Insert ASCII Here. GAME...............God of War III PLATFORM...........Playstation 3 AUTHOR.............Austin Harper, aka staunchmaldoon. CONTACT INFO.......shoddyironwork [at] yahoo [dot] com VERSION............1.0 UPDATED............July 11, 2010 =============================================================================== I. TABLE OF CONTENTS [TABCON] =============================================================================== *Press CTRL+F and type the codes on the right to search for a section* I) Table of Contents.........................................[TABCON] II) Version History...........................................[VERHIS] III) Introduction..............................................[HAIPPL] IV) Gameplay Basics...........................................[X2JUMP] 1) Controls..............................................[UISDUM] 2) Save Points, Orbs, and Chests.........................[DURRRR] 3) Context Sensitive Sequences...........................[PUSHYS] V) Walkthrough...............................................[WLKTRU] 1) Gaia..................................................[LNDLDY] 2) Mount Olympus.........................................[LYMPCS] 3) Heart of Gaia.........................................[HRTBRN] 4) Realm of Hades........................................[YOUDED] 5) Judges of the Underworld..............................[ROBITS] 6) The Forge.............................................[RIPTRN] 7) Palace of Hades.......................................[DEDGUY] 8) The Forge. Again......................................[RIPAGN] 9) City of Olympia.......................................[BIGCTY] 10) Path of Eos...........................................[WHODAT] 11) The Chain of Balance..................................[CHAYNE] 12) The Caverns...........................................[SPEWKY] 13) The Flame of Olympus..................................[ITSHOT] 14) The Olympian Citadel..................................[CTADEL] 15) The Flame of Olympus Redux............................[STLHOT] 16) The Forum.............................................[BROTHA] 17) Poseidon's Chamber....................................[MGCNCH] 18) The Upper Gardens.....................................[NOTLWR] 19) Aphrodite's Chamber...................................[I<3YOU] 20) Tartarus..............................................[FISHYS] 21) Gates of Tisiphone....................................[RUBIKS] 22) The Pit of Tartarus...................................[GRAMPA] 23) The Upper Gardens Part Deux!..........................[DUCKYS] 24) The Caverns...........................................[ITSDRK] 25) The Labyrinth.........................................[DBOWIE] VI) Collectables..............................................[COLECT] 1) Godly Possessions.....................................[GODLYK] 2) Gorgon Eyes...........................................[EYEBAL] 3) Phoenix Feathers......................................[BIRDYS] 4) Minotaur Horns........................................[<3BEEF] VII) Challenges................................................[CHLNGE] VIII) Characters................................................[PEEPLZ] IX) Baddies...................................................[OHNOEZ] X) Bosses....................................................[BIGUNS] 1) Sub-bosses............................................[MINI1S] 2) Bosses................................................[BIGR1S] XI) Weapons, Items, and Relics................................[SWISSY] XII) Costumes..................................................[DRSSUP] XIII) Trophies..................................................[PLATNM] XIV) FAQs......................................................[STRFAX] XV) Legal Junk & Thank Yous...................................[URWLCM] XVI) Contact Me................................................[CALLME] =============================================================================== II. VERSION HISTORY [VERHIS] =============================================================================== -v1.1- Added the search system that I meant to have in the first version, then redid the search system because the search keys were too monotonous and lame. Remembered the name of the guy that played Hercules on the TV show. Added the name of the Platinum trophy, since I forgot to in the original trophy section. Added stuff to the Character and Bosses sections. Added my list of sites on which this guide is posted. More to come. -v1.0- Got the basic layout of the guide together. This version contains the majority of the data concerning the walkthrough, trophies, and Godly Possessions, and will be the inital upload onto GameFAQs. I also still have to check if there is even room for another God of War III Guide on GameFAQs. I did. There is. =============================================================================== III. INTRODUCTION [HAIPPL] =============================================================================== "Fry, I'm an 80's man. Friendship to me means that for two dollars, I beat you with a pool cue til you got detached retinas." ~Futurama~ Howdy. I'm Austin Harper, aka staunchmaldoon. You probably have never heard of me, since I spend almost no time at all on the message boards. In fact, I had to leave my GameFAQs username blank when I first started with this guide because I forgot what it was. This is my first time ever writing a guide for a game, so go easy on me. If you have anything at all to add to the guide, or any corrections or changes I should make, or if you just want to shake my e-hand, e-mail me at shoddyironwork [at] yahoo [dot] com, and I'll see that the changes are made and you are given credit. Here is the list of sites that my guide is currently on: -www.gamefaqs.com -www.neoseeker.com I never really considered writing a guide before, but since my girlfriend and I just moved into our new apartment and we don't have cable or internet yet, and I don't currently have a job, and we have a break from school, there honestly is nothing else to do but play the same games I've beaten time and time again. So I figured I might as well share my knowledge with the public, and maybe splice in various jokes and observations I made. If I'm gonna make a guide, I figured it might as well be entertaining, too. As far as layout is concerned, I just based it off of the many guides I've read in the past. God of War III is the final installment of the God of War series, chronologically, at least, and it details the last stretch of Kratos' quest to kill his dad, the gloriously bearded ruler of Olympus, Zeus. The game begins right where God of War II left off, with Kratos and the Titans climbing Mount Olympus. By the way, I'm writing this guide based on the assumption that its readers have played through the first two games, and maybe the PSP port, so I'll try not to spoil anything that happens in this game, but I will probably reference the previous games. If you haven't played the first two, why the hell are you playing the third? Go get the God of War Collection now. =============================================================================== IV. GAMEPLAY BASICS [X2JUMP] =============================================================================== 1. Controls............................................................[UISDUM] Left Analog Stick.......................Move Right Analog Stick......................Dodge/Select Target D-Pad...................................Switch Weapons Square..................................Light Attacks Triangle................................Heavy Attacks O.......................................Grapple X.......................................Jump (2x to double jump) X(Hold).................................Wings of Icarus L1......................................Block/Parry L1+X....................................Switch Weapons mid-combo L1+O....................................Ranged Grapple L2+X, Square, Triangle..................Use Items R1......................................Interact R2......................................Magic L3+R3...................................Activate Rage of Sparta Start...................................Upgrades and Collectables Select..................................Pause Game 2. Save Points, Orbs, and Chests.......................................[DURRRR] -Save Points- Save points are yellow things that are used to save your game. You can't miss 'em. Unless you're blind, in which case, why are you playing video games? -Green Orbs- Restore health. -Blue Orbs- Restore magic. -Red Orbs- Used for upgrading weapons and items. -Yellow Orbs- Much rarer than other orbs, these are used for restoring your Blade of Olympus meter. -Green Chest- Gives green orbs. -Blue Chest- Gives blue orbs. -Alternating Chest- Constantly switches between green and blue, so depending on when you grab them, you can get either green or blue orbs. -Red Chest- Gives red orbs. -White Chest- Gives out a variety of different orbs, but always gives some red orbs. These chests are where you can get yellow orbs. -Neutral Chest- These chests don't have the colored horseshoe thingy (what letter is that again?) on the front of them. From these chests, you can get Gorgon Eyes, Phoenix Feathers, and Minotaur Horns, which increase your life, magic, and item bars respectively. Once one of those three bars reaches maximum, any subsequent chest you find containing one of those items will be replaced with red orbs. Pots- Throughout the game, you will find various pots and urns. If you break them, you get red orbs. You don't get many, but it starts to add up. I won't list the locations of these, so just break them when you find them. 3. Context Sensitive Sequences (CSS)...................................[PUSHYS] God of War III, just like its predecessors, has many context sensitive sequences throughout it, which require you to input the command that appears on the screen, which can be a single button push, a repeated button push, two buttons pressed simultaneously, a button held, or the joystick rolled a certain way. These can take place at any time, so be ready. If a giant "O" appears above an enemy's head, pushing O near it will initiate a context sensitive sequence, which will usually kill it. This is also probably the only thing I will abbreviate in the guide, other than GoW3. =============================================================================== V. WALKTHROUGH [WLKTRU] =============================================================================== 1) Gaia [LNDLDY] Just for the record, I am writing this Walkthrough while playing the Titan (Hard) difficulty. After the cool intro, kill the enemies that appear. This section is just to get you used to the controls of the game. After Gaia blows out her shoulder fire, kill the enemies, then move the tree and continue. Kill a few more, continue, and th- whoa. =================================SUB=BOSS=FIGHT================================ **Big Water Horse Thing** (Actual name?) =============================================================================== That was quick. You don't have much room to move. It mostly just uses one attack this round, which is a breath attack that is very deadly to take the full force of, especially on higher difficulties. The trick here is timing and position. Only attack from the left side, so he directs his breath attack to the left. As soon as he is about to unleash it, quickly roll to the right and hold L1. If you do it right, you will probably be pushed to the back by the force of the attack, but you won't take any damage. Just keep attacking and dodging until Gaia's hand gets pulled back. Now you're in a hanging fight. Dammit. The horse will now just draw back one of his legs and slam it down on you. Just watch which leg he lifts, then push X while moving to dodge accordingly. Keep attacking in the meantime until Gaia pulls her hand back. And now you're fighting from a wall. The horse still uses the leg slam move, but now it also has its breath attack back. Just dodge the legs like you have been, and move all the way to the opposite side to dodge the breath attack. You can tell when it's charging up for it, because both of its legs will be down, but its head will start to pull back. Keep attacking until the arena shifts again. You're back on level ground. Use the same tactic as earlier to dodge the breath attack; roll, then hold L1. If the horse quickly pulls its head back, roll down away from the horse, because it stabs four of its legs into the ground closest to it. It will also still pull back one leg at a time and slam it down like before, so be prepared to roll dodge. After doing enough damage, a O button will appear above the horse's head and you get to do your first context sensitive sequence. Push the buttons that appear and prepare for awesomeness. =============================================================================== 2) Mount Olympus [LYMPCS] When you land on the vines, head right, jump across the gap, then go up. You don't really need to grab the red chest, because I'm gonna tell you right now, you're gonna lose 'em all in a little bit, but its there if you just can't leave a chest unopened. Shimmy across the snow-covered ledge to the other side and take out the Sentries and Archers, then climb the ladder/vines. More Sentries and Archers appear up top, so dispatch them. These guys are fun to grab, because you can rip them in half (doing so nets you the Rip One! trophy), throw them at other enemies, and even use them as a battering ram to plow through other enemies. Jump to the ledge with the pedestal and look at it, if you want, then jump to the grapple point and swing across to the other side and take out the enemies that pop up. Climb the ladder/vines afterwards. Jump left to grab the ledge, then shimmy around and pull yourself up. Jump up and grab the vines, then climb up to the top. Run forward, jump and glide over the gap, grab the blue and green chests, and open the door and head inside. Hey, look. Ares is dead down there. A Centaur General appears when you head far enough in. If you can take down three of these by gutting them in a CSS, you get the No Guts, No Glory trophy. There are only three of these in the entire game, so just don't kill them except by using the context sensitive sequence. These guys are kinda tough. Make sure you are ready to do a quick roll of the thumbstick, because the Centaurs like to charge at you. Just beat the hell out of it until it goes down. The other enemies that appear are just minor nuisances. After the room is clear, hop up and down on Ares' face (you know you want to), then pull the lever. Climb the ladder and jump on to the platform. Be quick, because you'll miss it if you're not. Save at the save point, go through the hallway, and open the gate. Mash O when it pops up, then prepare for another fight with that damned horse. =================================SUB=BOSS=FIGHT================================ **Big Water Horse Thing** (Actual name?) =============================================================================== All right, you semi-translucent water-snake-crab-horse bastard. Let's go. The battle's a little different this time around. The horse will do one move where it hits the ground in front of it three times in a row with three different legs. Your best bet is to jump towards it, get a 2 or 3-hit combo, then land and roll away before it hits you. When it starts to rear up slowly, it's about to pound the ground. The shockwave hits you as long as you are on the ground, so make sure to jump. Eventually, it will start to crawl towards you. When it does this, it pins you in the corner and hits you point blank with a blast of breath. start wailing on it with heavy attacks to knock him back before it gets the move off. If you don't have time, just have Kratos use Whirlwind, since it's super- effective. By Whirlwind, I mean push R2, in case you didn't get the reference. After you've done enough damage, O will appear above the creature's chest. Do the context sensitive sequence, and the fight will continue. Now you can throw the broken claw it's chest, but since its ribcage-thingy isn't completely open, it will just bounce off and cause it to do its breath attack. You're gonna have to stagger it first. It has the same attacks, except now it will do a breath attack from afar. If you spend this entire fight touching the horse's nearest claw on YOUR left side, and you block when he does his claw or breath attacks and jump when he does the shockwave, you can go through the entire fight without taking damage. Just make sure you jump far enough away when he does the shockwave, or else his claw will hit you. Again, after doing enough damage, O will appear. Do the CSS to rip open his chest, then go to the broken piece of claw and push R1. Another ass thoroughly kicked. =============================================================================== Climb up and over to fall down inside Gaia. Run ahead and squeeze through the gap in the wall. Climb the vines on the back wall up, across, then down. Drop down and glide across the gap. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Heart of Gaia [HRTBRN] Before you grab that conveniently-placed wall pillar thing, climb the vines on the right up to a ledge containing the ZEUS' EAGLE Godly Possession. Jump down, then grab the pillar and pull it from the wall. Rotate it using the right stick, then shove it into the alcove on the left side. Climb the vines on the left now, swing on the grappling point, and climb to the platform. Head right and some enemies will appear. This is the perfect spot for using your enemies as a battering ram, as the game points out. After trucking through the Sentries, climb the vines and jump across the gap to the platform below. Use the grappling point to launch up to the vines, then climb up, taking out the Sentries as you go. At the top of the vines, jump, then use the grappling point to get out of Gaia. Climb up for a scene. Oh. So that's what that was. ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Poseidon** =============================================================================== Poseidon's not too tough. This fight has a couple parts. For the first section, Poseidon will summon lightning, and send the horses to attack. The ground starts to spark before lightning strikes, so get out of that area. If the camera leans left, the horse will attack on the left, and if the camera leans right, it will attack on the right. Your need to knock away all of the claws that are imbedded in Gaia to progress. Just keep attacking each one until it lets up. After you knock away both claws on either side, push R1 to jump to Gaia's hand. Poseidon's attacks are kinda annoying. They consist of punching the ground in front of him, backhanding Kratos away, and stabbing the ground with his trident one or three times. The difference between his stab attacks is that with the single stab, he raises up slowly, then continuously electrocutes the ground, and with the triple stab, he quickly stabs the ground three times, getting closer to you each time. You can block his two fist attacks, but the trident attacks you must dodge. When he draws back with both hands on the trident, he will strike once, so just roll away from him. When he draws back with just his right hand, he will strike three times, in which case you need to climb more than halfway up the vine wall in order to avoid damage. Just keep attacking Poseidon quickly, retreating when necessary. Use your magic as much as you want, since you get some more after this. Eventually, you will do enough damage so that O appears above Poseidon. Climb up the vine wall and onto the upper area, then grab him and do the CSS that follows. Back to Gaia's head. Same thing as last time, only now the attacks are quicker, and Poseidon will do a lightning strike that will sweep the entire area one section at a time, so make sure you roll away after the second one strikes so you don't get caught by the third one, or use magic so you don't take damage. In fact, you could use nothing but magic (it takes three per claw on Titan mode), since you get more after you knock away a set of claws. Keep up the attack until both sets of claws let go, then do the CSS for a badass scene. Push O on Poseidon for another badass CSS, followed by another badass scene. =============================================================================== Save, then jump on Gaia's hand for another long scene. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Realm of Hades [YOUDED] Swim ahead. Toldja you'd lose all those red orbs. Climb out of the water and walk past the pedestal. After the scene, you get the Blades of Exile. These are, I think, the strongest weapons in the game when fully upgraded. Head left and examine the pedestal. Now picture "It's Raining Men" playing in the background. Now laugh, then continue. Go right and swing across on the grappling point. Once you get across, drop down off the ledge closer to the camera to fall to a lower area with a couple red chests, then go around the corner for a chest with a GORGON EYE. Climb up the wall in the middle and take out the enemies up top, if you haven't already. Go across the bridge to the save point. Jump the gap and grab the green chest, then jump up to the next area. During this fight, you have infinite magic, just like every fight like this after you get a new weapon. Just keep using your magic. The Army of Sparta magic for the Blades of Exile is the best magic you get in the game, IMO. After you take them out, jump and grab the chain, then climb across. You have to fight some Sentries that appear from both sides. I like to do a quick attack so you don't get hit, followed by a grab attack to finish them off. I love how the enemies patiently wait for their turn to attack you. So polite. Drop down on the platform on the other side. There is a note on the ground to the right of the tunnel, a white chest to the left of the tunnel, and an alternating chest further to the left of that. Head into the tunnel and drop down. Once you do, head towards the camera for two red chests. Go forward and open the gate. Push L1 and R1 repeatedly to free yourself from the Gorgon. There are two types of Gorgons in the game; these fat ones and skinnier ones. Both are topless, so if snake chicks are your thing, go nuts. Who am I to judge? Anyway, the fat ones are tougher. After you do enough damage, O will appear above its head, along with a bunch of enemies. Whenever you do the CSS for fat Gorgons, it turns all surrounding enemies to stone, after which you can easily break them. When you kill the first one, a second appears. Take care of it and all the Sentries that appear, then open the other gate and continue. Head around the corner and jump the gap. Grab the green and blue chests on the left, then continue forward. If you examine the stuff that looks like smoldering tree branches, it says the path is covered in bramble and you can't continue. So, go left instead. Jump the gap in the bridge for a scene. Jump up to the platform above the dude, then jump over to that chandolier thing. Doesn't he sound like Dr. Orpheus? Anyway, jump down so the chandolier retracts, then jump back up to it and from there, jump to the platform jutting out. Head in and grab the bramble thing. Push it to the gap in the wall and kick it down. Jump down, then push it over to the end, where there is a caged Cerberus, who will set it on fire, creating an Icarus Vent. Leave the pot where it is, then go back to the chandolier. When the gate above the Cerberus opens, jump off, go to the vent, and glide up to the gated area. Pull the lever to let the Cerberus free. Do enough damage to it, and a O prompt will appear. Grab it, do the CSS, and you will take control of the Cerberus. Use Square for a fireball attack and Triangle for a breath attack. Your goal is to ride it over to the screaming dude and burn the trees surrounding him. Finish off the Cerberus afterwards, then grab the Bow of Apollo from his corpse. By holding L2 and tapping Square, you fire arrows. If you hold Square, then release, you will shoot a charged arrow that will light the enemy on fire. Try to do this as much as possible until you get the "It's getting hot in here..." trophy. Finish off the remaining enemies, but don't go back just yet. Grab the alternating chest on the platform, then go back to the vent. Push it as close to the steps as you can. See that bramble in the area above? Burn it with the Bow, then use the vent to glide up to the area. Up here is a red chest and a chest containing a PHOENIX FEATHER. Now jump down, then go back across the broken bridge. Burn the bramble, then head forward and save at the save point. Continue out into the open area. There is a note on the ground to the right by the Lost Souls, and a green chest and a blue chest directly ahead. Burn the bramble in between the two chests for a third chest containing a MINOTAUR HORN. Continue to the left and some Harpies appear. These things get pretty annyoing, because they like to slam into the ground for an area attack. The best way to get rid of them is to keep using L1+O to stay airborne. If you manage to grab one while you are on the ground, you will rip its wings off for a kill. Burning them with your bow works really well, too. After taking them out, you can grab the Lost Souls that are praying in the background, if you need some extra health. Afterwards, head right and glide down to the area below. Grab the white chest, then hug the wall, jump the gap, and drop down. Jump across the next gaps, then climb up the wall. Jump across the gap to the left, then climb up and jump up to the next ledge. Shimmy left, climb up, then jump up to an even higher ledge. Now climb up. While hugging this wall, head left first. Jump the gaps to get to a small alcove with a GORGON EYE. Head back across the gaps, then move across the ledge all the way to the right. Jump over to the wall, then climb up. Jump up and grab the vines overhead, then climb across and drop down. Jump and glide to the vertical vines, then climb up on top of the platform. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Judges of the Underworld [ROBITS] Jump and swing across on the grappling points. Go examine the glowing spot on the plate, and the camera will dolly back to show a pedestal. Before you examine that pedestal, you might wanna save at the save point behind the Chain of Balance. Now go check out the pedestal to participate in the three Trials of Erebus. Trial 1: The Condemned- A bunch of Olympus Citizens will fall down, and bunch of Hades Arms will start grabbing them and turning them into Lost Souls. Just kill everyone and eveyrthing. Not hard at all. Examine the pedestal again afterwards. Trial 2: The Lost- Lost Souls will start to spawn and walk towards the gate. If they reach it, they will turn into a much more difficult enemy. The first one is unavoidable, and it turns into a Minotaur. The best thing to do is to avoid the Minotaur, killing all the Lost Souls before they reach the gate, so that nothing else spawns. Once they stop coming, take out the Minotaur. Examine the pedestal once more when you are done. Trial 3: The Chosen- Lotsa stuff appears. Kill all of it. Start by taking out the Gorgon and turning everything else to stone. If you manage to parry and deflect its gaze attack, then you can turn everything, including the Gorgon itself to stone. Next, two Minotaurs and some Harpies appear. Concentrate on the Harpies, because they get to be real pains in the ass if left alone. After they're gone, focus on the Minotaurs. They aren't too hard. Just hang back and keep shooting with the Bow of Apollo. Try to concentrate on one, then take out the other. After the Trials, step on the pad to be judged. Save once again, then head over to the newly opened gate on the right. Grab the white chest on the left, and the alternating one on the right, then head through the Hyperion Gate. Walk to the right. Two Minotaurs will come at you from the hallway. See those big pot things with the tinder sticking out of the top? Those are oil pots. They explode when shot with a charged arrow from the Bow of Apollo. Use them as traps to damage the Minotaurs, making your job easier. Take 'em out. Once you get rid of them, continue down the hallway. As soon as you exit, turn right and go through the Hyperion Gate. Find a note that seems to be from your daughter. Who you killed. Way to go, Kratos. You're a worse parent than Chris Benoit. To the right is a chest with a MINOTAUR HORN. Pull the lever to open the gate, then save, if you want. Head back through the portal, then continue on. Don't bother climbing down the vines, because there's nothing you can do down there yet. Jump and glide toward the platform with the red chest. Continue around for a scene. Jump up and grab the chain, then head across. Drop from the chain, then slide down the vine wall on the right. Head through the tunnel, grabbing the note as you pass. Squeeze through the crack (tee hee), and head into the open area. There is an oil pot on the right. You can use it to take out the enemies that come at you. These guys like to shoot energy balls at you from afar, and if you don't finish them off and they start to crawl toward you, they will explode, so shoot them with the Bow if that happens. When you're done dealing with them, there's a red chest on the left. Head across the bridge and around the corner, taking out the enemies along the way. Continue around to the furnace thingy. There is a note and an alternating chest on the right. Shoot a charged arrow at the bramble underneath the platform to ignite it. Use the Icarus Vent to glide up to the next platform. Head over to the switch. Kill the enemies that appear, then pull it. As soon as you pull the switch, run left and jump onto the elevator as it goes up. On this next platform, there is a green chest in the back. Grab the oil pot on the left and start pulling it toward the elevator. When you get about halfway, three enemies appear. Take them out. You can blow up the oil pot, if you want, since another one will appear. After killing them, push the oil pot near the edge. Jump down and pull the lever, then ride the elevator back up. Pull the oil pot onto the elevator, then ride it back down. When you get back down, two more enemies appear. If you can position yourself to where the enemy is between Kratos and the edge, you can use R1+O to knock them off the edge for an easy kill, which is especially helpful for the harder difficulties. After taking them out, push the oil pot down into the Icarus Vent to make it stronger. Glide up to the overhead thingy. After it drops down, climb to the top, but don't glide up just yet. Open the door for a hallway with a red chest and a PHOENIX FEATHER, and some hands. Lots of hands. You get the Mr. Hand trophy for finding this room. You can kill as many of the hands as you want to rack up a few red orbs. I like to see how high of a combo I can get. L1+Square helps. After you're finished being felt up and violated by Hades Arms, head back out to the vent and glide up. Head through the hallway. Grab the green chest on the right, and the blue one on the left. When you reach the top of the stairs, go right for a red chest, then head left. Examine the pedestal for a pretty cool view, if you want, then continue. When you get far enough down, two of the statues come to life. Use hit-and-run tactics and the Bow of Apollo to stagger them, then take them out by pressing O and completing the CSS. After killing one, the third statue will come to life. After taking out number 2, some Sentries will pop up. If health is an issue at this point, use the Sentries as battering rams and run them into the statue dude. Eliminate all who oppose you, then continue. Glide down to the lower area, and grab the green chest, since you probably need it. Jump down again and head up the stairs to that big, gray dude for a scene. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) The Forge [RIPTRN] Hey, isn't that Rip Torn? It actually looks like him. Neat. On the right, there's a save point. Pull the lever next to it to open the gate in the back. If you head to the left and pass the pool of water, there is a gate. Near it on the left is a chest containing a GORGON EYE. Head back down the stairs and through the gate you opened. Around the corner, start turning the crank to rotate the platform. Rotate the entrance so that it opens to the northeast. Head over to fight a lot of Hounds. This is a good spot to work on your Obedience School trophy. Just kick as many dogs as you can. When you're done pissing off PETA, there are red chests on either side at the end. They might be tough to see, but they're there. Go back to the rotating platform and turn the entrance so it opens to the north this time. Burn the bramble and continue. There is an alternating chest on the way. Head around for a scene, in which you obtain the Blade of Olympus. Unfortunately, unlike when you acquire a new magic, you don't have infinite Rage of Sparta to work with here, but you have a full meter, which should still be enough to take out most of the Sentries that appear. Grab the four red chests, if you didn't in the beginning, then swing across the grappling points to the save point. Kill the archers, then head over the gaps, grabbing the green chest if you need it. When you get to the big platform, burn the bramble and get ready for a fight. =================================SUB=BOSS=FIGHT================================ **Twin Cerberus Breeders** =============================================================================== Despite the name, these guys don't actually do a whole lot of breeding. Just attacking, mostly. The Cerberus aren't actually too tough. They mostly shoot fireballs at you, which you can parry and deflect back at them. Focus on one, damaging it until you get the CSS to rip one of its heads off. Do the CSS three times to kill it, then work on the remaining one. They hit each other with fireballs a lot, which makes the fight easier for you. The best method is to hang back and shoot at them with the Bow of Apollo and deflect incoming fireballs, and attack with your Blades when they come near. Parrying is your best friend in this fight, because you can parry all their attacks. Just hope you've got your Blades to at least level two. =============================================================================== Once you've taken out the guard dogs, open the big ass door that was behind the bramble. When you head in, the door will close behind you and some Sentries and Hounds will appear. Take them all out, then grab the alternating chest on the right and the note on the left, then head through the next door. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) Palace of Hades [DEDGUY] Save at the save point to the left of the tree. Up against that gate on the left is a red chest. Head into the room to the right of the tree and grab the green chest, if you need it. Push the stack of stones out into the main room. A bunch of Harpies will appear. Take them out, spin the wheel to open the gate, then push the stack of stones underneath to hold the gate open. Climb up the tree and jump off to the platform above. Grab the two white chests and go through the gate on the right. Some Hounds and two Minotaurs will attack. You should have full Rage of Sparta from the white chests you just opened, so feel free to use them. Take them out, then grab the blue chest and head up the ramp to the right and through the passageway. Turn the crank for a quick scene, then push R1 at the pedestal. Take out the enemies that appear, then head to the very back on the left side. Climb the ladder up to an area with two red chests. There is also an alcove on the right with a PHOENIX FEATHER. Jump back down and head to the other ladder on the left side. The way this puzzle is set up makes it so you HAVE to do the left side first, or it won't work. Spinning the wheel makes Hades hand pull back, but we can't do that yet. In the back of this area is a green chest and an elevator. Pull the lever to ride the elevator down. There is another green chest down here, and a gate that you can open that leads back to the area with the tree. Go through and grab the pile of stone blocks that was wedged under the wheel. When you move it, the upper gate will close and a bunch of Harpies will appear. Take care of them. After disposing of the Harpies, push the blocks through the gate and onto the elevator. You might wanna grab that second green chest at this point. Pull the lever to ride back up to the top. Push the blocks off the elevator and near the wheel. Now, you have to go back down the ladder and turn the handle to open the cuffs. Quickly run back up the ladder and turn the wheel. Now, wedge the blocks under the wheel so the hand doesn't come loose when you do the other side. Now, head to the very back of the right side for a red chest and a white chest. Now, head back and turn the crank, then go up the ladder on the right side and turn the wheel. This will lock the statue's hands in place. Grab the blue chest, while you're up here, then jump down and go back to the pedestal. Push R1 at the coffin to break through it's chest. Listen to Hades ramble on and quote Shang Tsung, then it's time for a boss battle. ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Hades** =============================================================================== As soon as the fight starts, hammer on R1 and L1 so Hades doesn't steal your mojo. For this first part of the fight, Hades mostly just attacks with his Claws if you are far away, and he tries to stomp on you if you are near him. Simply roll to dodge his claw or stomp attacks. You can also parry them. The safest method is to stay back and shoot at him with the Bow of Apollo while dodging his attacks. This takes forever, but it's a pretty solid method if you're having trouble on higher difficulties. After you do enough damage, Hades will yell, then hang from the ceiling. When he drops, he will release a shockwave, so be sure to jump. He will then do sweep attacks, and you have to play jump rope. He will either go high or low, so jump or stand still accordingly. He will spin around before swinging up high, so make sure you land. Hades will then continue to attack with his claws by slamming them on the ground. These attacks are easily roll dodged, and can also be parried. After you damage him enough, Hades will drop to his knee and O will appear. Do the CSS that appears to rip off a piece of skin. Ew. Keep hitting the skin away so that it doesn't make it back to Hades. The Hades Arms that appear give you health, so I recommend using L1+Square to keep the skin away. That way, you can take out a bunch of Arms while keeping the skin chunk away from Hades. Not having any more chest skin makes Hades mad, so he will do an attack that covers the entire area, except one part, which is revealed at the last second. The trick is to keep moving around in the middle area, then as soon as the open part appears, bolt towards it so you don't end up like Swiss cheese, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, because Swiss cheese is mighty tasty. Hades starts off with another shockwave, then he will grab you and try to steal your grape-flavored soul again. Tap L1 and R1 repeatedly to take it back. Hades pretty much does the same stuff as the beginning, except now he likes to throw in a shockwave/soul steal here and there. Just keep shooting, dodging, and parrying until he does another shockwave and drops to the back area. Same as before, dodge the sweeps and attack. Hades will occasionally toss a few floating skulls at you. Just roll away until they disappear, or you can actually parry and deflect them, if your timing is good. Stay on the attack and eventually, another O prompt will appear. Do the CSS to tear off another piece of skin. Use the L1+Square method to regain health from the Arms and keep the skin away. When it disappears, Hades will once again do the attack that fills the arena. Dodge it like last time. Now, Hades has an attack where he twirls his Claws around him, then he makes them come up underneath you. This is incredibly easy to dodge. In fact, if you just keep moving while firing arrows at him, none of them will hit you. He will also summon Cerberus souls that charge and swipe at you. Just roll away. After doing enough damage (it takes very little this round), press O once again to initiate another CSS. This is neat. You are now in a little game of tug-of-war with Hades. Use your light attacks to hit Hades, and roll whenever he attacks you. If you are pulled to the edge, just hit O to climb back up. If you use your downward evade, you will pull yourself back away from the edge. When you do enough damage, O will appear above Hades. Press it and do the CSS to acquire the Claws of Hades. Awesome. Attack the enemies that appear until Hades Hulks out of the ground. Just keep attacking him with the Claws, dodging or parrying his punch attacks. If he raises his fists high in the air and shouts something, roll all the way to the left or right to avoid his attack. If Hades pulls both arms back and looks like he is about to breathe something on you, it's because he's about to breathe something on you. When this happens, use the grappling points on either side to swing behind Hades and avoid damage. Just keep wailing on Hades until he flops around and O appears. Push it and do the CSS to steal Hades soul. Cool. =============================================================================== After the scene, save at the save point, then dive into the river. Head straight down to the bottom and swim towards the camera to find the HADES' HELM Godly Possession. Swim down the river until you reach a gate, then go to the surface and jump onto the platform. For this next part, you will have infinite magic to try out the Soul Summon magic as much as you want on these enemies. If you go into the Power Up screen and push Triangle, you can select what soul to use. The more you level up the Claws, the more souls you unlock. Dive down into the river on the other side and continue north through the tunnel. When you get through, surface and pull the lever to open the gate in the water. Go through and surface on the other side for a scene. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) The Forge. Again. [RIPAGN] Save at the save point and then head down the stairs to the right. Now you're back in the rotating room with the crank in the middle. This time, when you start to turn it, the statues attack. Take them all out, along with the Hounds that appear (Rage of Sparta really helps, if you have it), then turn the handle until the entrance faces north again. Head out and grab the alternating chest, which you probably need at this point. Jump down and swing across the grappling points to the area with the two Archers and the save point. Head up the northeast path to the Hyperion Gate for a scene, then head through for another scene. Go around the bend. Hey, isn't that Gaia's hand? Ha. Head forward for yet another scene. I don't understand how she expects you to help her. You can't exactly pull her up or anything. Start attacking her little tree-tendon things that are blocking your way until they all snap for another scene. Afterwards, push O and complete the CSS fo snap Gaia's hand off. Sweet. Push R1 at the sparkly spot on her thumb to toss it off the cliff. Okay, see that big gate? Well, a bunch of enemies are gonna start appearing, and you have to beat them all to open it. This spot is a perfect place to get the Hitman trophy. If you keep shooting with your Bow of Apollo and using your R1+O with the Claws of Hades, the attacks should be weak enough to rack up 1000 hits. I did this on my first playthrough on Normal mode, so the difficulty doesn't have to be too low. Just know that the higher the difficulty, the easier it is to get the trophy. (Thanks, Dave) After you take care of all the enemies, there is a green chest that you more than likely need. Head through the gate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) City of Olympia [BIGCTY] Go around for a scene with a Harpy. Shoot it to agitate it, then use L1+O to grab onto it and ride it across the gap. For the next gap, ignore the Harpies and drop down. There is a red chest near the left wall. Jump back up to the top, then ride the Harpies across the gap. Now double jump in place. See that ledge in the back with all the goodies on it? Wanna know how to get up there? First, continue around to the save point so that the game updates the checkpoint, in case you fall. Then, walk back to the Harpies. Wait for one of them to get near you, then grapple it and ride it as far back towards that ledge as you can. When it stops, jump off and over to the ledge. You might fall, because this game likes to be a ballsack, but that's why we registered a checkpoint that was close. Once you get up there, there's a red chest, a GORGON EYE, and a MINOTAUR HORN. Jump back over when you're done. Continue back towards the save point, grabbing the green and blue chests, if you wish. Keep going for a scene. Jump across and take out all the enemies that appear. When you do, the second Centaur General will appear. Gut it like you did the last one, and take out all the other enemies. It's not too hard. Just be ready for the Centaur to charge you at any time, at which point you have to roll the stick to dodge. After you've killed everything, there is an alternating chest against the back wall. Continue up the ramp. I'd save that health chest for now, unless you're feeling lucky. Activate the ballista and a chimera will attack you. These guys aren't super hard. They have three forms. You have to disable all three heads through Context Sensitive Sequences to kill it. The tactics are the same for all forms. Just dodge and keep attacking until O appears. The snake head form likes to spit acid and bite at you, the lion head form likes to claw and shoot fireballs at you, and the goat head form likes to charge at you. Once you take out the Chimera, grab the health crate, if you need it, and hold R1 near the ballista. You have to fire the ballista at the correct time, otherwise you will miss Helios. As soon as you hear him yell "Forward!" let go of R1. Watch the scene, then go back down the ramp. Go near the wall and a Harpy will fly over. Shoot it, and a bunch will appear. Use them all to cross the chasm. Take out all the enemies once you land, and grab the green chest, if you want. Open the door on the right and go down the hallway. When you reach the end, turn left for a red chest. Go right and a bunch of Sentries will appear. Just use one as a battering ram to plow through them all. When you get to the end of this hallway, turn left again for another hidden red chest. Go right and outside. Cross the bridge, and grab the green and blue chests, if you want. Climb up the ladder, then head around the corner. A dude will come out of the window. Show him what happens when you stand on a ledge with Kratos. Push O with extreme prejudice. Drop down, go right, climb back up, then go right and jump across the gap. Go over and up to the platform above to find Helios. A phalanx of enemies with unbreakable shields appears. You can't do anything, so just stand around for a few seconds and a cyclops will appear. Attack it until O appears, then take control of it and use its attacks to break the phalanx. Take out all the enemies, then approach Helios for a scene. Afterwards, use the right analog stick to block out the light and approach Helios. Complete the CSS to rip off Helios' head. It's awful dark up ahead. Good thing Helios' head doubles as a flashlight. There's a green chest on the left, if you haven't already gotten it. Use the Head of Helios on the distorted air in the bottom right corner to find a MINOTAUR HORN. Also, use it to the right of Helios' body to find the HELIOS' SHIELD Godly Possession. Finally, use the Head on the wall in the back to reveal a door. Open it and continue. Now that you have the Head, if you blind 100 enemies with it, you get the Nice Tan trophy. Use the head to light your way through the tunnels. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) The Path of Eos [WHODAT] Grab the green chest on the right and the GORGON EYE in the dark alcove on the left. Continue to the save point. Keep going forward. Grab the alternating chest on the way. Keep going until you reach a bridge with a bunch of Harpies. Take them all out, then continue left. Use the Head on the wall to reveal a new passage. Keep going until you get to a chain. Don't grab onto it, however. Just walk off the edge to drop to a lower area with a red chest and a PHOENIX FEATHER. Climb back up, then grab the chain. Go across, taking out the enemies along the way. Head up, grab the green chest, and keep going. Jump across the gap and continue. When you finally get to the open area, there is a scene. Shoot the Harpy to agitate it, then grab onto it to fly across to the platform thing on which it was just perched. When you get to the platform, instead of jumping forward to the next area, jump and glide toe the right off-camera to a platform with two red chests. Head back over the gap. Now, jump forward, but fall into the gap to land in a lower area with a red chest. Climb up the vines and onto the area ahead. A new enemy appears: the Wraith. These dudes like to tunnel underground and jump up underneath you. If they do this, use L1+O to pull them out. Honestly, they're pretty easy to defeat. You can just keep using combos of O and L1+O to keep grappling them to death. They shouldn't give you too much trouble, as long as you keep them out of the ground. Continue up the ramp to the left. At the top, grab the green and blue chests, then break the wooden scaffolding on the right. Use the Head of Helios on the wall that was behind it for a GORGON EYE. Now head onto the bridge and some enemies will appear. Wraiths will appear on the bridge and Archers will pop up on the wall in the background. Just use the oil pots to take out the Archers and then kill the Wraiths. If you position yourself right, you can use L1+O to knock the Wraiths off the bridge. A wild Wraith appeared! KRATOS used TACKLE! It's super-effective! When you get off the bridge, there is a pair of chests; one green, one blue. Directly west of those chests is a hidden chest with a PHOENIX FEATHER. You won't be able to see it, so just go left and hold R1 when it appears. Before you jump into the vent, go to the right of the chain for a red chest. Save at the save point, then glide up using the vent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11) The Chain of Balance [CHAYNE] Ah, yes. The classic "Dodge random crap while moving really fast" sequence. Just move around to dodge all the stuff. You can use the right stick to do a quick evade, which helps in certain situations. It's not too hard. Just try not to hit too much stuff. Eventually, you get to a point where you have to push one button in a short CSS to stab that melty dude in his eye hole, then you land on a platform. Start following the platforms upward. Climb up the wall and over, dodging falling rocks along the way, to the next set of platforms. Continue up the set of platforms and swing points to the next climbing wall. Follow it, dodging rocks along the way, to the final set of platforms and grappling points. When you latch on to the final grappling point, you start flying again. Same as before, just dodge stuff until you get to the top. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12) The Caverns [SPEWKY] When you land on the big box thing, use the Head of Helios to reveal a chest with a MINOTAUR HORN in the southeast corner. Afterwards, burn the bramble to get the box to move. Use the grappling points to get up to the top of the next box. Burn the bramble again to get the next box to move. Take out the Sentries that appear. Eventually, two Minotaurs will appear and try to break the chain on the box. They're a little stronger than the normal Minotaurs, so watch out. If you're good, you can lure them to the edge, then repeatedly flash them with the Head of Helios to send them backflipping off the edge. Trust me; it works sooo well on harder difficulties. Kill them both to fight some more Sentries. When the box nears its destination, there will be a bunch of Archers firing at you from atop another box. Shoot them or parry or do whatever you prefer to do. Be careful, because two more Minotaurs spawn. Kill them like the last ones to continue. Once you take them out, some Sentries and a Cerberus spawn. Attack the Cerberus and take control of it. Five more Minotaurs spawn, so attack them with the Cerberus to make quick work of them. Finish off the remaining enemies and the box will move into place. Jump over to that glowy-haired dude for a scene. God, I can't wait to kill that guy. Grab the green chest, if you want, then use the grappling point to get to the chain. Start climbing. And climbing. And climbing. More climbing. When you make it to the top, jump off. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13) The Flame of Olympus [ITSHOT] Man, these chapters are getting awful short, eh? Head out into the middle for a scene. Okay, let's do stuff. First, head to the back to the other chain and shine the Head of Helios on the northwest wall with all the sparkly stuff floating around it to reveal a secret area with three red chests and a GORGON EYE. Now, start to shine the Head on all the walls above the pedestals on the left side of the room to reveal some pictures about stuff. There is a blue chest and a green chest in between these groups of pictures. After you read three pedestals, Hermes will appear. Save at the save point, then follow him outside for a scene. Don't follow him off just yet. Head up the stairs for a pair of red chests and a pedestal. When you're ready, glide down after Hermes, then slide down the wall on the right. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14) The Olympian Citadel [CTADEL] Drop over the gap and continue sliding down. Jump to the grappling point and swing across the gap. Follow Hermes until the wooden platform breaks. Start climbing, because fire is quickly rising up the wall. Attack the Olympians to knock them out of your way. When you reach the top, follow Hermes up the wall and jump over to the ladder. Head up the ladder, then climb up onto the ledge and squeeze behind the statue's head. Continue right and down to the wooden platform. Continue following Hermes around. Ignore the enemies, or kill them. Your call. Glide over to the big crate thing and push R1 under the glowing spot. Pull the lever, then use the grappling points to get across the bridge. At the area with all the Olympians, Hounds, and Harpies, Hermes will lower the gate. Climb the ladder to the left of the gate and start climbing until you reach the area at the top. When Hermes runs over to the statue of Athena, grab the handle on the lower section to turn the ballista. Jump on top and activate the ballista for a quick CSS that highlights Kratos' utter badassery. After the scene, go to the right of the statue's head to find a glowy spot, which is the HERMES' COIN Godly Possession. Afterwards, follow the blood trail out to the left. Grab the green chest, if you want, and jump the gap to the lower level. Keep following the blood trail up and back to the area where you just were. ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Hermes** =============================================================================== This isn't really much of a boss fight, but I couldn't really think of how else to work it in. Anyway, all you need to do is keep attacking Hermes with light attacks. He likes to run away, then attack you quickly as he passes. Just be sure to block or dodge and keep attacking. His attacks don't do much damage, but they're hard to see coming, so be careful. You can't really shoot him with the Bow, because he will just dodge the arrows. You will get some health orbs at certain waypoints during the fight. Eventually, a scene will take place, during which, Kratos doesn't really listen to what Hermes says. He just realizes that he likes those fancy boots. Press O near Hermes for an awesome CSS, after which you get the Boots of Hermes. =============================================================================== Some Sentries will appear so you can learn how to use the Boots of Hermes. You can use them to dash at the enemy, which isn't all that useful. What is useful, however, is the ability to air dash, which comes in handy for getting out of sticky situations, ie., dodging Minotaurs. After you've taken out the enemies, dash towards the glowing footprints on the wooden wall on the left to run up the side. Save at the save point, then run along the wall to the right. Continue running along and up the walls until you get to the area with the red chest and the white chest. Take out the Sentries that attack and continue left and outside. When the camera shifts, there is a green chest in the background and a red chest in the foreground. Continue along the wooden bridge to another red chest. Run up the wall to the right of the chest, then run along the ornate wall over to the left. Follow the sets of footprints until you get to the top. Jump and glide over to the alternating chest in the background. Grab it, then head over to the enemies. When you approach them, a couple forcefields will appear and block you in. Once you take out all the baddies, an armored Cyclops will appear. These guys have balls. Big spiked balls, which they use to attack you. The air dodge really comes in handy for avoiding damage here. Take out the Cyclops, and some more minor enemies appear, followed by a pair of Cyclopseses shortly after. Take out the Cyclops like before. If you keep using your Square, Square, Triangle combo with the Blades of Exile at level 3, at least, you can stagger them with every combo and not let them even get an attack off. Your Blade of Olympus helps too, in a pinch. The white chest you grabbed earlier should have given your Rage of Sparta a pretty decent boost. After taking out all the enemies, the forcefields disappear. Don't go through the door just yet. Head to the area to the left for a red chest and a MINOTAUR HORN. Go back and open the door in the middle and head through. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15) The Flame of Olympus Redux [STLHOT] Save at the save point on the right, then start heading around. It's a giant circle, so it doesn't matter which way you go. If you go in a complete circle to the right, you will find the following in order: two red chests, a doorway, a pair of Archers, a green chest, a blue chest, another pair of Archers, and the save point again. After collecting all you care to collect, head through the aforementioned doorway after the red chests. Continue through the hallways to meet a new enemy: the Siren. These things are kinda annoying. They like to enter an ethereal state, during which you can't hit them until you flash them with the Head of Helios. If O appears, make sure you push it, because if you grab them when they are close enough to dying, you snap them in half, sending out a shockwave that damages nearby enemies. Continue through the hallways taking out the enemies until you get to the end. Grab the red chest, then go up the spiral staircase. Open the gate at the top to enter a room with a giant instrument. Congratulations! You just found the beta for the new Harp Hero game to be release next Summer! There are a couple goodies to collect in this room first. To the left of the harp is a red chest. Fly up the vent to the left of the red chest. At the top of the vent, there is a red chest on the right side and a PHOENIX FEATHER on the left. On the opposite side of the room, there is a green chest to the right of the harp, and another vent to the right of that. Ride the vent up for a red chest on the right. From the platform above the vent closest to the harp, jump over to the metal platform directly above the harp. Now we need to tune the harp, because Harp Hero is hardcore like that. When you turn one of the wheels, the picture in one of the squares below will change. You have to turn it into the Blade of Olympus with the tip of the sword pointing to the right. If you are an absolute idiot, the amount of turns for each wheel from left to right is 1,0,3,3. Now, jump down and push R1 in front of those four Playstation buttons. This might be a bit of a deterrent, but this is how the actual Harp Hero controller is gonna be, so make sure you have a living room big enough. Anyway, push the buttons as they enter the three circles to play the notes. When you hit all the notes, the room beyond will shift and a lever will appear. I'm not sure what song that was, so just tell all your friends you beat Through the Fire and Flames on Expert. Pull the lever when you're ready. The elevator will eventually stop and some shielded enemies will appear. You can't break the shields just yet, so just dodge until a Gorgon appears. Damage the Gorgon and do the CSS or parry a gaze attack to turn all the shielded enemies to stone, after which you can break them. Defeat the second wave the same way, and the elevator will move again. Go through the hallway and you will be in the room where you first started chasing Hermes, only now there is a giant spiral staircase in the middle. Go upstairs and save at the save point on the right side of the room. Start turning the handle to begin to open the Flame of Olympus, but then the Judges are all like "No," and they yoink the chain back down so it closes. Go towards the newly opened doorway at which the camera is pointing. Head through the hallways, taking out the Wraiths along the way. Go down the spiral staircase at the end. At the bottom of the staircase, use the Head of Helios in the center to reveal a chest containing a GORGON EYE. Save and continue. Grab the green and blue chests on either side to refill your health and magic, because you're gonna need it. Walk out into the open for a scene. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16) The Forum [BROTHA] God, just look at Hera. It pisses me off when she tells Kratos that he looks terrible. Evidently, she hasn't recently seen her enormous balloon head. Hey, it's Herc. Cool. The guy that does the voice of Hercules is actually the guy that played Hercules on the TV show. Kevin Sorbo is his name. After the scene, get ready for a fight. ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Hercules** =============================================================================== Kill all the enemies that appear, including the Archers up top, for a scene. "Minions! Bring me my punchy gloves!" Herc joins the fight. If he issues an order to his underlings, they will try to pile up on you, so air dash away. Just keep attacking Herc (using the Sentries as battering rams is a really safe method) and eventually, he will run at you. Hammer on O to take control, then run Hercules into one of the spiked walls that line the arena. You will rip off a piece of his armor and get some health orbs. After you run him into the wall a second time, he will get rid of all the minor enemies. He likes to block most of your attacks now, so wait for him to attack, then dodge and counterattack when you have an opening. Stay on the attack, and eventually Hercules will slam his gauntlets together, and the resulting soundwaves will temporarily blind you. Not sure how that works, but whatever. When you come to, Herc will be facing Hera, saying "Look, Mommy! Herky did good!" Run up behind him and push O to initiate a CSS. Don't screw it up, or you have to damage him until he hits his gauntlets together again. After the CSS, you will steal his Metal Fisty Punches. Keep attacking Hercules and he will knock you across the arena. Dodge the rock that he throws, then attack more. He will try to give you a great big hug, so hammer O to punch him in the face until he puts you down. Kratos hates manhugs. Keep attacking Hercules (almost all your light attacks stagger him) until he does another rock throw. He tries to hug you a lot now, so be more cautious with your attacks. After doing enough damage, he will run to the gate and start lifting the whole arena up. Do the CSS that ensues and you will bring the arena down on top of Hercules. Show him some brotherly love by hammering O until his face looks like ground beef. If you stop pushing O at any time, you can look to see how the damage to his face progresses. After you've punched him enough, a scene will occur. =============================================================================== After the scene, you get a new weapon: the Nemean Cestus! Or, as I like to call them, the Dual-Wield Megaman Busters! Instead of going forward, head back into the water. Dive to the bottom and push R1 to find the HERCULES' SHOULDER GUARD Godly Possession. If you swim next to Herc's body, you can see his decimated face. Sweeeet. Anyway, get out of the water and continue. Go up the ramp and you will be blocked in by forcefields. Now that you have a new weapon, you have to try out your new magic. As before, you have infinite magic for the duration of this fight, so get your fill. Remember all that blue rocky crap from Gaia's Heart and the shielded enemies? Well, evidently that is Onyx, which could've fooled me, since it doesn't even know Rock Slide or Screech. Anyway, you can use the Cestus to break Onyx from here on in, so free up the lever and then pull it. Now the gate in the water back near Hercules is open, but some shielded dudes form a Phalanx to block your way. Bust 'em up with the Cestus and head back to the water. Dive down and go through the gate, then swim through the tunnel to come out in Poseidon's palace. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17) Poseidon's Chamber [MGCNCH] Walk towards the camera for a red chest and a MINOTAUR HORN. Walk out into the open and a bunch of shielded enemies and Hounds will appear. Kill them all, then turn the wheel to open the gate. Save at the save point, then walk to the right. To get through that far gate, we're gonna need a doorstop. Hmm...Ah, that topless chick will do just fine. Walk over to her for a scene. Afterwards, grab the green and blue chests on the right and head left into the room with the Hyperion Gates and pungee pits. Now you can't land in the water, obviously, because it's full of spikes, so jump over to the portal on the right and go through. From the platform, jump to the ledge on the left and pull the lever. Once you pull the lever, Hounds start appearing. Jump down and grab the red chests. The dogs shouldn't bother you too much, so you have time. Your goal is to kick the Hounds towards the portal on the right so that they put enough weight on the platform to lower it to the bottom portal. Now, this is a perfect opportunity to get the Obedience School trophy, if you haven't already, because the dogs keep respawning until you get four of them through the portal, so just stand on the left side and keep kicking them until you get it. Also, you can get your Nice Tan and It's getting hot in here... trophies as well. Just keep spamming charged arrows and flashing the Head of Helios and you'll get them pretty quickly. I also recommend killing the dogs until they stop giving you red orbs, just to get a few extra, since they're pretty hard to come by on the higher difficulties. Once you get four dogs through the portal, jump through it yourself. This will lower the platform to the bottom portal. Go through for a scene. She'll start screaming, but just ignore her; she's fine for now. Before you leave the room, grab the red chest to the left of the portal and the GORGON EYE to the right of the portal. Also on the right side of the room is the POSEIDON'S CONCH SHELL Godly Possession. "Did you say...Magic Conch Shell? YOU MEAN LIKE THIS!?!" Once you've gotten everything, go through the portal. Take out all the Hounds. Don't worry about hurting the girl; you can't. It's kinda funny to shoot arrows at her because then she's walking around with flaming arrows sticking out of her body. After the scene, push O near her to pull her up, then take out the Hounds that appear. When you've killed them all, push O to get the girl to move. Follow her through the portal. Move forward and the statues will attack. The Nemean Cestus help a lot, now that you have them. Also, you get white orbs when you kill them, so feel free to use your Rage of Sparta, as well. Continue following the girl afterwards. Around the corner, some shielded enemies block your path, so take them out. Once you've killed them, get the girl moving again, then continue. You can run up and save, if you want, then get her to move again. Urge her to move once more, then grab the alternating chest on the left, if you wish. Lift the gate, then go through. After you take out the three enemies that appear, use the wheel to open the gate. Once you walk through, she gets all squished. Cool. Save at the save point, then go through the gate ahead for a scene. Afterwards, use the Head of Helios on the right for a PHOENIX FEATHER. Head to the left and outside. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18) The Upper Gardens [NOTLWR] Grab the handle on the bridge mechanism and turn it until the bridge shifts. Jump the gap to the other mechanism, then turn the handle. Jump the next gap to reach the third switching mechanism. You have to turn this handle twice to get the bridge to point to the right. Jump the gap, then open the door and head through. Save at the save point and go up the stairs for lots of moaning. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19) Aphrodite's Chamber [I<3YOU] At first, it's kinda hot, but it gets really old, really quick. Walk up to the bed for a scene with lots of boobage. When Aphrodite asks if you will stay, oblige her and complete the minigame that follows. After plenty of offscreen moaning and vibrations, coupled with some cheesy lines by the two other girls, you get a good deal of red orbs and the Ladies Man trophy. After the sequence, you can do the sequence again, after which you will get one red orb. One red orb, and a pair of blue ones (hahaa). When you're finished, facing the bed, the left side of the room has two red chests, and the right side has the Hyperion Gate, and to the right of that, a MINOTAUR HORN. Before you go through the gate, go the side of Aphrodite's bed, then jump to the area behind it. Back here, you will find the APHRODITE'S GARTER Godly Possession. Once you've collected everything, head through the Hyperion Gate for a scene. Save at the save point and go left. The gate over here is now open. Head through and it will close behind you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20) Tartarus [FISHYS] Grab the health chest on the left and check out the pedestal. Go right and around. Open the chest on the right for a PHOENIX FEATHER. Keep going around and the final Centaur General will appear, along with a bunch of minor enemies. After you gut this one, you get the No Guts, No Glory trophy. You can save yourself a lot of trouble with this one if you just keep using the Sentries as battering rams. Once you've killed everything, grab the red chest on the left, then jump up to the right. The platform to jump up to the right isn't really easily found. It's that mesa-looking rock. Just keep jumping until you find one rock that doesn't have an invisible wall above it. At the top, grab the alternating chest and the white chest, then continue up the stairs to the right. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21) Gates of Tisiphone [RUBIKS] When you reach the top of the stairs, the wall will start to shift and a Chimera will appear. After a certain period of time, a second Chimera will appear. Just utilize the oil pots placed around the arena and focus on one Chimera, then the other. After you get one taken out, which isn't hard to do if you use the oil pots to your advantage, all you have to do is finish off the second Chimera. If you need to heal at any time, or if you want more magic to help you out, there is an alternating chest on the left side of the room and a white chest on the right side. After you've taken both enemies out, pull the chain on the left side of the room to shift the gate around. Shove in the first block, then pull the chain on the right side of the room. Push in the lowest block on this side as well. Start climbing and a Harpy will appear. Grab it to ride it to the other side of the wall. Wait until the blocks slide in, then jump off. When they slide back out, jump on top, then over to the middle block. From here, jump to the left and shove in the block. Grab this Harpy and use it to get to the other side like before. When the blocks slide out, jump off and quickly shove in the block. Jump up and use the mechanism up top to open the gate. Walk forward, and there is a save point on the right, and a slightly difficult to see PHOENIX FEATHER directly across from it. Continue forward. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22) The Pit of Tartarus [GRAMPA] Ahh, yes. The Pit of Tartar Sauce. Remember when we climbed up Cronos' crusty ass to get to the Temple of Pandora, or whatever? Good times. Anyway, when you start, head forward and some enemies will spawn. Take them out and continue down the path, grabbing the green and blue chests along the way. More enemies, kill them, blah. When you reach the gap, glide across. As soon as you get to the other side, head into the small alcove on the right for a MINOTAUR HORN. Continue on the path. Hey, isn't that Gaia's hand again? Ha. Push R1 at the glowy spot for a scene. ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Cronos** =============================================================================== It just occurred to me that this guy is your grandpa. This is a pretty self-explanatory fight, but I'm still going to describe it in unnecessarily great detail. Start hammering on Circle so you don't get pinched to death. After you give Cronos a nasty papercut and his eyes start sprinkling (...?), hit him with a charged blast from the Head of Helios. Press the button when prompted to skydive down to Cronos' right hand. Start taking out the enemies until the camera zooms back out. Start climbing up his arm and attack the boil that's in the way until it pops. Ew. Take out the enemies that appear, but be careful, because Cronos likes to breathe his hot old man breath on you. When he grabs his arm, attack his fingernail until it breaks. Press Circle when it pops up to rip off the remainder of his fingernail. God, Kratos sucks at manicures. When he goes to slap his arm, make sure you don't stand in the shadows, or you will be crushed. When his hand sets down, climb onto his finger. Once he lifts his hand to his face, hit him with another blast from the Head of Helios. If you don't get it off in time, make sure you press the right button in the context sensitive sequence, or you will be blown away. Once that is done, push the button when prompted to grab on to him again. Make your way up and across to the metal platform. Kill all the enemies that appear, then open the metal doors. Attack the fleshy thing until it rips, then a bunch more enemies appear and Cronos grabs you. After Cronos tries to crush you, hammer on the Circle button. Move across his hand, then swing up to the top. As soon as you land, start running toward the camera, ignoring the enemies, and press R1 when prompted. Kill the enemies at the top, and a skeleton cyclops will burst out of Cronos' shoulder. Why was that in there? Anyway, attack it until Circle appears, then do the context sensitive sequence to take control of the cyclops. Use it to attack the fleshy spot that it came out of until Cronos moves. Push the buttons that appear. After Cronos eats you, start sliding down by holding R1. Once the camera switches to outside his body, smash the Circle button to slice up his insides and junk. You burst forth from his body, along with his intestines and the kidney stone that Hephaestos needs to make your new weapon. Cool. Climb up and glide over to that metal platform with the blue crystal on it again. Attack it with the Cestus, then push the buttons that appear to nail Cronos through the chin. Break the remaining crystal and move to his forehead, then press Circle and follow the prompts to finish off Cronos. Bye, Grandpa! =============================================================================== Head forward and bust up the blue crystal, then drop down to the Forge. Watch the scene and push the buttons that appear so you don't die. When you get control, move forward and attack the glowing spot with your new Nemesis Whip. Badass. Take out the enemies that appear. Before you continue, head to the left towards Tartarus and go towards that glowing silver box thing. That's the HEPHAESTUS' RING Godly Possession. Head back over to the right. Haha. Look at Hephaestus' face. He looks like he watched the killer tape from The Ring. Anyway, save and run up the wall with the Boots of Hermes to the portal. Go down the stairs and save again, if you want, then head out the door. Yay. You get infinite magic to try out your new weapon's skillz. Enjoy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23) The Upper Gardens Part Deux! [DUCKYS] Now that you have the Nemesis Whip, you can activate the bridge mechanisms that are broken. The cool thing is that you don't even need to turn the crank. You can just hit them until they turn. Jump across the gap and hit the mechanism until it turns and lines up with the bridge to the north. Jump across and use the Nemesis Whip to get the broken bridge to turn and line up with the door. Head across and open the green chest if you want, then open the door. Head through the hallways to the room and the cameraman will show you around Price-is-Right style. The various spots throughout the room that you can interact with are from Daedalus' journal, if you care about the back story at all. Okay. Work time. There are various chests around the room, which require a bit of timing, platforming, and puzzle solving to get. First thing's first; see that lever in the alcove on the right? Pull it to raise the platform on which the ballista sits. Jump from that platform to the blue portal on the right to come out on the top, where there is a red chest. Jump back down and fire the ballista at the gate to open it. Now, run up the wall to the right and into the orange portal. Pull the lever to lower the chests, run back through the portal, and fire the ballista again. If you're quick enough, the chests will fall. Otherwise, pull the lever and try again. The left chest contains some red orbs and the DAEDALUS' SCHEMATICS Godly Possession, and the right chest contains a PHOENIX FEATHER. Now, fire the ballista again into the blue portal in the background. Jump into the portal on the right to come out on top, then glide from the ledge over to the rope. From there, shimmy towards the camera and drop down onto a platform with four red chests, containing A LOT of red orbs. I got 5k on Titan from just these chests. Drop down to the ballista, but this time, grab it on the side and turn it so it faces to the left. Fire it, and climb on the rope. Shimmy through the portal until the rope ends for a chest with a GORGON EYE. One last thing. Use the lever to lower the ballista platform, then fire it to the left again. This will cause it to go through, like, 18 portals and end above the left portal. Jump into the portal on the right to come out up top, then glide around to the rope. Shimmy over to the ledge for a red chest and a chest with a MINOTAUR HORN. Now you're done. Head down the rope in the background. After you drop from the rope, head towards the camera for a chest with another MINOTAUR HORN and a red chest. Follow the path outside for a scene that shows the whole Gardens area, and a suspicious statue holding what appears to be one of those little cups that you put hard-boiled eggs in. Anyway, head downstairs to find Hera, who is drunk and angry. God, she's so ugly. Why did Zeus marry her? His beard is too good for her. After the scene, save, and head to the right of the save point. There are three alcoves. The one on the right has two red chests and a few Olympus Fiends, the middle one has one red chest, and the one on the left has a chest with a PHOENIX FEATHER that can be found by shining the Head of Helios on the fence. Head back to the left of the save point, and you will acquire the HERA'S CHALICE Godly Possession. If you're going for the Priceless trophy, that should complete your collection. Continue left, and a few enemies appear. Take them, then head around the corner and go straight back for a red chest, and an alternating chest on the right. Go into the path that you passed on the right and take out the Fiends that appear. Ignore the gate and head to the left for a green chest. Enter the tunnel. The gate closes behind you, and you get your first taste of the Satyr. Even on Easy, these goat bastards are a pain to kill. Just hammer on them with your highest upgraded weapon (the Cestus work well). You can hurt or kill them by grappling and winning the context sensitive sequence, but I only recommend that when only one is left, since the other can hit you out of it. Charged Head of Helios blasts work pretty well, if you can squeeze one in. Once you've finished them off, continue through and out the door. Grab the green chest that lies ahead, since you probably need it, then go to the left of the green chest, and left again for a red chest. Now go to the right of the green chest, but not down the path at which the camera is pointing. Instead, go right for a blue chest, then head down the path to the right of that. Around the bend lie two red chests, and a hidden chest containing a GORGON EYE that can be found by shining the Head of Helios. Head back, and this time, head into the background to the right of the green chest. These next few puzzles are related to perspective, and they're really cool. By stepping on that big button with the glowing spot, the camera switches to the view of that big statue with the green eyes. After the view switches, head down and open the gate with R1, then run to the left and up the stairs. If you don't make it in time, push the button and try again. Go right and open the gate. Drop down the ladder and walk towards the camera for a red chest. Move to the gap. See that hole in the fence to the left? Jump to it for a small area with a chest containing a MINOTAUR HORN. Head out and jump the rest of the way over the gap. Grab the pillar with the stairs on top and push it left and into the notch on the right of the chalice. Rotate it so the stairs are ascending to the right. The water will run down the stairs, filling the chalice. Head down and through the gate for another scene with the lovely Hera. God, just look at her big ass Tila Tequila head. Anyway, she calls Pandora a whore, so Kratos snaps her neck with his thumb, which is quite the feat, because her neck HAD to be strong, considering the enormous cranium it was supporting. Well, now we can use her limp corpse as a tool for solving puzzles. Yay. Burn the bramble on the left with the Bow of Apollo, then go grab the stair-pillar thing and push it into the notch on the left of the chalice. It should still be rotated so the stairs ascend to the right. Step on the button by Hera and the chalice will fill with water. Grab the pillar and drag it all the way down and set it into the notch in the bottom right corner with the stairs ascending to the left. A scene will show you when it's in the right place. The button has probably expired by now, so push it again, grab Hera, and tote her up the stairs you just made, then drop her in the chalice at the end. Move the pillar on top of the big button so that it stays depressed (Don't worry. We'll cheer it up later.), and then head across the walkways you made above. After you reach a certain point, a scene occurs, in which Kratos remembers that he hates jewelry, and crushes the green gem. Continue to the end, and shoot the harpy to agitate them, then use them to cross the chasm. Once you get across, there are two chests, one green, one blue, on either side of the crank. Turn the crank to open the gate. There is a save point on the right just before you enter the doorway, and a red chest below that. Head through the passageway, killing scorpions. When you get to an open area with a, like, furnace or something on the right, there is a chest with a PHOENIX FEATHER on the left. Use the big wheel to go down. Head forward, using the Head of Helios to light your way. Be careful, because there are a bunch of scorpions in the tunnels that are wearing night vision goggles, so make sure you keep the Head of Helios up. When you get to the end, there is a green chest on the right and a piece of Daedalus' journal on the left. Glide over to the box. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24) The Caverns [ITSDRK] After the scene, a bunch of Cyclops...Cyclopi...Cyclopses...whatever appear. Take them out the normal way. After the brown Cyclops appears, you can take control of him to help you take out the others. If you're quick on your feet and good at dodging, you can get the Cyclops to hit each other with their balls. Hahaha. Ahem. The Rage of Sparta helps too. Once the fight is over, head towards the camera for two chests; one with a MINOTAUR HORN, and one with a GORGON EYE. Head towards the area where the camera is pointing for a green chest, a note from Daedalus' journal, and a save point. Shine the Head of Helios on the back wall to continue. Head through the passage until you reach a room. Before you jump down, there is a red chest and a note from Daedalus' journal on the left, and another red chest on the right. When you drop down, head to the right side for a chest with a (?). Pull the lever on the left side of the room to raise the water level. Jump out and on to the platform for a red chest. Climb up the grate in the back of the room on the right side. Head through the hallway and pull the lever at the end. Take out the scorpions that appear, then head along the wooden planks, using the Head of Helios to light your way. When they turn left, there is an alternating chest and a note from Daedalus' journal. Jump across the gap to the net behind the chest (use a charged blast from the Head of Helios to light the area) and climb up. Kill the Gorgons that appear at the top, then go right and jump across the gap to the platform with the footprints on the wall, but don't run up just yet. Follow the wooden planks around to the right to a ledge with two red chests and a chest containing a (?). Go back and run up the wall, then open the door. Take out the scorpions that appear, then jump over the gap and open the door on the other side. Straight ahead are two chests, one green and one blue, and to the right of those is a red chest. To the left of the chests is a pedestal with info about the labyrinth, if you care. Go left, jump to the crane, then jump down to the big box. Start taking out the scorpions until the big one pops up. ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Giant Scorpion** (actual name?) =============================================================================== When the big dude jumps up, he grabs you and tries to eat you. Push L1 and R1 repeatedly to free yourself. The Giant Scorpion has a few moves. He will shove you with his claws, slam his tail on the ground, swipe with his claws, and summon more little scorpions. Stay out from in front of him to avoid getting hit by his claws and roll or air dodge when he slams his tail on the ground. To hurt him, you need to switch to the Nemean Cestus and punch his legs out. Be careful, because when you are on his side, you are an easier target for his tail attack. He will also occasionally jump or turn quickly to get away from you. After you break all three legs on one side, he falls. Get to his front and wail away at his face until Circle appears above his head. Press Circle to initiate a context sensitive sequence. Tap Circle, but don't screw up, or you'll have to break his legs again. You get some health and magic orbs when you successfully complete the CSS. When he reappears, repeat the process on the other side of his body. He will sometimes leave the arena and a bunch of little scorpions will flood in. It really helps on the harder difficulties to hit all the legs until they are red before you break the first three, so that you don't have to hit them as much the second time around. When you initiate the CSS again, push the button that appears and you will fall from the arena. Dodge the falling icicles on the way up and push the buttons that appear to finish him off. When he crystalizes, hit him until he breaks, then break the tailpiece to get the BOREAS ICESTORM, which is a key for the Labyrinth. =============================================================================== Go to the middle and put the Icestorm in the red lock to activate the vent. Use the Icarus Wings to ride the vent to the top. Continue forward and use the Icestorm in the next red lock. After you disengage the lock, jump toward the camera across the gap, then use the Head of Helios on the platform to reveal a chest containing a (?). Jump back over and head to the other end, then use the grappling points to reach the box. Use the Icestorm on the red lock in the corner, and the box will start to move and a bunch of enemies will appear. Take them out. You can kill them pretty quickly if you parry the Gorgon's stone vision and deflect it. After you kill them all, a couple swing points will appear from the sky. Shouldn't they be holding up Willy Wonka's glass elevator? Use them to get across to the wall, them climb up. Jump the gap and save at the save point. Head around the corner and into the room you filled with water. Use the Boreas Icestorm on the first red lock you saw to open the gate on the wall, then use the Boots of Hermes to run up. Head through the hallway, picking up the note from Daedalus' journal on the way. Head into the room. After the scene, head to the right for two red chests and a chest with a (?). Head back, jump up to the rope and shimmy across to the crane. Use the swing points to get to the top, then use the Icestorm on the red lock. After the scene, go to the open door, and enter the Labyrinth. Maybe we'll see David Bowie inside. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25) The Labyrinth [DBOWIE] *****FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MAKE A SEPARATE SAVE FILE HERE***** Walk in and save at the save point ON A SEPARATE FILE. The reason for this is that if you make it through the entire Labyrinth without dying, you get a trophy. Use the Icestorm on the red lock to turn the room. Take out the two statues that appear. When you kill one, a Cerberus appears. After you take control of the Cerberus, two more statues appear. Shortly after, some dogs appear. When all the enemies are defeated, the gate retracts and you can head up the stairs. Grab the green and blue chests on the right, then hop down to the area ahead. Use the Icestorm to turn the room and activate the traps. There are two chests, one red, one containing a (?), in the back right corner. Just be careful, because the flames are a OHKO. It's easier to just wait until you disengage the traps. When the flames on the left recede, climb the grate behind it, climb onto the underside of the block above, then climb onto the side of the block. Do this quickly before the flames reignite. When the blocks slam together and settle, jump across to the next block. When the sliding spiked... thing retracts, climb up and onto the grate on the back wall. Drop down onto the sliding spiked thing when it comes by again, then pull the lever to stop the traps. Head through the newly opened door and across the walkway, then enter the other door. This is fun. When you use the Icestorm on the lock, it will turn the room. You have to pull the block so that it slides to the wall, which becomes the floor when you turn it. Set it underneath the red lock on the wall, then use the Icestorm on the floor lock. Push the block under the next red lock on the wall and use the floor lock again. The block will now be on the top platform. Push it onto the button to hold the gate open. Grab the green and blue chests, then run up the wall. If you die in the Labyrinth, this area is most likely where it'll be. Use the Icestorm on the red lock on the wall to begin. Enemies will start to appear. In addtion to the enemies, spikes will come out of the floor in quadrants of the room. If these impale you, it is a OHKO, so don't get hit. You can see the spikes pop out a tiny bit in the quadrant of the room where they are going to be. After you clear out enough enemies, the entire floor will fill with spikes. When this happens, a harpy will appear. Grab on with L1+O and do not jump off until the room turns. When it turns, the process repeats, only there will be two quadrants filled with spikes at a time, so be careful. When it turns again, head out the door in the back. You have no idea how many times I lost this trophy because I made it all the way through to here without dying, and then my X button decides not to work, so I fall through the gap and die. Be wary. Save at the save point, grab the green and blue chests, and CAREFULLY jump the gap. There's something about this gap that makes it a total asshole. Break the lock on the cage with the Lion-headed Fisty Punches and open the cage for a scene. Open the door after the scene. From here on out, you need to help Pandora through the Labyrinth. You can pick her up and put her down with O. Pick her up and lift her up to the ledge, then go through the door. A bunch of enemies, mostly Gorgons, appear. The good thing is, Pandora dodge rolls Link-style whenever you attack, so you don't need to worry about hitting her. Just kill everything. When they're all gone, pull the lever to let Pandora through the hatch, then use the Boreas Icestorm on the red lock. When the wall shifts, immediately work your way across to the other side and push the lever to open the hatch before Pandora gets fileted like salmon. Pick her up and put her through the hole in the gate. She will climb up and open the gate. If you shine the Head of Helios to the left, you will reveal a red chest. Head up the ladder. This part is hard to do the first try, so read up if you want that trophy. Pandora is trapped in that glass box, which is filling with water. First, you have to pull the handle on the left side all the way out. Immediately afterwards, run up the wall using the Boots of Hermes. DON'T TRY TO CLIMB. It just wastes time. From atop this wall, jump over to the glass box, then jump to the grate on the back wall to the right of the box. It will fall. Climb to the underside of the box that just came out, then up to the top. Use the Icestorm on the red lock. The room will flip and you will be hanging. As soon as it flips, start heading toward the side of the box you are hanging from, or you will be forced into the fans. Climb on top, then jump on the wall and go across. Wait for the spiked box to go up, then drop down, and jump when it passes, then climb to the top of the glass box. Turn the crank and it will drop the box. Use the Icestorm on the red lock on the wall. Break the glass and rescue Pandora. Phew. That was fun. Head outside and save at the save point and grab the green and blue chests. Walk forward after the scene. This part sucks, too. First, you have to deal with three sirens and some shielded Sentries. Then, a few Wraiths spawn. Then more Sirens. And then the Minotaurs. And then some more shielded enemies. Then more Sirens and Wraiths. Then more shielded guys. Then another Minotaur and a Siren. Then a couple more Wraiths. No, I'm not making this up, an yes, you are expected to kill all of them. If you're on a higher difficulty, I don't even know what advice to give here. Just kill as best as you can. Good luck, dude. Once you clear them all out, there is a red chest on the left side and a chest containing a (?) on the right, both of which must be revealed with the Head of Helios. Grab the piece of fabric on the ground, then pull the lever to open the hatch for Pandora. Step on the switch on top and the platform will raise. If you did alllll that without dying, you will get the aMAZEd trophy once you reach the top. Follow Pandora. Save at the save point, then walk to Pandora for a scene. Dodge all the stuff as you fall, just like in previous falling sequences. Where the hell are all these rocks coming from? You're not using the wings, you're just freefalling, so you start to pick up speed pretty quick. Stuff starts to fly by, so be sure to dodge in a pinch. =================================SUB=BOSS=FIGHT================================ **Cerberus Breeder** =============================================================================== This...part...bloooooows... The first time I did this, I fought this battle at LEAST 20 times on MEDIUM. Then again, I didn't really do much exploring, so I had hardly any upgrades for health and all that junk. If you've been following my guide, you should be fully upgraded by now, on your health, magic, and item meters, and your weapons. For your sake, I hope you have been, especially at the higher difficulties. Here's the rundown: When you land, a Cerberus Breeder spawns. No big deal, right? He keeps spawning Cerberus Whelps, which get near you, then explode. Reeeally annoying, but still manageable. Once you tear off the first head, a Satyr spawns, and the Breeder attacks more relentlessly. Come on. That's so lame. But wait! There's more! When you tear off the second head, ANOTHER Satyr spawns. So now, you're dealing with the unrelenting attacks of the Breeder, the constantly spawning exploding Whelps, and two Satyrs. If the Satyrs didn't really bother you before, you'll reeeally learn to hate them now. The best way I found to beat this guy is to ferociously attack the hell out of the Breeder only with the Cestus until it dies completely, then take out the Satyrs. You get a health and magic boost when you kill the Breeder, which helps. Don't be afraid to spam your magic, especially the Lv. 3 Army of Sparta with the arrow drop. No matter how much you might want to, do NOT grab the dogs. See, this game has a priority setting which causes you to always grab for the nearest, STRONGEST enemy, meaning you will always grab toward the Satyrs. This is fine, but once you grab them, the dog will just explode, doing nothing but causing you damage. Just kill the Breeder, then the Satyrs, and you should be fine. =============================================================================== When you're done, you might wanna save at the save point in the background. Hop on the button in the middle to raise the chain. You don't have enough time to punch the crystal away, so we have to stop the judges from pulling it down. Head to the portal in the back on the right side. There is a white chest on the left and an alternating chest on the right. Grab them, then head through the portal. Once through, head left and break the crystal in the back of the first statue's head. Kill the enemies that appear, or just run, since they can't cross the gap, and go to the right to find the next statue. Give this one brain damage as well, then continue to the right. Kill the Sentinels that appear and head to the third judge's head. A Satyr and some Sentinels appear, so take them out. Once that's done, there is a chest with a (?) on the left of the statue's head. Jump onto the vines on the right side of the doorway with all the rubble and slide down to the platform underneath. After you play Mike Tyson's Punchout! with the back of the final judge's head, there is nothing holding the chain in place. Climb back up the vines and make your way back through the Hyperion Gate to the lower level. Now, break the crystal at the base of the chain and it will, in a sweeping, unrealistic pattern, destroy the judges. Anyway, dodge stuff again on the way back up. Same ol', same ol'. Huh. Funny. I remember that being a lot longer on the way down. Save, then use the grapple point and start a-climbing. Once you reach the top of the chain, jump off and head up the spiral stairs to the Flame of Olympus. Start turning the crank (it'll be a while) until a long cinematic occurs. Cool. Here goes. Game time. ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Zeus** =============================================================================== Finally. The big man himself. Look at his magnificent beard swaying like a branch on a birch tree in the spring breeze. Sigh. Uh...err, sorry. The fight with Zeus, like any boss fight worth its salt, is a multi-part battle. You start out on a small beam. You can only move left and right. Whenever you aren't dodging, you should be attacking. Constantly barrage him with your Bow of Apollo, and use a faster weapon like the Claws of Hades or the Nemesis Whip. Zeus likes to disappear. When he reappears, he will attack. If he starts punching you, either get out of there, or parry one of the first two punches. Otherwise, he will do an unblockable third attack. When he goes airborne and starts throwing lightning bolts, you can parry them and reflect them back at him for some damage. Just keep attacking him with everything you've got. Use the Bow of Apollo when he's far away. Then Nemesis Whip works well when he's in close. The magic attack from the Nemesis Whip works pretty well, too. After you do enough damage, a O prompt appears above Zeus. Push it to initiate a CSS. You get a bunch of health and magic orbs. Round 2. Fight! Zeus has pretty much the same strategy this time around, but now he will call lightning from the ground, and you have to jump to dodge it, but you can actually parry this attack, which helps. He will also occasionally take to the air and charge at you, so be ready to dodge accordingly. When you do enough damage, press O a second time and do the CSS. You get more health and magic, and there's another cinematic. Head around to the save point, then go out the door. Glide down to the arena with Zeus. Now the fight is 3d. Same tactics pretty much apply: Bow of Apollo when he's far away, combos with the Nemesis Whip when he's close. His attacks now consist of lightning-infused punches, quick dashes toward Kratos, and lightning bolt things that he throws at you, which you can deflect back at Zeus. Once you've done enough damage, Gaia climbs up and attacks the area with her fancy new tree-hand. You think that they would have heard her coming. Head through the crack in the wall, just like in the beginning, and climb the vines up, across the ceiling, and back down the other side. Drop down on the platform and glide over to Gaia's heart. Now you can break that fancy blue stuff around her heart, so switch to the Nemean Cestus and punch away. After you break it, you get a bunch of red orbs, as if you really need them at this point, and Gaia's heart is exposed. Burn the bramble surrounding it with the Bow of Apollo, then start attacking it. It also refills your health in the process. Neat! Keep attacking until Zeus appears. Here's the hardest part of the fight with Zeus. Don't be afraid to use whatever magic you have left. He uses the same tactics as earlier, except now he makes clones of himself as well. Use the same strategy as before, with the Bow and the Nemesis Whip, and use as much magic as you want. Periodically, Gaia will sigh and her heart will start glowing. Immediately cease your attack and wail on the heart. It gives you health orbs whenever you attack it, and if you don't, Zeus will use it to regain health instead, so make sure you get them first. When Zeus starts floating, he will make clones of himself, and each one will smash into the ground with a lightning area attack, with the final one being the strongest. Jump around and air dodge to avoid it. Zeus likes to hang back and let the copies attack you, so make sure you look for which one is really Zeus (he has the two cloth pieces hanging from his little skirt thingy). After you hit Zeus enough, you will get a bunch of health and magic orbs, and O will appear above his head. Grab him and do the long CSS that takes place. Bam. Two birds with one giant glowing sword. After the cinematic, go up to the glowing spot and push R1. More stuff happens. Follow the loooooooong path forward. Follow the blood trail when you reach it. Who the hell has that much blood? Scene. Keep going. Push R1 at the body. Go forward more. Follow the blood trail again to get rid of it using the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser that you just found. Go up and push R1 to give a BRUTAL ULTRAHUG! Keeeep going. Pass the body. When the camera zooms back to the body, go back to it and push R1. Follow the fire and push R1 at the ledge. Swim to the lantern and grab it. Just keep swimming, just keep swim-ming. After you erase enough red junk with your magical flashlight, follow the light. After about an hour of swimming, you'll reach an island. Open the box. Spiraling, fancy words of encouragement, then awesomeness. Start hitting Square a lot. Triangle works too. Start punching, and punching, and punching, and punching, and punching, and punching. And punching. The sequence won't end until you stop pressing O. Enjoy the ending. =============================================================================== After the game, you unlock Challenges, Chaos Mode (Very Hard), the Fear Kratos costume, which is the only costume you get through in-game achievements and not downloads, and the cutscene and making-of videos. =============================================================================== VI. COLLECTABLES [COLECT] =============================================================================== 1) Godly Possessions [GODLYK] Godly Possessions are one-of-a-kind items that you can activate after you beat the game ON THAT DIFFICULTY. Each Possession has some kind of effect that makes you stronger, but it also disables trophies when active. They are listed here in the order in which you obtain them. *(eg.)* +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Godly Possession |What it Does | |---------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| |How/Where to Find it | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Zeus' Eagle |Grants infinite Rage of Sparta. | |---------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| |As soon as you enter the Heart of Gaia, climb the vines on the right. It is | |on the ledge above. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Hades' Helm |Maxes out Health, Magic, and Item | | |Meters. | |---------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| |After beating Hades, swim to the bottom of the River Styx. The helm is laying| |on the riverbed. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Helios' Shield |Increases the Hits Counter by 3x. | |---------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| |After you get the Head of Helios, use it to the right of his body to find the| |shield. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Hermes' Coin |Collect 10x the amount of red orbs. | |---------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| |During the sequence where you follow Hermes, after you fire the ballista, the| |coin can be found to the right of the statue's head after the scene. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Hercules' Shoulder Guard |Decreases damage taken by a third. | |---------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| |After the fight with Hercules, dive down into the water underneath his body | |to find the Shoulder Guard. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Poseidon's Conch Shell |Grants infinite Magic. | |---------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| |In Poseidon's Chambers, after you get into the room with the Poseidon's | |Princess, the shell is to the right of the portal by the Gorgon Eye chest. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Aphrodite's Garter |Lets you keep using Athena's Blades, | | |rather than the Blades of Exile. | |---------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| |In Aphrodite's Chamber, stand to the side of the bed, then jump behind it. | |The Garter is in this area. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Hephaestus' Ring |Automatically win all CSS attacks. | |---------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| |After acquiring the Nemesis Whip, go to the left. The ring is that big silver| |boxy thing by the pool of water. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Daedalus' Schematics |Grants infinite Item use. | |---------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| |Refer to the "Upper Gardens Part Deux!" section of the walkthrough for the | |details on how to get the Schematics. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Hera's Chalice |Causes the Health Meter to slowly | | |drain over time, but not fully. | |---------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| |You obtain this automatically after the scene with Hera in the Upper Gardens.| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Gorgon Eyes [EYEBAL] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Phoenix Feathers [BIRDYS] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Minotaur Horns [<3BEEF] =============================================================================== VII. CHALLENGES [CHLNGE] =============================================================================== *Under Construction* =============================================================================== VIII. CHARACTERS [PEEPLZ] =============================================================================== Here, I will give a brief bio on all the major characters of the God of War III game. -Aphrodite- The Goddess of love. You can bone her in a cheesy minigame. -Athena- The Goddess of War and Civilization and junk. She is a green ghosty thing in this game, since you killed her in the last game. Whoopsy. -Cronos- A Titan and Zeus' father. Has the Temple of Pandora chained to his back. -Gaia- A Titan. Gaia's a big rocky Earth lady. She helps you out in the last game, and she is who you are riding to the top of Mt. Olympus in the beginning of GoW3. -Hades- The God of the Underworld. His character design kinda reminds me of a fatter version of Zoah from Chrono Cross. -Helios- God of the Sun. Rides a big flaming chariot. His head also doubles as a flashlight. -Hephaestos- The Smith God. He is voiced by Rip Torn, the man with the world's coolest name. He made Pandora and forged the box that is contained in the Flame of Olympus. -Hera- Wife of Zeus. She doesn't really do much other than drink and have a big ass head. -Hercules- Kratos' brother. He is voiced by Kevin Sorbo, the man who played Hercules in the TV show. -Hermes- The Messenger of the Gods. The most annoying character in this game. The moment you meet this dude, you immediately think "I'm gonna rip this dude's legs off." -Kratos- The anti-hero of the God of War saga. After accidentally killing his wife and daughter, Calliope, his skin turned a pale white, stained with the ashes of his family. After getting revenge on the Ares, the God of War, whom Kratos held responsible for the death of his family, Kratos set his sights on his father, Zeus, while taking out everyone and everything in his way. -Pandora- The non-living, non-dead creature made by Hephaestos. -Poseidon- Zeus' brother and the God of the Sea. Has a trident and junk. -Zeus- The ruler of Mt. Olympus and Kratos' father. Zeus seeks to stop Kratos from undoing the order established by the Olympians. Also, his beard is absolutely magnificent. =============================================================================== IX. BADDIES [OHNOEZ] =============================================================================== *Under Construction* =============================================================================== X. BOSSES [BIGUNS] =============================================================================== --Sub-Bosses-- [MINI1S] =================================SUB=BOSS=FIGHT================================ **Big Water Horse Thing Fight 1** (Actual name?) =============================================================================== That was quick. You don't have much room to move. It mostly just uses one attack this round, which is a breath attack that is very deadly to take the full force of, especially on higher difficulties. The trick here is timing and position. Only attack from the left side, so he directs his breath attack to the left. As soon as he is about to unleash it, quickly roll to the right and hold L1. If you do it right, you will probably be pushed to the back by the force of the attack, but you won't take any damage. Just keep attacking and dodging until Gaia's hand gets pulled back. Now you're in a hanging fight. Dammit. The horse will now just draw back one of his legs and slam it down on you. Just watch which leg he lifts, then push X while moving to dodge accordingly. Keep attacking in the meantime until Gaia pulls her hand back. And now you're fighting from a wall. The horse still uses the leg slam move, but now it also has its breath attack back. Just dodge the legs like you have been, and move all the way to the opposite side to dodge the breath attack. You can tell when it's charging up for it, because both of its legs will be down, but its head will start to pull back. Keep attacking until the arena shifts again. You're back on level ground. Use the same tactic as earlier to dodge the breath attack; roll, then hold L1. If the horse quickly pulls its head back, roll down away from the horse, because it stabs four of its legs into the ground closest to it. It will also still pull back one leg at a time and slam it down like before, so be prepared to roll dodge. After doing enough damage, a O button will appear above the horse's head and you get to do your first context sensitive sequence. Push the buttons that appear and prepare for awesomeness. =============================================================================== =================================SUB=BOSS=FIGHT================================ **Big Water Horse Thing Fight 2** (Actual name?) =============================================================================== All right, you semi-translucent water-snake-crab-horse bastard. Let's go. The battle's a little different this time around. The horse will do one move where it hits the ground in front of it three times in a row with three different legs. Your best bet is to jump towards it, get a 2 or 3-hit combo, then land and roll away before it hits you. When it starts to rear up slowly, it's about to pound the ground. The shockwave hits you as long as you are on the ground, so make sure to jump. Eventually, it will start to crawl towards you. When it does this, it pins you in the corner and hits you point blank with a blast of breath. start wailing on it with heavy attacks to knock him back before it gets the move off. If you don't have time, just have Kratos use Whirlwind, since it's super- effective. By Whirlwind, I mean push R2, in case you didn't get the reference. After you've done enough damage, O will appear above the creature's chest. Do the context sensitive sequence, and the fight will continue. Now you can throw the broken claw it's chest, but since its ribcage-thingy isn't completely open, it will just bounce off and cause it to do its breath attack. You're gonna have to stagger it first. It has the same attacks, except now it will do a breath attack from afar. If you spend this entire fight touching the horse's nearest claw on YOUR left side, and you block when he does his claw or breath attacks and jump when he does the shockwave, you can go through the entire fight without taking damage. Just make sure you jump far enough away when he does the shockwave, or else his claw will hit you. Again, after doing enough damage, O will appear. Do the CSS to rip open his chest, then go to the broken piece of claw and push R1. Another ass thoroughly kicked. =============================================================================== =================================SUB=BOSS=FIGHT================================ **Twin Cerberus Breeders** =============================================================================== Despite the name, these guys don't actually do a whole lot of breeding. Just attacking, mostly. The Cerberus aren't actually too tough. They mostly shoot fireballs at you, which you can parry and deflect back at them. Focus on one, damaging it until you get the CSS to rip one of its heads off. Do the CSS three times to kill it, then work on the remaining one. They hit each other with fireballs a lot, which makes the fight easier for you. The best method is to hang back and shoot at them with the Bow of Apollo and deflect incoming fireballs, and attack with your Blades when they come near. Parrying is your best friend in this fight, because you can parry all their attacks. Just hope you've got your Blades to at least level two. =============================================================================== =================================SUB=BOSS=FIGHT================================ **Cerberus Breeder** =============================================================================== This...part...bloooooows... The first time I did this, I fought this battle at LEAST 20 times on MEDIUM. Then again, I didn't really do much exploring, so I had hardly any upgrades for health and all that junk. If you've been following my guide, you should be fully upgraded by now, on your health, magic, and item meters, and your weapons. For your sake, I hope you have been, especially at the higher difficulties. Here's the rundown: When you land, a Cerberus Breeder spawns. No big deal, right? He keeps spawning Cerberus Whelps, which get near you, then explode. Reeeally annoying, but still manageable. Once you tear off the first head, a Satyr spawns, and the Breeder attacks more relentlessly. Come on. That's so lame. But wait! There's more! When you tear off the second head, ANOTHER Satyr spawns. So now, you're dealing with the unrelenting attacks of the Breeder, the constantly spawning exploding Whelps, and two Satyrs. If the Satyrs didn't really bother you before, you'll reeeally learn to hate them now. The best way I found to beat this guy is to ferociously attack the hell out of the Breeder only with the Cestus until it dies completely, then take out the Satyrs. You get a health and magic boost when you kill the Breeder, which helps. Don't be afraid to spam your magic, especially the Lv. 3 Army of Sparta with the arrow drop. No matter how much you might want to, do NOT grab the dogs. See, this game has a priority setting which causes you to always grab for the nearest, STRONGEST enemy, meaning you will always grab toward the Satyrs. This is fine, but once you grab them, the dog will just explode, doing nothing but causing you damage. Just kill the Breeder, then the Satyrs, and you should be fine. =============================================================================== --Bosses-- [BIGR1S] ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Poseidon** =============================================================================== Poseidon's not too tough. This fight has a couple parts. For the first section, Poseidon will summon lightning, and send the horses to attack. The ground starts to spark before lightning strikes, so get out of that area. If the camera leans left, the horse will attack on the left, and if the camera leans right, it will attack on the right. Your need to knock away all of the claws that are imbedded in Gaia to progress. Just keep attacking each one until it lets up. After you knock away both claws on either side, push R1 to jump to Gaia's hand. Poseidon's attacks are kinda annoying. They consist of punching the ground in front of him, backhanding Kratos away, and stabbing the ground with his trident one or three times. The difference between his stab attacks is that with the single stab, he raises up slowly, then continuously electrocutes the ground, and with the triple stab, he quickly stabs the ground three times, getting closer to you each time. You can block his two fist attacks, but the trident attacks you must dodge. When he draws back with both hands on the trident, he will strike once, so just roll away from him. When he draws back with just his right hand, he will strike three times, in which case you need to climb more than halfway up the vine wall in order to avoid damage. Just keep attacking Poseidon quickly, retreating when necessary. Use your magic as much as you want, since you get some more after this. Eventually, you will do enough damage so that O appears above Poseidon. Climb up the vine wall and onto the upper area, then grab him and do the CSS that follows. Back to Gaia's head. Same thing as last time, only now the attacks are quicker, and Poseidon will do a lightning strike that will sweep the entire area one section at a time, so make sure you roll away after the second one strikes so you don't get caught by the third one, or use magic so you don't take damage. In fact, you could use nothing but magic (it takes three per claw on Titan mode), since you get more after you knock away a set of claws. Keep up the attack until both sets of claws let go, then do the CSS for a badass scene. Push O on Poseidon for another badass CSS, followed by another badass scene. =============================================================================== ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Hermes** =============================================================================== This isn't really much of a boss fight, but I couldn't really think of how else to work it in. Anyway, all you need to do is keep attacking Hermes with light attacks. He likes to run away, then attack you quickly as he passes. Just be sure to block or dodge and keep attacking. His attacks don't do much damage, but they're hard to see coming, so be careful. You can't really shoot him with the Bow, because he will just dodge the arrows. You will get some health orbs at certain waypoints during the fight. Eventually, a scene will take place, during which, Kratos doesn't really listen to what Hermes says. He just realizes that he likes those fancy boots. Press O near Hermes for an awesome CSS, after which you get the Boots of Hermes. =============================================================================== ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Hercules** =============================================================================== Kill all the enemies that appear, including the Archers up top, for a scene. "Minions! Bring me my punchy gloves!" Herc joins the fight. If he issues an order to his underlings, they will try to pile up on you, so air dash away. Just keep attacking Herc (using the Sentries as battering rams is a really safe method) and eventually, he will run at you. Hammer on O to take control, then run Hercules into one of the spiked walls that line the arena. You will rip off a piece of his armor and get some health orbs. After you run him into the wall a second time, he will get rid of all the minor enemies. He likes to block most of your attacks now, so wait for him to attack, then dodge and counterattack when you have an opening. Stay on the attack, and eventually Hercules will slam his gauntlets together, and the resulting soundwaves will temporarily blind you. Not sure how that works, but whatever. When you come to, Herc will be facing Hera, saying "Look, Mommy! Herky did good!" Run up behind him and push O to initiate a CSS. Don't screw it up, or you have to damage him until he hits his gauntlets together again. After the CSS, you will steal his Metal Fisty Punches. Keep attacking Hercules and he will knock you across the arena. Dodge the rock that he throws, then attack more. He will try to give you a great big hug, so hammer O to punch him in the face until he puts you down. Kratos hates manhugs. Keep attacking Hercules (almost all your light attacks stagger him) until he does another rock throw. He tries to hug you a lot now, so be more cautious with your attacks. After doing enough damage, he will run to the gate and start lifting the whole arena up. Do the CSS that ensues and you will bring the arena down on top of Hercules. Show him some brotherly love by hammering O until his face looks like ground beef. If you stop pushing O at any time, you can look to see how the damage to his face progresses. After you've punched him enough, a scene will occur. =============================================================================== ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Cronos** =============================================================================== It just occurred to me that this guy is your grandpa. This is a pretty self-explanatory fight, but I'm still going to describe it in unnecessarily great detail. Start hammering on Circle so you don't get pinched to death. After you give Cronos a nasty papercut and his eyes start sprinkling (...?), hit him with a charged blast from the Head of Helios. Press the button when prompted to skydive down to Cronos' right hand. Start taking out the enemies until the camera zooms back out. Start climbing up his arm and attack the boil that's in the way until it pops. Ew. Take out the enemies that appear, but be careful, because Cronos likes to breathe his hot old man breath on you. When he grabs his arm, attack his fingernail until it breaks. Press Circle when it pops up to rip off the remainder of his fingernail. God, Kratos sucks at manicures. When he goes to slap his arm, make sure you don't stand in the shadows, or you will be crushed. When his hand sets down, climb onto his finger. Once he lifts his hand to his face, hit him with another blast from the Head of Helios. If you don't get it off in time, make sure you press the right button in the context sensitive sequence, or you will be blown away. Once that is done, push the button when prompted to grab on to him again. Make your way up and across to the metal platform. Kill all the enemies that appear, then open the metal doors. Attack the fleshy thing until it rips, then a bunch more enemies appear and Cronos grabs you. After Cronos tries to crush you, hammer on the Circle button. Move across his hand, then swing up to the top. As soon as you land, start running toward the camera, ignoring the enemies, and press R1 when prompted. Kill the enemies at the top, and a skeleton cyclops will burst out of Cronos' shoulder. Why was that in there? Anyway, attack it until Circle appears, then do the context sensitive sequence to take control of the cyclops. Use it to attack the fleshy spot that it came out of until Cronos moves. Push the buttons that appear. After Cronos eats you, start sliding down by holding R1. Once the camera switches to outside his body, smash the Circle button to slice up his insides and junk. You burst forth from his body, along with his intestines and the kidney stone that Hephaestos needs to make your new weapon. Cool. Climb up and glide over to that metal platform with the blue crystal on it again. Attack it with the Cestus, then push the buttons that appear to nail Cronos through the chin. Break the remaining crystal and move to his forehead, then press Circle and follow the prompts to finish off Cronos. Bye, Grandpa! =============================================================================== ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Giant Scorpion** (actual name?) =============================================================================== When the big dude jumps up, he grabs you and tries to eat you. Push L1 and R1 repeatedly to free yourself. The Giant Scorpion has a few moves. He will shove you with his claws, slam his tail on the ground, swipe with his claws, and summon more little scorpions. Stay out from in front of him to avoid getting hit by his claws and roll or air dodge when he slams his tail on the ground. To hurt him, you need to switch to the Nemean Cestus and punch his legs out. Be careful, because when you are on his side, you are an easier target for his tail attack. He will also occasionally jump or turn quickly to get away from you. After you break all three legs on one side, he falls. Get to his front and wail away at his face until Circle appears above his head. Press Circle to initiate a context sensitive sequence. Tap Circle, but don't screw up, or you'll have to break his legs again. You get some health and magic orbs when you successfully complete the CSS. When he reappears, repeat the process on the other side of his body. He will sometimes leave the arena and a bunch of little scorpions will flood in. It really helps on the harder difficulties to hit all the legs until they are red before you break the first three, so that you don't have to hit them as much the second time around. When you initiate the CSS again, push the button that appears and you will fall from the arena. Dodge the falling icicles on the way up and push the buttons that appear to finish him off. When he crystalizes, hit him until he breaks, then break the tailpiece to get the BOREAS ICESTORM, which is a key for the Labyrinth. =============================================================================== ===================================BOSS=FIGHT================================== **Zeus** =============================================================================== Finally. The big man himself. Look at his magnificent beard swaying like a branch on a birch tree in the spring breeze. Sigh. Uh...err, sorry. The fight with Zeus, like any boss fight worth its salt, is a multi-part battle. You start out on a small beam. You can only move left and right. Whenever you aren't dodging, you should be attacking. Constantly barrage him with your Bow of Apollo, and use a faster weapon like the Claws of Hades or the Nemesis Whip. Zeus likes to disappear. When he reappears, he will attack. If he starts punching you, either get out of there, or parry one of the first two punches. Otherwise, he will do an unblockable third attack. When he goes airborne and starts throwing lightning bolts, you can parry them and reflect them back at him for some damage. Just keep attacking him with everything you've got. Use the Bow of Apollo when he's far away. Then Nemesis Whip works well when he's in close. The magic attack from the Nemesis Whip works pretty well, too. After you do enough damage, a O prompt appears above Zeus. Push it to initiate a CSS. You get a bunch of health and magic orbs. Round 2. Fight! Zeus has pretty much the same strategy this time around, but now he will call lightning from the ground, and you have to jump to dodge it, but you can actually parry this attack, which helps. He will also occasionally take to the air and charge at you, so be ready to dodge accordingly. When you do enough damage, press O a second time and do the CSS. You get more health and magic, and there's another cinematic. Head around to the save point, then go out the door. Glide down to the arena with Zeus. Now the fight is 3d. Same tactics pretty much apply: Bow of Apollo when he's far away, combos with the Nemesis Whip when he's close. His attacks now consist of lightning-infused punches, quick dashes toward Kratos, and lightning bolt things that he throws at you, which you can deflect back at Zeus. Once you've done enough damage, Gaia climbs up and attacks the area with her fancy new tree-hand. You think that they would have heard her coming. Head through the crack in the wall, just like in the beginning, and climb the vines up, across the ceiling, and back down the other side. Drop down on the platform and glide over to Gaia's heart. Now you can break that fancy blue stuff around her heart, so switch to the Nemean Cestus and punch away. After you break it, you get a bunch of red orbs, as if you really need them at this point, and Gaia's heart is exposed. Burn the bramble surrounding it with the Bow of Apollo, then start attacking it. It also refills your health in the process. Neat! Keep attacking until Zeus appears. Here's the hardest part of the fight with Zeus. Don't be afraid to use whatever magic you have left. He uses the same tactics as earlier, except now he makes clones of himself as well. Use the same strategy as before, with the Bow and the Nemesis Whip, and use as much magic as you want. Periodically, Gaia will sigh and her heart will start glowing. Immediately cease your attack and wail on the heart. It gives you health orbs whenever you attack it, and if you don't, Zeus will use it to regain health instead, so make sure you get them first. When Zeus starts floating, he will make clones of himself, and each one will smash into the ground with a lightning area attack, with the final one being the strongest. Jump around and air dodge to avoid it. Zeus likes to hang back and let the copies attack you, so make sure you look for which one is really Zeus (he has the two cloth pieces hanging from his little skirt thingy). After you hit Zeus enough, you will get a bunch of health and magic orbs, and O will appear above his head. Grab him and do the long CSS that takes place. Bam. Two birds with one giant glowing sword. After the cinematic, go up to the glowing spot and push R1. More stuff happens. Follow the loooooooong path forward. Follow the blood trail when you reach it. Who the hell has that much blood? Scene. Keep going. Push R1 at the body. Go forward more. Follow the blood trail again to get rid of it using the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser that you just found. Go up and push R1 to give a BRUTAL ULTRAHUG! Keeeep going. Pass the body. When the camera zooms back to the body, go back to it and push R1. Follow the fire and push R1 at the ledge. Swim to the lantern and grab it. Just keep swimming, just keep swim-ming. After you erase enough red junk with your magical flashlight, follow the light. After about an hour of swimming, you'll reach an island. Open the box. Spiraling, fancy words of encouragement, then awesomeness. Start hitting Square a lot. Triangle works too. Start punching, and punching, and punching, and punching, and punching, and punching. And punching. The sequence won't end until you stop pressing O. Enjoy the ending. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== XI. WEAPONS, ITEMS, AND RELICS [SWISSY] =============================================================================== *Under Construction* =============================================================================== XII. COSTUMES [DRSSUP] =============================================================================== These are the various costumes you can get in God of War III and their different perks. *(ie.)* +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Costume Name |How to Get | +----------------------------+------------------------------------------------+ |Costume Description | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Special Effects | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Kratos |You begin the game with this costume. | +----------------------------+------------------------------------------------+ |Normal Kratos. Pale skin with red boots, gloves, loin-cloth thingy, and | |stripes on face and body. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |No special effects. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Fear Kratos |Beat the game on any difficulty. | +----------------------------+------------------------------------------------+ |All black skin, eyes, and clothing with bright red stripes on chest and face.| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Quadruples attack damage, but quadruples damage taken as well. Disables | |trophies when in use. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ =============================================================================== XIII. TROPHIES [PLATNM] =============================================================================== ****CONTAINS SPOILERS**** If you're anything like me, you're a total trophy whore. This is a complete list and description on how to get every GoWIII Trophy. The trophies for this game are relatively easy to get, compared to games like MvC2 and Rock Band 2. Story-related trophies are ones that are obtained without having to do anything special, other than progressing through the game normally. *(eg.)* +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Trophy Name |Brnz/Slvr/Gold/Plat| Difficulty | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | How to Obtain | | | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | King of the Hill | Platinum | Pretty Tough | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Simple. Just get every other trophy in the game. The Platinum trophy is never| |really hard to get by itself; it's the other trophies that make it hard. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Releasing the Floodgates | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. You get it after killing Poseidon. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Burnt to a Crisp | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Acquire the Bow of Apollo. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Mr. Hand | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Find the secret "Hades Arm" Room. I will explain how to get this in the | |Judges of the Underworld section of the Walkthrough. (Search "Mr. Hand") | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Shine Lord | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Kill Helios. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Shoe Delivery | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Kill Hermes and take his Boots. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ |I didn't do it...But I wish | Bronze | Easy | |I did! | | | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Use the Poseidon Princess as a doorstop. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Ladies Man | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Successfully complete the Aphrodite Love Minigame CSS. Kinda short, | |considering what you are doing... | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Handy Man | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Sever Gaia's hand. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Open Sesame | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |I'm not a GOW savant or anything; these really are all that easy. Story- | |related. Open the Gates of Tisiphone. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Rescue Me | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Save Pandora. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Three Wise Men | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Solve the Three Judges. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Hit Man | Bronze | Hard | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Here we go. First one that isn't easy. The reason I rated it as Hard is that | |there are only a few places where you can do this. The one that my buddy Dave| |told me about, and the one where I actually did it, is after you enter the | |City of Olympia. Remember the big gate? The one where you have to fight all | |the enemies in order to make the eyes on the gate stop glowing? Well, if you | |keep shooting with your Bow of Apollo and using your R1+O with the Claws of | |Hades, the attacks should be weak enough to rack up 1000 hits. I did this on | |my first playthrough on Normal mode, so the difficulty doesn't have to be too| |high. Just know that the higher the difficulty, the easier it is to get the | |trophy. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Rip One! | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Rip apart 1 Olympus Sentry. Easy. Just grab one Olympus Sentry enemy with O | |and hit Triangle to pull it apart. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Nice Tan | Bronze | Medium | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Blind 100 enemies with the Head of Helios. The only thing remotely difficult | |about this trophy is remembering to actually use the Head 100 times. Just | |use a charged blast whenever you get into a group of enemies to blind all of | |them. Shouldn't take long. A great place to get this one is at Poseidon's | |Chambers. Refer to the walkthrough section for details. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Obedience School | Bronze | Medium | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Kick 50 Hounds. Not really hard; just hard to remember to do. When you fight | |a Hound, grab it with O to kick it. Just keep kicking them until you get it. | |I bet Michael Vick wouldn't have any problems getting this one. *rimshot* A | |great place to get this one is at Poseidon's Chambers. Refer to the | |walkthrough section for details. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | It's getting hot in here.. | Bronze | Medium | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Burn 100 enemies with the Bow of Apollo. As with the Nice Tan trophy, the | |hardest part about this trophy is remembering to do it 100 times. Just know | |that you have to BURN the enemies with a charged shot; not shoot them. A | |great place to get this trophy is at Poseidon's Chambers. Refer to the | |walkthrough section for details. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Souled Out | Bronze | Kind of a Pain... | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Summon every Soul with the Claws of Hades. Well, step one is getting the | |Claws after beating Hades. Then you have to upgrade them to max to unlock all| |the possible souls, then you have to summon each one at least once in battle.| | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Bloody Hell | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Cover Kratos in 500 buckets of blood by killing the enemies. Probably the | |coolest trophy you'll get in this game. You'll get it eventually through a | |regular playthrough of the game. It's a pretty badass trophy concept. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | No Guts, No Glory | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Gut three Centaur Generals. There are only 3 of them in the whole game, so | |the only way you could possibly miss this trophy is if you kill them by using| |your normal attacks as opposed to the context sensitive sequences, in which | |you gut them. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Hitting Your Stride | Bronze | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Upgrade any weapon to the next level. Pretty self-explanatory. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Sibling Rivalry | Silver | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Kill Hercules. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Titan Slayer | Silver | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Kill Cronos. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Retribution | Silver | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Kill Zeus. The fight against Zeus isn't that easy, but since | |the trophy is obtained just by playing the story, I labeled it as Easy. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Hooker | Silver | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Kill Hades. Same as above; Hades is pretty tough, but getting | |the trophy isn't. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Freezer Burn | Silver | Easy | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Acquire the Boreas Icestorm. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ |Seeing things from a | Silver | Easy | |different perspective | | | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Story-related. Get through Hera's Gardens. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Eye Candy | Silver | Medium | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Collect all of the Gorgon Eyes. Along with the next two trophies, this would | |be pretty tough to do on your own. Fortunately, you have my guide to help you| |out. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Feather Plucker | Silver | Medium | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Collect all of the Phoenix Feathers. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Are You Horny to Win? | Silver | Medium | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Collect all of the Minotaur Horns. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Maxed Out! | Silver | Hard | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Completely upgrade all weapons. Well, I suppose it's not really that hard, | |considering I list so many red chest locations in my guide. You shouldn't | |have too many problems with this one. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Vengeance Complete | Gold | Depends | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Beat the game. Well, I suppose I could say that about most of these trophies.| |The difficulty of obtaining the trophy depends on what difficulty you choose | |to play through the game on. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Up to the Challenge | Gold | Pretty Damned Hard | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Beat the Challenge of Olympus. This is one of the only genuinely difficult | |trophies to obtain in this game. The Challenge of Olympus is tough, to say | |the least, and you can't change the difficulty. You just have to keep trying | |until you get it. Check the Challenges section for tips on the individual | |Challenges. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Unhuman | Gold | Hard | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Beat Titan Mode. This is the other legitimately difficult trophy to get. You | |have to have a certain degree of skill in order to obtain it. This was the | |last trophy I got before my Platinum. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | Priceless | Gold | Medium | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Get every Godly Possession. This isn't really any more difficult than getting| |the Gorgon Eyes and such. Refer to the Godly Possessions section for the | |locations of every individual item, or just read the damned walkthrough. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | aMAZEd | Gold | Hard | +----------------------------+-------------------+----------------------------+ | | |Beat the Labyrinth without dying or falling. Last trophy. This one can be a | |real pain in the ass to get, depending on whether or not you take any | |preventative measures. I didn't my first few playthroughs, so I kept missing | |my chance. Just make sure that you make a separate save just after you enter | |the Labyrinth, so you can restart if you screw up. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ =============================================================================== XIV. FAQS [STRFAX] =============================================================================== *Under Construction* I'll get some stuff here as soon as people start frequently asking me questions. =============================================================================== XV. LEGAL JUNK AND THANK YOUS [URWLCM] =============================================================================== This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other website or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. If you wanna use this guide on your website, e-mail me. If you decide to use it without my consent, I'll...probably not do anything. But don't do it anyway. Thanks to- -Dave, for the tips on getting the Hit Man trophy. -GiantBomb.com for the list of GoW characters and a little about them. -GameFAQs, for hosting this guide and the countless others like it. -Sony Computer Entertainment, for making the God of War saga. -You people, for reading this guide. =============================================================================== XVI. CONTACT ME [CALLME] =============================================================================== As I said earlier, if you wanna contact me, just e-mail me at shoddyironwork [at] yahoo [dot] com. It will probably take me a while to get back to you, because I always forget to check my e-mail, but I'll get around to it eventually. I'd prefer it if you put something about GoW3 in the title of the message, because I don't read 95% of the e-mails I get, so if you don't make it clear, I might delete your e-mail.