The
Game Boy Advance version of this game is,
for obvious reasons, quite a bit different than the
PC and
console versions.
On the surface, it seems like just another
2D platformer - hell, the
sprite of your character even looks very much like the one of
Aladdin in the eponymous
Sega Genesis game. Nonetheless,
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a quite engaging game - probably among
the best of its
genre. In fact, were it not for a few irritating
bugs and gameplay quirks, I'd say that this game is about as perfect as
a platformer can get.
Let's start with the good, though. The
graphics are superb for a
handheld; the detail in both the backgrounds and the sprites is
incredible considering the relatively low resolution of the GBA. The background music is not only beautiful, but wonderfully
atmospheric; I
don't know how culturally accurate it is (probably not at all), but it certainly conjures up images of
Persia.
The gameplay and controls, too, are excellent (with a couple exceptions that I'll get into later). While you have only one type of attack,
there are a variety of moves and abilities you gain as the game progresses: Wall-walking, projectile absorption, double-jumping, and many
others. You can use the Dagger of Time to stop you from falling to your
doom or to an opposing blade (though this ability is far from
unlimited), slow down traps and enemies, or stop time itself. There are also some minor
RPG elements to the game; killing and draining the
sand out of enemy "Sand Persians" (People who've been transformed by the Sands of Time) gives you experience which allows you to "
level
up", each time increasing your maximum health, attack damage, and resistance to damage. The best part of the gameplay, however, is the
variety and difficulty of the enemies you face. This isn't your standard platformer where you just run through slashing or shooting as quick
as you can; all the enemies in
Prince of Persia (with the exception of a couple one-hit kill types) require a certain measure of
tactics
- you have to figure out what weaknesses the various enemies have, and how you can use them to your advantage - not always an easy
task.
Perhaps most importantly, the game is rather long without being exceptionally repetitive - I believe I spent at least 40 hours total (though
it would have been less if I had gotten through more of the areas on the first try), and while I sometimes stopped out of frustration with a
room or boss, I never quit out of boredom. Not bad for thirty bucks.
Additionally, if you have a
GameCube and its version of this game, you can link the two together for extra content. Extra
levels appear in the GBA version when three switches have been hit in the GameCube version; if you hit the special switches in the former,
you unlock a copy of the original
Prince of Persia game on the GameCube. The simple act of linking the two games gives players in each
"automatic health regeneration" (or as I like to call it, a "
mutant healing factor").
So what's bad in this game? Mostly little things. There are quite a few bugs in the game, and this being a GBA
Game Pak and not a PC or
console game, there's no way to
patch them. For the most part they're harmless animation glitches and sound problems (sometimes a
sound
effect that's supposed to occur only once will continue until you leave the room, and there are times when the music will simply go away
for no reason), but there's at least one which can cause some gameplay problems: when dropping down from a sheer cliff, if there's empty
space on the other side of the wall, you will sometimes begin to "ooze" through the wall upon hitting the ground, ending up in a completely
different part of the room. (The first time this happened to me, I was rewarded with a face full of whip.)
There are a couple other factors which, while not so bad as to make the game unenjoyable, can be somewhat irritating. Perhaps the biggest of
these is the extremely inaccurate health meter: At times you can have as little as a tenth of your maximum possible hit points (which are
shown in numerical form in the Pause menu), and yet the health meter will show you as having a full half of your hit points. There's also the
invisibility sand (or whatever it's supposed to be) which has to be used in order to get through certain areas; not only does it make you
invisible to the traps, but the actual character is all-but-invisible to the player! (Whether or not you can see
the Prince when he's
"invisible" seems to depend solely on the background colors of the room - in darker rooms, it's pretty much impossible to see what you're
doing.) Disappointingly, there's really no way to block or defend yourself from attacks (except from projectiles), and Farah's presence is
very minimal (she seems to exist at all only to make it easier for you to get killed).
However, these deficiencies are pretty easy to overlook; they may not even bother many people. So with that said, I highly recommend this
game to all GBA owners; it's well worth the money.