Setting

The game takes place eleven days after the events of the first game, in Persia as well as various other locations. During this period of eleven days the Prince was hailed as a hero who defeated the evil Jaffar. He turns down all riches and instead asks for the Princess's hand in marriage as his reward, to which the Sultan of Persia reluctantly agrees.

Plot

Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame begins as the Prince enters the royal courts of the palace. Before he enters, however, his appearance turns back into that of a beggar. Nobody recognises him, and when he attempts to speak with the Princess, a man who shares his appearance (Jaffar, who is magically disguised) emerges from the shadows, ordering him to be thrown out. With guards pursuing him, the Prince jumps through a window and flees the city by way of merchant ship.

The ship is struck by lightning, cast by Jaffar, just as a mysterious woman appears in the barge and asks the Prince to find her. He regains consciousness, and finds himself on the shore of a foreign island. He comes to a cave full of evil skeletons that fight him. He finally escapes on a magic carpet.

The Prince arrives in another strange mountainous land far away. He first heads into the blue ruins, a large ruined temple filled with screaming head creatures and snakes as well as booby traps. At one point the Prince's mother, revealed to be the mysterious woman on the ship, shows herself, and explains about her husband's death, and her plight to abandon the Prince so that he might live. He escapes on a magic horse statue which comes to life.

The prince goes to a red temple inhabited by birdmen, who wear bird helmets/masks and worship a bird Goddess. In the temple, the Prince finds that he can separate from his body, transforming into the shadow that Jaffar's magic mirror created in the events of Prince of Persia. The Prince uses this move to steal the sacred flame of the temple, and then travels back to Persia on the magic horse statue. Here he immediately encounters Jaffar who transports the prince to a chessboard like place as a final torment. The Prince confronts Jaffar, who flees. The Prince transforms into the shadow bearing the blue flame once again, and casts fire at Jaffar, killing him for good. The Princess awakens from the spell Jaffar set upon her, and the Prince orders the former Vizier's ashes be scattered. As the Prince and Princess ride into the distance, however, it is revealed that an old woman is watching them through a crystal ball.

Titus Software ported the game to the SNES and released it in 1996. It has some missing features and lacks several levels, including the last one. On August 11, 2006, the Mega Drive port was leaked. Ported by Microïds, this conversion was going to be published by Psygnosis, as depicted in the leaked version, but it was canceled in an almost complete state for unknown reasons. The game can also be unlocked in the Xbox NTSC version of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time by finding a secret area. The GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox PAL versions of the game lack Prince of Persia 2, with that secret area unlocking the original Prince of Persia early instead. The PC version of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time lacks the secret entirely.

The Macintosh version has high resolution graphics (640x480), the MS-DOS and SNES version only low resolution graphics (320x200) and (256x224) respectively.