Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands – Limied Edition (Xbox 360)

It was just going to be a social visit. The Prince of Persia just wanted to say “hi” to his older brother, Prince Malik who is the current ruler of the kingdom. Upon his arrival however he learns that he’s not the only visitor: the whole Osman’s army is at the castle’s doorsteps and Malik’s army can’t hold the fort much longer. The Prince manages to find his way into the castle and meet up with Malik in the treasury. But it’s already too late. The Osmans have broken through and the end seems near. In his desperation Malik turns to the sealed portal in the treasury and speaks the magic words. Bad idea. The portal was sealed for a reason, keeping a force imprisoned that is no match for any army in the world. Rumoured to have been the knights of King Salomon himself they walk upon the earth once more, storm the castle and attack friends and foes alike. Upon his escape, the Prince wanders into the realm of Razia, Queen of the Djinn. She remembers the creation of the Sand Army and knows how to keep it at bay. So the Prince joins forces with her and tries to find a way to defeat the army and keep the Kingdom from being swallowed by the sand.

With Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands the series returns in graphical style – being more down to earth again -, story and gameplay to the one known from the Sands of Time-Trilogy after its brief departure with the cel-shaded-adventure Prince of Persia. As such the story takes place between the events in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within filling in some of the blanks while the player looks the Prince over the shoulder and maneuvers him through the levels. Gameplay-wise this means that the player again fights multiple enemies at once and also again jumps, climbs and rolls around in big and vast rooms to get to the other side. To be able to do so, the Prince still knows how to walk on walls, swing on rails or rip through flags to safely get back to ground level. If something goes wrong, the player can only use the Power of Time to rewind a bit and try it again as long as he has enough sand left which in turn is dropped by killed enemies and by destroying scenery objects meaning mostly vases.

To deal with the hordes and hordes of different enemies – most of them undead -, the player has access to several different kinds of more or less dangerous attacks which he can string together into powerful combos. This includes kicking and jumping around as well as a death attack which instantly kills enemies fallen to the ground. In addition, the player will gain access to special powers. As he collects the essence from fallen enemies he earns experience points for doing so, levels up and gets upgrade points which in turn are invested into a skill tree to unlock new or upgrade existing powers. Besides the power to rewind time, the Prince is able to freeze water, rebuild destroyed parts of the city or engulf himself in an armor of stone. Each of these powers is active until the energy-bar of the Prince drops to zero. Again killing enemies is they key to replenish it.