Hanging Gardens is a fairly straightforward level with a core that is infamous for its irregularly forming ground which is a huge danger in a speedrun.

Videos

Hanging Gardens, New Game

Overview

The important thing to keep in mind is that the ground in many, seemingly random spots of this level forms very slowly. It takes practice and experience to understand how to make your way through it quickly and without falls.

The first obstacle you will encounter is a gate that opens after killing a turret in front of it. Right before you reach it, the camera will, for a few seconds, get locked on Zulf who is standing on a nearby, currently unreachable platform. You can, however, open the gate while you wait for the camera to unlock. To do so, you will have to position the Kid in a way that will make him roll offscreen towards the position of that red turret. Roll twice without holding down the mouse button, and then depending on what Skill you have, use Whirlwind or wait a moment to let the turret spawn lock on and throw a Hand Grenade. Both will be enough to destroy the turret. Be careful to roll in the right direction to avoid falling off or being too far from the turret to hit it with the Whirlwind.

After the gate opens, you will find yourself in a small enclosed space with a bunch of turrets spawning, and another gate. By positioning yourself in the left corner of this gate and rolling right/down-right, you will be able to clip through this gate without having to kill any more turrets.

Keep moving through the level. At some point, there is a small skip you can do by walking over invisible ground - It's hard to explain where it is, so just watch a tutorial or the Individual Level video at the top of this page.

Eventually you will reach the Core surrounded by a circle of petrified corpses and some Windbags. You don't have to kill or destroy any of these - simply roll inbetween the statues from the right side(that's the only way you can do it), and pick up the core. Now roll out up to the gate and wait for it to open. After it does, roll into it, directly towards Zulf. Avoid walking through the gate or rolling too early - when you get through it, you will lose the ability to roll, and you want to get to Zulf as quickly as possible, therefore your last roll must take you as close to him as possible. If you do this wrong, and get to Zulf late, you will hear Rucks say the line "We have to go. Please." right before the loading screen, which wastes time.

Interact with Zulf to complete this level.

NG+

In New Game Plus mode, this level is vastly different, as most of it can be skipped. Soon after entering the level, the first Hanging Gardens Pike Vault has to be performed to get the platform Zulf is standing on, then the second HG Pike Vault to get around the gate and get the core. After you land you can shoot the Musket down-right to clean out the Windbags to make picking up the core easier. Roll in that direction, then inbetween the statues to pick up the Core, just like in New Game. Then finish the level the same way as you would in New Game mode.

Ancient Knowledge

The reason we pick up the Core from its right side is not that you can only reach it this way - in fact, you can pick it up from literally any direction... As long as it's there. Turns out that at the start of the level, the Core is not "loaded" yet - you can see it, but you can't actually interact with it, until you meet one of the triggers that makes it possible to pick it up. The "intended" trigger is killing all the enemies and destroying at least one of the statues - but as it turns out, for whatever reason, there is another trigger that you only have to walk into, placed on the right side of the core. We walk into that trigger and from there, the fastest way to pick up the core is to roll left.