Episode 67: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time took a beloved 2D platformer and transformed it into something spectacular. Building on the Prince’s athletic jumps, the Prince could now wallrun, leap between ropes and swing with the best of them. Most brilliant of all was the ability to rewind time, undoing mistakes that would have spelled instant death in any of the previous titles. Combined with his acrobatic combat, the Prince became an instant hit, and it served as the foundation for 3 more sequels and yet another reboot.

We’re joined by special guest Chris Durston of the Philosophiraga Podcast to discuss and argue whether this take on platforming and combat is still enjoyable today. Is running sideways on a wall and climbing ledges anywhere near as fancy and fun as it used to be? Or has the Prince simply failed to stand the test of the Sands of Time?

On this episode, we discuss:

• How does Prince of Persia tell its story? Does it have significant story beats, or is all the heavy lifting done through its characters and their interactions?
• What is it that makes the platforming of the Prince of Persia games special? How does it compare to more traditional 3D platforming like in Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie?
• What did we think about the combat system? Is it better or worse than the far more complicated one found in Warrior Within?

We answer these questions and many more on the 67th episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!

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Chris Durston is an author, and host of the Philosophiraga Podcast. His podcast takes complicated philosophical ideas, and breaks them down using video games as a medium. Intimidating concepts like Immaterialism and Empiricism are explained through the lens of Final Fantasy and Ace Attorney - and all of a sudden it stops being so hard to understand. We highly recommend you check out an episode, and we of course would like to point to the one all about Rationalism and Dark Souls.

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Intro Music: KieLoBot - Tanzen K

Outro Music: Rockit Maxx - One point to another

POP: The Sands of Time OST: Stuart Chatwood

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Are you higher on the combat in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time than we were? Should we check out the PSP title in the series, The Forgotten Sands? Are there other modern games that have properly built on and improved on the platforming in this game, or is it really as unique as we claim? Let us know what you think on our community discord server!