T w e n t y S i d e d

Wherein I lambast a beloved and well-reviewed game. Read on for my own special brand of heresy…

I loved Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. It was an incredible game with great characters, a fun story, and excellent gameplay. It would have been a brutal, merciless slog of instant-death jumping puzzles if not for the key feature that made me love the game: You can rewind the last five seconds or so of action, letting you correct a missed jump or bad step without enduring the punishment of replaying the entire level over from the start.

The pace of the game is much to my liking. Instead of a mad dash, the game lets you pause and check out the scenery, admire the view, and puzzle your way through as to how in the heck you can ascend some massive crumbling tower or descend into a deep chasm without breaking your neck. Can I make that jump? Looks pretty far. I’ll try it. If I misjudge, I’ll rewind and look for another way. It was a game which encouraged experimentation instead of punishing it. In a perfect world this sort of thing would be the rule, not the exception.

This weekend I finished with the (second) sequel, Prince of Persia: Two Thrones…

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.