Excellent puzzle platforming bogged down by tiring combat.
Farah is able to squeeze into areas too small for you, so she can unlock doors and throw switches that need thrown for you to progress. She also provides a point of sexual tension in the story, and allows for some witty and even humorous banter between herself and the Prince.
The game-play is broken up into two parts. The first being a combination of switch-puzzles and platforming, and the second is combat; or as I like to call it, the great and the not-so-much.
The platforming aspect is creative and unique for it's time. You'll find yourself looking for ways to activate switches, out-race doors that are closing, and navigate spiked hazards, spinning blades, and bottomless pits.
The Prince is equipped with acrobatic skills that would impress the most veteran circus performers. He can climb columns and jump from one to another. He can run along walls for short distances to traverse gaps. He can run up walls to help reach high ledges. He can also jump off the walls mid-run to reach ledges or poles that are behind him, then swing from the poles to cross even larger gaps and reach new areas. And to get to the really high places, he can jump in between two walls, from one to the other, and scale his way to the top. Once you figure out where you're suppose to go, you can use these skills to pull off a satisfying string of fluid moves that consist of equal parts "phew" & "whoa". The controls to pull off these actions are fairly simple and intuitive. Although I wouldn't say they're perfect, there's not a lot of room for improvement.
Figuring out where to go usually isn't frustrating although there is some guess work involved, especially when the camera is occasionally reluctant to be helpful. Thankfully this is where the Dagger of Time comes into play. With the Dagger, you are able to rewind time for a short period. This means if you tried to make a jump and missed, or you thought you could grab that ledge and couldn't, or you just slipped on your timing with the buttons, you don't have to go back to the previous check point. This was a wonderful addition to the game that took something that could have easily been gimmicky and turned it into something functional. And you will find yourself using it, quite graciously.
As for myself, I found that I used the Dagger's rewind powers even more during combat. For example, when I tried to attack and should have blocked instead. And there's plenty of combat in the game; too much considering how bland it feels.
When facing off against bad guys, you can hit them with your sword, or jump over their heads then hit them with your sword (which won't work with half the foes you'll face), or jump off a wall and over their heads then hit them with your sword. They're also quite good at blocking your attacks, so I spent a lot of my time waiting for them to swing at me and miss so that they would be left open for me to do some damage. You can of course block, but you're thrown off balance so much with each block, that you rarely have time to counter attack. Not that you have a counter attack move, it's just a matter of letting go of the block button and swinging your sword at the guy.
You do get a couple of extra Dagger powers for use in combat, such as the ability to slow down time, which makes it easier to land strikes on your opponents. Of course since the Prince seems to slow down by the same amount, you don't actually get a lot of time to take care of business. The only exception is the move where everyone slows down, and you do a sort of teleportation to an enemy of your choice, freeze them and then performing an instant-kill move. It's nice, but uses all your "sand power" for combat in one shot, and you will likely not be able to fill up your meter again before the fight is over. The final special move to make mention of is where you can stab a foe with the Dagger and that guy will be rendered helpless for a short period of time, giving you a chance to land a 2 or 3 hit combo that will take them out. This is providing that you're not ganged up on by every other bad guy before you can pull the combo off.
If you can beat down an enemy enough using anything other than a special move, then you will have to land a finishing strike after knocking them down. Don't land it quick enough, and they'll get back up. Of course, finishing them off will either leave you open for attack or give enough time for the bad guys that are left to crowd around you.
The altercations would have been a little more enjoyable if they didn't last so long or weren't so frequent. The number of waves of enemies they send at you for most fights, and lack of fighting moves available made it boring for me. It can also get frustrating, as if you find yourself hit by one attacker the others seemed to enjoy surrounding you and timing their hits it so that they keep you down before you have a chance to get back up.
Running away to catch your breath is hard to do as well. Even though you're faster on your feet than most adversaries, they have the ability to teleport to your location if you stray too far away.
To make matters worse, you don't always have just yourself to worry. Farah gets targeted as well, and you'll have to save her from getting killed. She's not useless in a fight though, as she'll use her bow and arrows to stun those around you. Unfortunately her aim isn't perfect, and she had unloaded the odd arrow on me as well.
When you can get into a rhythm, and land some lucky strikes, the combat can be enjoyable. You'll also upgrade your sword along the way, making things a little more bearable. But more often than not, I found myself just waiting for it be over so I could get on to the good stuff.
And the good stuff is great. Intriguing puzzles and entertaining platforming action in a gorgeous world that carries a wonderful soundtrack makes it worth playing.