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The second best 3D Prince of Persia title to date.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands marks Ubisoft's newest attempt at a new PoP game since the lukewarm revamp of the series on HD consoles back in 2008, and while the game is being released to coincide with the Sands of Time film adaptation that will hit theaters soon, this tale still stands as a new, single entry into the tale of the fabled prince, and actually comes across as a far better game than its most recent predecessor. I won't go so far as to say that I enjoy it more than the original Sands of Time, but if this had been released in 2008 instead of the PoP game that we got, I think a lot more people would still be interested in what this franchise has to offer.

It also helps that this game has direct ties to the original trilogy of titles, but also comes before the less than stellar sequels of Warrior Within and Two Thrones. This takes place between Sands of Time and Warrior Within, and while the game is barely referenced here, the prince character model bears a strong resemblance to the one gamers are already familiar with, and the same voice actor makes a return here, helping the overall sense of familiarity that this game exhibits. The game also pretty much goes back to its roots, focusing on the free form running, jumping and platforming that made Sands of Time such a hit, and not focusing on a bunch of goofy gimmicks and combat mechanics that have felt pretty unnecessary over the years. It feels like a very pure PoP experience from the start, and while the game does have some hiccups and glitches along the way, it's a lot of fun to play.

Within the game world, the spirit essence you absorb acts like experience points, and at each threshold the Prince can level up a skill, whether that's any of the four magical abilities you gain over time, your overall health, or your time reversal meter. There's a lot of stuff to upgrade, and chances are a single playthrough will not yield enough experience to unlock all of it. When you first meet the Djinn, she'll grant you your ability to rewind time once again, allowing you to escape death provided you have the power available to do so, represented by orbs underneath your health bar on the HUD. If you run out of this power and fall to your death or run out of health, then you'll be reset to the previous check point. The check points in Forgotten Sands are pretty forgiving though, so while I did suffer a handful of deaths of over the course of the game, I never grew frustrated with it or how far back it would put me. Overall, the entire pace and flow of the game is excellent, making it hard to put down or get too frustrated with.

As the game advances, the Prince gains other abilities, most notably the ability to freeze water and use it as a surface to run across or swing on, and even later an ability to replace entire sections of walls or other structures that have long been lost to time. This provides some tricky platform sequences and quick button presses on the players part, particularly in the last couple stages that are both exhilarating to check out and just really well designed in general.

The other issue I have with the game is that it does seems to have a number of bugs, some as significant as not being able to accurately trigger powers when you need to. I ran into a couple instances late game that required a re-load of a save file to get past, where the game refused to translate my button press into the power that reactivated old sections of a wall or pole that were missing to time. I also had some input issues when it came to wall running, where the Prince would run up a wall instead of across it, and these sequences were certainly annoying when I encountered them. A little more QA would have went a long way here, and it's a shame that the game can't maintain a level of a quality throughout. Still, the generous checkpoints offset some of the frustration here, and while did get plenty mad when something didn't work as intended, I was never off put from going back and trying again.

Overall, despite some flaws, this is a far better Prince of Persia title than we've seen in years. I'm not sure that I would place it on a level with Sands of Time, but it's easily the second best 3D Prince of Persia title to date. It's a little on the short side though, and while there are two challenges available to play after the game is finished, they're also really short and pretty easy to finish. There's not much in the way of post game unlockables other than an optional Ezio costume to play through the game as, so whether or not the game has replay value is going to be up to how well you enjoyed your initial run. Besides that though, it's absolutely worth checking out, at least as a rental or a sale priced purchase.