Replaying My Top 5: Sands of Time
If it was evident by my rambles than excellent, if it wasn’t…let’s begin with a post from a long time ago.
After Rereading some great books I want to replay my top five video games. I love puzzle based, third person adventure games. So I when The Prince of Persia: The Sand of Time came out for gamecube I was excited to get my hands on it. I played that game many many times. It was so good, and I remember how excited I was for the sequels just because of the extreme strength of the original.
So when I went back to play it, I got a copy of the Sand of Time Trilogy in 3D for PS3. Don’t worry I didn’t play it in 3D. But playing it on PS was a bit different. I got the hang of things very quickly and flew through the game. I beat it in less than six hours. I still remembered most of the puzzles so I flew through and had no problem getting through any area, and rarely even using my rewind feature.
The graphics are no where near as good as today’s, but oh well it’s nearly eight years old. The gameplay is still very solid. Where this game shines is in he climbing and quick jumping segments. When you pull off a fluid wall run jump to a pole and swing off onto a ledge it not only feels easy but it looks awesome. Every now and again there is a small hiccup, but with the reverse time feature you can continue to play and not have to reload the entire level. The reverse time feature makes this game so much better and makes the platforming more intuitive and, frankly, and pure joy to play. The traps are fun to avoid and when you get flawlessly through a section you get pumped for the next segment.
The game adds to this by adding the save points the double as a “advanced vision” point as well. You get a quick montage of the next area and what you are going to have to do. This actually adds a little excitement, and is a good way to keep you from getting stuck looking around for what to do for too long.
Where the game really lacks is in the fighting. It feels like it was thrown in just to mix up the platforming. It feels forced and just lame. Enemies regularly just stand around and stare at you as you beat them up one at a time. In fact it’s so bad that it make the final boss fight weak and lame. But this game really isn’t about it, and is fun with out it. But if you are going to put it in, you might want to make it worth it.
Music is great as it mixes rock and middle eastern music to give you a good fighting soundtrack. The sound effects are very good and the dripping in the baths to the echo in the caves are all perfect.
The thing that really shoots this game to head and shoulders above is the characters and story. The dialogue is funny and smart and not insulting. The Prince and Fera are a great foil to each other a the dialogue reflects that. It isn’t forced romance or cheesy lines. It feels natural and warm. All games need to look at this game as a perfect example at how to write a video game script.
In closing I will say this. This game was still fun, but because I know it so well it loses a bit. That doesn’t take away to how great this game still is, but my enjoyment wasn’t there where I thought it would be. Still, a marvelous game.
My grade: A-
