Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a third-person action adventure video game published by Ubisoft. It was released on November 6, 2003 and is a continuation of the landmark MS-DOS game series Prince of Persia, created by Jordan Mechner in 1989.
The Sands of Time, developed internally at Ubisoft Montreal, successfully captures the mechanics of the original platformer and extends it to the 3D generation. An earlier attempt by The Learning Company to transfer the game to 3D (Prince of Persia 3D) was released in 1999, but failed to meet the standards set by the franchise. The Sands of Time was praised for its visual design and finely tuned game mechanics, and won several awards.
Developed for the PC, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and later a 2D version for the Game Boy Advance and mobile phones, The Sands of Time was a major hit. The success of The Sands of Time led to two sequels, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, in 2004 and 2005, respectively.
Passing through India en route to Azad, King Shahraman and his son, the Prince of Persia, defeat the powerful Maharajah of India with the promise of honor and glory. After looting the city and capturing a giant hourglass full of sand, a mysterious dagger, and the Maharajah's daughter Farah along with other treasures, they continue to Azad. A dying Vizier, who had betrayed the Maharajah and aided King Shahraman in return for a share of the spoils, demands to have the dagger, as he was promised his choice of the Maharajah's treasures. But Shahraman refuses to take the dagger from his son, who captured it first. So the Vizier, who wishes to harness the power of the Sands in the hourglass for himself, making him an immortal god and giving him control over time itself, tricks the Prince into opening the hourglass. When the Prince uses the dagger to unleash the Sands of Time from the hourglass, the Sands destroy the kingdom and turn all living beings into hideous sand creatures. Only the Prince, the Vizier, and Princess Farah, the kidnapped daughter of the Maharajah, remain unchanged due to their possessions; the Prince's dagger, the Vizier's staff, and Farah's medallion (there are a handful of unimportant survivors, such as two people who escape with Farah and a guard who assists you during the Azad defence system puzzle, who is possessed after his part).
On a journey to repair the damage he has caused, the Prince teams with Farah to return the Sands of Time to the hourglass by using the Dagger of Time, which also gives the Prince limited control over the flow of time. Before they reach their destination, the Prince and Farah form a romantic relationship. However, the Prince knows that Farah has every reason to hate him for conquering her people, and he suspects that Farah plans to steal the Dagger of Time from him. While the Prince sleeps, Farah does at a later time take the Dagger, as well as his sword, and attempts to return the Sands to the hourglass herself, leaving only her medallion behind with the Prince. When the Prince catches up with her, she is being attacked by sand creatures, and falls to her death through the ceiling of the hourglass chamber atop the Tower of Dawn before the Prince can save her.
Afterwards, the Prince uses the Dagger to return the Sands to the hourglass, and the timeline reverts to the point prior to the battle against the Maharajah. As a result, the relationship between Farah and himself is a memory that only he possesses. However, the Prince still has the Dagger in his possession, even in the past. He goes to find Farah, to warn her of the Vizier's treachery before the Sands are released, and to give her the Dagger of Time. At this point, it is revealed all of the Prince's narration in the menus and cut-scenes from the game were actually him recounting his adventures to Farah, in an attempt to warn her. But as the Prince shares his epic story with her, he is confronted by the evil Vizier, who still yearns for the Dagger, and eternal life.
After defeating the Vizier, and preventing the opening of the hourglass, the Prince offers the Dagger to Farah. She questions why he needed to invent such a fantastic story. After he responds with a coldly-received kiss, he rewinds time a moment and instead agrees with her, that it was just a story. As he leaves, she asks him his name, and is left dumbfounded when he tells her to call him "Kakolookiyam"[3], the name of a fairy-tale hero that Farah's mother told her stories about as a child and that only she would know of. (In the previous timeline, Farah had explained the significance of this word to the Prince.) |
