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Rewinding to 2003 – Is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Still a Masterpiece?

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It’s funny how things line up sometimes. Last week I wrote a review of The Amulet of Samarkand which came out in 2003, and this week I have a review of the game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time which also came out in 2003.

It would not be much of a leap to assume I’m perhaps feeling nostalgic for that period in my life, or that 2003 was something of a pivotal year for me in terms of media consumption.

The truth is much more coincidental. I walked into a GameStop just after Christmas hoping to buy a copy of Clair Obscur Expedition 33, and because of a combination of deals on used games, walked out of GameStop with a copy the most recent edition of the PoP franchise, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.

I correctly remembered that I still had my old PS2 copy of Sands of Time and thought (also correctly) that it might be fun to give it a playthrough before starting the new game.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a game that looms large in my mind for having a few notable “firsts” for me when it comes to video games. Its approach to “lives”, and being able to “reverse time” and undo a fatal mistake was unique, and even as a (13-year-old) kid I remember thinking the narration and voiceover when the player actually DID manage to die — “That’s not what happened.” or “Wait, that isn’t right.” — was clever and really lent itself to a kind of 1,001 Nights or Scheherazade style of storytelling (although at 13 I may not been able to pinpoint those references).

Also, there was the wall running. Ok, mostly it was the WALL RUNNING!

Many games that have come out since have employed this mechanic, but I think Sands of Time was my first exposure, and the one I will always think of whenever I see it used.

Strangely enough, despite the feeling that this was a “huge” game for me as a kid, I apparently did not play very far into it. Like most games from that era, Sands of Time is only about ten hours long, and my furthest save was only 28% (about three hours) through the game. Like really?

A bit under a quarter-century later, I’ve finally managed a complete playthrough and a few things stood out to me. First off, one of the enemies you fight are Scarab Beetles. I’ve written on this blog before about how The Mummy (1999) kind of put scarab beetles on the map in a lot of ways, transforming them from relatively harmless insects and religious symbols, to vicious monsters which can turn a man into a skeleton in seconds.

As I encountered these enemies within The Sands of Time, I kind of just assumed that they might be the result of perhaps some lazy writing (Sands of Time does not have a particularly impressive plot), and that the developers were perhaps conflating some tropes related to Ancient Egypt with the Islamic Middle Ages simply because of . . . sand?

A little “research” (ahem the first result on google) showed me that there is actually a corpus of Classical Phoenician Scarabs that were being traded in the Achaemenid Persian empire from the sixth century to the fourth century BC. From what I can tell, the styles ran the gamut of Egyptianized, Hellenized, Levantine, and Miscellaneous and were mainly used as seals (I guess for documents?). So ostensibly, our unnamed narrator COULD have come across some ancient scarabs within the crypts underneath the palace, but they probably would not hop up and attack him as we see in the game.

The game also has the player partake in a few light beam puzzles so I don’t think we can fully discount The Mummy‘s influence, but it’s cool to think that perhaps this slightly strange element of the game could tie into some actual history.

When this game originally came out, I remember a lot of talk about the franchise ‘going 3D’ — although again Google tells me there was a 1999 version of PoP that was already 3D but I guess nobody played it? — and the awe with which it was held as a platformer. Aside from the wall running, most of the elements of this game seem pretty standard: spiky poles, spiky pits, pushing boxes onto pressure plates, the aforementioned light beam puzzles and pulling levers to open gates (which will close on you if you don’t haul ass through all the previously mentioned traps).

At first glance, the combat system feels like it should be pretty fun, with lots of flips and acrobatics worked into otherwise simple stabbing, however, the targeting system leaves a lot to be desired, and I died many times thinking I was about to attack one baddie when really I was attacking a different one (don’t even get me started on the camera angles).

The vision/saving mechanism also felt really fun at first, but quickly became tiresome, as the visions themselves seemed to feel as if they should be imparting some story elements, but really were just hints for the puzzles (and not always all that helpful).

The last thing that stood out to me this playthrough was how dated our prince feels (and honestly how misogynistic). Throughout the game, you team up with — and occasionally chase after — the sultan’s daughter Farah. The game means for you to believe that they are ‘gradually falling in love’, but mostly this means that the prince wines like an adolescent boy whenever she doesn’t do as he says, and he tries to ‘flirt’ with her by commenting on her weight.

Yikes.

Pair this with Farah’s scant outfit, and some other scantily clad female enemies (labeled Sand Courtesans), and it starts to feel like perhaps this game is better forgotten by the sands of time, than remembered by them. At first I though perhaps it was just an attempt to fit a mold left by the original God of War, but Sands of Time came out first.

Give Prince of Persia: Sands of Time a Playthrough?

Difficult to say.

Despite A LOT of critiques, I still had enough fun playing to work through the full ten hours (more than I can say about my 13-year-old self) and get to the end. Also, Sands of Time seems to be something of a cultural artifact. Reading the PoP: Sands of Time wikipedia page I’ve learned that the game appears on several lists of “greatest games of all time”, and is the spiritual ancestor of the Assassin’s Creed games (which I love). It’s the basis of a major motion picture (by the same title), and is generally cited as the reason the series returned to prominence in the gaming world.

However, given all the series reboots, and different continuities, I probably could have just played the newest one without having returned to Sands of Time.

That’s all I have for this one. Has anyone played this one recently? Or remember it from when you were a kid? I’ve heard a re-master is set for release in 2026, should anything be changed? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Looking forward to talking about this one!

Until next time!

Celebrating 20 Years of God of War!

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God of war turns twenty today. Two decades have passed since we first took up the iconic chain blades and began murdering gods left and right.

As one of my favorite videogame series of all time, I’ve referenced God of War on this blog numerous times in as variegated contexts as explanations of cool fantasy tropes like Marks of Magic, or where I could see emerging tech integrate with fictional maps to enrich the reader’s experience.

My What Gods And Goddesses I’d Want to See in a God of War Game Set in Ancient Egypt! is still one of the highest performing posts on this blog, and remains one of my favorite pieces I’ve written for A&A.

But for some reason I’ve never written a review of the first game (or any of the games). So, with all the hubbub Sony is giving this anniversary and rumors of an announcement of a remaster of the first three games circulating, it seemed as good a time as any to blow the dust off my old Playstation 2 and give the game another play through.

I would have been only fourteen years old when this game released and I remember very vividly the awe I had first playing it. For 2005, the graphics were just incredible and the sense of wonder I felt at the sheer scale of some of the levels — say Pandora’s temple which sits on the back of a TITAN!! — was beyond compare. Looking back at some of the other games I have on the PS2, I don’t really see any other games with similar gameplay mechanics (Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is probably closest), so mashing ‘O’ to overpower a minotaur, or the kind of button sequences used in many of the boss fights were also quite new to me.

Of course, at fourteen, the sort of juvenile portrayals of sex and sexuality did not bother me . . . I was a juvenile.

But twenty years have gone by, and I was a bit anxious to start playing the game again. Could it live up to the game I had in my memory? Would I be as impressed at thirty-four as I was at fourteen?

The answer is mostly yes but with some problematic no’s thrown in. Obviously the graphics are almost laughable in this day and age, and generally I’m glad the series has moved away from the over-the-top depictions of sex that these early installments were known for (although as we’ll discuss later, a certain misogyny seems inherent in the series) but I’m happy to say that even with the passing of time, this game is still just fun to play.

It only takes a few minutes to get yourself reacquainted with the graphical limits and once you do, God of War becomes just as much a spectacle as anything else out there in today’s market.

Another criticism I often hear, is that compared to the later games, and games today in general, God of War‘s plot is scant to nonexistent. I suppose this is true to some degree. You can play through God of War’s entirety in about ten hours while the most recent iteration (God of War: Ragnarök) is clocking in somewhere at around sixty hours if you play through all the side quests. However, I’d say its plot is startlingly more cohesive then something like Tomb Raider 1 (although I suppose the ten years — and a whole console generation — separating the two games does not really put them in the same category).

I think a more appropriate critique of the plot would point out the game’s misogyny, and its hypermasculine ideals. Madeline Ricchiuto touches on this in her review of God of War 2018 for Bleeding Cool, paraphrasing the problem with this first game (and subsequent games in the “Greek Era”) perfectly in a single sentence.

“I dislike the games mostly because of their adherence to toxic hypermasculine ideals, their incredibly long rap sheet of throwing women in refrigerators (and treating them like props at best when not killing them to give Kratos motivation), and the tone-deaf storytelling that relies far too much on grand scale and dramatic proclamations to prop up what is essentially a soap-opera plot” – Review: God of War Repeats Too Many of the Series’ Misogynistic Mistakes

Harsh, but true. Nearly every woman in this first installment is either a sex object or dies brutally so that Kratos has an excuse to also murder brutally (I think Athena is the only woman who makes it out alive this go round).

With news of an Amazon television show in the works, and all these rumors of remastering the first games again, it has me wondering if simply a remake (read as REWRITE) of the story could make sense, and what that might look like for our god slaying anti-hero.

Coming back to gameplay, something that always fascinates me about the later games, is how many layers you can pull back from the environment, and how much there is to discover just by exploring. I was pleased (and impressed) to see that this was a precedent set by the original God of War, though obviously to a somewhat lesser extent. But there are plenty of cracked walls to break open and secret passages to swim through.

Speaking of puzzles, the traps in God of War are prime as well. And mostly pretty unique? There is a good deal of block/statue pushing (reminiscent of Tomb Raider mentioned earlier), a few spike pits, and (for any tracking it) one use of a light beam reminiscent of Indiana Jones.

But mostly Kratos’s interactions with the environment involve lifting heavy things (by spamming R2), avoiding spinning floor-saws, jumping on moving platforms and balancing on precarious beams (some with blades attached). These elements — along with the cathartic strain before finally busting open a loot chest — will all become staples of future games in the series, and honestly inspire legions of future platformers. These mechanics may have originated in other places (I haven’t played every video game ever), but for me, it will always be God of War which did them best.

So, Give ‘God of War (1)‘ Another Play Through?

Ultimately, I’d say yes. Despite some majorly problematic themes (which I just kinda had to ignore), I did enjoy coming back to this one. Part of it was surely nostalgia, but God of War‘s primary attraction has always been its spectacle. The sheer awe and wonder which the player experiences while playing. How cool are these chain blades? How brutal was that move which killed that monster?

After twenty years, that wonder is still there. Despite blocky graphics and rising expectations for storytelling in videogames, God of War still delivers on its primary conceit.

It’s just fucking cool.

That’s all I have for us this week. Has anyone played this one recently? How did it feel then as opposed to now? How might we rewrite it a bit to update it to be more palatable to a modern audience? What’s your favorite monster from the game? From Greek mythology in general?

As always leave your thoughts in the comments below, and happy 20th God of War! You’re still a legend round here.