----------------------------------Ryokazendriel---------------------------- 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 four new rotating levers, which were highlighted by an earlier cinematic, yes? Turn these so that there is water flow to both statues. The large door in the center should then open. Enter and run up the wall to your left and grab hold of the ledge. Make your way to the top and into the portal room, killing all crows that get in your way. Inside, the key to activation is back-left, front-left, back- right, front-right. I’m beginning to think, though, that it’s different for everyone. Well, activate the sand portal, which takes you to the present. Congratulations, you have gained the Breath of Fate. Water Tower, Part II – Back to the Present In the next hall, get rid of the two bandits there. Then jump across to a ledge. Make your way down. You will find more fools to kill at the bottom (3). There is a weapon rack on your left as you enter a tree lined hallway where you will again, find more bastards to kill. These bandits provide you a good opportunity to practice your dual-wield techniques (see below), since they generally drop a weapon each. After some sword play, take advantage of the water all around you and heal yourself. Then go for a swim and enjoy a cool adult beverage on the corpses you just hacked down… or NOT. Sorry about that, my errant significant other manhandled the computer for a moment. Instead, why don’t you try coming back into the hall with the weapon rack I just mentioned? Climb up on that inconspicuous-looking boulder and run up the wall, jump back to catch hold of a small section of water piping. Where are we going? You’ll never see it, but jump straight forward, toward the Garden Hall, and you’ll land on another section of piping. Do it again to get to some balance beam work. Walk carefully to the other side and jump to the far platform, where there’s another bandit waiting. Edge out onto the ledge area and hop up. Scoot around to the left to get onto another platform to fight some more bandits, and a new enemy! One that’s invisible! And you can’t jump over her! I’m pretty sure it’s a her, she tried talking dirty to me. Anyway, be careful with those wall jumps here, they’re likely to send you right over the edge, and you can’t jump over those invisible girls, either. Your best bet is probably the dual-wield special attacks that attack in circles. Do the one where Prince flips onto one hand and spins around. It’s very break-dance-style. Once that battle’s over, run along the wall to that balance beam/tree thing in the distance. Walk along it to the end, then jump to your left. Move all the way to the right and carefully drop down onto the beam below you. Walk to the end and drop down onto the next beam down. Climb onto the statue platform and hop up to the next beam. Walk to the end and jump up to the opening. Jump across to the ledge, and drop all the way down to the bottom- most ledge. Then jump back to catch hold of that tree branch. Walk along to the edge and scoot along to your left all the way until you can drop down onto another branch/beam. Walk to the end of this one and jump left. Hop up the ledges and take a drink and save. At the next scene, you’re outside, attacking two ghouls and one harlequin that joins the fray. You can take them, right? Just use those specials, and don’t fly over the edge with those cool moves. That’s a stupid waste of sand. There’s a ledge down in front that you can drop to, edge along underneath the rock promontory and finally jump back to the next platform. Here you’ll fight one ghoul and two harlequins. Climb up the next platform and up a few more ledges. You’ll make it to a plus-shaped platform where you want to get up on that fallen piece of rock to run across the wall to the next ledge. I know you can’t see it, just trust me. When you get to the next, larger, platform, there will be a whole host of harlequins and invisible harlequins to fight. Wall jump here and take them out, you’ve got enough space for it. Remember you can’t block the harlequin’s blood suck, but everything else can be blocked, even the invisible girls. The small moss-covered boulder directly to your right as you get on the platform is where you want to go next. Climb up it and grab hold of the ledge. Jump back for a tree what works like a column, then jump back for a branch that works like a beam. Walk to the trunk of the tree and jump to the prince’s right for a bar. Swing to a beam, walk to the left, and jump straight out for a ledge. Scoot all the way around to your left and drop down. Walk out onto the beam, jump straight out for the bar and then swing up for the platform. Jump left for the bar and then swing onto the platform. Once you make it all the way to that higher platform you’ll have to fight a bunch of people, but it doesn’t matter much, because you have the all-powerful column to swing around, and there’s water on the horizon, so you can take whatever damage you want. Run out along the wall all the way to that tiny piece of wall jutting out. Take a drink and a save, you’ve really earned it this time. Bust those bottles for some sand, too. Pause to admire the view again, then run up that small wall there on the right side of the save and pull yourself up to jump across to the nearest tree. You make your way, Monkey Prince style, through the trees to a beam on the far side. You’ll be ambushed by some more harlequins – just slice them once to get them to yellow, then throw whatever weapon you’ve got at them. I swear, anytime in this place, they could jump out at you. Run along the wall to your left to the ledge (yes, Prince can make that) and you’ve made it to the door the game showed you eons ago. Now you’re faced with a classic trap: the retracting block. If you’re around when they come snapping out, though, Prince gets smashed good – it’s actually interesting to watch, if you’re fed up with Prince, anyway. Past those is another drink and save for you, before some more of those nasty retracting blocks. Jump across both of them and run along the wall to the rope there. Release the rope and run and jump back for the tree. Time the jump across to the column and slide down (X to release). In the next room, you’ll be set upon by a crow guy and an invisible harem-woman. May I recommend the wall jump? Out the doorway to the left, there’s a small section of beam leading to a column. Jump back from the column for a platform. Run along the wall to your right, then jump out for the next column. Jump back for another beam and a new doorway. Here, two more invisible harem girls will join you. Defeat them with liberal wall- jumping (and no jumping over them, remember). Exit the next doorway to have Prince inform you that you’re in the wrong era! Well, at least there’s a crow guy over there, what say we wander over and make him PAY for all our time and trouble? Run along the wall on your right to the stream of water and jump back for a tree. Jump back to the next tree, and slide down and jump for a bar. Swing straight out from the bar for yet another tree, climb up and jump back for a beam. Stride out onto the beam across the platform – it looks like it’ll break though, so hurry up and jump for that bar there. Flip across to the platform where the crow guy is standing. Enter the Dahaka, stage left. He takes out the crow guy on your behalf, and knocks you clear across the courtyard. The Second Dahaka Chase: Make haste across the wall on the left (Prince’s right) to the ladder, slide down and jump back for the bar. Jump to the next bar without delay, then the platform there. Your way will break away, so be ready to wall-run across on the left. When you get to the platform outside, quickly move to the left (Prince’s left) along the wall to catch a ladder. Slide down, run across the wall to the next platform, bust up those barrels, and head through. Run up the next wall and when you turn the corner, run along that wall to the ledge on the other side. You’ll need to scoot over past the barrels to pull yourself up – then smash the barrels in your way and tear down the hall. Watch out for the edges – there are holes there. Stay in the middle of the corridor. Take a right, then a left. At that platform, head straight and stay to the left. Run left along the wall at the end to catch a rope. Immediately hit A to release it so you don’t run back, because then you’d be running AT the Dahaka, and that would be un-wise, to say the least. You haven’t outrun him yet – keep going. Jump across to the ladder and slide down. Jump back to another ladder and slide down again – I know you can’t see where you’re going so just trust me. Book it down the hall and through the curtain of water, which is your salvation. Give yourself a high-five. Drink, save, and activate the portal, and you’ll receive another sand tank. Finally! The Water Tower, Part III – Back to the Past Go through the curtain of water and look around for the Dahaka. No? Well there are those two bandits there, mutilate them a bit for enjoyment. Backtrack your route from the Present, and fight another crow guy. Bust the bottles if you need sand. Now, jump over the side rail indicated by the game and jump back for a bar. Swing over to the other side, take care of the bandits over there, and jog over to the ladder and weight platform that will open the door. Go through and head to the next ladder and weight platform, but those just open the door you just came through. Head past the next two bandits and outside. Edge along the ledge on the right and climb up to the next platform. At the top of the ladder, there are three (3) wall blades all moving on different tracks and intervals, but you have four sand tanks now, so nothing should phase you. Go out to landscape view if your camera is misbehaving. Inside, there are two more wall blades, pass them and jump back before Prince runs into the statue on the other side. Drink and save. Run up the wall and through the doors into the next fantastic courtyard. There are two bandits and a lurking invisible harlequin. She took out a good chunk of my health before I realized she was there. Blast her one! Do it for me! On the other side of the courtyard, there are two more bandits, and two more invisible harlequins. There are also plenty of bottles and an artwork chest. Now for the rotating lever in the middle. You’ll want that facing east (as the camera shows it). I’ll call this camera the master one – and all the cardinal directions will be named as you see them here, for the most part. Now go to that column you just moved on the west side of the yard, and climb up. Run up the face and move out onto the beam that’s facing east. Jump straight out for the column. Jump back from the column (north) and scoot around the hand holds to your left. Run for the rope. This rotating lever, you want facing south (north as the camera shows it). Walk out onto the beam, half-hidden by foliage, and jump for the tower you just moved. Head out onto the long beam you just pointed south. Run along the wide platform to the other side, and jump back to the north. You’re now on the east side of the yard. Head right (east) and turn that lever to the north (as the camera shows it). Bust up that weapon rack and run along the wall to the rope. Swing across to the tiny platform and pull yourself up to the handholds. Scoot left and then jump back for the column. Jump back to the platform you just turned to face north, walk out along the beam and jump straight out for the next platform. Open the artwork chest, then drop down and roll under the door to the next rotating lever. Turn it 180 degrees and take a drink. HEALTH UPGRADE 2: Now climb up the very small outcropping of rock and run up the wall to grab hold of a ledge. Pull yourself up to the top. Welcome to Trapsville. The first hall has one log and spikes. The next has three logs and spikes. Nothing you can’t handle. A far cry easier than the last one, I’d say. Now you have to head back down to the courtyard, and the bandits are back. Hooray. On your way back, leave the lever on the WEST side of the yard, turned to the SOUTH, and the lever on the EAST side of the yard turned as you needed it turned in order to go back (south, I’m pretty sure). Trust me. Turn the lever in the center of the yard to the east to activate the water flow in some more channels. Objective updated, and the door out is now open again. If there is a way to open the gate and get that artwork chest shown there, I don’t know how. At least yet. But I vow that I shall be back! Go out, run across to the small platform, cross the wall with the wall blades, kill two bandits and two invisible harlequins, Run back across the wall with three wall blades, climb down the ladder and back across the ledges. Pull down the weight platform and get back to the balcony you were at before. To put down the ladder to the Garden Hall: Go to that opening in the wall and run to the rope. Run across and greet the bandit waiting for you there. Open the artwork chest (been a while since I’ve seen one of those – I probably missed some) and push the button. This will open up a large block. Run back over there quickly and run up the wall to jump back for a bar. Scoot along to the far right side and jump for the ledge. Scoot over and drop down to the platform. Run up the wall and jump back to grab the hanging lever, then run up the wall and continue to your right. If you go down that ladder, you should find yourself back at the Garden Hall, look familiar? Leave this place at once. You’re done here. Lemme hear a Hallelujah from the crowd! Clockwork Hero (The Mechanical Tower) Now! Back to the central hall. You remember this place? Just drop down and run back the way you came. Get sand from the bottles if you’re not at full sand. Back past two more rotating blades and two more bandits, and you’re once again in the Central Hall. You meet up with Kaileena again, and have some pretty transparent dialogue (isn’t it OBVIOUS to you??? I won’t say anything, for spoiler’s sake, but really.) Sometimes, she doesn’t talk out loud, and I chalk that up to some Gamecube wonkiness. She gives you the Lion Sword, which can charge attack, but you still can’t hit Kaileena, who just stands around in that amazingly slutty outfit, while you do all the work. Turn the rotating lever 180 degrees to open up a path to the second tower. You’ll want to jump over to the north entrance platform and then run to your left and jump back. Then run along the wall again for the ledges. Pull yourself up and jump back for another platform. From here, run up the wall. Before you jump to the door, jump diagonally to get the artwork chest. Yes, Prince can make that jump. Do you really need to ask anymore? Through the doorway, there’s a bottle of sand and a weight platform. Pull it, dodge the rotating blades, and roll under the door. You can make it without using Slow Time, I believe in you. Jump across the spiked pit and go to the far end of the corridor. Run up the right or left wall or that little crevice and jump back and forth until you reach the top. Time your way through some floor blades and scoot to your left along the hand holds at the top. Jump back for the platform. Here are those nasty retracting blocks again. I’d say your safest bet is to just climb over them when they’re out. But I’m sure you can run past them, no problem. In the next chamber, there are those ghouls again! And their backs are to you! Go in and slice them up – the Lion Sword makes quick work of them, indeed. There are bottles, but they don’t appear to contain sand. Edge out along the ledge out there, drop down, scoot left, drop down, scoot left, drop down, drop down, hang, scoot right, and drop down. You know what I’m talking about. There are some ghouls down here, but what can they really do to you? The GIGANTIC iron golem that comes out after they’re gone, however, can do a LOT of unpleasant things to you. Luckily, there’s sand in bottles lying about, but let’s analyze this situation with the golem first. Basic Iron Golem Tactics: He’s about, say, four times Prince’s size, and he swings his arms and runs about pretty quickly for a big guy. Your chances of dodging or blocking are pretty slim, but go ahead and give it a try. Your all-important A button (rolling, back- flipping, etc) really comes into play here. Stay away from him, and try and get around to his back. Prince can roll under his fists when he swings them side to side. Fantastically enough, Prince can even roll straight between his legs, so take advantage of it. From here, hamstring him – that is, nail him in the back of the knees a few times. He’ll come down to a kneeling position, that’s your cue to hit A to clamber up on his back and do some REAL damage to the back of his head and neck. He’ll likely go yellow after you chop his head a bit, and throw you off, or you can jump off with A in time. The best thing to do is use the directional controller and push AWAY from his hand – Prince will duck, and golem won’t be able to grab you. Just do it again, and keep at it until Prince finishes him off. Very cool move. (If you need more specifics on beating golems and saving health, scroll down to the next Iron Golem Tactics section, I’ll describe these tricks in more detail.) Some ghouls come out after that, for goodness sakes, don’t let THEM kill you after all that agony and hardship. Go through the next door and round the stairs to the right to get an artwork chest. Crack open some more barrels and bottles for sand, then push the big button at the end of the hall. A big box will rise just to your right, run up it then up the wall to grab the ledge. Haul yourself up for that drink and save. Walk out onto that beam to the end, where you’re faced with a HUGE contraption you have to jump through. Sigh, time it, then jump to the beam out in front. You’re met by some ghouls and a – what the hell IS that? Kill the ghouls, there’s some bottles with sand where they came from if you need it. Jump to the slowly moving column out there and jump along those columns until you get to a beam. You’ll have to jump right to the platform with the button. Hit the button then run along the wall to the moving wall out there. Scoot to the left, hang down and keep scooting around. Pull yourself up and jump back, quickly now, or the wall will move back. Turn the rotating lever and jump out to the bar. Swing to the next bar, which moves up and down. Keep swinging until you get to the top. The unfriendly-looking beasts are up there, so kill them. Beast Strategy: They actually don’t have much health, but they can do pretty big damage, leap forward from distances to maul you, and they explode when they die, so back flip away after you hit them when they’re glowing. Hit the bottles for more sand. Pull the lever, then hop over to the next platform, where three more beasts will attack you. Take care of them, and jump up onto the beam on the left, not the big one, but the short one. Now leap left, get to the ledge and slide right, hop up and up again. Hang down and scoot left. Drop into the room with the ghoul and hit the artwork chest. Climb up the ladder and jump back. Walk to the end of the beam and jump right to the ledge. Hang down and scoot left. Hop up and jump back for the bar. Scoot right and swing to the rotating wall. Jump back for the rotating lever when you can. Turn it so that the mechanism over there is rotating clockwise or some such. Now jump to the bar and then to the rotating mechanism. Hang onto it while it rotates clockwise, and when you get to the other side, leap back for the bar. Now, you’ll be next to a button, but there’ll be a beastie between you and the wall that is your objective. Watch this – Prince can slice WHILE wall-running. Unbelievable, but true enough for us. Run along the wall, hit B when you near the beast, then hit A to jump back, quickly. If it’s too complicated for you, hit A before you reach the beast – Prince can likely make it to the wall anyway. Ride the wall back around and jump for the ledge on the other side. Let yourself down and kill another beast or two. The barrels will contain sand, and there’s a hanging lever above your head, so run up the wall and jump back for it. At the raised platform, more beasties once again ambush you, so swing at them and flip back as necessary. Now you’re going to have to jump through those gears again, but if your timing was bad, I doubt you would have made it this far, anyway. Jump to Prince’s right and up onto the ledge, where a hall with a rotating blade awaits. Careful on your way past, there’s a retracting block out there. You’ll want to climb up on that block and run along the wall, over the logs to the next block (hopefully not INTO the next block, which will squish you.) Now it’s past some asynchronous logs down some stairs to a button that you mysteriously cannot reach. So hop up onto the block on your left and up to some handholds. Scoot around until you press that pesky button and go through the door. Now down the stairs for a drink and save. The bandits are back in the next hall. Kill them, get the sand bottles and another drink if you want. Run up for the button, and watch the box come up. Now run up and hit it again, activate some Slow Time, and head over to the box and run up the side. Run up the wall to the rope and run to the left platform. Kill two more bandits and head across the drawbridge-like thing. There’s your friend, the creepy stalker! I’m beginning to have some suspicions about him, though. Aren’t you? The left hand path: Head through and kill some beasties that jump out at you and move through the big doorway. Here, they’ll force you to run past a retracting block by putting a spiked rolling log in front of it. Time that carefully. Time the next hall carefully, too – a set of asynchronous rolling logs on some stairs. Finally there’s a rotating blade in front of a retracting block. The bottles in the next room seem to contain no sand, but there’s a ladder on the far side. Jump back and grab that artwork chest. That appears to be it. The right hand path: Two bandits on the other side of a rotating wheel (wall blade equivalent) will have to be brute-forced to death, since you really can’t wall jump safely on that tiny chunk of planking. Now we’ll go through that slightly faster wheel and jump back for a column. Jump around the columns to finally reach a rotating lever. Still no sand, but at least you can start that far platform moving. Run over there at your earliest convenience and run back the way you came. Jump back and keep jumping back and forth to reach the top. On the platform, you’ll find a beastie and an artwork chest, as well as a hanging lever that doesn’t appear to do anything. Jump over into the next room. I hope you saved up your life and sand, because here’s another iron golem for you! Same strategy – appears to be NO sand in the pots, though. See previous golem section for more info. There are a couple of exits out of this room. Take the hallway, not the doorway. Smack open the artwork chest as you round the corner. Edge out along the ledge at the end of the hall to find that there’s nothing there. Odd. Go back in and out the doorway to the wall with a rope on it. There’s a beastie waiting for you on this wall so whip out your swords before you reach the rope. Then release and keep running, jump back for the platform there. Look! You’re knee deep in water! Woo! Across the low rail there are some ‘sweeping’ things. Get over there during one of the intervals, and roll under them where you can. They alternate, inside to outside, so keep on the move. You don’t want to be swept out – that’s death. Halfway around the giant pillar, jump out of the stream and pull the hanging lever to open a far door. Continue through the stream to the far side and hop up on the bar. Swing over to play with the nice bandits across the way, then head on through the now-open door. There’s a curtain there, we’ll come back for it. Run across the spikes and keep to your left. The rotating pillar will come up, but far too slow to catch you as you whiz by. Run across the next spikes and across the right-hand wall next to catch the rope. Buzz by the wall-blades and into the next corridor. Now for vertical rolling log – retracting block – vertical log. I’m sure you can handle it. Next: retracting block, low rolling log. Climb the block and jump over. Next: a vertical roller and a retracting block. I’m sure you can handle it. Onwards through the curtain of water into the portal room. Activate and receive the Ravages of Time. Mechanical Tower Part II – Present-Day Clocktower Back through all those traps, only in reverse this time, and they are slightly broken, as they tend to be in the past. So you’re asking me now, how to get past that low rolling spiked log. Well, wait for the retracting block before it to extend, then jump up and start running along the left wall (as the right one is blocked by a vertical roller). You should make it across and NOT get squashed by the next retracting block. The next trap is pretty self explanatory, now run past the wall blade and grab the rope. From here just jump back for the ledge and scoot to safety. Then there’s the couple of spiked floors and your back in the tower, if slightly dilapidated. The game shows you that you want back out the way you came in during the Past. Kill the bandits, and beasts show up. Dispatch of them also. Still no sand in those bottles. Remember that curtain? That’s still there. Slide down and run past the wheel, which is now turning quite slowly. Make your way along the same way as you did in the Past, only now when you get to the room that held the golem, there’s only a few bandits and a ghost. After you beat them, the game wants you to take out the boarded up doorway by luring a beast over there and then killing it, so it explodes and takes the boards with it. Fabulous, eh? And they give you about 5-6 beasts to figure it out. Take care of all of them and head through the opening to the rope and that water. The mechanism’s busted, but so is the floor, so jump across. Jump over to the platform where that bandit is standing and carve him up like fresh roast. Hang over the edge and drop down to the ledge beneath you. Bet you didn’t see that. Scoot all t he way to your right and drop down to the next ledge. Take care of this guy, then jump across the way and take out his friend. Jump, don’t run, through the waterfall on your left The ghost and traps past here are no match for you, barrel on through. Here, I experienced a glitch in my GC version. I walked up to the door and stood on the button, but it would not open the door. Bad Ubisoft! Well, I killed myself (what a world! what a world!) and did the whole thing again – the second time the door DID open. Anyhow, kill everyone in this room, and try and stay away from exploding beasts. Climb the ladder and jump back when the hole is above you to pull yourself up. Run up the wall (it’s a bit tricky) and climb up. Jump back when the ledge is turned your way, then jump back again when you’re pointed at the far side, then do it again to get back on the turning pillar. I know you can’t see yourself half the time, but jump up and scoot along until you’re under a gap, so you can pull yourself up. Pull yourself up to the ceiling, scoot along until you can pull yourself through. Now, we’re going to do all that again. When you get to the top of this next pillar, you’ll notice there’s a button on one end, and a door on the other. Got an idea of what you’re going to have to do? That’s right. Scoot all the way to Prince’s right so you can jump at that button and immediately jump back for the pillar. Now jump back through the door and save! Over the next fallen wall, there’s some bandits and beasts. Make sure you blow up the right hand wall, but aside from that, take care of them as you see fit. I think the beasts will keep coming, so just jump out the hole you made and continue. Go up the rocky path and jump back and forth up the narrow column to reach a platform with bandits and harlequins. Lament your bad fortune and make them all pay. After that’s finished, run up the grated wall – the one that looks like a terrace window? You can grab onto the top, it turns out to be a ledge. Then jump onto the top of the pillar in the middle, and then jump to the left, to some ledges outcropping from a tree. Make your way to the top then run along the wall to your left to another triangular platform. Run again to a ladder. Fight another bandit and harlequin. Break open barrels for another sand well. I don’t know what that moving block is out there for, but I tried jumping from it a bunch of times. Just hang over the rail and drop down to catch some handholds beneath you. Jump back to a platform, kill about four harlequins, then get on the somewhat subtle ladder. Swing around to the other side of the ladder when you get to the bottom, jump back and catch the beam, avoiding the pendulum. Jump to the next hall, run past the dual wall blades and grab the rope. Release and run, then jump back. Run across the next wall and take the ladder down. Face down the bandits and a whole horde of freakin’ harlequins. Run up the right side terraced wall, run up the wall for some handholds. Scoot left, jump back, drop down, scoot left, drop down. Look around in the bottles for sand, go through the archway. Cue the Dahaka and crappy lighting! Run! The Third Dahaka Chase: Run along the wall across the chasm, then run along the right wall next for the rope. Immediately hit A and keep running. Quick! Through the curtain! Whew. Short chase. Run up for the button, jump back and forth to the top. Fight bandits and beasts. Ho hum. Jump across to find the Dahaka, practically waiting for you. Run along the left wall this time for the rope, then keep running across walls and over chasms until you make it to the curtain of water. You should do okay. Activate portal and get a new sand tank! Mechanical Tower Part III – Once more, the Past In the Past, the traps are activated, but they should pose no serious threat. Time it so you run over the rolling log, but avoid the sweeping one at the other side of the chasm. Roll under the blade, and under that hole in the wall. Past another rotating blade and two wall blades, kill some beasts and roll under the big gear, kill some more bandits. At the wide chasm with no way down, carefully jump back and forth until you touch bottom. There are two more bandits and a beast past the curtain of water. Run to the rope then to the platform. To get rid of those guys, just push the button. Cackle evilly and continue. Run across the next wall and into a room with a giant iron golem. Great. Now he’s chucking huge, exploding firebrands at you, and you have to fight about four bandits. Well, just keep on the move, they shouldn’t really have a chance to hit you. Run out onto the right-side platform, the game will zoom in on a door. Stand in front of it and get the golem to hurl a brand at it, and it will break open. Thank you! Go in, drink and save. Do the same thing on the left side to open up a health corridor. HEALTH UPGRADE 3: These corridors are mostly up to you and your own skills. How much can I really help? I’ll give you a heads up on what’s to come, though. First up: retracting blocks x2. Next: spike hall with three horizontal spiked rollers. These are less forgiving than your regular ones, so take care. Next: dual retracting blocks that you need to climb. Jump over to the next block, then run along the wall. Climb up on the last block before the left turn at the end of the hall, and jump onto the one that’s extending in your direction from the other side of the hall. Run along the wall to bypass the rest. Get your upgrade and a pat on the back. In the save room, there’s a weight platform, pull that down. Run through the rotating gears and to the platform. Jog over and let yourself down on the other side. Kill bandits, and have the nice golem break that wall for you – there’s an artwork chest inside. There’s also sand in one of the bottles, and a ladder next to it. Jump back from the ladder onto that contraption – the golem will hit it and apparently everything drops down a bit. Scoot around to the left and jump back for a triangular platform, then run to the next one, then the ladder. Feel familiar? Turn the lever at the top a full 360 degrees to activate… something. There’s plenty of sand in those barrels – bust them up. Run across the blocks when they’re down (so that’s why there were there in the Present) to a ledge on the far side. Drop down (time it carefully) to grab those rotating cogs. Rotate around on the counter-clockwise one to the end and drop for the bar below you. Flip along the bars to a ledge. Scoot around to the right, jump back for the bar. Drop down to the next bar (X, duh) and flip to the platform. Come down and knock out those guys at the bottom. Climb up the ladder and have your friend the golem break the weight again. Scoot to your right and jump back. Run to the next platform and ladder, just like before. Turn the next lever another 360 degrees, take care of the beasts that show up. I don’t know if any of those walls are breakable. Run across (timed) to the next platform. Turn the next lever 360 degrees. Run to the platform that just opened. Climb through that window and get the artwork chest. I’m pretty sure those cogs over there are where you came from. Jump over to where that bandit guy awaits, kill him and slide down the ladder. Run across the wall to the other side, hang down and scoot right. Drop down and run across over the doorway to get another artwork chest. Drop down. Back to where you started. But wait! Go save then run up to the golem and he will invite you to some one-on-one combat. Woo! The Second Iron Golem: This one’s gonna be less fun, because if he gets a hold of you, he’ll throw you right out of the ring, Soul Caliber-style. And you’ll die. So when you get up on his back, hit A after a few hits. Try getting Prince to simply dodge the hand (see other Iron Golem Tactic sections), and you can go back to carving your name in his neck without molestation. Once he’s gone, the platform raises once more. You might as well go back and drink and save before you make your way to the platform the golem was standing on, I know you want to. Now, how to turn this big contraption on? Run up the right hand wall and jump back to grab a bar. Jump for the beam, then the bar, then rebound off the wall for the next bar up. Next there’s a beam, then a ladder through a pendulum. Use Prince’s first-person camera to make sure you’re aligned with the ladder. Run up the wall to pull the hanging lever here, then across the way to the rotating lever, fighting a few beasts on your way. Be careful up there. Push that final lever 360 degrees to see all your hard work rewarded. Here We Go Again (Return to the Hourglass Room) All the way back?! Well, we’d better get going. First of all, the doorway near the hanging lever opened up, so let’s just go through there. Run through the gears, then run through gears and jump back. Head downstairs and fight some beasts. No, I don’t know if you can break that door. Hang off the edge and drop down for a curtain, jump off for another, and jump off for another. Our old Prince would have done something fun here, I’d like to say. Cruise through the corridors for some more curtain action, and at the bottom there’s some sand, well, if you didn’t get it before. That’s right! We’re back! It was so long ago, though, that you probably don’t even remember the place. Jump across, slide down the ladder, and move out on the beam. Jump through the gears and drink. Drop down and head out, to where the golem awaits you. Again? No way. I just wandered past him and left. The exit is to the left at the end, then run up the far wall to grab the handholds. Climb up, but I’m hoping you remember this from last time. Back down the hall, over the traps, onto the ladder. Just jump back from the ladder to spare yourself the timing. Run to the curtain and let yourself down. Pull the weight platform and roll under the door. Get that sand bottle if you need it, but you can make it without Slow Time. Get all the way back to the Central Hall. Something really weird happens. Go north, and make your way to the Hourglass Room. These traps seem pretty tame now, eh? If you still need help, though, you’ll have to scroll back for it. Save again when you get there – hey why not. Some more stuff ensues. When you get back control again, would you believe there’s an artwork chest in the corner? How about two? Might as well get them, since the Empress generally just waits around for you to wander the room as you please. Some Empress Strategy: The Empress has some moves that are BAD news, indeed. Some of them aren’t blockable, either, so keep up with the dodging and get in hits where you can. She can do more than half a circle of damage in half a combo, so if you get hit, might as well rewind. There are pots everywhere, but doesn’t it feel odd scavenging for sand while she’s just walking around with those swords? Whatever the case, health is more valuable now than sand, so rewind every time you get hit. Eventually, she’ll summon some upgraded crow guys. They’re a little bit tough, but really, they’re a blessing. They drop a sword and some sand each, and they’re quite jump-able. So jump over them and slice them up, take their weapons and sand and gear up to face the Empress some more. Don’t take any damage from them, you can’t afford it. The biggest thing I can say to help you is to run in and slice (use your reach, like you did with Shahdee), and then back-flip back out again. Don’t block like you did with Shahdee, because she can break through. As soon as she blocks one of your hits, flip out – you’ve got just enough time. Keep on the move, so if she appears behind you, you can flip away to safety. If you’re going to do a fancy move, initiate it before you reach her, because she can interrupt those, too. Be ready to dodge. They’ll have a conversation at about half health, then she’ll summon more crow guys at a quarter health. Don’t take any crap from those guys. Don’t bother with pole-swinging, either, both they and her are generally resistant. Why even have the poles if they’re going to be resistant? Well, eventually she’ll die. Just keep at it. WTF?!?! (The Long Way Home) Thought you were done? Well, let me inform you, in case the cinematic didn’t – the Dahaka is STILL after you! So I hope you didn’t throw your controller somewhere in joy when you killed the Empress, because you need to run, and NOW! Jump the first chasm, then run across the next one on the left. Run along the left wall of the next one, and let yourself drop down. Swing right. Run along the right hand wall to a bar. Swing on. Run along the left wall to hit the button, grab the rope. Release and run to the curtain. Slide down, roll through the doorway. The Tomb and the Dahaka Prince then soliloquies a tad, as the “architect of his own destruction.” Second time in as many games! Prince!! Alright. The Dahaka is still after us. Go up those stairs and be prepared to book it. Run along the right wall and jump back. Bust those barrels, run along the wall. Swing up three times, run along the right wall to a rope. Release and run, jump back. Smash barrels, run along the right wall, jump back at the very end. Leap off the edge for the hanging lever, swing through the curtain of water. GOAL! You’re back in that same tomb room, actually. Run along the wall to that pedestal. You can grab the white block with R and pull back. Do that. Go through the stairs you just went through again, but this time, the corridor you took is rubble, and the corridor the Dahaka came from is open. Go right down that passage. He’s back AGAIN?! We’ll never be rid of him! Jeeeez! Run along the wall, run across the next wall on the left and jump back for the bar. Swing up and run. Jump across, take the RIGHT hand path. Jump onto the hanging lever and through the water, again. Lost him. Back in the same room, once more. Run up the wall for the ledge on the left side (Prince’s right). Climb up and over for the next platform, and pull out the white stone. Back up the stairs once more. Here he comes again. I hope you haven’t been wasting that sand, cause I just don’t know where there would be any more. This time, where I said right before, go LEFT. Apparently, you can smash the weapon rack in this corridor (if you’ve got time) to obtain something called Rayman’s Hand. I didn’t do it though. I figured getting away from the Dahaka took precedence. Roll under that rubble and keep going. Run along the right wall for a rope, release and run for a bar. Release and run around the corner. Here, run up the wall and jump back and forth until you get to the top. Roll under more rubble, run up some more wall, jumping back and forth. Run along the next right side wall, grab the rope, release to grab a rope, release to grab a bar, swing to the platform. Run and jump across, run along the left wall and jump back for the curtain. Run around the corner, roll under the rubble, roll under some more rubble. Jump across for the hanging lever. Swing to sweet safety! Run the wall to the handholds on Prince’s right. Scoot left and pull the last white stone out. Now to get to the tomb there. Don’t forget the artwork chest just behind you as you get off the platform. On one of the pillars close to you, you can hop up and hang. Scoot left to get onto the new ledges and climb up. I looked for another way to go from here, but I couldn’t see one. Jump to the bar and through the water. Drink and save. The Prison and the Prince There’s an artwork chest there for you. Run along the right side of the next wall, to a ledge that you really can’t see. Scoot left and up to the platform. Now, I don’t quite remember where Prince got that dagger, or whatever it is he’s holding, but it apparently doesn’t do ANY damage, as these bandit guys never turned yellow for me, after I hit them with a few of my favorite moves. With the Lion Sword, it took maybe three or four solid hits to get rid of them. I gave up in frustration and just ran along the left wall to the next beam. Don’t overshoot it. I ignored the next two guys as well and just dropped down and scooted left Get on the beam there and walk out. Jump to the next one. Walk along to the right, jump to the next one. Walk to the platform. I ignored these four fools also, cursing the tiny piece of equipment that was now my sword. I’ll get you later, bandits. And your little dogs, too. Run up the left wall to the ladder. Climb up, jump back, climb up, jump back, then scoot right to the doorway. A sword! Now, how do we reach it? The Scorpion Sword, the Dahaka, and the Past Let’s try that hallway there, after a drink and save. There are a lot of guys at the end, and what appears to be a Bondage version of the harlequin girls of yore. They have an attack that apparently bypasses your block from the front, so they really are not going to be your favorite type of enemy. Or maybe that dagger thing is so piddling that it can’t block. Let’s not mess with them right now – I want to wait until we get that sword down there. Let’s move along to the opening there instead, and climb out onto the beams. As is traditional, the network of beams there for your use crumbles away before you can reach them. Well, at least you weren’t ON them when their integrity gave way. Move to your left. One of the new BDSM chicks is waiting to make your acquaintance. These cat-woman clones are a little better at this beam business than their red-garbed cousins, so you may take a few hits while trying to give her what-for. At least you won’t die if you mess up. Remember, jump over her attack with A, respond with B. That’s all I know about it. At the next platform, after another encounter, go to the beam on your right. The left beam falls away, so jump straight out to the next one. Walk to the next platform. To your left, you can run across the wall, but there’s another BDSM chick waiting. Whip out your puny dagger-thing and take her out as you’re running No mean feat. I don’t know about you, but I was out of sand tanks, and the fall will kill you if you mess up. Run along to the next platform, and from there to the red curtain. Jump back for the next curtain and down to the bottom. Damn you, Dahaka!!!! Howl in frustration. Pause if you have to take extra time to stomp around your living room. Hey, get a drink while you’re at it. No, a real one, in real life. I’d say you’ve earned one. Yet Another Dahaka Chase: Now, it’s time to get out of here. Forget the barrels – I tried. No sand. Book it down those stairs. As if we even had time to wait around and suck up sand. Run across the wall on the left side and down the next stair, staying in the middle to avoid the barrels. No, I didn’t check all these guys for sand, but I really doubt you have the time to look for sand now. Keep running down the stairs, run across the wall, and eventually you get through the curtain of water with minimal fuss. Drink, save, activate portal, get the Wind of Fate, your new ground attack. Now, we’re in the Past again, and the traps are once more activated. But your sand tanks have been refilled, so why not. The wall on your right can’t be run across, so you’ll have to take the left and avoid the spiked poles. Jump back at the end if you have to. Run up the stairs and past the rotating double-blade to the left. The right’s an alcove. Now for some floor buzz saws. Just stay to one side and run when they’re both gone. Now for an odd one. A retracting block as your only way across a spiked pit, but a rolling log threatening to sweep you off the top. The way I handled this one was to jump to the retracting block when the log was absent, run to the other side and drop down, then jump back for the hall. Up the stairs, the easiest way to pass this one is to move into the alcove on your left when the floor blades are gone, then move to the alcove to the north, or just run through at the right time. Hit the button and go through the door. Say it with me now: HALLELUJAH! A SWORD! And not just any sword, the sword that breaks walls! Life just took a turn for the better. There’s also a number of bandits here for you to break in your new sword on. Kill them all! There’s also sand in the pots here, but the bandits will give you sand, so I doubt you’ll need it. Rewind damage to your health, as sand is less valuable than health right now. There’s a small exit to this room that leads to a dead end and a hole in the ceiling that you just can’t reach. Head through the now- open door to the next room. The button here opens a door, but it closes much too fast for you to get through, even with Slow Time. So turn the lever and let in some new baddies. These are what – zombie bandits? They look and sound meaner than any of the baddies we’ve really encountered, and they hit harder and block better, to boot. Look out for these guys. After some of their combos, Prince’s block is broken, so try and dodge more than you block. They can also work well in groups, which is just bad news for you. Even the pole-swing doesn’t really faze them. Wall jump them and jump over them to finish them off, being always mindful of where they are, and how much damage they’re doing to you. Okay, now all the doors except that last one are open. There’s an artwork chest in one, and a crate in the other. Drag the crate to the button and head through. Jump to the ladder and slide down. One zombie bandit and two regular bandits here. Take care of them and move to the trap hall. Roll under the wall slicer (your timing is good, yes?) and past the dual-bladed rotaters. Unfortunately, you now have to contend with floor blades as well. There’s not much I can say that will help you, but if you’re really stuck, try running along the wall to bypass that whole mess. In the next room, turn the rotating lever 180 degrees to release some baddies. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t in the mood. Hit the button to activate the spikes to get rid of them in shorter order. There’s another button in one of the rooms they came out of that will open the door – you may need Slow Time in order to get through it, though. Three zombie bandits in here, and they’re out for blood. Amazingly enough, with all his agility, you can land Prince in that spiked pit, so watch out for it. There’s an artwork chest in one of the cells, get it before you go on. Turn the rotating lever on the other side and get a drink and save. Run out along the wall and jump back and forth to the top. Hey, we’re back in the room where we got the scorpion sword! Hey, there’s a huge golem waiting for us! Huge Iron Golem Tactics: Same tactics here, but this guy has WAY more health. He’s got a big boss bar down at the bottom, and he can take a lot of punishment before he goes down. This makes it essential for you to learn how to dodge his hands – because he can take a number of blows to the head, but YOU can’t take that many toss-arounds before you expire. So, when he stops wobbling around and strikes a pose, quickly discern what angle he’s standing at in order to push the control stick away from the direction he’s about to grab. For instance, he stops and stands with his right foot forward and right shoulder higher than his left. He’s going to reach around with his right hand, likely. Push the controller toward his left shoulder, and down, and he will miss. Careful, he may immediately reach in with his left hand, and you’ve got to dodge again. Don’t dodge until he starts to reach for you, because if you slide to his left shoulder before he’s reaching, he may just reach with his left instead of his right and grab you quickly. Since those throws do the most damage, those are probably what you want to rewind, at least to get in a few more hits. After you beat him, a ladder comes down in the room that he came out of. Run up the wall and grab it, it’s on the left of the entrance as you come in. When you reach the top, there’s an artwork chest and a button. Hit the button and run through the door to face some zombie bandits. HEALTH UPGRADE 4: Take the time to kill those zombie bandits and take their sand. There are two break-able walls here – one has a button inside, and the other, the door. You’ve got the sand, so activate Stop Time if it pleases you and run through the door. The button here opens the doorway back, and in the next stairwell, there are two vertical logs. Like I’ve said before, these hallways are mostly up to your own skills, and nothing I can say will really help. But I’ll try. Between these two logs is a very small space where Prince can stand safely. Proceed with caution. Take a moment to survey the next hall. Spikes on the floor: check. Wall blades: check. Spiked logs at the end: check. At the rotating logs, you can’t see it, but you’ll want to go into the hall on their right. Next. Spiked floor, bladed walls, more rotating logs. Run when they are closest to you and move into the alcove of safety to their left. Then run across to the stairs and roll by the logs there. Take whatever hits you have to, because when you get the upgrade, your health is magically restored. Back into the balcony-hall. See that red curtain there? Looks like we’ll be back here later. Head into the next hall, forward and on your left. Once into this hallway, run to the very end and run up the wall and jump back for a beam. It’s the wall with an ugly face on it. Prince can make it, just keep trying. Jump to the wall again to a ledge and climb up. You can jump back out toward the hall, but there doesn’t appear to be anything over there. Jump back for the next beam and across for the next ledge. Yes! Prince can make that! Stop asking! Jump back for a beam and some blessed water. Run up any of the walls and jump back to grab the beam. Walk to the top of the T end and go right. Jump to the wall on Prince’s left and jump back to catch the beam overhead. Do it again to reach a hall. You’ll be ambushed by BDSM chicks here – introduce them to the Scorpion Sword. Cat-Girl Strategy: This is from the board, I forget who posted it, but I found it to be a good trick. Props to the guy who mentioned it, but I don’t remember who it was. The Cat-Girls (BDSM chicks) seem to be particularly susceptible to the Strangulation move that Prince does beautifully. Hurl whatever weapon you’ve got at them – you’ll need a free hand. Hold down Y to grab the nearest one and mash X to grind them to dust. The other will generally (not always – best to keep the others in front of you by dragging the one you’ve got around as a human shield, just hold Y) stand around stupidly while you make those terrible noises of strangulation. Before Prince releases his victim, she’ll be down to yellow at the least, and you can take care of her with just about any move after that. You even get a sword automatically for your troubles. One thought – someone said that the gory moves are disabled if you disable the ‘blood’ feature, so who knows if you’ll be able to slice off their heads from behind if you’ve turned it off. The Library, v2.0 If you didn’t have enough fun in the library of Sands of Time, here’s your chance. First off, the welcome wagon. No less than 4 zombie bandits and about 2 BDSM chicks. You can’t really see more than two at a time or so, because they jump around too much. Also, I was heavily beset upon, so I wasn’t counting noses – I was fighting for my life! Wall-jump and jump over the zombie bandits to get out of the midst of fray – these guys aren’t too block-able. The zombie bandits can break your block, and the BDSMs can jump on your back even if you are blocking and drink your blood. DON’T jump over the chicks – they generally don’t stand around for that kind of foolishness. If you try and stay in one place, you may avoid the BDSMs from entering the fray until you’ve taken care of the zombie bandits. That would be helpful, to say the least Now, when you’re finished with them, you can run into the alcove there and turn the rotating lever, but all it does is open up the wall you came through and close the one you’re going to, so it’s not much good to us right now. The next one is, however, so run across the hall to the next alcove and turn that one to reveal some more foes and a new area. Kill those two zombie bandits and smash the pots if you like. Run into the next room and run up the wall for a weight platform. It will open the door back a ways. You can actually make it out of the room, turn the rotating lever to move the walls, and through that door before it closes. Really. Up the ladder, and you fight two BDSMs. There’s an artwork chest in the left corridor, and the next path is on the right. One more BDSM, two zombie bandits, and two more BDSMs down that path. Now, where you see those golden bars, Prince can pull out those bookshelves and use them to bounce back and forth to the top. Then run across the wall for the bar and jump back for the beam. Jump to the next beam and walk. Nice lighting effect on those windows, there. At the end, jump to Prince’s left for a bar. Leap over to the wall, where you have to drop, scoot, THEN climb up. Scoot to the beam and pull yourself up. Walk to the end, let yourself down. Get the artwork chest at the end of the hall, then go back out to the doorway and edge out to Prince’s left (your right). Climb up onto the ledge and jump back for the rail. Walk along that beam, kill the BDSM that gets in your way. Walk all the way around and jump to the next one (on your right). Now, you could walk around and jump to the platform on the left. That’d be the obvious path. But you want that health. I can see it in your eyes. HEALTH UPGRADE 5: Walk around the beam to your right (counter-clockwise) and at the end, jump right to catch a ledge. Drop down to the bottom and hang. Scoot right and move to the end. Jump up through the small opening in the wall. Walk out along the beam, jump right to catch a ledge. Drop down to the floor. At the next stair there will be a log and a rotating blade. You must run along the wall and jump back. No problem. Next up, there’s a moving log. No problems. Now, there’s a spiked floor, floor blades, and ominously spinning logs. Great. After that, there’s two stationary logs on a stair – one low and one high. Run over the first and drop down before you run into the second. Even if you do get hit, it’s fine, because there’s the health pedestal thing. Head back to that circular beam and make your way around it in a clockwise fashion. Jump to the platform there. There’s a beam that stretches across the archway on your left from there, a BDSM awaits. Kill her, then move up to the middle of the beam and make a right. Walk to the end of that beam and jump straight out for the doorway you were shown earlier. There’s an artwork chest down there in the hall, you know I just had to go down and get it. There’s a box down there you can move around and climb on, though, so you can run up the wall and jump back to get back on the beams. At the next hall, Prince suggests you hurry up. I’d going to have to say that something like that, said by a character, never actually compels me to get anywhere faster. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll be taking a detour or two to get some secrets. Run along the right wall for a bar, then jump past the rolling log to the next. Jump from there to the platform. Yes. Prince can make that. Along the next wall, you’ll have to go through a cat-woman / BDSM. You can do that, right? At the next platform, a beast comes out of no where to challenge you. Odd. Guess they just don’t want you to forget about them. Now kill him. Break through the next wall to find yourself… Back in the Mechanical Tower Fantastic. Sand to your right. Climb up onto the platform, reorient yourself. The exit is just to the right, through those rapidly- spinning gears, remember? Head out and all the way back to the Central Hall. You DO remember how to get there, right? On my way back, I bypassed that iron golem (they just don’t pay me enough to make it worth my while) and introduced the ghouls to my new sword. They die in one hit. It was satisfying. Alright. It is now time to get… All the Upgrades I Missed Before HEALTH UPGRADE 6: Okay, back in the Central Hall, turn the rotating lever to the south (toward the thing you put the serpent sword in the first place). Go directly to the right (or west) of that rounded mechanism and let yourself down onto a platform slightly lower than the rest of the floor. Hang off the side and jump back and forth (to the north) between those two plane surfaces and keep jumping back and forth until you make it safely to the bottom. Go ahead and try and figure this one out. I’ll wait. Can’t get it? Betcha didn’t think of this: Climb down to that next platform down. Run along the wall on your (as the camera shows it) right, which should be toward the south, if my directions are still right. When you get to the end, jump back, then jump back and forth, back up to the next platform. NOW, run again to the left, as the camera shows it, and when you get to the end THERE, jump back and forth to let yourself DOWN, until Prince grabs hold of that inconspicuous ledge there. Scoot around and you’ll be in the hall, where they have the gall to make you face traps after all the trickery you performed to get this far. Alright then. Bring it on. Run as efficiently as possible through this hall of spikes. Avoid the rotating blade when the moving log starts rolling AWAY from you. Run over the stationary log, drop under the horizontal roller, roll under the up and down roller. Alternatively, take damage and just obtain the upgrade. The Red Sword: Here, also, you can get some special, red-colored sword. I’m not sure what that thing is, and the game doesn’t really tell you. There’s just a question mark. When you come out of the trap hall, climb up to your left (right of the doorway) and hack open the wall behind the falling sand. There’s a weapon rack there, and you can smash it and pick up the weapon. You CAN throw it away, however, since it’s still a secondary weapon, and that’s accidentally what I did with it. Oh well. To get back up to the Central Hall, simply jump across, run up the wall, and jump back and forth. I went all the way back to the Water Tower after that, and behind the mysterious broken wall I mentioned before, there was only an artwork chest. Graarh. AND I still don’t know how to get that artwork chest way out there in the drainage behind that gate. I’ll figure you out, damn you, puzzle. I will. Another Lap Around the Fortress This will take you past the rest of the upgrades and a few more artwork chests. If you want to know how worth it this is, I’m pretty sure you need all 9 upgrades for a different ending and the ultimate sword. Also, if you have them all, your health bar will be a double blue ring, instead of a single one. That’s a whole lot of health. For future reference, I’m not going to mention any of the artwork chests that I’ve already opened, because I’m pretty sure I mentioned them all when we came across them the first time. Go back to the Central Hall and turn the rotating lever to the south (I think). Then get up to the balcony and keep going. I assume you know by now how to get there. Get back to the room where you spent a lot of time trying to open the door. HEALTH UPGRADE 7: Remember how I had mentioned that one of the gates look breakable? Well it is, now that you have the scorpion sword – told you we’d be back. Hope up onto the bar and climb your all the way to that gate. You’ll know it when you see it, there’s a crate inside. Bust it open with the scorpion sword and enter. There is an artwork chest as well as the crate in there. Drag the crate out, place it against the only remaining intact wall. Get up on the crate, run up that wall, jump back and then jump back again to catch hold of a ledge. On the platform, run up and hit the button, activate Slow Time, run through the door. Now you will find yourself in a trap-hall. Two fast moving rolling logs… no problem. A floor of spikes, a chasm of 2 rolling logs with more spikes…no problem. A rotating blade, floor of spikes, and rolling log…again, no problem. In the next hall, follow the rolling log down the hall staying behind the center one when the 2 outer ones begin to roll back, move to your right to avoid the center one as it too begin to come back at you. In the last hallway you’ll encounter: a rotating blade, floor spikes, a rolling log and a rotating blade at the end. There’s your upgrade. In order to get back out of the hallway, climb up onto the stone next to the door and run up the wall. Climb over. Now continue onwards to the room where you beat Shahdee. There is an artwork chest on your right as you enter. On your left you can climb up that level. Once you’re on top of the rubble, you can run to the ledge. Climb around until you can jump back for the platform where you beat Shahdee. HEALTH UPGRADE 8: Run towards the altar and grab it with R and pull back. This will open a secret door behind the altar. Proceed down the stairs in the first hall: Spiked floor and two rolling doors at the end. The Second corridor features: a spiked floor, rolling log and dual rotating blades at the end. Third corridor? Floor spikes, chasm with wall blades, spiked floor and rotating blade at the end. The final corridor: spiked floor, horizontal roller back and forth and horizontal roller up and down. Claim your health. Keep going around that circuit that brings you back to the Central Hall. If things are different, that’s probably the result of some Dahaka chase a while ago. Nothing should stump you, everything should still be pretty obvious. On your way back, you remember the first crow guy you encountered in the present? In that same courtyard in the Past (just beyond the door that’s STILL closed and you STILL have to climb around to open) you can use the same method to jump up to the next level like you did in the Present. There are scattered ghouls around, but they are seriously a joke now. Anyhow, up there you’ll find some intact balconies and stairwells. HEALTH UPGRADE 9: To the left of the long stairway up, there are some barrels, smash them and there is a button on the other side. You’ll need to activate Slow Time as you press the button, then run up the stairway. Roll under the low grate at the top, it will lead you to a trap hall. In the first hallway: more spikes, rotating blade, and retracting block. Second hallway: rotating blade, floor spikes, 2 retracting blocks, and more spikes. Final hallway: rotating blade, floor spikes, retracting block, floor spikes, rotating blade. Claim health. To get back out, trigger the button and roll under the gutter once more. Back outside, get the artwork chest in the corner but don’t go through the closed door on your right, which will lead you back into the last room. Instead, just drop down to the lower lever and run on through to the fortress and make your way back to the central hall. Now it’s time to go to the throne room, since we’ve found all 9 upgrades. You can make it there on your own, yes? Finally, the Throne Room When you’re back in the throne room you should be able to get the Water Sword, since you’ve gotten all 9 upgrades. Also, and this could be important for you – the ending is different if you have the Water Sword than if you don’t. That’s the compulsive gamer in me talking, obviously. The Choice of No Return (The Two Endings) 1) Take the Water Sword. Do a little dance, make a little love, get down – anyway. You can be a little more dignified about it than me if you want, but that thing DOES do some massive damage to every enemy you will encounter in the future. It will brutalize things in ways that cannot be discussed in front of polite company. So take it and laugh maniacally, but remember to save in a different slot. 2) Leave the Water Sword for now (avoid the pedestal entirely), because we’ll be back. Get the Water Sword just before the end, so you won’t have to backtrack very far to change your ending. You might have more problems with enemies from here to the end, though, because the Water Sword is just THAT much more powerful. There is, however, only one more boss monster before then end, I’ll give you that hint. If you’re having too much difficulty with enemies, try walking by them instead of fighting. Violence never solved anything anyway, right? And, once you have plenty of sand to spare, be cheap and activate Ravages of Time, or Slow Time continually to prevent yourself from taking damage and making your battles zoom by. Once you’ve made your decision, go through the newly opened door and close the door behind you by rotating the lever. I’m not sure what that accomplished, to be honest. Now I’m going to be specific here, because I was skewered many times by this trap. Run along the right-hand wall, WHEN both the wall blades AND rotating log are going upwards. Run immediately when you are able to make it under the blades. Just AFTER you reach the slot where the log is moving up and down, jump back onto the small platform and immediately hang down to avoid the log as it returns. It might be helpful to use Slow Time – I wouldn’t know, I was out of sand for some reason. When it’s clear, climb up onto the platform and jump for the next. You will end up back in the throne room. Bust through the wall there and head for our next time portal. Here Prince will come up with a new plan, and despite any doubt that you might have, you have no choice but to go along. Activate the portal to receive your final sand tank. Getting the Mask (The Face of Time) In the next room, there are some new baddies, but they seem pretty tame. They look like wolves, they leap at you, they climb on walls, but at least they don’t explode or block or TALK or anything annoying like that. If they’ve got you surrounded, and they usually do, alternate between them often to make sure they don’t gear up for an attack. Run up the wall to the platform, run across the wall to the ledge – I get the feeling you’re an expert by now, right? Run across another wall and whip out your swords on the wolf standing there. Or just hurl your secondary weapon at him. Run up the wall there to grab a ledge, edge left, jump back. In the next hall, drop down into the water there, jump up to the ridge and scoot your way up to the other side. Leap to the next platform. It’s huge, so you might expect a colossal encounter with some gigantic bad-ass, but no. Just some ghosts and some more of those wolves. I’d say go after the ghosts first, since they go down in one hit, but the wolves go down in three (with the Water Sword), so it doesn’t particularly matter. Just chase them all down and take their sand. Jump to the next hall and drink and save. You can see what looks like the mask just on the other side of that gate there. Roll through the low opening and run down the hall. You’ll be ambushed by two more wolves, but I really don’t see any trouble with dispatching them, so move on toward that button. Fill up on sand from the bottles if you don’t have full sand. Hit the button and jump to the platform that comes out. Run along the wall and jump back for a column. Did you see it? I didn’t. I just ran on faith. It’s amazing how you can do that in this game. Climb up the column, then jump back toward the wall, jumping back and forth until you reach the top. Walk along the beam and jump for the bar. Jump at the button and immediately jump back. Swing back to the beam and walk back out. There’ll be a platform there now. Get on it before it retracts. Does this remind you of Sands of Time? The prison area? Anyway, run over to the bar, swing to the button, jump back. Swing to the platform before it retracts, run to the beam. Jump for the button, jump back. Walk to the left and jump sideways for the platform. Run (purely on faith, again) along the wall and keep running until he grabs a bar. Swing to the wall, jump back and he’ll catch that curtain. Faith! Slide down and jump off before the end. Three wolves here, still no problems. Bust the wall and continue. Across the gap there and out onto the balcony, run to your left (Prince’s right) to the ledge. Scoot left, climb up and over the obstruction, hang down again and keep scooting left. Jump back and continue down the hall and across the chasm. Jump to the curtain there, and you have made it to the Mask. I did a premature celebration here – let me advise you not to break out the chips and dip quite yet. The Sand Wraith (A Second Chance) What!!?!?!? This time travel business is too damned confusing. Also, Prince’s – or should I say Wraith’s – health bar decreases with time, but it seems that your sand tanks will now regenerate, and pretty quickly, too. Water will still do the trick in terms of life saving, however, so drink every chance you get and rewind any significant damage. Holy Sands of Regeneration, Batman! Second Chance, Part I – Present So… what’s the plan? Kill our other self? Then go on and drag Kaileena to the Present and kill her there? Make it to the Central Hall, even if it seems that we will die? We’ll worry about that when we get there. Prince’s half-baked schemes reveal him to be slightly maniacal after these many years with the Dahaka after him. Let’s just worry about HOW we’re getting to the Central Hall for now, and remember to have Farah enroll Prince in some therapy when we get home – if we get outta this mess. Now, you don’t really have time to waste, but there are about six wolves who want to take a pound of wraith-iness out of you. Get rid of them, then run up the far wall on the right and jump back to a bar and swing to the other side. At the end, jump back from the slanted wall to grab the column. Jump to the handholds, scoot right and drop down. Jump back for the beam. Walk to the hall. Roll under the logs. Run across the chasm when the log’s rolling away and jump back for the ledge. Drop down with X and hang to wait for it to move away or just immediately roll under it or scoot inwards to avoid it as it rolls overhead. At the next doorway, drop down and scoot right to a short beam. Jump right and avoid the sweeping blade, hang down if you need to avoid it. Jump again and DON’T climb up to get a face full of wall blade – scoot right instead. In the next hall, the wall slicers are too low for you to roll under, so you’ll have to run down the left side and then move right when they pass. Drink. Save. Activate Portals. Receive Cyclone of Fate, last and strongest of the ground attacks. Second Chance, Part II – Past Prince-Wraith starts in on some crazy talk, but then, look at what’s happened to the guy. Move outside, where the traps are about the same and still active. However, on the next wall, BOTH wall blades are moving, so you’ll have to jump both of them and hang down in the center, then leap up and jump to the next beam and then back. I took a lot of damage doing this. Anyhow, scoot right all the way to the archway and go in. Run after the log and drop down to hang. Scoot right to the end, still facing the wall. Climb up when it’s clear and run up the wall for a ledge. Pull up and go right some more. Now, two more wall blades. Jump back when it’s clear, and here you’ll have to do a lot of jump ups and hang downs in order to squeeze by the blades to the ground on the other side. Through the next door, you don’t really have time to wait for these stupid logs to get into synch. Roll under the whole lot of them when they’re about all at the halfway point, jump to the other side. Drink and be merry. Well, as merry as a Sand Wraith can be. Grab the artwork chest before you go on. It’s right behind you. Alright. Back out onto the big platform, and this time, there IS a big boss battle awaiting you. Gigantic Griffin Strategy: Actually, he’s not too tough. He does surprisingly little damage for such a huge cat, and it’s pretty obvious when he’s about to swat at you, and you can roll away. The tail is probably a bit harder to dodge, but at least that doesn’t knock you out of the ring. The biggest issue here is probably time. You don’t really have the leisure to sit around all day hacking ineffectually at this guy. Really, though, with all those upgrades, you’re just about un-killable. I just took whatever hits he felt he needed to dish out, and kept chopping at his flanks until he died. Use Slow Time liberally to save your health, as I can’t see any downside to wasting your sand tanks – they just keep coming back! He can’t really do anything against you if you’re moving twice as fast as he is. He will probably fly up a couple of times and swoop down at you. I don’t know if there’s a way you can force him back to the ground – I tried hitting him and throwing weapons at him, but nothing seemed to work for me. He’ll eventually land on his own, and his dives are pretty easy to dodge with A. When he dies, he’ll knock down a path for you to jump to – but the way back is now unattainable, it seems. No water for us, I guess. Jump over and climb up. Run up the right-side pillar and scoot around to the right. Jump back and forth to the top, run to the ledge on the left. Scoot left, climb over rubble, scoot left, jump back. Go in the doorway and run along the left wall and jump back for the bar. Swing to the curtain, jump off for the bar and the bottom, swing to the next curtain, let yourself fall to the ledge. Edge around to the doorway. I really abused Slow Time in the next hall. I thought: Why not? I don’t have the health to waste, anyway. You need to run by some wall slicers on the opposite wall, haul yourself up and avoid a floor blade, and get by a log that’s rolling up and down to pull yourself up onto the next ledge. I edged close to the next stationary log and ran up the opposite wall and jumped back to bypass it. Through the next door, we FINALLY get to that artwork chest we were shown so long ago. I told you I’d be back for you, damned artwork chest! You will never escape your fate – okay, enough. Walk across the beams and go get it before you run up the ramp to the gate. There’s a button just there that will open it for you and take you back to the courtyard area of the water tower. There are guys here once more, but the Water Sword can take them all out with one hit, so have fun with that. Or just ignore them, whatever. Make your way back to the Central Hall. You can handle that, right? Take a drink at the bottom of the Garden Entrance Hall – if your health holds out that far. Not Again! (The Path of the Sand Wraith) Once back in the Central Hall, we again ponder what has happened to the time line. It’s very confusing. Prince-Wraith is in some time that may be named the past-squared, since it’s BEFORE he even showed up on the island in the future… Oh forget it. Suffice it to say, we want Kaileena – dead. She goes back into the throne room, but Wraith is left stranded at the top! Nooooo! We’ll have to find another way. Time for another loop around the fortress. Arrgh! Backtrack to the Water Tower once more. We’ll want to head to the Present, but you’ll notice that all our hard work in opening the doorway to the portal has now been undone! But that’s no problem, because the ladder to the upper levels is still mysteriously down. That must have been retracted somehow before Prince shows up in the Water Tower later/earlier? Get back on that ladder and make your way through to the portal to the future. Go to Present, Do Not Pass Go Here, we will wonder how to get all the way back to the throne room, but the Dahaka interrupts us. We take the long, painful way down the tower, and luckily, end up in a pool of water. You’ll have to navigate some traps while wading through water, but what does it matter if you get hit – you’re standing knee-deep in water! You’ll have to kill a harlequin on the next wall, but they no longer pose you too much threat. You’ll find yourself back in a familiar room, but at a spot where you’ve never been before. Run along the wall to the rope, and then grab the curtain and jump off. Follow the familiar way, but perhaps my memory fails me, but it seems different. When you jump to the top of the pillar and scoot around, you can keep scooting onto a beam. Was that there before? Or is that later? Very confused. Just continue. Climb up and face down another harlequin and pull yourself up the next pillar face. Jump back for a bar and over to the next pillar. Scoot left and jump back for the platform. Climb up on the rock there, run up the wall and jump back and forth. Kill those guys and hit the button. Slow Time to get through the gate, and run through to the next hall. Climb into the blasted room, run up the wall for a ledge. You remember this place, right? Climb up the ledges and past the now-pathetic traps to the time portal. Before-Past Past (and Other Deja-Vu) Navigate your way backwards through all these traps and halls and such. I’m sure you remember your way, so I won’t bore you with the details. In fact, it’s even easier to go backwards, since sometimes you can just drop down and bypass tricky traps. And new floors are around, since you haven’t rearranged the geography yet, so you can often just run by. Back in the room where you beat Shahdee, once more, you’ll see that harem full of harlequins again, but they’re hardly even a moment’s annoyance, anymore. The new thing here is the button at the end of the corridor, which activates a gate and a plankway. Run back down the corridor, and you will see a scene with the Empress and Shahdee. Have a quick deja-vu moment with yourself and head through the gate. Hey, do you realize that when Shahdee dies, the last thing she says is: “Fool! You cannot change your fate!” and Prince thinks to himself how odd it is that she knows of his mission. Really, she’s talking to Kaileena. We’re finding out all kinds of neat things this way, aren’t we? Alright, move along. Start running on the wall far back from the rolling log to make it over. Run along the next right hand wall for the rope, dodging the log. Climb up and jump back for the next rope, run between the wall blades. Run between the next wall blades and jump back at the end to avoid the dual-rotating blades. Run between a final pair of wall blades and drink. The Cliffs of Fate (They Should Call Them That) Roll under the wall and beat up large amounts of people. I hope you’re not having trouble with any of this, because I have the Water Blade, and everything falls before me! Best not to lose any health, though, it will be a while before I guide you to a fountain. One of the beasts will blow open a hole in the wall, head on through. Drop down to the curtain and slide down. Jump off for a bar. It’s gonna break, but you can let it and fall to the next bar down. This one, though, you want to swing forward to the mast (column). From here, immediately move (you remember how to quick-jump from the columns? Hold in a direction and press A and Wraith will leap for it without doing the Monkey Shuffle) to the column to the south (as the camera shows it) then to the one on the east, and finally to the platform north of you. There will be a whole host of the upgraded bad guys here. They don’t go down as fast as the wimps we’ve been fighting lately, but they go down faster than usual. You’re a spot called the Cliffs, and the game’s no longer going out of it’s way to show you where to go next. Run up the end of the right side wall and jump back for a branch (bar). You may have to bust up those bottles first. Swing to the top of the wall and run along the right side wall to a rope. Run for the curtain, jump back for a branch (bar). Swing up to the next bar, swing to the wall. Jump back and forth to the top. Bust up the artwork chest and anyone that shows their face. Hang off the edge and drop down for a ledge, then a curtain. Jump off at the end for a bar, which is about to break away. Jump off toward the wall, and I mean IMMEDIATELY. Jump back off the wall for another bar on the same mast, which is still about to break away. Jump IMMEDIATELY to the column; keep jumping to the walkway, which is ALSO going to break away. Run to the end; make a left at the corner, run along the wall to the next walkway, which is ALSO going to break away. Run along it and run along the left wall and jump back for a bar. This bar is NOT going to break, it seems, so take a breather. Now flip to the next breakaway walkway, run to the wall and run up. Jump back for the next. Pull yourself up and run along the right wall before it breaks away. Nail the harlequin girl on the wall, and touch down on the far rocks. You have JUST enough time to hit the artwork chest and bust the wall before this rock breaks away. Inside, you need to run across the wall when the wall blades have retracted toward you. Slice up the harlequin and catch hold of the far side – but don’t pull yourself up until you’re clear of all blades. Run by the rotating blade and down the hall. Here, you’ll want to run up the wall without blades just as they’re coming down to the bottom. You’ll be able to hop your way up the wall with them trailing along merrily behind you. The next four floor blades are moving way fast. You can make it, but you might as well Slow Time to save yourself the trouble. Run along the next right-hand wall and jump back for the ledge. Drop down under the blade and scoot left. When it’s clear, climb up and jump back, hang down. I had to use Slow Time for that. In the next hall, there’s another freaky deja-vu moment and an artwork chest. Go back for it. Hey, we’re back in the courtyard where we fought the first crow guy. I remember seeing these columns and wondering. Finally, some water! The Lava Room (Mirrored Fates) Through the next array of logs, ghouls, and spiked corridors, you’ll need to jump to some ledges patrolled by numerous wall blades. Climb down carefully. The next chasm is patrolled by two logs and wall blades on both sides. Time that carefully. In the next room, that glowing red stuff is not sand, but LAVA. Don’t run into it. And watch out for beasts – they lurk about here someplace. There is an artwork chest in the alcove on the left side. And one behind the pillar on the right side. There’s a button on a wall here as well, to help you take out the numerous zombie bandits and BDSMs that will try and smoke you. I got the feeling that you could roll under the rotating blades and thereby decimate anyone following you, but Prince-Wraith is somewhat undependable with A when he has his swords out. He doesn’t always roll, so the gamble was simply too great. You don’t want to take much damage at all, since you’ll have to get the mechanism moving after you get rid of these guys. Or, again, you can ignore them completely. Climb up a ladder on the far side from where you entered. Run past the wall blade to a few bars and another platform. Turn the lever on this platform to the north (as the camera shows it) so the pipes are connected. Walk across the beam and do the same with the next lever. Now, the lava should be out of the way so you can run along the wall and jump back for a column. On the next platform there’s an artwork chest, and you can jump back to the previous platform right past the flow of lava. Before you leave this platform, you want the lever facing south (as the camera shows it). Run across the wall past two blades and move the pipes again (point to the south). Jump across to the final platform and move the lever (point north). Climb up the rubble and run up the wall. Drink! If you followed my instructions and the pipes did not connect up and lower the platform, I don’t know how much more I can do for you. I’ll tell you this, though. The lava comes out from the south end of the room, from which YOU came in. If connected properly, it winds to the west side, and then back to the east, to the north, back west, and to the contraption where we want it to go. The lever on the southwest side seems to control not only the southwest pipe, but the northeast lever and pipe, also. The lever on the southeast side seems to also control the northwest. The lever on the northeast side of the room controls both northern levers and pipes, and the lever in the northwest corner controls all four pipes and levers at once. You should be able to figure it out on your own from there if you didn’t get it the first time, but don’t dilly-dally, since your health IS going down steadily. Try, if you’re still stuck, turning the southern two until they’re aligned, and then turning the northeast lever (which only turns the northern pipes). Back to the Library, Before You Went There the First Time Slow Time to run along the same wall with the wall slicers. Jump back for the next hall. Run over the log along the wall as it’s coming your way. Climb up the ladder. Jump back for the ledge when the blades open up. Climb up on the left side when it’s clear, climb up again and jump back. Turn the rotating lever. Run up the side wall and jump back for a beam. Jump through that mess you see before you and walk to the end of the next beam. Drop down. Climb up onto the platform when it’s clear and jump to the ledges (this way you won’t have to watch for the wall blades until you get over there). Here, you have to drop down between the slowly moving blades and then immediately down through the stationary ones. Run over to the wall slicers and duck under them. Run up the side wall and jump back for the beams. Jump for the break in the gate over there. Hang over the edge and slide down the curtain. I told you we’d be back! But the door back is closed now, so let’s just move along. Remember, this will take us back from the Prison to the Library, and on to the Mechanical Tower, and finally to the Central Hall. So make your way through the library and kill everyone again. Don’t take too much damage – like I’ve said before, you can’t afford it. The library is the same up until you begin climbing around the ledges. Where once, the door was broken and you needed to climb around several ledges, you’ll need to drop down and scoot under the door. When you attempt to do this, the Dahaka makes a dramatic entrance. The Nth Dahaka Chase: Climb back the way you came, hop up on the ledges, now that the door is broken – no wonder it was busted when we came by here the first time! Climb the way you did the first time, around the Dahaka who stands around looking for you. Jump to the next I-beam down the hall, and at the end of the hall, jump to the ledges and let yourself down. Prince-Wraith is getting cocky about these chases, eh? Probably just crazy. Run along the left-side of the wall twice – jump back the second time into the hallway. Leap for the bar, run up the stairs. Run up the far wall, go through the window. Gloat a little, drink and save. The Cavern of Mists Jump across the chasm and fight shrouded folk. It shouldn’t be too bad, even if the invisible women are now REALLY hard to see. There’s a ghost in the next hall, and an artwork chest way across the other side of the next chasm. Run along the wall to get it, then run back to let yourself down the ledges to the bottom. Kill one invisible girl and a beast. Chuck whatever weapon you got at the beast on the wall; run at your leisure. On the other side, jump back and forth up the wall to the top. Jump through the blue lights for the platform. Run right and hop up. Scoot right and pull yourself up. I don’t know what Wraith is talking about – I can see fine. Stupid wolves. Get the drop on them and knock them all over the side. There are more of them just about everywhere, so watch your step. Also, invisible harem women will also show up out of nowhere. And a ghost. Keep running along the path and you’ll eventually reach a dead end. A dead end? Not so! Run along the wall on the left and jump back for some stalactites (the ones that hang from the ceiling. Stalagmites are the ones from the ground, I’m pretty sure). Jump back and across the gaping, bottomless chasm to the next ledge. The button is just down there. Get it. Why don’t you activate Slow Time, just in case? You don’t want to come back. Climb up to the higher platform and run along the left-hand wall to jump back for some more stalactites. Make your way from stalactite to stalactite until you can go no further. Drop down and run through the gate. A beast and two more invisible girls attacked me in this room, obviously eager for death. I sent them on their way and dropped down into the chasm in the middle for the button. Fight your way across the next hall – try to avoid losing health. That’s the biggest threat these guys pose to you now. You can hardly see the next floor blades, and a ghost will ambush you as well, so look out. Run down the next hall and across the left wall to the ledge. Edge around to your right and jump back. Edge left, jump up. Scoot left, jump back. Scoot right, jump back. Run down the hall, and across the right wall to the next platform. Run across the next right wall for a drink and save. Run left around the corner, run along the left wall to grab the rope. Climb up and jump back for the hand holds. Scoot left, jump back. Run, release, and jump back for the ledge. More Past-Past: Back in the Mechanical Tower Again for the Third (or First) Time Hey, you remember this place. Do you also remember that lever we couldn’t pull before? Well go pull it. It’s across the gap through the door, and at the end of the balcony. That’ll open the door. And there’s another freaky deja-vu moment. But, you forgot the iron golem behind you! Looks like he knocked us out, and who knows how much time has passed. If our other self (Prince) makes it to the throne room and kills Kaileena before we get there, we’ll have missed our chance! Keep persevering – it’s now a race against yourself to get to the throne room. Go through the gate you just opened and across to the curtain on the far side of the room. Head back into the Central Hall. I went to the left path and got the artwork chest (I bypassed it earlier) and then just dropped down off the edge to get back. There’s plenty of traps in that hall that were too long ago to remember. Climb along the ledges and bypass most of them backwards. At the next room, drop down to the ledge and scoot right and down. Drop down to a short, broken-off beam and leap left. Leap straight out through the gears for the next bar, take care of those beasts. If you don’t remember the way back, the game will show you – jump up on the short beam and leap left. Drop down to the outside of the tower and make your way to a beam that leads you to the lower platform. Climb down the ladder, walk out on the beam, and leap through the gears to the water fountain. Keep moving toward the Central Hall. You’ll pass that first iron golem, again! I swear he was only fun to beat the first time. Let nothing dissuade you from your goal – the Central Hall! Time Knots (Back in the Central Hall) Take a moment to break your brain over that one. Call the Time Police if you’ve got to and let’s just go on with our somewhat demented plan. Woot! We’re us again! Only we’re dead! Only we’re not! Oh forget it! Go to the throne room! Get Kaileena! Shove her into the portal! Follow her through! Now we’re getting somewhere! Only now we’ve lost her. That’s okay, she’s just in the next room. Make your way over there, grab a weapon on your way. If you need life, you can drink from the pool on your way there. I certainly HOPE you have full sand. Ending One, The Final Battle (With the Water Sword) There’s sand just lying about, but be careful when you run around for it, because the Dahaka sends his tentacle things through the floor to spike up in your path. That reminds me of some other monster in some other game, but then, they use the term Water Sword, so they aren’t being original anyway. Basically, if you’re far away, he’ll send tentacles through the ground. If you’re close enough, he’ll send them out of his stomach. If you’re right next to him, he’ll punch you in the head like normal people. You can roll under the tentacles that come out of his stomach, and run in a zig-zag to avoid the tentacles that come out of the ground, but contrary to what Prince thinks, the Water Sword will NOT protect you from about anything he does, so forget blocking. Slow Time will be your friend for this. Use it liberally and attack him like crazy – he will likely be stunned for most of your attacks, and you can really see his attacks coming when time is slow. Roll out of the way when they’re coming. Ravages of Time also works, at least reasonably. Hold R and tap L – the screen will go red and start slamming the B button to chop at him. Once he’s at three-quarters health, Kaileena will actually make herself useful, that’s your cue to book it over there and start hitting him with everything you’ve got. Once he gets back up, he’s gonna be even nastier, so get in your shots while he’s down. Necessity knows not the word ‘cheap’. Once he jumps back up, he’ll start jumping around and making himself a true menace by jumping away from you when you hit him, making the Ravages of Time no longer very worth the two sand tanks it takes to activate. He will jump at you, and land on you if you’re not moving, so keep running around. When he lands near you, give it a one-two-three count before you roll under his tentacles. Roll in and keep hitting him. I get the feeling he’s regenerating health or something nasty. Or he just jumps back up to half health when he gets up. You’ve got to finish him off while he’s down, I think. Say it with me now: DIE, DAHAKA!!! BWAHAHAH!!! Wasn’t that satisfying? Ending Two, The Final Battle (Without the Water Sword) So, if you don’t have the sword, obviously Kaileena’s going to get it. But you have to fight her first, and she hasn’t gotten any nicer since last time. Most of the same tactics apply here, only I had way more trouble with her this time around. Which angered me greatly, since I have more sand tanks, a better sword, more health, and everything. The key problem with Kaileena is that she is the very definition of the word UNFAIR. You hardly ever apply that word to games, do you? Well here it is. You can’t block her, because she can get under it. If you stay away from her, she’ll teleport right behind you and kick you in the rear for approximately a third of your life bar and knock you down. She’ll even kick you while you’re down and then chop Prince into bite-sized chunks, effectively taking out most, if not all, of the rest of his health. After that, she can do combos that are simply cheaper and more powerful than yours. They can just about take out your entire health bar in one go. THEN, she negates your special time powers with her own sand powers – Ravages of Time simply won’t work on her. She also can call her OWN Slow Time, and if she gets in a good hit during those 8 seconds, you die immediately, regardless of health. At three-quarters, one-half, and one-quarter life, she summons three huge sand tornadoes that will eat about a quarter to half a circle of health each time one hits you. AND, I encountered an aggravating glitch that made me die repeatedly. At the Game Over screen, I hit Retry, only to be given Game Over again! And again! And again! I found that ‘double- clicking’ A, or at least hitting it a whole bunch instead of once, generally got me back to the fight, but I was angry about it, that’s for sure. So what do you do? You’ve got no walls to jump off of, no columns to swing around, no secondary weapons to speak of, and no sand lying about or regenerating. Well, first things first. You write to Ubisoft, and gently inform them that you understand that they were trying to appease reviewers by upping the final boss difficulty from Sands of Time, but you believe that they overdid it just a touch. Done with that? Good. Now, as the angry author of this FAQ, disgruntled by the not only the unreasonableness of her outfit, but also of her tactics, I hereby authorize you to be just as cheap as Kaileena. Read on. First off, she tries to get in a cheap hit right off the bat. Roll away. When she’s paused in her swinging, and you’re about a sword length or two away, activate Slow Time (a power she will NOT negate instantly) and run in swinging. Nail her as many times as you can. You can get in a four-hit combo with the Scorpion Sword, or she’ll block. Make a tight roll to the right or left after that, and hit her again. Use your dual wield special attacks if you like. As soon as your eight seconds start to run out, though, you’d better backflip, because she’ll be angry once she speeds back up. Maintain position near the edge of the platform, and just drop over the side to hang. For SOME strange reason, Kaileena will NOT attack you when you’re dangling over the side. Perhaps bad memories from her fight with Shahdee. Who knows. At any rate, scoot yourself a healthy distance away from her and climb back up. Chances are, she’ll activate her own Slow Time. You can hit L to counter- activate yours, but why don’t you just drop back over the side and wait for it to wear off? Now, when it’s over, climb back up, activate YOUR Slow Time, and hit her several more times. She should be close to three-quarters health. If not, do it again. If so, just hit her the regular way to save a sand tank – that is, run in swinging and hit her until she blocks (or until three hits. Don’t go four, it’s too slow) and then backflip back out again. The two will have a brief, confused conversation, and Kaileena will summon sand tornadoes, much as she summoned those crow guys in your last battle. These guys just wander around the field, gunning for you and will take out large chunks of health that you really can’t afford to give away. Run away from them, roll right or left when they get too close, since they are simply faster than you, but have less cornering ability. It may help to run in a somewhat tight circle around Kaileena as a reference point. Don’t run too close to the edge – when they expire, you want them on the ground, since they drop one sand tank apiece, and you desperately need those tanks. When all three tornadoes expire, Kaileena will stay up there, giving you ample time to collect the sands left behind and even get close enough to prepare an attack as soon as she comes down. Repeat previous steps until she’s dead. Gloat over her sandy corpse. Get yourself a box of Pocky Sticks and have a party, you’ve just defeated the game. Sum Up, Artwork Chests, et cetera. If you save at the end, you’ll load up that game only to see the ending, it looks like. So you’ve beaten Prince of Persia, Warrior Within. What are you gonna do next? Sleep with Kaileena, first off (or WHATEVER that freakiness was), followed by a not-so-auspicious return home. It seems to me that the Shadow Wraith survived his encounter with the Dahaka after all, and is now after your ass and all that you hold dear. Look out for Prince of Persia 3: The Shadow Prince. And that was totally Farah on that cross. I am so displeased. She was ten times more fun than everyone in this game combined. All that grimness and desperation was in keeping with the very weird art director and game director’s concepts, shown in two of the last three video clips unlocked, dubbed in a fashion not unsimilar to Chairman Kaga, of Iron Chef. As for the other unlocked things, during the course of this FAQ, I unlocked all but three of the artworks – three character sketches. I was missing a bunch of the weapons, but I didn’t grab all the secondary weapons I saw. They’re pretty hard to tell apart if you ask me. I didn’t get any of the special secondary weapons – as I said, they were highly un-useful to me, and I generally threw them away by accident more often than not. I returned the game to my local Blockbuster, so I’m not going to list my e-mail address. It’d be pretty pointless to contact me; since I don’t have the game anymore, I can’t go back for those last extras, or go in and see where you’re stuck. It’s not that I don’t CARE about you and where you are, it’s just that I’m poor, and really can’t afford it until it comes down in price. Happy playing! Thanks for reading my FAQ! ---Ryokazendriel Weapon Techs --------------------- You can see all of these if you hit START and then combo list. I don’t know why I even bother. Single Weapon Techniques ----------------------------- B – single slash B+B – double slash B+B+B – triple slash B+B+B+B – furious slash B (enemy on ground) – Asha’s Fury B(hold) – charge attack (certain swords) Y – grab Y(hold) – grab and hold Y+A – grab and boost Y+B – grab and slice Y+Y – grab and throw (cool-looking move, and you can throw people over the side, instantly killing them) Y+X(repeatedly) – strangle (surprisingly useful against certain enemies that won’t hold still long enough for you to slice them) Y+X(weak enemy) – kill and steal weapon (useful in melee, but can be slow) A(toward enemy) – rebound off enemy (careful where you’re going, you could end up in a pit of spikes) A(toward enemy)+B – aerial slash A(toward enemy)+B+B – landing slice (the original) A(toward enemy)+Y – aerial kick A(toward enemy)+Y+Y – landing kick sweep (very cool, but I rarely got anyone with it) A(toward enemy)+X – aerial backslash A(toward enemy)+X+X – landing steal weapon (useful in melee, but can be slow) R(hold) – block (VERY IMPORTANT!!) R(hold)+B – counter attack (VERY USEFUL) R(hold)+Y – counter kick R(hold)+X – pick up weapon (while blocking) Double Weapon Techniques ------------------------------------- B+Y – Orontes’ Grudge (one of my most used combos) B+Y+Y – Zaroaster’s Ire B+B+Y – Ptolemaio’s Anger (very angry set of moves, eh?) B+B+Y+Y – Wrath of Cyrus B+B+Y+Y+Y – Rage of Darius B+B+Y+Y+B – Azad’s Retaliation B+B+Y+Y+B+B – Azad’s Furious Retaliation B+B+B+Y – Ahriman’s Revenge B+B+B+Y+Y – Mithra’s Vengeance Y – Breeze of Anguish Y+Y – Blast of Sorrow (there are very SAD moves, eh?) Y+Y+Y – Misery Gale Y+B – Whirlwind of Pain Y+B+B – Oblivion Twister (very useful in melee) Y+B+B+B – Furious Oblivion Twister Y+B+B+Y – Plague Tornado Y+B+B+Y+Y – Harassing Cyclone Y+Y+B – Storm of Remorse (depressing-sounding maneuvers, really) Y+Y+B+B – Tempest of Agony Y+Y+B+B+B – Furious Tempest of Agony Y+Y+B+B+Y – Hurricane of Penitence (penitence? what?) Y+Y+B+B+Y+Y – Tormenting Typhoon Y(toward enemy)+X – aerial weapon throw X – throw weapon (get rid of it, also more powerful than you’d think, and you need a free hand for those Y techniques, above) X – pick up weapon, when you don’t have one X(hold) – charge weapon throw (you’ll feel a rumble) Movement Techniques --------------------- A – jump A+B – jump slash A+Y – jump kick A(direction) – roll (backflip if straight back from enemy) A(direction)+B – roll and pierce attack A(lying on the ground) – escape roll B(lying on the ground) – get up with attack Y(lying on the ground) – black dragon (spinwheel rise) B(toward wall) – wall-jump attack (extremely, extremely useful) Y(toward wall) – wall-jump kick B(run up wall) – Angel Drop B(run up wall)+B – Angel Drop Finish (very smooth-looking moves) Y(run up wall) – bladewhirl attack (very cool, and definitely violates some law of physics) B(toward column) – Column Shredder (fun and adult entertainment, all rolled into one) Y(toward column) – Column Spinkick (very much like a butterfly jump) L(hold) – Recall (rewind) L(tap) – Eye of the Storm (slow time) R(hold)+L(hold) – Breath / Wind / Cyclone of Fate (ground attack, 1/2/3 sand slots) R(hold)+L(tap) – Ravages of Time (insta-kill, 2 sand slots)