God of War: FAQ/Walkthrough by Aklite ==FAQ written by Aklite -This guide contains no spoilers. ================================== Table of contents ================================== I. Introduction a. Intro b. Version History II. Weapons/magic III. Combat strategies a. Combos and tactics b. Strategies IV. Walkthrough a. The Ship to Athens b. The Gates of Athens c. Athens Town Square d. Roofs of Athens e. Athens Town Square f. The Temple of the Oracle g. The Sewers of Athens h. The Desert of Lost Souls i. Pandora's Temple j. The Rings of Pandora k. The Challenge of Atlas l. The Rings of Pandora m. The Challenge of Poseidon n. The Rings of Pandora o. The Challenge of Hades p. The Rings of Pandora q. The Cliffs of Madness r. The Architects Tomb s. The Path to Hades t. The Temple of the Oracle u. Mount Olympus V. Glitches VI. Credits VII. Legal ======================================================================= I. Introduction ======================================================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A. Intro ----------------------------------------------------------------------- God of War in an awesome game, seducing right from the start. It's a short game, but the replay value is excellent, and it is still really fun to play over, especially on God Mode. I wrote this FAQ while playing the game on Hard mode, so the strategies should work on the lesser difficulties. I beat the game twice, once on hard, and once on God mode. The game is extremely fun to play on hard mode the first time, because it really adds the action, and makes strategy necessary for winning the game. If you notice any errors in the guide, or have any additional information or comments, you can e-mail me at aklite1@comcast.net. Please refer to the note below about e-mailing. PLEASE READ BEFORE E-MAILING: To reduce all the e-mail traffic that has been coming in since the release of God of War 2, please refer to the note of e-mailing below. Please DO NOT e-mail me about the following: -Asking for help in a section of the game that is already stated in the FAQ (if you do this I will e-mail you back and tell you to look at the guide). Needing additional help on boss fights if the guide proves insufficient is an exception, but please no e-mail about a puzzling part clearly stated in the walkthrough. -Asking for a solution to a glitch (I am not a game technician, and therefore have no idea how to fix glitches. Restart and reload a few times is the only advice I can offer). -Should be pretty obvious, but please don't ask for help on God of War 2. -Also very obvious, but please don't submit information that is already in the guide (I know this sounds ridiculous, but it definitely happens). Appreciate it! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- B. Version History ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.2: (02/17/07): Added in additional information submitted by e-mails. 2.1: (08/15/06): After an eternity finally went through and added in a bunch of the information and credits I have been getting from e-mails over time. 2.0: (06/23/05): Went through the walkthrough and added and fixed a couple things to make the last version of the FAQ, with the exception of small additions or corrections overtime. 1.9 (06/22/05): Walkthrough complete. 1.8 (06/21/05): Continued the walkthrough up until the save point once you come to the Temple of the Oracle for the second time. Added a credits section with some credits, and more glitches. 1.7 (06/20/05): Continued the walkthrough up until the save point after the architects tomb. Added a glitches section at the end with a couple glitches. 1.6 (06/19/05): Continued the walkthrough up until the save point after you get the green necklace. 1.5 (06/18/05): Continued the walkthrough up until after you emerge from the Rings of Pandora to the upper levels of the temple. 1.4 (06/17/05): Continued the walkthrough up until the next save point after the door you go through in the hall with all the fireballs. 1.3 (06/16/05): Combat strategies section completed, and walkthrough continued up until the next save point after the Challenge of Poseidon. 1.2 (06/15/05): Continued the walkthrough up until the save point after you put the shields in the door after the Challenge of Atlas. 1.1 (06/14/05): Worked on the combat strategies section, and continued the walkthrough up until suicide bluff after the event with the oracle. 1.0 (06/13/05): First version of the FAQ. Made general format, including table of contents, weapons/magic section, combat strategies section, version history, legal disclaimer, and the walkthrough up until the Athens Town Square. ======================================================================= II. Weapons/Magic ======================================================================= Blades of Chaos: These are the main weapons of the game, and are what you should level up first. Their first level is very cheap, and they are weapons, which you should use for the whole game, even though you get a more powerful weapon later on (I will describe that later). You can learn all kinds of new moves for these weapons, and each level adds power in addition to a move. The best idea is to level this up to level 5 first thing (this is the only weapon that goes to level 5, each other one is only level 3, but it is more than worth it). Poseidon's rage: This weapon is best to fully level up second. I personally think it is better than the armies of Hades, because it can, on some occasions, do more damage than the Army of Hades, and when leveled up to the second level, you can use the rage of Poseidon, which does extensive damage to all surrounding opponents. This is cheap to level up to full. For the second phase of the last boss, the full level of this weapon helps a lot. Medusa's gaze: This magic is fantastic, and helps a ton. It will freeze your opponents right where they are. Personally I never leveled this up until last, because level 1 is sufficient and still works effectively for the later levels. You can level this up if you want, but there really is not too much point because leveling up the other magic's and weapons makes it less necessary to use this. Zeus fury: A long-range lightning attack. This is the only ranged weapon in the game, and is the cheapest to level up. This weapon uses little mana, and is really good to pick some enemies out of a fight before engaging them with your main weapons. Blade of Artemis: This is powerful, but utterly useless. It is ridiculously expensive to level up, and I never used this in the game. I only used the blades of chaos. These are the only 2 weapons in the game. The blades of chaos are much better because you can learn new and better moves for them (you still have all the L1 moves with the blade, which are very powerful, but slow). The blade of artemis is better for some parts of the game than the blades of Chaos, but I just figure the blades are better overall, so that is all I use. Army of Hades: Some people consider this the best magic, and I would too if it used less energy. You can only use it twice on a full bar, but it is an amazing attack. Many different spirits come out, and run a muck about your enemies, bashing into them, highly damaging and killing them. It does not last too long sometimes, and can only be used twice, but it is extremely powerful. When you get level 5 blades of chaos, you get unlimited energy for rage of gods, so use your blades, but use army of Hades twice for free. ======================================================================= III. Combat strategies ======================================================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A. Combos and tactics ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -Basic moves you have Square: Light attack Triangle: Heavy attack Circle: Grab (for some enemies) X: Jump R1: Rush (level 3) and Rush and jab (level 4) L1: Block R3 stick: Dodge-roll Grab options While grabbing, you can do any of the following Triangle: Snap them in half. This is awesome to do, but you don't get any orbs. Square: Throw them. Extremely useful for damaging all surrounding opponents. Tapping circle: Throwing them to the ground and stabbing them 4 times. If they are stronger, you will beat some orbs out of them before stabbing them. If you stab them to death, and in the end, have 10 consecutive hits, then you get a Ruthless kill bonus (+10 experience). So make sure you have 6 consecutive hits before you stab one, or if they are stronger, at least 3. -Combos Level 1 -Hold triangle: Ascension- when next to an enemy, this tactic will shoot your enemy into the air. -Tap circle: Orion's Harpoon- This tactic allows you to grab your enemy out of the air when they are shot up and slam them back to the ground. Use this with Ascension. You can tap circle until they are dead to keep yanking and shooting them. -L1: Hades reverse (block)- Blocks certain attacks. -Square-square-triangle: Plume of Prometheus- you use 2 heavy attacks, and them slam your blades of chaos on the ground. Extremely useful for large groups of enemies Level 2 -Hold L1+X: Apollo's ascension- when used, you launch an enemy into the air with you. -Hold L1+X (while in the air): Apollo's offensive- keep holding L1, and tap X to bat the enemy down, whip them with your blades of chaos, and continue the pattern till they fall to the ground. Extremely useful for gaining consecutive hits for bonus experience. -R1: Hermes Rush- you dash at your opponents. -R1 (while in air)- Hermes stomp- you stomp enemies that are on the ground while you are in the air. Level 3 -Hold L1+square: Cyclone of Chaos- you spin around with your blades of chaos to hit every enemy around you. It is not that powerful, but you can gain mad consecutive hits if in a large group of enemies. -Hold L1+square (while in the air): Cyclone of Chaos- If you spin while in the air and keep tapping square, you are able to fall to the ground much slower, while performing this attack very rapidly. -Triangle (x3): Spirit of Hercules- this attack starts with a heavy attack, then a follow-up, then a powerful slam to the ground. This is a better alternative to plume of Prometheus, but it is not nearly as fast, so you will be using both moves throughout the game. -Triangle-triangle-square: Valor of Hercules- the end result of this attack is the same one that you get when you hit square consecutively. Your blades whip out to the sides for a horizontal sweep. So, in short, this is a faster version of that attack, and the only difference from the spirit of Hercules is the ending attack. -Square or Triangle of R1: Hades revenge- hit any of these buttons for an attack after you block your opponents attack. Level 4 -Hold L1+triangle: Rising Helios- Kratos will flip around forward, resulting in multiple hits to a single enemy or a small group of enemies, ending with a slam to the ground. -Hold L1+triangle (air): Falling Helios- used while in the air. -R1 (x3): Hermes Fury- an addition to the dash attack. Kratos will rush at his opponent, but will also jab them with the blades. -Right analog stick + X: Achilles Flip- Used after evading an attack to attack an opponent. Level 5 -Hold L1+circle: Lance of the Furies- Hold circle, and you will slam the ground with massive area effect and damage. -Hold L1+circle (air): Lance of the Furies- This is the better thing to do, since while charging it, you will not be sitting in the middle of the ground vulnerable to attack. Do this to easily perform the attack, -Square, then hold square: Might of Hercules- After tapping square then holding it, you will perform a series of powerful attacks. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - B. Strategies ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Hit and Run Strategy This is an excellent strategy, but it only works for big enemies. Once you master this strategy it is extremely helpful, and you can take down some huge enemies without even getting hit. Make sure it is not the huge enemies with the spike balls they shoot at you, as this strategy will not work with them; they have ranged attacks. Alright, so when you come across a huge melee enemy, stay back from them, and use plume of Prometheus. It should push them back some. Move back when your light attacks for the combo start to hit the big enemies. This really only works for Cyclops's. Use this strategy till the enemy is down. The area of effect is pretty big, so if there are 2 enemies, get them next to each other, and you can use it on them both. Sometimes it takes awhile to kill the enemies, but it is safe and effective. -Hit and Dodge strategy A method of the hit and run strategy for large groups of small enemies. Basically, what you do is use plume of Prometheus on a set of enemies, dodge roll through the middle or other side, and use it again. Then dodge roll again and use, and repeat. -Grab and throw strategy Not really a strategy so much as a tactic. In an attack group, grab an enemy you can and throw them at the other enemies. This really is just a simple move, but it is the most effective move you have. If the enemies are unable to throw until you get the circle above their heads, then focus on one enemy until he has the circle, then throw him. Try to get in the middle of an whole group of enemies so the 360 whip- around will get as many enemies as you can, because it does MASSIVE damage, especially to the one that is targeted. That's it for now. If you have any more strategies, please e-mail me and let me know. ======================================================================= IV. Walkthrough ======================================================================= For the game, I want to offer one small piece of advice: NEVER IGNORE OR RUN PAST ENEMIES!! Besides the fact that you will loose a lot of health if they follow you, you desperately need the experience for leveling up, or you will be screwed by the end of the game. -I wrote this FAQ as a played the game in hard mode. Most strategies that work in hard mode will work in normal mode, but there are still a few things that are different. However, the way this FAQ is written will not affect the way the game is played on normal. I did not mention how long it takes to kill certain enemies or anything like that, so nothing will seem strange. -If you want to prepare to play the game on God Mode, my absolute best advice is to play the game for the FIRST time on Hard mode. I did this, and although it took a while and was difficult on Hard mode, God mode was a breeze for me, except for the boss before you get Army of Hades, which was about it. All you have to do from going to hard mode to God mode is dodge and block a little bit more, and fight a little more aggressively. Ares was not too much harder, and I defeated each form quicker than I did on hard mode. By playing on hard mode the first time, you must use a lot more strategy than in the lesser difficulties. If you play for the first time on normal, you will not need to use nearly as much strategy, and can win most battles with simply any moves and without blocking very much. When you play the higher difficulties, you try this same technique and it will not work. So the best idea is to play on hard so you develop this technique of playing right when you play the game. -At the same time, this FAQ is useful when playing on God mode. I played and beat God Mode, and there is not much difference between hard mode and God mode, except the bosses. You take a little more damage, the enemies take longer to defeat, but that is about it. Orbs are the same, puzzles are the same, health upgrades are the same, just about everything else is the same. * indicates a boss battle ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A. Ship to Athens ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The game starts with a fight against a bunch of weak enemies. This is not too difficult: you can just win with your regular attacks. If you ever do have trouble, though, use square, square, triangle (plume of Prometheus)if your opponents are in a horde, and use triangle for heavy attacks against single enemies. A really good strategy is to grab them (circle) and throw them (square). It will target a certain enemy, but you will fling them around 360 degrees, so you can nail a bunch of other enemies near you also. This is probably the best way to win with the most health. The point of this fight is basically to get used to the controls and method of gameplay. After the fight, you are able to open a hatch. Open it to drop down into the ship. You can open the chest with health orbs if you need it. As you progress through this hallway, you may want to break open the barrels and the bunk beds to get extra orbs. Once you get to the end, you come into a boss battle. ---------------------------------- *Hydra spawn; Difficulty: 5/20 ---------------------------------- This boss is not too hard, because hitting it will sometimes give you health orbs. Block whenever the hydra backs up, because it is about to strike at you. After it does this, you can either do a heavy attack (triangle) or square, square, triangle. Either one will work fine. Anyway, just attack after blocking each attack, but only after blocking, because you do not want to risk being hit while in the process of attacking. After wearing it down to about 2/3 health, you get a prompt to press circle. Do it, and then follow the on-screen button prompts. After hitting about 4 prompts, the boss is defeated and you get a bunch of red and green orbs. Proceed across the beams to the other side. If you slip, just press X to get back on. Once on the other side, break open the barrels for some extra orbs. Continue off to the left, and talk to the prisoner on the left side if you want. It is probably a good idea. After that, head up the stairs and open the chest of red orbs up there. Continue on and attack the wood barricade. Open the door ahead of you to come into an area with a bunch of people running around on the outside of the ship. Attack the harpies. Light attacks will do fine here, because they are pretty weak. Whenever there is a clump of harpies, however, you may want to use square, square, triangle. If you get low on health, grab the villagers. Kratos will stab them a few times and kill them. Killing them this way will give you 3 health orbs. If you kill them regularly, they only give one. After fighting a while, there will be another hydra spawn. ---------------------------------- *Hydra spawn; Difficulty: 7/20 ---------------------------------- Use the same tactics as you did last time; block when he does his rotating attack, and when he lunges at you. If he grabs you between his teeth, that is fine, because as long as you tap circle quickly and get out of his attack, you will grab him and slam him to the ground, resulting in massive damage. Just repetitive heavy attacks are the way to go here. In addition to slamming him to the ground, he will not take too long to defeat. After the fight, head to the right side, and open the 2 doors for some chests with red orbs. After that, jump down into the hole that the boss popped out of. Go forward, climb the rope, and fight a few more enemies. Head across the beam, and when you get to where it meets with 2 others, you probably want to head off to the right beam first to grab some red orbs, then head back and take the left beam. Once you come onto the platform at the end, there is a save altar and a chest with health orbs. Walk forward to see a short cut-scene. After this, hop down and find the crate on the right hand side. This can be tough. What you have to do is get the crate to the end without getting it broken by the archers arrows. The archers attack with 2 waves of arrows. What you need to do is wait until right before the first archers arrow wave hits the wall, and then start moving right. Only move right enough that you can kick the crate forward. Once there, immediately hold X, and hold it until right before the archers arrows are going to hit the box, then let go. Continue kicking the box, but do not go near it when archers arrows are heading towards you. The box will get destroyed if you let this happen too often. Stay away from the box until right before the second wave of arrows gets shot, then run to the box, and kick it (make sure you are far enough away from the box that the second wave arrows do not hit the box or you). Run back right before the first wave of archers arrows is shot again, then return right before the second wave is shot. When you reach the next wall, continue the pattern until you reach the end. If the box gets destroyed, just try it again. Practice a few times, and you will get it. Once the crate is at the end, jump on it, and climb the ropes. Kill the archers (a very easy way is jump up on one of the side ledges, grab one, fling it with the square button, and if it targets the other end, you can get all 6 archers with one attack). Open the chest with health orbs, and enter the doorway. Continue and you will reach a door that you can hear women behind. Turn around and climb the ladder, and then climb the rope. The best way to kill any enemies while on the rope is to grab them and throw them down. Other attacks take too long. If there is a line of enemies, though, you can use triangle, which is easier. Other than that, just grab those above and beside you, and use square for those below you. If they are attacking you while on your side, use square on them to get them off guard, and then immediately move over and grab them. If you grab them in their upper-body, you can knock orbs out of them by tapping circle. You can also use X to ascend or move to the side faster if need be. You will reach a ledge with a second rope. Ascend that to reach the stern. Kill the couple of enemies that are up here, and walk across the beam to the side to get some red orbs. Go back and slide down the rope. Once at the bottom, smash open all 3 wooden barricades. The left chest contains red orbs, and the right chest contains a Gorgon Eye@. Walk forward through the doorway for a cut scene. After the scene, you get the magic Poseidon's rage. Head out the door, and use the save altar to the right if you want to. Grab either of the chests if you need them, and head up the ladder for a cut scene. After that, you enter a battle with 2 hydra spawns. ---------------------------------- *Hydra spawns; Difficulty: 8/20 ---------------------------------- These are not too hard. Focus on one at a time. Use just heavy attacks, as with the last hydra spawn, and block whenever necessary. Once one is at one-third health, it will collapse off to the side. Climb the crates to the top, and jump onto the white circular platform to pin it to the deck, and get a bunch of red and green orbs. Be quick about it, though, because they will get back up soon. Repeat with the last one, and after that is done, climb the net in the middle to fight the hydra. ---------------------------------- *Hydra; Difficulty: 12/20 ---------------------------------- The hydra has 3 attacks. 2 are easy to dodge or block, and the last one can be tough. First, he will do a really loud roar which will push you off the ledge, but that is blockable somehow. Second, he will do a brief roar and then slam his teeth into the front of the platform. This is your queue to attack him. Use only light attacks, because they will get the most damage out of him, because if you do not pause while attacking, you can attack continuously for a while. His third attack, he will ease back, and then slam his whole head onto the platform. This is hard to dodge if you do not see it coming, so learn to see it coming (remember, he will not roar or anything, just ease back and slam up almost instantly), move to the back of the platform. To make it in time, you may need to use the Right stick to roll out of the way. This is the only place you are safe from it. To make it in time, you may need to use the Right stick to roll out of the way. If you need to, you can hop onto the rope. Now, back to attack strategy. In order for him to slam his teeth onto the front of the platform, you must attack him first while he is in one of his other phases. The best time to do this is right after he is done roaring. It seems that if you completed the light attack combo on him (where Kratos whips out his blades, doing a sweep on both sides) that the hydra has a better chance of repeating the phase where he sinks his teeth into the platform. However, as the fight goes on, this chance seems to lessen. If you do not start beating it out of him with him squealing, then he is about to slam his head onto the platform, so watch out. Actually, I think whether or not he repeats this phase is dependent on how far you are from him while attacking. If you are close, you will start continuously attacking him. If you see him backing up without roaring, though, get to the back of the platform. The roar is not very damaging, it will just knock you off. You can just climb back up. Anyway, once you get him down to a little over half health, he will collapse on either side. Use circle to grab him with your blades, tap circle to bring him toward the post in the center, and Kratos will slam him against it to break it some. Repeat once to snap the post. Do the cycle one more time, and he will dangle about. Circle will appear above his head, so hit it, do the one button combo, then sit back and watch the sweet FMV. After the fight, you hear some guy yelling for help. Jump into the hydra's mouth, and continue to find the captain. After the cut-scene, you get the key. After that, you need to head back to that door where you heard the women. After exiting the hydra, head up the crates on the right side, jump onto the platform, open the crates for health and a gorgon eye, and slide down the rope. From there, save if you need to, and just head forward, following the same path you did before to get to the captains door. On your way, you will encounter a few archers. After defeating them, which should not be too hard, head back up the net, through the doorway and to the captain's door. After unlocking the door, walk in, head down the hallway, and open the door at the end for a cut-scene. After that, you are in your room. You can jump on the bed and enter a button and joystick combo which, if done correctly, will break the vase and result in a bunch of red orbs. Anyway, after that, head down the hall, save if you need to, and continue on to a chest of blue orbs and a chest of green orbs. You can break the bags through this hall if you want for some extra orbs. Climb the ladder to exit the ship. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- B. The Gates of Athens ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Head to the front of the ship and talk to Athena if you want, and then head off the ship to the right. Defeat the enemies here using the square square triangle combo as necessary, and block when need be. It's real easy to see their attacks coming, and you can block them easy, so take it slow if you have trouble. Just watch out for when you hit them to the ground. If they get back up quickly, they may do a spinning attack which gives less time to block than the other attack. So be ready for that. Once one of them has a circle above them, grab and throw them into the others for some massive damage to all of them. This is a golden strategy which makes fighting so much easier, especially when the huge clumps of enemies come along. Fight until one gets a circle, then throw them into the clump. Sometimes, the others get circles, too, so throw them too. Use this strategy till the end of the game, its an excellent one. Defeat these enemies, then continue on to the next set of enemies. Note: If you got all the orbs that I mentioned, including the vase and breaking all barrels and environment objects, you will have enough to level up your blades of chaos. I highly recommend leveling up these until their full level, but it's your choice. I will start mentioning strategies with enemies using new moves that are gotten when you level these up first. If you choose to do this, I will make notes whenever you can get another level. You will have rage of the gods. One word of advice for this: Save. Save till you ABSOULTELY need it because it takes forever to charge. Only 3 enemies for this set. Should not be too hard. Fight like you did the last set, then head left. There is a hole in the wall, which I suggest you take. Head into the doorway at the top and you will fight a few enemies. Use regular strategies to defeat them, and then head forward and open the chest for a phoenix feather. Head out the right, grab the health orbs if you need it, and then head over the crates and back up to where you entered the hole in the wall. Take the elevator to the left. Head right and get the chest if you need it, which you will not if you got the feather. You are now introduced to the minotaur. These enemies take a while to kill. Hit them, back up, then attack again. Do not get up close to them. The best attacks to use are regular heavy attacks for single minotaurs, and if there are 2 or more, use the square square triangle combo. When the circle appears above the head, you can either press it and hit circle rapidly to kill them for health, or you can kill them normally for experience. After you defeat one, another one comes. After that one is defeated, grab the chest for magic and continue right and take the next elevator. Head forward, watch the cut-scene, and now you get to fight a Cyclops. When he starts spinning his big spike ball, run in circles around him, but stay near him while doing this, in order to dodge it. After that, heavy-attack him. When he spins his ball again, repeat. When the circle appears, hit it to enter the button combo and defeat him. After that one, 2 more will appear, so defeat them too, but watch out for the one you are not attacking. However, if you were quick about killing the one after the first one before the third one came into the picture, he should be about dead. Finish him, then kill the last one. Head forward into the doorway, grabbing the changing chest if you need either health or magic. Continue into the room with stacked boxes. Destroy the wooden crates below the one right in front of you, and the one in the upper left, and then head to the lower left and jump on that crate. Jump to the upper right platform, then jump onto the one to the right of there to find a hole in the wall with a magic chest and a gorgon eye. Head back and jump on the platform in front. Open the chest for experience, and head up the ladder. Strafe along the side to the left, and just keep walking right off the edge until you land on the platform. Head to the left and grab the net and climb, then jump to the platform to the left (not by the opening) and jump again to the left to find a chest with experience. Head back to the right and enter the opening in the wall. Head to the right and watch the cut-scene. Grab the chest if you need it. ---------------------------------- *Medusa; Difficulty: 10/20 ---------------------------------- She is not too hard. You can block every attack except the gaze. When she uses the gaze, dodge-roll around like crazy to avoid it. Use heavy attacks to defeat her. You can also use the square square triangle attack to cut her gaze short, or to get her on the ground. She will often attack right after you attack her, so be ready to defend. If you can, try using the Plume of Prometheus move on her in sequence if you can get her on the ground to keep her down. If done right, you can continually attack her while she is helpless. Careful if she turns you to stone, because if she hits you, its game over. This will get especially annoying later in the game when you have groups of Gorgons, or a gorgon with enemies, of groups of gargons with groups of enemies, or anything to do with gorgons, its gonna suck. Anyway, health is not too big a deal, because if you get low, you will be beating health orbs out of her. Just block when necessary, use heavy attacks, dodge-roll the gaze, and when she gets the circle above her head, hit it and do the couple of joystick rotations and you win. Congratulations. You get Medusa's gaze. This is so helpful, especially for winning experience. Let me give a brief description of how to get experience with it. -Breaking an enemy while they are frozen: 15 exp "crushed" -Freezing an enemy in the air: 30 exp (they fall to the ground, shatter, and are "ruined") Defeat the minotaurs. Use medusa's gaze when they are lined up, and you can freeze both of them at once, saving energy. Smash them with square square triangle, or heavy attacks (either one will break them just doing it once. Beware, though, because later in the game, stone forms can require a ton of beating to break before they return to normal). You get plenty of experience here, too. After the fight, head through the doorway, defeat a couple enemies, and head up the ladder. Hit the lever to turn the arrow forward. Shoot it to break the wood door. Hit the lever again to shoot the arrow to the left side, a crack in the wall, revealing a chest with a phoenix feather. Head back to the lever, hit it twice, and shoot again to the right, another wall, revealing 2 chests with experience. Grab the chest of health here if you need it. Then head forward. There is a ladder. While not required, you should really do this. Go to the left, down, defeat the few enemies there, open the chest for a gorgon eye, and open the gate for quick access back to the second floor. After that, return to the top and take the first ladder you saw to the right. At the top are a few enemies you need to defeat, and then there is a ladder to the left. Climb up the wall here, but don't go too far. Go until that wooden thing on the side ends, and then crawl on the wall onto the area above it. Drop down here, and jump onto the roof to the left below you. From here, jump forward, down into the area with the experience you revealed with the crossbow. A double jump is necessary to get here, so make sure to do that. After grabbing those chests, jump down from there and head back to the gate that you opened when you headed left. Head back up there, then up the other ladder and back to where you were climbing on the wall before. Head to the very top so you can easily jump to the right. Hold the right stick to the right until he dangles, and then hit X to jump to the next wall. You can double-jump if you want, but it is not necessary. After jumping to the other side and continuing on, you will see 2 enemies on the right side of another gap. They will jump onto your side, so be careful. If they are below you, just use light attacks until they fall off. Hop onto the next part of the wall, and continue to the right where you will encounter even more enemies. There are a lot, so stay low so you have the opportunity to grab them. If they are to your side, you can beat orbs out of them, but that is also helpful, because slamming them on the wall will sometimes knock other nearby opponents off. Continue to the right, and hop another gap, and once on the other side, you will encounter even more enemies. You need to move down for this part of the wall, so I suggest light attacks. If you can get next to an enemy without getting hit, try to grab him and throw him down onto other enemies. Once at the bottom, move left alongside the building. I encountered an enemy here because it fell off the wall and landed here, so if there is any enemies here, be sure to defeat them. Don't fall. Get behind the giant statue and tap R2. It will fall and collapse, and his head will provide a boost to a ladder at the bottom. Grab the chest on the left side of the ledge before jumping off. After that, you need to get down (get onto the ladder, because it won't let you fall off otherwise). Once you get down, head to the left side, and jump on the head of the statue to reach the ladder. After climbing, you have to fight 2 gorgons (weaker versions of Medusa). Don't bother using medusa's gaze on them; it has no effect. What you need to do is use a variety of square-square-triangle and normal heavy attacks. Use the first combo when they are together, and you are further away, and use the second when you are closer and only dealing with one. You have to defeat 2 now, but they are much weaker, but be sure to block plenty. Their attacks give plenty of warning, because they usually throw their arms up and back up before attacking. The gaze is no problem to avoid, you just have to use the right stick to dodge-roll. It doesn't matter how much you are in the gaze, as long as you are dodge rolling, you will not be frozen. After defeating these 2, grab the chest on the left (you could get this during the battle if you want, but I don't suggest it because they take awhile to open, and plus at the end it is possible you will not have full health for the next set of enemies), and then head up the ladder ahead of the first one you came up. Up here, you start with 2 minotaurs. Use Medusa's gaze on them, but be sure you are as far away as possible; you do not want it to be interrupted. Try backing to the back right corner, and using it right when you get there. You can probably freeze them both at once, and then just use square square triangle to finish them both. After these 2, you need to fight another gorgon and another minotaur. This one is not too hard; just get the minotaur between you and the gorgon when the gorgon is using her gaze, and the minotaur will be frozen by her gaze. Use square-square-triangle to finish the minotaur, and then go after the gorgon. If that does not work for you, then just focus regular attacks on the gorgon, and then freeze and break the minotaur with the gaze. After this, attack the two pillars on the left side until a platform is revealed for them both, and then climb up. You fight a bunch of legionnaires here. You can try to go to the lower right, onto the raised platform and use the gaze when they are all clumped, but it is tough to do, because you are constantly being bombarded. If that does not work, just use regular strategy, between blocking, square-square-triangle combo, and heavy attacks. Then once one gets a circle, grab and throw as usual. After these enemies are done, head to the right and use the crossbow. Then hop onto the rope. Right when you jump on, more enemies pop up on that platform. Right then, hop down and take care of them. Then get back on the rope. For every enemy in reach use only the square attack (quick jab) on them until they fall off. If an enemy is out of range, and only one, then use the triangle move. Be aware, however, the quick-jab range is further than you might think. If enemies are closing on both sides, be quick and quick jab on both sides, alternating back and forth. It takes practice, but basically you need to be tapping square while moving the analog stick left and right. Once you master that, use that and only that strategy when enemies close in from both sides. Progress down the rope. Health is not a huge issue, because each enemy you quick-jab attack off will give you health if you are low. If an enemy grabs you, don't use your thumb to rock the joystick; just take your whole right hand and run it left and right on the stick. Once you reach the end, hop down short of the ladder to save time. Get the chest if you need it, and come back toward the screen to see a wood door getting beaten at. From here, head left and raise the familiar- looking door. Raise the door and run back, aim the crossbow at the door, and fire away. Don't leave once you break down the door, however. Stay and use the crossbow, fire as fast as you can to get rid of the advancing minotaurs. Save if you want, and then head forward into where the wooden door was and descend the ladder. Head back toward the screen, and when you get to the end of the hall, you will notice you are on the other side of the gate that you saw in the courtyard previously. Head forward onto the bridge (you can break the pots here if you want for some orbs) for a cut-scene. After the scene, head forward to get a first glance of Ares. Take the path to the right first. Save here if you want, and continue down the path to the end with a gate. The only reason you came here is to grab that chest off to the right with a gorgon eye. Head back down the path you took, and then take the left path back at the connection to the bridge. After going down it a little bit, you will see a bunch of debris fall into your path. Head to the left side, break the crates for orbs if you want, and head through the doorway. It closes, and now you are trapped. I suggest fighting the enemies here until they won't give you orbs anymore, and then try freezing one on the switch in the back that opens the door. Careful with these enemies, they have unblockable attacks. Just freeze them, because there is a chest here with energy that will reset after you use it. Head to the back and freeze them. Now you have to be quick in breaking them when frozen, because they take a lot of damage to break, and they may unfreeze. The best way to break them is only heavy attacks. No combos, just hit triangle repeatedly. 3 heavy attacks breaks them. The key to beating these enemies it distance. They move and attack so slow, but if they hit you, it hurts. So use square-square-triangle from distance, and use heavy attacks only when they are on the ground. After they stop giving orbs, lure one back to where the button is, and start freezing him when he is in front of the button, and get him to freeze on the button. Once he is on the button and frozen, RUN. You need to be quick to get to the door before he unfreezes. Note: If not now, you should really soon have enough orbs to upgrade your blades of chaos to the third level. This level is wonderful, because you have a great new combo called spirit of Hercules. This is a much better alternative to square-square-triangle (plume of Prometheus), but it is slower. You will still be using the previous combo. Anyway, spirit of Hercules is used by tapping triangle till you rise up and slam your blades down in a powerful slam. It consists of starting with a heavy attack, then a follow-up heavy attack, and finally a slam. I will be using this move in future strategies for enemies. After heading through the door, grab the chest if you need it and proceed forward. There are eyes and feathers and orbs in some of these houses, which you get into by attacking the door, but I will state which ones. The second house on the left has a chest with orbs. Grab them, and head forward, and you will see an archer. Get rid of him, then move forward more to see a Gorgon and more archers. Kill the gorgon first, then grab the archers and throw them. After you defeat the archers, that house ahead of you on the corner with the second level has a chest with some red orbs in it. Also, the house to the left of where the Gorgon was, there is a house with a chest with a feather. Finally, head forward and to the right there is a chest on top of that building on the right of the corner. Jump on the building from the back, and open the chest for a gorgon eye. Your health meter should now be increased. Now, continue around the corner to find another archer. To the right of him in the house is a chest with orbs. You will then encounter some more of those enemies you encountered back in the trap. Use the spirit of Hercules (tap triangle) to defeat them quickly, and keep them on the ground. Be ready dodge if they get ready to attack, however. In this area, there are 2 houses on the left side where the road starts to curve back right with a feather and an eye. After grabbing these, kill the gorgon first and then kill the archers around here. When you reach the barricade, the second to last house on the left hand side has some orbs. The one right behind it has more orbs. There is another house across from it with more. After that, go to the side of that house to find a crate. Jump onto it, and then jump onto the top of the house. Break the door and grab the chest with more red orbs. That crate is destroyable, so be careful. After getting all those chests, break the barricades ahead of you. Double-jump onto the rope in front of you. Then swing a little bit, just back and then forward again should do. Once you go forward, let go and jump onto the next rope. From here, move up the rope and jump off while pushing the stick to the upper left. Grab the orbs, and then hop down to the right. Follow the curve, and then ascend the first stairs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- C. Athens Town Square ----------------------------------------------------------------------- After ascending the first stairs, head to the left and break the wooden door to reveal a chest with red orbs in it. Go to the right of there and break that door for some orbs. Ascend the second set, and head right and break the wooden door on the right side to find a chest with some more red orbs. Now head to the top, and you get to fight with some of those huge guys you fought where you knocked the statue over. This fight is not that bad. You can get health by grabbing the villagers and getting 3 orbs. I do not think that the villagers ever run out, they just keep coming. I could be wrong, however, because I never used a ton of villagers for health, and there are a lot of them. Anyway, use spirit of Hercules like crazy here. If you cannot get close enough, then just use the plume of Prometheus. That will push him back each time you use it. Sometimes, just doing that end on end will let you win without getting hit or without difficulty. When the circle appears, hit it to yank his eyes out with your blades and get a bunch of orbs. There will be more than one after you defeat the first one, so be ready to dodge-roll when you get ganged up on. Yank our their eyes 3 times to defeat them with a brutal kill (+20 experience orbs). After they are defeated, take the ledge to the left of the stairwell you came up on to find a chest with red orbs and a door you can break for orbs. After that, go just to the left of the top of the stairs, and break the door there to find a chest with more red orbs. Slightly ahead on the left side is another chest with red orbs. Now you can head through the doorway in the upper left. Walk through and you will see a women panic and run. Move forward into a room with a shiny floor and pictures on the walls. Break the cracked one on the right side of the wall right in front of you for a chest with a gorgon eye. Break another one on the left wall for some orbs. Finally, there is one on the right wall you can break for a alternating chest. Take either one if you need it, but I suggest the magic if you are low on both, because another health chest is not far, and there are no enemies between here and there. Continue up the stairs and through the hallway till you reach a balcony. Take the health if you want, then head right and break the wooden door. There is a crack in the top wall on the right side which when attacked, reveals a chest with red orbs. There is another alternating chest on the balcony on the right, but you should not need either one because of the 2 chests you just got not too long ago. So head back out the door you came in and head to the left. Jump across, then head in to the right for a cut-scene. After it, head up the stairs and head out onto the balcony in front of you. After she falls off, save if you want, and jump onto the ledge to the left to open a chest with a feather, and then jump off the balcony and get the key. After you grab the key, head back in the doorway to the left, and when you come to the shiny room, you will have to fight some enemies. You have new enemies here. Well, they're really not new, they are old enemies with shields. To get rid of their shields, use Plume of Prometheus. After you do that, which you can do if they are all together to get them all gone at once, you can just grab-and-toss. Head up the steps to fight a couple Gorgons. After defeating them, head up the second stairs to fight one of those shied guys. After that, head onto the balcony to find 2 archers and another gorgon. Start by grabbing the archer and tossing him at whoever you target. Grab the second one if he is not dead, and toss him at the gorgon. Finish the gorgon, which will not take long since you threw the archer at her, and then jump across the ledge to the other balcony AFTER the 2 archers shoot their arrows. You do not want to get shot in mid-jump, or you will fall. You can grab and throw them, or just grab and stab them. If you want, you can go into that room that is next to the first balcony before you jumped and defeat more enemies there for more orbs, but you do not need to. Head up the stairs and defeat the archers. You can get ruthless kills if you grab and stab all 4 of them. Do that to the first 2, and then be fast to the third one before your consecutive hits meter resets. After you grab and stab him, do it to the 4th one quickly, and you will have gotten 2 Ruthless kills (+20 orbs). After that, head onto the balcony, and to the right, across the wooden bridge to reach a door. Unlock and open it, and when you get at the bottom, open that gate for quick access back to here. Head forward for a save point and save if you want, and then head around the corner and forward to see some soldiers and then a cave-in. Head left and forward and open the door. Continue on to go outside to the Roofs of Athens ----------------------------------------------------------------------- D. Roofs of Athens ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Head right and climb the wall. Head left and up again, and then push the stick left, and double-tap X to reach the other wall behind you. Head up it, and then push the stick right and double-tap X again to reach the wall back on the side you were on. Head up, and finally, jump back behind you to a platform with a green and blue chest. Take either one if you need it, and head in for a cut-scene. This fight is tough. Those underground guys (wraiths) are annoying. Every time you see them go underground, watch for when they get to you, and then block. You can grab them, but it is not an ordinary grab; you simply grab them and throw them in the air. However, once they get damaged enough, you can grab them, throw them down, and chop off their head. Do that whenever you get a chance. When you block their underground attacks, you must block when they pop out. They hit you twice, but if you get hit the first time, you will get hit the second time. I would not advice the Spirit of Hercules, because it takes too long, and it that time you may get hit. Stick with plume of Prometheus if you can, and heavy attacks. If you have more trouble, you may want to try Medusa's gaze, as these guys freeze fast, but you need time. Plus that, you need medusa's gaze much more in the next fight, so you may want to just save it. After you defeat a couple of them, you get to fight some legionaries. Focus on the underground guys first, and then take care of the other enemies, because you do not want to fight the regular enemies with the underground guys constantly popping up under you. After you defeat all enemies here, defeat the 2 archers and their respawns on the stairs, and then head back to the right side of the shielded door, and break the barricade and open the chest for an eye. Head back and up the stairs to the top, and hop the ledge for another fight. This fight sucks. Not only do you have the underground guys, you also have those huge spike-ball throwing guys. Once here, focus on the underground guys first of all. The best tactic is to freeze them as fast as you can, before the Cyclops comes along. They take less than a second to freeze, and only a light attack to snap. You have to nail 6 in about 6 or 7 seconds before the spike-ball throwing enemy comes. If you can't get them all, just get as many as you can, and freeze the rest while dodging the spike ball. If you get low on health, get the enemies to the lower right, and then get up there fast before the enemies catch you and attack you while opening the chest. This fight is extremely annoying, especially since a second Cyclops comes. If you have to freeze more of the Wraiths, then use the dodge-roll to get away from them to give you time, and hope they don't go underground. Do NOT use gaze on the Cyclops's, they take forever to freeze and forever to crack, so don't bother. When the Cyclops throws the ball, sometimes it will hit the wraiths, which is nice, so you might try getting wraiths between you and him, which is hard, but if you just run in circles around him, it might work. This takes awhile, so you may not want to bother, but it does help when he does it. So, this fight is hard, especially if you get hit once, and then they keep hitting you, without giving you a break to block. Good luck, you're gonna need it. After that fight, head back down the stairs and through the door that was shielded before. Head to the left first to get a chest down there with some orbs. Head forward and get the health if you need it, which you almost certainly will from the last fight. Continue forward, jump onto the ledge, and then jump forward and grab the moss on the pillar. Move around to the right, head down, and then move back to the left until you are lined up with the ledge to the balcony. Double-jump onto the ledge. Grab the chest with the orbs, and attack the wooden door. Head forward to find more wraiths. Defeat them however, then head up the stairs and defeat the 2 archers. Head out the doorway and defeat the rest of the archers. Move to the left to the wooden drawbridge and hit R2 to kick it out. Head down and back and jump onto the pillar again. Move around to the right until you are lined up with the other pillar to the right, and jump onto it. Move to the other side of there, and then jump onto the ledge. Open the chest for some red orbs. Head forward and get that alternating chest only if you need it, because you will be back here. Start by heading left and walk over the left side of the bridge to the building. Head left, grab the ballista with R2, and push it into the doorway. From here, hold X and kick it to send it sliding down the incline. Grab it again and push it into the room and then leave it for now. There are 4 doors in here. The top right one has an alternating chest, the bottom right one just has stuff to break for orbs, the top right one has the same, and the bottom left one is where you need to ggo. Open the door, and get ready to fight some more enemies. You may want to use Medusa's gaze on these, because you can get a ton of enemies to freeze from one beam because there are so close. You can get mad experience from doing this too. Defeat 2 sets of enemies. Before heading in and pulling the lever, put the ballista on that gear outside the door. Go in and pull the lever to turn the ballista. Head up the ladder to find a chest with some orbs. Go back down, move the ballista off the gear, and pull the lever again. Move the ballista back on the gear, and pull the lever a final time so the ballista aims at the door. Pull the ballista off and aim it at the door and shoot to break it. Head through and walk down the hall to the right and into a room where you meet Zeus and get Zeus fury. After the cut-scene, you can grab the chest for energy is you need it. Head out the door and onto the bridge. Use Zeus fury on the archers, 2 shots per archer. After they are defeated, the door on the right side ahead is unlocked. Go through it and to the left to enter a room with a cracked wall on the top. Break it to find 3 chests with energy, a phoenix feather, and a gorgon eye. You will not need the energy at all, since getting the feather increases your maximum energy, and fills it all the way in the process. Head back out and across the bridge back to where you entered. Head forward into the building for a save point. Save if you need to, and head into the hole in the wall at the top. Climb the ladder and you will have to defeat some minotaurs and some harpies. For some good experience, freeze the harpies in mid-air for 30. They freeze almost instantly, which is good. There is a later battle where you can earn a ton of experience because of harpies. I will mention when, but for now, just use the gaze on the harpies. You can use it on the minotaurs too, but it really is not necessary. They do not take too long to kill. After they are defeated, head to the upper right of this area for an alternating chest and a chest with a gorgon eye. Head back down and move left, jump to the next building and grab the chest if need be. Break the wooden barricade and jump to the next building and defeat 2 minotaurs. From here, break the next barricade and hop onto the moss and climb up. Head forward and get the energy if you need it, then head to the right and press R2 at the white light. Watch the cut- scene, and afterward, whip out Zeus fury and shoot the "coward". If you want, you can go to the right side and down and kick out that wooden bridge for a shortcut back here. Go across the bridge and into the room to find 2 chests with an eye and a feather. You should now have another health level-up. Continue down the hall and you will encounter some more wraiths. After defeating them (using medusa's gaze is real quick and efficient because they are close) continue down the hall and you will encounter more wraiths. Use gaze on them too, and continue into a room with an elevator at the top. Open the chests for some orbs and then take the elevator by standing on the button in the middle. Once at the top head left, through the hallway, and then go onto the bridge for a cut-scene. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- E. Athens Town Square ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -Thanks to cadylacon24 for the following information: after u cross the beam on the second athens town square part, after the harpies take her away, if u drop down and grab the ledge. u can shimmy over and jump to get alot of red orbs a gorgon eye and a feather. just to help everyone. don't use the rope I tried to do that for an hour and it didnt work, but then it dawned on me to use the ledge. You are now above the town square you were in before. Continue left across the beam and save if you want. Ascend the stairs to fight with a bunch of legionnaires. After fighting them, there is a partially broken wall on the top of the path with a chest of red orbs. After getting them, continue left and ascend the stairs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- F. The Temple of the Oracle ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Grab the 2 chests and continue forward. You will have to fight a bunch of enemies here, and I mean a bunch. The harpies are very annoying because they now have an attack where they will ascend high, leave a ring of fire on the ground, and once you get near it, they will slam down on you. You can dodge it, but it is frickin annoying because they all do it a lot. After fighting some harpies, a gorgon appears, so focus on her until she is dead. After she is dead, another spawns, so kill her. After that, get the rest of the harpies. After the fight, watch the cut-scene and then head up the steps. There is a save point on the left if you need it, and a chest on each side at the top of the steps with an eye and a feather. After getting these, head into the temple. Note: If you have not upgraded your blades of chaos again yet, you should almost have enough orbs to do so. The next level has a move L1+X in which Kratos will flip around the blades and then end with a slam to the ground. Also, the R1 dash attack will include jabbing with the blades. Once you enter the temple, you will have a bunch of harpies attacking you. This is what you do. Ignore the harpies and head to the top. Grab that health on the left side if you are low. After that, jump up onto the ledges on the back wall on each side of the door for a chest with red orbs and one with a gorgon eye. Head forward, and once at the top, grab the left statue and drag it out of the wall. Bring it to the edge, then get on the other side and kick it off. After you kick but do not block the wall it off, get down by it and push it to the left, and block the hole in the wall with his shield.. Now, grab the statue on the right and drag to edge and kick. Get down by it, drag it to the right a little, and then get behind it and kick it again. After you get it near the hole, leave it close to the hole but don't block it quite yet. You now have the chance to get loads of experience. Assuming you did not get those 2 chests at the top, which you should not need, you will use them for energy. First, run around and get all the harpies in the air, and after it seems you have gotten them all, go back to where the one hole is that you left open, and freeze each harpie with the gaze that comes out of there. If you want even more experience, stand near the wall, and wait for 2 harpies to come out. When they do, freeze both with one beam. Be sure you use only enough gaze to freeze them, which is less than half a second. If you run out, go get more energy. Using this strategy, I came into this room with 299 red orbs and after I was done, I had 1,744. Actually, I came into the room with no energy and just got it from those 2 chests, and I did not stand next to the wall to get 2 harpies at a time the whole time, so I probably could have gotten more. After you use all energy, close the hole with the shield, and head into the doorway to the left of the entrance by the chest. Head up the stairs and you will find you are above the room. Head across the beam until you get to the first horizontal beam, and head left on that beam to the very end. Then head up to the second horizontal beam, and head right there. Once you get to a beam that heads up that does not collapse, take it to reach the platform. Save and get the chest and head forward. You will now need to defeat some more enemies. Quickly end this battle with grab and throw techniques, then continue on, defeating more enemies as you go. Once reaching the end of the hall, there will be a cut-scene. Now, you must save the oracle. From the start, grab the statue on the left of the door and drag it onto the elevator. Do the same for the statue on the right. After this, take a statue and move to the right until you see a platform on 4 pillars. Move the statue to the right of this platform a fair distance. Take the other statue and put it to the right of that one. What you need to do is jump from that platform you saw onto one statue, then from that statue to the next, and finally onto a ledge with a couple chests with red orbs. After moving it there, head to the left and jump on top of the doorway with the red chest, get the chest, and then jump onto the higher platform. From here, jump across the tops of the statues onto the ledge. It's kinda tough to estimate where the statues are from where you are, so just practice. If you need to, you can re-adjust them. That oracle is probably getting pretty annoying by now. Once across, grab the 2 red chests, then jump down. Take both statues back over by the elevator. Put one right next to the elevator, and take the other up with you. Once on top, push the statue you have on top of the one by the elevator. Now push the stacked statue to the left of that tall platform evenly spaced between the ledge up on the left and the platform. Now, get on the platform again (you can use that white circle with R2 if you want, but not much to see), jump onto the statues, and onto the ledge. Hop onto the wall, and move left some. You probably will not have much time to read this while you are doing the next part, so read it before you start. Now, you have 67 seconds to get to the oracle (or at least I did). Jump across to the left on the wall, past those wheels once they stop. Once past all 3 sets, jump down to the ledge and head left. Jump onto the moss ahead of you, be sure to be tapping X to save time, and take the moss left and up. Double jump towards the rope, do 1 swing and double jump onto the ledge. Go forward, and walk along the thin walkway only halfway, then double jump onto the circular platform. Do the same for the second half. Now, jump onto the rope, and do 1 swing. Double jump onto that platform on the left, and once on, run back toward the rope, and a cut-scene will occur once you get to the end. After the cut-scene, head through the doorway and descend the stairs. Once you come back outside, save if you want. There is also a path to the left you can take, which is long, and leads to a monument you can examine with R2, a statue of Athena who will not speak to you, and a chest on the right side with a feather. You can also walk out onto the ledge at the bottom of this area and press R2. This is really good to do, because it gives you an interesting hint to something. Head back to the save point, and walk across the sword. Remember the sword you are walking on and where it is, because it will be interesting to know later on. Head through the doorway at the end, and descend the circular staircase. Once at the bottom, head back under the stairs to find a chest with a feather. Continue forward to find 2 alternating chests on each side. I recommend saving one in case you need to come back for it from one of the fights ahead, but if you are low on both energy and health, go ahead and get them both. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- G. The Sewers of Athens ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Continue forward and around the curve, and up on the ledge there will be some archers, as well as some enemies in front of you. Start by defeating the enemies on the ground (try luring them around the corner so the archers are not shooting at you), and after you defeat them, climb onto the ledge and take care of the archers and their respawns. Grab the alternating chest as well as the chest on the left side for some red orbs. Jump back down, and jump onto the ledge in front of you. There is another alternating chest up here on the right. Continue forward and a Minotaur will pop up, as well as another coming around the corner. Try freezing both of them if you have energy, if not just defeat them by normal means. After you defeat one another will come. Watch out for those archers around the corner, because if they shoot you they can make it harder for you to dodge one of the Minotaurs attacks. If you ever need health here and you saved one of the chests at the start, go back and get that one, because getting the one here is too risky. After you defeat the minotaurs and the archers, you can get the alternating chest for whatever you need (it is too risky to do it while fighting unless you get the minotaurs far away from you and the archers are dead). Continue forward and jump off the ledge to see 2 more alternating chests. Once again, it is a good idea to save one of these, because you have a tough fight coming up. Once you jump off the ledge, go backwards under the platform for a chest with some red orbs. Continue on until you see another ledge and get the 2 chests with red orbs. Jump onto the ledge and you now must defeat 2 Cyclops. You can try to freeze them, but it takes about 4 seconds, so be careful. It makes it much easier though. They are not hard to break. I just used spirit of Hercules, and he broke before the attack combo finished. After one is down, the second one is easy. After they are defeated, a minotaur will come around the corner. At this point you can kill the archers up on the ledge if you want, which might help, but be careful. Freeze the minotaur if you have energy. After he is down, a second will come. After you kill that one, you need to fight 2 legionnaires, which are not too hard. Kill them, then kill 2 more that spawn after they are dead. After that, or some point around there, another 2 will come as well as a minotaur. Lure them around the corner to get out of the archer sight, and attack each legionnaire until they have the circle above their heads. At this point, grab them and throw them at the minotaur. If you ever need health during this battle, go back to the chest if you saved it. After that minotaur is dead, yet another one will come out. Kill him, and then kill the archers if you have not already. You are now done with this long, annoying battle. Continue forward to the corner and kill the archers on that ledge. After all are dead, open the chest for some red orbs. Head back down and to the right. Jump onto the ledge and continue forward and climb the ladder. Grab the alternating chest if you need it, then ascend the stairs to the top. Pull the lever to release more stairs, then ascend those. You will now be in a very familiar looking place. Go forward, up the stairs, and head right. Save if necessary, then follow this path again to the end. This time, the door will be opened, so walk through it. By the back wall to the right of the door is a chest with an eye, and an alternating chest is ahead to the left. After getting both, head forward into the desert of lost souls. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- H. Desert of Lost Souls ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Walk forward down the path and walk up to the statue of Athena for a cut-scene. After the scene, the first place you need to go is the door that will open once all 3 sirens are defeated. The desert is smaller than it seemed during the scene, so do not worry. All over the desert are chests with red orbs, but I will not guide you through them all, as it is hard to describe where they are. Just look around and you will find them. Anyway, to get to the door you need to go to, head directly right until you reach the end of the desert, then head up, hugging the wall all the way. Eventually you will hear a siren, and see the entrance. Find the siren at the entrance by the steps, and attack it. The great thing about sirens is they will not fight you unless you attack them first, and after you attack them, if you stop attacking, they will too and just go about with their song. Anyway, for the siren, stick to heavy attacks, and the Spirit of Hercules. After fighting her for a while, the circle will appear. At this point, hit it to break her neck and send her spirit to the door. You need to find 2 more now. From the temple, head to the lower left somewhat to see a statue buried in the sand with the hand sticking out. Right below it is a chest. Open it, and head directly left to see another chest. From this chest, head directly down to see a rock formation with a chest. From here you can hear a siren song sometimes. If you cannot hear it, just walk around and you will be able too. Once you hear it, walk in different directions till you notice it getting louder, and then go in that direction until you see it. Once you see it, fight it. However, once you fight it, a 2 minotaurs will pop out of the ground and fight you. Just ignore them, because if you defeat one another will pop up, and they will continue too. Focus on the siren and defeat it the same way you did the last one. If you get low on health, go back to the door where the first siren was and get the chest. After that siren is defeated, run from the minotaurs; do not bother with them. You cannot afford to loose health here. Head back to the door you are trying to unlock, which is generally in the upper right direction. From here, just head left, and you should hear the song of the last siren. If not, just run around generally in the area to the left of the temple. Find it, follow and attack it while avoiding only 1 minotaur (I guess you were supposed to kill this one before the other one, but it does not matter). Once defeated, head back to the door and head through it. Once inside, save your game if you want, get the chests, and head down the stairs. Once on the platform that sticks out above the belt, jump down to the left and open the door on the top wall. Pull out the block, and some enemies will spawn. For this part, you need to defeat enemies, while pushing the block forward before it gets crushed by the spike wheel at the end of the belt. Advance the block, and if any enemies appear, stick it up against the top wall behind the nearest part of wall sticking out to keep the block there. Advancing the block it not too hard, just hold kick all the way, kick it, then nudge it up a little behind a wall. If you ever need health or energy during this, you can go back to the room you were in before if you saved a chest, or get the chest in that room with the block (you will need the block to get back to the room you were in before, so it may not be worth it). After waiting for a while, the belt stopped. I am not sure if this is timed or whatever, but I just fought a bunch of enemies and it stopped. I only did this once, and I assume it is timed. If you know of any other reason, please e-mail me and let me know. The enemies do not stop giving orbs as far as I know, but if you do go ahead and e-mail me and let me know that as well. After you get the block there and jump onto the ledge, open the door and head down the hall until you get outside. Press R2 to blow the horn here to part the dust storm. Walk through, ascend the stairs, grab the chests if you need them, and continue to the top and walk up to the horn for a cut-scene. Now you need to battle 3 more sirens. Press circle whenever it appears to beat their head on the ground, resulting in health. The absolute best combo here is Spirit of Hercules. Use this endlessly to win the battle easily. This battle takes awhile, but is not too difficult since you continuously are getting health and they do not do too much damage to you. Once the battle is over, another short cut-scene will occur. Blow the horn for a cut-scene. After the scene, save the game if need be and head across the bridge. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Pandora's Temple ----------------------------------------------------------------------- After getting across the bridge, you will be at the entrance to the temple. There is an alternating chest on each side of this area, but do not get either one, because you will have the opportunity to get another one before the battle here, and there are no enemies you have to fight to get to it. Go to the upper left side of this area and descend the pathway. Continue all the way until the end where you will notice a block with a handle in the wall. Pull it out. Now, jump up quickly before it moves back into the wall, and once at the top watch the cut-scene. After the cut-scene, grab the chest, and then jump down. You now have 2 new types of Cyclops's to fight. This is a battle where the hit and run strategy really shines. Get them next to each other if you can, and then use the plume of Prometheus while moving back every once in a while to avoid getting to close. Just use it over and over for a slow but sure victory. Once your light attacks for the combo start hitting the Cyclops, it is best to move back some. The area of effect of the finishing move for the combo is pretty big, so it is not too hard to hit them both at the same time. Either way, make sure neither of them gets too close, but they only have melee attacks, so you should not have too much of a problem. Once one is defeated, another will spawn. Continue killing the first one that spawned until it is defeated, and then focus on the second one that popped up. Note that the Cyclops will give you a TON of experience (about 210), so that's real nice. After you defeat all 3 Cyclops, head up the stairs behind the doorway that was blocked before. Once at the top, turn the lever and get the alternating chest if you need it. Head into the temple. There is a health chest here, but first you need to fight some wraiths and archers. After defeating them, grab the health and then read the book on the mantle if you want, and then press R2 by the door to open it. Head into the Rings of Pandora. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- J. The Rings of Pandora ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Walk around the ring to the right until you see a doorway and enter it. Make your way across the spike crushers to the other side of the hallway and save if you want. Defeat the archers and their respawn. Get the alternating chest in the upper left if you need it, and the red orbs in the upper right. Now, go to the top of the room into the opening and pull the lever. This will activate another lever in the ring. Head back there and use the lever. Do not worry about the lever that pops out of the gear there for now. You need to turn the ring until you get to the second opening in that doorway (the one with the symbol you walk into to get a new power). Walk into here, and go forward into the symbol for a cut-scene and the Blade of Artemis. I personally think this blade to be utterly useless, although it is very powerful. It does not have very many combos, and lousy range. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- K. The Challenge of Atlas ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Head forward and save here. Head forward for a battle. The first half is easy, the second half is annoying; there are a ton of gorgons, and that is it. For the first part, just grab and throw until all enemies are dead. For the second part, lots of Gorgons. Do this. Dodge roll like mad. When you get a chance, use Plume of Prometheus on a group of them. If you can get them all together, great, use this combo as long as you can keep them all on the ground. Don't even bother with blocking; just dodge-roll around the area until you get a chance to attack, and if they are all not on the ground, keep dodge-rolling. Use only Plume of Prometheus for this battle. Do not try to get the chest, I've tried it MANY times before, and very rarely can I actually get in enough time to open it, and after opening it, receiving the health before I die. So do not bother with that. After defeating the ggorgons,which may take awhile if you are dodge-rolling everywhere, but at least it is safe, head up the stairs in the upper left. There are 2 ways to go, 2 shields you need to get, but this is the best one to take first, because the other way also has the door you need to go in after you get the 2 shields, and there is no point in getting that shield first then coming back here. Grab the chest if you need energy, but not unless you REALLY need it, then save it, and head left to defeat a couple enemies. If you are gonna use any energy on these enemies, use it only if you saved that chest. After they are dead, continue to the left, up the stairs, and across the bridge to fight 2 more enemies. After they are dead, you will need Zeus fury to kill those archers in order to get across the beam. If you have no energy, and you got that chest at the start, you may need to go into the other room to find some, but I will not describe it now. Assuming you have it, which you should if you took my advice above, shoot them then take the beam across. Once across, head right and open the chest for an eye. Now head back left on the platform and pull the lever to release a weight and a rope. Slide down the rope to the bottom. Do not jump or you will die. Just jump on it and move the stick down. Once there, climb onto the rope. Use the same tactics you did back on the last rope; alternating jabbing in both directions when enemies close in from both sides, and use only the jab unless there is one enemy coming from one direction that is far away. Once on the other side, grab the chests and head up the stairs. Press R2 and take the shield to get the shield of Hades. Now you have to fight a bigger number of enemies than you have before. There are a ridiculous amount of enemies here. The grab and throw tactic is GOLD here. In every group of enemies, find an enemy you can throw and throw them to severely damage or kill every enemy in the group. That is all you need to do; grab and throw. If there are no enemies you can do that too, then use Plume of Prometheus while backing up until an enemy gets the circle. Every group will have those weak enemies you can throw, so go right for them, throw them all, and have a quick and easy battle. If you want experience, you can use the gaze, which is incredible since you have a horde of enemies all lined up for easy freezing with little energy. Note: I got an e-mail talking about a chest near the bridge with the harpies you can get to by double jumping into a gap in the wall. After this is done, head through the door and grab the chests. Jump back down to the first platform and climb the rope back up. You can jump off the rope to the bottom to get there faster, or you can go around the way you came up to get there safer. Either way, once you are at the bottom, go through the doorway next to where the chest was and fight a couple gorgons. After they are dead, go into the room and defeat the archers and their respawns. After they are dead, go back into the hallway and grab that huge wooden block of stuff and drag it out to the room. See that switch in the middle? You need to get that block onto there while you are next to the top wall to get to the other side. You can only take the block as far as the bottom of those stairs, so bring the block there, get on the other side, and kick it as hard as you can, and right after you do that, run to the top and get rotated to the other side. If you have trouble, use the dodge-roll. Once on the other side, defeat the enemies and then grab the chests if you need them, and then get the chest of red orbs on the other side of the ladder. Climb the ladder after you get these and jump over to an alcove on the bottom side of the door to get to a chest with some red orbs. Jump back, and walk across the bottom beam to the end, and then jump to the right to get a chest with red orbs. Now head back to the original platform, and head across the beam to the left. Take the shield of Zeus. Jump down from there to the left and put the 2 shields in the door on the left wall. Head down the stairs, through the hall to get to a save point. Climb the ladder in here and continue forward. You will come into a room with a bunch of saws. Do not be too deceived here; this is really not that bad. You may notice that all the saws go the end at the same time. To get through safely, whatever wall you are near with a saw, go past the line the saw travels on once the saw is moving away from the wall. Start by heading right. Move past the line only when the saw is moving up. Once you get to the lower right corner, ignore the lever (you have to pull it with the other one simultaneously in a short amount of time, but you do not need to do that now) and head through the doorway on the right wall. Break the cracked wall, and defeat the enemies on the other side. Stay off the belt while doing this. You have a small space to move in, but just use Spirit of Hercules and Plume of Prometheus and throw an enemy when you get the chance. After that, walk onto the belt and move down with it, avoiding the spike traps as you go. Be careful, because sometimes they will "fake" going back, and will smash together again, so make sure that they are actually moving back all the way before proceeding. The pattern is as follows: When it says it will clamp together again or more than once, it means it will do its "fake". For example, if it says it will clamp 3 times, it means from the starting position, it will clamp, and then redo it twice. 1st one: Will clamp together, then again, then go back. After it goes back, it will clamp then go back. Then it repeats. 2nd one: Will clamp together 4 times, then go back. Then it will clamp together once and go back. Then it repeats. 3rd one: Will clamp together 3 times then go back. Then it will do it once and go back. It will again do it once and go back. Then it repeats. After getting to the other end, head left and up the steps. Head out on the bridge and defeat some harpies. After they are dead, head through the doorway to defeat some more. Continue forward and climb the wall. Jump across the gap to see an enemy. Defeat him with light attacks, then continue on. When you move down, you will see another enemy, use light attacks on him once again until he falls. Jump across the gap to the right, and you will come across 2 more enemies. If you get them close together, you can attack them both with the same light attack, so do that. Continue attacking them until they fall. Also, if you are quick, you can get beneath where they spawn and just throw them down. Continue upward to see 3 new enemies. After those, 3 more will spawn beneath you. Quickly grab the ones above you, and use circle to throw them down onto the ones beneath you. If you cannot get all the ones beneath you, use light attacks if 2 are close together or 1 is left, and in any other situation where you cannot safely use light attacks, quickly move beneath or beside them, and pull them down. If you cannot do that, get the 3 above you, then quickly move into that alcove on the left hand side near you and use light attacks to the right to keep them away. While in that alcove, almost no enemies can get to you. Continue upward to defeat 2 more enemies, and there are a couple more harpies there. Grab the enemies and throw them off, and then just one simple light attack will get rid of the harpies. From here, you can get rid of some of the enemies on the other side by using light attacks when they get near the gap. Get as many as you can, and then jump over and attack the harpies. Get any other enemies there may be, and then go to the bottom and open the chest for some red orbs. Continue to the left, jump over the last gap and descend this side to the left to come to a ledge. Head left, grab the chest and pull the lever. Walk through the doorway and prepare for pain. Note: I got an e-mail stating that instead of heading left to grab the chest, if you continue down below the ledge, there is a gorgon eye. You need to defeat all your enemies quickly, or the floor will drop out. This time is short. What you must do is use Plume of Prometheus a lot. First off, kill all the enemies with shields, ALL of them. The easiest way is to use Plume of Prometheus right when you get in the doorway, and try to get them when they are together. If you get circle on them, great, throw them. It does not matter where it goes. After that, and only after that, worry about the sirens. Use heavy attacks on the sirens and/or Spirit of Hercules. The sirens take forever, and can be most annoying, so use heavy attacks and Spirit of Hercules. Do not worry about their circle prompts, just finish them off. If you have trouble, but only if you REALLY have trouble, use Rage of the Gods. There is nothing soon after this which you will need it on really, but it is very necessary to save, so don't use it unless you have to. I will mention times when it is best to use Rage of the Gods. Now you must head back to the saw room. The chest outside has refilled so get it. Jump off that balcony onto the chain and slide down. Save at that new alter and grab the other chest next to it if you need it. Head back through the doorway and across the bridge. Go back to where the belt is. Now this is gonna suck. You have to go against the belt and at the same time, avoid the spike traps. To get past without getting hit, it is almost necessary to use dodge roll. Double jumping also works sometimes. If you need to know the patterns again, simply read above where I put them and reverse the order. Once across, head back into the room. What you must do is get both levers activated at the same time. Once is in the lower right, you should have seen it when coming through the door, and the other is in the upper left corner to the left of the door. You have to be REALLY quick, because they will close fast. Activate the lever in the lower right when the saws are in the top and right sides. Run across straight to the other lever, watching out for any saws that might come, but there should only be one or 2 that possess a threat, and those will be the ones surrounding the other lever, because most likely the saws will be active and out of the sides as you are crossing the middle. Once you get to the other lever, right after it is activated and you have control again, there are 2 more lines you must cross to get to the door. The far one should have the saw there, and the one closest to you should have the saw coming. Dodge-roll before the saw on the first line gets to you and you can freely walk across the second one and get through the door. Head forward, walk along the right side, and once on the other side open the door. Walk in and defeat some archers and minotaurs. This time, get the archers first, because the minotaurs will walk over to where you are shortly and are not there at first. After the archers, defeat the minotaurs by any means, and then walk up to that incomplete lever there and put the handle on it. Turn the handle to raise the ball. After this, head behind the statue for a muse key. There are 3 in the game, so if you get this one then the last one will be a chest of orbs. Walk through the doorway on the right side down a little bit and head up the hall. You will need to defeat a couple enemies on the way, so take care of that however. Use Spirit of Hercules for quick easy defeat. Once outside the hall, head to the left and open a chest with a feather. After that, head right and across the bridge, and once there defeat the archers. Head back up and open the chest for an eye. After this, you can go back on the bridge and try to jump to the back right side across from the rock wall, but this is difficult to do because the camera view changes in mid-jump, so you need to change the joystick. If you can get over there, however, move to the right and jump across the next wall to get a chest with red orbs. There is another chest across from it. Get to it the same way. You cannot walk across that rock arch. After you get those if you wanted to, pull the lever on the bridge up there to push the ball off and break the door. Note: I got an e-mail from Johann Xavier stating the following: in the cliffs/challenge of atlas level when you go from the saw room to the climb up the cliffs,on the walkway there is a break in the bridge halfway to there,if you do a double jump,you come to a place where you can get a feather and an eye which should be really helpful! Head out the door and right to the left of the door is a chest with some red orbs. Continue forward, read the mantle if you want, and then walk up to and pull the lid off of the case. Jump onto the top and pull the head off. Now jump down into the hole, grab the chest if you need it, and walk down the long hallway and up the steps for a cut- scene. After the scene, grab another chest and open the door. You are now back in the Ring you started in. Save the game if necessary and then head down the hall to defeat some enemies. After they are dead, head through the door at the end into the ring. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- L. The Rings of Pandora ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Use the skull on that door in front of you. After you enter, there will be a huge cylinder type thing with spikes rolling around. Run around the ring until you find the steps that lead to the top. They are on the inside, so keep a lookout for them. Once you find them, wait for the rolling thing to come around, and jump onto it. Watch out for the spikes on the edge. Ride it until you find a ladder on the outside of the ring. Jump onto it and climb. Once on the ladder, the roller will disappear. Climb to the top, and grab the chest with orbs, one with an eye, one with health, one with energy, and save if you need to. Head through the hall ahead of you all the way to the end when you come outside. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- M. The Challenge of Poseidon ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Head forward into the arena. Watch the short cut-scene, and prepare for a fight. There is one key to this battle; DESTROY THE SMALL CEREBRUS! First, the huge Cerberus will spit out smaller ones, and should they be allowed to live for awhile, they will become a huge Cerberus too. The best thing to do is use the gaze on the first huge Cerberus. If you freeze that one and are able to kill all the small ones before they become big, then you just had yourself one really easy fight. Grab that chest if you need it, but unless you have almost no health, I suggest saving it till your health is blinking and then coming back. After that, head forward. You now need to fight 2 more Cyclops. Use Hit and run strategy again to defeat them easy. There is another chest up here, but you should not need it yet, unless you were blinking before and need energy now. Don't worry about the block for now. Note: If you have not already, you should have enough orbs to level up your Blades of Chaos to level 5. Level 5 has an awesome L1+circle combo that when you jump, you crash down on the ground with your blades, causing reasonable damage to all opponents around you. Also, you have unlimited magic while using rage of gods, which will be a HUGE help in later battles. Now, level up Poseidon's Rage. Grab the chest if you need it and head forward. You do not need the block, but it might be a good idea to block those arrows. See those arrows already in it? That is a good hint of what is it used for. It does not block every arrow, but it will block a lot. After you get to the ledge, hop up, grab one from the bottom and toss, and grab one from the top and toss. You want to defeat them quickly, because a barrage of arrows are flying at you. If you need any health and saved a chest, then go get it. After that, jump onto the ledge to defeat some more small Cerberus. Head forward, and you will come across more small Cerberus and some archers. First, grab that archer on the right and throw him at the 3 archers blocking the door. Then, get that archer on the ledge. After that, destroy the small Cerberus on the ground. After you destroy all Cerberus and the archers and respawns, head through the door. Activate the lever. Now, there are 5 chests with red orbs on the outside of the ring, which will stop and open for a short time to reveal them. What you must do is get right next to the gate. When it stops and opens for a red chest, walk to get the chest, open it immediately, and right after it opens, double jump back into the elevator (in case the gate is beginning to close). Do this for all 4, and you will have acquired a ton of red orbs. Note: If you have not already, you should now have enough orbs to level up Poseidon's rage to level 2. Level 2 has Wrath of Poseidon, which allows you to tap circle real fast to do massive damage. Once on the other side, grab the chest if you need it, and get ready to fight a new type of enemy. Careful of these guys, because they can block, but other than that they are pretty weak. After this battle, head to the left side of this area, and jump on the ledges on the wall to the top. Head to the right first, and jump down and grab the chest for a muse key. Once you get the other one in a while, and get back to the ring, you can open the door the keys go in and get something. After you grab that chest, head back left across the ledge and around the side. Once on solid ground, you need to fight 2 more Minotaurs. It is best and easiest to freeze them both, and continue on to fight another one. Freeze it too, and continue down the hall. Grab the chests, and head forward to save. Continue forward, watch the short cut-scene, and then walk up to the crank. It will say it is missing it's handle, so head into the room further up and grab the handle from the right side. Head back, attach the handle, and use the crank. After you bring the cage to the ground, watch a short cut-scene. You now know what you must do. Take his cage, kick it off the edge. Push the cage up the ramp, defeating the enemies as you go. Put it behind the rubble on the ground to keep it from sliding down, and advance to each one, then defeat the enemies and continue. For quick defeat, use Medusa's gaze. If you use this, you can easily get more energy from the 2 chests at the top of the ramp, or if you saved one back by the save point. These enemies take not too long to freeze, and break with one light attack. The only problem is that sometimes they are hard to target. So advance to each pile of rubble with the cage, set the cage behind it, defeat the enemies, and continue. Once you get the cage to the top, push him to that small square platform to bring those fire jets around him. Now, walk over to the lever, and pull it to BURN him. Burn him alive. Note: For this next part, the Nyads that give you nothing, somebody e- mailed me saying that they do give you gorgon eyes or feathers if you have not already gotten them all. However, if you got all the eyes I have mentioned, all you will need to do to get full health is to use the muse keys, so therefore there are no more eyes that they need to give you. To get full health, you HAVE to get the muse keys, because the gorgon eyes will not work for the last level up. Now, walk through the newly opened door and walk down the hallway. Once you are outside on the bridge, walk up to the trident and take it. You can save if you want to, and there is a chest up that ladder to the right if you need it, but if you do not need it that bad then you may want to save it. First, jump into the right water and break a wall down there to find a Nyad. Kiss her with the circle button to get a feather. Now, head into the left water and head to the bottom to find a ladder leading up to a chest with a feather. You should now have another energy upgrade. After that, jump into the right water, and move to the bottom to find a hole and go down it. Use R1 to break through the cracked walls, and continue on to surface. You now must defeat a bunch of Cerberus dogs. You can use the gaze to earn massive experience, because they freeze so quick and you can get so many with one gaze since there are a lot of them. Also, a good attack is L1+circle while you are in the air. It will send them all flying everywhere. After you defeat them, grab the chest on the left hand side for a gorgon eye. You should now have another health level up. Head up and open the door, then pull the lever. Now, dive back into the water, swim through the way, then come back up on the other side. You now must start by fighting a Cerberus dog and some harpies. Use Spirit of Hercules and Plume of Prometheus on the dog, and any attacks on the harpies. Once you get the circle prompt for the Cerberus, hit it. Once that Cerberus is dead, another one will spawn, so defeat it also. It will have been good if you saved that health chest, because you may need it for this battle. If you don't you can use Rage of the Gods, but keep in mind. Never use this unless it is absolutely necessary. I will let you know when there is a time you must absolutely not use it. There will be a tough boss coming up, and Rage of the Gods helps tremendously on him. So if you use it here, do not use it at all after this, or you may be in trouble. Once they are defeated, head forward, save again if you want, and head up the stones that came out of the wall. Proceed through the tunnel and grab the chest. Continue on and dive into the water. Once underwater, head forward to find a Nyad. Move up to her and press circle to kiss her. This one does not do anything, but the other ones will. Head down through the hole beneath her and then move up and to the right. Straight ahead of you is a breakable wall, so charge through it to find another Nyad. Kissing this one will give you a feather. Head back out and to the left of that area. You will come out to fight with a couple enemies. You can freeze these first 3 since they are close together. Head up and you will find 3 more enemies. Defeat them, and then get the chest on the left if you need it. I suggest getting only magic from this chest, because you will get a ton of health from the pots. Break the wall ahead of you, and then break all the pots to the end for lots of orbs and health. Open the chest for the second muse key. Now, head back out and back into the water. This time, go to the right of where that room with the Nyad was. When you see the face with the open mouth, you are about to swim across a timed trap. You must use the charge button. Start by charging to full, and rushing in there. After charging for about 1 second, fully charge again, and continue this to the end. You should get to the end without incident. Continue forward, and come to the surface. You now must fight a bunch of enemies. An excellent magic to use here is the Wrath of Poseidon. If you have full energy, you can do about 4 of these. Do not worry about medusa's gaze. Use Plume of Prometheus plenty, but be careful with Spirit of Hercules because it takes awhile. You can also use the triangle-triangle-square move to whip your blades out, which works well, and L1+circle while in the air. Use those combos, in addition to Poseidon's rage, and you should win. If you are low on health and need to get a chest, then lure all the enemies to the opposite side than where the chest is, then run back there and grab it quick. If it does not change to health when you get there, then go back and try again. You need to use dodge-roll a lot; it is best to use it every time after attacking. Whenever you block an attack, hit triangle after blocking to do a slam right then. Anyway, first attack the harpies. Their attacks where they bolt down at you are unbelievable, and can cause a lot of annoyance, especially since they are unblockable and difficult to dodge. After the harpies are dead, worry about the other enemies. The key is to prioritize. And, of course, when they get the circle above their head, throw them. This battle is pretty tough, so good luck. After all enemies are dead, grab the chests and then pull the lever in the middle. A door will have opened back in the water, so head back down. Go back, through that huge trap (be careful because it is still active), and back to where that room with the Nyad was. Now, head back up and to the left through the door. Head around the corner to save the game. After saving, charge through the breakable wall to the left and you can kiss another Nyad, though it does not do anything. Now head back and to the right and dive down in the hole where the statue is. Note: I got an e-mail talking about a hidden area with 4 chests above the last of the 3 nyads that gives you 1500 orbs. This next part can be tricky. You need to dive down, and charge like mad to get to the next hole. For this first part, go down right behind one of the big barricades. Right when you get behind it, follow it while moving quickly to the very bottom of this area. When you get to the hole, dive down there. Be careful, though, you do not want to stick here for too long, because the bottoms of the barricades will hit you. For the second part, after you are in the first hole, get to the very let side, and follow another one while sticking to the bottom of the waterway. There will be another hole soon. Get a full charge right after you get up, then get another full one when you start to slow, and that should be enough to get you to the second hole. For the third one, it is not too hard; just advance a little bit and head down a hole. Head down and forward, and the door will close behind you. You can surface at any time, and once you do head to the bottom of the area to defeat 4 minotaurs. 2 will start, and then 1 will spawn in each of their places once they are dead. Defeat them by any means, grab the chests if you need them, save if you want, and pull the lever at the bottom. Quickly ascend the platforms to the top, defeat the 4 enemies up there, and grab the 2 chests with red orbs. Read the mantle to learn of a secret way out. Jump back down, pull the lever again, and head underwater. Swim to the bottom of the last platform for a secret elevator out of the room. -And somehow Ryan, who has never played the game before or seen me or anyone else play it, knew that her finger was pointing to the secret area, and also exactly where the secret exit was. Once you are at the bottom, swim down the tunnel to the end, surface, and emerge in a familiar place. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- N. The Rings of Pandora ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Save the game and head down the usual tunnel. Defeat a few enemies once more, and then once at the end, run around the ring until you find the crank, and use it crank to turn the ring around to the opening with the closed door (it is the one after the hall you just came through). Use the muse keys in it, and walk in for a save and some real nice rewards. Go into the green fountain for a health level-up, the blue one for an energy level-up, and the red one for orbs, which in addition to the 2 chests, comes out to 2250 extra red orbs. Note: With those extra orbs, you should now have enough to level up Poseidon's rage to level 3. After you level this up, I suggest saving up for the army of Hades. Level 3 has a bigger damage area and a bigger damage. After that, head around the ring again until you find that skull door you entered earlier. Once in there, head up a little and climb the stairs again and jump into the water this time. Dive into a hole in the water on the other side of the statue, and follow the tunnel there for a ways until you reach the surface on the other side. Walk forward and you will emerge into a room, where you will later fight a boss. But for now, head to the right and break the wall to enter the doorway and save the game. Continue on to find 2 chests, but you will not need them since you just leveled up both health and energy with the muse keys room. Climb the ladder and head to the right and forward into an arena. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- O. The Challenge of Hades ----------------------------------------------------------------------- There are 2 more chests here, but you do not need either one, since you still have had no enemies, but you may need them for the battle coming up. Right after entering the room, head to the left and ascend the stones there and press R2 by the door at the top. Accept the challenge. For this battle, there are 2 rings, each one has 4 empty circles on it. You need to kill 4 enemies in each ring to end the challenge. If you can, you can use gaze on the enemies while they are in the ring to freeze them and kill them easily, but that requires some skill. An easier thing to do is get in the middle of the ring, wait till at least 2 of the Centaurs are in there, and use Rage of Poseidon. Please note that sometimes, the kills will count if they are right on the ring. If you have level 3 Rage of Poseidon, one shot will kill the enemies if you tap circle fast enough. So just get at least 2 into the ring before using it, and this challenge should not be too hard. If you get low on health, you have those 2 chests in the upper right and upper left, but they only give health, so save your energy. I strongly advice against using Rage of the Gods here, because for one, it is not necessary if you have level 3 or even level 2 Poseidon's rage, and you have to fight a hard boss soon, in which is tremendously helps to have Rage of the Gods when you go to fight him. Note: I got an e-mail saying there was a hidden chest to get to by ascending the stairs, jumping on something on the side to reach a statue holding a pot of lava, jumping around it to get to a hidden chest. Sorry if this is a little confusing, I just got an e-mail about it. After the battle, grab health if you need it, then head through the opened door. There is an alternating chest past this door if you need any energy. Continue outside, and to the right there is yet another chest. You should not need it, since you already have full health from those chests in the arena, so head left and open the door. Head into the hallway. This first part is not too hard, just double jump after the second platform begins retracts. You do not really even need to land on either of the retracting platforms, but it does not hurt to be safe. This second part is tough, because it will not let you walk off that ledge, so there is an invisible wall there that also interferes with your jumping. The key is to time your double jump just right. Once you get past this, you need to dodge the arrows shooting out of the wall, which is not too hard. Just dodge roll past the first one whenever you get a chance, and dodge roll the second one after it double-shoots. After this, head forward and you should not need that chest yet, since no enemies since the end of the Hades challenge. Defeat the gorgon that shows there, and head forward and to the left to defeat an archer. After that, head back and to the right down the way until you see 2 archers in front of you and another path to the left. Take the path to the left and defeat all the enemies here. There are a few Centaurs and a gorgon, so just get the gorgon, and then the Centaurs by any means, but be careful because they can block. Use Rage of Poseidon once in the middle of the group for a great help. After all enemies are down, head up and open the chest for some red orbs. Head right from there to defeat 4 more enemies. After they are dead, continue on, and after it turns right there are a couple archers to a patch to the top. Kill them, and continue around back into the room, and then head back into the maze. Defeat the archers here, then head down the path to the right to defeat the enemies here, including a gorgon, and get a health chest. After this, head back and take the elevator near where the archers were before. Right near the top, there is a block in the top wall. Push it forward, and when it sinks down, walk onto it, and walk along the platforms as they appear, and when you get on the second to last one, jump to the end, because you may not make it. Grab the 2 red chests, then walk back to the hall. Head right, Defeat the archers, then head down the right side. Push the block in till it sinks, then head into the room and defeat the enemies here. After they are all dead, grab the health chest if you need it, and then head down the way to the left of that chest. Open the door and head out. Once out walk to the left, through the archway, and forward to defeat 2 more archers. There is a huge stone block crashing up here. Wait for it to crash, then when it backs up, run out there and jump on top of it. Now, from here, there are 3 cycles this stone block will do. First it will move back a little, then medium, then a lot. When it moves back a lot, you must be quick and get into the little room just before that end platform. However, first defeat the enemies that spawn by the door. There should be 2 archers right on the other side of the wall, which you can use Plume of Prometheus to kill from this side. After all those are dead, focus on the rock, and once it back up far enough, drop into that room, but be quick because it will push you forward if you are not fast enough. You can just jump back onto the rock, but you have little time. Once in the room, defeat the enemies here, then get back out. This is not too hard, just be quick about it. If you ask me, I think it is harder to get in the room, because you have to get down in front of the rock, and get into the room before it pushed you. After you defeat these 2 enemies, the door is opened. Get back on the rock, and head forward and through the door. Head forward and stand on the button till it is all the way down and the cut-scene of the statue rising up in the arena appears. Head forward and jump off into the water beneath the statue. Dive to the bottom, find the lever beneath the statue, and pull it. After that, head back up, climb the ladder on the right side of the statue to the top, and turn the crank that is on his head till the head is facing towards the dark tunnel. Now, jump back down, and save your game if you want at the save point before the stairs. If you need health, you can get the chest that is through the door on the left side that you unlocked. Head up the stairs, and into the tunnel. This next part is not too hard, there is just one major pointer: NEVER USE DODGE ROLL! This may seem like a good idea, but trust me, no. You will probably just end up rolling into another fireball. Just stick to the middle, and every time a ball comes down the middle, go down the left or right, whichever is more suited with no fireball. Once you come to the end, wait till the middle is clear, then head into the small doorway in the middle. Once in the room, defeat the enemies, then grab the chests with health, red orbs, and a feather. Read the book on the mantle for a riddle. 8 dead ends. There are 8 doors in this corridor, and one of them opens. It is the 3rd one on the left, so go to that one, wait till the left side is clear, and then open it. Once inside, head down the hallway, and you will emerge in a cave with some minotaurs. Defeat them by any means, and when the archers spawn, throw them at the minotaurs. After the fight, grab the chest and head down the right path to defeat a few enemies and get another chest. Now, head back to the room you fought the minotaurs in and take the left way. You now must climb on a rope again. Use the same technique as always, and once on the other side, hop into the circle for a large fight. The first wave is 5 legionnaires. Defeat them by any means, and then defeat their respawns. After fighting them all, a couple minotaurs and a centaur will spawn. More minotaurs will come when you kill some, and some archers will spawn also, and when they do, throw them at the minotaurs. After defeating all enemies, head through the door, and grab the chest if you did not already. Head forward, climb the ladder, and then head down the hallway forward, and continue along here, heading to the right at the top to find a chest with red orbs. Now head back and take the path to the left, head down here, and head right to save your game. Now head through the doorway and onto the platform out there. Start by walking onto that beam that is to the right, and then jump to the platform opposite of it. Watch out for that rotating thing in the middle. Jump to the other side after one of the arms passes by. Once on the other side, walk across the beam to the right to find a chest with a feather. Head back and then continue forward along the platform. Walk across the next beam, and this time you must jump to avoid that rotating thing. If you are good at maintaining being above the beam while jumping and moving, do that, and jump over the arm forward as it goes under you, but if you cannot do that very well, just double jump where you are as it heads under you. I do this because it is much safer and works just as well; it is only slightly slower. After you see another beam to the left, take it to find a chest with some red orbs. Head back and continue down the regular beam. When it starts to head right, keep going right to the end, and ignore the beam that goes up from there for now to come to a chest with some more red orbs. Now head back left and take the beam up. Obviously, for this part you need to jump onto the arm that is just wood. Stand just out of range of the other arms, and when the wooden one comes around, head forward and jump onto it. Head up the ladder, and once at the top head up the other small ladder. Continue forward on another beam, and before sliding down that rope head right. Continue downward when you get to the end, and come to a chest with some red orbs. Head back, and slide down that rope you saw. Head down, just jump off the side that the ladder is on, but be sure to head straight left or you could end up heading off the edge. Continue left, through the hall, and at the end you will see a wheel. Turn it to get something pounding at the door of a room awhile back. Head left and down all the stairs, and when the final set collapses, grab the chests and head down to a save point. After saving if you want, continue down the hall and emerge in that room with something beating at the door. Walk up to the door and prepare for a boss battle. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *Pandora's Guardian/Temple Minotaur: Difficulty: 15/20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't know what the real name for this boss is, but these were a couple suggestions I got. For this boss, it is excellent if you have Rage of the Gods, which you should as long as you have not used it since fighting those Cerberus dogs where you got the trident. This bosses attacks are as follows. He will slam his head into the ground and pull it back out (blockable, and must block when he pulls it back out), swiping his fist across horizontally, making a pit of fire in the floor (unblockable), shooting his fist into the ground, and having fire sprouts wherever you are (unblockable), charging at you while slamming his fists, ending with a head slam (blockable), swiping you with his fist (blockable), and then spraying fire at you from his mouth in a sweep (blockable). Start by using Rage of the Gods. Fight like mad, hit him like mad to get him on the ground with the circle prompt. You also have unlimited magic, so try using Poseidon's rage right at the end before Rage of the Gods ends. Really shortly after hitting him with Rage of the Gods, he should have that wound in his arm. After this, use triangle attacks like crazy and end with Poseidon's rage. All this should bring him down with the circle prompt, and also result in a bunch of health and magic. When that happens, do the stick movements for the prompt. Doing this gives you a half-meter of Rage of the Gods. When he is stunned, you have 2 choices. You can head to the very back, up the stairs to the right, and once up top head to the left and pull the lever to damage him, or you can wait for him to get unstunned, attack and stun him again (which will not take very long at all), do the stick movements again and get a full meter of Rage of the Gods for the next part. Either way works fine, but if you do the second strategy, then you need to do it for the second phase too if you want Rage of the Gods for the final form. After you shoot the log at him, head back down and use Rage of the Gods again for his second phase if you got it. If not, do not worry, because you will have it after this part. If you do not have Rage of the Gods, use Poseidon's rage, and a couple of those should be enough to bring him down. If you do not get him down with this alone, it should not be too much more damage to get him. After this, do the whole process again, mini-game, stun, shoot log. If you did the strategy where you bring him down twice to get a full Rage of the Gods meter, you may want to do this again because it will be the last chance for Rage of the Gods for the battle, but if you did not, this is not necessary, because your Rage of the Gods will be full. After you shoot him with the log, jump back off and prepare for the third phase. If you have Rage of the Gods, which you should, I suggest you SAVE it for the last form. That one seems to be the hardest, because he fights real aggressively. During the third phase, you will be knocking his armor off, revealing his health bar. This is likely the only phase where you will have to worry about dodging his attacks, because otherwise you are so focused on killing him fast with Rage of the Gods, which also adds a lot of armor. Block the attacks that are blockable, and dodge-roll any other attacks. When that attack where he slams his fist into the ground and sprouts up fire wherever you are occurs, just jump and run at the same time. After the armor on the meter is gone, he will drop a ton of magic and health, and then you will fight his final form. No stun, no Rage of the Gods experience. If you saved Rage of the Gods, which was a good idea if you did, use it now. Using Rage of the Gods with consistent triangle attacks along should be enough to bring him down to critical red, in which you shoot the final log at him. If it is not, he should be real close to dead, so finish him off however. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- After the fight, head down, grab the bunch of red orbs, health and magic, and head through the hole in the door made by his foot. Ascend the whole stairway and save if need be at the altar at the top. Head into the room, grab the health and magic chests, and another chest with red orbs. Read the mantle if you want, and then take the top off the case ahead. Jump on top, and pull off the head. Head out of the room and back down the stairs, into the room where you fought the boss, and go to the left side with the symbol to receive the Army of Hades. You should have enough orbs to level up the Army of Hades level 2 right when you get it assuming you have been saving them. Defeat the enemies, see how awesome this magic is, and then head back through the door where you got the magic. Grab that chest if it is still there and then jump back into the water and swim through the tunnel back into the Rings of Pandora ----------------------------------------------------------------------- P. The Rings of Pandora ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Once back here, in front of that statue should be another door where a skull can be put. Open it to drain the water. You now must align that diamond shaped thing with the room off the main ring that had the spike traps when you first came into here. In there is a lever you can pull that will create a beam which needs to hit this diamond. Work backwards, first. Before you do anything, open the door by the crank that is in this ring. Head out there, into the middle ring, and continue into the outside ring. To line up the beam with that diamond, find the crank in the outside ring, and turn it to the opening where the spike traps were. If the outside ring is still on the opening with the power-up room, then it will be the 3rd opening. After you get the ring to this opening, it should line up with the open door for the middle ring. Now, you must head back into the very inside ring, and turn it to line up with the other 2 doorways. Once that happens, head into the doorway in the statue that you opened with the second skull, use the crank in there, and have the opening line up with the 3 doorways that are lined up (2nd opening). Now, head through all these doorways straight, into the room with the spike traps where you need to defeat some more enemies. After defeating them, continue on, save at this save point if you want, and then head to the back of this room to where you pulled the lever earlier, and use the lever coming out of the gear on either side to push these 2 halves together. Doing so will shine a beam of light onto the diamond in the statue. Watch the cut- scene, and then head back to the very middle of this area and pull the lever you saw in the cut-scene. Once at the top, walk out onto the hands, and when on the platform, you meet a new type of enemies: satyrs. These guys are annoying, they block like mad, attack like mad, and take awhile to kill. After you kill the first one, some more will spawn. Kill them, and grab the chest if you need it and head forward, grab another chest, and head across the bridge. Watch the cut-scene, and after that, head forward and save the game if you want. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. The Cliffs of Madness ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Head forward through the rockway to the top where you will encounter some enemies. Defeat them by any means, and then head left for a magic chest. Head back to the right of there and defeat the enemies along the way. Once you come to the rope, defeat the archers and harpies, and get on the rope. Go ahead and head down, there are no enemies on this one. Head left and defeat some archers and legionnaires. Grab the archers and throw them at the other enemies to weaken if not kill them. There are quite a few, so fight defensively. After defeating the, head up the elevator on the very left side. At the top is a save point, so save if need be and continue on up the ladder. Once up top, head right and up another small ladder, and continue right from there. Grab the health if you need it and head up the ladder there. Before you enter the cave, head to the left and defeat the enemies there. After they are defeated, head to the very left side and grab the red chest. Now, head back to the right and enter the cave. Defeat another satyr in here, then head forward to defeat a second one. A good strategy is to use Plume of Prometheus to get them on the ground, and then freeze them with the gaze. Be careful; do not use too much because you need some energy up here, although there is a chest. It is not a good idea to do this when they are standing up, because it takes a couple seconds, and you will almost certainly get attacked. After this, continue on downward, grab the chest of magic if you need it, but only if you are extremely low or empty, and jump onto the wooden platform ahead of you. Use Zeus fury to get rid of those archers on the other side. If you need more magic, then get the chest before if you saved it. If you run out of magic shooting the archers, you should only have 1 or 2 left, so just attempt to dodge their arrows while jumping, which you will do in a sec. Now, turn that crank in the middle of the platform ALL THE WAY or you may not make it. Once it is turned all the way, let go and immediately run to the end of that wooden platform sticking out there. You need to obviously jump onto the other one, so just be careful while doing this, and be sure to jump before they pass each other, or you probably wont make it. Timing it should not be too hard. Once on the other one, just wait on it until it rotates around to the path you need to take. Head down this path and defeat another satyr. Continue into the room to defeat a couple archers. Climb up and you will emerge outside again. Head left and grab the alternating chest if you need it. Head back right and jump onto the ledge. Prepare to fight a couple minotaurs. You can freeze them if you can avoid being attacked for 2.5 seconds, which is the easiest way to get rid of them. After defeating these guys, head right, past the 2 heads with the R2 prompts (you can read them if you want) and jump onto the ledge at the other end on the very right. Head forward, grab the red chest for a bunch of red orbs, and head into the tunnel at the left. Defeat the archers and dive into the water. After heading down the tunnel, you will emerge in a little pool. Break the 3 cracked walls, and open all 3 chests for a total of 3000 orbs. Head back through the tunnel again, head back to where you fought the minotaurs, and head down the ladder on the right hand side here. After coming onto the platform, jump onto the very low platform under that. Jump onto the ledge above that to see a couple of satyrs come. Do not jump onto the platform they are on: stay here and use Spirit of Hercules to knock them off the edge. After you get all of them, jump onto this ledge and follow it. Defeat the archers before sliding down the rope, Grab the chest for some red orbs, and head down the rope. Once at the bottom, head through the tunnel, into a room, and prepare for a fight. This is not too hard; ignore army of Hades and use Poseidon's rage. Before you do anything, grab those archers in the top, and throw them. With luck, you can target something besides the other archer. There are archers, legionnaires, and a few minotaurs in this part. Stick with poseidons rage, and if you have them with circle prompt from that instead of dead, great, toss em'. If you have no magic, you can try for that chest at the top, though it will be kind of hard. If you have trouble fighting them all at once in here, head through that hall on the left to the other room, and when they come through, use plume of Prometheus like mad, because they will be forced together, and you can get some good damage. This is also a good way to get the chest: after defeating the archers, lead the enemies in here, and after they are here, quickly run back and grab the chest before they come. Note: Before you do the puzzle, someone let me know that you can use the small block and the medium block (just the short line one), put those on the left side of the room and jump up them to reach a ledge with some chests there. Thanks to Mabus71 for letting me know this. After the enemies are defeated, head into the room with the necklace. You now have a puzzle. You must make a wall with these stones in front of that wooden fence. I will explain exactly how to do it. First, grab the huge line, and drag and place it in the very right hand side of the area you need to put the blocks in. Secondly, grab the block to the right, the irregular shaped one, and drag it onto that wheel in the middle. You need to turn the wheel with the crank to make the block so that it overhangs on the right side. This should be three-quarters of a turn. Drag it over to the puzzle, and place it next to the other piece, letting it overhang and fit in with that part that is already there. Now, grab the T shaped block and drag it to the middle wheel. Turn it so it faces forward, just a quarter of a turn, and then drag it and fit it next to the piece you just put it, with the top part of the T filling in the hole in the top of the previous piece. After this, take that small piece in the back right corner, and drag it under the left side of the T piece. Now for the final piece. Take the L-shaped piece in the upper left corner, drag it onto the wheel, face it the opposite direction (half of a turn), and stick it in the left side with the only remaining part. The tiny block is not used. If it is complete and does not work, make sure all the pieces are snug, and if the end left piece still moves a little bit side to side, move it all the way to the left, then move the small line, then the T, then the irregular all to the left till they are snug. Walk in and grab the necklace. Head back to the previous room where you fought the enemies and that had the chest, continue back up the hallway, and save the game at the new save altar. Head up the ladder to the right and continue right and jump onto the wall. Head up somewhat and you will see a few enemies come from the right. Defeat them using light attacks if they are off to the side, and use the grab attack if they are more above you. After defeating the 4 there, head right and up the wall more. When it sways left, grab the enemy and after beating orbs out of him, throw him down. Continue up and grab the enemy up there, ignore the platform to the left, and head right, across the gap. You will encounter a few more enemies here; I suggest using light attacks for them all. After defeating them, you can head down and defeat the other enemy if you want. Then, continue right, across another gap, and head up. Defeat one enemy anyway, then another above him, then when you get to the part of the wall that heads up, some more enemies will spawn. Get below the spawn point and just use light attacks. After defeating them, you can jump onto the platform below for an alternating chest if you need it. After that, get back on the wall and head up. Head to the very top, and jump onto the ledge at the top. Open the chest for some red orbs, and then the one to the right for a feather. After this, do NOT jump onto the right platform, because there are enemies on the wall there. Instead, get onto the wall on the middle platform by simply walking off of it towards the screen slowly. You will grab onto the wall. Now, instead of jumping over there quite yet, defeat all the enemies that are there, because they will move close to the edge one at a time. You can then reach across the gap with your light attacks. I counted 4 enemies, but correct me if I'm wrong. Jump across the gap, and head down and to the right once you are at the bottom. Continue right and land on the ledge here. Pull the lever to release a rock with a rope. This back where you first entered the cave, where you fought the satyr's. So now you must head back here. Jump back on the walls, head back left and up, and then just jump across the walls to the left instead of getting on the top ledges. Descend the left wall again and head back right, and this time jump across a gap to the right onto another wall. Defeat the few enemies here, and descend it to the bottom to a platform with a chest with red orbs. After this, jump off the platform to the right and you will end up at the top of the rope you slid down. Head left across the walkway again and climb the ladder at the left. Once on top, head back left and jump off to the left side, and enter the cave. You now must head backwards through here. Head down to the right and onto the platform with the crank. Turn the crank all the way again, and then jump onto the other platform like you did before. Continue on once on the other side, but remember there is a gap between the platform and the ledge, so be sure to jump. Head through the cave back out the entrance, and once outside, head to the left. Find the rock and rope and climb it. Once on top, head left and save if need be. After that, head into the cave. This part is all timed. It is tough. Head to the right, but do not do anything yet. You will see a lever. Pulling that lever will open the cage, giving you access to a block. Now, head to the left side, forward, and right. Double jump in this room to see a ledge you need to reach on the top. You obviously need to get the block over here to jump on and get up here before the spike traps are released. Once tip, do not use kick. It is useless. Another top, do not get right next to the wall. Putting the block just to the right of that pile of blood should be close enough to jump up. So just be quick, don't kick, and you will do this fine. You will have a 1 second warning for when the spike traps are about to activate when the clanking stops. Once on the top ledge, open the chest for a feather, and jump onto the wall in front of you. Grab the necklace to deactivate the traps. Now, head back out of the cave, back down the rope, back to the right, and back into the tunnel again. Once you go through this tunnel again, jump onto the ledge to the right, head around to the front of the ledge, and put the necklaces on both of the heads on the sides here. Now, ascend the platforms, which is not too hard; it is just timing. You obviously have to zig-zag your way up, and be sure to jump right before the platforms get fully extended. After jumping twice, grab the energy if you need it and a chest with some red orbs. After that, do the final jump up and to the right. Once up there, head right for a cut-scene. After it, some enemies, including a couple minotaurs will spawn. Defeat the smaller ones first, and then once the circle prompt, throw them at the minotaurs. After these enemies are defeated, continue right, over the pile of rubble, and you will come across some ropes. Be sure to get some good swing and double jump, but if you wall chances are you will land where you put the necklaces at, so that is not too big of a deal. Once across, jump on the wall if you are not already, and head to the top. Use the lever to activate the elevator at the top, and head through the hallway to a save point. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- R. The Architects Tomb ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Head forward across the saws. There is no need to worry about that button now. It really is quite simple getting across the saws: the pattern is platform, saw, platform, saw, and so on. Just time it right and its good. Once across, head to the left side of the door to find a statue. Drag it straight towards the screen, and shortly you will see a button to your right. Do not set it there, but instead head right from there and stick it next to a cracked piece of ground on the right side. Now, head forward from there and open the door. Head on in and grab the alternating chest if you need it. Defeat a couple enemies in the process. Head forward, to the left and up some stairs to defeat another couple enemies. After that, continue on to head outside into a battle. IMPORTANT: If you used the part of the walkthrough back when you got the trident on 06/21/05 or after then, you will have max magic already. Therefore, the chest to the left of the alternating one up the left ladder will not contain a feather, and will not refill your magic. This means, for the next part, if you need magic, save the alternating chest for LAST and get only magic if you used any magic for the fight. The chest to the left would contain a feather to bring your magic up to full, but if you have max magic, it is probably best not to use any this fight, since you will need the health. If you are good at fighting Cyclops, though, you will fight 3 of them shortly, and they give you considerable health when defeated. So unless you are planning to get that alternating chest for magic, use none. If your magic is not full, then you are OK to use magic for the fight and still get the chest for health. First, you will see a Cyclops. Take the 5 seconds to freeze him if you want: if you don't want to use energy for that, save it for Poseidon's rage, and use that when the Cerberus dogs come about. Poseidon's rage works well: if you attack the Cyclops at least somewhat before the small Cerberus spawn, then one Poseidon's rage, if you tap circle fast enough, will be enough to kill the Cyclops. For Cerberus dogs, just use the L1+circle combo while in the air, charging it to full to send them flying. Defeat them quick: you do not want huge Cerberus dogs. The L1+circle may not be fast enough, so if that does not work well, then just use regular attacks. If you need health or magic, head up the left ladder, and get ONLY the right chest. DO NOT OPEN THE LEFT CHEST, DO NOT OPEN THE LEFT CHEST!!!!!! It has a phoenix feather, which will restore your magic to full, but wait until AFTER the fight. Assuming you do not let small Cerberus turn big, you got an easy fight. -Once again, make sure that after this fight you have or are about to get full magic. If you have no max energy you are fine, but if you are maxed already and have lower energy, you almost need that magic chest. A hard fight is coming up, with no more chests before the fight. Once the fight is over, head up the left ladder, and grab the health chest if you did not, and then grab the left chest for a feather (if you did not get the feather back at the Poseidon statue from the Nyad). You should now have more magic. Congratulations, you have now maxed health and magic. Once you do this, head back down and up the middle ladder. Turn the crank a bit on the crane until the shadow is over the cracked floor. Now, head forward on the crane and pull the lever to drop the stone and break the floor. After this, head back to the crank, turn the crane until the shadow if over that button you saw before, pull the lever on the crane again to drop the weight onto the button. Now, jump off. Once down to the bottom again, prepare to fight 2 Cyclops. Use ONLY physical attacks. The hit and run tactic works well for these 2, of course. Once one is defeated, another will spawn in his place. Continue to fight the first one that spawned, and after that one is dead focus on the newly spawned one. After they are all dead, head to the right where the new hole in the ground is, and push the statue in. After that, head down the hole and push the statue onto the button there. Head back up and you will see that there is still one more set of doors to unlock. The button is, of course, the one back at the entrance. It is timed, so be SWIFT in getting back here. Start by heading back to the entrance. Be careful, because it is harder to see while jumping across the saws backwards. Now, stand on the button, and just bolt across the platforms. Part of this is luck, but still you should be agile enough in jumping to avoid the saws no matter what. The best idea is to start across when you see a straight open chance across the first 2 platforms, so just bolt across those, then worry about the other 2. The main key here is you have no time to wait. Just be mobile and try to make a successful jump from one platform to another when they are somewhat close to each other. Once across, head for the door. Once inside, head to the top of the table, and rip off the architect's head. Put it into the skull door at the top, and head through. Head down the hall, and once outside head forward and down the stairs to the right to get a couple of red chests. Now, head up and save at the save altar. Head up the steps and once inside, head down the rotating staircase. Head forward for a short cut-scene, and enter the area for a painful fight. You will see why you absolutely NEED energy for this fight. First of all, before I say anything, you are obviously on belts moving towards crushers. Do not hit them or you sustain tons of damage. Second, do not stand on the solid ground very long, or flames come out of the wall and insta-kill you. You can stand on those platforms for about less than 5 seconds, then the flame comes. You have enough time to throw the archers. So first of all, defeat only the first 2 archers. Trying to kill them all is tough with the harpies constantly charging down on you, and you will likely die in the process. After defeating those 2, head back to the beginning, and stand in between the belts, and when one carries you, get caught on the solid piece of ground so you are not moving anymore. Now, use Poseidon's rage once when the harpies are around you. Wait for more to spawn around you, use it again. Keep using it till you run out. After this, head forward to where the archers are, between the last 2 solid pieces of ground, and use rage of the gods. Now, go nuts. Right when rage of the gods occurs, use army of Hades. Once that happens, use Poseidon's rage like mad. You will use Poseidon's rage the entire rage of the gods session, with the exception of when the army of Hades dissipates. Once the army of Hades stops, use it again, and other than that use Poseidon's rage the entire time. This should be enough to end the fight, and if it is not ended, then you will be very close. Once rage of the gods is over, if the fight is not over, defeat the archers if there are any, defeat any other harpies that come, and then head forward after the door opens. Head forward, up the stairs, kick open the door, and walk up to the big thing in the middle. Pull the lever to reveal a chest. Press R2 by the chest for a cut-scene. After the cut-scene, after lowering in the elevator, you are back at the entrance of the temple. Move the box out of the elevator for a short cut-scene. After that, try to head out the front entrance for another cut-scene. After the scene, head forward. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- S. The Path to Hades ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Save if you want, grab the left chest for magic if necessary, and then grab the health chest if need be. That's all 3 sayings I used when describing the save points earlier in the guide. After that, jump to the first platform in front of you. Jump across them, and when platforms split, first of all grab the red chest in front of you. After that, head to the right (there is nothing to the left) and continue on till you get to an area with 2 more sets. Grab the red chest in front of you, then head up the left side, because once again there is nothing on the right. Once at the top on solid ground, you fight a few enemies. Defeat these enemies by any means, then head up to the next platform to defeat more. After these, head forward down the path and you will see some spinning things with spikes in them. This particular one is easy, but later ones are horrible. Obviously, dodge the spikes while walking across the circlular thing on top. Not too hard, if you do not have a chance to get across, just jump repeatedly to keep from spinning off, and proceed when you have the chance. When you get to the last platform on the right, jump on it and open the chest for some red orbs. Once at the end, defeat the archer and open the chest for some red orbs. Note: If you have not already, you should now have enough orbs to level up army of Hades if you have been saving. Head across the circular thing to the right of there, and once on the platform, head down. You will reach a red chest with a bunch of orbs. Now, head back and jump on the circular thing to the left this time. Head up, and last platform on the right of there has an archer and a red chest. Jump there, kill the archer (suggest grabbing and throwing at the one to the left and up), and open the chest. Now, jump onto the circular thing to the left again and head to the top platform. Once there, head up on another circular thing to the next platform, and after that head to the one on the right and head to the top of that one. First, defeat all the harpies, and then grab the 2 red chests for a ton of orbs. Now, head back on the circular thing and walk on it all the way to the bottom. Once on the platform there, head onto the one to the right and down. Once on the platform down there, you need to defeat more harpies. After they are dead, head on the circular thing upward. Once on the platform there, save the game and grab the chest. Now you need to head across these moving platforms. What's annoying is at the end, archers are shooting you. Just make sure you are quickly jumping across in an attempt to dodge the arrows. If you get hit in mid-air, you are dead. Once on the other side, defeat all the archers with a simple grab and toss, and then you need to defeat a minotaur and some archers. Throw the archers at the minotaur, and then after all enemies here are dead, head up the ledge to the right to defeat 4 minotaurs and get a chest. You need to come up here to defeat them, because there is a closed off doorway that required all enemies dead. After that, head back down and up the left ledge. There are a bunch of archers and a minotaur up here. Throw all the archers (try to aim them at the minotaur). Sometimes you can knock the mintotaur off by throwing an archer. Throw all archers and respawns while killing the minotaur and his respawn, then head up the next ledge on the top. Defeat the 2 archers are their respawns by throwing them at the minotaurs, and after that finish off the 2 minotaurs. The door is now open. Grab the chest and head up the wall. This thing is ever painful. You get hit by a spike, and down you go to start over. There are 5 sections to ascend. The key to conquering this thing is nothing but practice. Learn how to get past the 1st part, then past the 2nd part, the 3rd part, and so on. You do not loose too much health by starting over, and to die is to respawn right here, so you have unlimited tries from just here. A key to use is to use the X button to jump up long distance when trappped. Jump when the coast isclear. Learn what is clear and what is not by practice. Learn where "safe spots" are, where you can stay and just move left or right in order to not get hit. If you appear to be stuck, and cannot move up or to the side, move back down. There is always some way to escape safely, so keep that in mind. Actually, most of the time it is best not to use X, unless you are on the side and need to get out quick, to the next part to turn the other direction. Eventually, when you learn the pattern here, you will reach the top. All it takes is practice. Once on top, grab the red chest. Head right and grab the alternating chest. After that, jump onto the ledge and defeat the 3 archers. Now, you must ascend another one of these. Do it the same way you did before, and by now you should have some idea of how to get to the top of these. Don't worry, this is the last one. Once on top, save your game to the right. Head forward and jump across the platforms here. When it splits, head right and grab the red chest. Head back and to the left, jumping across all the platforms. Once on the main platform, there is a painful fight against a ton of satyrs, but only 2 at a time. You need to defeat 11 to get across. If you want to use magic, use only Poseidon's rage. Army of Hades is too short and weak, and Medusa's gaze is hard to freeze because you are constantly getting attacked. As you can see, you need to keep defeating them until enough platforms rise so you can get to the other side. There are chests on both sides, which you can try to grab if you need. You need to defeat plenty of satyrs, so use Poseidon's rage as well as Plume of Prometheus and Spirit of Hercules to defeat them. Each satyr gives you magic, health, and red orbs which will help tremendously. You will have plenty of magic here because of the chest and magic orbs, but use only Poseidon's rage. Once you defeat enough Satyrs, you can jump across the platforms. Head forward to the second platform, and jump on the side ones from there to get 2 red chests. Continue across the platforms to the end. Defeat the final 2, extremely tough enemies of Hades, and then continue jumping up the ledges to the end for a short cut-scene. After the scene, climb the rope to the top and jump off it for another cut-scene. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- T. The Temple of the Oracle ----------------------------------------------------------------------- All too obvious, but do NOT use Rage of the Gods once you get it. Head over to the save point and save your game. Head right and grab the 2 chests, and head up the steps into the temple. Once inside, you need to fight 2 Cyclops with spike balls. Use hit and run tactic and kill one to spawn another one, then focus on the one that spawned first of those 2, then kill the last one. After that you need to defeat some minotaurs. By the way, you can use all the magic you want for any enemies now, because there are a few groups of enemies you need to fight before you reach Ares. After the minotaurs are dead, head through the door that opened up and ascend the stairs a bit to fight a gorgon. After she is dead, head up a little more and defeat the archers. Head up the rest of the way to see some archers across a large gap. Run across, jumping all the while and once to them, grab and throw. After that, grab the alternating chest and head through the hall to the left. Walk for a little bit and you will come across 2 minotaurs. It is a small space, so Plume of Prometheus is golden. After they are defeated, continue on around the corner to the left and you will see a bunch of archers ahead. Walk forward and grab one and throw it again. If it did not get the top ones, grab another one from up there and throw that one too. Now continue to the end and outside the temple. Head up and to the right, and jump off the edge. Continue to the right and you will see a save altar and the same doorway you came through earlier. Save and enter the doorway. Grab the 2 red chests for lotza orbs, and continue down the stairs and grab the magic and health chests. Now head through the doorway to the right outside for a cut- scene and the final boss of the game. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *Ares ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ares Form 1- Difficulty: 12/20 This form is not too hard. Use Rage of the Gods right when the battle starts. After this, use army of Hades and just keep hitting triangle. Remember to use Army of Hades again after is dissipated for the first time. This alone should be enough to defeat his first form. Use the circle prompt when it appears, then do a couple of button prompts. The key is to go nuts while in Rage of the Gods, because when you are fighting regularly, you need to block and defend a lot, because he does massive damage. You can use magic after rage of the gods is gone if you want, because it will regenerate for the next form. Actually, if he is not dead after you use rage of the gods, you can just use army of hades the remaining 2 times you can, and block the rest of the time. Defeating this form will give you Rage of the Gods again for the second form. If you end up dying a lot, then you can get the chests and then go back to save so next time you fight him, you will not have to get them again. Ares Form 2- Difficulty: 18/20 RIGHT when it starts, use rage of the gods. For Rage of the gods, start with army of Hades, use that the second time when the first dissipates, and the rest of the time for the Rage of the Gods, just use Poseidon's rage. Once Rage of the Gods is over, DO NOT USE ANY MAGIC. There is an excellent strategy I came up with. First, use physical attacks from behind your family towards any enemies to keep them away. You want to keep your health, and actually it is better for them to damage your family, because you use little health, and it gives you a lot of Rage of the Gods experience, enough to use it a second time. Ok, for this strategy, use physical attacks till your family is at 1/3 or health. Best physical attacks are Plume of Prometheus and Spirit of Hercules to get them on the ground easily. Play a few times to get a technique down. Obviously, go after enemies attacking your family, and use Plume of Prometheus on large groups of enemies. When fighting enemies, be sure to attack ALL of them instead of focusing on one at a time. Use Plume of Prometheus all around to keep them down. A good way to fling the enemies away is to use Triangle-Triangle-Square. Anyway, right after their health is low, head right next to them and use Poseidon's rage to get rid of the enemies around them. After Poseidon's rage is done, heal your family immediately to full. You should have enough time since the enemies are dead. Repeat the process. Fight with physical attacks until they are low on health, use Poseidon's rage to get rid of the enemies when that happens, and proceed to heal your family. Keep doing this tactic till rage of the gods is full. By this point, your magic should be about empty if not already, so here is what you do. Keep fighting until the Kratos's with the Blades of Artemis come out. Once it happens, use Rage of the Gods in the same way you did before. Army of Hades twice, Poseidon's rage the rest of the time. You should be able to win before Rage of the Gods is over, and if not, then there should only be one, or at most, 2 enemies spawning at a time. Finish them off to move on to the 3rd form. Ares Form 3- Difficulty: 17/20 All but 2 of his attacks are blockable. When he dives into the water, head to one side. Right when he pops up, bolt to the other side and jump right when they crash together to dodge 4 pillars that pop up and crash. The other attack is when he rushes his hand at you or something like that, and that is unblockable and extremely hard to dodge. He will use it in a few situations. First of all, you are using a combo, and he blocks 3 attacks in a row, the game will slow and he will use it. Second, he uses the Army of Hades and you are too close to him while blocking it. Third, he just rushes at you and uses it. If he rushes toward you, it is possible he will use it, so you may want to dodge every time he rushes at you. If he is simply moving around attack-prone and not actually rushing, he will not use this attack. To dodge it, do not block, and when you see a hint of the attack, dodge- roll back. Another move: while blockable, he may hit you twice with a sword, and then shoot his back things at you, which will send you flying. His Army of Hades is blockable, so don't worry about that. Anyway, with all that being said, there is a tactic which is almost necessary to win. Walk up to him, and after he attacks you and stops for a second to growl or pause, keep holding L1 and hit X. It is best to do this when he roars, though, because it seems to work well when you do that. You will hit him 3 times and on the 4th the game will slow down into slow motion. Please note you must be right next to him to do this right. Hit circle at that time to get a prompt to tap circle. Tap it fast, and you will do a sword combo on him, causing massive damage. Afterward he is stunned long enough for you to get off 3 more hits at him. It only takes 3 of these to win assuming you do not get hit, but that is hard, because that stupid unblockable hand attack which may happen sometimes. Here starts a pattern. After you L1+X and win the duel, then he will dive in the water. After the pillar attack, he will rush at you again. Wait till the last second to attack, and if you get hit, no big deal. It does so little damage compared to what you are doing to him. Just be quick to block if need be. So basically, the pattern here is as follows. Dodge the opening move if he uses the pillar attack, and after that he will charge at you. A good tactic may be just to dodge ever time he rushes at you, and just wait for him to start moving attack-prone. To dodge successfully, dodge in the same direction that he is charging in once he gets to you. Be sure to Hold X or it will not work. After you win the duel, attack him with triangle. He will dive underwater after that, and do the pillar deal again. Once again he charges at you, and the pattern repeats. If you have trouble with those hand attacks he does that are unblockable and hard to dodge, then just dodge whatever attack he does every time he rushes at you, waiting for him to move attack prone. Then head back to use L1+X. Practice this some and you will win. You can win this really fast if you do not get hit. After defeated, watch the final movies. After them, head forward into the doorway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- U. Mount Olympus ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a tough part. Head forward, up the stairs and through the door at the top. Head in and save the game at the altar. Now, sit upon the throne at the top. Congratulations, you beat the game! Now watch the final cut-scenes. ======================================================================= V. Glitches ======================================================================= -I got an e-mail about a glitch when you do the underwater part, after the nyads where you need to raise the platforms and get into the bottom to get out of the room. When the platforms were raised, they would not lower again. If anyone else has experienced this glitch, and know how to avert it, please e-mail me and let me know. -I have confirmed by about 30-40 e-mails that Ares 3rd form is indeed the game and not the CD, thanks everyone for letting me know. -Someone e-mailed me about a glitch in the final room of the whole game, after you beat Ares final form. They had 45 bars of red orbs, and wanted to spend them all, and the game froze. So, it might be a good idea after beating Ares just don't upgrade at all unless you saved at that save point, since there is no reason and if the game locked up you would have to beat Ares again. -Same as the top glitch, except it was tried after saving and the orb count went straight to 0 and locked up again. -I got e-mailed about a glitch where in the room with Poseidon's statue, when it was time to fight the enemies there, they were low on health, and went into the cave behind the statue to get a chest, and returned to fight, and after defeating a few harpies the game locked up. Actually, I heard that saving a game, then going back to defeat the enemies will cause the game to lock up. ======================================================================= VI. Credits ======================================================================= -Thanks to Brier Crain for telling me another name that the big armored boss could have been named, and a few others for making suggestions too. -Thanks to Nathaniel Ray for giving me the name of the big armored boss, Pandora's Guardian. -Thanks to Chris Andrews for telling me about a 4th nyad with a feather located behind a cracked wall to the right of the Poseidon statue next to the trident, and also for contributing various glitches. -Thanks to Layne Herrin for telling me about a glitch where the platforms did not lower. -Thanks to Mabus71 for letting me know about a ledge in the puzzle room that has some chests on it. -Thanks to Rafeh Qazi for telling me about a hidden chest in the Challenge of Hades. -Thanks to Juan Rodriguez for letting me know about a hidden area with chests above the last of the 3 nyads. -Thanks to countless people for letting me know they had the same problem with the game freezing on Ares 3rd form. -Thanks to Alen K for letting me know about a chest in the wall near the bridge with harpies in the Challenge of Atlas. -Thanks to Brian Redmond for telling me about a gorgon eye below the ledge right before you head into the room with the collapsing floor in Challenge of Atlas. -Thanks to cadylacon24 for the input on the chests of red orbs in Athens Town Square. Thanks to Johann Xavier for the information about the chest next to the bridge after the saw room in the Challenge of Atlas. ======================================================================= Legal ======================================================================= Copyright (c) 2005-2006 Daniel Halverson This guide may not be used for any other reason than your own personal use. It may not be used or reproduced on other websites, magazines, or any other place unless you have my permission. If you would like to ask permission to use this guide someplace, you MUST e-mail me at aklite1@comcast.net. If I let you use my FAQ somewhere, you are NOT permitted to change anything in the FAQ, and the FAQ must remain credited to me. Also, you are not allowed to reproduce it or use it for any other purpose than that of which you asked permission. Only the following sites should have this FAQ www.gamefaq's.com www.supercheats.com www.a2zcheats.com www.wogaming.com www.1up.com www.honestgamers.com