Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands™

I went in half-expecting a cash-in riding the coattails of a movie release, and what I found instead was a tightly constructed action-platformer that genuinely earns its place in the Sands of Time lineage. The Forgotten Sands slots chronologically between The Sands of Time and Warrior Within, and it wears that lineage openly: wall-running, pole-swinging, banner-sliding, and the iconic time-rewind are all present, rebuilt on a noticeably more responsive engine that gives every acrobatic chain a satisfying weight. The real mechanical hook is the Powers of the Djinn system. Beyond rewinding time, you unlock elemental abilities including the Power of Flow, which lets you freeze cascading water into climbable columns mid-jump, and combat powers like Ice Blast, Whirlwind, and Stone Armor, each upgradeable multiple times through an experience-point menu. Using those powers costs the same energy pool you rely on for rewinding mistakes, so there is a persistent low-level tension between spending offensively and saving for survival. The late levels, which combine frozen and unfrozen water streams with split-second platforming, are the game at its peak and require the kind of near-perfect timing that makes clearing a room genuinely satisfying. Level design is the clearest strength here: entirely linear, yes, but each stage builds on the last, and the trickier sections feel fussed-over rather than arbitrary. The combat is the obvious weak point, and every contemporary reviewer flagged it for good reason. You will frequently face fifty or more Sand Army enemies on screen at once, but the actual fighting rarely rises above mashing a light attack and occasionally firing an Ice Blast to freeze airborne enemies. The unlockable moves make combat easier rather than deeper, and once you have a couple of upgrades, most encounters become something to get through rather than something to enjoy. The story, set around the Prince visiting his brother Malik whose kingdom is under siege by a Sand Army tied to ancient Djinn lore, is serviceable but thin. The Prince's narration carries a light charm borrowed straight from Sands of Time, and the relationship with the Djinn Razia provides most of the narrative momentum, but nobody is playing this for the writing. For series newcomers, the roughly seven-hour runtime is approachable and the Normal difficulty is forgiving enough that the platforming stays fun rather than punishing. For lapsed fans of the Sands of Time trilogy, this is the closest the series got to revisiting that formula with modern production values before going quiet for over a decade. It is not a reinvention and it knows it, but the platforming is sharp enough that the game's limitations feel like honest trade-offs rather than failures. Go in for the acrobatics, tolerate the combat, and you will likely come out satisfied.

Alex · Scout Team

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