God of War II Glitch & Things of Interest FAQ
v. 3.6 --- completed 24. 2. 2019
Compiled and partially researched by AKheon.
Also special thanks to GMG for contributing a lot of info.
Much of video coverage and some writing by Findlestick.
See the end of the file for more info.
0. Table of contents & version history
--------------------------------------
0. Table of contents & version history
1. Introduction & abbreviations + glossary
2. General glitches, tricks and bugs
3. General info on Kratos and enemies
4. Level-by-level glitch walkthrough
5. Legal information, contact info, credits, etc.
Version history:
v. 3.6 (24. 2. 2019)
- added more contributions by Ahmad Shah as well as RagnellGoW.
- added newest skips & tech used by speedrunners.
File size: 327kb.
v. 3.5 (8. 1. 2017)
- a big update! Rewrote large parts of the FAQ.
- added a few contributions by Ahmad Shah.
File size: 323kb.
v. 3.1 (3. 7. 2015)
- updated speed records and other small things.
File size: 305kb.
v. 3.0 (30. 8. 2014)
- another large update.
- abridged version history.
- took out some rambling parts.
- rewrote many other sections for extra readability.
- added tricks and some videos.
- finally wrote up the enemy glitches section!
File size: 305kb.
v. 2.8 (5. 12. 2013)
- new Findlestick findings!
- also some KickTheBaby102's findings.
- small text fixes.
File size: 296kb.
v. 2.7 (29. 9. 2012)
- added two new Findlestick vids.
- slight text fixes.
File size: 284kb.
v. 2.6 (9. 6. 2012)
- spent a whole day cleaning the rest of the FAQ. Again, rewrote things, fixed
dead links, added links that were omitted for some reason, etc. This should be
the last new version in a while, at least until something new comes up...
File size: 283kb.
...
v. 0.8 (2. 12. 2008)
- the first published version, still misses a few things
File size: 91kb.
1. Introduction & abbreviations + glossary
------------------------------------------
Another glitch FAQ? Indeed it is. Like a sequel to the relatively successful
GoW 1 glitch FAQ, this file intends to compile all the known glitches and other
interesting things concerning God of War II. And as a good sequel should, it has
a more refined approach, a lot higher bodycount (with extra bucketfuls of gore)
and at least twice the amount of spontaneous jokes which may or may not have
anything to do with the topic at hand. You heard this one? A rabbi, swede and
Kratos walked to a bar...
We originally thought that this game didn't really have glitches. Many of the
groundbreaking stuff GoW 1 had, including but not limited to very high jumps,
many types of sequence breaks and regenerating magic were seemingly absent from
GoW 2. The developers had apparently taken heed of the shortcomings of the first
game's engine and fixed many things in it...
However, in 2008 attitudes changed drastically when BigVEE found both regen
magic AND high jump, suddenly taking us back to the dark ages where it wouldn't
have seemed too far-fetched to claim such strange things came directly from the
devil himself. Not long after that ManeshM84 proved the existence of a
"swimming glitch", familiar phenomenon from GoW 1, meaning that swimming in air
was now a possibility. Around these times Shenminiu also invented infinite jump
to go even higher. Will we find more ground-breaking glitches? Yes? No? Dammit,
I don't know. So let's change the subject.
The focus may be on glitches, but from this FAQ you will also find mentions of
the many hidden things the game is full of, and also some advanced strategy
tips. Apologies in advance for some messy writing.
Abbreviations:
GOW = God of War
GOWII = God of War II (simple enough)
QTE = Quick Time Event, the button-pressing minigames for example.
OoB = Out of Bounds
IJ = Infinite Jump
BoA = Blades of Athena
BH = Barbarian Hammer
SoD = Spear of Destiny
BoO = Blade of Olympus
MotK = Might of the Kings
RotT = Rage of the Titans
... and so on for all the main magics and attacks too.
NP = Normal Play
BP = Bonus Play
GMG = GodModeGOD
Shen = Shenminiu
c: = credits to
§ = note to self
Glossary (Combat):
Bounce =
An effect in which an enemy will bounce a bit after a successful hit. Not as
high as a launch.
Collision damage =
Damage from f.e. thrown enemies.
Downed =
An enemy which has fallen on its back/on the ground.
False grab =
A false grab is Kratos fumbling backwards after trying to grab an enemy who is
not vulnerable to grabs. Sometimes you can use false grabs to manipulate enemy
behaviour in an useful way, like against Gorgons in this game.
Invulnerability frames (a.k.a. i-frames, invincibility frames, etc.) =
Some moves contain small periods of time during which most attacks pass through
Kratos harmlessly and he receives no damage. For example all magics contain
a hefty amount of i-frames in this game.
Knockback =
An effect in which the enemy is thrown back. Can be done in air too.
Launch / Lift-up =
An attack intended for launching enemies high up in air, like any ascension.
Kratos himself rising in air during an ascension can be called a Lift-up.
Sweet spot =
A spot in a level where enemies become blind to Kratos, or are otherwise
powerless to hurt him. Sweet spots change with your enemies and their A.I.
limits. Some are listed in the level-specifics further down.
Glossary (Glitches and techniques):
Break-out =
Kratos escapes from a dedicated animation or a cutscene, interrupting it. Or
alternatively he retains movement during it in an unintended way. Break-outs
have their own section later on because it's an important glitch concept in
this game.
Cyclecancelling / sub-weapon switch =
Whenever you change sub-weapon from the menu, all sub-weapon related animations
instantly end. Interrupting sub-weapon animations like this increases Kratos'
overall attack speed and combat efficiency, and the technique also lends itself
to some less obvious uses. It has its own section later on.
Out of bounds / Out of map =
Anywhere outside the intended game area.
Tricking =
A term used by some long-time players of the series that can mean at least
two different things:
1. Avoiding enemy attacks with invulnerability frames that some moves produce.
2. Manipulating enemy behaviour by using the scenery (less common use).
Speedrun records for God of War II:
For real-time attack / single segment runs, feel free to check out the
leaderboards for God of War II at Speedrun.com, which are kept up to date
more faithfully than this FAQ probably is:
http://www.speedrun.com/gow2
And as for segmented runs...
Findlestick made a fast segmented run of God of War II in 2012 (on the PS3
version). It doesn't have all the known skips and techniques, and the in-game
time is not exactly clear, but it's generally a well made, optimized run. The
final time is approximately 1 hour 8 minutes 58 seconds.
Shenminiu did a segmented 3 hours 7 minutes and 25 seconds run on Titan-mode
back at 2007-2008. It's well performed and less about skips and glitches than
just kicking ass on Titan mode.
Videos:
1, findlestick's May 2012 easy BP PS3 run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev5QYixGiR0
2, shenminiu's Titan-mode run:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE766C46559CDAFAE
3. General glitches, tricks and bugs
------------------------------------
A. Major tricks
High Jump (found by GMG and Shenminiu, respectively)
--------- (later uses: Kevbew63 and ManeshM84)
The purpose of a high jump is to reach higher places than normally. Only a
little extra height is actually needed to go over many walls in this game and
start skipping important objectives.
Here's a quick video tutorial for those who want to jump right into action:
1, high jump tutorial video by ManeshM84:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_MEibteFkv0
High Jump Theory:
One fairly universal rule of God of War is that Kratos only has two jumps to
use. One for leaving ground, one double jump to use in air. You can't do much
with only two jumps, though. So how to get even higher than that?
1. Doing an ascension (holding down triangle for instance) gives Kratos a lot
of height, and it only expends the first jump of his two jumps. Unfortunately
the game restricts Kratos from using double jump after ascension.
2. Some air attacks in GoW 2 give Kratos height. But he can't chain them
together effectively or follow them up with a double jump either.
So, seems both of these avenues lead to a dead end... This is where the concept
of a "break-out" comes in. Break-out is a term for an action that returns Kratos
to neutral state in air, allowing you to bypass the restriction that normally
prevents you from double jumping after air attacks.
Knowing this, the formula for a basic high jump is nothing more than this:
1. get Kratos in air by either jumping or doing an ascension
2. optional attacks
3. break-out (read more below)
4. another jump / more attacks / whatever is needed.
The known ways to do a break-out:
1. Breaking out using Poseidon's Rage (a.k.a. PR high jump)
Poseidon's Urn is a bonus item only available during Bonus Play. Basically, it
allows you to cast Poseidon's Rage in place of Cronos' Rage. If the Urn is
turned off right in the middle of casting, you get a break-out: Kratos returns
to a neutral state and you can use your double jump in air. This works both
when turning the Urn on or off.
To be more precise, there are two ways of breaking out of PR. Turning off the
urn is far easier of the two ways, so start with that if you're new to this.
Try this: ascension - Poseidon's Rage at the top - (turn Urn off) - jump
2. Breaking out using Sub-weapon switching
You start getting sub-weapons around the half-way of the game, and you need
at least two to be able to switch around them. If you change sub-weapons from
the Start-menu during a dedicated sub-weapon animation, you get a break-out.
Try this: ascension (make sure to have a sub-weapon active before the next step)
- go to menu and switch sub-weapon - jump
3. Breaking out using upgrading (a.k.a. upgrade high jump)
Upgrading certain gear in the middle of an attack will cause a break-out.
This is one of the most convenient ways to do a high jump in a New Game, where
you can't access the above two methods as readily. You can do this with either
a sub-weapon or Cronos' Rage.
Other tips:
- if you need to do a high jump with little extra height, it is useful to have
BH as active sub-weapon and do MotK at the top of the ascension. MotK high jump
is the highest natural high jump, followed by PR high jump.
- if you only need to do a small jump, you can also high jump using the other
sub-weapons. Doing something like SoD ascension and then breaking out of its
fall is a very quick high jump method, so while it doesn't give you a ton of
height, its quick execution might save a little bit of time.
- in a speedrun it saves a little bit of time to Pause before casting PR in a
PR high jump. This way the PR barely gets to start and you basically do the
maneuver slightly more efficiently than normal.
- it's possible to use CR in place of PR in a PR high jump. However, using CR
you get less height, both because CR doesn't reset momentum and Kratos falls
while casting it, but also because PR itself lifts Kratos a little bit in air.
Doing the above timing trick helps you lose less height if you decide to use
CR. It's not a bad idea if you only need to do a small jump.
- regarding ascensions, there are three in this game during which Kratos is
immune to gravity, helping him move over chasms a bit or get extra height from
nearby collision. These are BoO ascension, Icarus Ascension and Hyperion Rise.
That's the most important things regarding basic high jumps. But there are also
other types of jump techniques in this game, such as...
Long jump (contributed to by ManeshM84, Kevbew63, AKheon)
--------- (possibly RJWaters2)
Here are some basic ideas and techniques for making your jumps longer.
- Use double jump economically
You get longer with your double jump (at the expense of some height) if you
delay the second jump.
- Use Glide
You get Icarus' Wings before the half-way point of the game, and they grant you
a very good way of moving long horizontal distances in air.
- Use ledges
When jumping off from ledges or ropes, Kratos does a jump at top horizontal
momentum that is easy to utilize for long jumping, especially combined with
other tactics on this list. Using ledges came more in handy in GoW 1, however.
- Use air attacks
Some aerial attacks move Kratos forward while slowing down his falling, enabling
better vertical movement in air. SoD and BoO air attacks are the best for this
purpose.
Also, you get better air momentum for your air attacks if you use them as soon
as possible after a jump.
- Use break-outs
Much like with high jumps, you can use break-outs to do longer long jumps. For
instance you can start doing air attacks from your first jump, then break-out,
then use second jump to effectively reset your air momentum and keep doing more
air attacks to get even more length.
- Reset air momentum
As mentioned, using a break-out and a double jump is one way to reset bad air
momentum and make it better again.
Another way (on Bonus Play only) is to use PR and break out of it. PR is a very
special attack since it resets Kratos' air momentum and thus can be especially
useful in some jumps. PR also resets horizontal momentum, enabling Kratos to
change directions mid-jump, which can come in handy in some specific cases.
Example:
In this very classic long jump example from 2007, the player starts his first
jump by doing SoD air attacks. Then he changes sub-weapon to break-out, then
Glides the rest of the way.
Videos:
1, ManeshM84's video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJhT1JzKbqA
More advanced long jump techniques:
"Double Glide Jump" (found by findlestick in 2014)
-------------------
If you run off certain ledges while holding down X, Kratos will instantly start
a Glide when there is no longer floor beneath him. But this is not a normal
Glide: it's a glitched Glide and you can still use both of your jumps and
another Glide during it! Being able to double Glide does wonders for your jump
length.
However, in God of War II most ledges have a sort of small collision lip on
them, preventing Kratos from running off them just like that. This limits the
use of this technique somewhat. But it still comes in handy in certain levels
around the game.
The trouble with Kratos' first jump is that it is itself affected by air
momentum. So if you do it deep into Double Glide Jump, it's almost unnoticeable
and gives Kratos almost no height. There's a way to remedy this, though: use PR
and switch its urn off before using your first jump to reset air momentum and
use the first jump more effectively, as if you were on ground.
Videos:
1, findlestick's example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYOR7GJG1ik
"PR long jump" (found by AKheon)
-------------
This trick was found in 2008 already, but didn't become a very commonly used
trick until recently, mostly due to its awkward timing.
As mentioned above, PR is a special air attack that resets Kratos' air momentum
and in that way helps him stay in air longer. You have two ways to break out of
it. The more common way is to turn off Poseidon's Urn, but this has the downside
of disabling the use of PR indefinitely. To get around this restriction, you
have no choice but to use the alternative, more tricky method of breaking out
of PR. Let's just call this one PR-cancelling.
The idea of PR-cancelling is that you break out of PR with a sub-weapon switch.
If you have a sub-weapon active but switch away from it right as you start
casting PR, the PR is cancelled too as a side effect. This can be done several
times in the same air combo to keep resetting Kratos' falling speed, making
your long jumps however long as you want.
How to actually do this: while long jumping and in the middle of a dedicated
sub-weapon animation, you got to open Pause-menu and PR before the menu opens
up. Then change sub-weapon to interrupt your current attack AND the PR that
is about to start. This resets Kratos' air momentum and leaves him idle but
also leaves PR active to use again. This action can be chained to do nearly
infinitely long jumps.
You can do this with any basic sub-weapon air attack, but you get the most
effective results by using BoO air triangle or BH air triangle. Don't try to
use the L1-attacks because those can't be interrupted with magic.
Videos:
1, AKheon's tutorial vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEMmzZKVBZM
2, AKheon's original vid
https://youtube.com/watch?v=mL0v-rIGSMA
Lenient Air Momentum (found by AKheon)
--------------------
This is not a jump trick by itself, but it should be covered at this point
before we move onto infinite jumps.
Lenient Air Momentum, or otherwise known as LAM, is a classic if fairly subtle
glitch in the God of War-series, and all the main games feature it in one way
or another.
You know Kratos has LAM if he moves slowly and his first jump is also floatier
than usual, although the effect doesn't last very long. The floaty jump is
beneficial for certain type of high and long jumps, although it should be said
that this tactic has a few limitations too. For instance, you lose all LAM if
you use double jump or use a lift-up, which means LAM is only useful in jumps
which start from a single jump.
Historically, this trick has come most in handy in GoW 1 and Ascension
speedruns, but recently people have started using LAM in GoW 2 as well.
The known ways to get LAM in GoW 2 are as follows:
1, do some air attack and hit either rope or water. You get a lot of leftover
air momentum as the attack interrupts. This is the easiest way to experience
LAM in GoW 2, but it's pretty limited since you can only do it near water or
ropes.
2, do an air attack but interrupt it very close to ground level by switching
sub-weapon to something different. Piercing Shards seems to generally give the
most LAM. The timing takes a bit of practice to get used to, though.
3, use the air special of BH right before hitting ground and then switch
weapons to interrupt it. This is the most practical way of the three to start
LAM since the timing is simple and you can do it wherever. (c: Speed Martyr)
LAM also has other side effects in GoW 1 like enabling you to breach water
surface. So far it's unknown if GoW 2 might have anything similar to that.
Infinite Jumps
--------------
1. BH IJ (found by Shenminiu in 2007)
The Barbarian Hammer Infinite Jump is a very simple trick in its core, but
nonetheless mastering it is quite difficult, thanks to many small quirks of
this game. The basic idea is that you repeatedly do MotK in air and keep
interrupting it by changing sub-weapons. You need at the very least two
sub-weapons and optimally PR to do a good BH IJ.
Have BH equipped as sub-weapon and try this:
Ascension -> R2, L1, start -> switch sub-weapons until you get to BH again
and wait for it to load -> exit start-menu -> (with correct timing) R2, L1,
start -> switch sub-weapon...
Videos:
1, findlestick's BH IJ tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka3anNZ9Sns
2, Shenminiu's original vid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5FktAFYB-vs
More detailed BH IJ instructions:
Phase 1: getting in air and doing first MotK
For some reason BH IJ has difficulties working after a jump. You should start
BH IJ from an ascension instead.
The Icarus Ascension (L1+X) is the most convenient ascension for the purposes
of this jump because it lets you do an ascension with BH equipped. So it's
quite simple to just do L1+X, then press L1 at the top to start first MotK and
get the jump rolling.
If you don't have Icarus Ascension, you have to do a normal Blades ascension,
then at the top quickly press R2 and L1 to do MotK.
Note that the height you get from first MotK varies depending on your timing.
Don't worry about it too much: getting the best height requires such a precise
timing that it's impossible to get it consistently. But keep in mind that
the subsequent MotKs in the infinite jump also get roughly the same or worse
amount of height, so your jump will gain height slower if you start with bad
air momentum.
Press Start soon after having done MotK. Kratos will get some height, and then:
Phase 2: inside Start-menu
Now you're in the Start-menu while Kratos is in the middle of doing a MotK.
To prevent Kratos from completing the attack and crashing down to ground level,
switch sub-weapon until you're at BH again.
It's recommended to wait a few seconds in the menu after having changed
sub-weapon before exiting the menu. Don't act too quickly. This is because the
game has to load the sub-weapon info all over again after you rotate the
sub-weapon wheel. The time you have to wait differs depending on the area
Kratos is in, and also whether you're playing on the PS2 or PS3 version.
Once you're ready leave the Start-menu, and get ready for...
Phase 3: doing another MotK
When you exit Start-menu, Kratos has Blades active and will start falling down
in just a second. So you got to be fast when doing this next part, but don't be
too fast: early button presses during the menu fade-out aren't always registered
by the game, resulting in your jump failing. This part just has to be practiced
so you know what is the right timing.
To get back to BH, you have to press R2. Then, to do MotK, you have to press L1.
And that's it. Just R2 and L1 in a quick succession. Make sure to not press
the buttons simultaneously, though - this can happen if you don't think about
what you're doing.
Then quickly press Start after having done MotK and before Kratos has fallen
down... And you're now back in Phase 2. Repeat until satisfied.
Phase 4: battle against time
Okay, so the jump really isn't that simple, is it. Basically, Kratos' air
momentum keeps getting worse and worse the longer you repeat these steps, and
as a result the repeated MotK attacks (or "charges" as we like to call them)
will give Kratos less and less height. You can prevent air momentum loss by
doing the jump as efficiently as possible. But outside that, you can try
resetting Kratos' air momentum.
PR comes in handy for this purpose once again. So whenever during your jump
you feel like Kratos is not gaining height any longer, have PR ready and use
it, then switch Poseidon's Urn off, then continue the IJ from where you left
off.
Using double jump to reset air momentum is possible, but for some reason you
can't follow up with repeated MotKs any longer, potentially ending your IJ.
You may avoid this by going into a PR after your double jump, but that also
wastes your positive air momentum and is not an effective way to use your double
jump. So it's generally the best to save your double jump as a "finisher" to
the whole IJ chain.
Phase 5: other details of the jump
Every time you do MotK, Kratos slowly moves backwards. It's helpful to turn him
facing the opposite direction to where you want to go during longer jumps.
It's possible to breach some ceilings by doing repeated MotKs, so that's another
nice benefit of knowing how to do this IJ.
If you don't like to press R2 -> L1 -> Start during the jump, it's also possible
to time your inputs another way. If you switch away from BH during MotK before
entering Pause-menu, Kratos is automatically wielding BH after having changed
sub-weapon. So now you can press L1 -> R2 -> Start with every cycle and it
works just as well! Doing this can also be useful when doing the basic double
jump + MotK finisher for an easier timing.
Sometimes after attempting to cancel a sub-weapon move, Kratos will continue
doing the move using his Blades in a glitched manner. This is both a timing-
and lag-related thing. It happens very often at some areas, and can ruin the
start of an IJ, but at least on PS3 isn't too big a deal.
Phase 6: finishers
There are a few especially useful ways to finish off your BH IJ.
First, as suggested above, is to use your double jump. While jumping you can
grab onto ledges, start Gliding or do other sub-weapon attacks, so it's a pretty
versatile jump finisher, even though it doesn't give you the maximum height.
A nice jump extension is to do a jump into MotK. This prevents you from
continuing the BH IJ afterwards, at least without some additional trickery, but
it gives you a ton of height. It's an useful finisher if you need extra height,
plus you can still follow it up with a Glide from the top height afterwards.
Third way to finish the jump is to transition to AQ IJ, a faster but potentially
riskier way to gain height. More about AQ IJ below.
2. AQ IJ (found by AKheon in 2016)
Atlas Quake Infinite Jump is a fairly new IJ tactic that uses a repeatedly
interrupted AQ as the source for gaining height instead of MotK. AQ isn't as
simple to interrupt as MotK, however: you need a precisely timed sub-weapon
break-out to do it.
The basic idea of the jump: have Kratos in air in a dedicated sub-weapon
animation. Enter menu right as you start doing AQ. Change sub-weapon to
interrupt current animation AND the AQ that is about to start. Repeat.
Once again you need at least two sub-weapons (as well as AQ) to do this IJ.
Pros and cons of AQ IJ compared to the classic BH IJ:
+ AQ IJ is faster to do than BH IJ.
+ AQ IJ is versatile. It can be started from either ascension or normal jumps.
You can start it with running momentum or even use LAM to get more boost for
the early part of the jump. Works well for both high and long jumps.
+ AQ IJ is less reliant on frequent momentum resets with PR.
+ AQ IJ is not necessarily more difficult or risky than BH IJ once you have
practiced it enough.
- AQ IJ is difficult to chain into PR for momentum resetting.
- since AQ IJ needs AQ, you can only start doing it after Atlas in a NP run.
- AQ IJ will cost you magic if you fail it.
- AQ IJ can't be done without magic.
- AQ IJ can't be salvaged at all if you fail it, unlike BH IJ.
- AQ IJ is far more difficult to do on PS2?
Videos:
1, AKheon's tutorial of AQ IJ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jff39UCDaw
2, AKheon's original video of AQ IJ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtruYi7JVMM
3, RagnellGoW’s spoken tutorial on the AQ IJ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsUPmCKd4tc
And here's a more detailed breakdown of the jump:
Phase 1: getting off the ground and doing first AQ
Unlike BH IJ, AQ IJ can be easily started and continued from normal jumps. It's
generally easiest and fastest to start AQ IJ from regular jumps since AQ IJ
naturally benefits a lot from a good upwards air momentum you get from a double
jump. You can use LAM to boost your starting air momentum even further.
If you want to start AQ IJ from an ascension instead, do a regular high jump
MotK high jump gives the most height, as usual) and follow it up with a double
jump into AQ IJ.
When you're ready, just jump (with sub-weapon in hands) -> Pause -> AQ. But
after the first AQ it gets a bit trickier...
Phase 2: inside Pause-menu
Unlike in BH IJ, your active sub-weapon doesn't matter, so you just got to
change sub-weapons once per jump cycle. It's a lot faster to do than BH IJ in
this sense, but you shouldn't overdo it and work the menus too fast because the
game still has to load the new sub-weapon every time, and lag can ruin the jump.
It's easier to leave Pause-menu using triangle than Pause.
So, once you're ready to leave the menu...
Phase 3: doing another AQ
After you've left Pause-menu, Kratos is in a neutral state. So he isn't actually
in a sub-weapon animation even though he is shown wielding a sub-weapon.
Therefore you now have to do a quick air attack to put Kratos back into a
dedicated sub-weapon animation to create more break-outs and continue the jump.
So the full button prompt to press after exiting menu is: air attack -> Pause
-> L2. There are more than one way to work this timing. I found it easiest to
first press square, then Pause and L2 almost simultaneously. If you press L2 too
early the break-out won't happen and the jump fails, so try to avoid that.
The jump can also fail if you start pressing buttons too early after leaving
the Pause-menu. I usually try to wait until the menu fade-out is complete or
near-complete before starting any input for the jump.
If you see a mysterious flash of red while casting the new AQ, your jump is
pretty much over. It means Kratos wasn't in a dedicated sub-weapon animation
while casting new AQ, and it is not possible to break-out of it. This tends
to happen if the jump is done too fast or input is given too early after
exiting menu.
And then you just got to repeat these motions.
Phase 4: what else?
Most of the other details, such as Kratos' air momentum becoming worse and
worse, are the same as with BH IJ. It's not nearly as easy to chain PR into
your AQ IJ jump to reset air momentum, but fortunately AQ IJ works quite well
even without PR. It shouldn't matter as long as you don't do too massive jumps
using AQ IJ.
Just try to get into a nice rhythm and doing this jump almost becomes second
nature.
Swimming in air: (credits to ManeshM84, AKheon, Shenminiu, findlestick...)
----------------
In all the main series GoW games, the game doesn't know which areas are water
and which air - it simply knows where's the water surface and what must be done
when Kratos touches it. The only thing preventing Kratos from swimming wantonly
wherever he wants are a couple of pesky walls around the place, but you can get
around them in some areas.
Videos:
1, a classic swimming glitch from Euryale's Lair (video by findlestick)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsT-DfwxWR4
More in-depth info:
The rules of air swimming change a bit depending on the game, but in GoW 2,
while air swimming, you can't...
- block, use weapons, use magic, or do other basic moves of Kratos
- open gates, pull switches, etc. most generic R1-operations are off-limits
- operate grapple points
- slow time using the Amulet
You can, however...
+ open chests
+ activate some special R1-actions
+ deal damage to your enemies. The swim dash is capable of it!
+ access places not otherwise possible, unhindered by gravity
Other features:
+ air swimming carries over while saving/retrying
+ you can cause unique prompt break-outs while swimming (more about it later)
- camera angles are weird while swimming, limiting your visibility
- being able to swim freely sounds nice, but you can make your save unwinnable
with it if you're careless.
So how to end swimming glitch?
The basic way to end swimming glitch is to hit another water surface. Becoming
stonefrozen at ground level also ends swimming glitch. And... that's pretty much
it. Those are the known methods of ending swimming glitch in GoW 2. Since
air swimming carries over a retry or a reload, you can get yourself stuck in
some part of the game where it's impossible to complete some objective while
swimming but you also can't end the swimming glitch in any way.
Extremely rarely, Kratos may lose swimming glitch after death. There is footage
of this in my "Swimming with Lahkesis"-vid. In it, Kratos hits an insta-death
barrier and falls down to his death. And after retry, no swimming...
Also, in at least two reported instances, Kratos lost swimmingness while
swimming between areas that were never supposed to be 'connected'.
In God of War III, swimming at ground level when hitting a certain checkpoint
ends swimming. Not sure if something like that would work anywhere in GoW II.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of losing swimmingness after falling into a pit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Yvz5--tIM#t=66
2, findlestick's vid of teleporting and losing swimming glitch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUZHjcfSw04
Other interesting stuff:
- Occasionally you will see Kratos entering t-pose while swimming and he looks
like he is riding a "sled" made out of his Blades. This is probably because the
swimming animation for Kratos is not loaded in maps that don't have any water
in them, so the game just puts Kratos in a t-pose to be done with it.
- You can also tell when new maps load and previous ones unload when Kratos'
stance changes to t-pose, or from t-pose back to normal swimming.
- In t-pose Kratos' swim dash will NOT do any damage, nor does simply jamming
the Blades at his feet into enemies do any damage (though it will make a sound).
- A swimming Kratos can get stuck to many other poses as well. For example,
opening a chest will leave Kratos "standing" in an upright position. This does
not affect his capacity to swim around the place, but again, it might make his
dash damage-less (not a big deal, though).
- A seemingly impassable ceiling can be passed while swimming by doing rush,
casual wiggling and other moves in some combinations. Kratos slowly inches
through the obstacle. Not sure if this works with every impassable ceiling,
but at some places you can swim through roofs.
Other useful tricks
-------------------
1. Break-outs
Break-outs are an all-around important phenomena in this game. Break-out
basically means that Kratos breaks loose from a dedicated action or a cutscene,
either interrupting the action or letting him move freely during it.
Break-outs help to do numerous glitches in the game, such as high jumps (as
already talked about near the start of the file). Usually break-outs can be
controlled by the player, but at other times they occur at random and can even
be caused by some disc fault.
A full list of what can cause a break-out:
- switching sub-weapon while sub-weapon is active. ("Cyclecancelling")
- upgrading certain weapons/magics while they are being used.
- switching Poseidon's Urn on/off during CR or PR
- influence of swimming glitch
- loading errors
- being hit by enemies during an action
- other event-specific reasons
Upgrading break-outs can only be done with...
+ Barbarian Hammer
+ Spear of Destiny
+ Blade of Olympus
+ Cronos' Rage
---
So what happens if you try to break-out of...
- chests? Not possible to do. Chests seem to be "generic" prompts that are
immune to glitching with break-outs.
- doors? Same as with chests, these are almost always "generic" prompts.
- switches? Same as with chests.
- water? Seems impossible.
- ropes? Seems impossible.
- ledges? Should test that out some time. §
- damage collision? This causes a short-term sub-weapon glitch where you
can't change sub-weapon until about 5 seconds have passed. It's strange, but
nothing too special it seems.
- death collision? Kratos regains movement for a short time and can do one extra
jump out of nowhere, before finally expiring.
- swinging grapple points? Game usually crashes.
- fixed grapple points? Kratos hangs onto the grapple point while in t-pose.
It's basically a short term animation glitch.
- attacks? Most of the time nothing special happens. You may get some graphical
glitches breaking out of the stance magics.
The level-by-level sections somewhere below have more data on specific events
or prompts in this game, and what happens when they're broken out of. So look
there if you're curious!
---
Some more info:
...swimming break-outs pt. 1:
R1-prompts which can be activated while swimming - basically chests and some
rare special R1-prompts - can glitch up if you activate them like that.
For example: opening a normal chest while swimming and trying to turn around
can interrupt the chest opening so that Kratos retains swimming in the chest
opening pose. The chest also loses its R1 prompt for good. Try out different
things and see what happens.
Besides that, it seems many land-only events can completely break when you
enter them while swimming. The two most noteworthy examples are Barbarian King
pre-fight sequence and when you meet Icarus. But again, there is more about
specific events and how they break in the level-by-level sections.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of meeting Icarus while swimming:
https://youtu.be/QNoTB_dLjR0?t=38
...swimming break-outs pt. 2 - Angled Kratos glitch:
So what happens if you try to pick up corpses while swimming? Sounds like
quite a specialized ordeal to bring these two game mechanics together, but
Findlestick found a way to try it out... and the results were surprising.
First Kratos appears to pick up the corpse like normal, but it always slips
from his hands and falls down. His swimming stance also changes to the corpse
picking one. And then it gets strange.
What usually happens is that the corpse changes "angle" when swimming Kratos
tries to pick it up. It no longer acts like you'd expect a corpse to act. It
will instead fall down in all sort of inane positions, sometimes nudging and
moving oddly by itself. It can get stuck under pushable buttons, having
horrible seizure-like motions. Also, if picked up against collision, the corpse
may rocket skywards like a... grotesque corpse that rockets skywards.
After ending swimming Kratos can come and pick up the corpse even if it has an
angle. This causes Kratos *himself* to get an angle! He will stay leaned to a
strange direction until some moves are used. Or alternatively his graphics get
messed up so that the game draws him partially from a wrong perspective,
looking even stranger. He also loses his textures, or so it seems. Rolling
makes it look like both of Kratos' legs are broken. Do I need to go on?
If Kratos ends up too slanted and in air, he becomes stuck and won't be able to
end the state, and instead stays like that forever (until retry). While slanted
rolling, it's possible to move up some walls because the game considers the wall
as floor if Kratos is slanted enough. Also, it's once been reported that Kratos
fell through floor when rolling while slanted.
If Kratos becomes petrified while slanted, his statue form appears normal but
flies up in air for some reason if he is close to a wall. Ending petrification
makes Kratos lose slantedness.
Mini-games while slanted are possible since the game doesn't pay attention
to things like gravity during the sequences. At least with the Gorgon one,
if Kratos succeeds, he will not lose slantedness. If he loses, the Gorgon
may become 'slanted' momentarily!
A list of things that will not end 'slanted Kratos':
- standing still
- rolling
- activating RoT
- jumping (however, all air attacks or just moving ends the state)
- weapon switch (may revert Kratos from 'slanted' to 'slantedly drawn')
- Divine Sacrifice (the orb is skewed and bad to look at)
- magics (PR is especially interesting since Kratos does it at an angle)
- getting hit
- mini-games (but maybe not all)
So far there are only two areas where this glitch is possible to do: at Temple
of Lahkesis entrance and in the circular puzzle room inside Bog of the
Forgotten. After all, you need both water and a corpse to do it.
Videos:
1, Findlestick's video series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqGR06mTSaI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1byILsr478#t=90
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPNBKPvhROg
...breaking out as Kratos is petrified pt. 1 - Petrification Negation:
Breaking out while Kratos is petrified, done most conveniently by switching
sub-weapons (Cyclecancelling), instantly returns him back to normal. This is
called petrification negation. Quite useful!
Videos:
1, addaminsain's vid on petrification negation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxRw9Ocia0E
...breaking out as Kratos is petrified pt. 2 - Stone Clones:
But there are other, weirder effects caused by break-outs and petrification as
well. Most importantly, you can create stone clones of Kratos!
By breaking out right as petrification hits Kratos, it is possible that a stony
clone of him is left behind while the actual Kratos stays mobile and well.
The clone acts for all intents and purposes like a petrified Kratos, and its
death results in the actual Kratos' death too (even if it doesn't make sense).
Multiple stone clones can be created. Findlestick reported that during Euryale
he managed to create as many as 6 stone clones at the same time. The limit
seems to vary depending on the area. If Kratos has been stone cloned the maximum
amount of time, he no longer petrifies like usual. Instead, you start getting
glitchy stone-freezes where Kratos only turns "semi-stoned". If he is petrified
in air, gravity does not affect him. Enemies' attacks do no damage, so he is
basically immortal too. If you glitch-petrify Kratos with a failed Fleece
counter, Kratos doesn't even turn gray-hued - he just freezes in place. In both
of the instances there is no effect of breaking stone when he breaks free, and
he also can't avoid these freezes using another break-out or Cyclecancel.
You can use a stone clone as a platform for standing on, but it's unlikely
this trick could be used in a speedrun somewhere to make your jumps higher.
In 2012 findlestick tried creating stone clones in the Arena. It's possible
to put Kratos in a semi-stoned state here, but it requires up to 6 of
stone clones, which is pretty insane. He then discovered an extra glitch
which involves being grabbed by a cyclops while frozen in air in the
semi-stoned state: Kratos regains the ability to do attacks, all the while he
is fixed in one spot in air, slowed down and invulnerable. Looks odd.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid featuring semi-stonefrozen Kratos and clones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1byILsr478
2, Findle's vid of Arena semi-stonedness and "anti-gravity combat":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ3xE5c9f0U
...breaking out of death floor:
Things like insta-death floor triggers can't be made entirely harmless using
break-outs. However, you can delay them a little bit. For instance, you can jump
into lava, then break-out, then jump back out again to have Kratos die on land
instead of in the searing hot molten rock.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of breaking out of falling in swamp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjIZ4b3rb3s
...loading error break-outs:
These are completely non-reproduceable and in most cases harmful, usually
making the player become stuck in the game.
Most interesting known example of this type of a break-out is from the
beginning of the game. The game begins with a big Kratos who then shrinks just
in time for normal gameplay to begin. Due to a loading error (?), Kratos can
remain big and get stuck in the first room...
Videos:
1, Nemesis958's original vid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=H-l4lSNfn9k
... combat break-outs, i.e. Cyclecancelling (found by GMG & Addaminsain)
Cyclecancelling is an alternative term for changing sub-weapon to interrupt
Kratos' current animation, used by some long-time players of the series. You
need at least two sub-weapons to use it, so it can only be done in the later
half of the game or during Bonus Play.
Since Cyclecancelling is one way to perform break-outs, there was already a
lot about what you can do with it in the above section. However, this tactic
originally founds its use in combat since you can interrupt attack cooldowns
with it and increase Kratos' combat efficiency by a great deal.
As an example: you're doing a slow special move with one of your sub-weapons.
It hits, but then the attack has a long cooldown afterwards. Slow? Yeah, but
fear not, for a simple sub-weapon switch cancels you out of the move instantly.
Saves up to seconds of Kratos' time per use.
Videos:
1, addaminsain's vid, showing some nice combat that uses CC:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=tsCFVo6UYAA
2, addaminsain's vid, showing the speed difference in Kratos' time:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LWeLPJ2UEpY
Other break-out notes:
+ switching sub-weapons during special cutscenes that cause Kratos to become
stuck with only one sub-weapon (like at the end of Colossus III) may crash the
game.
2. Quickrolling
The fastest regular movement in the game happens to be a simple roll cancel.
To do it, simply roll to a direction, then do a weak attack to cancel out of
it, then roll again.
The easiest way to do it is to just spam square while holding R-stick held down,
but this way you can't do any fine control over his direction.
For more control over your movement, press R-stick & square in a stable rhythm
while steering with L-stick. This is great for moving in any area with twists
and turns in it.
For rolling into jumping, roll into a weak attack, then cancel the weak attack
with the jump. Sometimes it can also be useful to roll cancel into a quick Bow
or Head use to interrupt all cooldowns and be able to examine prompts quicker.
3. s1 cancelling (a.k.a. quickrunning) (found by AKheon in 2008)
This is a far more specialized trick than quickrolling, but it too can come
in handy in a speedrun, especially over short distances or in areas that are
too difficult to quickroll in. To do this trick, start running and then spam
Blades first square attack (typically dubbed s1) and interrupt it quickly with
Bow or Head. Just repeatedly spam the attack and Bow stance so that you hold L2
down as little as possible and also don't interrupt s1 too late or early. Once
you get the rhythm down, you'll find that Kratos gets a lot of increased speed
from the cancelled s1, around 1.25 - 1.5 his normal running speed.
While discovered in 2008, it wasn't used by speedrunners until much later on
because of... well, no one thought of it, I guess.
Videos:
1, AKheon's original video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtZCjNpgrRs
4. Bow/Head tricking
An useful, if hard-to-master technique which involves abusing the i-frames of
either Typhon's Bane or Head of Euryale. If you press L2 with either magic
while standing still, Kratos unsheathes his Bow/Head and during this time he
is almost completely invincible, all attacks passing through him harmlessly.
This can be done in air too, by simply unsheathing the Bow/Head after having
jumped (but not pressing to any direction or shooting while at it).
Technically, you could trick with any other magic too, but these two are the
most common and useful because they do not cost magic to use in this way and
are instantly ready for use.
This move can also be used for stalling. By repeatedly unsheathing either Bow
or Head, enemies in the vicinity can stop attacking. Just an A.I. glitch.
Videos:
1, addaminsain's fight against Lahkesis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApRp8EopfZY
5. Bow/Head cancelling
A more subtle but still helpful combat exploit. Magics typically have priority
over melee attacks, and so they can be used for quickly interrupting your melee
hits. Stance magics Bow and Head are especially good for doing this with since
they are fast and cost nothing to activate.
Just cancel out of normal attacks after they've done their damage to start new
attacks extra quick. It is most useful using BH because it's the weapon with
most power and least speed. In fact, even on Titan-mode most bosses fall quickly
under the combo of triangle, triangle, cancel, repeat.
Block cancelling is also possible to do with most attacks, although slightly
less efficient.
6. Alternate Orion's Harpoon (discoverer: GMG and/or Shinobier)
Some enemies can be Orion's Harpooned in an alternate way by keeping the circle
held down while starting OH instead of just pressing it once. The "alternate
way" is usually a normal grab, but depending on the enemy, it can also be a 360
toss or even their finisher. This allows versatility to link moves together
this way. More of a secret move than a glitch.
7. Infinite orb glitches
As of now, there are five knows approaches for getting infinite orbs in GoW 2.
- v1. By accident.
Difficulty: insane
Orb gaining rate: great
You remember the orb fountains of GoW 1? Some enemy (usually Harpy) gets
killed on uneven collision and keeps dying over and over again, spouting out
an indiscriminate amount of red orbs in the process? It can happen in this game
too, but it's completely random.
Best known location for it: the room with Wraiths right before Atrium of
Lahkesis.
Videos:
1, Melot89 / ICcold's example of infinite red orbs v1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jppbCboacuA
2, findlestick's additional example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-86fHXuDxQU
- v2. By a checkpoint/petrifying glitch.
Difficulty: fairly easy
Orb gaining rate: mediocre
The way this works in theory - and only in theory - is that you got to find
a fight that is followed by a checkpoint after you've killed all the enemies.
If you petrify the last enemy of the fight and shatter it, after retry the
enemy should re-appear as a statue, and can be shattered again. All the orbs
you gather while shattering the enemy and retrying are yours to keep.
But in practice, there's only one locale this theory has been proven to work:
the fight with Gorgons and Archers at Entrance to the Underground. At many
other places, despite having a checkpoint at the end of a fight, this glitch
simply does not occur. So it's basically a mystery.
It's unknown who originally discovered this trick.
Videos:
1, AKheon's short video of infinite orbs v2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SqY5Ri-sow
- v3. By a boundary glitch.
Difficulty: easy, once you know a good place to do it.
Orb gaining rate: good
Enemies tend to unload in God of War-games if you go too far away from them.
If an enemy unloads while they're in the middle of their death animation, the
animation resets and the enemy will drop their orbs more than once before
disappearing.
Doing this is possible at many parts of the game if you use your creativity
and have patience for luring enemies away from their original location. Simply
put, if you notice enemies disappearing after Kratos passes a certain point in
a level, you've most likely found a proper location for doing this. Create a
setup for killing the enemy where you can quickly afterwards touch the
unloading limit. Repeat and prosper!
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJc-hjXkrsA
- v4a. By savepoints and enemies.
Difficulty: medium
Orb gaining rate: poor to medium
Find a place where there's a save point and an enemy. Stonefreeze the enemy
close to the save point, then shatter it. Examine save point at the exact time
the foe is shattered to gain both the shatter bonus and the natural orbs the
foe drops. After retry, the foe is still alive and petrified and can be
shattered again and again.
Another verified method that can be done earlier in the game is doing brutal
kills to easily brutalized foes like Fates Sentries. Brutal kill them inside a
save point, create a new checkpoint all of a sudden by examining the save point,
retry. You only get orbs for the brutal kill while doing this, which means 5
orbs per every retry, but that's better than nothing, right? And it's Normal
Play compatible too.
With the stonefreezing variation your foe may get stuck in air strangely on
retry. It's a glitch and probably can't be helped. If it happens, you
obviously can't continue doing the trick, so lure another enemy nearby or load
the game.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFovAfK7JO8
- v5. Divine Retribution
Difficulty: easy
Orb gaining rate: poor
Apparently, orbs gained using Divine Retribution - the orb gathering move of
BoO - carry over checkpoints. So, you can just keep on doing it to nearby
enemies, then retry. Too bad this is BP only, and therefore not very useful.
- v6 - bonus infinite red orbs tactic (by findlestick)
Difficulty: tedious / insane
Orb gaining rate: great
This is more a bizarre curiosity than an useful red orbs glitch, and all
thanks to a very strange de-calibrated camera-glitch.
If you have swimming glitch active, then trigger the Barbarian King, Kratos
breaks out of being dragged. This messes up Kratos' mechanics and causes the
camera to no longer follows him directly. Additionally, visiting certain areas
will cause their cameras to "de-calibrate", meaning that they start zooming out
to a distance when Kratos comes near them. Any cameras that are de-calibrated
stay that way indefinitely after you have started this glitch.
Cameras can be de-calibrated in at least 3 locations: "the first one is at
Destiny's Atrium, the second one at the Rock Minotaur inside the Catacombs of
the fallen, and the third one is at the pillar-puzzle."
As you may have guessed, the camera zoom-out acts as a way to unload enemies
in the middle of their dying animations, making this orb glitch basically an
unorthodox if very effective way of activating infinite orbs v3.
Apparently trying to do this glitch on PS2 crashes the game, so it's for PS3
only.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=punfWOfmEHQ&t=4m05s
Other not-that-useful tricks and glitches:
------------------------------------------
1. Upgrading "glitch": (by AKheon)
In GoW 1 there was something called Black-out Glitch that was invoked by
upgrading Blades and then retrying from last checkpoint. This would cause the
checkpoint to load slower than usual and it would have some interesting results,
for instance Kratos could roll past triggers unnoticed while the game was
pre-occupied with its extra loading time.
This glitch still partially works in GoW 2. Upgrading Blades and retrying makes
the game load slower and the game screen fade in later than usual. But it
seems Kratos can't move during the black-out time any more, reducing the use
of the trick. It still creates some odd side effects here and there, though,
but nothing exactly useful so far.
On further examination, I found out that not only Athena's Blades upgrading
causes variables to change. Here's a list of stuff I've found to add up:
+ Athena's Blades upgrade (the most important thing)
+ other weapons upgrade (less important)
+ switching Poseidon's Urn on/off
+ switching sub-weapons
+ (maybe) activating Rage of the Titans
All of the above creates strain for the game to handle. Different amounts of
strain work in different ways. Small strain can cause a graphical glitch that
a large strain doesn't cause.
Examples of this glitch will be listed at the level-specific section of the FAQ.
(though for the record, I haven't tested each of the checkpoints for glitches...
only the most promising ones.)
Read more on lag-based glitches from their own section below.
2. Disc tray glitch: (c: AKheon)
This is a pointless PS2-only oddity that someone very stingy could use to save
in-game time at the expense of his honor and sanity.
By opening the disc tray at a precise time just after the game picture appears
after a fade-in, like after retrying from a checkpoint, the disc tray screen
opens up as usual, but gameplay continues behind it. So what's the use of this?
Answer: during disc tray screen no time runs. This means you can effectively
play through large sections of the game with the timer off. The glitch is easily
controllable, since you can end it whenever you want by just closing the tray,
and for activating it a mere checkpoint retry is enough. Unfortunately because
of the disc tray message blocking the screen, you can't see at all, and you
also can't access either menu.
The timing has to be just right. Otherwise, the disc tray effect doesn't start
or just ends by itself in about 15 seconds. In worst case scenarios your game
will crash to the loading screen.
Yeah... perhaps it's the best to just forget this "trick" even exists.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of doing this at Rhodes
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Il3EmRLyD3A
2, AKheon's vid of doing this at second Pegasus flight
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Il3EmRLyD3A
3. Lag-based glitches
In some areas of the game, the game sort of naturally 'lags' (like when the
game is anticipating an upcoming FMV). Weapon switching is slower, the frame
rate may actually drop and other sorts of small annoyances show up. It is far
more pronounced on PS2 than on PS3.
Break-outs also get side effects from heavy lag. The attack data may clear only
partially after switching sub-weapon, leaving Kratos hanging and finishing an
attack with half of the effects there. Very annoying when doing high jumping.
Also, sometimes attacks may contain strange properties, like air attacks that
have no effect on your momentum.
If you retry from checkpoint with heavy lag, the game may tend you to a scary
sight of Kratos unexpectedly appearing in the middle of nowhere, falling down
in absolute emptiness with only weapons shining in otherwise impenetrable
darkness. Your orb count is at '0'. If you access menu during while in this
empty void, you'll see that Kratos only has his initial weapon (at lv. 1), no
relics except the Trident and for some reason three urns unlocked out of six.
This stat doesn't last long - usually around two seconds - after which the
actual data becomes loaded and everything is like it used to be.
You can create your own lag by rapidly entering and exiting the menu while
switching a sub-weapon and turning Poseidon's Urn on and off. An example of its
effect: when you fight Colossus III and get Blade of Olympus, the message which
appears and says that you have the weapon appears only as the camera is already
zooming out of Colossus' stomach wound, which is a few seconds later than
normal. However, I don't recommend the reader to try it out, because the game
may crash if you switch sub-weapons at the wrong time here.
Another sort of lag-based glitch is the "upgrading glitch" which was mentioned
a little above this.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyKzfriiVHU
4. Other minor notes
- other petrification glitches?
Most important glitches with petrification, such as infinite red orbs, stone
clones and petrification negation have been documented in the above sections
already.
There's another rare petrification glitch where Kratos (or enemies) can end
up stuck, with their speed extremely slow and health infinite after retry. Not
sure why this glitch happens, but it's been commonly presumed to be a
petrification glitch. Still a bit of a mystery.
Or as a variation, an enemy turns into an insubstantial version which is
stuck in some pose. This seems to rarely happen if a checkpoint is created the
instant a stonefrozen foe is crushed.
Another rare glitch is Kratos ending up as a statue that he can't break free
from. This might happen because of Kratos dying at the same time he turns into
a statue.
Videos:
1, addaminsain's vid of an immortal slo-mo Hades Fiend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt1pkfS9Ur4
2, Lenilson ferreira...'s video of a statue that can't be escaped:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F14HWMEbySw
- Door hinge oddity
Just a funny little graphical glitch that is quite rare. When lifting a door
up, the door can jitter and bounce a bit like it was a roll curtain before it
finally rises all the way up. This glitch is probably related to doing the door
opening mini-game with uneven timing.
I've also seen it happen in God of War 1 once.
Video:
1, JFCalibur88's vid:
not available at the moment
- Rotating crank glitches
A rotating crank can be made to rotate by itself without Kratos' participation.
It can happen by accident if you run by the switch and press R1 haphazardly, but
according to findlestick it's possible (although difficult) to cause the glitch
intentionally too.
"...the glitch is pretty tricky to do. It basically involves running around in
circles from the crank to the periphery of the R1 prompt, while spamming R1. If
you're very lucky, the platform will start rotating on its own."
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of "rotating platform glitch"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrkdefSSNnE
2, AKheon's vid of Ice room crank glitch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmJv-1x7IA4
3, findlestick's footage of rotating crank glitch:
https://youtu.be/mkmPS5Wlkvo?t=187
- Grapple point glitches & observations
Like mentioned, breaking out while activating a swinging grapple points will
probably crash the game. Using grapple points from a cancelled PR also seems to
cause a game freeze rarely.
While on a swinging grapple point, you can jump to screwed up directions if you
let go right at the middle of Kratos' swinging arc.
Kratos flies further if you hold block as you let go of the grapple point, but
blocking also means you can no longer steer your jump.
- Rope climbing observations
You can do quick rope climbing as in God of War 1, although in a more limited
form since you can't use double jump after air attacks freely anymore. This
trick is only really doable in areas where the rope is next to a wall, so that
Kratos automatically latches back onto the rope after jumping off it and doing
an air attack.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid (at the start):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVY8NHmMPGc
- Start menu glitch
Not sure what else to call it. If you die or fall into a chasm and press Start
at the last frame before the game over screen pops up, pressing Start no longer
does anything until you first visit Select menu after retry. This works the
same way with Select-menu too, so that it won't work until you visit the
Start-menu first. Just a small hindrance, and can be confusing the first time
it happens.
- Messing with FMV flags (credits to findlestick)
The game has some value in memory that identifies an FMV that is coming up.
Sometimes the setting of this value and the actual start of the FMV are placed
separately enough that you can go elsewhere and pick up a wrong FMV flag to
replace the original FMV flag. Then when you start the FMV, the game proceeds
to load a wrong one. It is an interesting glitch, although it's hard to say
off-hand where something like this might come in handy.
Videos:
1, findlestick's video of the aforementioned glitch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crAiEPwidgI
3. General info on Kratos and enemies
-------------------------------------
General info about modifiers:
A lot of the info here originates from the official Bradygames GoW 2 guide.
In God of War-games, the math behind Kratos' defense, attack power and the
value of any orbs he picks up is influenced by hidden modifiers. The base value
of these modifiers is determined by difficulty you're playing on. Besides that,
special costumes also influence many of these modifiers.
First off we have the Power modifier. It multiplies or divides Kratos' attack
damage. The base Power is 200% on Mortal (Easy), 100% on Spartan (Normal) mode,
100% on God (Hard) mode and 75% on Titan (Very Hard) mode.
The Armor modifier determines how much enemy attacks do damage. Base Armor is
50% on Easy, 100% on Normal, 250% on Hard and 500% on Titan.
Health modifier determines the worth of green orbs Kratos picks up. Base Health
is 150% on Easy, 100% on Normal, 75% on God and 25% on Titan.
Magic modifier determines the worth of blue orbs Kratos picks up. The values
are exactly the same as with Health modifier.
XP modifier affects the worth of red orbs. Base XP is 200% on Easy, 100% on
Normal, 100% on Hard and 75% on Titan.
Titan modifier determines the worth of yellow orbs, i.e. how much Kratos gets
Rage. Base Titan is 150% on Easy, 100% on Normal, 75% on Hard and 25% on Very
Hard.
Besides these values, there are two modifiers for enemy behavior called
Pressure and Recovery.
Pressure means how aggressive enemies are. Pressure is "normal" for both Easy
and Normal difficulties. Hard-mode has "2x normal" Pressure. Titan's Pressure
setting is set on "merciless".
Recovery means how quickly enemies recover and resume their attack on Kratos.
Recovery on Easy is "2x normal". On Normal it's "normal". On hard it's "1/2
normal". On Titan it's "immediate".
Also, magic and Rage costs are 25% cheaper on Easy-difficulty.
Generally about weapons and melee:
I would generally call God of War II combat mechanics tidied up compared to
God of War I. Attacks have more consistent rules and Kratos' movelist acts as
a more focused whole.
While you have three sub-weapons, they are all in a way simpler than Blade of
Artemis was. None of your sub-weapons have air block or more than one air
special. Their combos are more restricted than with Blades and they also don't
have other types of specials like Hyperion Charge that Blades have. It's not
until God of War III where Kratos gets sub-weapons that are as detailed as his
main weapon the Blades.
Collision damage:
There's a unique category of damage called "collision damage" which includes
most damage related to throws and enemies colliding with one another. This
damage is tied to Kratos' Armor modifier, meaning that your throws become
more powerful if you are playing on Titan, or if you have a costume that makes
Kratos' Armor worse. Conversely, something that increases Kratos' armor, like
Rage, makes throws weaker.
-----
A. Athena's Blades
Many things are same, but many things are also different with Athena's Blades
compared to Blades of Chaos from GoW 1.
Unlike in GoW 1, you can't buffer to triangle attack after a roll any longer.
Instead that input is reserved for Athena's Wrath that you get later on when
upgrading Blades.
Athena's Wrath moves through obstacles and regardless of ground height.
Hyperion Charge is a new melee attack Kratos gets in GoW 2. He first whips the
Blades in a wide arc, then starts running. During the run, Kratos auto-targets
towards nearby enemies. Square leads to an imitation of Hermes Rush from GoW 1
(now called Hyperion Rush), triangle leads to a special sorta launcher (Hyperion
Rise) that is immune to gravity - you can take one step into chasms during it.
These Hyperion Charge follow-up attacks can't be buffered if Rage is active.
Activating Rage of the Titans changes the rules a little. Kratos can't do any
ground specials while RotT is active. You also can't use Fleece block or
Icarus' Ascension with RotT on.
If you activate RotT right at the start or during Hyperion Charge's first attack
or Olympic Ascension, Kratos will do a "false Plume" which makes no sound and
does no damage. If during the false Plume you turn RotT off, Kratos will
continue doing the original attack.
B. Barbarian Hammer
The only weapon that doesn't have a natural launcher move. You also can't start
a roll when BH is active.
Doing Crushing Defeat, Kratos automatically moves the longest possible distance
he moves with a single attack in this game. This can come in handy sometimes.
For example using this move right before hitting a cutscene trigger lets you do
the attack during the cutscene and keep moving during it, saving some time.
The normal souls and Legion of Souls-souls are different from each other in both
damage and effect (note: LoS-souls do less damage). In general souls have a
variety of different effects depending on your enemies and the situation.
Souls, created by any mean possible, disappear the instant active weapon is not
the Hammer. Also, soul damage is not affected by difficulty/costume settings.
Kratos looks like he is in air during Legion of Souls, but the game considers
him to be on ground during the entire attack.
C. Spear of Destiny
Piercing Shards is a convenient move in Kratos' arsenal. Doing it, the Spear
emits an explosion that passes through all barriers and walls. The move has
quite a capable auto-aiming, even for aerial enemies or enemies which are far
away. The explosion seems to change shape depending on the enemies' location.
While this auto-aiming is not perfect, if you enter EH or TB stance right before
doing PS, Kratos auto-targets the closest/any creature and the attack will
always hit after that.
Piercing Shards' damage does not change with costume/difficulty, and RotT does
not seemingly increase its powers either (although normal weapon level ups do).
PS hits don't count towards hit count except against Kraken's tentacles (?).
The ender of the triangle combo can stun even very powerful enemies. GMG said
that he once saw even Zeus' summon animation become interrupted hitting Zeus
with this attack with Rage active, which doesn't happen with any other move.
Unfortunate Remains leaves a small bomb on the battlefield for a few seconds.
Bombs will try to spawn on ground level if possible, and don't stay in air.
Uneven collision can cause a bomb to end up inside walls a bit strangely.
Maximum amount of bombs at any given time is 2. These bombs can be slowed with
the Amulet, and if they are slowed down, they explode without an effect.
Interestingly, an in-game weapon switch will NOT make the bombs disappear,
unlike most other sub-weapon related effects. You can also retry from checkpoint
and the bombs will carry over the retry. However, if this retry reverts Spear
of Destiny level back to 1, the bombs will disappear.
Altering Slash is a move that makes an opponent turn more and more purple until
they explode colorfully. The enemy takes about 5 seconds to explode after
they've been set to detonate, and the charge can even explode with the host
dead if the foe's death animation is not entirely finished. Altering Slash does
not plant bombs to targets that die from the attack, that go to a mini-game stun
from the attack or which are stonefrozen.
The detonation has no effect to enemies who are being grabbed, though it does
damage stonefrozen targets just fine. If you change weapons, any bomb charges
disappear. You can have quite a many enemies detonating at the same time, at
least 4 to 5... but this is something glitched, since the natural limit is 1.
Any explosions after the second one will either fail or be effect-less.
According to GMG's research, a factor in making more than the normal amount of
enemies ready to detonate is to turn while swinging and hitting a group of
enemies. (Maybe something more to it than that?)
If an airborne target gets detonated by either Unfortunate Remains or Altering
Slash bombs, they will get bounced. Unique lauches are possible using Altering
Slash detonation in addition to other techniques. GMG reports that he has gone
as far as sending enemies over the walls using this technique, and that it
seemed that the spawn spots of the arena died after it. Could there still be
more to this?
D. Blade of Olympus
You only get this weapon for a short time during Normal Play. Have to wait
until Bonus Play to get it as a regular part of Kratos' arsenal.
The launcher of this weapon is immune to gravity, so it is sometimes useful
in high jumps where you need to start the jump next to a chasm.
Divine Retribution lasers are stronger than the Anger of the Gods ones. They
also behave a bit differently, in that DR lasers can and will pass through
everything 'til an enemy (who can block it) will block it, while Anger laser
will stop at first target it hits. DR also lasers pass obstacles if done at
point blank range.
All the laser effects do damage that is not influenced by settings like
difficulty or costume. Rage also does not boost their damage.
Divine Sacrifice drains red orbs from enemies while causing bounces or
knockbacks. Once it has hit an enemy for 3 full attacks, it does not effect them
at all after that. If you activate Rage during this attack, the graphical
'halo'-effect disappears eerily!
The orb drains of Divine Sacrifice carry over restart, so you can in fact get
infinite red orbs using the attack. There may be more about this in the section
about infinite red orbs later down.
Generally about magic & urns:
-----------------------------
A small urn glitch: there's a period of time before Poseidon's Urn starts
having an effect after switching to it. During this inactive moment, the left
magic icon remains as Cronos' Rage and you can't cast either of the spells. The
same works vice-versa too, with this sorta inactive period after having
switched back to CR. The explanation is that the game has to load the attack
fully before you can use it.
If you switch Poseidon's Urn on and then activate a checkpoint before the magic
icon turns to PR, after retrying the game will still show you the CR icon, but
it can't be cast (because it's not loaded). This works the other way around too.
Urn of Gorgons can mess up juggles and launches in strange ways... more info
about this wouldn't hurt. §
-----
E. Poseidon's Rage
Kratos says one of these three comments occasionally when doing PR at the start
of the game (they no longer play at Typhon's Cavern):
"None shall defy me!"
"I am the God of War!"
"I will make you suffer!"
There's a short animation after each PR casting during which Kratos can't do a
thing. This slows down the possible rate of casting pretty much.
It is the only spell you can't upgrade. It only has one level, "MAX".
PR has a limit to the number of enemies it can hit at any given time. If there
are too many enemies in its radius, they aren't affected. It can also miss some
foes in the blast radius (unknown reasons). (thanks to GMG)
PR is one of the rare moves in the game that resets your movement and falling
momentum (useful in long/high jumps).
In mysterious circumstances, Kratos starts doing glitchy PR that has no effect.
It looks quite similar to unloaded PR from God of War 1. This can happen for
example if you switch Poseidon's Urn on or off in laggy circumstances, but
it can also happen for more rare reasons too.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid of doing glitchy PR after switching Urn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L7bu48BqbI
1, findlestick's vid of glitchy PR in other circumstances:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQNeYTNsDWM
F. Typhon's Bane
A stance magic.
While entering the stance, you get a noteworthy amount of i-frames. They are
lost if Kratos moves or attacks while unsheathing the bow.
Other i-frame periods are during charged Wind Blast (during the time after
square is let go and after the shot fires), Lethal Vortex and Titan Storm
(while building up steam).
Wind Shots don't get stronger with upgrade, it's just your rate of fire that
increases. Their magic cost stays the same too.
Trying to shoot small enemies with Wind Shots at point blank range can cause
the bullets to pass through the enemies harmlessly.
Lethal Vortex will auto-shatter all statues it hits. The attack travels
through barriers. It has a casting pause after it, so you can't spam it.
Titan Storm lingers a bit around the field even after disappearing. It has a
casting pause after it, so you can't spam it (very noticeable). You may be able
to destroy yourself with this attack if you're stonefrozen when it resolves.
The attack moves past all sorts of barriers.
Charged Wind Blast's normal cost is 25MP, but it can be done for as little as
4MP. As long as you have magic for one single TB shot, you can do a charged
version for great cost efficiency. The attack does extra *glitched* hits for
Barbarian King and the mounted Cyclops Berserker - try it out. Charged WB can't
target or damage stonefrozen creatures.
"You can maintain 'charge' of Wind Blast if you walk off a cliff but it won't
fire." - GMG
If you jump in air with sub-weapon active in TB stance, upon landing you can
change sub-weapon and cause a graphical glitch where Kratos starts using his
own Blades as the Bow.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dca8A48CFyM#t=329
G. Cronos' Rage
There's a noticeable i-frame moment when this magic is cast.
Maximum amount of CR orbs at any time is 3. Orbs will stick to air or wherever
Kratos was during casting.
The Lv. 3 orb explosion can shatter statues, even Kratos himself if he is one
at the time!
Its effect arcs towards creatures being grabbed, but does no damage (or hits).
Some hits it does are not shown.
In rare circumstances, switching from Poseidon's Rage to this magic can cause
the magic to remain and glitch up so that Kratos does its animation but no
effect comes out.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L7bu48BqbI
H. Head of Euryale
A stance magic.
While entering the stance, you get a noteworthy amount of i-frames. They are
lost if Kratos moves or does other attacks than Beam.
Other i-frame spots are with Gorgon Flash (instant it fires), Gorgon Blast
(instant it fires) and Gorgon Rage (instant it fires).
If you upgrade EH while you're in its stance, it turns invisible, as does its
beam. Only the lv. 3 attack is visible after this.
If you jump in air with sub-weapon active in EH stance, do Gorgon Flash and
change sub-weapon afterwards. You cause a graphical glitch where Kratos starts
using his Blades to shoot freezing beams instead of the Head.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dca8A48CFyM#t=350
Gorgon Blast hits count as hits (unusual for an attack which deals no damage).
If you hit a stonefrozen foe with GB, the explosion that occurs is a lot bigger
than normal (but it won't work any better than it does normally).
Shooting multiple GB shots towards water surface, some will pass right through
the surface and won't explode. Sometimes GB shots can also pass through enemies
(if they are too close).
Gorgon Rage can leave foes within range unaffected. Maybe it has a limited
amount of targets it can hit as well? (though GMG doubts it)
"I recall testing this at the places I denoted previously. It hits all the
targets. In situations with foes in range with LESS targets it can miss
(sort of like PR). It's just a failure by the game I feel." - GMG
Retrying and stonefreeze do not always mix well. Kratos or one of the enemies
can rarely get stuck in an eternal slow-mo state in which they will never die.
This was mentioned in the above sections about petrification glitches.
Sometimes the game counts petrified foes as dead ones, which means that you can
fool some of the game's triggers (like Barbarian King stage 2). Infinite red
orbs are also possible with stonefreeze and checkpoints.
Videos:
1, Addaminsain's eternally slowed down Hades fiend
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Lt1pkfS9Ur4
I. Atlas' Quake
During the whole magic Kratos is completely invincible, so it is the best
panic button-type magic in the game (aside PR).
Unlike the other magics, this one has a difficulty/costume dependant power,
making it relatively much weaker on Titan-mode.
Some hits it does are not shown.
Generally about relics:
-----------------------
They are basically items that give you some magic powers. They are stashed away
in your inventory menu, and there's very little you can do to manipulate them.
So there's not much to tell about them in general. You lose most of them when
starting Bonus Play, which is a shame... would be nice to use Rage or Glide from
the start of the game, for example.
-----
J. Poseidon's Trident
You always have it from the beginning of the game. Neat!
You can do fewer things while swimming than in GoW 1. No more swimmy grabs,
no more rushing up or down, no more insane jumps from water...
Swimming glitch and other water glitches were elaborated in the above sections.
K. Rage of the Titans
The activation cost of Rage is about 1/8th the meter and you need 1/4th to
activate it at all. If you got Prometheus' Urn on, you can activate RotT for
no activation cost and even if your RotT meter is at zero.
You can activate Rage during loading times and some (but not all) cutscenes of
this game. It has no use unless you're fighting, though.
If you cast PR while RotT is on, the black spots on Kratos disappear. This also
happens if you keep RotT on over FMV-scenes.
Having Rage active divides collision damage by 3.85 regardless of Armor/Power.
During Prometheus' Inferno, you can shut off RotT and have the attack continue
like normal. Useful for saving Rage.
The RotT triangle finisher works without RotT on. A rare instance of i-frames
in a weapon attack. (thanks to GMG)
Kratos can't be petrified if RotT is on. If he is already petrified while going
to Rage, the petrification instantly breaks. Some enemy grabs can also be broken
out of by utilizing RotT.
You can create glitchy "plumes" by turning RotT on right before Hyperion
Charge's "whip" or Olympic Ascension. They are silent and damage-less.
L. Amulet of the Fates
So what exactly is slowed down or frozen by its effect?
+ enemies
+ Rage of the Titans activation cost
+ many graphical effects
+ collision movement
+ some grapple point swings
After you've exhausted the time slow meter, the effect stops. You can't start
a new one instantly afterwards: it will take about 1 second before the meter
has recovered up to halfway through again, after which it can be re-activated.
You can't use ropes when time is slowed.
Many attacks look different while time slowing is on since their graphical
effects may be slowed down as well.
The time slow effect will stop when activating most R1-prompts. Two expections
are R1-prompts that yield a message, and save points.
Time slowing does not carry over save nor checkpoint, even though you can hear
the time slow reversal sound over checkpoints.
While time is stopped, the music of the game stops everywhere except start menu.
M. Golden Fleece
While Fleece countering, Kratos is immersed in i-frames.
Sometimes Kratos breaks out of Fleece animations. This has a few small unique
effects, like being able to move while Euryale is reacting to parrying her
stonefreezing beam. Or if you are frozen by another Gorgon while breaking out
of parrying a stonebeam, Kratos becomes stonefrozen but no enemies are able
to detect him.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid of the parrying break outs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3ciVTQlyxw#t=93
N. Icarus Wings
Everything interesting about IW has already been told at the High Jump sections
above.
Generally about menus:
----------------------
The menu glitches from GoW 1 have been mostly fixed for GoW 2, so there isn't
too much to tell about the GoW 2 menus.
The moves list has a glitch regarding Poseidon's Urn. First, go to Cronos' Rage
sub-section at the moves list and open it. Then go and switch Poseidon's Urn
on. Then exit menu for the effect to activate. Finally, re-enter moves list.
...do you see the glitch?
If you choose to 'close group', the cursor will move a pre-set amount upwards,
as if the Cronos' Rage group indeed was there, only invisible.
The magics' order in the moves list changes a bit if you turn PR on.
C. Enemies
The list is organized in the order as the foes appear in the Combat Arena menu.
Next to the name you see how many of them can be brought to the Arena at once.
In general about enemies and their Combat Arena options:
- most grabs by enemies can be escaped instantly by using RotT.
- special effects like being covered in web or stonefrozen can also be escaped
using RotT.
- even if you turn an enemy's Attack off, its counterattack behaviour remains
normal. So they can still attack you if you make them react with an attack.
- an enemy whose Attack is off acts differently when first entering the Arena
and after retry. First entering the Arena, the enemy is mobile and runs around
while ignoring Kratos. After retry, it just stand still and does nothing.
Enemy-specific things...
++ Wild Boar (x3)
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
++ Rabid Hound (x3)
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned
++ Cerberus Seed (x3)
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned
++ Harpy (x3)
- Extremely frail.
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
++ Hades Harpy (x3)
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
++ Cursed Harpy (x3)
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
++ Nymph (x3)
- Extremely frail.
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
++ Hades Nymph (x3)
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
- In most cases they will self-destruct upon death.
++ Greek Citizen (x3)
- Extremely frail.
- This enemy is exclusive to Arena - you never see him in the main game.
- They will drop health, rage and magic orbs when killed.
- They behave exactly the same way whether their Attack is set to on or off.
- Unlike in GoW 3, other enemies don't go out of their way to attack civilians.
++ Greek Women (x3)
- Extremely frail.
- This enemy is exclusive to Arena - you never see her in the main game.
- They will drop health, rage and magic orbs when killed.
- They behave exactly the same way whether their Attack is set to on or off.
- Unlike in GoW 3, other enemies don't go out of their way to attack civilians.
++ Cursed Remains (x3)
- Heard of a glitch that makes a Cursed Remains become invincible to damage,
which is handy for farming orbs around the Bog level. Should be tested at
some point, but for now, here's a quote:
"You need to get cursed remains damaged until O, then let him regain control
and then use CR (any lvl). The glitch makes Cursed Remains when in O state
invincible to any damage Kratos might cause. So, nothing will kill them,
unless use O minigame."
"Some unlisted info: to do this glitch, you must have sub-weapon active and
do the things that i wrote. Only after that they will not die by any
sub-weapons/magic. If you return to Blades, glitch instantly ends, and then
Cursed Remains can be killed." - credits to Ahmad Shah.
++ Rhodes Archer (x3)
- Extremely frail.
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
++ Undead Archer (x3)
- Extremely frail.
- Could probably be infinite air grabbed if they didn't die so easily.
- Could be infinite Orion's Harpooned if they didn't die so easily.
++ Cursed Archer (x3)
- Extremely frail.
- Could probably be infinite air grabbed if they didn't die so easily.
- Could be infinite Orion's Harpooned if they didn't die so easily.
++ Rhodes Soldier (x3)
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
++ Barbarian Mercenary (x3)
- Their grab can be instantly escaped with RotT.
- They can't be launched while they do their attacks.
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
++ Beast Lord (x3)
- Can be infinitely Orion's Harpooned.
- While in the Arena, they're unable to summon a Cyclops Berserker to their aid.
- If they are close to a Cyclops Berserker, they are able to start riding on it.
They will do this even if their Attack is turned off!
- Apparently rarely the sequence where Beast Lord mounts a Cyclops glitches up,
causing the Beast Lord to become stuck in air and completely invulnerable.
Videos:
1, Sparlastor's vid of invulnerable Beast Lord:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvjxOWmj4os
++ Undead Legionnaire (x3)
- Can be infinite air grabbed.
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
- If you open up Arena with more than 3 Undead Legionnaires, the game will
crash in the loading screen. It only works for me on the PAL PS3 version,
so it's a rare version specific glitch.
Videos:
1, AKheon's speedrun of GoW II to fastest crash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_rrv19oCFw
++ Cursed Legionnaire (x3)
- Can be infinite air grabbed, although the point where the enemy becomes
mini-game stunned will interrupt the infinite air grab.
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned, although again mini-game stun will end
your barrage of Orion's Harpoons.
++ Wraith of Athens (x3)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Wraith of Asphodel (x3)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Hades Fiend (x3)
- Can be near-infinite air grabbed.
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
- In most cases they self-destruct upon death.
++ Fates Sentry (x3)
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned.
++ Fates Guardian (x3)
- Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned, although the mini-game stun will end
your barrage of Orion's Harpoons.
++ Fates Juggernaut (x2)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Hades Juggernaut (x2)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Legionnaire Captain (x2)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Hades Legionnaire (x2)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Satyr (x2)
- Trying to Orion's Harpoon a Satyr who is being suspended close to ground
by CR (?) can cause the Satyr to become stuck in air. However, I'm not sure
if the glitch is completely random, or if it happens consistently.
Videos:
1, addaminsain's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1QnlILBn-A
++ Satyr Champion (x2)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Siren (x2)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Siren Widow (x2)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Gorgon (x2)
- A false grab always provokes them to shoot their freeze beams, which can
be useful in some cases.
++ Gorgon Assassin (x2)
- A false grab always provokes them to shoot a Gorgon Flash, which can be
useful in some cases.
++ Gorgon Queen (x2)
- A false grab always provokes them to shoot a Gorgon Rage, which can be
useful in some cases.
++ Minotaur Grunt (x2)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Hades Minotaur (x2)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Erebus Minotaur (x2)
- This foe will cancel his charge attack if he runs into another foe.
++ High Priest of the Fates (x1)
- They are able to summon Fates Guardians to their aid, even inside Arena.
- If you press 'X' at a right point after winning their ground grab mini-game,
Kratos follows the launched enemy in air with an ascension. (thanks to Ahmad
Shah)
++ Cyclops Brute (x1)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Cyclops Tyrant (x1)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Cyclops Berserker (x1)
- If you stonefreeze a Cyclops Berserker ridden by a Beast Lord, the two foes
become separated again. Beast Lord also becomes frozen and most likely
shatters when falling off the Cyclops.
++ Cerberus (x1)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Cerberus Breeder (x1)
- They are able to spawn Cerberus Seeds during a fight, even in Arena.
- A word of warning: fighting against three Cerberus Breeders in the Arena
highly increases the risk of your game crashing, at least on the PAL PS3
version.
- If you false grab them repeatedly, you'll activate a glitched version of
their head-cutting mini-game for no reason. Kratos is free to move during
this time as the Cerberus' head is separated by itself. If you continue this
long enough, the foe dies. (thanks to corvettelover for mentioning)
++ Titan Minotaur (x1)
- Nothing to report so far...
++ Griffin
- Only encountered during flying sections. Can't be brought to Arena.
++ Griffin Rider
- Only encountered during flying sections. Can't be brought to Arena.
++ Hades Arm
- A special encounter that can't be brought to Arena.
- They are immune to being stonefrozen.
++ Boat Captain
- Appears during the Barbarian King fight along with Barbarian Mercenaries.
- Can't be brought to Arena.
...and as for the bosses, see level-by-level section for them.
D. Other
Subtle speed strategies:
+ any time the 'loading' placard appears anywhere, time keeps running even
though you lose control of Kratos. Therefore, if you know that some place with
loading is coming up, and you're going for fastest in-game time in a speedrun,
you might want to pause the game (using select) for a bit so that the game can
load everything it needs before progressing. Or spend the time by upgrading
your gear for instance. But this is not such a big issue on the HD Collection.
+ a TAS-relevant ide: while jumping over irregular or slightly elevated ledges,
attacking in air (or even just unsheathing Bow/Head) will instantly push Kratos
over the ledge's collision, giving you an ever-so-slight speed boost to the
direction you were going. However, after having attacked in air, Kratos will
land making a stomp, unlike normal. Not sure if that wastes the time you save.
+ whilst receiving health or magic upgrades, opening the start-menu will cut
short the time it takes for the meter to fill. (same as in GoW 1)
+ the "you have upgraded weapon/magic X" window can resolve either quickly or
slowly. So with luck you can save a few seconds here and there by getting
quicker upgrading windows.
-----
Mechanism to help out stuck gamers?
Chances are that this game has a mechanism which throws additional hints and
even might trivialize a puzzle if anyone gets stuck around it for too long a
time. For example, at water pillar puzzle (after Euryale) the game gives player
a new Amulet of the Fates tutorial if enough time passes. We don't have much
other evidence for this yet, though...
-----
Unsolved mysteries or untested:
++ Small chests
For unknown reasons, some chests can rarely be found in mini-size. They take
just as much effort to open them than regular-sized chests, though.
A theory is that this glitch may be related to the infinite orb glitch v2 -
if you do that glitch long enough, the enemy you shatter repeatedly starts
shrinking in size. One comment I read mentioned that this could also make a
nearby chest shrink in size.
Videos:
1, RangerRipcord's vid
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XcCAMKyDPTg
++ False attacks on climbing walls
"I now know how to activate the false attack glitch on walls I reported long
ago. Get at the edge of a gap and hold the left analog towards it. Wait until
Kratos' animation stills (about 2 seconds *no rush*) then press square, triangle
or circle. Doing it too early will self-cancel. The fake attacks have no aura
and can be canceled at any point with other attacks, movement, etc." - GMG
++ Wrong voice-over
"Has anyone ever had it happen to them where, instead of Gaia saying "Let the
Rage of the Titans flow your blades Kratos" or whatever, it's a different voice?
During the part with the Cerberus breeders and fates juggernauts I heard some
different voice say "Let the Rage of the Gods Guide your Blades Kratos" instead.
- corvettelover
-----
In-game clock:
It works differently from the one in GoW 1.
Game clock begins counting at the start of the first in-game scene.
On retry, the game time is not reverted back. (unlike in GoW 1)
While in weapons (start) menu time DOES run.
While in save menu, time DOES run. §
During FMV's the time DOES run.
During in-game cutscenes, time DOES run.
During loading times, time DOES run.
While in the pause (select) menu, time does not run.
While in the disc tray screen, time does not run.
4. Level-by-level glitch playthrough
------------------------------------
Alright, now we go through the levels in the game and list all the tricks
chronologically as they come up.
Many of the sequence breaks, especially the ones close to the start of the game,
can only be done on Bonus Play. For clarity, there is usually a tag or (NP) or
(BP) next to a sequence break or a trick to indicate if it can be done on Normal
Play, Bonus Play or both.
Checkpoints and save points have also been listed along with their respective
oddities (if any). Remember that upgrade glitch refers to upgrading something to
cause extra strain on the game, then loading the last checkpoint to see if
something odd happens. If something odd does happen, that is listed as well.
Different markings are used for different entries:
- Sequence break (you are able to skip small or large portions of the game)
- Collision flaw (some part of the wall, etc. has a breach or a flaw in it)
- Trigger skip (you are able to skip a loading or another type of trigger)
- Other (a glitch that doesn't fit into any of the other groups)
- Random (some esoteric factoid)
- Untested (something that no one has tried? wrote it down here)
- Mystery (??????????)
- Wasted glitch potential (a trick that is completely useless or worse)
- Strategy (listing some useful tip or strategy)
- Sweet spot (a location which allows strategic advantages)
+ checkpoint (before level loads)
+ checkpoint (at shrinking Kratos-cutscene)
- upgrading glitch: the screen shake caused by the closing gate occurs way
earlier than it should - if you cause enough strain, you
can even get it to happen at the loading screen!
Generally speaking, all atmospheric/timed effects are
vulnerable like this and there is not much point in
listing all of them.
Other: big Kratos glitch
Rarely, maybe due to some loading error, Kratos breaks out of the first cutscene
of the game that would conveniently return him back to normal size from his
fairly large demi-God size. If this happens, you are stuck - if not in the first
room of the game, then at the sling that you can't activate since you are too
high for the R1 prompt.
Wulf2k9 said that Kratos starts at roughly 2.5 his normal size at the start of
the cutscene before shrinking back to regular size.
Videos:
1, Nemesis958's original vid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=H-l4lSNfn9k
2, Wulf2k9's exploration with big Kratos (using hacks):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8pZarMl-xo
Random (NP): in case you were wondering, the golden Blades Kratos has at the
start of Normal Play only have Lv. 1 damage modifier although the game claims
they're at MAX level. (thanks to Demonic Phoenix for this fact)
-----
--- Random fight quotes:
"Don't let him open the door!"
"Don't let him through!"
"Stand fast, men!"
"For the glory of the gods!"
"Hold the door, men."
"Chaaarge!"
"Attaaaack!"
"Hold your ground!"
"Defend the city, men!"
"Zeus, guide our swords!"
"The battle is ours!"
"We have him where we want him!"
Other (BP): you can kill the guards behind the gate before it is opened. The
next cutscene will then lack anyone standing behind the gate, although you still
hear the guards talking like usual.
Videos:
1, Findlestick has captured an example of this phenomena:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5P4tDiQ3Ac
Wasted sequence break potential (BP): the walls of this roof are so high
it's impossible to win any time by trying to jump over them.
Trigger skips (BP): findlestick has reported (and shown) that Infinite Jumping
from the first room to the arena with Colossus causes Colossus to remain near
the first room's window, invulnerable, until you choose to throw the rock at
him.
Balcony trigger skip (listed later) has a similar effect, except Colossus is at
a different location and pose.
Videos:
1, Findlestick's vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4o8tLiqKaI
Speed strategy (NP) & (BP): Early gate opening
Stand right next to the gate and be ready to press R1 right as the cutscene of
the rest of the enemies running away begins. Kratos will grab and lift the gate
up during the cutscene, making things more time-efficient. Easiest to do on BP,
though.
Here's an easy setup for doing this on BP: as soon as the level starts, do
Atlas Quake and inch towards the door. Do AQ a total of 7 times, all in a row
more or less, and after the last one get ready to R1 the door. This works most
of the time.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid (at the start):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPCRT8fgaOQ
Trigger skip (BP): if you're patient, you can infinite jump past a trigger in
the following corridor. The end result is that Colossus' hand will never break a
hole into the wall... but you can pass through in any case because that spot
in the wall was collision-less to begin with.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l60Vx8ttkU0#t=190
Random: An invisible wall prevents passage while Colossus' hand ravages the
corridor. If any of the soldiers who were involved in the hand cutscene survive
Colossus' reach, they'll be huddled in the corner. They aren't counted as
enemies and Kratos can't interact with them.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPCRT8fgaOQ#t=27
-----
+ checkpoint (after balcony has collapsed)
Trigger skip (BP): If you do an Infinite Jump with about 3 charges, you can
grab a ledge at the top of the invisible wall of the balcony and climb over the
trigger that would activate the scene where the balcony crashes. Unfortunately
Colossus will not become alert to Kratos' presence either this way, retaining
invulnerability and looking somewhere completely else. His attention is won
over by trying to shoot the rock at him, and only then the fight continues as
normal.
If you have skipped the trigger, then shoot yourself to the empty building
using the sling (read more below), and then return, it looks as if the fight
would start anew, with the accompanying cutscene and all. However, you will
soon find out that no matter how much damage you inflict to Colossus, he will
never get stunned. This is because the game already thinks he IS stunned! As
soon as you touch and access the sling, Colossus faints by his own right, and
the fight can proceed as normal. If you retry from checkpoint, Colossus has
full HP, but once properly stunned, he does so without a cutscene (the game
remembers he was stunned into submission once before already).
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of the classic balcony trigger skip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGuFjNWOWkw
2, unfortunately, it seems there's no video footage of the glitch spoken of
in the second paragraph.
Battle musings: "(Lower level) There is an invisible wall there for us that
doesn't apply to our foes and a mere knockback can send them over the side.
Doing so doesn't give orbs, counts as a kill and discontinues the respawn of
that particular soldier right away *rather then taking A LOT of kills to do so
as it isn't infinite*. So you could set-up a situation where there aren't any
soldiers present within 1-3 minutes of effort. *just to note it*"
"The Colossus' attacks appear to directly damage the Rhodians (5 damage per
instance). Amusing. Almost as funny as hurting the Colossus with a Rhodian
(collisions)." - GMG
Wasted potential: the first use of sling can't be broken out of.
Speed strategy: If you try to shoot the rock whenever Colossus is not stunned,
he will always react to it with his rock grabbing animation. Even if his right
hand was filled with soldiers he just groped from inside the house! Since the
attack of him throwing more soldiers is so slow, it actually saves time to skip
the attack by activating rock throw during it.
Videos:
1, AKheon's video of a quick Colossus I (BP) fight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm5cZXiBmRM
Sweet spot: Hang on the ledge close to the side Colossus is at. Nothing will
harm you.
Sweet spot: You are immune to being shaked (an attack Colossus does when you are
at the left part of the area) by standing on top of the chest or at some fickle
spots in front of the sling.
Speed strategy (NP) & (BP): Early rock use (c: GMG)
If you release the rock instantly as Colossus becomes stunned from damage, the
rock cutscene will cancel out the stun cutscene and the game will continue like
normal a lot sooner. The timing is semi-difficult, though. Most manageable
during Bonus Play. As far as speedrunning goes, this is an obsolete strategy
because of the "Early sling use" (more below).
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SDeKWzKZic#t=83
Strategy (BP): various sling glitches
You can activate the sling prompt the instant Colossus gets stunned and already
start climbing on the sling during the cutscene. It's a small speed tactic,
most manageable during Bonus Play. However, be careful not to shoot Kratos at
Colossus too early or else he will simply pass through him and land back to
the adjacent building - where the game started from. Nothing can be done there,
though, and you often get stuck.
Another variation is to use early sling during Colossus' cutscene-less second
stun. This causes Kratos to activate a glitched-up QTE that requires no prompts
and will always end in victory. I think it is a couple of seconds faster than
the normal QTE too.
You can also glitch things a bit using the sling by activating it the last
moment before Colossus shakes the ground OR by doing a break-out (pretty much
the same effect). After that, you can break out of EVERY single phase of the
sling shoot, even though it does get a bit hard during the last phase due to
its circle-tapping motions.
If you cancel out of all the phases of the sling shot, the sling will shoot
nothing at Colossus. If he wasn't stunned, his hand extends a bit as if he was
trying to catch the stacked nothingness Kratos shot at him, but then he drops
the idea as something completely non-sensical and returns to normal. If he was
stunned, however, the internal timer which would return him back to normal from
his stun shuts off, leaving him eternally stunned. During this time you can try
to damage kill him: his head can't be targeted after inflicting a certain
amount of damage, but nothing else of interest happens. Also, the sling's
collision changes to let Kratos get on top of it, as does the arena's front
wall's collision. You can jump down if you want to, but nothing awaits there
but death and a strange white square panel (I'm not joking, go check it out
yourself!).
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of "Colossus sling glitches"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ew65va_S14I
2, AKheon's vid of "More Colossus Stuff"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9SDeKWzKZic
Random: You can see Zeus in his bird form flying in the background.
-----
+ checkpoint (after screen fade-in) (swimming checkpoint)
- upgrading glitch note: if you built up dash momentum before retrying, it
carries on over the checkpoint strangely.
- other: a strange screen flash whenever retrying
- other: you can manipulate the checkpoint spot for this location by moving a
bit before it activates (during loading times, etc.)
+ savepoint "Rhodes Bathhouse"
Sex mini-game:
If you retrace a bit and break one wall down, you will find an infamous sex
mini-game from the area.
--- Quotes: (two women, but both have the same comments, only a different voice)
-- While behind wall
"Ooh..."
"Oh..."
-- After being unveiled
"Hi there!"
"Ooh, this water is nice..."
-- During sex
"Oh..."
"Ohh... ohh..."
"*gasp*"
-- Afterwards
"Praise the gods..."
"Aww, I wasn't done yet..."
- "That is not my concern!" = after losing enough in a row.
"I don't feel degraded at all" = after winning enough in a row.
"That was SO consensual." = after winning enough in a row.
By beating the game, you win a decent amount of orbs. Subsequent victories yield
nothing in particular (except those two comments, or are there more?). However,
during Normal Play you will lose all your orbs in a moment, so it actually does
you no good to beat this mini-game. (except to add to final ranking)
Other: Findlestick got this strange result while trying to begin the mini-game
one day, perhaps due to something being unloaded.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
video unavailable at the moment...
-----
+ checkpoint (at the mid-way of the next corridor)
Wasted potential (BP): Very curiously, there's a spot underneath the grapple
point where you can't fully cancel out of L1-moves with a sub-weapon switch,
preventing some high jumps. Also, the balcony at the other side can't be
grabbed onto since it has no ledges to its side... preventing an easy long jump.
Also, two of the walls of this room are not passable from the outside to the
inside! They are the most obvious ones too: front wall and the right-hand wall.
This fact was relevant back in the day while trying to figure out a swimming
glitch for this map, but hey... it was found eventually.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid, "wasted glitch potential"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UGuFjNWOWkw
Swimming glitch (BP): (c: AKheon)
It took some testing, but eventually a swimming glitch was found for this map:
to do it, you have to get over the back wall, fall and touch water surface while
still being out of bounds. It's something pretty arduous to do, though.
You can only swim in these few maps since you can't defeat the next Colossus
fight while still swimming. Backtracking to the first bathroom is possible to
do, although a bit tricky: you have to activate a necessary loading trigger from
out of bounds to do it. Try swimming just barely above the underwater corridor
to do this. (c: findle)
You can reach the next Colossus boss this way while skipping a few triggers on
the way, making things look... strange. There are probably many videos of this
and similar glitches up ahead.
Videos:
1, AKheon's original video:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=NPf-GKtzsGM
2, Findlestick goes into further detail with scenery exploration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQr_9SjKOi4
Time save? (BP): you can do a PR long jump over the large gap, but it's probably
not worth it since it's an annoying jump and it barely saves time.
-----
--- Quotes:
"Show no mercy!"
"Kill him!"
Trigger skips (BP): if you infinite jump or swim past the corridor with the
closed gate in front, you skip a trigger that would load Colossus here. This
causes the wall up ahead break as Kratos approaches but no foot comes out. A
pretty cool result in itself, but you can also follow this up with a few other
trigger glitches if you now visit the top of the grapple wall with Colossus
unloaded.
After visiting the top and hitting the triggers there, you can start fighting
Colossus from inside the large hall downstairs with ranged attacks - normally
this won't work since Colossus is invincible. Colossus will get stunned, drop
orbs and enter his mini-game despite being far away from Kratos. If you abuse
the Colossus' unloading limit, it's possible to have him drop the orbs again and
again (i.e. infinite red orbs v3).
Many of Colossus' atmospheric actions (e.g. banging the wall) come first before
his 'damage check', so he may drift in and out of being mini-game ready when
you approach him (and of course, it looks funny). Because of his tendency to
switch sides on alternate mini-games, this may leave an useless 'O' floating in
the air on either side of the arena which stays there even after Colossus
returns to normal. However, I hear there can't be more than one 'O' in existence
at the same time - the first one disappears when you start a mini-game.
You can also do these climbing wall trigger glitches in an easier way by doing
a trick at the top of the climbing wall. More about it somewhere below...
Videos:
1, Findestick's vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-ZLVbFE74k
Wasted potential: the thing that looks like water at the left side of the room
is just a graphical effect.
Sequence break (NP): skipping Colossus' foot (c: AKheon)
Hooray for a new NP skip. To skip the foot cutscene, you must grab a very small
ledge that the 'balcony' has and just jump over the boundary to the left side.
When approaching the correct area, Colossus will stick his foot out, but if
you're outside the correct range, the event just ends there and nothing happens.
While the camera stays at a blissfully wrong angle afterwards, you save many
seconds doing this.
In a speedrun, you'll likely get to the foot so fast this way that the foot
will not even be loaded. This means that the event simply won't start, and you
don't have to do any evasive manouvers to make it work.
In the PS3-version, this trick is unreliable to do because of faster loading,
or so I've heard from findlestick.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5DdUzdGx9c
-----
+ checkpoint (almost at the top of the grapple section)
- other: the checkpoint can be triggered the exact moment Colossus bangs the
wall. Whenever retrying, the screen shakes ominously for a moment, but
Kratos will not get stunned.
Random: You see soldiers in the background. They can be targeted, though they're
immobile. If you have Typhon's Bane, you can even kill them and get their orbs.
Glitch control: The game re-positions Kratos automatically as soon as the giant
foor attempts to crush him. However...
Event glitch (BP): Moving Colossus (c: AKheon)
If you do a 'break-out' at the exact moment the giant foot is about to touch
Kratos, you can manipulate the event AND the following boss fight in a very
strange manner: you can change Colossus' position in the game world, leading
to some cool-looking scenarios. Here's a list of most common outcomes:
1, QTE takes place 2 meters closer to the back.
2, QTE takes place somewhere outside the camera. If the outcome is victory,
Kratos appears somewhere at the room's backside for no reason. If the outcome
is failure, the camera fixates on an empty spot on the floor while the text
"You are dead" appears.
3, QTE takes place almost in the camera's view. The text "You are dead" appears
out of thin air, while you still hear Kratos' desperate sounds of lifting the
foot in the background.
4, QTE takes place somewhere outside camera. If the outcome is victory, the
camera stays fixated on the hole in the wall. Time passes. Kratos was actually
out of bounds and falling to his death the whole time!
Approaching the foot platform from the left side (either via using the ledge
that was mentioned above or high jumping there) gives the player even more
options in regards to the possible outcomes. Not to mention that you can
break-out of all the phases of the Foot event, not only the first one. This
also changes variables quite a lot. So basically, most options regarding this
event are still Untested, but probably go along the same lines as the four
options listed above.
Anyway, the following boss fight has Colossus' position change depending on
where you managed to have his foot appear in the QTE. At the very worst,
Colossus is completely absorbed into the right wall of the arena and you can't
damage him in any way!
(note: Findlestick later showed what happens if you infinite jump out of the
chasm you get into by doing the #4 of the options mentioned above. Colossus ends
up really high above the ground and things look a lot more ridiculous than they
should. So yeah, another new displacement option.)
Some break-outs will even teleport Kratos to the arena where Colossus II is
fought, with the Colossus present, but with no atmosphere effects or BGM. The
area is only half-loaded. You can go as far as defeat the fight, but you get
stuck as the last QTE ends due to things not loading properly.
Videos:
1, part I, showing the event break-out in action:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-CWNb2b42LQ
2, part II, showing moved Colossus:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=I-QCrHMQpAI
3, Findle's additional displacements:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixq5mkO9NPI
4, even more additional displacements:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po3oJ1rp-yo
5, more by Findle (as extreme as it goes?):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPCRT8fgaOQ#t=94
6, potential speedrun route using displaced Colossus II:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBFx0EzCz_I
Event glitch (NP): moving Colossus
You can do a lighter version of the Colossus moving trick on Normal Play as
well. To do this, you need to climb up the balcony using the hidden ledge, then
activate the Colossus foot encounter from the wrong side. This already moves
Colossus slightly to a wrong direction.
If you're close enough to normal area as the foot appears this will slightly
move Colossus to the left. Being further away causes a more extreme Colossus
teleportation, but I hear this variation is not useful because it moves
Colossus so that you can no longer do one of the mini-games in the upcoming
fight, getting you stuck. (c: Ahmad Shah)
Other (NP & BP): messing with the climbing wall triggers (c: findlestick)
There are two triggers at the top of the grapple wall - one that makes Kratos
immobile and one that activates Colossus' dramatic appearance. It's possible to
hit the first trigger while avoiding hitting the second, with various results,
including an easier way to do old familiar glitches like creating redundant
mini-game circles and in general screwing with poor Colossus' head.
This is done by first making Kratos grab the ledge at the top of the wall and
then doing an extremely difficult double jump up to the Colossus 'appearance
trigger', so that only one of Kratos' legs is on the ledge. Now Kratos is at
the top, but as for Colossus?
There are 2 initial outcomes dependent on some unknown factor/s:
(a) Colossus appears left of screen & is unhittable from the top of the grapple
wall.
(b) Colossus appears right of screen & is immediately hittable from the top of
the grapple wall. Which can be used as a (minor) speedrun strategy since you
can do some damage before you've even dropped to the arena floor.
It's also possible to double jump from the top of the grapple wall & end up out
of bounds, you can run around Colossus' feet & cause chaos.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid (at the start of video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=punfWOfmEHQ
-----
Random: if you're swimming when the climbing wall is banged at, Kratos' stance
changes to the climbing one, which looks quite awesome.
Random: While on the high area, you can't harm Colossus, though he can harm you.
Random (BP): There's an invisible floor far below Colossus II, as well as his
own severed hand (you will only see it later after winning the fight). It can be
reached by swimming glitch or high jumping out of the map.
Videos:
1, Findlestick's vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noC54ScI9BA
Sweet spot (BP): If you moved Colossus around with the break-out glitch
mentioned above, you can create your OWN sweet spots for the fight.
A.I. flaw - "If you 'repel' Colossus, cross to the other side and 'repel'
it again (before it can start the sweeping attack to the other side) it will
continue attacking on the opposite side." - GMG
Other: if you fail either of the QTEs in which you scratch Colossus' cheek
during the two last inputs, the scratch you make stays, but later (when you
re-start the QTE) disappears.
Random: The last QTE lasts indefinitely, until you deign to break yourself free.
-----
+ checkpoint (after screen fade-in)
+ savepoint "Rhodes Palace"
--- Quotes:
"Watch your flank!"
"Show no mercy!"
"Die with honor!"
Sequence break / wasted potential (BP): you can do an infinite jump of some
sort over the window-type ornaments in the area to skip right to the end.
However, doing this is impractical because of some collision in the way, not
to mention the area itself is so short that it's faster to do it normally than
do an ambitious jump like that.
Sequence break / wasted potential (BP): Findlestick found this very neat way
to skip the block pushing puzzle. It involves jumping over the door which you
are supposed to open with the pedestal, then jumping to the left to stand on
top of the fence next to the previous save point. From there, a third jump will
get you right to the elevator.
Alternatively, you can do a very long jump from on top of the first gate with
a slight slant to left, enough to steer past the gate ahead, to land inside
the next corridor. This takes some PR resetting to pull off, and sadly is slow
enough that it's better to just do the puzzle at this rate.
Videos:
1, findle's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YXCSGI1J5I
Time save (BP): you can reach the Urn of Gaia with a mere high jump. No need
to push the block around.
"I believe foes that follow us onto the elevator just fall through." - GMG
Random (BP): with a painstakingly high Infinite Jump, Findlestick showed us that
even if you don't use the elevator to get to the higher level, it rises up
there regardless as you blast Colossus' Eye out. Might be a part of how the new
level is loaded.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fozxf8Ex0q8
-----
+ checkpoint (on the elevator)
Random (BP): the 'window' of the corridor is sealed before Colossus gets in
front of it. TB shots just hit nothingness.
Wasted glitch potential (BP): You can do a high jump to reach a ledge in the
upper part of the corridor where there is the eye looking at ya. From there you
can bypass the giant head and move on to the next area...
Unfortunately the collapsing bridge and anything beyond simply will not load
unless you view the Zeus FMV, which's trigger is passing through the balcony
window at the end of the corridor and then moving to a correct area.
Findle later revealed that it's possible to gaet infinite red orbs from an
apparently infinite horde of soldiers that charge at you if you skipped the
head. Unfortunately, were this even possible on NP, it would be useless because
in a few moments all your orbs are drained away by the Blade of Olympus!
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of the jump getting out of bounds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVY8NHmMPGc#t=16
2, Findle's vid on the wasted infinite orb potential:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsRSEN9-b88
Other: if you pull the elevator switch the same time the room collapses, the
switch sort of dislodges itself from Kratos' hands and Kratos continues the
animation without the switch. No elevator activates afterwards.
-----
<"What I do now I do for the good of all Olympus!">
+ checkpoint (after FMV)
+ savepoint "Eastern Ramparts"
+ checkpoint (after hitting the bottom floor of the tower)
"Sweet Spot - Once you kick the door open the Rhodians won't be able to properly
pursue (though when they prep to charge they will do so before retreating)."
- GMG
Other: disappearing soldier
Here's a reader-sent glitch which I hear can be done consistently:
"In Rhodes, after the cutscene with falling BoO from the sky (Pathway to
Colossus III) I rushed to the door, ignoring any enemies. Smacked the door and
trying to open a Health chest ---- some moments later, Soldier ran toward me
and used his attack (unusual for soldier, since A.I they do not exit their
area(Box Trigger)) on me. I canceled the opening, and parried attack, but
after the parry, he disappears leaving no red orbs (similiar to the minotaurs
in fight off with theseus)." - Ahmad Shah
Other: the glass window may stay impassable up to a few seconds after it has
been completely broken.
Speed strategy: It's a lot faster to move on the shimmy sections by jumping.
It's a bit tricky, but saves time in practically all shimmy sections.
Sequence break (BP): underneath the beams, by the Archers there is a window
that looks into the room that leads to the Colossus III area. High Jump over the
rightside wall then jump into the room and you can proceed without fighting
any foes in this section. (thanks to GMG)
After using this shortcut, the collapsing bridge is not loaded at first as you
open the gate leading up to it. So you have to do a sort of long jump, like
SoD Leap, to hover in air for a few seconds before the bridge materializes
under Kratos.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekLbLxOsytk
Other: after falling down to the gate next to the breaking bridge, you can't
grab the chain above. Kratos gets separated from it instantly if you try.
-----
+ checkpoint (after bridge had collapsed)
Useless trigger skips (BP): by doing IJ, you can skip the bridge collapse
trigger and Colossus appearance triggers. The useless but funny things you can
do with unloaded data are f.e. reach the fight arena with Colossus absent, toss
the hand at nothingness (making an audible clank) and getting on the solid
bridge after Colossus is at the scene of the fight (the bridge collapses by
itself).
There's a third trigger, the one which officially begins the fight. Skipping it
enables you to f.e. R1 the sword one extra time before Colossus can react. The
trigger is very high and wide though, making it pretty annoying to skip.
More details? Very well.
+ Skipping the Colossus appearance trigger will enable you to R1 the sword three
times without anyone bothering you. Afterwards, if you trigger Colossus to
appear, he will "die" from a single hand toss, making short work of the fight.
+ Skipping the fight start (3rd) trigger will leave Colossus invincible until
you either throw the hand at him or R1 the sword once.
+ It seems that you can't break out of R1'ing the sword. However, on one of
findlestick's videos you could see an effect similar to a break out: Kratos
was able to move freely around the area while his orbs were drained to zero.
When asked about it, findle said that it may've been a result of doing the sword
charges without Colossus around, leading to a glitched outcome. Maybe future
provides us with a more precise answer...
Videos:
1, Findlestick's vid of hitting invisible Colossus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzqnyxtiNTI
2, Findlestick's vid of defeating Colossus in one hit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygAijv-816s
Wasted glitch potential: you can't activate the Blade early during the Colossus
fight intro cutscene, even though you can just barely reach it with Crushing
Defeat.
Sweet spot: staying behind the hand makes Colossus III mostly only use his
electric wall attack, which may make the fight easier. (suggested by Ahmad
Shah)
Other: here's a small thing to watch out for. Don't try to R1 the sword if
Colossus is sending out his destructive ground beams. This is because if you
get hit in a wrong position by the beams while grasping at the sword, the
sword loses its prompt and you get stuck (until you retry)!
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVY8NHmMPGc#t=116
Random: on Normal Play activating the sword makes Kratos' powers drain away.
On Bonus Play activating the sword instead regenerates Kratos' health and
magic to full! (thanks to GMG for mentioning)
Speed strategy (NP & BP): Early hand throw (c: GMG)
You can throw the severed hand at Colossus at any time to instantly stun him.
However, the fastest outcome is to throw it at him right after you've acquired
BoO via the cutscene. You must do two rolls to the correct direction while the
controls are reverse and camera angles skewed, which is a lot easier said than
done. In any case, saves some seconds in a speedrun.
Try this: when you regain control of Kratos during the cutscene, first do a
roll up/forward and then do a roll to left (but since controls are reversed,
you go right). Then you should be next to the prompt, so use it with R1.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDkfrmmpncw
Event glitch (BP): Hand throw break-out
By breaking-out, you retain control of Kratos while the severed hand whirls
by itself in the air and slams into Colossus. It's not a very handy trick in
a speedrun, though, since Kratos' movement is restricted during the break-out.
Also, doing a PR break-out in the first place takes a few seconds.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ52X5yQXgE
Random: Whether you throw the hand or not, it is gone before you get back here.
Speedrun strategy (BP): the sub-weapon you had selected during the cutscene
where Kratos finally picks up the Blade will stay in your hand the whole of
"Inside Colossus"-section. All other sub-weapons become locked temporarily.
In a speedrun, it's recommended to take SoD inside Colossus since it has the
most convenient launch for doing the various skips inside Colossus with.
-----
+ checkpoint (when inside)
+ checkpoint (after destroying first core)
+ checkpoint (before shimmying to the second core)
+ checkpoint (after destroying second core)
+ checkpoint (after climbing rope)
+ checkpoint (at Pendulum puzzle)
+ checkpoint (after passing Pendulum puzzle)
+ checkpoint (after destroying last core)
Random: In this place the enemy A.I. is quite limited. The soldiers can be led
off cliffs easily, for example.
Sequence break (NP & BP): skipping first core
On Bonus Play... right near the pathway to the first core, do a Poseidon's Urn
high jump to the ledge on your right. You skip destroying the core, basically.
Oh, and the rope part. (c: GMG)
There is an alternative version of this skip where you do the high jump a bit
earlier, right next to the second chasm, where you can see a climbing wall on
the floor above. This way may be a bit slower, but for a pacifist run it's
useful because in my tests it seemed that a few less soldiers spawn (and die)
this way.
On Normal Play... the first core can be skipped by doing a BoO lift up, then
turning your back to the electrified beam at the peak of your jump. The
knockback-animation of hitting the beam makes Kratos go sailing backwards over
it.
On Very Hard, make sure to hit the blue barrier only once on the way over it. If
you hit it more than once, you might not have enough health left to do the 'Core
3' skip (as described further below).
Videos:
1, Findle's vid of the BP method:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ialGN44LIkA
2, Findle's vid of the alternative BP version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g1mXJGA-aQ
3, Findle's vid of the NP method:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geC8L1WEAho
Sequence break (NP & BP): skipping second core
On Bonus Play... right after the shimmy for the second core, do an Urn high jump
to a ledge above on your left. Again, you skip straight to the next level. (GMG)
On Normal Play... the 2nd core is skipped by doing an BoO lift-up from on top of
the chest located left-of-screen. At the peak of your jump is the tiniest of
ledges you can use to jump up to the final grapple wall...but ONLY when Colossus
has swayed fully to either the right or left-of-screen (I've forgotten which
one).
Videos:
see the videos above.
Sequence break (NP & BP): skipping third core
On Bonus Play... right before the shimmy for the third core, do an Urn high jump
followed by SoD long jump over the damaging pipes. You reach the rope which
leads to the next area. (c: GMG)
Alternatively, just do a running double jump and do SoD attacks during it. With
perfect positioning, Kratos flies over the pipe and can reach the rope early.
If you're not sure about the positioning, turn Kratos 180 degrees around during
the jump to have the pipe damage knock him backwards and reach the rope anyway.
On Normal Play... you can do a similar tactic by getting enough height with an
ascension or a double jump, then turning Kratos around 180 degrees and let the
pipe damage push him next to the rope. (c: findlestick)
On Very Hard you take a lot of damage on this one, so try to hit the barrier
just once on the way through (taking a second 'hit' might be ok).
Videos:
see the two above vids
Sequence break (NP): alternative for the 3rd Core Skip (c: findlestick)
Once you've shimmied past the 3rd core, climb the roped-netting to end up on the
platform that has a hidden chest. Now, there is an invisible wall between you
and the electrified beam, preventing an easy route over it. So you have to use
your first jump to end up at the base of this invisible wall, and then use your
2nd jump followed by BoO air-attacks to get you above the electrified beam to
the left of the core. Again, turn your back, so that the knockback-animation
takes you backwards over to the rope. (v2)
Another place to start this skip from is to do a launch right after shimmying
past the 3rd core. (v3)
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid of all versions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geC8L1WEAho
"Speed Tactic: (Shaft 3) Instead of shimmying then dropping down to get under
the beam before pulling back up into a shimmy and crossing, you can run at the
ledge, fall for an instant, use Icarus Lift to grab the ledge and continue from
that point (nearly under the beam already)." - GMG
Speed strategy: at the top level, you can do a long jump to the left instead
of going to right. You end up right next to the pendulum puzzle this way.
(c: Findlestick)
Sequence break (NP & BP): Skipping Pendulum puzzle
You can get past both of the beams without using the pendulum by inching your
way through them. You see, as Kratos gets hit he takes some damage and is pushed
back a little. But if you persistently keep going, Kratos makes some progress
anyway and soon passes through the beam. This is only practical on the easiest
difficulty. (c: JFCalibur88)
Another method is available on Bonus Play, in which you just do a high jump
to the higher platform on the left side. But you need to hit a loading trigger
first by climbing to the right side high area, otherwise Kratos will get stuck
after the last core has been destroyed. You know your game is doomed to a
softlock if the lower shafts are still glowing down below when you are nearing
the end of this section, so make sure to hit that loading trigger.
Yet another method is available on Bonus Play. Climb close to the top of the
ladder that leads to the right higher area, then double jump towards the
opposite platform while doing air attacks. The margin for error is very small,
since you have to jump high enough to land on the opposite platform, but low
enough that you manage to go under the lasers overhead. (c: findlestick)
Videos:
1, JFCalibur's video of the NP method:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4-nzvW6tN08
2, findlestick's vid of the second BP method:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTnOmynV1qc
Speed strategy (BP): you can cast CR while jumping over the last glowing pipe
on the way to the core. Or alternatively cast CR on ground near where you high
jumped up to the higher floor. Doing this damages the lock while you are still
moving towards it, saving a little time. (c: findlestick)
Random: If you wait too long to escape, Colossus closes his mouth, which is the
only exit, and Kratos falls to his death! You can only survive if you are on
the higher areas, but there's not much to do there.
(I hear it's possible to re-activate the pendulum puzzle, and even get hit by
invisible lasers while doing this.)
Videos:
1, Findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZgejalKRcg#t=242
-----
+ checkpoint (at screen fade-in)
- other: screen flash while retrying
- other: when retrying, Kratos can switch sub-weapon the instant screen
fades in, unlike normally when he can't do it until you hear the
muted 'urgh'.
--- Quotes:
"Why does our god struggle?"
"Kratos has fallen!"
"How can this be?"
"What power could possibly defeat the God of War?"
Speed strategy: if Kratos is idle as the Colossus finale FMV starts, you
can do a roll or an attack at the start of the fade-in afterwards. Doing a roll
towards the Blade during this time skips a nice chunk of the slow walking
section to come, saving around 9 seconds. However, the direction you have to
roll in is probably dependant on Kratos' direction at the end of Colossus. So
you kind of have to figure out your own setup for it.
Untested: it's probably possible to break out of being "weakened Kratos", but
very difficult. The moment where you have to do the ever critical break-out
happens outside camera and also at a time that is not easy to predict at all.
Maybe try it with savestates some day?
Random: During the fight with Zeus, if you indeed manage to hit him, he will
bleed. But it's unlikely you could win a whole battle being as slow as you are.
Random: Using the disc tray glitch you can get to the Blade of Olympus without
any FMVs interrupting the process, but turns out it can't be interacted with.
It doesn't even have any collision! It's just a holographic image Zeus uses
to lure Kratos to his death... How cheap!
Other: it's possible to break out of the weakened Kratos state while fighting
Zeus if he knocks you onto the rails of the stairs in a right way...
"While doing the Zeus battle, I got hit onto the rails of the stairs and fell
back down with the SoD in hand (but couldn't swing) since he obviously was
beating on me too fast to even try." - GMG
"Submit!"
- "I would rather die!"
-----
+ checkpoint (after Kratos can be moved)
+ upgrading glitch note: Kratos will get hit before screen fades in
Other: Kratos can be pushed down from the wall by bad positioning while your
enemies attack you, causing sudden death.
Infinite red orbs: the arms spawn infinitely and can be brutal killed by just
grabbing them, allowing you the orb bonus. Doing this quick enough also allows
you to keep a combo up, giving more orb bonuses as time passes. It's still a
rather slow method, though. (c: Steel Stiletto)
Videos:
1, Findle's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5OmieKIhxw
Other: there's a spot inside Hades' arms where you can drop off the wall safely,
landing on some floor. From there you are able to do an infinite jump out of
Hades (on BP), allowing some small new exploits, like jumping out of the hole
without it closing.
Videos:
1, nanospheres' vid of doing ground-based attacks to the arms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CFdkKG9mBw
2, nanospheres' vid of jumping out of the hole without it closing:
https://youtu.be/mkmPS5Wlkvo?t=245
Random (BP): You can re-visit this place after leaving if you get out of bounds
and do a long jump there! (Only before talking to Last Spartan, though, because
after that it unloads.)
-----
+ checkpoint (after cutscene)
+ save point "Return from Hades"
Random: From this point on, all save points say that it's Gaia who grants you
the saving possibility, not Zeus. Makes sense.
Other: GMG reports that on some occasions in his games there have been a couple
of soldiers still fighting in the background while everyone else has died. He
theorizes that it may've happened because of heading towards the stairs during
the fight with Zeus.
"I still can't say for sure what causes those soldiers to stay alive and
fighting. Though I seem to be able to recreate it about 3/5 times by going
really fast with grabs (at Hades' arms, edit. note) and sticking to the extreme
left as I rush up to the exit/ledge (it's always indicated by a strange camera
issue). The last wall before the exit appears especially important towards the
end." - GMG
Wasted potential (BP): it seems impossible to be able to break out from the Last
Spartan discussion scene.
Event glitch (BP): Pegasus ride break-out
You can break out from Pegasus flight with any of the usual means.
Unfortunately, while the graphical effect is pretty funny (Pegasus stands
around like normal with no one riding him during the cutscene) Kratos dies at
the next part because he can't resist gravity by himself... Infinite jumping
like a madman to preserve your height doesn't seem to yield results for some
reason. The sky looks different than during the actual ride, and Kratos is
nowhere to be found even after a long series of MotKs. It's likely that
something important won't load if Kratos is not on the horse during this time,
explaining why you get stuck.
If you checkpoint yourself during the break-out, after retrying you have a
decent/small amount of time to go and re-R1 the horse! This causes the next
cutscene to glitch up, with no horse visible and the checkpoint triggering way
later than it was supposed to. If you're feeling particularly vain, you can
re-break out, but this has no visible use.
If you break-out, then keep buffering save point repeatedly, with good timing
you can activate save point and become checkpointed after the FMV clip. Now,
if you retry, you are in an unique state where you hear the flight section
music but you are not on a timer and Pegasus won't fly away by itself even if
you waste time in the area. And when you finally R1 the Pegasus to fly away,
the next FMV won't start (since according to the game you already watched it),
causing Kratos and Pegasus become stuck on ground level with Pegasus in a very
anti-climactic looking way.
If you break-out from Pegasus after having seen FMV, you clearly see Pegasus
respawn back to its original location after it has flied away.
Video:
1, AKheon's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiUZqm9YB3o
-----
+ checkpoint (after FMV)
- other: doesn't activate if Kratos is not riding the horse
+ checkpoint (right before the Dark Rider appears)
Other: getting hit by the Raven while doing attacks or rushes can lead to
Kratos being thrown off the Pegasus and getting stuck in air.
Videos:
1, addaminsain's video:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bYw8xrEsd5o
Random: The Wind Shots of TB during this part auto-target any targetable
enemies slightly, unlike on the ground.
Random: "Forward Dash Slam seems incapable of hitting harpies but instead deals
GLANCING blows that work the same but fail to halt our movement. As if we were
cutting through their ranks with our winged stead." - GMG
Random: The game will not progress until you break the neck of the bird (Raven)
which continuously crashes into you.
Soon a short cutscene will lead you to the next part of the flight. Your health
refills mysteriously. During this part you're unable to use attacks and your
magic gets drained too.
Other: On Titan-mode, if Kratos' Armor modifier is normal or less, the first
undodgable wave of bullets the Dark Rider shoots at you will instantly kill you.
Restarting from checkpoint will correct it.
After that you're treated to a nice, scenic tour of the next area. Harpies fly
around you, but they are harmless. You can't hit any of the scenery, though you
may try if you wish.
-----
+ checkpoint (after riding a bit inside the cavern)
- other: you can do a forward rush during the first few frames of retry.
+ checkpoint (after gameplay resumes with Kratos on the ground)
Wasted potential (BP): there's a large, invisible special collision platform
over Pegasus that will eventually kill Kratos if he touches it. Visually it
looks as if Kratos is falling down endlessly, even though he isn't. Approaching
from the left side, you can get on the same platform as Pegasus is, but he is
inside a protective collision bubble and you can't R1 him. So, it may not be
possible to fly away with Pegasus just yet...
Speedrun strategy (BP): you can skip the first section of the grappling wall at
this area. It's done by doing a high jump towards the screen, where you'll see
some broken pillar-bases. Grab a ledge at the top and pull Kratos up so he's
standing on it, from there you want to use your first jump to go very slightly
towards the screen. Then the second jump to end up directly underneath the very
spot you did your initial high jump from. You'll end up at a later section of
the grapple wall, but more importantly, that very spot is where the trigger is
that loads the next section. (c: findlestick)
There are a few other ways to quickly get down to the lower area's save point.
But these methods skip the loading trigger.
Note: beware of saving the game if you screw around with this. I corrupted one
of my saves for some reason, and had to start a new playthrough...
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid (at start of the video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKSQnC_ZqZw
Other: the climbing wall leading deeper to the cavern is a real safety fazard.
Enemies can push Kratos off it if you're unlucky, and some of the corners can
also drop Kratos off if he goes too near them.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of being pushed off the climbing wall:
https://youtu.be/_gyRb7VBc3I?t=15
-----
+ save point "The Hand Cavern"
+ checkpoint (before Erebus Minotaur fight)
Collision flaw: The sides of this cavern are unstable and cause Kratos to shake
while running towards them. In fact, if you jump towards the wall that's left
of the save point, it's possible for Kratos to pass through and fall to his
death!
Other: GMG reports that he once launched the Erebus Minotaur into the next
chasm, and that it stayed alive there, walking and visible. Later attempts to
reproduce this failed. He also mentioned that the minotaur re-spawned after
death, which doesn't normally happen.
-----
+ checkpoint (before the gate)
+ checkpoint (after climbing up the cliff)
Wasted glitch potential (BP): You can skip the next cutscene and some enemies by
high jumping to a platform over the helmet-shaped gate and from there jumping
over the cutscene trigger. You get there the easiest by high jumping towards
either wall on the side.
The problem with this skip is that you can't (at least to my knowledge) get back
inside the cavern from the outside without activating the same cutscene, so
nothing really gets skipped but some enemies.
Strategy (BP?): you can destroy the scaffolding early by using ranged attacks to
it. §
Random: the Gate that closes behind Kratos can't be destroyed again without
first getting Rage of the Titans.
Strategy: "There is a curiously placed sweet spot to the far right. You can
send the Minotaur over the side there thanks to a low invisible wall (launch to
PS) which drops orbs, counts as a kill and possibly ceases respawn in of itself.
*not 100% on it*" - GMG
Speed strategy (BP): you can High Jump up the cliff and skip fighting the
enemies. Fastest to do it from the left side. If you're fast enough, you can
barely jump up to the wooden platform there without the archers hitting Kratos.
Speed strategy: with a good positioning, you can do a roll over the ledge that
you'd normally have to shimmy over.
-----
+ checkpoint (after FMV)
+ checkpoint (after acquiring Rage of the Titans, fight starts)
Other (BP): various trigger skips and glitches at Prometheus
- you can skip meeting Prometheus by infinite jumping over the FMV trigger.
Even if Kratos never meets him or breaks his chains, he will be found dangling
down from his chain when returning from Typhon.
- you can fall into the Fire of Olympus from above. The camera can act fairly
strangely when Kratos is inside it, sometimes rotating madly when moving around.
- it's not possible to break Prometheus' chains for the first time until you're
close enough to him.
- no other attacks damage hanging Prometheus than TB shots.
- the Fire of Olympus visually loses its fire and looks like a birthday cake
without candles if you start infinite jumping back to the stone hand from next
to it.
- if you drop Prometheus into the flames before ever having met him or broken
his chains, then return to the stone hand and watch the FMV where you meet him,
afterwards there will be an invisible Prometheus whose chains you can break on
the stone hand. I think you also never get Rage this way.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid of many above things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdD5o84-YZE
2, findlestick's vid of invisible Prometheus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnvvOPTgPAQ
Speedrun strategy (NP): you can skip having to drop Prometheus down, thus
skipping the scene where Prometheus drops. This is done by jumping into a
little groove located between the stone hand's little and ring finger, then
roll while blocking. If done correctly you'll clip through the hand and fall
through to the area below. As a bonus, you also don't have to watch the next
scene of a grapple wall. (c: findlestick)
When you return, Prometheus and the game load as normal.
Videos:
1, nanospheres' vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyFcoiPRpMI&t=0m57s
Speed strategy (NP): I hear it's possible to drop down along with Prometheus
as you break his chains if you are in a correct position when doing the final
hit.
Random: You can see Prometheus' tormentor bird flying in circle in the
background.
-- Quotes:
"I must burn in the fires of Olympus... it is the only way..."
"Kill me, Kratos, kill me..."
Random: While hanging over the fire, the blood Prometheus emits just sorta
sticks in air like powder.
Speed strategy (BP): you can shoot Prometheus down into the flames before going
down by doing some TB shots from between the stone fingers. (c: shenminiu)
Speed strategy (BP): on BP there's no need to progress any further than this
since you already have Typhon's Bane. Just return to Pegasus already and kick
those big fingers' ass!
Other: you can launch enemies into the fire where Prometheus is but it has no
proper collisions. So the enemies can just waltz right out of there, which is
unhelpful. (c: GMG)
Wasted glitch potential (BP): a short while after moving away from Prometheus,
an in-game cutscene is activated. It can be skipped doing an infinite jump over
the trigger, but this wastes more time than it saves!
Combat musings: "Using Ascension by the wall climb (with a break in the middle)
lures the upper enemy spawns to just leap down." - GMG §
-----
+ save point "Fire of Olympus"
+ checkpoint (in the middle of the caverns)
+ checkpoint (entering Gorgon fight room)
Collision flaw: The next cavern too has some very bad collision to the sides.
Wasted swimming glitch potential: the splashy effect in the cavern does not
count as water.
Random: You don't have to fight the Gorgon fight yet. But it will await you
when you return if you skip it now. Also, at that time the harpy spawns come
in way later than normal, costing you some time.
-----
+ checkpoint (almost at the save point)
+ save point "Typhon's Cavernous Prison"
+ checkpoint (after cutscene with TB twinkling in Typhon's eye)
+ checkpoint (after completing the chest melting puzzle)
+ checkpoint (right next to the huge boulder you'll topple over)
+ checkpoint (after acquiring TB)
+ checkpoint (at final grapple points, before in-game scene)
+ (missed one? Is there one after grapple points?)
--- Typhon quotes:
-- upon entry
"Be gone, servant of Zeus..!"
-- at summit
"Get out of my sight!"
-- approaching via the toppled boulder
"I will not help you!"
-- removing Typhon's Bane
"You will pay for that, Kratos!"
-- leaving
"You will pay..."
Trigger skips (BP): Typhon dies
Finishing the Typhon's Bane event and only then triggering the first cutscene
with Typhon (after which he begins blowing cold air) causes him to stare at
nothingness with mouth agape. As Findle half-jokingly said, he looks to have
died... If you leave the area and return, he is alive again, but just looks at
Kratos with a dumbfounded look on his face.
Videos:
1, Findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CcOMV01oS4
Strategy: By doing quick-rolling, the wind that blows has very little effect on
Kratos, and you can quickly rush by the narrow bridges.
Other (NP & BP): Regenerating magic!
There's a simple trigger exploit in this area that enables you to take regen
magic with you. As you may expect, this makes combat much faster, so it's
useful on a NP speedrun.
To get regen magic, you need to activate the last grapple points of the area
early, use them, then jump back and complete the area as normal. After playing
through the Typhon section, Kratos will then have regen magic. The reason for
this glitch working is probably that the game activates some one-time trigger
which would end regen magic before you've even got it. Convenient! (c: GMG)
Kratos' magic regenerates much faster in GoW 2 than in GoW 1. You can spam
magic as much as you want without ever running out. Makes it handy for some
upcoming fights, however... Whenever you get a new magic later on, the game
prepares a similar sort of regen magic trial for you, and unfortunately
participating in them will remove regen magic. So on NP, you will lose regen
magic after getting Cronos' Rage - until we find a way to skip getting it.
And even on BP you will lose regen magic at the Atlas Quake regen magic trial
since there is no known way to skip it or escape it early.
Videos:
1, Shenminiu's vid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=L1mTbUextso
Other: for some reason, maybe because of getting hit by a Harpy during the
cutscene of lifting up the rock to form a stone bridge, another R1 prompt
can appear on the stone bridge afterwards and you can use it to lift up a
ghostly invisible rock.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTrOZx9uMF8
Trigger skips (BP): you can leave the upper areas of the cavern before even
getting TB with some high / infinite jump antics. This screws up the game a
little, with Typhon becoming pre-occupied blowing cold wind to somewhere else
than where Kratos is. You can also find some invisible rocks near the area
you came from - you can break them and get some orbs from them, but later
on they become completely loaded and are then indestructible.
Doing things still in a wrong order, Typhon will blow some cold wind over a
destroyed stone bridge. Some enemies spawn. Once you kill them, Typhon will
cease blowing cold wind - but this will not make the cold wind graphical effect
disappear! He also acts as if he lost both his eyes even if Kratos didn't put
out his other eye.
Leaving, creating a new checkpoint and returning can cause other effects as well
like making Typhon inactive momentarily. If you leave during the part where you
have to put out Typhon's other eye, you can actually aim at the eye from
surprisingly far away, almost from the entrance of the room.
Videos:
1, findlestick's video series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xat8NwiqBkk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFaB3-23K4Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65saVbiMc6E
Speed strategy (BP): after getting Typhon's Bane, you can leave the area quick
by doing a PR long jump to the right to reach the exit early. Not easy to do.
Videos:
1, findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dca8A48CFyM#t=17
Infinite red orbs (NP): at the back area Sentries are spawned infinitely until
Kratos manages to lure or throw enough of them into the fire. So using brutal
kills you can slowly build up an infinite amount of orbs.
-----
+ checkpoint (exiting skull-shaped gate)
+ checkpoint (fight begins after shooting down Prometheus)
+ checkpoint (right before rope-crossing)
+ checkpoint (before chasm with a grapple point)
+ checkpoint (at Pegasus)
Speed strategy: you can drop down Prometheus using TB shots from surprisingly
far away. Try it out.
Other: at the chain leading back to RotT door, the 3 Sentries that appear have
no ground A.I. and if lured on ground only stand around looking pathetic.
(c: GMG)
Infinite red orbs (NP): you can start infinite orb v3 glitch at the hallway
leading to save point and Sentry fight... according to GMG. This means there
is an unloading limit somewhere close by you can use to interrupt a foe's death
animation and have it drop its orbs multiple, even "infinite" amount of times.
One video example of this makes it happen by climbing the climbing wall a short
length to spawn a new wave of enemies, then return back to ground level where
the save point is. Backtracking for a while, the enemies cluster near a limit
they are unable to cross, and if Kratos continues backtracking, they soon
unload. This limit can be used for infinite red orbs by killing the wave of
enemies with something like triangle combo ender, then rolling backwards to
unload the enemies. Then moving around the limit to get more and more orbs...
Videos:
1, Silvanio Silva's video example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kBsBBmD_as
Speed strategy (BP): You can use AQ in conjunction with RotT to get all 4
fingers rise up at once. This might only work on Easy / God Armor costume.
(c: tyrhhjy)
Event glitch (BP): you can break out of this Pegasus ride too. Unfortunately not
much can be done: the horse flies off on his own only up to a certain point,
then freezes in air. Leaving the area and returning causes Pegasus to return.
One strange thing about all this is that after R1'ing him the first time the
ground collision changes and it's possible for Kratos to fall through if he
is not careful.
You can IJ to your horse while he is stuck in air, but he is ensheathed by a
protective collision bubble and you can't interact with him. I also don't think
it's possible to leave the cave. I IJ'd further from the horse, but the cave
Pegasus is supposed to fly in was not loaded.
Video:
1, AKheon's vid
https://youtube.com/watch?v=CRWgDHEBsdM
-----
+ checkpoint (after having exited the cavern)
+ checkpoint (after Dark Rider-fight begins)
Other: if you hold down R2 (for Typhon's Bane) before the screen fades in,
Kratos will enter a glitched magic stance in which he doesn't move but only
changes angle strangely without targeting anything.
Random: if you got regen magic, your magic regens twice as fast while flying.
Strategy: doing false grabs will prompt the riders to jump towards you. If they
hit, a grab sequence starts. If not, they just fall down, down, down...
Random: killing the riders before they have the chance to jump down kills the
target without it adding to your kill count. Good for a pacifist run?
Other: the Pegasus getting stuck in mid-air can happen in this flight section
too. One way to provoke it is to aim at Raven with TB when it rams you. (c: GMG)
Random: This time around, it is possible to skip fighting Raven. Simply dodge it
(for example, using R1/L1 move as a 'dodge'). It won't circle back but instead
becomes completely skipped.
Speed strategy (NP) & (BP): At the middle of the journey you have to fight
Dark Rider. The first phase of the fight is completely travel-based, and it
doesn't matter whether you attack him or not. Just X forward, trying to avoid
direct hits with him, to get to the end of the area as quickly as possible.
For "distraction" of the Dark Rider GMG recommends false grabs (though it's
overall faster to just speed forward as well as possible).
Mystery: GMG said this about ending the Dark Rider chase sequence right around
as it is starting: "ONLY with Regenerating Magic can you use a Forward Dash Slam
out of the 'vortex' (where even with an Urn on you lose all MP) and if aimed
right it will hit the Dark Rider to initiate the finish right away..."
Though to note, GMG said he couldn't reproduce it later. And neither could I.
Random: The Dark Rider has SoD and uses Piercing Shards himself. At the end
Kratos does one inside his torso... ouch.
-----
+ checkpoint (beginning of the fall)
- upgrading glitch note: camera acts weirdly for a second. Later, Kratos is
seen falling down longer than usual.
- upgrading glitch note 2: on small strain a small graphical glitch happens.
+ checkpoint (on climbing wall)
Random: Fall QTE oddities
If you hold R2 with either stance magic active, Kratos will swing to the wall...
then fall down. Nothing interesting, but just thought to mention. I think it
also works if you just hold block.
You know that you can activate Rage of the Titans during loading time? Try this
out too. You get to see RotT Kratos very close this way.
------
+ save point "The Cliffs of Lahkesis"
+ checkpoint (right before hounds)
+ checkpoint (after using elevator)
+ checkpoint (after watching FMV with Zeus growing up)
Other: randomly, perhaps after a fall off the cliff here, the graphics for a
part of the level may disappear.
Videos:
1, KickTheBaby102's vid
Not available at the moment.
Battle musings: (Guardian fight) "You can use the spot by the climbable wall as
a sweet spot of sorts or lure foes over the side *to die*...there is an
invisible platform there for them but they tend to fall through it eventually."
- GMG
Swimming glitch (BP): with some work, it's possible to acquire swimmingness from
the garden. (c: AKheon)
Right after having climbed up the ladder, do a PR high jump to your right.
There's a ledge there, and you can hit it if you are positioned right. From up
the ledge, there are a few different approaches how to reach the water surface.
The water collision is shaped in a weird way, and it's not guaranteed you'll
start swimming even if you hit some glittery areas on ground that look like
water. So the visual cues for doing this trick aren't all that good.
Original approach to hit the water surface was very careful - basically
dropping down beneath the ground level and then use IJ to hit the water surface.
In a speedrun, there's no time for something like that, so most people just do
a semi-blind double jump aimed at the water surface instead. It's difficult to
pull off since you need to get both timing and direction right to be able to
reach the water surface with your jumps.
I personally like the idea of dropping down from the ledge either straight
forward or to the right with an attempted roll. Then do a double jump from
close to ground level, possibly extended with SoD attacks too. Still... this one
takes some practice.
You can get all the way to the fountains before Siren Sacrifice this way. You
can even access Steeds while swimming, but the puzzle is impossible to complete
like that, so it doesn't serve a purpose.
The fastest swimming route from here to the fountain before Steeds is this:
swim to the room that has the large gate in it but stay underneath the floor.
You need to hit a loading trigger - it's somewhere close to the middle of the
corridor, and you need to be quite close to the ground level to hit it. You
know you've hit it if the camera angle suddenly changes, but you can revert the
camera back the way it was by swimming a little upwards. After that, position
Kratos in front of the right fountain in the background and swim a few seconds
downwards. Then swim directly forward, a little to right as well. You have to
figure out a careful route through this part to not hit death floor or other
unpleasant things on the way. After a few dashes, start swimming upwards, and
you should emerge at a more wide open area. There is another loading trigger
there, and you know you hit it if the music goes silent. From there, just swim
to the fountain and end swimming glitch there.
Videos:
1, AKheon's video of one version to do the trick:
https://youtu.be/bbFwW1roqy0?t=37
2, Findle's video of the "semi-blind double jump" version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFjFuaIehYg
Sequence break (BP): There is a pretty good non-swimming glitch skip of this
area available as well. You have to infinite jump and grab an invisible ledge
to the left of the entrance, then jump to the lower floor while staying outside
bounds. From there, you have to inch your way until you can long jump past the
two closed gates. (c: findlestick)
Videos:
1, findle's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCAAsbUszgE
Speed strategy (NP): it's possible to pick up the corpse and deliver it to the
elevator while ignoring the pups. Of course faster than not ignoring them!
(c: Shenminiu, most likely)
Wasted trick potential: the cerberi pups are not heavy enough to depress the
floor switch you'd need the corpse for. It would be cool if you could use them
as a means for shortcut, but...
Other (BP): using swimming glitch, you can lift the corpse up in air and move
it a bit further than the developers intended.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urZrqbnAq20
Speed strategy (NP): at the puzzle, don't pull the switch back more than half
of the way for fastest outcome. Kratos can get through the gap made with quick
rolls.
Sequence break (BP): you can skip kicking open the gate and watching the next
scene by doing a high jump over the right corner of the room and long jumping
'til you reach ground. (c: GMG)
An alternative version involves kicking down the bridge, then instantly after
passing through the archway doing a high jump / SoD Leap to the right. This
skips the cutscene as well. (c: findlestick)
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid of his method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF3joLIkDOo
Sequence break (BP): skipping the Cerberi fight
You can skip the Cerberi fight by doing a high jump up to the next place after
the fight has started.
But you may also do this: after getting over the collapsed walkway, jump off
its end and grab the ledge of the remaining walkway from the outside. From
there, inch slowly towards to the left - you are actually out of bounds at the
moment. At the very end of the pathway, double jump towards left and back, doing
air BoO swings along the way as in any long jump. You'll reach the corridor
below that is after the Cerberi fight. (c: KickTheBaby102)
Videos:
1, KickTheBaby102's vid of the second method
Not available at the moment.
Other: if you throw or lure the Cerberi pups to the other side from the high
ground they spawn at, they become completely passive and no longer try to hurt
Kratos.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgWLu_Czuqw
Other (BP): if you cast a quick multi-hitting attack as the big Cerberus is
jumping down, it becomes juggled in air in a glitchy way and hovers about.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOtVGWMwiR4
Other: if a Cerberus Seed should jump onto the pushable block at the Cerberus
battle while Kratos is pushing it. Kratos starts pushing the block at
super-speeds!
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=punfWOfmEHQ&t=2m17s
Random: Pressing R1 on the following EXP chest triggers two Rabid Hounds to
spawn here. (c: GMG)
-----
+ save point "Garden of Lahkesis"
+ checkpoint (right after first ceiling grapple section)
+ checkpoint (platform after archers)
+ checkpoint (mid-way down the elevator shaft)
Sequence break / swimming glitch (BP): by doing IJ to the right-hand wall in
the same room the save point is, you will eventually reach the area beyond
the climbing parts. This takes too much time to be worthwhile, though.
(c: zxcv017l)
Later, findle found a high ledge from here that is easier to use. Using it,
it's possible to backtrack to the Cerberi fighting arena and even get swimming
glitch through the water at the bottom (although it doesn't save time), or just
proceed until you reach the vital loading trigger for the Siren Chamber and
then continue as normal.
Videos:
1, findle's more up-to-date vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty7n5CgKpMI
2, zxcv0171 original video:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FSi7h5-pMlU
Collision flaw / sequence break: you can get through the walls by rolling
towards a corner right after getting up from the Cerberi fight arena. From
there, you get to the lower area without having to climb. You don't need BP
for this, which is useful. (c: Darkshniff)
Videos:
1, not available at the moment...
Small skip: You can skip the vertical wall climb after the save point by
jumping through a narrow gap between walls and the grapple space.
Sequence break (BP): You can skip using the ladder by doing a MotK high jump up
to the ceiling panels. Even on NP you can save a hint of time by jumping
backwards from the ladder so that you don't have to climb up all the way.
Wasted glitch potential: You can get out-of-bounds by dropping at the correct
moment from the ceiling panels, but can it be useful?
Battle musings: "(Ceiling Sentries) They can use the Ladders like us. Sending
them over the invisible walls won't kill them (invisible platform) and they can
walk through the ground like 'street sharks'" - GMG
Speed Strategy: ignore the Hounds and Archers, they're not necessary to fight.
Swimming glitch (BP): the small fountains here can give you this curious gift,
but it requires a pretty high infinite jump to go over the wall to begin the
glitch.
What's more important is that you can end swimming glitch at this point if you
are already swimming to not get stuck at the Steeds.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERFVIuDFaMY
Battle musings: "(Archer/Sentry spawn) By the HP/MP chest, the camera view
changes in a way that stops Archer assaults. You can lure the Sentries back
towards where the other Archers were below. It's tough to avoid killing everyone
and pull the elevator crank otherwise." - GMG
Sequence break (BP): skip Siren Chamber
By doing a semi-high infinite jump, you can reach a hidden ledge above the
elevator. From there you can either jump into the Siren Chamber to skip riding
the elevator... or preferably, do a long jump to the left and back to reach the
next area early without ever stepping inside the Siren Chamber. (c: AKheon)
Later Findlestick found a new route with which to skip the Siren Chamber, and
it's pretty complex. It involves using some more hidden ledges to go inside
level geometry and drop down near the elevator chasm while out of bounds, and
from there do a long jump to reach the pathway leading to Steeds. Not time
saving, but interesting.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of the first skip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO7BhQzXpqk
2, findlestick's vid of the second skip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnhRXhFn0A
Trigger skip (BP): You can reach and activate the elevator to Siren Chamber
while it's still just slightly below the surface level by jumping over a
trigger on the way. Interestingly, the elevator rises up instead of down, and
after stopping at the surface level, the game still thinks the elevator is
moving and Kratos stays immobile... forever. So it's almost a softlock, but
fortunately you can still go to menu and choose to retry if you want.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DssUh5an9lM
Random: Any enemies with you while you ride the elevator will die as the new
scene begins.
Sequence break (NP): You can jump from behind/over the chain and through the
wall, avoiding the Siren fight. (c: RJWaters.)
Videos:
1, Kewbev63's video:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Y7HypfuQM
Random: If you retry after beating the fight once, the door-breaking cutscene
works differently and Kratos can move during it.
-----
+ save point "Pathway to the Steeds"
+ checkpoint (after crossing chain, at first grapple)
Sequence break (BP): skipping Theseus
At the first larger balcony you get up to, with a green health chest and a
locked door, you can do a high jump to the ledge above and skip right to the
upcoming puzzle segment. Cronos' Rage is skipped too, and thus if you had regen
magic you get to keep it a while longer. (c: GMG)
Videos:
1, an excerpt from findlestick's speedrun where this skip is done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev5QYixGiR0#t=1463
Speed strategy? (BP): you can skip lowering the rope by doing a single MotK high
jump up to the rope.
-----
+ checkpoint (as fight starts)
+ checkpoint (after getting key)
+ checkpoint (after Cronos' Rage trial)
Other (BP): In the distance you can see Theseus working on the door. If you skip
the FMV introduction trigger (by not using the rope when approaching him), the
fight won't start and Theseus remains as a piece of scenery.
Videos:
1, n3obudhha's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlxUBHperZU
Other / Trigger skips (BP): The joys of leaving Theseus fight too early
You can get out of battle boundaries by doing a high jump up to the ledge of the
building at the back. Theseus will no longer be able to reach you with normal
attacks, while you can still blast at him quite easily. His A.I. may also have
difficulties keeping track of Kratos' new out of bounds location.
During the second phase of the fight Theseus jumps back up to Kratos' height,
and starts firing projectiles at Kratos. A simple false grab during this time
will screw up his A.I., causing him to do ground attacks to some strange
direction where Kratos usually ain't. During the mid-battle cutscene (where he
roars), he will teleport instantly back to the middle arch and his A.I. returns
to normal. He can be confused again just as easily, though. Some more side
effects of doing this glitch follow:
- When Theseus is confused, he may move around the battlefield to somewhere he
normally won't go. GMG mentioned that whenever he is on the upper level and not
in his usual spot, he can't be targeted and he is also invincible to attacks
from below.
- GMG has said that if you bring Theseus back down to the lower floor whilst
Stage 2 is on, his behaviour will be that of Stage 1 Phase 1. He can be hurt
and brought to 'O' as long as Kratos is not down there with him... in which case
he will turn invincible (!).
- Findlestick has shown that if Kratos is on a certain spot on the roof of the
building on the other side of the area, Theseus will turn translucent (varying
degrees).
- Theseus or Erebus Minotaurs can be dropped into the small climbing space below
the fight arena, where they become stuck. It seems that for Theseus provoking
him with TB shots while far away on the other roof can do this.
- GMG reports that if Theseus fight Stage 2 is on while you're leaving the
Steeds, he will yet attempt to shoot his bolts at you from the distance. If you
dropped Theseus to lower areas against his will, you can shoot at him with TB
for long ways while backtracking via the rope.
- Apparently leaving the area and returning may cause Theseus to start phasing
through the bars of the fight arena or walk above a chasm. GMG reports having
done a wall climbing grab to Theseus as he was running above him, causing him
to fall down into the small climbing space.
For the finisher minigame Theseus will fall down in front of the door as usual.
At least if you didn't lure him too far away from the roof or anything. For a
refreshing change, you might want to try to activate and finish the minigame
from inside the building! It looks pretty strange.
"NOTE: I don't know how the CR trial glitch + Theseus (alive) would work
together. Perhaps Theseus would unexist?" - GMG
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid of Theseus out of bounds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crAiEPwidgI#t=205
2, Findle's vid of related activities (such as translucent Theseus):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poWp_g0d_uI
Speed strategy: by doing a false grab to Theseus, you prompt him to grab you
back (it isn't guaranteed, but increases your chances a lot). By winning the
grab QTE, you do 56 damage to him, which is good.
Other: enemy bounces that are done against the arc/door can sometimes have a
strange trajectory. You can also send Minotaurs on the roof of the building
with a high enough launch + knockbacks.
Other (BP): GMG reported that on one playthrough he attempted to high jump up
to the 2nd floor as Theseus started climbing there. Somehow - this might be the
cause - Theseus never used the automated floor spikes attack in that fight.
Also, aiming TB at Theseus as he climb up on top can cause an unusual camera
angle.
Battle musings:
- "A Wind shot after launching Theseus will send him further." - GMG
- "I've seen hits on Theseus as he gets up top for Stage 2 give off orbs." - GMG
- "You can also lock Theseus somehow before Stage 2: Phase 2 begins (bow shots)"
- Minotaurs can be launched towards Stage 2 Theseus for high collision damage.
Sweet spot: During the second phase of the fight, Theseus will shoot semi-aiming
energy balls towards you. By standing next to the arcs above, all the energy
balls will hit them and never you. Just remember to not go too close to the
wall lest you get hit by the automated ice spikes attack.
Other: if you bring Theseus to 'O' while he is trying to create ice spikes, he
will glitch up and can't be grabbed. But I think you get to try another time by
doing enough damage to him again.
Random: If you have regen magic, you will lose it if you attend the CR tutorial.
On Normal Play you unfortunately don't have a choice on the matter, so you'll
lose regen magic here.
------
+ Save point "Steeds of Time"
+ checkpoint (at puzzle)
+ checkpoint (one for each completed machine)
- other: Kratos' remembered position can be manipulated by holding R3 to some
direction during the in-game cutscene
+ checkpoint (after unlocking brace)
- upgrading glitch: camera works differently, allowing you to see how the
scenery disappears quite cheaply in the background
+ checkpoint (after puzzle ends and platform has descended)
Random: If you examine the middle part of the central platform, you will get a
message "The brace is locked in place and cannot yet be released."
Speed Strat (NP): If you avoid killing the Harpies to the right, you avoid
fighting any on the far left Steed. (c: GMG)
Battle musing: "Sending foes over the saddle won't kill them here (2x launch to
PS) as they live on below...." - GMG
Speed strategy (NP): in the case of the rightmost part you have to activate, you
can use the grapple point to flail yourself right next to the machine. This way
some climbing is skipped. Seems this works for the leftmost part too.
Event glitch: You can break out of the big whippathon of the steeds. This will
leave Kratos unattended while you hear whips and the Steeds react accordingly.
However, the FMV that should ensue never begins, so you just have to do this
section the regular way to continue.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ52X5yQXgE#t=22
Trigger skip: you can mess up the FMV flag of the Steeds whipping. First you
have to entirely skip Theseus - also skip the rope slide leading to him. Then
get to the Steeds and complete the Steeds puzzle. Then break out of the Steeds
whippathon (like mentioned above), and only now go visit Theseus via the rope.
Then return to the Steeds whippathon and complete it like usual. And now...
Instead of the game playing the Steeds FMV, it plays Theseus FMV instead and
the game starts the Theseus boss fight instead.
Videos:
1, findlestick's video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crAiEPwidgI
Event glitch (BP): GMG says that if you skip Theseus and then wait too long at
the Steed whippathon, the platform you're on may collapse to the first floor
level with the R1 prompt becoming disabled - and you get stuck.
Sequence break (BP): after having done everything, one final battle awaits you.
It can be skipped by jumping over the invisible walls - not too hard. However,
for some reason the invisible wall in front of the gate is very high, unlike at
the sides of the arena, so do try to jump around it.
Alternatively, you can use a AQ IJ (or a Hammer Jump, but it works better with
the AQ IJ) to jump to an invisible ground that is slightly above the rope
contraption that leads to the Theseus fight. Once you’ve gained enough height,
use the Spear of Destiny’s Square combo to inch yourself slightly forward to
land on the invisible ledge. From there, a normal, well aimed double jump will
lead you to the bottom, skipping the fight.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid (v2 of this jump):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8w9GM9NOmI
2, RagnellGoW’s vid of the second method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dvFVgUEZFc
Sweet spot: during the final fight you can open up the door of the area for a
forced sweet spot. (And just to note, you'll be invulnerable while opening the
door). (c: GMG)
Other (BP): after completing the Steeds puzzle, if you had not attempted to open
the Cronos' Rage room with your key yet, doing it now will require two R1
actions.
Trigger oddity (BP): If you complete the Steeds puzzle first, then return to
pick up CR, the game will think that you have not completed the steeds puzzle
and when trying to return via the chain you get back to the Siren Sacrifice
area. (GMG)
Also, the chain backgrounds are a bit messed up while doing this (the place
is called Steeds of Time, not Steed of Time!) But yeah, you get stuck, so avoid
this outcome.
------
+ save point "The Divine Pools"
- other: loading a save from this location may cause a strange sound effect
during the time the game loads
+ checkpoint (after having kicked the door open)
+ checkpoint (after having picked up Amulet)
+ checkpoint (after statue head shattering FMV)
- other: strange flash when retrying (but not always?)
Speed strategy (BP?): destroy the obstacle blocking the climbing part from
ground level with a long-range attack (like Atlas Quake or Might of the Kings).
Other (NP & BP): Divine Pools swimming glitch
You can get swimming glitch here, and there are by now numerous different ways
how to accomplish this.
1. The original BP method of getting swimming glitch here involved long jumping
from the uppermost level towards the righthand corner of the area (beyond the
red orb chest) to go out of bounds. Then, changing your jump direction mid-air,
you could return and hit water from out of bounds, starting swimming glitch.
Some people still use this method in runs because it's arguably easier and
more consistent to do than the other variations. (c: AKheon)
2. Later findlestick devised another method that can be done on NP as well:
there's a collision flaw in one spot of the Divine Pools lower floor, so that
when you roll against it, Kratos will fall through the floor and start swimming
glitch automatically. This spot is very finicky to hit, though, so doing this
takes some practice. (c: findlestick)
3. Thanks to the discovery of AQ IJ, it's now a good BP tactic to jump over one
of the walls in the 2nd floor, and jump to reach some water surface there.
---
Starting swimming glitch here is at best extremely useful speed-wise since it
allows you to skip everything in the game from here to Icarus. However, on NP
it's questionable if you want to do this entire skip because that way you never
get Hammer, Euryale's Head or Spear, disallowing any high jump skips later in
the game and some speedy fighting tactics too.
Amulet of the Fates is mandatory for finishing the game, so you have to pick
that up first, then return to Divine Pools to start the swimming glitch proper.
It's possible to use swimming glitch to reach the Amulet hall, but according to
findle this doesn't save time over just normally climbing there because you have
to hit two tricky loading triggers on the way.
Videos:
1, AKheon's original vid of method 1:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JI-urIaJPhY
2, zxcv017l's BH IJ using variation of method 1 plus swimming glitch route:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=gS9jzXUg2Yc
3, Findlestick's vid of method 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nUgNAgBegA
4, Python77's version of the AQ IJ method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wnd8shJxuE
Sequence break (BP): at the corner just before the climbing wall section, you
can use IJ (4-5 charges) to SoD leap and land between 2 hidden exp chests in
the Amulet hall. It might at best be slightly faster than normally go through
the area, but it also makes it more difficult getting back to Divine Pools since
the Kratos never kicked the entrance door open this way. (c: GMG)
Sequence break (BP): you can skip the pillar puzzle by doing a MotK high jump.
Remember to get the Amulet before doing this, though.
Sequence break (BP): you can skip the hands puzzle by doing a MotK high jump to
grab a ledge under the statue's armpit. From there normal jumps (using statue's
arm as a platform) are enough to get you to the statue's hands, after which the
needed cutscene starts. (c: Shen)
Other: sometimes you can make your game practically unwinnable by accident
if you're swimming and get up to the hands. I'm not sure what exactly causes it,
but sometimes the cutscene of talking to the statue starts too early and the
screen remains black from the fade-out forever afterwards. Being checkpointed
without visibility, you have no choice but to retry to continue.
Other (BP): And here is presented, by addaminsain, "Statue head silliness"
Videos:
1, see it to believe it
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LUFpYKK_xus
--- Severed statue head quotes:
"We will never allow you to change your fate, Kratos."
"You cannot change your destiny, mortal."
"We will never allow you to reach our sacred temple, Kratos."
"You will die here, Kratos!"
As a cool detail, her mouth matches what she says, even at her current state...
Other: infinite red orbs have been known to have been got in this area. Seems
the process can't be controlled, and it only happens due to random chance.
Videos:
1, ICCold's/Melot89's demonstration
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jppbCboacuA
-----
+ checkpoint (after fight is over)
+ checkpoint (after FMV of eyes exploding is seen)
+ Save point "Destiny's Atrium"
Sequence break (BP): by doing a high/long jump over the right or left corner of
the room where there's the severed head, you can get yourself to the lower floor
of Destiny's Atrium without activating the cutscene in which the large statue's
eyes create a preventive wall. This means that you skip a puzzle, at the very
least. (c: GMG)
Just for fun, you can later return to the head and utilize its time slowing
capabilities from the wrong side.
Video:
1, AKheon's demonstration:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=RUGnJR4CfTA
2, Findlestick's (as he calls them) "circus tricks", time slowing fun, etc.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmLQNwZcVrk
Random: "During the first attempts at the skip I'd noted here, I found a small
area with collisions below on the right side. Possibly connected to the trees.
*not sure*" - GMG
Other: a single launch to an aerial knockback (like Piercing Shards) along the
walls where the above sequence break is made sends the Wraiths down below where
they survive the fall. (c: GMG)
Other: the eye beams are 'active' and can be destroyed even if you skipped the
cutscene where the eye beam puzzle starts. If you do this and destroy the eyes
before the game is ready for it, everything surprisingly works out like normal.
However, if you now activate the eye beams using the skipped trigger, the
eams re-appear but you can no longer beat the puzzle. So you can get stuck by
doing this.
Video:
1, Findlestick's discovery and vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eNS3GMHHbU
Other (BP): Findle once went through this area in a strange order, by first
knocking the head down but skipping crashing it, then later returning to the
area, now smashing the head, then visiting the amulet room and then again
returning. The end result was the statue head's amulet glow floating in air!
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn9tvfH8exo
Sweet spot: if you did things in the wrong order so that you already have the
stairwell to below open, enemies can't follow you there and you can attack
enemies from there safely.
Infinite red orbs (NP): again, if you did things in the wrong order so that the
stairs are already open, you can lure a Hog there and unload its death animation
to gain infinite red orbs in the process. This takes some setting up to do and
it also creates some complications for later because the fight cannot resolve
properly since you kill the Hog in a wrong area. Still, if you're willing to
devote a little time and effort to it, this is possible. (c: findlestick)
Videos:
1, findlestick's tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5OmieKIhxw#t=38
Other: if you are swimming and want some extra chests and red orbs at this
point in the game, you can swim underground and go visit the water pillar
puzzle early. If you open the chests there and return, they'll respawn later
as if you had never opened them, meaning you get 2x orbs from that whole
stretch of the game. § (thanks to Ahmad Shah for reminding of this)
Other: If you didn't kill the enemies near the shattered statue head, you can
kill them now with Typhon's Bane while completing the puzzle! For some reason
Kratos targets and manages to hit them through the big head...
For some more relevant entries, see "Destiny's Atrium return"-section below.
-----
+ checkpoint (entering Bog)
Random: The EXP bonus chest can be got here later, when you have the chance to
return.
Random: The hanging corpses can be hit for red orbs. They make a sound, as if
they were alive! Scary... If you got swimming glitch, you can push towards the
corpses and move them around both vertically and horizontally.
If you hit the hanging corpses with very little damage, they actually fall down
and start acting like Undead Legionnaires without A.I.
"If you petrified the corpses (ground) then return to that area you see the
flash of petrification but they cease to exist." - GMG
Videos:
1, GMG's vid
https://youtube.com/watch?v=rCuZgYHGHxc
Random: If you want to have the most anti-climactic Barbarian King encounter
ever, jump into the deadly pond right as the screen blacks out. The cutscene
activates, but...
Event break-out: Findlestick has revealed that it's possible to controllably
break out of the Barbarian King drag sequence by doing attacks before the FMV
kicks in. Doing this, you can defeat Barbarian King and his horse while they
stand idle on the forest path (if you can manage the atrocious camera). However,
in the end you become stuck because the next area won't load unless the drag
sequence finishes happily and you view another FMV afterwards.
Videos:
1, Findlestick's serie of vids:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66csPDCeYPo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZJnqPDSKdQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdw9L7Gpigs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmUxRTC6plg
2, extra vid with BK's horse acting crazy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d5jnuzaHaw
Trigger skip (BP): It's possible to skip the trigger which begins the FMV &
fight by doing IJ over the walls to the area where BK chase begins, but even
less becomes loaded this way.
Other: by doing PR long jump to the BK chase trigger, you may enter the scene
with another weapon out instead of your usual Blades. This looks very odd!
Videos:
1, findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dca8A48CFyM#t=210
-----
+ checkpoint (fight begins)
+ checkpoint (second stage ends)
+ checkpoint (after having got Barbarian Hammer and gameplay resumes)
Sequence break (BP): skip Barbarian King
It's possible to high / long jump out of the Barbarian King and go to the next
area early, skipping this fight altogether. (c: tyrhhjy / findlestick)
For a most efficient jump, you want to infinite jump until you get on top of the
arena's wall and do a long jump from there.
Videos:
1, Findle's new version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWrwMwx7NlA
Speed strategy: charged Wind Blast will do an absurd amount of hits to Barbarian
King first phase due to a glitch. More hits will be made the closer you are to
BK while firing. Firing just 3 charged shots can end the phase 1 very quickly.
Other: spare the Boat Captain
Normally you wouldn't be able to proceed to phase 3 with any of the Barbarian
Mercenaries or the Boat Captain alive. However, using petrification you can
keep the Boat Captain alive 'til the end of the fight and even after that.
Instructions: after having dealt enough damage to BK during his second phase,
freeze the Boat Captain and shatter him. As soon as BK starts growing, retry
from the checkpoint. The boat captain is still alive as a statue, and BK is in
phase 3!
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-aTJlPBhIc
Other (BP): "During his killing mini-game (just after the final blow) switching
to another sub (SoD/BoO) will have us celebrate the kill with it instead. Doing
so after we get the Hammer will cause the glitched effect (this occurs in places
throughout the game) of the Blades crappily being celebrated with." - GMG
Random: You can examine BK with R1 after he's down, but only once. Actually,
Findle later revealed that you can do this examination even if you killed BK
outside the arena. Basically, Kratos comments on how the floor has a mangled
face...
Random: There's a strange "hammer cube" beneath the BK arena that you can see
if you swim there.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MveUshmEwtg
-----
+ checkpoint (approaching temple)
+ save point "The Temple of Eurayle"
+ checkpoint (after viewing in-game cutscene with minotaurs dragging a soldier)
+ checkpoint (after unlocking door with E's key, gameplay resumes)
+ checkpoint (after defeating beast lords + cyclopi, gameplay resumes)
+ checkpoint (after getting past the nymph room)
+ checkpoint (after getting past the pillar section)
Other: the temple door glitches & oddities
The spikes that come out of floor do not hurt unpetrified Kratos, but they kill
instantly if he is petrified. Also, the spikes don't hurt a stone clone of
Kratos.
JFCalibur reports a glitch in which deflecting the stone freeze beams would
only yield the same Fleece response Kratos does for normal Gorgon stone beams,
meaning that he will freezes all the nearby enemies but NOT the door. You can't
progress like this, but apparently this glitch becomes glitched by leaving and
coming back.
You can break out of the door's gaze. This causes the door to emit its more
concentrated beam, but it has no petrification effect or even sound. Even the
nearby enemies suffer no harm from it. If Kratos tries to leave the door, the
gaze stops.
Once you freeze the door, it will not unfreeze ever again.
Videos:
1, JFCalibur's vid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Fj-k_g7Wv5k
2, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGYyUlWfrzU#t=81
"Speed Strategy: (just past the first save) Instead of jumping to the left then
running ahead...just jump straight ahead." - GMG
Sequence break (BP): You can skip most of the puzzles and fights of this area if
you, instead of backtracking after reaching the corpse that has a key, do an
Infinite jump (or preferably a PR long jump) over the long chasm which separates
you and the Cerberus' Lair. (c: poru2009)
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBhiYNa6044
Sequence break (BP): You can infinite jump up to the 2nd weight from here and
skip going through the collapsed temple. The jump is really big, though.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J93Cfr5FFdY
Other: you can somehow fool the game into spawning another Cyclops as you win
the fight against Beast Lords. It refuses to follow Kratos out of the area and
apparently can't get on top of the collapsing temple.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz3HIrdAfxc#t=86
Speed strategy: leave the first weight of the balancing temple a bit to the
left so that the temple would remain without angle. This way you can later kick
the second weight onto the temple straight from the upper level.
Other (BP): findlestick has done some interesting discoveries at the collapsing
temple. For example, that there's a floor high atop the temple ceiling and that
the second weight the puzzle needs is already there when you first enter the
area, only inaccessible (without infinite jump).
Videos:
1, Findle's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J93Cfr5FFdY
Sequence break: you can do a high jump up to the cliff in the room where there
are Nymphs and the "hidden" grapple point. However, it seems that this cliff
seems quite badly formed for succesful high jumping, and on BP it's just faster
to use the grapple.
Combat musings: in the area after grapple but before the logs, the lava ahead
is real to any enemies but the previous lava isn't. There is a "current" there
that pulls enemies under the platform and unexists them as they go towards
the center (this doesn't count as a kill). (c: GMG)
Sequence break (NP & BP): by avoiding the first tree stump platform, you skip
the trigger for the next fight. On NP, you need a jump that's just barely longer
than a normal double jump. Enlongen it by using BK hammer air square attack.
Works very neatly. (c: GMG)
Sequence break: you can do a high jump up the pillars. The middle one can't be
grabbed by its ledge, but the ones on the side can be.
Swimming glitch (BP): Findlestick demonstrates a pretty easy way to get swimming
glitch at this area. You first activate a loading trigger by going close enough
to the river puzzle, then backtrack and jump over the wall from on top of the
chest using an IJ with about 3 charges and a normal double jump. There's
collision outside bounds, and moving along there, you can jump to the water
surrounding the river puzzle.
To end swimming glitch, you can do it for example at the stone freezing beam
part before returning back to the main area again.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVcuTaCCnK4
-------
Other: The stone button will emit its noise indefinitely if you step on it so
that it will lower to only halfway.
Other: as usual, Kratos can do some fairly undignified things with the corpse
in this area, including turning it into a jackhammer.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9qk3Jnzpf4
Sequence break (NP): if you jump erratically over the button in front of the
large gate, the door will eventually open up by itself. Pretty funny. And not
only that, it's useful too! You skip the whole puzzle. (c: AKheon)
Video:
1, AKheon's vid
https://youtube.com/watch?v=gzIG2DyTo88
------
+ save point "River of the Forgotten"
+ checkpoint (after seeing cutscene overlooking the river)
+ checkpoint (after landing on the other side of the river)
+ checkpoint (right before having to R1 the obstacle)
+ checkpoint (some time after passing the rope)
+ checkpoint (after temple has been pushed over)
Sequence break (BP): with PR long jump, you can indeed skip much of the rotating
platforms section, but it's not easy. Lesser long jumps won't do because there
is a low invisible wall to the side of the platforms.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E6b8i_vDSg
Speed strategy: Don't bother fighting the enemies at the next section. Simply
keep on pushing the handle and cast a Cronos' Rage every now and then to keep
your enemies from attacking you. Another way for the first platform would be to
launch both of the enemies of that platform on land. This way they won't die and
respawn to come back to bother you. (c: GMG)
Other (BP): about sequence breaks and trigger skips of this area
1. it's possible to reach the area with running conveyor belts from the first
river platform, despite invisible walls around the area. IJ with 9 charges
should be enough. Doing this will skip Titan Minotaur 1 in addition to a rope
clinging part and a small puzzle. However, the next grapple point will not load,
forcing you to do a long jump if you wish to pass at all. (c: GMG)
2. After the river platforms there's a chest. You can jump from on top of it
(with about 6 IJ charges) and reach a rope that runs above the area. You will
skip Titan Minotaur and a short length of rope travel, but at least everything
works as normal afterwards. (c: GMG)
3. After fighting Titan Minotaur, you can long jump past the rope section
straight to the area with the weight you need for the temple puzzle. However,
you still need to load the main Bog area again and the nearby grapple point
isn't active either. So you have to long jump over the chasm and backtrack
until the walls start emitting the stonefreezing breams. After that return,
use the now active grapple and get the weight. (c: poru2009 / GMG)
Videos:
1, Poru2009's vid of #3 (beware loud volume):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndB4ztu8IDE
Other (BP): if you infinite jump up to the platform where Spartan is fighting
with Sentries, upon getting there you may find that there is no fighting nor
corpses although the audio for fighting is still playing. (c: GMG)
There's also some way you can get to the Spartan early without the actors
disappearing and go hang out in the middle of the fight. All the characters
are completely collision-less, as you'd expect. You can slow the fighters down,
which makes the fighting sound effects go out of sync. (c: findlestick)
Videos:
1, Findle's vid (at the start):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrApu1vXgGk
Other (BP): approaching the tree you pull down from the wrong direction, it
turns out that it doesn't have any collision and Kratos can jump through it.
If you continue even further from wrong direction, the Titan Minotaur is also
absent from the area. Interestingly there is still a large collision bubble in
the way that you have to infinite jump over to get to the tree / grapple point.
Fighting Titan Minotaur from the wrong side is possible. His rock toss will hit
Kratos even if the throw looks to be aimed at a completely wrong direction.
Activating the final mini-game will teleport Kratos in front of the Minotaur.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrApu1vXgGk#t=69
Random: Staying on the large, rotating stone after time returns to normal will
not cause any damage. The stone just speeds up and you can't keep up. The small
grindstone further in the area will hurt Kratos regardless, even if time is
slowed.
Other: freeze beam troubles
"after backtracking to the conveyor belt with the freeze beams to get the Urn of
the Gorgons you can get an extra freeze beam to appear at the end of the
conveyor belt after already fleecing the other beams(nothing happens if you
fleece it but it works like the other beams)" - Riningan
Another glitch report from this area exclaims that the middle beam constantly
just stays green, and it can't be fleeced (meaning that you can't get the Urn).
(thanks to Sephiroth_Yuna)
Random: if you try to stack the two weights by dropping the higher on top of
the lower, the higher gets stuck a bit in air and makes strange soungs. So yeah,
stacking the weights isn't an option.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSN1S4nFVmo#t=97
Speed strategy: early Temple lift
Once you have both of the weights, make sure that you kick in the last weight
with your back towards the entrance. Do a quick roll to your back after the kick
and grab the edge of the Temple with R1 before the in-game cutscene kicks in.
This way you can keep on lifting it during the cutscene, saving several seconds.
(c: GMG)
Other (BP): you can first tip over the Temple and only then activate the Beast
Lord fight there. So what can be done with this? You can R1 the temple during
the fight and drop it down. The ensuing cutscene stops time and the enemies
will also become passive for the duration. After dropping the Temple, Kratos
is teleported beyond the fight barrier and can now fight the enemies out
of their reach!
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXl11pexXrA
Wasted speed strategy (BP): again, it's possible to destroy the tree trunk
blocking the climbing passage from the ground level (Atlas Quake), but this
time it's faster to just destroy it while climbing.
------
+ checkpoint (after entering)
+ checkpoint (before Cerberus)§
+ checkpoint (after getting Fleece)§
+ checkpoint (back outside)
--- Quotes of the wounded soldier:
-- While on the ground
"Help me..."
-- Approaching the grinder
"No... what are you doing? I need your help..."
-- Entering the grinder
"Aaarghbrllbrbll..."
Sequence break: it's possible to do a high jump over the grinding stone and
this way access the boss fight without having to carry the soldier around
or brutally drop him onto the brutalizing conveyor belt. (c: tyrhhjy)
Videos:
1, findestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlzsPOj75Mc
Break-out (BP): it's not possible to do a normal break out of the event of
talking to the wounded soldier. However, if you skip talking to him and go
defeat Cerberus right away, later the area has a couple of Gorgons whose
attacks will disattach Kratos from the event very nicely. The results are
chaotic but strangely fun... (c: poru2009)
- The cutscene starts with Kratos free to move. The camera is locked into
the cutscene motions during this time.
- With correct timing you can have the soldier's speech start over and over
again and make it overlap.
- Eventually the cutscene camera just gives up and you can see the dialogue
scene from the normal camera angle instead.
Videos:
1, Findlestick's demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcjX6g1dUJ0
Other: grinder glitches and oddities
+ you're immune to the grinding stone as long as you carry the wounded soldier.
+ you're immune to the grinder if Kratos is "slanted" enough.
+ Gorgons that are diagonally knocked back into the grinder will instantly die
(except if it is de-activated, in which case they clip through).
+ placing soldier 'near' the grinder can be enough to trigger the cutscene in
which a scream is heard and blood spurts from under the grinder. You can then
actually put the soldier into the grinder - Kratos gains the ability to walk
through the grinding stone and have it break down in real-time.
+ if you stand on the conveyor belt while the grinding cutscene takes place,
Kratos will get sucked into the stone momentarily.
+ if the soldier is thrown into the grinder slanted, strange things may happen.
He may stay completely visible during the grinding cutscene (and Findle
reports that the Gorgon, if present, will follow the soldier right inside the
grinder - getting stuck).
+ slanted soldier may rise up and down very oddly, if placed to a correct spot
near the grinder.
Videos:
1, Findle's discoveries (video of some of those listed):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIMUFpt2bv4
Speed strategy: you can do a high jump over the gate right before Cerberus
Bastard.
Useless trigger skip: you can easily skip the Cerberus fight trigger using high
jump, but it's not very useful since you can't progress like that.
Random: You can pull the switch that makes fireballs shoot out of the wall
during the fight with Cerberus, but it only spits out one and then quits.
This fireball can hit Cerberus, but it doesn't seem to deal any damage.
Other: Cerberus can be led out of the fighting arena by doing a high jump over
the gate, opening it, and leading him out. However, he can't get past the broken
grinding stone which is situated at the end of the corridor.
Other: an oddity with retrying from checkpoint after getting Fleece
"Just finished fighting the Cerberus Bastard for the Golden Fleece, pulled the
switch and got hit by the fireball which took off a good chunk of health, so I
restarted from last checkpoint. Upon restart the Cerberus was back and I thought
the game didnt set a checkpoint for finishing the battle, so I started letting
off on him with all my magic until I saw he wasn't even trying to attack me as
well I had the Golden Fleece on my arm still.
The boss music was still playing and he had no collision detection. I left the
arena and none of the Gorgons spawned. The boss music continued to play until I
reached the save point near the entrance to Euryale's Chamber and then reverted
to the usual music.
I headed back to the Cerberus area to see if there was any difference, he was
still there....could not be interacted with in any way." - Nicholas K.
Sequence break: you don't have to Fleece your way out of the arena. You can do
a high jump over the closed gate and leave the way you came. (saves time)
Collision flaw: Addaminsain claims there are odd grabbable/walkable ledges
at "the other side of the gate". §
Other: infinite red orbs v3 using the Gorgons
"Use false grabs to push an Assassin (gorgon) towards the rocks (dividing the
cave), use a launch to PS/OH until it either clears the barrier totally or gets
to the top. The use false grabs to get it to ground level.
More false grabs to push it to the cave entrance where you'll notice a certain
point at which it disappears...cross back over that point and get the Gorgon to
"O" and be sure to set up the KILL for it to be near this 'threshold' with its
back towards the exit/wall thus after each death it goes further and further out
(towards a point it cannot pass on the left of the cave's mouth).
Its a good idea to have SFX loud and music quiet (or muted) with the volume up
so you can hear each scream in place of the vibration you get with the BoO
version of this...just cross the threshold until you hear it die and quickly
return back over it so it 'unexists' before full death and repeat as the orbs
flow over us.
This could be done with the other Gorgon Assassins but I find that camera view
unfavorable later on.
NOTE: It took 1 minute for GK on Titan to collect 9,000EXP once set-up and
performing. I'd estimate that to be 5 minutes for regular Kratos on Titan.
That...isn't quite aweful but slower then I'd have liked." - GMG
A video would be useful... §
Speed strategy: while exiting, don't use the climbing wall but instead do a
long jump to the collapsed temple roof below. Easy to do even on NP.
(note: you could also jump to the platform directly below the climbing wall,
but this is BP only and slower too)
-----
+ checkpoint (at stairway behind Euryale door)
+ checkpoint (as fight with fat Minotaurs & co. ends)
- orb glitch doesn't seem to be possible
+ checkpoint (after elevator cutscene)
Other: if you're swimming right below ground level in the Hades Minotaur fight,
you make all the enemies nearby start jumping like crazy.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSN1S4nFVmo#t=161
Sequence break / Swimming glitch: The battle where you meet Hades Minotaurs for
the first time can be skipped by doing a high jump over the enclosed doorway -
there's a ledge there. If you stay on top of the fight barrier and follow things
up with a long jump, Kratos can pick up swimming glitch from the nearby pool of
water and skip many of the objectives that lay ahead. (c: findlestick)
The sequence break can be done on either NP or BP. It's uncertain if the
swimming glitch is a BP-only thing, though.
If you already won the fight, an alternative way to get swimming here is to
go to the red orb chest at the back and infinite jump from there until you hit
the water puddle. Yeah, a lot slower alternative...
Videos:
1, Findle's vid of this, also acquiring swimming glitch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6RjXrBW37g
Sequence break (NP & BP): the crank guy cutscene skip
This cutscene can be skipped by moving in a certain way after the fight with
Hades Minotaurs, regardless if you skip the fight or not. As Findle himself
puts it:
"Once you jump over the blue barrier (with the "evil head") and land....then do
a double jump over that round patch on the ground and towards that trail of
water on the ground, then QUICKLY roll (as close to the wall as possible)
towards the elevator. (The key seems to be to do this as QUICK as possible! And
against the wall where the water is)."
Why does it work? For now it's uncertain. It might be that Kratos moves too
quick for the game to load the cutscene in time, or there's just a very peculiar
trigger set-up at this place.
It's also possible to skip this whole ordeal using swimming glitch. However, you
must touch a loading trigger at the bottom of the elevator shaft or else you'll
likely get stuck.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs3uGq7z_CA
Other: No matter where the two elevators were before the cutscene, they are
(instantly) brought to the surface level as it starts. This can be tried out
by skipping the crank guy cutscene, then using the elevators, then returning
to activate the cutscene.
Videos:
1, Findlestick's video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGipf-iEDBA
-----
+ checkpoint (after climbing out of the shaft)
+ Save point "Lowlands Vista"
+ checkpoint (after viewing cutscene after climbing up broken-laddered wall)
+ checkpoint (after landing on the other ledge, after passing ceiling grapple)
+ checkpoint (on the platform overlooking Euryale's room)
Collision flaw: The wall with the broken ladder has something strange towards
its top. Try running over it while jumping, e.g. trying to jump to the other
ledge opposite to it. Kratos hits something which makes him float in air for a
moment. Nothing useful, it seems.
Sequence break: Instead of climbing the wall with the broken ladder, do a high
jump to the opposite ledge. You skip an in-game cutscene and the ceiling grapple
part.
There is an easier alternative way to do this on NP nowadays: after having
climbed the broken ladder, jump over the large chasm while staying close to
the left-hand side. There is a very small piece of collision there which you
can use to do another double jump, helping you reach the other side.
Video:
1, RJWaters' vid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7g7Bpbt8i-Y
2, Findle's vid of the Normal Play trick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuZOFn_UIsY
Random: No matter how much power Kratos gains, it seems there will always be
spiked surfaces that kill him on touch. -,-
Random: After you've jumped down, the previous area unloads and never loads
again. This prevents swimming glitch exploration of the area if you planned to
start swimming glitch from here.
Sequence break: Euryale can be skipped by doing a high jump over the gate that
leads you out. (c: Shenminiu)
Note: it's also possible to do swimming glitch here by jumping from on top of
the door. The effect is extremely powerful, allowing you to skip almost all
obstacles in your path 'til Atlas. (c: ManeshM84 / findlestick)
Note 2: also read more in sections below to find out how to get regen magic
from this part in the game.
Videos:
1, Findlestick's demonstration of the skip & the swimming glitch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsT-DfwxWR4
-----
+ checkpoint (fight begins)
+ checkpoint (as EH trial begins)
+ checkpoint (as EH trial ends and gate opens)
Other: If you got swimming glitch on, reading the book will yield a
glitched-up cut-scene in which Euryale appears from the wrong side of the arena.
--- Euryale quotes:
-- after mid-way of the fight
"You killed my sister!" or
"You will die, Kratos!"
Sweet spot: during the first phase, you can also fool Euryale by luring her to
a precise spot in front of the waterfalls, with Kratos close in front of her.
(c: findlestick)
You can go stand under either of the small waterfalls for complete safety from
Euryale. Mostly works whenever Euryale is at the north half of the arena,
approaching you, but can also freeze her in her tracks at other places too.
(c: addaminsain)
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid of the first sweet spot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjqaG62teKY
2, addaminsain's vid of the second sweet spot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlveMs3cRXw#t=116
Other (NP & BP): getting regen magic
After fighting Euryale, there's a tutorial fight where you are supposed to
stonefreeze some Sentries and you have infinitely regenerating magic during
that part. As expected, leaving the tutorial early will let you keep regen
magic for a while longer. Also, if you already have regen magic, completing
this tutorial will end it, so you might want to skip it in that case too.
On BP it's easy to just infinite jump out of the tutorial and keep regen magic,
but on NP your best hope is using the old trick my ManeshM84 where you use two
high jumps to leave this room from the side and are able to activate swimming
glitch there. But yeah, you need red orbs for two upgrades for this to work.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid of regen magic on NP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7zGScqKITo
Sequence break / mystery: Findlestick reports that creating stonefrozen 'clones'
of Kratos (a long story) can make Euryale skip many phases of the fight and go
right to her death minigame upon enough damage. This trick has been verified by
a video, but still, it is not completely certain how it's done.
There is a certain random thing Findle mentions about stone clones and this
fight: it takes a variable amount of clones to finally reach the point where
Kratos can't be stonefrozen any longer (and he semi-freezes instead). Finding
out the reason behind this discrepancy might tend to a solution.
So what's a stone clone? Just this: if you break out (using CC) of Euryale's
stonefreezing attack the game may create a stonefrozen Kratos out of nowhere,
with the real Kratos remaining unfrozen. Interestingly, if at any point should
the Kratos clone get killed, the actual Kratos dies instantly too...
Videos:
1, Findle's vid of this event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0XFKfQlTuU
Other: retrying during Euryale's "column phase" where she's shooting some
special freeze beams at Kratos (and you also may have to be holding the Hammer)
can result in a retry oddity where Kratos is in an unique stonefrozen mode
afterwards. Attacks won't shatter or damage him and he can't be moved at all.
However, upgrading Hammer would partially fix this glitch condition, so that
he stays immobile but can be hurt after this.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://youtu.be/mkmPS5Wlkvo?t=298
Other: here's a fun vid of a glitched Euryale mini-game, done from behind an
invisible wall in addition to having the time slowed.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7WlQ7UCL58
Other: killing Euryale twice
You can kill Euryale but later make her appear again if you follow a correct
route. You have to first swim to Euryale's chamber from the "wrong" direction,
from below Destiny's Atrium, and then enter her lair and defeat her. Then, you
simply have to get out the way you came, finishing the area normally and going
to fight Barbarian King, etc. until you're finally back at Euryale again as
normal. She spawns like she should, though you already got her head once.
Findle theorizes that by entering the lair repeatedly through the "wrong"
direction might allow you to kill her an infinite amount of times. But we don't
know yet if it's so.
Videos:
1, findle's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GlOB2gBJH8
-----
+ Save point "Euryale's Defeat"
+ checkpoint (after reaching courtyard with the sinking pillar)
+ checkpoint (after winning the fight)
+ checkpoint (after passing the gate signifying the end of the pillar puzzle)
+ checkpoint (after passing the hound trap room)
- other: if retrying, all the enemies are gone
+ checkpoint (after balancing beams)
+ checkpoint (after defeating Titan Minotaur II)
Sequence break (NP): skipping Water Pillar puzzle
You can escape and swim out of this place even in normal New game without too
much difficulties. Basically, after opening the first gate and swimming through
the underwater passage, aim to the left back wall on floor level using a
charged swim rush. § (c: surerman77)
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGYyUlWfrzU
Sequence break: other Water Pillar puzzle sequence breaks
- You can do the whole puzzle without using Amulet of the Fates if you're fast.
Even the last part with the sinking pillar. (c: JFCalibur88)
- You can do a skip at the start of the puzzle. Go to the switch on the right
and do a high jump to latch onto the ceiling / wall above. This way you can get
to the upper floor early and can go through the puzzle rooms in reverse order,
opening them as you go instead of having to pull underwater switches and whatnot
to progress. (c: GMG)
- You only need to roll up pillars 3 and 5 to complete the puzzle. Though a bit
tricky, you can double jump diagonally to skip the other grapple points at the
end of the pillar puzzle. (c: GMG / findlestick)
- You can let go of the pillar handles quite early and they finish rotating to
the end by themselves. This saves seconds per pillar opening. (c: shenminiu)
- It's possible to infinite jump to the exit gate with about 7 IJ charges from
the upper floor. (c: GMG)
- You don't have to actually open up the exit gate. It's possible to just high
jump over it. It's the same sort of gate they had before Euryale, where there
is a handy invisible ledge close to its top.
Videos:
1, JFCalibur88's video that shows two first mentioned things in action:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=69JRPvO9kYA
Random: once I did a swimming glitch playthrough of this area, except coming
in from the direction of Atrium of Lahkesis. The bunch of harpies that appear
before Titan Minotaur actually followed Kratos here!
"Speed Strategy: Leave the crusher elevator as soon as the gap is large enough
for Kratos." - GMG
Random: At the balancing beam section, you can air grab and throw Harpies down
the chasm to see them harmlessly stop to an invisible death floor about a meter
below the beams.
Speed strategy: you can skip the ledge hanging part with a small long jump here.
The most convenient one is dropping to hang on from the ledge in front of the
chasm and doing a double jump from there for improved momentum and height...
(an old long jumping trick)
Videos:
1, Poru2009's video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmO0I5gUUZU
-----
+ Save point "Catacombs of the Fallen"
+ checkpoint (after activating the stairs leading up)
+ checkpoint (after passing fire-shooting door)
Random: If you got swimming glitch on, it's going to be slightly tricky to get
through the stairway corridor leading to Atrium. This is because you can't pull
out the staircase like normal. You're just going to have to wiggle through the
ceiling using rushes and devious whirling swimming moves.
Other: If you skipped the Atrium puzzle earlier, chances are the Cyclops fight
is still on when you return. The enemies in the area don't know how to react
with the gaping stairway on the floor and you can take advantage of this fact.
Videos:
1, Findlestick's demonstration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykp1JxiNKvU
Random: If you got swimming glitch, you can go over the felled tree to re-visit
the area where Barbarian King dragged you through. Doesn't seem you can get back
to Euryale's Temple this way, though.
Remember to go pick up the EXP secret chest now, from the Bog of the Forgotten.
Just to note, if you first open the EXP secret chest, then the normal red orbs
chest, you'll get a lot less orbs than if you waited for the secret chest to
completely empty its contents first.
Speed strategy: jump halfway down the shimmy (after destroying fire-shooting
door). Or just "SoD leap" on BP.
Speed strategy: you can skip about 4 seconds worth of running by dropping down
to the lower level of the cavern without running to the ladder.
Battle musings: "I sent a few skeletons over the cliff (grapple) but they just
stay alive below" - GMG
Speed strategy: if you got swimming glitch activated, you can shortcut past all
the objectives from here until Icarus, basically.
-----
+ checkpoint (after cutscene with eyes activating)
+ Save point "Courtyard of Atropos"
+ checkpoint (mid-way inside lower floor hall)
+ checkpoint (after passing rising platform puzzle)
+ checkpoint (after winning two satyrs fight)
+ checkpoint (before the gate to upper floor areas)
+ checkpoint (mid-way of the cutscene in which barrier dissipates)
Trigger skips: There exist some discrepancies with the eye beam puzzle if you
happen to skip the initial trigger that begins the sequence. The eyes do not
seem to be active at first and there is no obstacle blocking the road to the
next area. However, parrying in front of an eye causes the respective beam to
become visible. And like in the previous Courtyard, you can again solve the
eye beams puzzle before it even becomes active, and in the same way you just
get stuck in the end.
Videos:
1, Findlestick's instructional video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT4z-f_3nvo
Battle musings: if you send a Wraith back to the area you came from using some
knockback-type attack, they freeze in place down below. (c: GMG)
--- Distant Perseus Quotes:
-- When entering the area
"Someone down there? I can hear you!"
"Please, help me! I'm trapped!"
-- When on the upper floor
"Yes, up here! Quickly!"
I once heard "Please, help me! I'm trapped!" in the courtyard after Perseus had
already been won.
Sequence break: You can skip lower floor dungeon by simply doing a high jump
onto the ladder out of your reach. No need to get the block... however, you have
to do this jump again later on when solving the eye beams puzzle.
Wasted potential (BP): it's possible to get over the fight trigger of the
Priest / Minotaur fight. It becomes easier using the nearby pillars for height.
However, the next area isn't loaded until you've fought the fight. (c: GMG)
Speed strategy: movable pillar puzzle speed tactics
For the puzzle with movable pillars, it's possible to complete it quickly in
two ways. First way is to push the nearest pillar on the elevator, lift elevator
as high as possible, then quickly run and jump (using both of the pillars) your
way to the upper level.
Another way is to push the nearmost pillar on top of the elevator, then push the
second pillar so that it is half on the elevator and half on ground. As you lift
the elevator, it will get stuck to the second pillar, and it won't neither rise
or descend after that and can be climbed easily to the top. (c: GMG)
Video:
1, GMG's demonstration of the second trick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCuZgYHGHxc#t=91
"Missed Potential: After the pillar puzzle, I went up the ladder and tried a
HJ to SoD leap for a skip *landing where Satyr Champions should be* but the
block/next area wasn't loaded..." - GMG
Trigger skip: if you get to the room with fighting characters early, you'll find
that (as usual) they can't be interacted with in any way. You can now start the
Satyr fight to make the room extra cluttered and annoying to look at.
Videos:
1, findlestick horses around:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8pIOgKcRv8
Other: there's a glitch in which Kratos dies the instant he begins to turn the
crank which is in the Courtyard. Not sure what could cause it.
Videos:
1, starsmember's vid
https://youtube.com/watch?v=NTSe1KX68gI
-----
+ Save point "The Edge of Creation"
+ checkpoint (landing to the other side of three grapple point chasm)
+ checkpoint (after clearing the retracting vines puzzle)
Speed Strategy: you can skip one of the grapple points leading to the main area.
Would be a good speed strategy if it wasn't so hard to do.
Random: Despite the retracting action of the vines, Kratos will not move or
slide while they move under his feet.
Easter egg: only after killing Perseus (I think). We'll get back to it.
"Easter Egg - It can be done before Perseus if I recall right. It's just harder
then. Shen used it like this for his HJ Speedrun." - GMG
Other: trigger glitch at Perseus door
While lifting the door open to where Perseus waits, if you stop lifting the
door at the last moments before it is fully up, you may roll from under the
door without it actually opening. This way the Perseus fight does not start.
However, the main area is not loaded this way, so you may just get stuck if
you do this. (c: KickTheBaby102)
Apparently you can start swimming glitch, though, using the unloaded exit to
go out of bounds.
Videos:
1, KickTheBaby102's vid
Not available at the moment.
-----
+ checkpoint (as gameplay resumes after cutscenes)
+ checkpoint (after defeating him and gameplay has resumed)
--- Perseus quotes:
-- while invisible
"I'm right here."
"I'm over here!"
"No, not there, over here!"
"Over here!"
"Wrong! I'm over here now."
Random: it's difficult, but you can infinite jump out of the room. This allows
you to do displaced mini-games on Perseus or even glitch him to become
completely invisible.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dca8A48CFyM#t=53
Strategy: magic won't hit Perseus at Stage 1 of the fight unless he presents
an opening (like after charge attack). (c: GMG)
Random: After you manage to minigame him once, Perseus can no longer turn¨
invisible and his behaviour changes respectively... (Stage 2 begins)
Strategy: Perseus can be stunlocked in a corner with Piercing Shards. (c: GMG)
Random: After you manage to minigame him the second time, he no longer has sword
attacks. (Stage 3 begins)
Strategy: Whenever Perseus is over the sunlit spots of the screen, he can
reflect his shield's light towards Kratos in an stunning attack. However, it is
relatively easy to Bow / Head trick your way out of, at least if you're in air.
"Typical air tricking is less about a tap and more about holding the stance
throughout the fall (i-frames until you land).. with Perseus you need to do
a quick air attack before the 'trick' or it fails. Not sure why exactly. That's
just how it is for the Bow/Head. CR has more i-frames so (on the ground) it does
better...but the skilled have the advantage of a free 'trick'."
"NOTE: Perseus has been seen to do 2 and even 3 flash attempts in succession
when tricking (though most of the time he just tries to attack when you trick)"
- GMG
Strategy: An attack that hits many times in a short period of time (like CR) can
put Perseus into a fierce stun-block movement in which he can do nothing but
back away at a great speed.
"Stage 3 - Hits (Ex: Wind Shots) will send his ass flying into the wall for a
stun (perhaps a little damage too)." - GMG
After being damaged enough, Perseus will no longer move from the north side of
the area. If you go too far away, he will try to shoot at you, or in some cases
stun.
After you manage to minigame him the third time, the fight is over!
Swimming glitch (BP?): it's possible to get swimming glitch using the water of
the Perseus arena by doing a long jump from the outside of the arena.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_rFRTiQwe8
Easter egg: after defeating Perseus, return to Edge of Creation. Then, continue
on pressing R1 at two spots near where you can see a marker on the ground. Then,
continue onward to the area with extending roots, and near the middle three
there's a third and last marker. After pressing R1, you get a buttload of orbs
and a pretty message in the sky.
"Easter Egg: Nobody can take credit for this. If you didn't already know, when
I did the 999,999 hit combo, the secret website told us the HD Cheat and how to
get the Easter Egg EXP." - GMG
Videos:
1, deadmanwalkingx3's demonstration:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=cUcX-SRNeIw
Other: it seems that rarely the shield of Perseus is displaced when Kratos sets
it on the statue, making reflecting the eye beams back at them impossible until
the glitch fixes itself.
Videos:
1, 406ploskonka's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gospD4nuetw
Other: GMG and Shenminiu report that the game may freeze if you finish the block
puzzle by using the chain to climb up to the upper level.
-----
+ checkpoint (reaching the front of Lowlands)
+ checkpoint (passing opened gate)
+ checkpoint (leaving rotating platform area with SoD)
- other: not sure if the conditions require the statue to have been also
moved in place
Speed strategy: you can get over the long pressure plate without using Amulet of
the Fates by doing a PR long jump. Yep, never said it was easy.
Sequence break: You get to the Spear of Destiny area faster by doing a high
jump to the switch which opens the locked gate. No need to sidetrack.
Videos:
1, RJWaters2's vid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=O_n1b24nLKo
Sequence break: You can skip the pre-Lowlands puzzle (with time slowing
involved) by doing a high/long jump to the next platform. Spear of Destiny will
be skipped this way. While that's not a big deal on BP, it can be problematic
on NP where you need a 2nd sub-weapon to do infinite jumping.
Videos:
1, Kevbew63's video:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=VdZ2Cw31NIs
Other: the turnable platform can be glitched into whirling by itself by some
random accident. This makes you lose the R1 prompt of the crank, and you can't
control it any longer. However, the fact that you're not occupied by the crank
means that you can turn the Statue of the Fates into angles never before seen.
Useful? Maybe, maybe not.
Video:
1, AKheon's vid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=zrkdefSSNnE
"Speed Strategy: Just turn the statue (clockwise) once and put it in place.
That should be good enough." - GMG
Other: Spear of Destiny glitch
If you stop tapping buttons at the Spear QTE right before it is over, the
ensuing scene glitches up. A ghostly force takes the spear and swings it around.
Afterwards, the spear completely disappears and you never actually get it this
way, which is a bummer. (c: KickTheBaby102)
Videos:
1, KickTheBaby102's vid
Not available at the moment.
"The visual cue where the bridge tilts can be avoided if you leap over it but
this causes a crappy camera view if you were to try to skip ahead." - GMG
-----
+ Savepoint "Crossing of the Lowlands"
+ checkpoint (after landing on the other side)
+ checkpoint (after second fight has been won and gameplay resumes)
Other: the second grapple point stays floating in air even after its pillar
is destroyed. If you get near it you can R1 it again, but it's completely
useless...
Videos:
1, Findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J9TVVMmM60
Other: if you hold on to one of the collapsing pillars, apparently Kratos can
sometimes get beneath death floor and shoot up in air with massive momentum.
Haven't tried this myself yet, so I don't know if this happens automatically
or if it's a random effect. Cool nonetheless. (c: ermac210)
Videos:
1, ermac210's video:
Not available at the moment.
Other: Many people have complained about a loading error at the end of
Lowlands. It will cause Kratos to fly straight into gray nothingness, leading
to death. If it happens, try cleaning your disc or PS2, maybe?
Sequence break: you can skip both of the fights that follow Lowlands doing
infinite jumps over the fight barriers. (c: Kevbew63 and GMG)
Video:
1, Kevbew63's vid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7EQjn5tzv14
Speed strategy: if swimming, swim above this tunnel because that way you'll also
skip the pre-fight in-game cutscenes (saving about 10 seconds). (c: zxcv017l)
-----
+ checkpoint (approaching the Save Point)
+ Save point "The Great Chasm"
+ checkpoint (after meeting Icarus-FMV)
Event glitch: you can break out of Icarus struggle with a sub-weapon break-out
right after the cutscene has ran its course. The time window is very small. It
is not certain whether this trick has any use, much of it is yet untested.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a0CF5T67HU
Other: you see the lonely save point in the distance? If you get to it using
swimming glitch, you can save. The save point image/text claims that it's one
of the save points at Typhon's Cavern (Fire of Olympus). But in effect it's
just a normal save point, returning you to the Great Chasm if you load the
saved file.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNoTB_dLjR0
Wasted trick potential: there's a huge, smoking chasm right where Kratos and
Icarus will fall down, even before meeting Icarus, but jumping/swimming there
only yields endless darkness. If you swim near the Icarus meeting spot a bit
before attempting to traverse the hole, the camera angle changes, but nothing
else happens.
Event glitch: Kratos breaks out from duel with Icarus
If Kratos enters the Icarus event while swimming, the event will glitch up...
but in a positive way! You see, winning the first QTE prompts makes Kratos break
out of the Icarus duel and he will be free to move during the freefall.
While Kratos is loose, he can attack Icarus in any usual way. If Kratos grabs
Icarus, the normal mini-game begins and the game can continue. But hold your
horses! You can speed up this section by doing a certain amount of damage to
Icarus first before grabbing him again. This way the game thinks you've damaged
him enough to skip phases of the duel with him, so optimally you can just hit
him a few times with your weapon and skip right to the end of the duel, saving
around 40 seconds. But be careful: if you damage Icarus too much, he will
glitch up and you can't finish the duel with him and get stuck.
You can stonefreeze Icarus. He will become gray and stop moving, but can't be
shattered. If you now try to duel with him, you get stuck because Kratos can't
hit Icarus any longer and Icarus refuses to enter new stages of the mini-game.
Therefore this is for fun only. Retry afterwards to become un-stuck.
Shooting powered up Wind Shots at him will cause him to move location. I don't
know if it's possible to actually drop Icarus off the fighting platform - for
some reason Kratos will eventually have problems targeting Icarus.
A funny side note: the game gives you Icarus Wings at the start of this section,
before you've even ripped them off Icarus.
If you happened to fail the QTE at the start, you get a different result. This
way Kratos retains swimming glitch and is nowhere to be seen. The camera moves
with Kratos, almost as if this was a first-person view, and you can descend the
corridor in a calm and controlled manner this way. But it's unlikely you could
just swim to Atlas right now. You also can't win the Icarus duel like this, so
sadly this just comes off as wasted potential.
So whatever the case, it seems you can't take swimming glitch to Atlas.
Video:
1, AKheon's overview of the glitch:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=QNoTB_dLjR0
2, using this glitch as a speed strategy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1MlbvLRbno
--- Icarus quotes:
-- before fight's end
"Wait! Perhaps the sisters have sent you to help me! I realize now..."
(nonetheless, if you stop tapping circle now, Icarus will only fly away, leaving
Kratos to fall into his demise)
Random: Note that using RotT during this mini-game won't help you. (even though
it might seem logical)
-----
+ checkpoint (after landing down and cutscene has played out)
+ Save point "The Face of Atlas"
+ checkpoint (before chasm leading to hanging platforms)
+ checkpoint (after landing inside the fleshy cave)
+ checkpoint (at corridor leading to Titan Minotaur 3)
- other: due to the high lag at this area, lag-related glitches are probable
+ checkpoint (after defeating Titan Minotaur 3)
+ checkpoint (before jumping down to the next area)
Event oddity: if you do a sub-weapon break-out the very first thing after the
cutscene, Kratos will fly to the balcony from an utterly strange direction
(in some cases).
Untested: the blood on the ground at this area has a strange texture to it.
Would it work as water? If yes, you could swim glitch with it. But it difficult
to touch it and try this out.
Sequence break: You can skip a part of the block pushing "puzzle" by doing a
high jump to the next area. Just push the block towards you until you can pass,
then ignore it and do a jump instead.
Videos:
1, RJWaters2's demonstration:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WOlUScrA4KA
Sequence break: You can skip Titan Minotaur 3 by doing a high jump to the next
area.
Videos:
1, RJWaters2's demonstration:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WOlUScrA4KA#t=12
Speed strategy: For fighting Titan Minotaur 3, you can skip the fight's
first phase. Jump towards the back wall of the arena, then glide back before you
hit lava. TM3 thinks the next phase of the fight already passed, and time is
saved. (c: GMG)
"(TM3 Stage 1 trick) There's slightly more to it then that. After tricking his
AI into Stage 2, he needs to toss at least 2 rocks..I trick the first then leap
over the lava to screw his AI during rock two...returning him to Stage 1 just as
I land a hit (quickly) which just sends him right into the pound that causes the
wall to break away." - GMG
GMG says this tactic (or a part of it) doesn't seem to work in HD Collection.
Videos:
1, GMG's video showing both this and strategy for the fight:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=xffGaObLD_c
Other: an alternative effect of jumping in a certain way (close the climbing
wall) at the fight arena is that TM3 starts walking in circles. If this
happens, he no longer gets damage and also only tries to use the rock throw on
Kratos from there on. (thanks to Ahmad Shah for reminding)
A.I. flaw: the Titan Minotaur's behaviour to stage 2 and 3 will not change if
you only keep hitting him with ranged (magic?) attacks.
Videos:
1, addaminsain's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDfh2iciT58
Speed strategy: on easier modes and/or BP, you can damage kill TM3 right on the
fly, skipping all the phases of the fight.
"Failed Speed Strat: Leaping off and on the wall (Stage 2) to keep the TM at
bay..it has the bad effect of doubling its Stage 3 HP... yeah...figure that shit
out." - GMG
-----
+ checkpoint (after viewing an in-game cutscene of the chains, etc.)
+ Save point "Inside the Mighty Titan"
+ checkpoint (passing the large chasm with a grapple point)
+ checkpoint (getting past the Nymph nest room, before next ceiling grapple)
+ checkpoint (inside pendulum room, before reaching pendulum)
- other: due to the high lag at this area, lag-related glitches are probable
+ checkpoint (landing down after crossing over the newly opened heat vent)
+ checkpoint (after killing all the Legionnaires at the lift)
- other: infinite red orbs v2 doesn't seem possible
Sequence break: you can skip the over 10 seconds long intro cutscene to this
area by staying near the front half of the central platform and doing a long
jump to the next area (has its own entry below). The worst part is that
you skip a checkpoint while doing this, so if it's a pretty decent time loss
if you fail the upcoming long jump.
(The long jump itself has its own entry a bit later on.)
Sequence break: central area skips and skip possibilities
(c: Shenminiu, AKheon, findlestick and GMG)
This is one of the more complex areas of the game, and as such you have many
ways to finish it.
Normally you'd have to cross over the lava stream, go through some rocky areas,
cross a ceiling climbing part, lower a pendulum, cross another ceiling climb,
drop some stalagmites and use a vent to hover to the next area. The area near
the pendulum is the most critical part since there are two useful loading
triggers nearby. First is up in the room before the pendulum - it enables you
to drop the ceiling stalagmites, allowing easy access to the next area. Second
is at the top of the wall / ceiling climb part that will load the next map.
So basically, just high / long jumping to the next area won't work. You can IJ
to the ceiling and go activate the loading trigger, but then you have to climb
back down and you can't use the vent caused by stalagmites to get to the next
area easier, so you have to do a big high / long jump anyway. And you probably
can't skip the area intro cutscene in this route. This is likely slower than
doing the area normally.
Another alternative - now outdated - was to complete the area normally to get
to the pendulum room, then lower the pendulum. From here you could do a long
jump to reach the main area early again without too much effort and drop some
of the ceiling stalagmites using PR. (BP-only, since there is no known way to
drop the stalagmites without PR.)
Another alternative - now outdated - was to complete the area normally but do
a PR long jump from Pendulum to reach the next area. (BP-only)
The newest alternative utilizes Double Glide Jump from on top of the pendulum.
If you interrupt it in the middle using PR, Kratos is able to use two jumps
with full momentum and then Glide again to reach the next area quickly and
without too much effort. But this is also BP-only unless you extend the jump
by some other means on NP.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid of using Double Glide Jump:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flbw2hHVp78
2, AKheon's vid of the two outdated ways:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoSJq22V944#t=36
Other: If you attempt to jump on top of the lava rock too early, you'll fall
right through it!
Random: After setting the first lava rock in motion, a new rock will come
periodically out once the previous one has disappeared in the bottomless pit.
Sequence break: You can skip the lava rock puzzle by doing a long jump to
grapple point. Start with BoO or SoD air attacks, interrupt in the middle with
a sub-weapon change or PR, then Glide the rest of the way. (c: ManeshM84)
Newer tactics might make the jump slightly bigger and more consistent by doing
some PR Long Jump motions or AQ IJ motions in the middle of it.
Videos:
1, ManeshM84's video:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=HJhT1JzKbqA
Sequence break: you can skip the room with the breakable boulder in by doing a
high jump up the next cliff.
However, it's often faster to just break the stone in the center of the path
to open up the vent for Kratos, then just glide through. TB shots work very
well for this purpose. Or you can AQ on top of it to break it and stay in air
at same time.
Videos:
1, Ragnell's run that uses the AQ setup:
https://youtu.be/oBMTY_BSAfY?t=2028
"Speed Strat: (Hades Nymph room) You can break one of the nests to reveal a
place you can jump on to get the platform by it. *skipping a little of the
climbing*" - GMG
For the same room it's also possible to just do a high jump at the last boulder
and grab its ledge, skipping all the climbing.
Other: the Hades Nymph room has a very obvious enemy unexisting limit. Messing
around with it too much may cause the nests of the area to "break", so that no
more Nymphs spawn from them even though they have not been shattered.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXdmfbLLiL0
Other: you can get infinite red orbs here if you have regen magic since the
Nymph nests spawn an endless amount of Nymphs you can drop down and shatter.
A somewhat slow method but practically effortless.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5OmieKIhxw#t=286
Wasted potential: you can jump down and Glide from the square hole in Prometheus
urn room's floor to go back to the main hall early. But as mentioned, this does
not work out since you skip a loading trigger this way.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=punfWOfmEHQ&t=1m51s
Sequence break: It's possible to do a high jump (with two MotKs and Wings
Gliding afterwards) from the Prometheus urn room to the neaby room where the
pendulum is. I believe it saves time a bit. Especially if you shoot the boulder
blocking the room with TB shots or crush it from afar with AQ to save time
during climbing.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoSJq22V944#t=9
Sequence break: after you've completed the ceiling grapple and enter a room
with a lowering platform, you can skip the rest of the activities inside Atlas
by doing a Double Glide jump with some other long jump tactics to reach the
exit early. This was already mentioned above, but doesn't hurt to mention it
at this spot too.
Videos:
1, findlestick's example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flbw2hHVp78
Random: If you skipped the lava rock puzzle, whilst returning, the things that
held the rock fast are still there, but with the rock gone!
Random: Try ramming into the glowing, heated air emitting globe while you're at
it. It's pretty fun.
Sequence break (BP?): doing a massive long jump from the platform before Atlas
Lift you can go around it directly to the next area. Double Glide Jump and PR
Long Jump are the two most likely candidates for doing this skip with. The long
jump must be faster than 36 seconds or it won't save time in a speedrun, though.
(c: findlestick)
You should start the jump with Double Glide Jump when the pendulum you're
standing on has swung to the left. This way the total area you have to cross
is smaller.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of an optimized version of the skip:
https://youtu.be/bbFwW1roqy0?t=102
-----
+ Save point "Ascension of Atlas"
+ checkpoint (after beginning next wall climb)
+ checkpoint (after getting past grapple points, before two blocks-puzzle)
+ checkpoint (after passing puzzle, before starting next wallclimb)
+ checkpoint (after breaking Atlas' chains FMV)
+ checkpoint (as Atlas Quake tutorial begins))
Speed strategy: while sliding down towards this area, hold down X to keep
straight on gliding, then steer to the nearby climbing wall.
Other: you can activate one of the three grapple points from the platform above
it. This has no real use, it just throws you a bit backwards in the level.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBst59rYq5w
Sequence break: You can skip the small platforming puzzle involving two pushable
rocks by doing a high jump to the next area.
Sequence break: you can reach the higher grapple wall early by doing an IJ to it
from beneath. If you start the IJ from the balcony right below the climbing area
you don't need a big jump and should with some time with this. (c: shenminiu)
Videos:
1, Shenminiu's vid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=qUwn2moL7q8
Other: the last stretch of climbing wall you have to slide down can sometimes
act in a glitchy way, zipping Kratos around. At its biggest a zip can throw
Kratos up to Atlas' hand, where you can see the falling boulders from a
different camera angle than usual. Might even be a speed tactic, if it could be
done consistently, but it's something of a mystery so far. (c: findlestick)
Speed strategy: The rocks don't kill you, only cause damage. If you're feeling
particularly impatient, just rush through them. On higher difficulties not too
advisable because of the amount of damage taken.
Speed strategy: try to climb up to the higher level from the right-hand stretch
of climbing wall. After that, don't make a step to any direction, instead just
start shooting with TB forward to break the chain from a distance. This lets
you skip a long cutscene showing the chain.
Also, make sure to not accidentally enter the cutscene after destroying the
chain, because this will lead to a softlock during Atlas Quake tutorial fight.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of the softlock:
https://youtu.be/5HsinhAJXQA?t=62
Wasted potential: you can do a high IJ to get on an invisible platform above
the chain you have to break. But there's nowhere to go from there, even if you
continue the IJ and go really high in air. It seems there's no way to leave here
without talking to Atlas...
Missed swimming glitch potential: the red, splashy substance near the chains
does not count as water.
-----
Random: Each QTE failure in the Atlas conversation causes damage, but if you
have full life bar, on BP / Easy you won't die even if you fail 'em all.
Random: If you have regen magic, you will inevitably lose it here, after showing
off your Atlas Quake skills.
-----
+ checkpoint (after gameplay resumes)
- other: strange flicker whenever retrying
+ Save point "The Great Chasm"
+ checkpoint (landing on the yard of the Palace)
+ checkpoint (after fight has ended)
+ checkpoint (after having entered the rotating spike-floored room)
+ checkpoint (as the door to next area opens)
Sequence break: skip the fight outside Palace of the Fates
Normally it's not possible to skip the fight vs Beast Lords outside because the
rotating room area unloads as you try to get closer to it. However, you can do
a long jump around the unloading trigger, preventing this. (c: findlestick)
So this skip is done by first doing a long jump around the center part of the
"bridge" leading towards the fight arena. After that, you need quite a high
jump to get over the wall to the rotating room. Not the easiest skip out there,
but it can save as much as 40 seconds in a speedrun.
Videos:
1, Python77's demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG4CBynMbUM
Strategy: for the Beast Lords, first stun them with quick Typhon's Bane bolts
to prevent them from summoning a Cyclops for aid. Other quick long range attacks
that reach them work as well, like maxed out CR or BH souls.
Then, lure them to the roadway and knock them over the side one by one, either
by Orion's Harpooning them or knocking them away while they're in air (e.g. with
Hammer's square air attack). (c: GMG / addaminsain)
Videos:
1, Addaminsain's vid
https://youtube.com/watch?v=F1oM2yS1q-4
Wasted trick potential: You have to pull the wheel all the way through because
there's an invisible wall blocking the doorway until you do so. You can't just
jump through the seemingly open doorway the first instant there's a gap!
Speed strategy: when you roll into the Spike Chamber, you can activate the lever
in the middle of the room early, saving a little time. (c: GMG)
Other: the chamber activation switch can be re-pulled again and again. After
each pull, there's a few frame time window in which you can get Kratos to do
another pull, in which case the switch re-appears. Nothing interesting seems
to happen, but just to mention.
"Strategy: (Spike Room) Might I suggest FIGHT and FLIGHT?" - GMG
Video:
1, a more thorough demonstration from GMG
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BoI4oCnGKis
Sequence break: it's possible to breach this room's ceiling and fly to your
next destination instantly using IJ. Unfortunately doing it takes quite a bit
of time because the walls are high. But it saves time as long as you do it
under 1 min. 45 seconds that the rotating room normally takes to resolve.
Videos:
1, AKheon's updated vid using AQ IJ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQWrDcCTkpg
2, AKheon's original vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myL5aGB4tMs
Sequence break: By doing an Infinite Jump with at least two charges at the chest
behind which there's a fight going on, you end up on the above floor at the
Phoenix save point. This is useful for skipping a cutscene at the doorway where
Kratos does nothing but stand around.
Even without the multiple charges you can do a high jump over the wall and reach
the fight behind it. It's only a graphical effect, though. From here you can
reach the upper floor like you'd do with a more controlled infinite jump anyway,
just a bit slower. (c: GMG)
Video:
1, Findle's vid of the IJ skip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf92MG3sIVE
Random: for fun, you can come back later and activate the intro cutscene with
both Phoenix and a bunch of Cyclopi around to make the scene look chaotic.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqNucULjyuI
-----
+ checkpoint (after entering and the in-game scene has played out)
Wasted sequence break potential: many attempts have been made to skip the Ram
and Warrior doors of this area, but their innards are not loaded 'til you have
unlocked them with their respective keys.
It's possible to reach the outside balcony leading to Last Spartan and co. using
high jump, but its innard can't be loaded until after the Phoenix FMV.
Below the ground there IS a small stretch of graphics signifying a future
elevator, but it doesn't seem like you could pre-maturely access the Phoenix
chamber or anything like that.
Sequence break: skipping the flames
There exist multiple different ways to go around the flames here without using
the crank and Amulet of the Fates.
The original version of the skip did a IJ with around three charges in front of
the Skull door to sink into the ceiling, then Glide from there past the flames
from out of bounds. (c: GMG)
Later another method was found where you do a droopy double jump from the higher
area and grab an invisible ledge to the right just before the flames. Climbing
up on the ledge, you can do a small high jump and Glide over the flames... but
you'll likely scathe them in the process, taking a little damage. (c: AKheon)
An even later method involves doing a high jump in the higher area. In the
middle of the wall there's a collision flaw through which you can Glide through
and avoid taking damage, making this superior to either of the above variations.
(c: GMG)
Findlestick also created a slightly modified version of the jump, in which you
do not aim for the doorway but straight to the deeper areas of the corridor. It
saves some seconds, but also skips a savepoint.
Videos:
1, GMG's vid of the first method
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_sdGURCnEVI
2, AKheon's vid of the second method
https://youtube.com/watch?v=xw5Kos-3wtI
3, AKheon's vid of the third method
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7f9LtE5ZbEc
4, Findlestick's vid of the fourth method
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf92MG3sIVE#t=11
-----
+ checkpoint (after entering the corridor leading to save point)
+ Save point "The East Auditorium"
+ checkpoint (after passing the vent puzzle)
+ checkpoint (at the Translator)
- other: two different versions of this checkpoint exist. One with the
block, one without it.
+ checkpoint (once Translator has been terminated)
+ checkpoint (almost at the central yard, whilst returning)
Sequence Break: vent and navigation skips
The most effective known way to skip the vent puzzle is to use Double Glide Jump
from further away to gain height over the first vent, then use your double jump
and another Glide to get over the gate... Infinite jumping on top the gate is
also an option, although slower.
From on top of the gate, you can skip some navigation with a Double Glide Jump
or a normal double jump to Glide. You can get directly to the room where you
find the block from up ahead, skipping some enemies, the Zeus door and a short
cutscene.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid using Double Glide Jump:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYOR7GJG1ik
2, findlestick's old vid that uses IJ instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkiUGvgQ-20
Trigger skips: if you approach the Translator area from the wrong direction,
i.e. from behind the Ram door, you skip a trigger that would load the
Translator. If you go to his room now, there's no one there and the safety
button is up. If Kratos goes and stands on the safety button now, he traps
himself inside the room! Kratos became the new Translator... (c: GMG)
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5kWm7oWm48
Sequence break: you can skip the large Zeus door before the block room by doing
several charge IJ and grabbing a ledge on its top. Doing this will skip having
to kill the enemies, having to open the door and watching a short in-game
cutscene. It's probably slightly faster to do this jump than not do it.
Swimming glitch control: the ornamental waterfalls and water texture beneath
them do not function as water.
Random: there are two ways Kratos can read the book in the middle of the room.
One is longer which ends with the message "the book is written in a language
you can't read". The second one you get after having been to Translator's room
and returning - in it Kratos just glances the book and there is no message.
--- Translator Quotes:
-- Lifting up
"Leave me be!"
"It was foretold XXX but I never believed it was true... Please, please don't
make me read the words!"
"I know this is what you've asked of XXX consult the sisters .... but is there
no other way?"
"I do not want to die!"
-- After getting banged up (I suppose)
"Do not let me die!"
-- at last room
"I cannot read the words while they attack!"
-- afterwards
"I... I have forgotten the words!"
Sound glitch: Not sure why, but in some games the Translator will say two
soundclips at once when you carry him out of the room. It is, in fact, the
reason I haven't deciphered the above comments and written them down in their
complete form! GMG suggests it also happens if you throw Translator over the
first fight trigger.
Other: If you break out of carrying Translator while crossing the limit into
the first phase of the battle, Kratos can target him (unlike normally)! He is
not considered an enemy, though, and won't get damage. Looks amusing.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAFCNCpUNdE
Other: If you leave the Translator fight and go back to the vent puzzle hallway,
far enough to make the battle music and Translator's life bar disappear,
returning won't make Translator's health bar come back. However, this does not
make the Translator invulnerable, as was originally thought. (c: findlestick)
Strategy for waves 1 and 2: use the wall in Translator's room to shelter Kratos
(and Translator). Or hide Translator behind the cube.
Speed strategy for waves 1 and 2: just ran past the enemies while holding
Translator. Takes a bit of luck to do this. (c: shenminiu)
Random: Translator takes collision damage, which means that thrown or knocked
back enemies that bump into him can do damage. You can even collision damage
him to death by yourself, with no aid from enemies: do the Icarus Ascension
and pick him up the last moment before Kratos lifts up. The timing is tricky,
but the Translator takes small damage this way every time you succeed.
Strategy: the Armor modifier of the Translator is the same Kratos has.
Activating Rage actually has a double effect of protecting the Translator:
it divides the aforementioned collision damage by 3.75 and also increases
Kratos' (and his) Armor% by a good amount. (c: GMG)
"Other: The damage dealt to the Translator by us is not that of collisions or
just 1 (GK TM settings) would instant kill him. It takes 10. He has 100HP
(approx) as he can take a knockback collision but a full collision destroys him
(again GK TM)." - GMG
Other: Infinite red orbs v3
Manipulate the last Satyr of the 2nd phase to follow you to the entrance of the
pedestal room. Repeatedly doing a grab on him is a good way to do it. Go far
enough into the entrance, and the satyr will "unexist". Now, kill the satyr,
but before the death animation has finished, go through the entrance again and
"unexist" the Satyr. On returning, the death animation will start anew, and you
will get the satyr's orbs again as well. This can be repeated as many times as
you want. (c: findlestick)
Apparently another way to do infinite red orbs v3 is to escape beyond the Ram
door during the third phase of the fight, kill some enemies from behind the
door and then run away a bit to hit an unloading trigger. The same principle
as usual in red orbs glitch v3.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid of the first method
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJc-hjXkrsA
Other: In the third room, the Translator automatically leaves your grasp and
runs to the book pedestal. He can't be re-lifted ever again!
If you break out of lifting him right at the border to the third room, and then
roll, Translator will actually follow Kratos some way and may get stuck to a
weird spot during the fight. Unfortunately, trying to roll outside the battle
barrier will only end in tears since the Translator is too slow to get past it
before it is there blocking the way.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAFCNCpUNdE#t=41
Strategy: create a checkpoint for the third enemy wave
If you know how to high jump, you can leave this area after fighting the first
two waves to create a new checkpoint. This way, if you die in the third wave,
you don't have to fight the two first waves again. There exists a few ways to
do it.
The oldest method uses the East Auditorium save point to create a new checkpoint
for Kratos. Unfortunately, failure meant that you had to traverse a long way
back to the combat arena again.
Second method used a checkpoint beyond the Ram door. This way was less arduous,
but still.
Later in 2013 a third way was discovered. It's the most convenient of them all,
since you don't have to do a high jump every time you fail and restart. It's
done in the following manner:
When you're at the corridor with the two gates, a switch and a vent, do a short
Infinite Jump and grab a ledge at the top of the gate located closest to the
lever. Once you're standing on top if it, jump directly to the right and Glide
very deep into the hallway that you'd normally use to enter the Translator area.
The reason you have to Glide deeply is so that you skip a checkpoint near the
normal entrance to this corridor. Skipping this checkpoint is crucial, because
it's the one you will later use to checkpoint the 3rd wave.
Once you've done this, proceed as normal. Complete the 1st and 2nd waves of the
battle, but when you reach the trigger for the 3rd wave. Place the translator
just before it (careful not to trigger the battle), from here all you have to do
is backtrack and touch the checkpoint near the first gate to get a new
checkpoint for the 3rd wave.
Videos:
1, nanospheres' vid of the latest variation (at the start of the video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhPBWNVfDfk
2, findle's vid of a now obsoleted older version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzJk6p-xv6g
Wasted potential: it's impossible to do an "early translating" (using R1 during
the fight end cutscene) because time is frozen and R1 prompts are not allowed.
Other: in a random occurence, Findlestick got one enemy to remain after the
last Translator fight had ended. Having an enemy around made the Translator
mini-game almost impossible to complete, since the enemy tended to interrupt
Kratos in the middle of it. The enemy could also interrupt the cutscene of
picking up the Ram key.
You could also lure or throw the enemy behind the open Ram door, where he'd
unload, creating an opportunity for an infinite red orbs v3 glitch...
Videos:
1, Findle's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ftBT0P0H8g
Speed strategy: after you've picked up the new key, you can skip opening the
door by going to the right side of the gate and doing a high jump + Glide to
go over the walls.
A bit later on when at the gate leading back to the circular hallway, you can
high jump on top of the gate and from there jump and glide to the start of the
corridor from the reverse side, saving a bunch of seconds.
Videos:
1, findle's vid of the 2nd mentioned trick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuEk_DkZkho
-----
+ checkpoint (past Ram door, nearing the first set of spikes)
+ checkpoint (after winning the trap and gameplay has resumed)
Wasted potential: it's possible to get to the other end of the spike-trap
hallway super quick by a trick. First have the area load by inserting the Ram
key to the door. Then, go to the upper balcony and open the door there. Since
everything is unloaded upstairs, this basically serves as a method for jumping
into the spike corridor from out of bounds. You can get past the trap entirely.
However, the next area isn't loaded until you've completed the trap.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Us-lTH3_Ac
Other: Kratos may clip through the crusher walls upon death, which looks fairly
anti-climactic.
Random: The second spike-wall has a ledge to it in the upper area, but it's
extremely difficult to grab. Especially (?) while it's moving.
-----
+ checkpoint (at the corner before Garden)
+ checkpoint (leaving Garden of the Gods)
Random: you can see The Last Spartan rushing ahead around the corner if you're
quick. If you're swimming, you can go take a closer look at him too.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFyDpOZsBVQ
--- Athena statue quotes:
"Kratos... you know not what you do.
There are things far more important than your revenge.
Zeus did what he must to protect Olympus.
Gaia speaks nothing but half-truths and falsehoods.
The Titans are not to be trusted.
In you, Zeus feared the destruction of all he stands for."
Random: You can destroy Athena statue, but I personally think that's a rather
rude thing to do.
Speed strategy: while walking along the wall ledge, do double jumps and Glide
using your wings. Speed increases.
"Missed Potential: I'm able to use the area (with 2 EXP chests) as a place to
launch over the wall and fly towards the sacrifice area but nothing else is
loaded." - GMG
-----
+ Save point "Sacrifice to the Fates"
+ checkpoint (before jumping down)
+ checkpoint (as door to next area is half-way open)
Sequence break: you can skip Sacrifice to the Fates by doing an very very big
Infinite Jump to the upper balcony. You get straight to second Translator,
skipping the sacrifice itself, then the bloody pool swim, then Ice Room puzzle,
then the Nymph puzzle, then the Cerberi fight ahead (and some additional
climbing). Unfortunately the jump is quite arduous and slow to do. (c: AKheon)
Since then, findlestick found a far better way for doing the jump. It utilizes
a hard to hit bit of collision on top of the closest pillar on right-hand side.
You should try to do a Hammer IJ with about 3 charges with your back against the
pillar so that you have a better idea on where exactly the top of the pillar is.
Then a short Glide or perhaps a SoD attack to move just a little bit forward to
hit the floor on top of the pillar. From there, you can jump and Glide around
the huge wall to get to next balcony super quick.
Videos:
1, findle's improved method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqrOpVRVdr0
2, AKheon's video of the old method:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=m1YoZHYlRI0
Other: swimming glitch
There's a way to get swimming glitch from this room, but it is pretty abysmal
to do since the collisions and camera around the place are so bad. Not to
mention the red surface is actually not water until you have hit a certain
trigger first. Rather wait a little longer and start a swimming glitch from
Ice Room instead.
Other: if you do things in wrong order, you can go drag the time slowing Fates
statue upstairs to the balcony overlook and then fight against Sirens with the
benefit of being able to slow time.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGAy3NYvv6w
Other: luring a Siren into the bloodbath room, you can have it fall inside
the water pool. Curiously a Siren doesn't die when falling into the water.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MTI8v1b7vk
-----
+ checkpoint (after introduction scene is over)
+ checkpoint (after introduction to nymph room is over)
+ checkpoint (closing in on the cerberi fight)
Random: Enjoy the effects this room has. The pedestal leaves an icy trail,
the ice itself turns to powder when it is attacked...
Sequence break: Instead of climbing to the ceiling, you can drop the correct
ice down by doing a Cronos' Rage under it. Also, you will in fact cancel out
of the introductory ice room cutscene if you do this the exact same time the
cutscene would play out, saving even more time. (c: Shenminiu)
Other: It is possible to break out of the R1-prompt the frozen door has, but
it seems pointless.
Other: It seems relatively easy to accidentally break out of the last crank
turning. It has happened to me twice now... Here's what happens: after the ice
in the center melts, the last crank continues to turn by itself endlessly.
Looks fun, but is pointless. Every once in a while you see the reflecting
beam hit the center again and the effect of thawing plays anew, as the mirror
continuously breaks and comes together again. Cyclic...
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmJv-1x7IA4
Random: It's possible to start turning the giant bird while the flames are
still being thrown. This causes the camera angle to stay better while turning,
that's all.
Random: You CAN kill enemies with flamethrower, but it takes 3 hits.
Other: infinite red orbs
Should use a bit more testing to be sure about this one. But apparently luring
a Minotaur to the end of the hallway just before the Hades Nymph nests makes
it unload, allowing infinite red orbs v3 glitch to happen. (c: GMG) §
Speed strategy: speed tactics for the Nymph room
You can use an Ascension to meet the descending grapple earlier than normal.
You can also turn the wheel and ride the grapple without destroying any Nymph
nests if you pre-emptively interrupt them with magic like CR.
Finally, even if you do get hit during the part where the grapple point is
rising, you can instantly R1 the grapple point again and continue rising up.
(c: GMG / AKheon)
Swimming glitch: Ice Room swimmingness
After clearing Ice Room, and on the way to the Cerberi fight, do Infinite Jump
over the corridor next to you. You will end up back in the Ice Room, but with
the swimming dungeon unloaded. You can just jump in the water, then swim out
through unloaded nothingness back to the normal level! (c: findlestick)
(note: Findle has an exclusive series of videos dealing with swimmingness at
Palace of the Fates. Some of them are found from related videos...)
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHkHaeGpu5c
Sequence break: you can skip the Cerberi fight in a couple of ways. One, do a
MotK high jump over the battle boundary. Two, do a MotK high jump over the fight
trigger. This method is quicker because it allows you to skip the pre-fight
cutscene too (saves a few seconds).
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of second method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNxl4uXmDDM
-----
+ Save point "The West Auditorium"
+ checkpoint (reaching Statue of Time)
+ checkpoint (almost at the vent puzzle)
+ checkpoint (approaching the elevator that leads you back to the central area)
+ checkpoint (after landing to the central area)
Speed strategy: you can do an "early gate opening" by pulling the switch during
the Translator's introductory cutscene.
Sequence break: skipping Translator time warping puzzle
The original way to skip the Translator puzzle was to do an infinite jump with
several charges over the corridor wall. This lets you skip some triggers and
as a result the Translator is standing in his room completely passive when you
reach him. (c: zxcv017l)
A more optimal way into to the room is to do a careful high jump and glide to
the top of the big gate to grab a ledge there. From there you can jump into the
room, much faster compared to having to do an infinite jump too.
(c: findlestick)
There's a third alternative method to do this skip if you're coming from the
side of the ladders and gates. High jump (about 4 charges and double jump) in
between the two high gates to grab an invisible ledge, and from there you can
jump to the right... to grab another invisible ledge in the sky, and from there
you can glide all the way to the Translator room. (c: findlestick)
Video:
1, an excerpt from theenglishman's AGDQ run showing the modern method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWZWh1xpu-c#t=3690
2, findle's vid of the 3rd method:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37msGpWYJGU
3, zxcv0171's original video:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UnNriqYI_u8
--- Translator quotes:
-- When picking him up
"You'll doom us all! Can't you see that?"
"You are making a mistake!"
"Release me at once!"
"Get your hands off me!"
-- Falling down
"Aaaagh..."
Other: If you do a break-out while picking up Translator, the Translator will
get stuck in air. The game considers him re-pickable, though, so you don't
have to start over. He will also glitch hang in air if you collision damage him
while picking him up.
If you checkpoint and retry while the Translator is glitch hanging, he will be
found standing idle and without any A.I. impulses when you return to him.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXO-VqXzT5g#t=102
Random: You can throw the Translator off the cliff yourself, if you like.
Random: After finishing the puzzle, the time warp will not bring back the
Translator.
Sequence break: after picking up the next key, you can do a high jump on top
of the locked door and grab a ledge there. From there, you can just jump on
the other side to save a bit of time.
Or to take the skip a little bit further, you can Glide to the higher ground
up ahead with the switch to skip the vent puzzle intro as well, but you then
have to do the vent puzzle skip as well to take full advantage of the situation.
Sequence break: skipping the vent puzzle
It's possible to altogether skip using the vents by first jumping to the higher
switch, then continuing with a high IJ to the platform where there's a chest
on it to the left and above. AQ IJ makes this trick especially fast. (c: AKheon)
Videos:
1, excerpt from findlestick's BP speedrun with this skip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev5QYixGiR0#t=2978
Speed strategy: if you decide to do the vent puzzle, it saves time to first
high jump to the higher switch, pull it, and only then return down to turn the
crank.
Video:
1, RJWaters' vid
https://youtube.com/watch?v=02w8leP9XGM
Wasted sequence break: you can go over the wall, skipping the elevator ride,
but the courtyard isn't loaded until you've actually lowered the elevator down
a certain way.
Sequence break: after you've descended from the elevator, a Cyclops fight
awaits thee. You can skip it by doing a high jump to the ledge to your right,
and jumping over the fight trigger.
Alternatively, you can not lower the elevator all the way and do a Double Glide
Jump from the elevator to get on top of the same ledge.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid of the 2nd method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3ciVTQlyxw#t=133
Strategy: during the Cyclops fight, you can lure them to their deaths from
the flame spout platform. Just provoke them to attack and you're set.
Video:
1, GMG's demonstration:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=EqA1JELeVxE
-----
+ Save point "Entrance to the Underground"
+ checkpoint (approaching the lava pit with a rope over it)
+ checkpoint (after you win the fight with archers and gorgons)
- note: infinite orbs v2 is possible here
+ checkpoint (at the rotating pillars)
+ checkpoint (getting to the other side of the pillar flight)
Sequence break: you can skip riding the spike-ceiling elevator by doing a high
jump from on top of the chest to the right. Getting over the wall, it's easy to
Glide inside the elevator shaft and descend. Make sure to hit the loading
trigger for the next area, located fairly high in the shart, or else there
awaits nothing behind the gate. (c: ManeshM84)
Video:
1, ManeshM84's vid
https://youtube.com/watch?v=6vP_R3oKtqk
Event oddities: spike-ceiling elevator
- the spikes in the ceiling will only start to hurt Kratos once they are low
enough. They can be infinite jumped through before it!
- you will not get a game over if the spikes catch the elevator while Kratos
is NOT inside.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SVeLbwl5eM
Strategy: for damaging your enemies more quickly at the spiked-ceiling elevator
you can always launch them to the spikes above. (c: ManeshM84)
Sequence break: in the lava area, you can avoid fighting Archers and Gorgons by
keeping RotT on during the climbing sections. Arrows won't make you drop.
Other: infinite red orbs v2
The fight with Archers and Gorgons is a spot where you can get infinite red
orbs, although the exact mechanism for why it happens is not understood.
To do it, it's important that you stonefreeze the last enemy of the fight.
After you crush it, retry. The last enemy will re-appear stonefrozen, but you
still get its orbs. Then you can crush it again, then retry, and so on, and
every time you retry you still get the enemy's orbs, but can crush the enemy
again.
I can't remember the original source of this glitch. It may have been some
Youtube-video, but it probably no longer exists.
Just a strange observation: once I managed to stonefreeze two Gorgons at the end
of the fight. After smashing them and retrying, only one Gorgon returned and
things seemed to go like usual. But I didn't actually get to keep the red orbs
this way and the infinite red orb trick failed.
Another oddity: after knocking the Gorgon into the lava pit, she never re-
spawned over checkpoint retry again.
One last oddity: Repeated long-term checkpoint retrying also causes the Gorgon
to shrink in size noticeably and also change position. (c: n3obuddha)
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
https://youtube.com/watch?v=6SqY5Ri-sow
2, glitch-within-a-glitch by n3obuddha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eZmJ4UfcUY
"Sequence Break: (by the Archers/Gorgons/Sentry) You can IJ (3-4 charges) over
the wall then glide to point just before the vent/hidden room." - GMG
Random: Gift of Magic
After clearing the climbing bit, shoot the wall behind hot air vent (on the way
to the next section). There's a strange marking on the wall, and the wall can
be targeted - it's easy to notice. After the wall has broken, enter the hole in
the wall to claim the secret chest.
Another secret awaits right next to the chest. Smash the wall to the right of
it to find a switch which will take away the rotating pillar spikes, making your
life a lot easier.
-----
+ Save point "The Phoenix Chamber"
+ checkpoint (entering the spike-floored room)
+ checkpoint (getting past the spike-floored room)
+ checkpoint (at the entrance of flame trap room)
+ checkpoint (after passing flame trap room)
+ checkpoint (after seeing FMV of Phoenix)
other: you need to be in front of the switch for it to activate
+ checkpoint (about halfway up the stairs)
Other: Addaminsain has in the past issued a complaint about floating Cursed
Romains in the area.
Video:
1, addaminsain's vid
https://youtube.com/watch?v=d_OaYk6KEQo
Sequence break: you can skip the whole area by doing a high jump to the stairs
which will lead you out. (c: Shenminiu)
Video:
1, romvaleri's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-mt65-9Ni4
"Strat: Break the wall with a fate statue behind it as the spikes are up for an
instant kill of the 2 Hades Legionnaires." - GMG
Speed strategy: at the flame trap room, you can speed up your progress a lot
by having RotT on (especially viable on BP and Urns). No need to worry about
enemies.
Other: if you return to flame trap room after having solved it, the statue you
pushed around may have the flame effect stuck on it.
Glitch control: the platform of the Ash urn is enclosed by small walls from
each direction, ensuring that you can't move it to strange places.
Event glitch: by pulling the switch of the Phoenix ash machine right as the
fight ends (you can pull it even if it is just rising up from the ground),
Kratos is able to move freely while the ashes are being dropped, allowing you to
perform some odd tricks here. (c: findlestick)
+ leaving the area to the west or south causes the FMV to never to show up, and
re-operating the machine gives you the usual special camera angle and even sound
effects, but the urn graphic is missing (and nothing happens afterwards).
+ hanging on a nearby ledge causes nothing too interesting to happen, mainly
that you can escape the following cutscene by just climbing up.
+ Findlestick got a strange result while trying to escape to upper levels. The
FMV kicked in right before areas transitioned, and after FMV had ended, all his
stats were empty (0 orbs, no weapons/magic, etc.) and the game crashed in a
moment.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid. See first part:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpOqyJFj3WU
Other: only the vents on the right side of the area are real.
Other: rarely the elevator leading back up can disappear mysteriously while
Kratos is on it.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ownq8keXvYM
----
+ Save point "Releasing the Phoenix)
+ checkpoint (after blowing the horn)
+ checkpoint (approaching the wheel)
Random: Touching Phoenix's lava pillar will hurt Kratos. If enemies touch the
pillar, they instantly die. (c: Findlestick)
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCvuL0F1zkY
Sequence break: you can skip the Boreas door in a few ways. You can either do
a high jump through the floor from the indoors corridor, or you can jump from
the yard directly to the horn upstairs with a high jump.
Videos:
1, Shenminiu's speedrun segment which uses this skip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsNfESa6n7g#t=47
Other: moving block fun
You can reach the pushable block / pillar of the upstairs area early and take it
out of its intended area. By pushing it into a chasm, it stops at the invisible
death floor that would kill Kratos on contact. Strangely, you can't push the
vent button at the yard by putting the pillar on top of it: it effectively has
no weight.
If you try to move the block too far, like through doorways leading to other
areas, it will unload from the level - ending your fun.
I attempted to shove a block into a doorway to see if it would prevent the door
from closing. The only door I could get to without the block disappearing was
the doorway leading to the balcony puzzle room - the very same we just came
from. Unfortunately this scheme didn't work: the door closes in so that the
block gets stuck halfway, and Kratos effectively pushes it through the door, if
at all, unable to really move other than sideways, then the block just falls
into nothingness.
With the block around, you can slightly mess up things during the Cyclops fight
as well (if you start it out of order). For example do glitched QTE finishers
from above ground level.
Strangely, while accessing the yard while it was unloaded, after leaving the
pillar to the middle of the yard, the 'vent' effect was seen active but it
didn't actually work. Then I pressed the vent button down to see what would
happen, and the moving floor moved my pillar... and as I got back to it, it
had turned facing a diagonal direction and it was invisible! Useless, I guess.
The block disappears before Kraken fight if you leave it to the yard.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid of QTEs above ground level:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdCKSDfZXx8
Other: something you can try it is approaching the Phoenix early by swimming
to it. But it doesn't serve much purpose, just looks cool.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubJqRj9GdgM
Sequence break: in the next puzzle, you'd normally climb to the roof, cut a
chain, push a block, etc. But it can mostly be skipped by doing an infinite
jump with multiple charges to the closed door platform (for example: IJ with
two charges, then IJ and jump + MotK, then Glide to it). From there you can
do a high jump and cut the chain at the roof with normal attacks.
However, GMG warns that if you don't operate the elevator switch twice first,
the area beyond it won't load properly.
Videos:
1, Shenminiu's speedrun segment which uses this skip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsNfESa6n7g#t=79
Sequence break: you can skip rotating the wheel by doing a high jump to a ledge
near the ceiling (try the right-hand wall) and Gliding inside the room with the
rotating walls.
Videos:
1, Shenminiu's speedrun segment which uses this skip too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsNfESa6n7g#t=126
Wasted sequence break potential: Early Phoenix
Using a high jump to escape from the crank room, people have been able to extend
the bridge out towards the Phoenix early, but the platform Phoenix is on is not
solid, and as such the circle minigame can't be activated. Darn! During this
time the arena has been cropped off like it is in the Kraken fight and the sky
is also black. You can also fight Kraken's invisible tentacles.
Another alternative: if you don't pull the switch at the lower floor twice,
things do not load the same way and the end result of this skip is different.
The map outside is still mostly the same it was previously, and the sky is not
black either. Rotating the wheel that raises the outside pillars only operates
the left pillar for some reason. But this variation is not useful either since
The Last Spartan is unloaded, and can't be reached... although it leads to a
side effect that is explored more in an entry below. (c: RJWaters2)
Overall it's possible to turn the upper floor wheel twice: once when it's
invisible, once when it's visible. Interestingly, the bridge mechanism began
to work only after turning the wheel when it was visible.
If you extend the bridge early doing this, then make your way to Last Spartan
like normal, the bridge remains extended as Kraken fight begins. You can
actually skip Kraken at this stage by jumping over the painfully high invisible
wall that is in front of him. Fighting Kraken normally is not an option any
more if you do this, though, because you can't end the fight by pulling the
bridge switch now.
Visiting the courtyard early causes the game to start showing the Phoenix
emblem on the ground to Kratos periodically. This cutscene can cause some
other side effects too, for instance if it activates as you're seeing The
Last Spartan cutscene intro. If it happens, the intro cuts off, and the fight
vs The Last Spartan never begins - you're stuck.
Videos:
1, RJWaters' vid (part 3/3, check out the rest too if you like)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_dKU1RzI3Zk
2, findlestick's vid of skipping Kraken
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3dnzFMAnCw
Other: how to re-load the Auditoriums anew (c: findlestick)
It's possible to utilize a loophole in the map loading to have all the paths
of this level load anew, so that it's almost as if you hadn't played through
them yet. Want to rescue the first translator again? Sure! Open all the chests
a second time? No problem. Using this trick, it becomes possible.
"This glitch may seem hard to believe, but this is how it is done if you want
to try it for yourself:
1. Don't release the Phoenix, instead skip it with a high jump.
2. Blow the Boreas Horn.
3. Go through the pedastal puzzle area without pulling the lever at all.
4. Jump back out to the Kraken battle arena area."
EDIT: apparently it's not this simple after all, and there is probably
something more to it. Remains a mystery for now. §
Videos:
1, findle's vid with a more in-depth explanation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq8gsPQL1rI
-----
Wasted potential: the room seems to be sealed off, so that you can't escape from
there early.
Random: Out of sheer curiosity, I defeated The Last Spartan while disc tray
glitched. Kratos and the Spartan never actually fly out of the room since it's
the FMV I just skipped that acts as the teleport trigger for them. So the fight
goes on endlessly after that.
-----
+ Checkpoint (after breaking out of his grasp once, gameplay resumes)
+ Checkpoint (after defeating FMV has played out)
--- Kratos quotes:
"I grow tired of the lies of the gods!"
"I am cursed!"
"I cannot change my fate!"
"Come down here and face me now, Zeus!"
At the first phase of the fight, you're stuck in the stance "unmotivated
Kratos". Any attack you try to do ends up in a disgruntled comment from Kratos.
In addition to that, he walks slowly and curled-up. He will receive no damage
from any attack Kraken makes. Not long after, he is grabbed and...
Other: Addaminsain has said that by activating RotT too early (before the meter
re-fills), you will not get an automatic refill like you would otherwise.
*one cutscene later*
No matter you use or not use the RotT upgrade, Kraken will throw you out of
his grasp in a moment.
Other: If you try to break Kraken's tentacles' knobs while on ground level,
they usually grow back instantly. But if you want to try this out, ground PR
usually brings the best results, sometimes allowing you to destroy a knob
without Kraken reacting, even if you're not on the tentacle.
The circle-prompt (indicating a mini-game) will appear whether you're on the
ground or climbing. Of course the mini-game won't start until you actually
grapple and hit the correct area with a climbing grab.
Note that if any tentacle knobs are weakened, they regain full health as
Kraken retracts the tentacle.
Random: "When one of his tentacles go into the ground/wall, hits do not add to
the combo meter." - GMG
"Strategy: You can whore PACED bow shots for a very efficient defeat of the
Kraken from a certain spot. (I've yet to record this) Obviously we can attack
the head directly with other means..even without Magic." - GMG
Other: After the mid-way of the fight, Kraken will eat Last Spartan's corpse as
if it was a breath freshener. Unfortunately it does not actually freshen his
breath, as you may've guessed.
If you pick up the Last Spartan corpse right before he is eaten, the whole scene
of devourment will effectively be skipped. But you shouldn't do this because it
glitches up the fight and causes it to continue endlessly (the wall in front of
the switch stays there even if you defeat Kraken's remaining tentacles.)
Other: Kraken can sometimes do invisible tentacle stabs on the left side of
the arena during phase 2 of the boss fight.
Videos:
1, Shinobier's video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbJtcAAkQJ8#t=155
Other: extra red orbs
"The Kraken in GoWII, when defeated (in normal) gives 500 red orbs. I walked to
the end of the ledge, just before the bridge, and restarted from last
checkpoint. I ended up keeping the previous 500, but also *gaining* another
500. This only works ONCE, ie you can only receive a maximum of 1000 red orbs
(normal) from Kraken." - shadowgeyser §
Trigger skip: It's possible to high jump over the trigger that would activate
the bridge retracting animation. Doing this causes a graphical glitch when you
finally land in front of Phoenix: the bridge just disappears without a trace.
-----
+ checkpoint (after FMV)
- other: a black screen flashes after retrying
- upgrading effect: some amount of strain leaves the screen completely black
until you retry (which is a bad thing). Might be true to all post-FMV
checkpoints, but quite rare (so it's hard to verify).
+ Save point (Temple of the Fates)
+ checkpoint (at the chasm leading to fight arena) §
Speed strategy: you can prevent the time slow effect from starting in this area
fairly consistently by spamming circle (and possibly other buttons) and holding
L-stick forward as Kratos is transported into the map.
However, for some reason spamming triangle can cause a random game over, so
it might be the best to stick to spamming circle.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid of a random game over:
https://youtu.be/_gyRb7VBc3I?t=214
Swimming glitch: This is easy to do in this area. Backtrack a bit closer to the
start of the level. Find an edge from the right side of the screen you can stand
on, then do a high jump (easiest with BH and Icarus Wings) towards a nearby
platform with a chest on it. Kratos won't grab its ledge, so you need to be
high enough to get fully on top. While there, jump on a chest and do another
high jump. There! You're out.
Few words of warning though. The visibility will be bad in the upcoming area.
Also, before Lahkesis there's a loading trigger right under the closed gate
which you must hit. Not easy. And in any case, you can't do much against
Lahkesis while swimming. And it's not possible to just swim over the wall to
the next area, because nothing is loaded there yet.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Yvz5--tIM
Break-out glitch: if you break out of the battering ram, doing any moves after
it causes Kratos to fly across the room interestingly for a few seconds time.
The momentum of the move calculated wrongly? This can also happen if you R1 the
battering rams while swimming.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEthZD-Zwcw
Sequence break: You can skip the whole puzzle by doing a high jump over the
giant stone head. There are two ways to do it. The old method jumps off the
grapple point and reaches a floor above the grapple point, then does a long
jump from there over the stone face.
But there exists a faster, easier variation of this skip now too. You do a high
jump over the right back wall of the room, over the bars behind which you see
a chest. (c: findlestick)
Video:
1, Findle's vid of the faster method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62cTJvzpymM
2, Shenminiu's speedrun segment which has the old version of the skip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsNfESa6n7g#t=314
Speed strategy: if you did the above skip, you may still be suffering from the
time slow effect. In that case, quickly R1 a chest to end the effect and save
some seconds en route to Lahkesis.
-----
+ checkpoint (as fight begins)
Fight strategy: You can get a free time slow if you activate AotF right before
this fight.
Other: more time slowing exploits
GMG once reported a glitch on Normal Play in which he managed to retain the
ability to use Amulet effectively in all of the fights, including the one where
you are alone against Atropos.
At the end of 2010, findlestick found a way to consistently get this to happen,
at least until the end of the first fight. It involves going to the balcony
overseeing the boss arena, then backtracking to get the time slowage start
again (of course, you have to skip breaking the stone which keeps time slowed
for this to work), then go back to the balcony mostly out of bounds (so that
you don't have to open the gate, because that would end time slowage).
Videos:
1, findle's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70XrF4bd02c
Other: Lahkesis A.I. glitches
This boss is particularly subject to various A.I. glitches. Some are random, but
it's known for certain that playing around with the grapple points too much
will cause her to act strangely. For example, at the first stage of the fight,
go to grapple-mode. She will start to fire her plasmaballs at you. As soon as
you get hit by one, press R1 again to re-grapple. Do this for a bit, switch
between two adjacent grapple points if you want. Eventually Lahkesis' aim
takes a dramatic turn for the worse: she will fire way too low or high from
Kratos' location. She will do this as long as you don't move away from the
grapple point.
After falling down as a result of this glitch, she will remain docile as long
as you don't move Kratos much. Another small oddity.
Lahkesis can also rarely become docile and not attack Kratos at all after a
retry. She may do a few lazy attacks at the start, but then she ceases to do
anything until she is attacked again. (thanks to Ahmad Shah)
And back on the topic of bigger oddities: Lahkesis has a tendency to start
whirling in air or in the ground in some circumstances. Also, her "dodge" (done
as a counter for several moves) can lead her to endlessly rush towards a corner
of the arena. (despite the fact it's a round room)
Videos:
1, Addaminsain's vid of a "spinning Lahkesis"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vkS61FbSYg8
Other: Lahkesis is one of the rare enemies with an air false grab chance. The
animation for it is exactly the same as with the ground one.
Other: At any time during the fight, trying to use the Amulet doesn't work. The
time slow effect just flashes on the screen but ends instantly. If you try to
activate the Amulet regardless, you can manipulate Lahkesis into doing her
projectile attacks, so it could come in handy as a fight strategy. (c: GMG)
Strategy: Grapple points cancel Kratos out of any move. Do damaging, slow
specials and fly to safety with R1 whenever you feel like it.
"Other: When she has a "O" on her, leap to weapon switch (to any sub-weapon)
to air grab *exactly like that* and the sub-weapon you have out will be what
you use against her." - GMG
Other: sometimes the fight's final FMV starts slower than usual and you can
tangle onto the grapple points of the arena before the next phase of the fight
begins. This causes Kratos to start the next fight stuck half-way into the
sword, with a strange R1-prompt still showing. Merely jumping let him out of
the ground, but I still wonder what would've happened if I had pressed R1...
On another occasion when I pressed R1 right before the next FMV, Kratos never
got to Temple of the Oracle but instead tangled onto a nearby grapple after the
FMV. The screen said "Temple of the Oracle". Lahkesis or Atropos were nowhere
to be found, and trying to retry didn't help. Got stuck, basically... To note,
the non-standard game over of Atropos fight never happened this way, so maybe
the Atropos fight wasn't loaded any more due to Kratos' distance from it?
-----
+ checkpoint (as fight begins)
Random: The Kratos you see fighting is the background is blatantly the same as
the Kratos of God of War II! He even has the scar in his stomach. Maybe it is
just an illusion created by the Fates...
Random: You get a special death cutscene if Atropos manages to shatter the
whole sword well enough.
Other: GMG reports that he had once started the finishing mini-game to Atropos
but the game failed to progress afterwards. It may have been a sort of break out
because he had turned Urn of Poseidon off around that time, or maybe just some
other loading oddity. Anyway, afterwards the fight continued as normal until a
new chance to finish off Atropos came up. At that point the game just skipped
the mini-game and went straight to the post-fight FMV.
-----
+ checkpoint (as fight begins)
Other: At the beginning of the fight Lahkesis will rise up and activate the
three mirrors of the room. This can be interrupted by trying to use the Amulet,
but it makes no difference for the fight (other than the fact that Lahkesis
will stay in air until knocked down for the first time, which can be used for
strategy) (c: GMG).
During the mirror activation time you can also get right next to the right
mirror to get near Atropos without her fleeing. You can reliably attack her
with whatever you like, but she suffers no actual damage until time is slowed.
Also, she can't be damaged during the cutscene when she appears the first time.
Strategy: during the time Lahkesis is recovering, activate Amulet of the Fates
and go break a mirror. Afterwards you still have time to activate another Amulet
time slow, so do it to get some free damage in.
Video:
1, addaminsain's demonstration:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9KcdQwuDXRg
Sweet spot: right at the end of the fight, get behind Lahkesis while she is in
front of the last mirror. None of her large-scale beam attacks can hit you.
Random: after they bosses are inside the window, they turn into nothing but
graphics. They will never break out, so don't worry.
-----
+ checkpoint (after smashing last mirror)
+ Save point "The Inner Sanctum"
+ checkpoint (entering corridor in which Clotho begins talking)
Other: you can activate two of the grapple points of the boss fight arena from
inside the next corridor if you do a short Infinite Jump and then try to R1
them. Kratos flies straight through the wall to the grapple point.
Wasted glitch potential: seems like swimming glitch is not possible here. All
the walls and ceilings in each area are sealed off, except the ceiling/wall of
the Throne of Lakhesis, whose walls extend so high up it's not rational in the
least to try it. I've tried this place through and through with no success. I've
heard Findle has too done some work to no avail.
Sequence break: You can skip the wallclimbing bit by doing a high jump to the
next balcony.
Videos:
1, an excerpt from shenminiu's run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp3jEHRFfPM#t=20
-----
+ Save point "Before the Loom"
- note: appears after Endurance Run is cleared
Wasted glitch potential: After activating the endurance run, a barrier forms
behind you. If you jump over it, you'll find that the area behind you has now
unloaded and you can from here down below to the final door or even over it.
However, jumping in front of the door won't help you skip battle segments and
there's nothing loaded behind the door. So skipping Endurance Run isn't this
simple, unfortunately... (c: Poru2009)
It's possible to do an alternate route for Endurance Run skip (read more below)
by first making your way to the fourth wave and then retracing back to do this
trick. The cyclops spawn, and after the fight everything works like it should.
However, it's unlikely it could be faster than just doing it the normal way.
"Other: Try a 360 toss (Legionnaire) downhill..won't kill the Legionnaire." -GMG
Sequence break: each fight wave except the last is possible to skip using
infinite jump. It takes one to two charges per wall (if you jump too), so it's
slightly arduous. (c: shenminiu)
However, in practice not all waves should be skipped because that can lead
to various problems, such as all required enemies not spawning. There is also
one loading trigger in the middle of the pathway that has to be hit for the
final fight (and next areas) to load at all.
The most efficient known route for a BP run is this: skip 1st wave. Then do
an aerial AQ for the small 2nd wave to quickly get rid of it. After that, skip
3rd wave.
Now comes a slightly tricky part. From on top of the fight barrier after
skipping 3rd wave, do a Double Glide Jump that flies low enough that you
activate the 4th wave fight, because there is an important loading trigger
right before it. However, if you Glide in just the right angle, you are able
to escape the 4th wave and never actually have to fight it.
After that, skip 5th wave. And for the 6th small wave, do another aerial AQ
to kill all enemies and get past it quickly. The 7th wave is the final wave,
so just fight it to finish up the Endurance Run.
Videos:
1, a part from my RTA that shows the Endurance Run:
https://youtu.be/XxNoLMuWHa8?t=3633
2, Shenminiu's speedrun segment showing the original route:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp3jEHRFfPM#t=33
Graphical glitch: doing grabs and finishers through the separating force walls
yield strange graphical displacements.
Other: checkpointing while the door's arms are lifted up may cause glitches in
the arms' behaviour after retrying. (such as: after lowering from air, the arm
may instantly re-appear in air, then descend again.)
-----
+ checkpoint (after opening door, gameplay resumes)
She consists of three levels.
Sequence break: skip first floor of Clotho (c: BlackPliff)
You can skip the first floor and a part of the second floor of Clotho by
doing an infinite jump from near the swinging blades all the way to the next
floor. AQ IJ is the fastest way to accomplish this.
Since you don't use the normal entrance to reach the 2nd floor, you also skip
the 30-second long intro that would normally show you the area. However, this
also leaves the camera confused, forcing you to handle the 2nd floor almost
blind. Fortunately you can reset the camera and restore visibility by attacking
nearby Clotho hands - Cronos' Rage does the job pretty well.
Videos:
1, Ragnell's run where this skip is used:
https://youtu.be/oBMTY_BSAfY?t=3425
"Other: (Clotho Arms) All her arms have 20HP (slightly over actually) but a
single launch *damage is irrelevant* during 'idle' (can be hard to get) will
send it to the ground. Any bounces/launches will restart her downtime." - GMG
Other: ceiling mini-game oddities
Addaminsain encountered glitches with the ceiling grapple mini-game by simply
switching weapons. It even seems that the hand is prone to disappearing if you
just casually open up Start-menu during the event.
You can also graphically glitch it reliably by doing a MotK high jump inside
the grapple ceiling and jumping and gliding in there.
Video:
1, Addaminsain's vid:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0MzYFdVaA4I
Other: Clotho's hand can glitch up in a variety of ways, like doing ghostly
attacks to Kratos.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhHy8KCqddo#t=97
Sequence break: you don't have to traverse the ceiling in order to get rid of
the stuck corpses. A high level Cronos' Rage/PR can clear them up for you.
-----
+ checkpoint (after getting to the second floor)
Sequence break: It's possible to skip the second level altogether by doing a
high jump to the switch which will transport you to the highest level.
Sequence break: skipping Clotho
By doing a high jump to the third floor instead of using the elevator, you will
skip a small cutscene and get a head start to the Clotho fight.
If you're fast enough, you can go past her before the fight barriers are
formed, and so you don't have to fight her. However, doing this prevents you
from activating the strings later on, so you might not want to do this unless
you're ready for some big infinite jumps shortly. (More about them in the
section about "strings skip".)
It's a slightly nervous skip since it's so late in a run, can only be attempted
once and also has a fairly precise time window in which to pull it off. However,
you can make the skip 100% reliable by stopping to use amulet after your first
roll, because that will give you a ton of extra time to get past the fight
barriers.
If you decide to fight Clotho instead, you'll have an easier time since both
of Clotho's arms are currently paralyzed! However, you have to watch out
for the huge, gaping hole in the floor that is there since the elevator never
rose up.
If you use the hole to return to lower floors after killing Clotho, you will
see all her lower floor arms still move around as if nothing had happened!
Perhaps she has to send all her nerve movements a few days in advance.
If you then jump back up, Clotho has revived and is perfectly healthy again,
although still passive.
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc4eXIfNO84
-----
+ checkpoint (reaching third floor)
"Other: Rather then have seperate HPs, each arm shares a bar that depletes
twice. It's odd really. So you can't work over both to near destruction then
beat both....thus Amulet usage is forced often enough." - GMG
Random: about the switches
You see two switches with moveable positions around the arena. Pulling from a
switch when it is situated on the third, fourth, sixth, seventh, eigth or ninth
slot (looking from the right to left), you drop a corpse on the battlefield.
When/if it breaks it unloads a big dose of green health orbs on Kratos. It is
not a normal corpse in the sense that you can pick it up. Pulling from a switch
situated on the fifth slot, you pull up a large, swinging blade. (well, it
actually stops swinging the instant it starts to rise, for some reason...)
Grahical glitch: If you skipped the second level, insubstantial pieces of rope
decorate the third floor.
-----
+ Save point "The Loom Chamber"
Random: After pulling this switch, you get new trinkets on the battlefield.
Several different threads and their operating devices descend down, but you
can only use one of them without the glass case breaking ominously. Kratos'
is the fifth (from right to left).
Sequence break: strings skip
You can access Zeus fight as soon as you've pulled the switch in front of the
mirror and then visited under the first 'wall' of the swimming pool to hit a
loading trigger. There's absolutely no need to go further and actually pull
on the strings IF you can do a decent infinite jump over the mirror and land
inside it from above. (c: AKheon)
The jump is a bit high, but there's a ledge on top of the mirror you can grab
and afterwards stand on. Also, you can give yourself a small height advantage by
starting the jump from on top of the small switch in some cases.
Note: if you didn't hit the loading trigger and the Zeus fight isn't loaded,
Kratos gets stuck behind the wall in a strange way. Or falls down to the lower
floor after the Zeus FMV while Clotho is unloaded.
Videos:
1, AKheon's updated vid featuring AQ IJ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOubRJhKavs
2, findlestick's vid of falling down to the lower floor with Clotho unloaded:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhHy8KCqddo#t=142
3, AKheon's original vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X700jL0BEPo
Other: the switch in front of the mirror disappears and appears haphazardly.
After pulling it, try leaving behind the corner and returning. Also, after
trying to access Zeus fight without the FMV loaded, retrying made the switch
go away.
Other: for the sake of science, Findlestick jumped down to the lowest level
after pulling the switch at the top level. Clotho appeared graphically glitched,
and parts of collision were not loaded.
Videos:
1, Findle's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZgejalKRcg#t=27
Untested: swimming glitch in this area might be fun, but seemingly very hard
to perform. I haven't succeeded in it yet. Findlestick has said that the walls
are very bad and suck Kratos inside the pool if the water is touched.
Random: if you're in front of Clotho, after you've lost the 30 seconds in which
to reach the mirror, all the pictures of different times rush through the
screen once the big Zeus image has dissipated. However, if you're in front of
the mirror when the countdown ends, the only image you see is Zeus'.
-----
+ checkpoint (right as fight starts)
+ checkpoint (as second phase of the fight starts)
+ checkpoint (as last phase of the fight starts, e.g. before final QTE)
Random: During NP you lose all your sub-weapons and also the chance to switch to
your usual Blades.
During BP whichever sub-weapon you were wielding will become your only
sub-weapon during these parts, but not only that: you actually lose the
sub-weapon window too and thus the ability to Cyclecancel.
Random: Even if you skipped the Fleece earlier, you get it here for some reason.
(c: Findle)
Other: infinite red orbs
You can technically get infinite red orbs during this part by killing the Sirens
over and over again. A bit too little and a bit too late in the game, but just
to mention. (c: manojpj200)
Battle musings: "It is ONLY during a RotT triangle ender with the Spear of
Destiny (straight to his hand) that you can repell Zeus as if he got hit by a
Siren...there's an element of chance to whether he will actually follow through
with a punch to the center (opening for REAL damage).
Zeus doesn't have a real HP bar here but during each 'opening' he has about 15HP
(approx). It takes 3 'full repells' (life depletion during openings) typically
though I've seen it in as few as 2.
NOTE: You can reflect his GIANT thunderbolts but it doesn't really help and it
is actually as retarded as it sounds. ~" - GMG
Mystery: a scene break-out
"The moment Giant Zeus [Phase I] ends, I tried to use Findle method* to breakout
and did manage to do it. Difference was, cutscene played out from behind Kratos
rather than from behind Zeus [cutscene where Zeus comes down to size]. I think
breakout happened when Kratos slammed BH into Giant Zeus Hand. Tried once more
again, couldn't repeat. After cutscene, Zeus stands still, Kratos is frozen,
floating slightly above air and you can do nothing but watch birds flying in
background and turn rage on or off. Can access menus though." - wreckem
* Findle-method is basically attacking wantonly before a scene occurs
Another note regarding this trick by Ahmad Shah:
"It can happen randomly, IF Zeus must throw bolts after O."
Second phase:
Other: about your sub-weapons on BP
On BP, if you open weapons menu any time after Zeus has grabbed you the first
time, you see your sub-weapon automatically change to Blade of Olympus, and you
lose the chance to wield any sub-weapon you may've carried with you until that
point. So if you have another sub-weapon you prefer and don't want BoO, don't
open the menu during this fight.
"The switch to BoO only occurs in stages where he wields the Blade itself and
when we are shown 'surrendering'." - GMG
Opening the menu during any of the cutscenes involving BoO or your sub-weapon,
you can cause a graphical glitch by opening the menu. Tha game will revert to
BoO, but on the field you see the Athena's Blades, spread out strangely.
Interestingly, during the times Zeus has the BoO you CAN switch between your
main and sub-weapon. You still only got one sub-weapon, though.
Other: about your sub-weapons on NP
You lose all sub-weapons for this fight, and have to take turns with Zeus for
the last remaining one, Blade of Olympus.
I've heard of a glitch in which Kratos gets to keep BoO for himself though Zeus
grabs it from his hands between stages. An event glitch of sort, I'd assume...
Other (BP): going out of bounds
It's possible to leave the Zeus battle arena after all! This is done by having
the Hammer active, then when Zeus takes the 'Sword' off you, the game does an
automatic glitched "weapon switch" when you enter the menu. This can be used to
do (only) 1 high jump out of the arena and to a large mysterious green geometric
shape far below. (c: findlestick)
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=punfWOfmEHQ&t=3m10s
Event glitch (BP): the break-outs of this fight
You can break out from both of the mid-fight R1 prompts using Poseidon's Urn.
This enables Kratos to stay unoccupied while the rock formations smash
themselves at Zeus. This might help you to deal more damage in a shorter while.
The second one is not as useful, since not only you don't need to damage Zeus
any longer, you can accidentally skip a checkpoint doing this. If you fail at
the last QTE, you would have to beat Zeus all over again!
Videos:
1, AKheon's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXO-VqXzT5g
Speed tactic: sometimes you skip Zeus' third phase entirely. It's related to the
damage dealt to him. On Easy NG+ conditions, 2 Cronos' Rage and 1 heavy hammer
combo does this pretty consistently.
The same combo can also skip a part of Zeus' "wobbly walk" in between phases.
Videos:
1, blackpliff's highlight:
https://clips.twitch.tv/TubularConsiderateMetalCeilingCat
Battle musings: "NOTE: His grabs are odd....I've seen quite a few glitch
scenarios for Zeus. One where he fails to get the weapon and appears to go to
Stage 4, another where he walks like Stage 2/4 but attacks like Stage 3/5
*doesn't get stunned and his has a glitch resistance to taking damage that
makes him invincible for Stage 5 versus just having 3000+ HP in Stage 3* and
a simple one where Stage 3 lacks stun properties." - GMG
Other: grab break-outs
It seems that standing at certain areas of the arena causes Zeus to breakout
of grabbing Kratos. Resulting in seeing Kratos struggling in mid air against
an invisible attacker.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=punfWOfmEHQ&t=2m36s
Sweet spot: there's an impossibly small sweet spot on the right side of the
arena where Zeus doesn't attack Kratos at all. However it's pretty pointless,
because even if you do find it...doing any type of action (except for drawing
the Bow and shooting) causes you to lose your un-detectability.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=punfWOfmEHQ&t=2m52s
Other: during the third phase of the fight, Zeus will shield himself with
thunderbolts that can only be removed with RotT. But if you start RotTing him
too early, his shield will never dissipate. So don't do that.
"The Lightning Shield can be destroyed many ways but requires RotT and direct
contact typically. Hits at a distance typically hurt us if the weapon itself
connects. Spells like CR are good for earning sprays of Rage orbs.
Once his shield goes down, it's Stage 3 without a stun by default. He has low HP
so that's fine." - GMG
Other (BP): if you break out of the circle-spamming QTE before the very last
QTE of the game, Zeus stops and looks a bit confused for a moment. Then just
starts again. So there's no avoiding surrendering with Kratos here!
Loading error specialty: if the second-to-last FMV of the game never activates,
something indescribable happens...
I recommend you to watch the vid. However, for the chance it might some day go
offline, here's a small synopsis (don't spoil yourself until watching the vid):
Instead of FMV, the camera resets right as Zeus is getting stabbed. The sound
loop of him getting stabbed plays in the background while both his big and small
forms are visible at the same time. The small Zeus can be attacked, and
eventually a mini-game prompt appears. If the mini-game is activated, Kratos is
pushed away by something invisible, and all of a sudden the big Zeus is hunched
over the arena ridiculously and can't be come to contact with.
Videos:
1, MisterTwister23's vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Me85nLv7zk
-----
+ checkpoint (gameplay resumes)
Sequence break: again, it is possible to skip operating the strings, saving
a bunch of time. The trigger for getting the last FMV to load is a bit further
than the last time. Try swimming to the other end of the swimming pool and then
returning. If the game loads an eerily long time, you got it. After that it's
just a matter of getting over the mirror to activate the FMV... voila, game
dealt with, and everyone was left scratching their heads.
Note: if you try to jump behind the mirror without FMV loaded, the screen goes
black and Kratos can do nothing any longer. Not a very good ending, is it?
Though perhaps a more realistic outcome if one were to travel through time with
absolutely no coordinates.
Random: The palace will not collapse no matter how long you wait, it just looks
like it.
BTW, if you visit the lower floors of this place again, you will notice a very
different camera at the first floor - one which shows you it pretty much
unloaded - and also, the pathway to the endurance run is completely gone!
If you want to see your in-game time at the end, note that it's possible to
open up Start-menu and see the statistics there right after the last FMV.
THE END
Other: graphical effects like Kratos' Blade residue can remain on the Arena
if you leave and return to it all of a sudden.
Other: sometimes the red screen effect of dying doesn't happen when dying in
the Arena.
Other: if you turn infinite health 'on', Kratos will not die from instant death
chasms in any of the arenas. This leads to embarrassing situations in which
he continues to fall or just gets stuck in the swamp... forever!
Actually, this is the same phenomena infinite health has in God of War III.
Much more prominent there since you can actually take it out of the arena and
into the main game itself, where you can have fun with the death floors all
around.
However, Kratos will still die if he becomes stonefrozen and shattered.
Videos:
1, poru2009's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD3wqspR7dU
Other: you can try out an esoteric "Anti-Gravity Combat Glitch" inside the
challenge where you have to shatter a certain amount of enemies. You must first
create two Kratos stone clones to activate a glitch where subsequent stone
freezes of Kratos only cause him to semi-freeze. If a Cyclops grabs him now
when he is only semi-frozen, the anti-gravity glitch begins.
Kratos is now stuck in air but capable of doing normal attacks. Most attacks
work like normal, but MotK acts strange since it can't resolve by getting to
ground level and it can hit enemies multiple times very fast while Kratos is
stuck in the attack pose.
Videos:
1, findlestick's vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ3xE5c9f0U
5. Credits, legal information, contact info, etc.
-------------------------------------------------
====================================
Copyright © 2008 Hannu Ratilainen
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html#SEC1
All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by
their respective trademark and copyright holders.
Newest version of this guide will always be at GameFAQs, so check there if
you're not certain.
====================================
For contacting, message my Youtube-account.
https://www.youtube.com/user/AKheon
Or for E-mail, go check out my GameFAQs contribution recognition, it is
listed there!
Shameless plug alert! Aside from glitching, I also make music. Check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/user/OnAhtiJaIes
Additional thanks:
------------------
GMG (a.k.a. BigVEE, the_creeper, "man with a thousand names")
King of the GoW-kind
Findlestick
A noteworthy breaker and speedrunner of GoW 2.
Addaminsain (a.k.a. Mr. Insain)
GMG's right hand
Shenminiu
Why are there so many great speedrunners whose nick begins with 's'?
ManeshM84, Kevbew63, RJWaters2, Tyrhhjy, zxcv017l, among others
Found tricks, made videos of 'em, that sorta stuff.
Satvara
For inspiration
UNTIL GOD OF WAR 3