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Table of Contents: (cntrl-f the title to find section)
Intro, and Somewhat Important Note
Gameplay Overview
Storyline Overview
Walkthrough
--- Welcome Party (The Boat)
--- [Important Fighting Tips (Some Basics)]
--- [Shahdee Battle Tips]
--- The Isle of Time (The Beach)
--- Chasing Down Shahdee (The Girl in Black)
--- Side-Note on upgrades
--- [Beating Up Shahdee Strategies]
--- Getting to the Hourglass Room (A Lap Around the Fortress)
--- Side-Note on upgrades
--- The First Dahaka Chase
--- Maze of Foliage (The Water Tower)
--- Health Upgrade 1
--- Water Tower Part II – Back to the Present
--- The Second Dahaka Chase
--- Water Tower Part III – Back to the Past
--- Health Upgrade 2
--- Clockwork Hero (The Mechanical Tower)
--- [Basic Iron Golem Tactics]
--- [Beast Strategy]
--- Mechanical Tower Part II – The Present-Day Clocktower
--- The Third Dahaka Chase
--- Mechanical Tower Part III – Once More, the Past
--- Health Upgrade 3
--- [The Second Iron Golem]
--- (Here We Go Again) Return to the Hourglass Room
--- [Some Empress Strategy]
--- WTF?!?! (The Long Way Home)
--- The Tomb and the Dahaka
--- Another Special Secondary Weapon
--- The Prison and the Prince
--- The Scorpion Sword, the Dahaka, and the Past
--- [Zombie Bandits] and [Huge Iron Golem Tactics]
--- Health Upgrade 4
--- [Cat-Girl (BDSM chicks) Strategy (from boards)]
--- The Library, v2.0
--- Health Upgrade 5
--- Back in the Mechanical Tower
--- All the Upgrades I Missed Before
--- Health Upgrade 6
--- The Red Sword
--- Health Upgrade 7
--- Another Lap Around the Fortress
--- Health Upgrade 8
--- Health Upgrade 9
--- Finally, the Throne Room
--- The Choice of No Return (The Two Endings)
--- Getting the Mask (The Face of Time)
--- The Sand Wraith (A Second Chance)
--- Second Chance, Part I – Present
--- Second Chance, Part II – Past
--- [Gigantic Griffin Strategy]
--- Not Again!  (Path of the Sand Wraith)
--- Go to Present, Do Not Pass Go
--- Before-Past Past (and Other Deja-Vu)
--- The Cliffs of Fate (They Should Call Them That)
--- The Lava Room (Mirrored Fates)
--- Back to the Library, Before You Went There the First Time
--- The Nth Dahaka Chase
--- The Cavern of Mists
--- More Past-Past: Back in the Mechanical Tower Again
--- Time Knots (Back in the Central Hall)
--- Ending One, The Final Battle (With the Water Sword)
--- Ending Two, The Final Battle (Without the Water Sword)
--- Sum Up, Artwork Chests, Et Cetera
--- Single Weapon Techniques
--- Double Weapon Techniques
--- Movement Techniques
Intro
There were no walkthroughs for this game yet, and I saw a bunch
of stuck people, and I sympathize greatly with them, since I made
about two laps around the fortress once, looking for where I was
going.  This walkthrough was not made for profit, please don’t
take it and repost it elsewhere without my permission.
This walkthrough is pretty preliminary – just to get you through
the game.  I’ll try and tell you where to swing/walk/jump in step-
by-step fashion and how I defeated tricky folk like Shahdee in
huge battles.  I put in all the secrets I stumbled across, but I’m
writing it as I’m playing the game the first time, so it’s about as
clear and straightforward as I can make it.  You can e-mail me with
more secrets, hidden chests, and power upgrades, but I may ignore
you.  Again, the primary purpose I have here is to help those who
just don’t know where they’re going.
Somewhat Important Note:  I’ve been reviewing what I have
written here, and apparently I’m dyslexic, and have occasionally
confused left with right.  If I said left somewhere, and you don’t
see it, just try right.  I mean, how hard is that, anyway?
Gameplay Overview
The symbol in the upper left corner is your fantastic health bar,
once a long blue bar, now a circular blue bar.  Don’t let that drop
to nothing.  There are also six sand wells that show how much sand
you have available to you.  The enemies that leave sand behind are
automatically sucked up by Prince when he’s close, so no more
need for dagger-finishing moves.  The crescent moon thing is your
eight-second timer for things like Rewind and Slow Time.  If that’s
at zero, there’s really no point in activating your powers.  The
weapon frame is just to the right of the life circle.  It will show you
what secondary weapon you’re wielding and how much durability
it’s got left, if you’re even holding one. Sword maneuvers are
listed at the bottom of the FAQ.
I’m playing on normal, on the GC version.  I don’t know if things
are different for you on hard, and some features may change with
each play-through (sand in bottles, sequence of buttons to activate
portals, etc.)  I thought a cool feature was the ‘fast-forward’
through scenes by clicking A; it’s more interesting that the usual
‘skip’ feature, just thought I’d mention that.
The GC has it’s share of glitches, the ones I encountered are
mentioned during the walkthrough.  I’ve heard some talk that the
GC is slightly better than the other consoles in terms of number
and variety of glitches, but I don’t know firsthand.  The graphics
are quite good on my Cube, and I didn’t find too much in that area
to complain about.  The sound will occasionally fizzle – the voices
are not there, or out of synch with the action.  That’s probably the
most common problem you’ll see in the GC version.  The voice
acting is painful, anyway, so maybe not hearing it is good.
I hope you played Sands of Time, because most of the moves you
learned during that game are used within the first fifteen minutes
here, and the story stems directly from the last one anyway.  And,
hey, if you didn’t play the first one, where were you, anyway?
Storyline Overview
At any rate, the story is as it says in the manual: our Prince, having
unleashed the Sands of Time in the previous game, and thus
mangling the timeline, is now pursued by an invincible, and very
irritable, monster called a Dahaka, bent on his destruction.  In a
desperate move, the Prince consults some standard WOM (Wise
Old Man) and learns of the Isle of Time, where he intends to travel
back in time and prevent the Sands from being created by the
mysterious Empress of Time.
Also, as the manual states, the Prince is much different in this
game because he’s been unable to eat or sleep due to the beast
chasing him night and day for the past however long.  That does
kind of make you grim and unfriendly, but our Prince now looks
like he’s been dipping into the crack.  That’s just personal opinion.
Walkthrough
------------------
Welcome Party (The Boat)
After that interesting intro movie, you’ll find yourself captain of a
beleaguered vessel, and see the infamous M-rated scene which
introduces you to your scantily-clad friend (and her ass),
affectionately referred to as Time Bitch.  No really, her name is
Shahdee.
Important Fighting Tips (some basics): The tutorial section will
probably help you out here more than I can, just remember that
you want to pick up weapons you see on the ground by hitting X.
See the references below for fuller info on the possible combos.
Remember, block with R.  R is your friend.  It will save you from
about anything they can dish out, even many back attacks.
Another good one from Sands of Time is A(toward enemy)+B+B,
which will enable you to jump over one monster and slice him in
the back, allowing you to escape from the midst of a dangerous
fray and take them on one at a time.  The tutorial will also
introduce you (hopefully) to the A+X+X method of hitting people
and stealing their weapons at the same time.  It’s very cool, but it
can be very slow, so look out for other approaching enemies.  My
personal favorite is from Sands of Time also – the ever-useful
wall-jump attack.  Move toward a wall, with B (you could use Y
also in this game) and jump back out with B for a fast, hard strike
at whatever stands in your way.  It will get you out of a fray, knock
down one or more enemies, and does plenty of damage.  The other
varieties of wall-jump, listed below, are also good, and are very
cool-looking.  Learn t hem, because I’ll forever be telling you to
use them.
Kill everything in sight and keep moving to your left across the
deck.  Eventually you will fall through to the lower levels.  Make
your way forward and dispatch enemies however you see fit.
Experiment with the pole-swinging kill, which looks very cool,
although it may be a move the Prince learned from the strip joints
he frequents.  Just hit B or Y while heading toward a column.
Make a 180 out of the room with a pole in it, through the water-
filled corridor.  Don’t forget to drink here if necessary.  No logs
are beams will hit you, don’t worry.
After an impressive display of acrobatics, Prince is now on
Shahdee’s boat.  Kill everything in sight again (you need the
practice) but don’t take too much damage.  Keep making your way
to the left, to challenge Shahdee to battle.
Shahdee Battle Tips: So this battle was tough, seeing as you don’t
have sand yet.  Don’t worry, you’re not alone.  Shahdee is a HUGE
step up from those fools you’ve been fighting so far.  Shahdee
makes some huge combos, so you’d better get used to blocking.
Prince has better reach and better acrobatics, though, so use that to
your advantage by coming in swinging from a distance.  As soon
as she blocks any of your hits, you’d better start blocking, because
she’s about to counter.  Also, you sometimes get your hilts crossed
– hit B repeatedly to shove her off and then follow up with more
hits.
Once you get her down to three-quarters health, she slices you a
good one.  You only need to get her to about one-quarter health
before she knocks you out.  After that, you finally get to see what’s
going on and why.  Or at least you get an idea.  The cinematics are
good, though.  They will all be saved to your Extra Features, also,
so you can rewatch it any time.
The Isle of Time (The Beach)
You wake up on the beach, and grab a stick in place of your sword.
Still makes a steely hiss when you draw it though.  Oh well.  Slap
some crows around if you want, but they don’t do you any real
harm, and make your way up the beach.  There’s water on your
right if you need it.  Head towards the stairway entrance at the end
of the beach on your right, behind it there’s an artwork chest.
Climb up the stairs by just moving Prince toward the ledge – he
climbs automatically.  Now, as the tutorial suggests, jump across
the next few chasms with A and drink/save if you want at the
fountain.  Jump up onto the ledge and edge around to your right.
Hit X to hang and scoot under the big rock.  Jump across and grab
hold of the handholds there to edge around to your left (it’s that
green mossy line in the rock behind you). Whip out your stick and
bash those crows if they give you any crap.  Climb up onto the
ledge when you can, and jump back (hit A and push the stick away
from the wall).  Move over and haul yourself up onto the next
platform. I’m going to generally assume you can do this kind of
simple stuff from now on, as it’s pretty self-explanatory in most
cases.
Run up the next wall, as instructed by the tutorial.  If you find
yourself running sideways along the wall instead, try moving the
camera so it’s right behind Prince so you are moving in the right
direction as you run.  Go up the stairs and let yourself down over
the side to the grassy platform.  Run along the wall to the opposite
side.  Practice a few times if you need to.  You’d better be good at
this running along walls business before long.  Trust me.
Jump onto the low column you see there and climb up.  Aim
yourself properly (back toward) the next column and hit A to jump.
Jump to the next column and then only the platform.  On the right
edge there’s another artwork chest – get it.   Roll underneath the
hole in the door up ahead to fight two more ghouls.
Run across the wall over the next chasm, but not along the wall
with a big hole in it, duh.  At the next chasm, you’ll have to learn
the skill of running along walls then jumping back.  It’s not too
complex.  Just hit A before Prince falls to his doom.
Climb up the large stairs until you reach a big iron gate.  At it’s left
is a stone block, get on top of that and run up the wall.  Climb over
and hop down into the courtyard.  Welcome to the Fortress
Entrance.
You also gain the Spider Sword, but you don’t have to fight
Shahdee again yet.  The door back in the courtyard opens, after
you dispatch of the four ghouls, go after her.  There’s a fountain on
your left after you enter, you’ll probably want some of that.  Jump
across the chasms to arrive at the next courtyard.  There are bottles
with sand in them in the hall, but I don’t see why, since you have
no sand powers to speak of.  Perhaps we will be back later.
The crows here have coalesced to take their vengeance on you.
This guy flies, and he blocks well, so your best bet is to jump over
him or counter his attacks.  Wall-jump him if you like.  You may
as well get in the practice, because I’ll probably suggest you wall-
jump everyone during the course of this FAQ.
Remember this room, or at least be able to recognize it.  We’ll be
back later – much later.  I’ll probably call it the ‘room where you
met your first crow guy’ for your reference.
Once he flies off, head to the ledge to the left of where you came
in.  Run up the wall to grab it, then run up the wall and jump back
to get to the next one.  Run along the wall to the mossy area;
quickly jump back for the column.  Jump for the next column, and
from there, to the platform where the crow guy awaits.  Beat him a
second time, then run across to the platform underneath him.
Don’t go back for water – I did that, and he just showed back up at
the ground floor.  The enemies regenerate in this game.
Run back the way you came to catch hold of a ledge that you can
barely see.  Climb up the ledges and jump back for a hanging
column, then to the platform where you’ll finally kill that crow
guy.  If you’re in trouble, health-wise, keep blocking and wall-
jump when you get the chance.  He’ll turn a smoky yellow and
finally kick the bucket, leaving behind a sword for you to grab.
From now on, I’m generally going to ignore the weapons racks and
other weapon issues – if you want one, you know where to find
them, and you don’t always need one, anyway.
Once he’s dead and gone, run up the wall to hit the button and
head for the door.  Run along the wall to the curtain and slide
down to take out some random ghoulies.  Head for the column in
the middle of the room if you’re into that sort of thing.  After
they’ve been dealt with, climb up the pillar across from the pole
and run up its face to grab hold of a hand hold at the top.  Scoot
around to your left and climb up to kill another guy.  Run across
the wall on the other side of the platform to grab a ledge and scoot
to your left all the way until you can drop down to the ground.
Run along the wall across the next chasm – I think there’s a wall
blade down there, but it seems to be stuck.  The next traps, too, are
a little too slow to get you.  Run through the curtain of water to
your first portal room.  Grab a drink and a save before you move
forward.
You’ll see Shahdee activating the portal, and you’ll follow her to
the Past.  Your mission will now be to catch Shahdee, and you’ll
gain the all-important Recall skill, which I call Rewind.  If you
didn’t play Sands of Time, this little trick will allow you to go back
in time up to 8 seconds (when the crescent at the top is full) and
undo any fatal mistakes, damage, etc, that may have occurred in
those 8 seconds.  This can be anything from you falling into a
bottomless pit, or just falling off a beam at the wrong time and you
don’t want to start the whole room over.  Rewind heavy damage as
well, since water starts to become scarce after a while.  I’ll leave
all that up to you, use these powers for the good of mankind, yadda
yadda yadda.
Chasing Down Shahdee (The Girl in Black)
She kicked you in the face!  Let’s get her!  Unfortunately, the first
thing you should note as you exit the portal room is that the traps
that were too slow for you in the Present are functioning perfectly
here in the Past.  Edge carefully around these vertical rolling
spiked logs, they have more range than you might think.  Time the
run properly to avoid the wall blades, and enter the next room just
filled with friendly faces.  Hey, look!  Another pole!  Anyhow, get
rid of these guys – there’s a weapons rack on the side if you need
it, and barrels and boxes around with lots of sand available if
you’ve used up some Rewinds.
Grab the column to the left of where you came in and climb up.
Jump back for some ledges, and haul yourself up to the next
platform where there’s an artwork chest.  Circle around and jump
for the next ledges.  Hang down and scoot around to the right side.
Pull yourself up and jump back to the platform.  Run across the
platform, then along the wall to push the button and catch the
curtain.  Slide down and move immediately to the left to get
through the door, because if it closes, you’ll be sorry and you’ll
have to do this whole paragraph again.
There doesn’t seem to be anything of interest in the next courtyard,
so move on into the hallway in front of you.  Dodge the two
vertical rollers, then roll under the horizontal roller.  Edge by some
more vertical guys (I went past the left one, do what you want to
do) and head into the next room for a battle.
These guys I think I’ll call ghosts.  They zip around the room and
throw things at you, which hurt a lot.  Try blocking as you
approach.  Once you do catch them, it’s only a matter of a handful
of blows before they’re toast.  They only drop knives, though, so
you might want to smash the weapons rack for a sword.
Up the long staircase, there’s about five guys and one ghost
waiting for you.  You should be quite competent by now, so get rid
of them, and don’t fall off the side while you’re at it.  In the next
room you meet up with your friend, the rotating blade.  You didn’t
think you’d get away without seeing these guys, did you?  They’re
actually not that dangerous, however, just walk or roll past them,
keeping out of harms way.  It’s quite likely, that if you just keep
hitting A repeatedly, you won’t get hit at all no matter what, but
that’s not a money-back guarantee.  Jump across for the ledges,
and pull yourself up.  Scoot right and let yourself back down on the
other side.  Jump back and kill the unsuspecting fool that has his
back turned to you, Splinter Cell style.  Only instead of grabbing
him, why don’t you just hack him to pieces?  Or you could grab
him.  Do what you want to do
Roll under two more rotating blades, and get to our favorite room.
Watch carefully, as the game will show you around.  This is an
important room to the remainder of the game, and it’s called the
Central Hall, so remember it.  I’ll also refer to north as the
direction you are heading when you first get into the room (toward
the Hourglass Room) and south as the direction you came from
(toward the Fortress Entrance). Kill the guys in here, and climb up
the rocky platforms on your left (west side) until you’re high
enough to jump for the columns.  Jump around the columns to get
to the rocky platforms on the east side.  Climb up until you can see
the balcony above the south entrance.  Run along the east wall and
jump back so you land on that balcony.  There’s one guy behind
the red curtain, unfortunately for him.
Now for some more complex traps.  You have to jump for the far
side of the chasm, while avoiding the vertical rolling log.  No mean
feat, but if you mess up, there’s always the Rewind function.  After
the second iteration of this, climb down the ladder you see there (X
to release) and kill the ghoul at the bottom who is not paying
attention.  Run across the wall over the rolling logs and down
another ladder, through the rolling logs (just time that carefully),
and jump back for the ledge.  Scoot around the ledge to your right
and jump back for the ladder.  Don’t miss.  Slide down and take
out the two guys wandering around at the bottom.
In the next hall, you’ll see floor spikes.  Now, in all Prince of
Persia’s previously, you walk slowly across spikes.  Not this time!
Speed your way across the floor – the spikes will jut up too late to
hit you.  Grab some water and a save at the end of the hall.
Now the trick is to run underneath the rolling log.  Best to start
running just as it comes down, and roll under it to be safe.  Dodge
the vertical rolling logs and go through to the next room.  None of
the pots in this hall had sand, or maybe it was just my bad luck.
Shahdee escapes the next room and leaves you to deal with an
assortment of fiends.  The ghouls you can take out easily, but the
ghost and the harlequin girl will only give you problems.  My
suggestion is to take out the ghouls as fast as you can, moving
around liberally so the harlequin and the ghost can’t do you too
much damage, then go for the ghost, ignoring the harlequin.  When
it’s just her, just keep swinging at her until she dies – only one of
them can’t really get a good hit in on you.  Don’t try and jump over
her, she’ll knock you down, since she’s a better acrobat.  Just keep
swinging in her direction, and you’ll get in enough hits eventually
to take her down.  Also, you can pick up weapons and throw them
at her with X.  That’s  pretty effective.  You can jump to the sides
of the room, where there’s at least one weapon rack lurking
around.  There’s also an artwork chest on the left side of the room.
It’s a long jump though.
When you’re good and ready, climb up onto the step on the right
side near the columns and jump up to grab a bar.  Swing up to the
next one, scoot around until you can swing for the platform, where
there’s a ghoul wandering about.  Liquefy him, then walk out on
the balance beam to the other platform, where there are TWO
ghouls waiting for you.  Get rid of them, and smash the bottles in
the corner for some sand.
Jump up onto the bar near the edge, and swing out to the next one.
Swing from the bar, to the wall, quickly hit A to jump back from
the wall, and climb up on the beam.  Jump to the next platform,
where you’ll be ambushed by a harlequin.  Man, are those chicks
annoying!  They spout the worst dialogue I think I’ve ever heard.
Kill her!  Quick!  Jump off the walls to speed her to her death.
Now climb over the side wall and jump back for the structure in
the middle of the room.  Get up and walk along it until you can
jump to another platform on the far side, where there will be a
ghoul and a ghost.  You should be able to handle these guys, but
there’s some sand in the bottles there if you need the extra rewind.
Hop over the side again and jump back for the bright red curtain
and slide down, but don’t get complacent!  You have to jump off
the curtain before you fall.
Now, you’ll see a harlequin, ready for action on the beams.  Get
out there before she starts talking and makes Prince vomit.  As she
moves toward you, you need to jump over her attack with A and
smack her in the side with B quickly.  That ought to take care of
her.  At the next platform, her friend will jump you, so calmly
explain that you don’t go for the undead, then slice her in half
before she can get a word in.
Jump up for the beam near the edge, then jump out for the next
beam.  From there, jump for the wall and quickly jump back to
catch yet another beam.  That will take you to yet another platform,
where they up the ante by facing you with a ghost AND a
harlequin.  Dispatch the ghost first, since he does more damage
and goes down faster.  The harlequin may get in a couple of blood
sucks, but they do surprisingly little damage – they’re just terribly
annoying and slow.
Take note of the grate around here that looks slightly broken, and
has a crate on the other side.  In the last game, we could bust open
things like this with our sword, but not now.  Our sword must be
too wimpy at the moment, but we’ll be back.  Climb over the side
wall and jump back again for the structure in the middle.  You
have to face one more harlequin on the beams, but you know how
to handle her.  Step out onto the little section of beam and jump
straight up to grab the hanging lever.
Congratulations!!!  The door is open!  Finally!  Now drop back
onto the beam, and walk across to the next platform, ignoring the
handy curtain for now.  At the next platform, there’s an artwork
chest, but you’ll have to fight two harlequins at once to get it.
With the wall jump, though, you should be able to take care of
them with little problem.  From here, you can run along the wall to
the curtain and slide down to go straight into the door.  Whew!
At the abrupt end of the staircase in the next hall, you can release
the edge and slide down the curtain, just make sure to jump back
before you fall into the pit of spikes!  Jump to the next beam, then
across the hall, then to the next beam.  When you finally get to the
next hall, run!  You reach some water and some bottles that
contain sand.  Drink up, because this next battle will rock you.
You find your pal Shahdee with a new playmate, a woman who
seems to own more fabric, but just as little of it is covering those
all-important NC-17 bits.  Most of it trails on the floor behind her,
obviously making it difficult to fight, yes?  At least she’s hot.
Anyhow, after some truly awful voice acting, Shahdee knocks her
off the edge, and Prince rushes into the rescue.
You’d better hurry up and attack Shahdee, because if Kaileenaa
falls, it’s Game Over for you.  There’s more sand in the bottles on
your way to the platform, so get those if you don’t have three
wells.  There’s also a weapon rack on the far wall on the other side
of Shahdee, but you may not have opportunity to get to it.
Beating Up Shahdee Strategies: Try following my instructions
carefully if you’re having problems with this battle.  Hit B when
you’re hardly even close to Shahdee.  Prince will rush in with his
sword swinging and it’s quite likely he’ll get in a good hit.  Follow
up with some more B, you don’t even have to bother with the
fancier stuff.  Eventually she’ll block one of your hits – that’s
you’re cue to start blocking, or else she’ll hit you with some huge
combo.  As soon as there’s a break in her gigantic combo,
especially if both her swords are in the air, flip backwards or right
or left with A, or just counterattack her with B.  Do it quick,
because she’ll start another combo if you don’t, and you’re in close
with her.  Watch out for that kick, because she’ll go back to
stomping on Kaileena, who has NOT gotten up yet.  Also, if you
take some damage, it’s likely to be serious, and you should
consider rewinding it.
Getting to the Hourglass Room (A Lap Around the Fortress)
Eventually, you take down the steel-thong-wearing woman who’s
been harassing you the whole game so far.  Give yourself a pat on
the back and go save Kaileena, who is less than grateful.  After
she’s gone and the area’s been remodeled, go to the dais area
where there’s an artwork chest.
Side-note again:  Once again I’ll mention that I appear to have
missed a health upgrade here.  You supposedly pull out the altar to
reveal a hidden door.  I’ll be back for it later, if I can, and I will
describe it better then.
After that, climb the rubble that fell on Shahdee and jump across to
a ledge.  From there, jump to a bar, then to another ledge above
you.  You’ll want to be on the left-side ledge, then scoot around to
your left to grab another bar.  Jump off the wall to the next bar,
then flip around the swing to the platform where your first rope
awaits you.
Run up to the rope, then hold R to run back and forth with it.
When you’re running at the beam over on your right, hit A to let
go of the rope, but don’t let go of R, so you keep running along the
wall.  Grab the beam, then jump over to the platform.  Believe it or
not, the Prince can make that jump without any problems.  Drink
from the fountain and save.  The pots here have sand in them, so
fill up if you need to.
At the abrupt end of the walkway, you can drop down to the beam,
just don’t miss.  Jump across to the beam on the other side, then
scoot around the pillar to the right.  Walk out along the beam, and
jump to your left.  Scoot around to the left, jump back for a bar,
flip to another beam.  Jump up to the ledge, jump up to the
handhold, scoot around to your right.  Climb up on the rubble and
run up for the rope.  Climb up the rope, don’t run with it, and jump
back for the hanging lever.  This will close those doors.  Jump
back for the rope, slide down and release with X.  Go to the edge
and run along the wall to the other side.  Run up the wall for the
rope, run with it to propel you to the other side.
Here, you see an interesting, if useless contraption and a door to
your right.  Go into that door to get jumped by a veritable ARMY
of harlequins.  These girls are simply too damned annoying to take
on.  Go back out to previously mentioned contraption and run up
the wall to push the button.  This will activate floor spikes that will
instantly kill the whole lot of them, but will retract before you
reach the floor.  Keep hitting that button until they’re all dead.
Laugh maniacally as needed.
Now go back into the octagonal room where you got jumped.
There’s a weapons rack on one side, and you can run up the wall
on the other to grab a ledge.  Climb to the top and jump back to
catch a bar.  Swing your way to the top and smash those pots for
some sand.  Run across the spikes and up the far wall before you
get kabobed.  Climb up and jump back once again to catch a bar.
Jump off the wall to move up and catch a ledge on the far wall
under the rolling log.  Scoot along the ledge to your left, and when
you reach the end, wait until the log rolls by to haul yourself up,
jump back across, then drop down again for safety.  Scoot your
way to the platform.  At the next wall, you need to run by a wall
blade, and catch a rope.  Jump backwards from the rope to grab
hold of another one.  Run with this one and time it carefully so you
bypass the wall blade.  Actually, you CAN get hit by the wall
blade and flop over into safety – it doesn’t cost as much health as it
has in previous games.  The hard-core gamer of antiquity in me
urges me to tell you that in the originals, it was instant death for
just about ANY trap or fall.  Anyhow, next, you have to dodge
through more vertical rolling logs.  Walk along with them, but
keep a healthy distance, they have long range.
Head through the curtain of water into another portal room.  You’ll
have to head to the Present, and haul yourself all the way around in
a huge circuit to make it back to the Central Hall.  The buttons on
the pillars have to be pushed in a certain order to activate the
portal.  If you mess up, you have to start over, but there’s only four
buttons, so it won’t take you long.  The code to mine was back-left,
back-right, forward-left, forward-right, but it may change, I’m not
certain.
Jump into the activated Sands to gain Slow Time (Eye of the
Storm).  Make your way through the next hall, over the spikes and
through the vertical rollers.  Edge out along the ledge and drop
down.  Walk around to the other corner and drop down again.
Drop down once more, then run across to the next platform.  Drop
down from here to enter a run-down corridor area.  The pots in the
corner have sand, you’ll probably want those, since now is a good
time to try out that Slow Time business.  As soon as you hit the
button, tap L to activate it.  Tap!  Just tap and release.  Run toward
the door and roll under it with A if necessary.  In the next hall,
you’ll find two more guys who continue the tradition of turning
their backs on you until you destroy them.  The button there only
opens the door you just came through.
Drop down through the hole and you get your first glimpse of the
Dahaka, the friendly beast who’s trying to KILL your ass.  After
he’s gone, run along the wall all the way to a far beam.  You can
hardly see it, but you can make it – you’re the Prince!  Jump to the
next beam and walk out to the edge, where you can jump for the
rope.  Run with the rope to a couple of bars that will take you to
another platform.  Walk out onto that small jutting beam and then
jump straight out.  You catch the branch of that tree there, believe
it or not.  Pull yourself up and walk along to the edge, where you
jump straight out to catch a handhold in a pillar.  Scoot around to
your right and jump back to catch the curtain.  Make sure you jump
off in time to land on another beam.  Walk along the beam to the
edge and jump for a far bar.  Scoot along the bar to the end and
swing for the wide platform below you.  From here, just jump
across to where your playmates are waiting for you.
It may seem like just a bunch of ghouls at first, but eventually a
number of harlequin join the fray and make your life miserable
with their incessant M-rated dialogue (“Hit me!  Harder!”)  Make
use of that broad column base to your right and wall-jump them
liberally.  Also, the ghouls leave behind a number of weapons and
there are quite a few techniques I find handy when I want to hit
everyone around Prince (see Weapon Techniques, at the bottom).
If all else fails, just pick up weapons while the harlequins are far
away, and keep chucking them at the annoying girls.
When all that’s been taken care of, run to the end of the platform
and climb up, where the game shows you that you want to go
straight up.  This was our favorite part of Sands of Time, right?
Run up the wall, jump back to the column, immediately jump back
to the wall, and so on and so forth.  You’ll get periodic breaks, so it
won’t be too hard.  When you finally get to be even with the beam
out there, scoot around the pillar until your back is facing it and
jump for it.  Next, jump for that hole in the wall and pull yourself
up to have a drink and a save.
The First Dahaka Chase: Once you jump across the next chasm,
the Dahaka finds you.  Crap.  The colors go 50s, and time becomes
wonky.  Start running.  Take a left and run along the wall.  Run to
the end, go right, and jump/run along the wall for the bar.  Swing
and jump immediately for the next three bars – if you’re not good
at this, you may have to use up your sand, because if you mess up,
he’ll tentacalize you, and it won’t be pretty.  You’ll automatically
roll through an opening to avoid the Dahaka.  Run forward and
smash those barrels out of your way (B).  Go up the stairs and kill
the fool at the top.  Drop down, run along the wall and jump back
for the column.  Climb up it and jump back for the balcony, and
you should find yourself in a very familiar room.
Catch hold of a curtain and let yourself down to the bottom, then
climb back up as before – run up the pillar, scoot around, run
across the wall, scoot around another pillar and drop down.  The
Dahaka then shows up once more, so book it down the hall and run
along the wall over the chasm.  Prince will take a flying leap
through the curtain of water into the portal room, and the Dahaka
can’t follow.  Whew!
The portal’s actually already active, so go on through.  Now, you
have to get back to the Central Hall again, via the same route you
took before.  You can handle that right?  Some of the ghoulies are
back, but I’m sure they’ll pose you no problem.
When you get to the Central Hall this time, they show you that the
path to the Hourglass Room is straight through to the other side.
Dispatch of the fiends wandering around in here and head over
there (north).
There is a chest that you can get while you’re over here, it’s in the
room where you beat Shahdee – but you couldn’t reach it after you
beat her I think.  Anyhow you can actually make it there and then
right back again to the Central Hall, or you could even make the
entire circuit again, but you probably don’t want to.  But we’ll be
back, inevitably, so fear not.
To get to the Hourglass Room, you simply jump the yawning
chasm to the north side of the room.  I didn’t think I could make it,
and make two laps around the place before I tried.  Prince can
make that jump, amazingly enough.  Curses!  What follows is a
long series of traps in hallways that you have to navigate.  First
there are rolling logs over stairs, which makes them tricky to
judge.  Then there’s a rotating blade, followed by rolling logs over
a chasm.  Remember to run on the side without the sand running
down it.  Then another rotating blade, and then you’re faced with a
huge chasm.  Run along the left side wall and jump back at the
end, making sure to avoid the rolling log.  You’ll catch a ledge –
drop down for safety.  Edge along to the left-most part, then, when
the log is gone, haul yourself up to safety on the next ledge.  Drop
down when the coast is clear, and scoot to your left to reach the
platform.  There are two rotating blades here, roll past them and
head up the stairs.  Roll past a final rotating blade at the top and get
on the ladder you see there.  Head to the top and jump back to land
on a weight platform, which will open the door.  Hang down and
release and head for the door.  You can make it without slowing
time if you roll under.
Finally, you’ve made it to the Hourglass Room.  Kaileena is inside,
and she’ll inform you of the HUGELY elaborate system the
fortress has to open the single door standing behind her.  What a
pain!  At least she gives you the Serpent Sword and some vague
instructions on how to work the towers.  What happened to Farah?
You can’t slice Kaileena!  I miss Farah.  At least I could smack her
around some when I got tired of living, and she’d get mad at me
and shoot me in the head.
Well, back out to the Central Hall for Prince.  Run up to the weight
platform to open the door back up.  After rolling your way past
those three rotation blades, get back on the ledge and edge around
the rolling spiked logs.  Round the corner to the right and jump
back to land on another ledge.  Climb to the top and scoot around
to your right to get back to the hallway.  Make your way past
another rotating blade, back across the chasm with the two rolling
logs, and past the rotating blade and more rolling logs.  We’re back
to the Central Hall.  Run up to the curious contraption and Prince
will stick the sword in to raise a rotating lever and release a few
ghoulies.  Practice your new sword maneuvers on these guys, then
run over to the rotating lever.  Grab with R and push it
counterclockwise, so the lever faces East.  That’s the way to the
Water Tower.
Maze of Foliage (The Water Tower)
Hop up on the nearest rock promontory and go around to the back
of that pillar.  Run along the back of the pillar and jump backwards
to catch a ledge.  Edge around the ledge to your right, jump up,
jump back, jump up, slide left, jump back, jump up.  I’m sure
you’re an expert by now, you hardly need my guidance.
Before you go get those ghouls lurking behind the door, get the
artwork chest to the left of the door.  Go on through the door.
Behind the curtain there’s two rotating blades, but be warned, the
second one has TWO blades on it.
At the next hall, the first thing you want to do is jump down.
Ignore the pressure plate for a moment, there’s an artwork chest
down there as well as two valuable bottles with sand.  If you have
full sand, though, you can get this chest on your way back.  Now
climb back up to the platform with the pressure plate, and activate
Slow Time while hitting it.  I’m pretty sure you need it, and even
then, you’ll have to be pretty fast.  Now you’ll see some bars
above your head – run up the wall and jump back to catch a hold of
it.  Scoot around and swing to the next bar on your way to that
pressure plate.  It might not be a bad idea to activate Slow Time
again to make sure you make the next run, but no harm if you
don’t, you just have to do it again.  Drink and save in the next
room.  Welcome to the Garden Entrance Hall.
Kill these bandit fools.  Use the walls and the jump-over technique
if necessary.  What works best is to hit them until they block, then
roll to the right or left and hit them in the back some more.  They
block more than the regular guys, so keep at it.  They didn’t seem
like much trouble for me.  Watch out for their running attack, it’s
pretty fast.
In the corner there’s another artwork chest, get that and kill those
crows.  There’s also some more bottles with sand lurking around.
Don’t forget to get a drink.  Now, there’s a somewhat hidden
ladder just to the left of where you came in.  You have to jump for
it.  There’s a crow guy waiting for you at the top, be careful.  You
don’t actually have to kill some of the enemies, you know, but it’s
good practice, so give it a whirl.  He knocked me off the ledges a
few times, and he blocks a whole bunch.  Try dodging around him
some.  Once you’ve beaten him on both ledges before going for the
rope, jump across to the platform on the left side of the entrance,
from there, run along the wall to the rope, with the rope in hand,
keep running and then release it, then jump back to another
platform and you’ll find a chest. Get back down via the curtain.
Get back to the ladder and then to the rope on the right you ignored
the first time. Run across to the rope, then release, keep running,
and jump back onto the ledge to fight him for the final time.  Now
where are we going?  You may not be able to see it, but there’s a
pole jutting out over to the right side.  Run along the wall and jump
back for it.  Now go inside the door (ignore the curtain, that just
goes back down to the courtyard) and make your way down those
ledges.  There’s a bandit at the bottom, dispatch with him.  Run
along to the opposite wall and run up to grab the ledge.  Make your
way to the top and take a drink, you’ve earned it.
Remember this next room, because we’ll be back.  Turn the
rotating lever to open the far door.  In the next room there are
about 5 bandits and two ghosts. Take care of these guys and use
the wall jump technique if you have to. There are a few bottles in
the right hand corner as you come in that have sand in them. There
is also an artwork chest behind the pillar.
HEALTH UPGRADE 1:  In the last game, you found magic
corridors with happy music that led you to enemy-free areas where
you drank awesome water that gave you more life.  In this game, in
keeping with the ‘added grimness,’ you have to fight your way
through some truly gruesome traps to get the health bonus.  Oh
well – you had to do that in the original Prince of Persias.  You
want the health bonus?  I thought you did.  Read on.  In the far
corner away from the chest is a small hole in the low wall, drop
down to the ledge, drop again and scoot around to your right, drop
again to the platform below and run across to the other side. Enter
the doorway, walk to the edge and scoot out along the ledge, drop
down to the next ledge and jump across to the far side. Drop down
again, scoot back in, drop down, drop down again onto a platform
(there should be sand bottles around there somewhere, you’ll need
them). Run out along the platform and jump onto the beam, swing
to the next platform get to the edge, drop down jump across, drop
down a few more times to a final platform. Now for the hard part.
In the first hallway there are spikes on the floor and knives in the
wall. The knives move toward you at periodic intervals. Run across
the spikes and roll under the slicer. In the second hallway, there are
more spikes on the floor a rolling spiked log and a rotating blade.
The trick here is to time it so that you roll under the rotating blade
and the spiked log at the same time to get ahead of the spikes. In
the third hallway, there are 4 spikes and wall slicers. Good luck
with all that and dodge the rotating blade at the end of the hall. In
the last hallway, begin by rolling under the rotating blade, cross the
floor spikes and roll under the rolling log to get to your hard
earned health up. The traps are now disabled, so it’ll be easy to
make your way back.
On the front of that pillar by the artwork chest you pillaged a while
ago, there is a weight platform. Run up the pillar to pull the weight
platform, as you pull it down you’ll see off to you left that another
column starts to rise. In order to reach that column, I had to use
Slow Time, run up the column, the up the wall to the higher ledge.
Once you’re on the ledge jump backwards to get onto the tree.
Then, balance your way across the tree and jump towards the
balance beam on the far-side, across the rivulets of water. After
that, make your way to the column and move around it towards
your right. Jump backwards for the pole. After another beam and a
poll, and a bit more tree-walking you should find yourself on a
rope. With the rope in hand, run along the wall to your right,
release the rope and keep running to reach a pole. From there,
jump over to a hand hold and edge around to the right until you see
a beam, jump back for it.
Once you get onto the platform you’ll have to fight another crow
guy. After you drive him away, climb onto the column to your left.
Make your way up to the platform; you’ll see a pressure platform
there that opens the door. You will have to jump to the platform to
your left and face the crow guy again. After you beat him a second
time, jump to pull the hanging lever that will trigger the
drawbridge. Cross the drawbridge and pull the box over onto the
pressure plate.  Take a second to admire the view and appreciate
how crazy a guy like the Prince has got to be for doing those crazy
acrobatics over a 1000+ foot drop.  Done?  Okay.  Climb back
down, fight the crow guy again (or not) and head to the now open
door and turn the rotating lever inside to activate the water flow.
Wahoo!
Zoom out and admire the artwork, then jump into the water flow
and grab onto the hand holds along the wall and edge around it.
You will get to a platform and a balance beam and can jump onto a
rope on the far wall.  That wall on the other side looks breakable,
but not right now.  Looks like we’ll be back, if we want that secret.
Slide down and you’ll end up back in the courtyard you started out
at. Turn the rotating lever until the original door opens once again.
Go back through the way you came… all the way back to a ledge
we bypassed earlier which leads to a curtain. Slide down the
curtain and you’re back to the entrance of the garden. You will see