Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
I watched it and didn't play it. This is clearly the worst game in the Sands of Time franchise. Ubisoft completely changed the game in so many aspects that, after mimicking God of War in The Two Thrones, they tried even harder with The Forgotten Sands.
In this game the prince doesn't regain health with water. They copied the same energy balls from God of War. The secret trap courses to gain health are gone. They added a glowing vase which is much easier to see and to reach. This killed the sense of exploration from the previous games.
They killed the fear of heights. The prince no longer tries to balance himself on beams, he just runs.
They removed blocking and made the gameplay focus on hordes of 10 ~ 20 enemies. It's pure hack and slash and with the same enemy type from start to finish. You hit, hit and hit to kill the mobs, gain XP and spend points in a simple skill tree.
Wind, water, earth and fire. Where did they came from? The classic cliche of 4 elements added out of the blue. You have elemental powers that are not required to complete the game.
The depiction of disintegration of enemies is worse than the previous games. The powers to freeze time and rebuild broken environments are pretty much the same thing. They add a nice visual gimmick with a very low value because what's the difference between a frozen pillar of water and a solid pillar made of metal? None. They just require quick motor coordination skills because you are forced to activate and deactivate later in the game to pass through more complex obstacles. The art department did a poor job in integrating the water jets into the environment because they are often placed out of nowhere in environments devoid of any water pools or sources.
Whoever recorded the gameplay had a very hard time with the controls because how many times did I watch the player jump in the wrong direction?
There is the introduction of the prince's brother and this brother's role is self contained with no relationships with future or previous games.
