Esse jogo tem um cheirinho de nostalgia, que para quem jogou na era ps2 é maravilhoso!

É um bom game. Gráficos padrão da época e uma trilha sonora muito boa, porém tem alguns bugs nesta versão, atraso de áudio em algumas cutscenes, bugs na física, e um sistema de câmera bem estressante em alguns momentos. Mas no geral é um jogo bem divertido e vale a pena pegar em uma promoção.

Nota 8/10

Grosse découverte, plus de 20 ans après sa sortie, pour un jeu très important de l'ère PS2/Xbox/Gamecube,... mais peut-on remonter autant le temps, découvrir la formule de l'époque et apprécier la proposition ?
Après une intro-tuto, le jeu se dévoile vraiment sous nos yeux : la corruption des êtres par des Sables libérés, un Vizir qui n'en a pas fini de trahir tout ce qui respire, et notre Prince qui va devoir se frayer un chemin dans un Palais gigantesque, rempli de monstres à occire, de puzzles à déverouiller, et de portes à ouvrir pour avancer. Majorité du jeu on est secondé par Farah, fille du Maharadjah qui détenait les Sables et la Dague du Temps dans son palais. Elle nous aidera pour des puzzles et également en combats avec son arc...
Côté plateforme, si les environnements sont très carrés (2003 hein), les déplacements du Prince sont fluides, répondent plutôt bien, même si parfois il y a un peu de frustration dans les actions quand on veut sauter d'un mur. Mais les Sables sont là pour qu'on puisse remonter le temps et éviter à nouveau le problème.
Côté combats, on en arrive à du classique mais efficace. Là où depuis dans les jeux (notamment Assassin's Creed, du même créateur (je parle de Patrice Désilets, pas d'Ubisoft)) les ennemis attaquent chacun leur tour, là les monstres n'ont que faire de leurs potes et se lancent dans la bagarre à tout moment, quitte à blesser ou renverser tout le monde. Si bien que cela se révèle parfois un peu brouillon, souvent frustrant, d'enchaîner les moments avec le Prince au sol. Mais rien d'insurmontable pour autant, le jeu est très accessible, et les chorégraphies réalisables rendent le tout dynamique et satisfaisant en tant que joueur.
Et si le jeu reste assez court (8h pour moi), sa proposition est parfaite. Rien à jeter, tout est calibré, un peu comme En Garde ! sorti en 2023 il va à l'essentiel avec ses possibilités de gameplay sans s'éterniser.
Restent des musiques variées (en combat surtout, parce que toute la partie plateforme est quasi silencieuse), un dernier acte assez difficile (mais d'une certaine façon, à voir si le joueur a appris les commandes du jeu), et un combat final un peu décevant et expédié. Il garde aussi quelques séquelles très patriarcales de l'époque, et une partie audio un peu pétée entre les voix des héros tantôt fortes, tantôt non.
Et malgré ses soucis par-ci par-là, l'aventure est toujours au top. Ça bouge bien, le level design est excellent, et le tout est vivant, malgré l'ambiance de MORT qui règne dans chaque salle foulée des pas du Prince. Reste à voir où va le remake en préparation, et qui devait sortir... en janvier 2021.

I believe this game inspired many of the more modern story driven single player games that still release today. An emphasis on realistic combat and platforming, real-time character dialogue and a tight linear focus all date back to this game.

What really sets this game apart from something like Uncharted is its world building and platforming. There is a tangibility to a lot of stuff that would otherwise be purely gamey and it justifies its time bending premise quite well. The save system is something that informs the story and a thing that the characters react to. I love how it shows events in time to simultaneously prepare you for the challenges ahead but also give you a peak into the events of the story. Health upgrades are presented as these weird dreamlike sections of the castle that you experience suspended in time. There is a real mystique and character to the world that sets this game apart from everything I've played. This games pacing is excellent. Even though it's all set in one location and the mechanics are stagnant throughout the whole game, you are presented with interesting platforming challenges that are varied and cinematically satisfying. The games platforming isn't too hard but it's just hard enough to where you feel like the Prince is always at risk of danger when doing his parkour. There will often be platforming sections that feel like big puzzles, having to work out a big sequence of climbing, swinging and jumping until you finally get to the end. These are easily the highlight of the game for me and why I prefer this to the way Uncharted handles its similar gameplay. Uncharted feels more well produced in its controls and presentation, but it doesnt reach the creativity and challenge of this game.

The combat in this is atrocious though. The sword fights feel grounded and cool at times, but to achieve this, they sacrifice it feeling good and things being in your control. It is just a mess of context sensitive actions. You can never quite do the things you want to. When enemies back you into a corner it all falls apart and you just have to hope they don't block your attacks or you accidentally do a useful move that staggers them. On top of this you have to do a death blow when they are grounded which compounds the issues. Enemies are very poorly conveyed as well. I never quite know when I can hit them or not. I just kinda mash until they stop blocking. Unfortunately these combat sequences drag the game down when they happen. I wish it was something more simple or there was just much less of it.

While I praised its pacing and really creative presentation. The story itself is nothing to write home about. I do enjoy the Prince being this selfish chauvinistic protagonist that learns to be better by the end of it, but it feels like it missed a few steps at developing the characters. The game really wants to sell you on The Prince and Farah's relationship but I just never felt it. It can be cute sometimes but a lot of it just felt like Farah was just destined to fall for him because she's the only woman in the story and that rubbed me the wrong way. Like it's alright, and I even enjoyed the ending, but it fell flat for me overall.

Despite this games rather big issues the stuff it does well is just so great. It is a beautiful and well done experience that's often really smart. It has some of the best climbing mechanics I've seen in a game and it just captivated me until the end. It's very easy to see why this is such a classic and why it influenced so many games to come. Its still worth playing today.

I'm amazed that this game isn't revered as one of the most influential of its time. Its movement mechanics were years ahead of everything else on the market, and were an unmistakable inspiration for a lot of modern games, from uncharted to assassin's creed.

Unfortunately the combat system hasn't aged as well, as I found it confusing and button-mashy. Nevertheless, the enjoyable "transversal puzzles" and the incredibly well designed levels, as well as the impeccable atmosphere and art design make this a truly memorable game.

My first encounter with Sands of Time was at my grandparents house, just after they bought themselves a PS2, and this was one of the only games on it (yes, my grandparents are cool like that). It was a little too tricky for ~7-year-old me, so I never got past the first hour or so, but I nevertheless loved leaping and climbing with reckless abandon and would often replay that first hour whenever I visited their place, never tiring of it thanks to how satisfying the movement is.

Having finally seen the rest of it, I have to say that, as a true hallmark of action-adventure platforming, Sands of Time, for the most part, lives up to its sky-high praise with some of the finest wall-running, swinging, and shimmying that the genre has to offer. Some top-shelf level design mixed with a wonderful soundtrack and halfway-decent combat help cement this game as the classic that it is.

At least it would, if not for the unreliable camera and abysmal sound mixing. Thankfully, the camera at least provides an alternative view in the form of a fixed point, usually above the play area, looking down on you from above, but that's not always helpful during the game's numerous platforming segments. Granted, it's not unplayable, of course, but the camera gets in the way of the action much more than it should.

As for the mixing, no matter what tweaks I made to the volume sliders, the characters were always talking at a whisper volume, which, compounded with the lack of subtitles, caused some key lines to be almost indecipherable. While I could always get the gist of the conversation anyhow, the inconsistent volumes of the ambience, action, and dialogue would make Christopher Nolan jealous.

Still, there's certainly room for improvement in the sequel(s), and I have noticed that Warrior Within at least has an option for subtitles, so, thankfully, lessons were learned.

Overall, SoT is a great, well-directed, superbly designed, and scored adventure with tight pacing and fantastic platforming throughout. The story isn't great, and the Prince himself doesn't go through as much of an arc as I would have liked, but the frame narrative and ending scene are strong and lend a unique flavour to the game that sets it apart from its contemporaries.

Technical issues got in the way quite a bit, of course, but the gameplay foundation is immensely solid and satisfying to play from start to finish. For the impact Sands of Time would have on the industry, you can argue that there really is no better blueprint for action-adventure games than it.

8.5/10

In the pantheon of seminal masterpieces that shaped the industry which Weatherby completely slept on (I was too busy playing Sonic Heroes, probably) The Sands of Time has been among the most interesting to finally loop back to. Nowadays, it might be easy to take what it's doing for granted. Clambering up crumbling ruins, dashing across walls, and swinging along busted piping is pretty bog-standard movement tech, but Sands of Time established this type of traversal so well that in terms of responsiveness and feedback, it doesn't feel like the industry has come that far since 2003.

The Prince's movement feels precise and deliberate, and progression is dependent entirely on how you position him and the timing of your inputs. Really, there might be an argument here that games have moved backwards, as titles like Uncharted come with far fewer fail states, and parkour mechanics in games like Assassin's Creed feels more automated. However, those games have more going on, whereas Sands of Time firmly roots itself in exploration and movement, making it a far better translation of the "cinematic platformer" to a 3D space than games like Tomb Raider. Which are bad. Evil, some would say.

Unfortunately, combat is the polar opposite, being a grotesquely clumsy affair. Geometry frequently obstructs the camera, and the Prince will too often fixate on enemies and fight back against your inputs as you try to point him towards a more immediate threat, resulting in this feeling of whiplash as you no longer feel in control. Combat is rarely challenging outside of these annoyances and remains rudimentary throughout the entire adventure, and in addition to just being boring, the game also likes to dump an obscene amount of enemies on you during every encounter. You run into combat encounters more and more as you near the end of the game, and at a certain point they feel less like a pace breaker and more an outright impediment, keeping you from the parts of the game that are actually fun. I'd prefer a more complex system with a greater enemy variety, but in lieu of that, I'd rather nothing at all than what Sands of Time actually provides.

It's such a shame, because the rest of the game is pretty damn good and would otherwise be one of the easiest 4.5/5's I've logged on the site. An endearing masterpiece that has weathered the test of time. But ah, whoops, I gotta jump off this guy's head and slash him in the back- oh wait there's another guy- oh wait there's another guy- oh wait there's- oh wait...

If I keep harping on it, I might sound as bitchy and ill-mannered as the Prince himself, who spends most of the game being a misogynistic pissant. Look, he grows by the end, it's about the journey. Yeah ok sure he forcefully kissed a woman who (at that point in time) did not know him, then rewound time to undo it, but that's because he knew it was wrong! Uhh... I'm not gonna think too hard on that one. I'm not saying you can't have your protagonist be unlikable and learn nothing - hell, I love Popful Mail! - but I did find it a little funny how many times I leaned back and thought "wow he really said that." Dudes need to be in therapy, but they too busy playing with their daggers of time.

I could definitely see myself revisiting The Sands of Time in the future, even despite how much I think combat steps all over the experience. It feels as good to play today as any of its imitators and there's no denying its significance in gaming history.

I first played it on the PC thanks to my cousin and I got hooked pretty quickly.

I had to get the PS2 version and play it for myself; I actually got pretty far but I don't think I ever did beat it.

This game was good and kind of the whole reason Assassin's Creeds games exist in the first place. I want to revisit it someday and actually get to the end.

Prince of Persia era uma das minhas franquias favoritas quando criança/adolescente. Joguei todos eles no PS2 mas na época não conseguia finalizar os games. De toda forma, tinha os 3 games na minha conta da Ubisoft desde que quis montar meu primeiro PC. Esse ano foi o dia de finalmente encarar essa pérola.

Apesar dos mais de 20 anos do lançamento original do game, as mecânicas não envelheceram mal. O combate até pode ser repetitivo e alguns inimigos insuportáveis. Mas temos puzzles interessantes (a todo momento) e uma progressão bem bacana do game.
Acho que quem não for fã da franquia não vai aproveitar tanto quanto quem é, por isso já aviso de antemão que essa crítica tem viés pró Prince of Persia.

Where it Shines:
Music - 10/10
Story - 7/10
Parkour - 8/10

The Good:
This game has an amazing OST. It is a cinematic experience in it's own way too. The story, though simple, is well told. But where it really shines is in it's level design. The puzzles and platforming combined with the rewind mechanic were just a really cool innovation and spawned an entire genre of games like God of War.

The Bad:
The combat is...just bad. It's repetitive, obnoxious, and overstays it's welcome. More time needed to be spent on it.

Summary:
I have a fondness for this game, and really do hope a remake comes out like they promised. I can't say if it's aged well or not, but it still sits in my top games of all time, for now.

****note on my ratings:
half ⭐: hot trash garbage
⭐: below average, needs work
⭐⭐: average
⭐⭐⭐: pretty good
⭐⭐⭐⭐: excellent
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: all time favourite
half star ratings between those mean it's slightly better or worse than stated in this list.
*

It's not just my personal opinion, from a purely objective standpoint The Sands of Time is the undeniable peak of the franchise. What allows it to stand as the crown jewel of the Prince of Persia property, though? Sure, you could cite things such as its cultural impact or the lasting influence it's had on the gaming industry. For me however, it's the way it perfectly captures the feel of a Hollywood blockbuster classic. Something it manages to do even better than the likes of Uncharted, which was/is a series so clearly inspired by this it outright lifted over half of its gameplay mechanics from it! No wonder Disney tried to make this their next Pirates of the Caribbean.

This tale has it all: action, adventure, romance, and even a little bit of horror (those sand creatures really freaked me out as a kid). Yet it's the strong element of fantasy magic and the bond between its two leads that elevate it to something truly special. The interactions and budding relationship between the incredibly sweet Farah and the strangely lovable snot of a prince (that personality shift in WW feels less unnatural after replaying this) are the heart and soul of the adventure, even more so than the thrills and exciting set pieces. It's a dynamic that Ubisoft tried to recapture with the 2008 reboot, but couldn't quite manage the same charm. So sorry Mario and Peach, but another pairing has my vote for the best video game couple.

Making it all playable is the most iconic and phenomenal parkour platforming system in the entire medium that seemingly everyone, not just Naughty Dog, has borrowed from since its inception. Oh boy, and let me tell you not a single second of it is any less exhilarating today than when the game first released. The combat is really the only area outside of naturally the graphics and sound design (which are both still pretty dang good) that shows any age. Mostly due to the limited enemy variety and lack of any true combos. Luckily, the intensity of the majority of battles hasn't faded much. Enemies just keep coming like the zombies they technically are. Their numbers never reach the amount of, say, The Forgotten Sands onscreen at one time, but the relentless waves in which they come paired with the need to absorb them into your secondary dagger so they don't resurrect can lead to a decent challenge when the different types start mixing together at once. I love the animation that plays of the Prince sheathing his blades to let you know when the fighting is over.

Of course, no SoT review would be complete without at least some mention of its OTHER most defining aspect alongside the wall-running and jumping - the ability to control time. Being able to quickly reverse a deadly mistake if you have enough sand stored in your dagger? Legendary. No PoP installment can go without it since, and believe me they tried. Another quality that combined with everything else I've written about comes together to create an experience that's about as perfect as a game can be. If you've somehow never played this before, then you truly should because you've been missing out on nothing short of a significant piece of gaming history, a timeless classic, and an absolute masterpiece. Everybody else? Replay it again. This triumph and you both deserve it.

10/10

O pai de Assassin's Creed!
Subestimado, mas muito a frente do seu tempo!
Um clássico com mecânica memorável, ótimo sistema de combate, direção de arte caprichada e história bem desenvolvida.
Contudo o jogo repete o padrão "parkour, puzzle, horda de inimigos" inúmeras vezes até o fim ainda que varie na forma como o faz, mas que acaba tirando um pouco do seu brilho e só por isso não leva 10.

Jogaço e um dos melhores de PS2, e olha que a concorrência nesse console é gigante.