Techniques and Strategies
Controls
Running: The numpad, arrow keys, or the square of keys centered on K, or the square of keys centered on D. Walking/Climbing: Hold the Shift key in order to walk slowly or grab a ledge mid-jump/mid-fall. Attack: Press the Control key or 0 on the numpad to pull out your sword and attack with it. Disengage: Press the down direction to put away your sword. Alt + A: Reset to your last checkpoint. Alt + Q: Exit to DOS, closing the game. Alt + R: Reset the game to the opening cinematic. Alt + G: Save the game to a save file. Alt + L: Load a save file. Alt + O: Options.
Buffered Jumps
Unlike other releases of this game, the IR version does not allow you to simply hold down a direction and the jump button to continuously jump. You must release and repress the jump key after each jump. You can perform this action while the prince is in the air to ensure you jump is buffered to the first possible frame.
Shift Turnaround
By holding shift and pressing a direction to turn around, the prince can turn around instantaneously if he takes damage during the turnaround animation.
Parry Attacks
But pressing up while your sword is out you can parry. If you press up and then very shortly after press attack, you get a combination parry + attack, which has advantages in certain combat situations and makes you step forward slightly.
Skipping Ending Cutscenes
At the end of each level you are forced to listen to a jingle before leaving. Once the prince is no longer on screen, press escape to pause the game, and then space to unpause. You can do this very fast. After unpausing you will find you can now skip the cutscenes by pressing space again.
The Run
Level 1
When you spawn in level 1, you want to turn to the left and then pull out your sword. Next tap left, put your sword away, and begin running to the left buffering jumps. There are three possibilities for what happens next: -The first guard will stand too far away for you to swap sides -The first guard swaps sides with you but immediately hits you. -The first guard swaps sides with you and does not hit you.
You will want to continuously reset until you get option 3, as it allows you to skip all but one enemy in this level. Watch the world record run to see where to jump after you escape the first rooftop, as the rest of the jumps in this level are trivial.
Level 2
Run and jump to the left, buffer a right input to do a turnaround slide to get the prince into position, then turn to face the left. The goal of this puzzle is to sink all the blocks which do not have a symbol on them. Which block has the symbol is random. The ideal outcome is the first block closest to you has the symbol. If so, do a standing jump to the left, and then run all the way to the cave entrance. For all other possibilities, you will have to experiment to find best movement.
Level 3
You can watch the world record for this level, it is completely trivial.
Level 4
Another trivial level. Mimic world record.
Level 5
It is important to note if you reset checkpoint inside the room with the magic carpet, your game will crash. The most noteworthy thing in this level is the technique to skip the bridge fight. You want to reset checkpoint, run left, and begin buffering jumps as soon as the prince's feet touch the bridge.
Be very careful to time your jump correctly back into the carpet room, if you do not hit the switch at the end of the walkway you cannot end the level, and as previously stated resetting checkpoint at this point will crash the game.
Level 6
This level is the primary reason we use the IR version of the game. The exit door is glitched open as soon as you enter the abandoned city. Simply use it to end the level.
Level 7
This level features some RNG and is one of the hardest levels to do fast.
Immediately run left and fall into the hole. Run to the end of the walkway, turn around, climb down. Run to the end of the next walkway, turn around, climb down. Buffer a walking step to the right, then a standing jump to the right. In almost all cases this will cause the Medusa head to ignore you. Run into the next room until you are standing in front of the first pillars. Pull out your sword and kill the Medusa head. When the heads are coming at you from a distance, you want to time your first hit so that it hits them just as they're coming to a stop in front of you. Additional hits should be delayed by about one full second. Practice fighting the heads to understand the timing.
Break the ceiling tile, then the ceiling tile after that. Climb into the above room, but buffer a climb down, then another climb up, and then another climb down, and lastly one more climb up. Buffer a shift turnaround so that when the head damages you, you turn around instantly. Delay the appropriate amount and kill the head with a single attack.
For the medusa head after the room with the snakes and blade trap, you can face to the left up against the wall, and pull out your sword just as the enemy attacks in order to glitch them in between you and the wall. Then you can kill them with a single attack. This is very difficult as the timing is very tight. Watch some runs and practice in order to understand the timing. If it fails you can always just fight the head.
Level 8
As soon as you enter this level, save the game, close the game, open the game, load your save. This allows you to skip a lengthy cutscene that can crash the game. Important Note: If you accidentally skip the intro cinematic your timer will restart and the run will be invalid.
When you arrive at the closed gate after the medusa heads, buffer your attack button to pull out your sword. Take two steps forward while holding the sword to clip through the door.
Per world record, you can skip the final medusa room by doing very careful movement involving a shift turnaround that has very tight timing. If this is too difficult, you can instead run straight to the final room and fight the three medusa heads.
Level 9
Mostly trivial level.
For the second to last jump, you can pull out your sword and do a shift turnaround to avoid the falling floor. The timing on this is tight however, and you may want to simply fall with the floor but grab the ledge and climb back up instead.
Level 10
Because you skipped the ending cutscene for level 9, this level does not load graphics. You can infer all the inputs from watching runs, but they are as follows: Tap right. Run right and buffer three jumps. Climb up. Jump when the pillar is in front of the prince. Jump again just after the screen transition. Grab the ledge while falling and climb up. Take a walking step to the right. Standing jump to the right. Climb up. Run and jump after the prince has taken 4 steps. Grab the ledge while falling, then drop down. Run to the left slightly. Use the exit door.
Level 11
This is by far the longest level. Dying can lose entire minutes. Practice a lot.
After the checkpoint, you climb up, press the switch to open the gate, and do a running jump to get to the gate quickly. Run left into the next room and stop just in front of the pillars. Turn around and run back to the right. When the prince runs into the gate he will stop, then he will take one more step to get even closer to the gate. Pull out your sword just after the birdman's second attack and you will end up on the left side of him, with him facing away from you. If you manage this, you can put your sword away and continue, he can't hurt you anymore. If you don't get the timing just right, you will have to fight him. Birdmen parry your attacks a lot. You'll want to do repeating parry attacks in order to go back and forth with them. Sometimes just after an exchange you can sneak one or two normal attacks to deal extra damage.
For the birdman after you find the closed exit door, you want to running jump into the room. He will hit you causing your sword to be drawn immediately. You then want to do strings of parry attacks to push him onto the roller trap. Sometimes he will try to trade places with you. Be careful of this, if you kill him and his body is laying on the floor switch, the doorway back to the exit door will be forever closed.
Level 12
Trivial level. Follow world record.
Level 13
Reset checkpoint after you get the checkpoint. Time your button press so that you start holding left as the music starts playing. Place your first jump as the prince is in front of the left hand side of the middle pillar on this screen. Place your second jump as the prince is in front of the right hand side of the wall carving. Buffer two jumps and then run without jumping until you get to the final candle holder before the gap. Place your jump in front of that candle holder and grab the ledge on the other side. Stand up and buffer three running jumps to the left. This will knock a guard to his death. Jump to the fire platform, climb up on it, jump back, climb up, and run and jump your way back to the health potion. Then run and place your jump so it is as late as possible to not fall in the gap. Then buffer jumps until you are in front of the exit door.
Level 14
Here a glitch is abused to use the fire with one fewer health upgrades than is normally needed. Go right and climb down. After landing, pull out your sword, then put it away. Then turn around repeatedly until the cutscene triggers. After the cutscene you will find you are on fire. Run to the right and kill the center clone, and the top left clone. Just after killing the top left clone, shift turnaround with your sword out in order to cause the other clones to go away. Climb up and go to the right. Now simply buffer the same inputs as world record and you will kill the boss 100% of the time.
