Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Who turned the hourglass?
What do you get when you cross a platformer with an action-adventure game, install a rewind mechanic and transport this construct to the land of One Thousand and One Nights? The answer: A very fun piece of entertainment software that spawned an entire franchise with various sequels, a bad movie adaptation and culturally questionable couple costumes.
With Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time , the content of the plot is directly outlined in the title. The nameless prince of an oriental country accidentally unleashes the magical sands of time on the world, which not only turns all the palace inhabitants into monsters, but also allows us to turn back time to a limited extent in order to undo our mistakes in the sometimes tricky jumping and climbing passages.
I thought it was great back then and always had a lot of fun with the series - at least until Prince of Persia from 2008, which I think is one of the best games ever. After that, Ubisoft did what Ubisoft does best and dropped the brand. And the half-hearted game based on the movie was so casualized that neither fans nor newcomers to the series had any fun with it. Although a remake of The Sands of Time is said to be in the works, the stars in the Persian post-firmament are so badly aligned that there is little hope of an entertaining reinterpretation.
Be that as it may, time cannot be turned back in reality. But if there is a form of time machine, music is probably the closest thing to it. In the Prince of Persia-series, this comes from Canadian Stuart Chatwood, who himself is not a composer in the classic sense, but a bassist and keyboardist in the band The Tea Party. An interesting decision on the part of Ubisoft, as we are not presented with a classical background accompaniment (at least for the most part), but an interpretation of Middle Eastern and Indian sounds, mixed with rock and electric guitars.
That sounds much more revolutionary than it is, because the OST is still relatively conventional for the most part: we hear the expected desert drone, as we know it from Hollywood movies. The first track alone, Welcome to Persia , gives no hint of anything extraordinary. However, the fact that Chatwood is not a video game composer is already apparent in the second track Introducing the Prince, as the tempo changes immediately. This was particularly unusual in the early 2000s, when the technical limitations of MIDIs and sound chips were still hanging heavy in the notes of many music writers.
It becomes clear in Prelude Fight at the latest: The Sands of Time we are presented with more of an experimental album. Here, heavy guitar riffs meet Indian strings, creating an interesting mixture. In A Dagger Is Found , on the other hand, Chatwood takes up the premise of the game and lets part of the track run backwards, while A Princess Is Stolen sounds very stereotypically Persian again thanks to the tablas. The whole thing is combined with vocals by Egyptian singer Maryem Tollar, which lends the score a certain degree of authenticity.
In addition, even individual recurring motifs such as in Father Is That You have made it into the composition - I like! In my opinion, Ubisoft's gamble was definitely worth it, as the end theme Farewell Princess is reminiscent of psychedelic mixes from Pink Floyd. I therefore give Chatwood good marks for its first attempt, the only thing I really have to complain about is the short duration of some of the tracks, which will fortunately change in the follow-up Warrior Within.
