Last time I get to see this cover. So long.
Here we are, the final entry in the Sands of Time saga and the last Prince of Persia game released yet. Since Prince of Persia 2008 underperformed, sales-wise, it's back to the previous Prince, but since his story was already told... this game is set before Warrior Within.In this version of Forgotten Sands, the Prince visits his brother Malik, who is under siege. Shenanigans happens, and then an undead army, helmed by an evil fire Djinn, is unleashed. Only the Prince and his brother remain conscious, and aided by a Water Djinn, it's up to the Prince to stop this undead army, before his brother falls under the temptation of the new powers he acquired. Everything that you think will happen will happen, so the plot is very safe, predictable and a bit underwhelming... but it's acceptable on the whole. The Prince is rather charming and will muse to himself pretty frequently, since he has no-one accompanying him. Look, the fact that the Prince's tale was already told, and thus this game was sandwiched inside the trilogy should already tell you that you shouldn't be playing the game for its narrative.
Battles feature large amounts of enemies.
Acrobatics and platforming work pretty much like they always had, wallrunning, wall jumping, vaulting and spinning on bars... it's all here. The only new move is the ability to wallrun upwards when landing on a wall from a jump. Buuut, as you play through the game you'll also earn new powers to use in acrobatics. L2 to freeze water in place, L1 to 'restore' broken debris into the environment and circle to fly onto a nearby enemy. The new abilities are pretty neat and make for some great platforming. That said, the last few obstacles in the game can be a bit nasty and you can confuse yourself with the shoulder buttons, since you also need to use R1 to rewind time, if you mess up, or R2 to wallrun. Needless to say, the last stages are slightly more of a hustle than fun.Combat has been overhauled, and now it's actually more fun than ever before. Square slashes, triangle kicks(In order to break guards) and circle dodges. Enemies are less annoying and no longer need particular moves in order to finally be put down, this time around the challenge comes in the form of the huge waves of enemies you'll face. Still, I enjoyed this approach, battles were rather fun and fast, while also being fairly simple and fair.
Get used to fighting large enemies.
There's an experience gauge now, which is filled by defeating enemies or finding hidden sarcophagi, and every time you level up you get a skill point to spend on powerful elemental spells, used with the directional control pad, passive upgrades, like more health, more damage or more sand stocks, in order to use more spells or rewind time. It's a fun system that remains rewarding all the way to the end of the game.Sadly, the game's biggest detriment comes in the form of bugs. It's not unusual for the Prince to get stuck on thin air, thank god for the rewind ability! It happened more times than I would've liked, and the game even froze on me once. Controls can be weird, using levels can be a bit of a hassle until you understand that you turn them with UP and Down on the analog stick and not by pushing them in the direction you want to move it. Another issue was that sometimes when the camera move around automatically, the Prince wouldn't exactly react to the analogue stick just as you'd expect. It's a bit hard to explain without you experiencing it firsthand..
Rotating levers... the worst!
The Forgotten Sands on the Playstation 3 is easily among the best games in the franchise yet. They finally got the combat right, platforming is as good as its always been and the Prince is as well written as it gets. It does have a few blemishes that keep it from being the classic that Sands of Time was, but this game is no slouch itself.8.5 out of 10
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