That Horrible Pen

Note that this piece contains full spoilers for the game in the title and some NSFW discussion, namely in the final section on “romance.” Know also that I’m talking about the GameCube version specifically, played from a disc on the original hardware. I’ve wanted to be less excessively comprehensive in my coverage of games, so I decided to try out a “diaries” format, where I would challenge myself to cover one topic per day I spent playing the game rather than attempting to cover every aspect I could possibly think of, checklist-style. My hope was that the end-result would be more personal, selective, and interesting by virtue of the restrictions.   The cover for Sands of Time , the first game in a much-loved trilogy of action-adventure titles released over the course of only several years in the early 2000s. I’m not sure the hardcore expression on the prince’s very polygonal-looking face captures the overall mood of the game, which I’ll discuss below, but I do like the detail o...