Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (GBA, 2003)

• Linear overarching structure (you basically move from one area to the next until backtracking to level up in the late game - the first area connects to the final area)

• 2 playable chars (have to switch between and maneuver both to a room's exit to proceed in certain parts, Farah doesn't have the prince's movement abilities but can fire a bow at some switches)

• Gain some movement abilities and traversal tools from bosses - double jump, freeze time and slow time rings (including moving obstacles), absorb (and let go of at will) projectiles - used for some minor puzzles and vs enemies, wall jump/rebound;

• Retains the time rewind mechanic of the PS2 game (uses up energy/sand of time and doesn't regenerate on its own here, also used to collect the medal pieces/key pieces here)

• Decent map system (show the basic explored layout, room exits and which room you're in but not your exact location, shows some found points of interest - medal pieces)

• Encourages aggressive play by letting you restore sand/energy through killing enemies/attacking bosses (later used in Hollow Knight) however enemies are infrequent

• Minor puzzles (boxes as platforms and weights, timed door switches - pass through a purple flare to temporarily turn invisible and unlock the door, a few musical puzzles - just simon says though, spatial awareness puzzles at times, time freezing/slowing; some are decent)

• Minor sequence breaking possibilities (can get to the spear guy in S area 1 (copper medal room) with a super jump*+double jump but he's very tough, can take a couple of minor shortcuts later on with the same method)

• The green altar rooms serve as healing points, checkpoints and save points (one slot per game, have to jump over the altar to not save). Collecting progress is not saved after death

• Pretty frequent healing points and checkpoints (red flares heal, green flares are checkpoints (green thunder sword statues also heal you), blue flares restore mp/sand)

• Regular/soulless enemies respawn when exiting the room they're in (other enemies don't respawn) - they don't drop health and no levels are gained from but you gain MP from killing them

• Fall damage and if you fall more than 2 screens or so you die

• Many death pits

Some notable cons:

• Some control/interface issues (bullshit hit detection on the first spear guy mini-boss, can get hit stunned by some enemies - almost no invincibility time, no mini-map, can't place map markers - doesn't mark found ability gates nor locked doors, can look up/down but not far enough leading to some leaps of faith and slower downwards progression in various rooms (in some rooms you can't look down at all which sucks), the scroll lag when turning around is a bit of an issue, etc)

• No fast travel+too much climbing and stop and go-style gameplay making backtracking tedious - if you don't backtrack to level yourself up then the two final bosses are really spongy

• Some other tedious aspects (overly limited rewind feature/not enough MP - if you fell far enough to die then you won't have enough energy to revert time, too much slow climbing in vertical rooms - also can't quickly slide down nor jump straight down from pillars and poles/chains, etc)

• Some bugs

• Some difficulty spikes

• Some trial & error

• Simplistic combat compared to even the classic original

Playthrough - Mini Review

Influenced by: Probably Metroid series and Igavanias, 2D Prince of Persia, possibly Tomb Raider series

Influenced: