Instead of a reboot or a sequel to the 2008 game, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is a continuation of the Sands of Time trilogy. It takes place between the first two games and while there are some references to the first game (such as name dropping Farah), nothing much else is done to connect them. Thus, it is not essential to have played the previous games at all. The platforming is more of the style of the Trilogy rather than the 2008 game, such as sliding down cloth banners and dodging mechanical traps. Aligning the Prince during platforming is crucial since he is likely to just miss and jump to his death. Like the previous games, you can rewind time a certain number of times, which also includes during combat if you sustained heavy damage and wanted to undo it.
Platforming is the focus of the game, which suits it just fine as it is a lot of fun. It involves dodging obstacles such as spinning saws and spikes, timing your jumps to get to a point within the time limit, and the various acrobatic leaps and swings that the Prince can perform. It is satisfying once you get used to how to handle the Prince. However, when you first start the game, you will feel that the platforming isn't as tight as the games from the trilogy but you will soon get used to it. Perhaps the biggest changes are to the controls such as using the R2 trigger to wall run and climb, which feels terrible since the triggers naturally mean slower presses. Just like everything else, you will get used to it in no time and will easily swing your way to the objective. As you progress through the game, you'll gain more powers such as freezing water (allowing the to be climbed) and restoring old structures.
Puzzle solving involves a lot of gears and levers. They are not too hard and you can always restart the checkpoint to start anew if you get too far stuck. As they don't present much of a challenge, they don't break the pacing of the game either. The other focus of Prince of Persia is of course the combat. It returns to fighting against multiple enemies at once and due to the stronger hardware, there are a lot more enemies onscreen. In the original trilogy, you would get a maximum of five enemies onscreen, here, The Forgotten Sands frequently has more than 20 enemies surrounding the Prince. The combat is much improved and most importantly, it is enjoyable. You make combos using the square button but you can shove/kick enemies using the triangle button and jump on them using the X button. It is more fluid and less finicky, although the earlier sections of the game degenerate into button mashing until you understand the more nuanced features.
Over the course of the game, you'll gain four elemental powers which are like super moves. These moves include becoming invincible for a short amount of time, throwing ice spikes, burn enemies and perform a shockwave. Therefore, the game gets onto the easier side on Normal difficulty and even more so in the final parts of the game where you get an ultimate sword that can take down enemies in a few hits. There is an experience system where the Prince will gain experience from defeating enemies. He can use the experience points to upgrade skill trees such as increasing your health, the amount of changes you have to rewind time and powering up his moves. It is not all perfect though since just like platforming, you have to get used to the remapped controls, especially if you are just coming off the original trilogy of games.
Dodge rolling is now mapped to circle instead of X, while X causes you to jump, you're likely to miss jumping onto the enemy you wanted and to your death instead. The graphics are solid but there are various areas where it looks dull and drab. As there is no female sidekick, or any sort of partner, you don't get the amusing quips anymore. The story follows the Prince as he is visiting his brother Malik but find that they are in the middle of war. Malik lets loose a mythical army from the past that ends up overrunning the city. Therefore, both of them must work together to seal the army away again. You'll get to meet the newcomer Razia (the female lead in this game). The ending was predictable but still great nonetheless, helped by the epic music. Of note is that the last piece of platforming before the final boss was a nice challenge, without getting too difficult. It may get your fingers mixed up but it doesn't feel unfair.
The Forgotten Sands is a short-ish game, about on par with The Sands of Time, at roughly 8-10 hours long. There is a Challenge Mode which is fighting against waves of enemies, and that's about it (you can unlock one more arena, being a time trial, but that requires UPlay which is highly likely to freeze your PS3). Basically, this means that the game has no padding and the pacing is perfect, even if the story is on the simpler side. Overall, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is a really fun and enjoyable game. The platforming takes a little bit of getting used to since it doesn't feel as tight as previous games but once you get the hang of it, it is amazingly addictive and well worth a play. Unlike other Ubisoft games, there is no pointlessly huge open world with meaningless collectables, the game is tightly paced and focused.
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