Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Many people in the UK thought Prince Harry (that’s the younger, ginger one) was terribly brave when he joined the army and went out to fight in Afghanistan.

Far braver than I, that’s for certain. But as swashbuckling princes go, he doesn’t hold a candle to the Prince of Persia.

At the start of his latest game, The Forgotten Sands, the agile prince is fighting his way single handedly through an invading army as it lays siege to his brother’s kingdom. Now that’s bravery (or stupidity).

From the off, we should comment that The Forgotten Sands is remarkably similar to the last mobile Prince of Persia adventure, Prince of Persia Zero. This similarity extends to a nigh-on-identical HUD display (button prompts, damage indicator) and a number of recycled assets.

It’s the same kind of action platformer too, whereby you negotiate a series of impossibly twisty levels thanks to a semi-automated movement system. Run into a wall, for example, and you’ll start scampering up it, while a press of 'up' or '2' at this point will bounce you off at an angle.

It works well, although we’re starting to notice the problem of having a system that often relies on timed diagonal presses when most mobile D-pads don’t handle diagonals too well. As such, you’re always trying to cover the ‘1’ and ‘3’ buttons with your spare hand, which is less than ideal.

There are some changes when it comes to gameplay. Rather the last game’s assistant, Elika, the prince finds himself fighting solo for much of the game.

Fortunately he has some magical time-reversing sands to help him out. From restoring dead climbing vines to life (and their load-bearing strength) to repairing bridges and returning hurled items to the boss that threw them, they’re vital to your progress.

You also get a number of additional powers from a handily placed witch some way into the game, such as the ability to turn yourself into water and slip through grates.

It has to be noted that these abilities serve an almost identical purpose to Elika’s in the last game, in that they’re a telegraphed means to progress through certain barriers in a more interesting way. But most of them are good fun to use, nonetheless.

Ultimately then, while we enjoyed Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, there’s no doubt that the law of diminishing returns is coming into play for the series.

Our familiarity with the formula, while not breeding contempt, has drawn our attention to the slightly unwieldy controls and the annoying number of instant deaths.

But the game still has the capacity to impress, such as when you pinch a giant’s oversized axe and go on a temporary rampage with it, or play tug of war with an enemy over a large buzz-saw with messy results (this Prince of Persia is the bloodiest so far). Or the technically impressive chase scenes that have you fleeing into the screen, away from a menacing Djinn.

We just hope Gameloft mimics the Prince’s swash-buckling bravery and changes the formula a little more for the next release.