It's difficult to give a good overview for the whole series, since it's splintered across several platforms, and encompasses games which bear little similarity to one another. As a starting point, you can see the whole series here, and then click on the individual items for more info (including screenshots and often reviews): Prince of Persia series

From what you're saying, I think the first game would appeal to you. It's a simple platformer with charm. The animations were spectacularly smooth at their time - of course, by today's standards, the game look very retro. But you said that the graphics don't matter that much to you. And the platforming part is still very enjoyable. It's a good mix between fighting and puzzles, and not too difficult.

I'm quite sure that the different series (Original, Sands of Time, and 2008) have really nothing to do with each other as far as story goes, only featuring similar elements (acrobatic prince, taking place in Persia).

I PMed you where you should start :)

There's basically three separate smaller storylines in the series.

The early games are Prince of Persia 1, 2 and 3D. They all go in chronological order, and all follow the same characters. They are a bit dated in my opinion, and also hard to track down as nobody sells them anymore. The first two are important history classics, but if you don't like dated games you probably should avoid these. 3D is generally panned.

The Sands of Time trilogy, which the movie was based on, is a reboot of the series made by Ubisoft. Chronologically it goes Sands of Time then Warrior Within followed by Two Thrones, all of which are on GOG. The series is totally unrelated to the original games, only connected by name and setting. They are absolutely terrific and I can highly recommend them, it's one of my favourite series. There's also Forgotten Sands, which is a game set between Sands of Time and Warrior Within. It's pretty decent, but doesn't impact the story at all and basically is only connected by the Prince character himself. It's neat but skippable, is what I'm saying.

Then there's the 2008 Prince of Persia. It has nothing to do with either series, serving as a totally standalone game with new characters and plot. It's very good in my opinion, though fan reaction can be a bit mixed and it's not quite as good as the Sands of Time trilogy as a whole. It's also on GOG.

Where to start? Sands of Time trilogy is the best entry point. The 2008 standalone might be a good starting point as well.

Only the Sands of Time, Warrior Within and Two Thrones have a single encompassing storyline. The original and PoP2 have a kind of connecting story, but realistically speaking their stories are negligible.
Prince of Persia 3D is another stand-alone entry, as is the 2008 Prince of Persia (the cell shaded one).

Edit: oh right the starting point, I would go with the Sands of Time.
It's still pretty good looking and the first of a trilogy of games.

+1 to you, sir. :)

You told her that Sacrifice was the best Prince of Persia game? ;)

Thank you all for the help in this. I actually have prince of persia sands of time on the playstation 2. I got it a few months ago when trading my old games in and getting 3 games in return. Well basically I got 10 euro's and there was a sort of trash bin with all bad games where you could get 3 for 10 euro's. I dug in it, got myself ssx, prince of persia sands of time (I had heard good things about it here and there, and another game)

Thanks for clearing the chronology up for me. I am now deciding between the original 1989 version and sands of time.

Oh and if I'd get the other two in the series from GOG, would they work with a controller? I have an old pc controller (which does not work with the witcher 2, but works with an emulator and several other games)

I sent the OP an abandonware link for the first game LOL :P

That was my initial assumption too :-D If you're going for the original, and you're comfortable using emulators, consider playing the Amiga version rather than the DOS one.

Or, if you're feeling really geeky, give the newly ported C64 version a whirl ;-)

I decided to give the old one a try and soon going to try the sands of time. Just to see what I like best. The old dos version is hard to get into. It feels a bit clumsy. The jumping that is. I guess I am spoiled with smooth jumping. I run, jump gate closes, try to run back but fail to time a jump, fall... no not yet, hanging on the ledge but pressed already something else and fall to my death... It has a learning curve which all the older games have. Unless you're claiming the amiga or c64 version to be superior in gameplay.

here's a detailed overview of the entire series:
http://hardcoregaming101.net/princeofpersia/princeofpersia.htm

And I'd say that Sands of Time would be the best place to start (though it's the only one I've played so far lol)

It may be my imagination, but I do believe the Amiga version handles better than the DOS version. OTOH, I haven't played the DOS version in something like 17 years, while I played the Amiga version last week, so your mileage may vary.

I should try and play it, I've heard the original was really hard to beat. Even if you did manage to get to the end, you could still find yourself losing due to the clock.

Personally, I hated PoP:SoT, the camera was just hideously bad. I'm not sure why games of that genre don't offer players the option of displaying enemies and obstacles through walls the way that TL does. Sure, it takes a bit away from the realism, but it best playing the same section multiple times because the camera is on crack.