Pros: Stunning visuals, great gameplay, powerful story.
Cons: A little short, a fraction linear.
The bottom line: This is how conversions of old games should be. Absolutely awesome.
Although it was playing them the wrong way round, so taken was I with this game's sequel (Warrior Within) that I felt I had to root out a copy of The Sands of Time, to keep alive the Prince's adventures. I had feared that playing the more recent game first may expose the weaknesses of the first effort more than they deserve to be, but as it was, I was wholly impressed.

The Sands of Time
It quickly becomes apparent that this is a fairly faithful interpretation of the original game, with a number of additions and innovations to make it stand out. The story begins in a kingdom somewhere near Persia, where the King and his army (including the Prince) are ransacking a Maharajah's palace, aided by a traitorous Vizier. Amongst the loot stolen from the treasure vaults, and taken to a neighbouring kingdom, are a great Hourglass filled with glowing sand and a gleaming dagger. Despite the cries of protest from the Maharajah's daughter, also taken in the raid, the Vizier tricks the Prince into unlocking the contents of the Hourglass with the dagger ~ the Sands of Time are unleashed, and bear a terrible curse; all those in the palace are turned into vile abominations of themselves and possessed by the evil within.

The only ones unaffected are the Prince, who holds the dagger, the Vizier, who desires the powers of the Sands to attain immortality and the Maharajah's daughter, a young woman named Farah (who is apparently protected by her bow...). The Prince and Farah flee from the chamber, pursued by the Sand Monsters. Forced to form something of an initially uneasy alliance, the pair see the Hourglass being taken away to the monolithic Tower of Dawn; Farah tells the Prince, who still holds the dagger, that they must re-unite the two artefacts to undo the damage that has been done.

Three Innovations
With this background established, it is up to the Prince and Farah to make their way to the Tower of Dawn if they are to thwart the Vizier and restore the sands to their prison. Three major innovations are quickly apparent as the game unfolds ~ firstly, the power of the dagger: with the weapon in his hands, the Prince is effectively the master of time. He can stop it, slow it, speed it up or rewind it (within limits) in the course of his journey, to varying effects. Most common, perhaps, is the rewind function; much of the game is based around making daring jumps and acrobatic manoeuvres, swinging on lofty poles or negotiating deadly traps - it's pretty inevitable you're going to make a mistake at some point. However, instead of having to start the "level" (although the game is rather one long affair interspersed by save-points) over again, the player can simply rewind time back to just before making the mistake and attempt it again. This saves great amounts of stress, and makes the game all the more playable and enjoyable.

The dagger also has a second function ~ as the vast majority of enemies in the game have been afflicted by the sands, they are no longer mortal humans, but sand monsters. As such, the Prince's sword can bring down his opponents, but not destroy them. Here the dagger comes in. When a monster is knocked to the ground with a series of blows from the sword, the Prince has a few seconds to stab it with the dagger and "suck up" the sand which now pumps through their veins, killing them for good. If he doesn't finish them like this, they will shortly re-generate and rise anew, having to be taken down again. Although these sounds annoying (and indeed, is at first), it soon becomes an automatic part of every fight - thankfully the Prince is such an adept acrobat that he moves liquidly around the battlefield, stopping combat becoming overly monotonous.

Thirdly, we have Farah ~ the Prince's luscious sidekick is not just an onlooker, she is very much involved in the game. She will often make use of her lithe, slight frame to slip through the smallest openings, where the Prince cannot pass, able to operate switches and levers to open the way for our hero. Unfortunately, her modest build is something of a problem in battle; although she uses her bow to great effect, striking down enemies for the Prince to finish off, Farah can become very vunerable if the monsters turn their attention on her, and it is up to the Prince to rush to her help. This adds a dual responsibility in combat - on one hand, duffing up the enemies, on the other, protecting Farah. In one of the climactic battles, the pair are in a confined space with a load of monsters, and the task is not so much to avoid dying yourself - by then, the Prince is pretty hardy - but to stop Farah doing so at the Sand Creatures' hands.

Vistas, Gameplay and Miscellany
So, what of the game itself, then? As mentioned earlier, this is a faithful update of many aspects of the original, especially in terms of the graphics. The Sands of Time takes on some of the themes touched on and hinted at a decade or so back and transforms them into a glorious three-dimensional world. The palace and its surroundings are truly astounding ~ every location brilliantly rendered with colour, imagination and detail, and all of it fully open to interaction.

What with the acrobatic abilities of the Prince, all areas are open to exploration (although the game keeps play to an essentially linear path). Our man can run up walls, grab onto ledges, swing off flagpoles and shin up supporting columns. Never does the pathway look overly contrived, either - all the surfaces used to get from A to B are quite believable as part of a palace, adding to the sense of realism. The variety of locations is also excellent; from palace interior to lush garden courtyards, great birds' cages full of trees to underground waterfalls and reservoirs, all with defining features to deal with (such as jumping from stalagtite to crumbling stalagtite in the misty caverns).

The animation is similarly fantastic - the Prince moves with such realism and variety, and is so matched to the versatile controls that the player really feels in control od him at all times. The way he somersaults over enemies, kicks, slashes and rebounds off walls in combat is a joy to behold.

There is a nice balance in terms of gameplay, in the whole ~ moving from combat to acrobatics to puzzles in turn. There are some particularly clever puzzles in the game, such as a couple of light-and-mirror posers (strongly reminiscent of Ocarina of Time) and a problem involving a great set of axles and gears needed to operate a vast machine.

The perspective of the game is also worth noting: although when playing the Prince talks as if he is "in the moment", talking with Farah regularly about their predicament, the voice-overs and narrative is spoken as if he is recounting his tale from after the event. This is a style familiar from the official guides to The Shadow and The Flame, the second POP game.

Weaknesses and Flaws
As mentioned earlier, there are few flaws in this game that were shown up by playing it after its sequel, but I felt they did exist. Firstly, the combat: although the fights themselves are a lot of fun, the variety of enemies and encounters is less of a positive. There are only about five or six different kinds of sand monster in the game, all of them transformed soldiers, and they all fight in pretty similar ways, only really differing in whether you can vault over them or not. Add to that the birds and the bats, and that's not a lot of variety. Also, the fights are all the same; wander into a room, have long battle against a lot of enemies, succeed, repeat. Never do you run into one on their own down a corridor, making a trap more difficult or lurking on a ledge. This was one aspect noticeably improved in Warrior Within.

There is also something of a paucity of bosses in the game. You'll fight one quite early, then nothing until the end boss, the Vizier. This contributes to the feeling of linear gameplay a fraction ~ going from one room to the next, interspersed by battles and puzzles, without any sort of breaking up. Although the changes of scenery help combat this negative, a bit of back-tracking, side-quests and free exploring (as in the Zelda games) could have helped a bit.

Finally, one of the latter challenges (in the Observatory) features a troublesome glitch which can bring a penultimate end to the game, but regular and multiple saving can negate this.

Astounding Achievements
Despite the aforementioned negatives, this is an awesome game; the graphics are stunning, like none I have seen in any other game save the sequel; the gameplay within this environment is exquisite; and the story and its characters is gripping enough to make you keep pressing on through the challenges. The interaction between the Prince and Farah is a particular highlight, often very amusing, and really makes you care about the characters.

The game could do with being a bit longer - I whipped through it in a week or so's fairly relaxed playing. However, without substantial changes to the linear nature, this may have made the game too monotonous, compromising the qualities of this effort. Small, but perfectly formed, perhaps. This game and its sequel enthralled and delighted (not to mention challenged and frustrated) me to such an extent that I would rank them only just behind the N64 Zelda games - and given that I regard them as the pinnacle of gaming, that's no small compliment.


So, to conclude:

Graphics - 18/20
Sound - 17/20
Controls - 19/20
Replay-factor - 9/20
Story - 16/20

Total - 79/100