New Millennium, New Gameplay

From there, we jumped right into various gameplay segments drawn from throughout the game, starting with a huge battle sequence in a long palace hallway. Magically warped enemies charged from all sides, leaving us little choice but to fight. Thankfully, the game's combat system left a much better impression on me than it did at E3. The Prince has both a scimitar and that dagger at his disposal. The scimitar (which is upgradable throughout the game) is his main weapon, used for whittling away at enemy health. The magical dagger has a more specialized purpose -- using it activates some of the Prince's five time-controlling powers (more on those in a bit). When either weapon is drawn, the Prince locks onto the nearest enemy, just like in recent Zelda games. However, he's a lot more agile than Link ever was, able to launch attacks off of walls or somersault over an enemy to gain access to its back. There's even a counter-attack system, where he can intercept an opponent's slash and turn it into a powerful reversal.

The powerful counter-attack is the best bet for tough monsters. Once a creature's knocked down, the Prince can use his dagger to truly kill it, absorbing the magical sand that composed the enemy into his sand meter, for lack of a better term. (You'd best do this quickly, or the monster'll get up for more thrashing!) In any case, it's this sand that lets the Prince bend time to his will, and five time powers exist in all. "Delay" creates a Matrix-style slowdown, more for looks than effect. Revival rewinds the last few seconds, which can save you, for example, from a deadly fall. "Restraint" freezes a monster in its tracks -- very useful in combat! "Haste" is a kind of berserk mode, where the Prince dashes from monster to monster and chops them up at light speed. And "Destiny," finally, is a sort of sixth sense that offers clues as to what to do next. These powers, while useful, sap your sand reserve, so you might only be able to rewind that bad jump twice; the third time, it's do or die.

-quikspy67 =P