Complete Monster: Ahriman, like his original incarnation, is the God of Darkness and the one behind the events of the entire game and its sequel. Once ruling together with his brother, Ormazd the God of Light, Ahriman grew power-hungry and decided to become the sole ruler of the whole realm, starting a war with Ormazd and his followers. To obtain an army, Ahriman created The Corruption, with which he could swallow the cities, and offered to grant wishes to anyone, in exchange for their service and souls. Brainwashing and transforming thousands of people this way, Ahriman attacked the City of Light, which was the capital of Ahura, the chief followers of Ormazd. Nearly succeeding in destroying the city and its people, Ahriman was defeated and sealed away by Ormazd in the Tree of Life. In the present, making a deal with the Mourning King, Ahriman used his desire to save his daughter Elika, to manipulate him into damaging the Tree of Life, thus allowing Ahriman to release his army. Despite Prince and Elika's attempts to imprison him again, Ahriman succeeds in freeing himself and starts to spread his Corruption across the entire world, transforming countless more people into his mindless servants and destroying the City of New Dawn.
Cult Classic: While it moved a good number of units and got good reviews at the time of its release, it had a strongly polarizing reception among gamers for being such a radical departure from the Sands of Time trilogy and for a number of experimental game design decisions, as well as its unusual ending. While many people continue to dislike this take on the franchise, it maintains a devoted fanbase who praise the game for its beautiful art direction, great music and characters, and wish Ubisoft would go back to the title and follow up on the Sequel Hook.
Good Bad Bugs: There are achievements for completing the game in under twelve hours, and for not forcing Elika to rescue youtoo many times. Both of these achievements will often unlock even if the player has gone over the set limits for them.
It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Probably the largest complaint against the 2008 reboot. You can't ever get killed, because Elika automatically uses her magic to save you, resetting just the current puzzle or combat (Sands of Time had this feature too, but it was a limited resource). The game also has much simpler puzzles with very little timing and risks thanks to Benevolent Architecture.
It Was His Sled: Despite the cult following it has, if one thing is remembered about the game by the general public (aside from the "no fail state" aspect of it), it's that the game has an almost comically bleak ending which contrasts with the rest of the game which is serious but still somewhat light hearted due to the Prince's and Elika's dynamic.
That One Achievement: "Born Dead" requires you to kill all of the generic soldier enemies in the Epilogue before they fully spawn. The problem is that they often come at the end of tricky platforming sections, forcing you to rush through them, constantly evading death by a hair. The timing has so little room for error that even if you make it through alive, they might have spawned already because you took one second too long for a corruption blob to move out of the way. Thank goodness for Save Scumming.
That One Boss: A lot of people don't like The Warrior very much, mainly because he tends to result in a lot of broken mice and controllers due to his Quick Time Event.
That One Level: The City of Light on the whole is certainly the least fun of the game's four zones. Design-wise, the City represents a major departure from the expansive vistas of the other three zones, instead set in a confined, underground cavern. This makes the whole area far more cramped and confined, and makes navigating and finding Light Seeds much more difficult, as well as making the area not quite as aesthetically pleasing as the other areas. Combined with the fact that the City is also home to the game's resident That One Boss (see above) and it's easy to see why it's the lowpoint of the game.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Has a major Sequel Hook at the end which Ubisoft is not capitalizing on in the least. Following this game was a Sands of Time midquel instead, and while the fans are frothing at the mouth for some closure regarding this game's story, it can be said that they won't be getting it anytime soon.
of any of them, as heard in this End Credits medley.