 version except slightly slicker, slightly prettier, and with a documentary. Even better you can use the right trigger instead of R1! Same again with the Xbox version. The PC version clearly wins in sound and visuals, but lacks bonus features and struggles with the controls. The PS3 HD version looks like the PC version to me, but it has audio issues and apparently some glitches as well, though I didn't notice any myself. Oh plus it's 3D if you've got a 3D television! Personally I decided to stick with the GameCube version in the end, but I guess the right answer here is 'anything but the PS3 port if you can help it'.
And then there's the GBA game. It's definitely its own game and can't really be compared, even though it's got the same plot. I had to bring it up though as that sprite is so bad. Whenever I think of the GBA's own distinctive style, this game jumps to mind with its fluid pre-rendered sprites and scruffy looking visuals. The gameplay seems like it could be alright though. I don't know I didn't play it much.
There's also the reboot, that was supposed to be released during January 2021... but that got delayed for a year or so, so I don't know anything about it yet.
The GameCube version is like the PS2 version except slightly slicker, slightly prettier, and with a documentary. Even better you can use the right trigger instead of R1! Same again with the Xbox version. The PC version clearly wins in sound and visuals, but lacks bonus features and struggles with the controls. The PS3 HD version looks like the PC version to me, but it has audio issues and apparently some glitches as well, though I didn't notice any myself. Oh plus it's 3D if you've got a 3D television! Personally I decided to stick with the GameCube version in the end, but I guess the right answer here is 'anything but the PS3 port if you can help it'.
And then there's the GBA game. It's definitely its own game and can't really be compared, even though it's got the same plot. I had to bring it up though as that sprite is so bad. Whenever I think of the GBA's own distinctive style, this game jumps to mind with its fluid pre-rendered sprites and scruffy looking visuals. The gameplay seems like it could be alright though. I don't know I didn't play it much.
There's also the reboot, that was supposed to be released during January 2021... but that got delayed for a year or so, so I don't know anything about it yet.
Overall, it turns out that Sands of Time is actually a fairly decent game! I think so at least. I'm not sure I'll ever stick with it long enough to finish it, but this is something I can see myself coming back to.
I want the next game to be Hatoful Boyfriend but it's not.
ReplyDeleteIt also looks a bit like a Prinny, if a Prinny was a pigeon rather than a penguin.
I don't know where I'm going with any of this.
Would it be wrong to lie and say it actually is a Prinny so I can play a Disgaea game instead?
DeleteNope, because it would make me correct!
Delete“I guess playing around with mysterious magical artefacts actually works out pretty well most of the time.”
ReplyDeleteThis is the kind of real world advice I come here for. Fantastic article!