Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is the collective title of four Prince of Persia games (PS3/360/PC, PSP, DS and Wii), released by Ubisoft in 2010 alongside the movie adaptation of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It disregards the Continuity Reboot of the the game released two years earlier in favor of new chapters in the Sands of Time trilogy set between Sands of Time and Warrior Within. All four games feature entirely different stories with different characters, locations and plots, rather than being multi-platform adaptations of the same game. In the home console version, for example, the Prince fights to save his brother's kingdom and the game features Elemental Powers, while the Wii version shows the Prince exploring a ruined kingdom overtaken by a sentient plant with the help of a genie.
Tropes appearing in those games:
open/close all folders
Tropes common in all versions
- Anarchic Order: An interesting case where the different versions of the game do this on their own; most of them take place between Sands of Time and Warrior Within, but the DS version is actually set after The Two Thrones.
- Anthology: The different versions of the game result in this. Despite all having the same title, The Forgotten Sands covers four different adventures the Prince experienced after killing the Vizier but before discovering that the Dahaka was coming for him. Except one is a Stealth Sequel to The Two Thrones which places it after the Prince had killed the Dahaka.
- Bittersweet Ending: Every version ends on one, though the exact details differ between versions.
- Interquel: Most versions of the game are this, taking place between the first and second game. Since none of them mention the Dahaka, it's likely they take place before Battles of Prince of Persia, which is what causes the Prince to shift into his darker personality seen in Warrior Within.
- Our Genies Are Different: Both the console and Wii versions feature genies, or Djinn, as characters. This shows that there are several types, with the console version showing Razia, a member of a tribe of Djinn known as the Marid who are based in water and look like normal humans, and Ratash, a member of a tribe of Djinn known as the Ifrit who are based in fire and look like a giant monster, while earth and wind based Djinn are mentioned. Meanwhile the Wii version introduces a genie Zahra, who resembles a small golden person or light and comes from the kingdom of Izdihar, where genies acted as seers and protectors.
- Revision: Since Battles of Prince of Persia revealed that it took a full year for the Dahaka to actually appear after the events of the first game, the different versions of The Forgotten Sands reveal that the Prince had several adventures during that year.
- Trilogy Creep: The fourth game in what was once the Sands of Time trilogy.
- Un-Reboot: The last game in the series was a Continuity Reboot of the series. This is a return to the Sands of Time continuity, which itself was a Continuity Reboot of the originals.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Considering that The Forgotten Sands chronological placement between the first two games of the Sands trilogy, many fans of the series may be left wondering why the Dahaka never made an appearance in any version of the games. That's because The Forgotten Sands is probably set shortly after Sands of Time; according to the Nintendo DS spin-off Battles of Prince of Persia, the Dahaka didn't manifest immediately, but only some time later.
PS3/360/PC version
Sent by his father to learn leadership from his older brother Malik, the Prince arrives to find his brother's kingdom under attack by forces wishing to acquire the magical Sand Army imprisoned within that once belonged to Solomon. Malik however ends up freeing the evil Djinn Ratash, who seeks revenge of humanity for imprisoning him, while the Prince joins forces with the water Djinn Razia who helped seal Ratash away, going on an epic adventure where he must learn the bear the responsibility of true leadership.
- Achievement Mockery: You can permanently lower your current difficulty anytime in the game. Doing this earns you the achievement "Our Little Secret".
- Ambiguous Situation: You never learn who is attacking Malik's kingdom or for what reason, though it's implied that they were also after the Sand Army.
- Big Bad: This time, the villain is Ratash, a 1000-year old Ifrit who was sealed away with his army of sand monsters by King Solomon and unleashed by Malik.
- Big Red Devil: Ratash's basic appearence is that of a massive, brutal-looking demon with red skin and curved horns.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Prince survives and saves Malik's kingdom and all its inhabitants, but at the cost of Malik's life.
- Blood Knight: The more Sand Creatures Malik slays, the more bloodthirsty and arrogant he becomes, until he's possessed by Ratash.
- Cool Sword:
- This time, the Prince's only weapon is the royal saber he took with him from Persia.
- He later uses an enchanted one given to him by Razia. Malik wields a two-handed and royal-looking scimitar. Said sword is so cool Ratash keeps it the way it is, rather than using his own.
- Demonic Possession: Malik ends up succumbing one when Ratash decides to take control of him.
- Elemental Powers: An optional plot point is the ability to upgrade the elemental powers associated with the weapon: Fire (leaves a damaging trail of flames), Wind (knocks down all surrounding enemies), Earth (covers the Prince in an invulnerable stone armor), and Ice (launches waves of frost with each attack).
- Elemental Rivalry: Razia is a Marid Queen and rules over water and other natural elements. Ratash is a massive Ifrit Lord who rules over an army of sand-based monsters and is a force of death and entropy.
- Greed: Entering the treasure vault will lead you to a treasure-filled room where some invaders are busy ransacking all the gold they come across and discussing how they're going to spend it.
- Guide Dang It!: Lampshaded. One of the Achievements requires you to find and break every sarcophagus. The name of this Achievement? "Got walkthrough?"
- Heroic Sacrifice: Razia merges herself with the Djinn Sword in order to empower the blade so that it can kill Ratash.
- Lampshade Hanging: The Prince does a lot of this. Noting that every time he gets into one of "these situations" there's a woman ordering him around. Noting that just once he'd like a trap system that could tell him from the enemy. Asking why it's always sand, and who built a particular puzzle that needed to be solved in order to reach some stairs. Complaining that Razia didn't warn him about certain traps."I suppose if I were a thousand years old I'd forget things too. Like giant collapsing staircases that could kill people."
- Later-Installment Weirdness: Compared to the earlier two titles, the planks sequences and Dual Wielding options are removed, the Prince can now separately jump or roll, timed doors show a timer once opened, water is no longer used to heal you, nor you need fountains to save the game. In combat, the Prince can kick enemies to break their defenses and perform a slower but powerful charge attack which hits multiple opponents for massive damage. While Le Parkour elements are still present, fights often pit the Prince alone against a huge number of opponents and you can obtain experience points which are used to unlock and obtain upgrades and elemental powers.
- Ledge Bats: This game subverts their role and pretty much allows you to take your revenge on them: with the Djinn power of "Flight" you can, when in midair, rush at enemies, which allows you to traverse gaps and abysses by rushing-jumping on flying enemies or enemies standing on the rim of platforms to stop you, so that you can traverse the level.
- Locked Out of the Fight: To defeat Ratash, Razia becomes a part of the Prince's sword. She then promptly loses her magic when the final battle begins due to Ratash's interference.
- Malevolent Architecture: Justified in the underground city, which is said to be collapsing due to centuries of disuse. Razia has to give the Prince the power to reimagine certain components of the palace.
- Mini-Boss: "Trolls" are colossal sand soldiers with large clubs who act and fight like Ratash during his first phase and are encountered as minibosses in Rakem.
- Morton's Fork: Malik in the beginning: Either loses and the invaders get their hands on the vault containing Solomon's army, or he unleashes the army to save himself... bringing untold destruction on the country.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Razia gives the Prince powers one by one as the story progresses, such as the power to rewind time, freeze water, and the ability to reconstruct parts of the decayed underground city, among others.
- Night of the Living Mooks: The Sand Creatures making up the core of Ratash's Army look like mummified skeletal remains wielding ancient-looking swords. Other monsters are named after the Undead and look the part.
- One-Hit Kill: The Djinn sword can dispatch all lesser enemies with one blow, two with Elite Mooks and four for the Mini-Boss. Mitigated by the fact that the enemies tend to attack in hordes.
- One-Winged Angel: You first fight Ratash, then Malik-possessed Ratash and finally Ratash transformed into a titanic, laser-spitting behemoth after absorbing the power of a sandstorm.
- Pet the Dog: Once confronted by the first trapped corridor, the Prince loudly complains about how these traps do not make distinctions between he and his enemies. In a later corridor, a series of rocking axes chop some mooks into pieces much to the Prince's relief.
- Remember the New Guy?: Malik, the second son of King Shahraman, is only mentioned in the opening. Apparently he was stationed in that fortress to protect the vault of Solomon's Army from enemies.
- Sealed Army in a Can: Solomon's Army. Sadly, not as in "an army belonging to Solomon" but in "an army sealed away by Solomon", as it was composed of evil creatures of destruction and, by coming in contact with sand, they can grow in numbers until they'll become simply too numberous and thus unstoppable.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Ratash, a rebellious Ifrit, along with the entirety of Solomon's Army. Malik opened the can in a desperate attempt to fend off the invaders.
- Sole Survivor: Razia is said to be the last of a long line of good djinns, most of whom were killed off by Ratash.
- Sword of Plot Advancement: The Prince spends the first half of the game not heeding Razia's advice and instead trying to save his brother. When he realizes that Malik can't be saved, the Prince begrudgingly gets the sword from the ancient temple, and allows Razia to fuse with it in order to defeat Ratash and Malik.
- Taken for Granite: The fate of Malik's people touched by Ratash' sands.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Downplayed (as you still "kill them"), but since it's still not at the time of Warrior Within, the Prince uses less lethal methods against human enemies (if they're prone he just hit them really hard with his fists instead of stabbing them).
- The War Sequence: One of the game's selling points was the massive amounts of enemies onscreen at one time. Near the end, the Prince fights his way up a staircase on the outside of a tower, killing around two hundred enemies as he does so.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: The Prince lampshades this
after his brother releases a mystical sand-based army — an entirely different one from the earlier games."Why is it always sand?"
Wii version
Wishing to find his own kingdom so he can step out of his father's shadow, the Prince discovered a genie at the market named Zahra who agrees to help him. Creating a bond between the two of them that gives him some abilities, she takes him to the hidden kingdom of Izdihar, where the Prince unwittingly frees a trapped Sorceress and unleashes the Haoma, a magical plans responsible for ravaging the kingdom. Now the Prince and Zahra must destroy the Haoma before it spreads to the rest of the world and defeat the Sorceress.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Prince rescues princess Nazreen, put an end to the Haoma threat but the Kingdom of Izdihar sinks into the sands and Zahra sacrifices herself to save the Prince.
- How We Got Here: The Wii version starts with the Prince and Zahra escaping the collapsing of Izdihar then the games flashes back to the beginning.
- Narrator All Along: The narrator turns out to be the Sorceress who's also Princess Nazreen corrupted by the Haoma.
- Shout-Out: Kicking 20 enemies off cliffs nets you a trophy named This Is Persia.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Even though the Prince saves Princess Nazreen by granting her his immortal spirit, she isn't seen during or after the collapsing of Izdihar. Her narration indicates that she survived and hopes to see the Prince again.
PSP version
Long ago a prophecy foretold that a member of the Prince's royal family will destroy the fire spirit known as Ahihud, who rules over a mystical land and to try and avert this has sent out his minions to kill anyone with royal blood in Persia. The Prince's father seeks to keep his son safe by keeping him in a tower, but the Prince escapes and encounters Helem, one of the Daughters of Time who wishes to help the Prince defeat Ahihud in returns for freeing her sisters from imprisonment.
- 2½D: This version is a side-scrolling platformer with 3D models.
- Bittersweet Ending: Though this version has the happiest ending out of the four. Ahihud is defeated and the Prince fulfils his role in the prophecy, but he has to bid Helem goodbye much to his regret with it being unclear whether they will ever see each other again.
- Disney Death: Helem seemingly sacrifices herself to allow the Prince to follow Ahihud in the Etheral world but a few seconds into the next level it's revealed that she survived.
DS version
Captured by a cult who robs of his memories, the Prince is reunited with Razia who similarly had her powers robbed when the cult used the Djinn sword and the Prince in a ritual to resurrect their leader. She suggests that killing the four cult members, who have been transformed into sand monsters, will restore both her powers and the Prince's memories. The two thus set out on their quest for revenge against the cult and to regain what had been taken from them.
- 2½D: This version is a side-scrolling platformer with 3D models.
- Amnesiac Hero: The Prince lost his memories as the result of the ritual to resurrect the Master.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Prince defeats the Master and ends the spreading corruption but Razia ends up dying for good, Babylon is in a worse state than at the end of The Two Thrones and Farah is still nowhere to be seen.
- Continuity Nod : In the Nintendo DS version, the first memories has the Prince in Azad and the second has the Prince saving Kaileena from the Dahaka.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: The Master of the cult who only appears at the end, only has three dialogues, never displays characterization nor states any goal.
- Happy Ending Override: This game does this for The Two Thrones. After taking Babylon back from the Vizier, the Prince ends up being abducted by a cult. They used his blood and Razia's blade to revive their master. Unfortunately, the cursed sands destroys a few cities and turns their inhabitants into monsters. One of them turns out to be Babylon. And at the end of the game, the Prince is once again separated from Farah.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite the Cosmic Retcon that erased the events of The Sands of Time completely, it appears that the console/PC version of The Forgotten Sands still occurred in the new timeline shown in The Two Thrones. Presumably the PSP version remains canon since erasing the Sands wouldn't affect Ahihud, though whether the events of the Wii version still occurred it up for debate since it depends on the Prince still wanting his own kingdom.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: The DS version uses the same gameplay of Prince of Persia: The Fallen King.
- Oddly Small Organization: The cult consists of three members and their deceased master.
- Stealth Sequel: This version has a twist: Unlike the three other versions, it doesn't take place between Sands of Time and Warrior Within but after The Two Thrones. When the Prince recovers his memories, he has a vision of himself saving Kaileena from the Dahaka.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The Prince briefly alludes to Farah after the third boss when he mentions having to save "his beloved." Still, even at the end of the game, her whereabouts remain unknown.
