PoP the forgotten sands takes place between the events of "Sands of Time" and "Warrior Within" (the best title from the original trilogy in my opinion).
The story is completely unrelated to the events in the main storyline. Going to visit your borther Malik, you find him in battle with some other population. Trying to defeat them he wants to unleash the army of Solomon hidden under the city. In doing so they unleash some sort of magical sand which is unrelated to the "Sands of Time", that spawns enemies and a big angry fella.
Without making more spoilers, the powers you obtain seem to be related to other kind of magic.

-- "Sand Powers": the only power comparable to the original ones is the time rewind. End of the story.

-- "Magical Powers": There are four kind of powers you can unlock and upgrade. Tho you only really need one, "Windwirl".

-- "Power Ups": this game is set almost like an RPG. Doing enemies you gain some xp. Each time you get an amount of XP to reach to obtain a point you can spend in the upgrade wall. In one playthrough you can't possibly unlock every perk, or should i say that's what i think it is. Some enemies can spawn other enemies, but these won't give you XP points.

-- "Dialogues": Speaking for my language, the dialogues were well voice acted. Though i skipped almost every cutscene cause i wasn't that interested in the storyline as soon as i saw few of them.

-- "Parkour": in this game they made parkour skills more wide. Now you can also wall-run after jumping on a wall and make other actions. Through the story you get other powers that make puzzles and parkour more challenging and fun, involving even a sort of teleport-ish jump to enemies. Some parkour sections are unnerving due to wrong collisions and directionless jumps that make you waste some rewinding "sands". Also sometimes it is difficult to see and understand which wall you have to walk on (water sections most times).

-- "Weapons": There is only one weapon you can obtain beside the initial one. Needless to say that this last weapon is overpowered af making fights even more meaningless.

-- "Combat": The fights are pretty easy and repetitive. There is no need to use heavy attacks, you can just rely on light attacks only. There is no acrobatic combat in this game. You just have to go around and fight, just like that. There isn't even a parrying mechanic!!!!!
Some fights are "difficult" in the sense that you get hit by big enemies for chance.

-- "Enemies": few enemies that are reused over and over.

--"Traps": traps are the classic ones, pretty easy. Though some are nasty thanks to wrong collision system or simply awful (i.e. the swinging logs).

--"Bossfights": Pretty straightforwards. Just stand between legs and move when bosses do AOE attacks.

-- "Playtime": this game is even shorter than a standard PS2 game. Ended in like 7 hours,

-- "Visuals": visually the game is very well made, rooms, buildings, area designs are very good and pleasing to see. Good textures and lighting.

-- "Music and sound": Musical background isn't very noticeable or memorable as in Warrior Within.

Moving to conclusions. Is it worth buying? Only when on Sale for very few bucks. This game in my opinion can't stand a comparison with the original games in the trilogy. There is no variety in fights, just one weapon and so on as you have just read earlier. It is a fun game, after all, so you should give it a try. 6/10

PoP the forgotten sands takes place between the events of "Sands of Time" and "Warrior Within" (the best title from the original trilogy in my opinion). The story is completely unrelated to the events in the main storyline. Going to visit your borther Malik, you find him in battle with some other population. Trying to defeat them he wants to unleash the army of Solomon hidden under the city. In doing so they unleash some sort of magical sand which is unrelated to the "Sands of Time", that spawns enemies and a big angry fella. Without making more spoilers, the powers you obtain seem to be related to other kind of magic. -- "Sand Powers": the only power comparable to the original ones is the time rewind. End of the story. -- "Magical Powers": There are four kind of powers you can unlock and upgrade. Tho you only really need one, "Windwirl". -- "Power Ups": this game is set almost like an RPG. Doing enemies you gain some xp. Each time you get an amount of XP to reach to obtain a point you can spend in the upgrade wall. In one playthrough you can't possibly unlock every perk, or should i say that's what i think it is. Some enemies can spawn other enemies, but these won't give you XP points. -- "Dialogues": Speaking for my language, the dialogues were well voice acted. Though i skipped almost every cutscene cause i wasn't that interested in the storyline as soon as i saw few of them. -- "Parkour": in this game they made parkour skills more wide. Now you can also wall-run after jumping on a wall and make other actions. Through the story you get other powers that make puzzles and parkour more challenging and fun, involving even a sort of teleport-ish jump to enemies. Some parkour sections are unnerving due to wrong collisions and directionless jumps that make you waste some rewinding "sands". Also sometimes it is difficult to see and understand which wall you have to walk on (water sections most times). -- "Weapons": There is only one weapon you can obtain beside the initial one. Needless to say that this last weapon is overpowered af making fights even more meaningless. -- "Combat": The fights are pretty easy and repetitive. There is no need to use heavy attacks, you can just rely on light attacks only. There is no acrobatic combat in this game. You just have to go around and fight, just like that. There isn't even a parrying mechanic!!!!! Some fights are "difficult" in the sense that you get hit by big enemies for chance. -- "Enemies": few enemies that are reused over and over. --"Traps": traps are the classic ones, pretty easy. Though some are nasty thanks to wrong collision system or simply awful (i.e. the swinging logs). --"Bossfights": Pretty straightforwards. Just stand between legs and move when bosses do AOE attacks. -- "Playtime": this game is even shorter than a standard PS2 game. Ended in like 7 hours, -- "Visuals": visually the game is very well made, rooms, buildings, area designs are very good and pleasing to see. Good textures and lighting. -- "Music and sound": Musical background isn't very noticeable or memorable as in Warrior Within. Moving to conclusions. Is it worth buying? Only when on Sale for very few bucks. This game in my opinion can't stand a comparison with the original games in the trilogy. There is no variety in fights, just one weapon and so on as you have just read earlier. It is a fun game, after all, so you should give it a try. 6/10