Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands arrives on PS3, PC and X360 as a reinvention of the series, dropping the classic combat of previous entries for a platformer built around time control. The prince gains a sand ability that lets him rewind his own movements, and the game builds its entire design around that single trick. The result is a tight, confident adventure that trades some depth for polish.
Rewind as the Core Mechanic
The sand ability is simple to explain and deep to master. Press the button and the prince rewinds his last few seconds of movement, letting him climb back up a wall he just fell off, dodge a blade he just caught, or reset a run that went wrong. It sounds gimmicky on paper. In practice, it becomes the backbone of nearly every puzzle and fight in the game.
Level design leans heavily on this mechanic. Rooms are built with dead ends, narrow ledges and timed drops that demand a rewind to escape. Enemies throw attacks that can be dodged only by rewinding mid-swing, forcing players to learn timing as carefully as they learn layout. The game rarely explains itself verbally; it shows, through failure, what each room expects.
“Press the button and the prince rewinds his last few seconds of movement.”
That loop — fail, rewind, try again — defines the whole experience. It is the kind of system that rewards patience and punishes haste, and it works far more often than it fails.
Platforming Over Combat
Combat takes a back seat in The Forgotten Sands. Enemies are present, but they exist mainly to fill rooms and force quick reactions. Boss fights are few and far between, and even they rely more on timing and pattern recognition than on sword skill. The prince’s weapon feels dull next to the sand ability, a blunt instrument compared to the precision of rewind.
This shift in focus will frustrate longtime fans of the series. The swordplay that defined earlier Prince of Persia games gets reduced to a secondary skill, used mostly to clear rooms rather than to build tension. Players who came for the duels will find less of them here, and the game does not apologize for that change.
What remains is a platformer of real ambition. The prince moves with grace across wide, open levels, and the rewind system allows for moments of genuine spectacle — running across a crumbling ledge, leaping over a falling pillar, escaping a room that closes behind him. These moments land best when the game trusts players to fail, rewind and try again, rather than holding their hand through every obstacle.
Story and Setting
The narrative follows the prince as he searches for his lost brother, caught up in a conflict between ancient forces. The story is serviceable rather than memorable, leaning on familiar themes of family, duty and destiny without much originality. Voice acting is adequate, and the dialogue carries the plot forward without slowing the pace.
Where the game shines is in its setting. The Forgotten Sands draws on Persian history and legend, with cities, deserts and ancient ruins rendered with a painterly eye. Lighting shifts dramatically across levels, and the game uses color and shadow to create a sense of place that rivals the best platformers of its era. The visual style is consistent throughout, giving the world a distinct identity that sets it apart from other action titles.
| Element | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Sand rewind mechanic | Innovative, precise | Limited scope |
| Platforming | Ambitious, rewarding | Combat feels thin |
| Story | Serviceable, familiar | Little originality |
| Setting | Rich, detailed | Narrative pacing |
The game’s strengths are clear from the first hour. Its weaknesses become apparent once the novelty of rewind wears off. The core loop holds up for longer than it should, but repetition sets in eventually.
Performance Across Platforms
The Forgotten Sands launched on three systems, and performance varies across them. The PC version runs at a smooth frame rate with crisp textures, while the PS3 and X360 versions suffer from occasional slowdown during busy sequences. Load times also vary between platforms, with the PC version generally faster than the consoles.
None of these issues break the game, but they affect the experience. On PC, the game feels polished and responsive. On console, the frame rate dips during busy boss fights and large crowds, which can make timing harder to judge. Players with access to multiple platforms may notice the difference immediately.
The controls remain consistent across all versions, which is a relief given how central the rewind mechanic is to play. A button press that fails on one platform would ruin the whole system, and the game avoids that fate.
Where It Falls Short
The lack of depth in combat is the game’s biggest problem. Sword skills are limited, and enemies rarely offer much challenge beyond pattern recognition. Players who want a deeper fighting system will come away disappointed, since The Forgotten Sands focuses almost entirely on movement and timing.
The game also relies too heavily on its signature mechanic. Some puzzles feel more like tests of patience than tests of skill, forcing players to rewind dozens of times before finding the right path. This can wear down the patience that the rewind system was meant to reward.
“Some puzzles feel more like tests of patience than tests of skill.”
These are not fatal flaws, but they keep The Forgotten Sands from greatness. A more varied combat system and a slightly looser approach to puzzle design could have made the game better in both directions.
Final Word
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands succeeds by committing fully to a single idea and building an entire game around it. The rewind mechanic is clever, the platforming is ambitious, and the setting is rich. It falls short in combat and in some of its puzzles, but those flaws sit alongside strengths that few games in its genre share.
The game is at its best when it trusts players to fail, rewind and try again. Those moments of spectacle, when everything lines up perfectly, are what stick in the memory. They are rare, but they are memorable.
The Forgotten Sands earns an 8.1 out of 10.
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