text:
God of War III
Glitch FAQ by Akheon
Version: 2.6 | Updated: 08/07/14 | Search Guide | Bookmark Guide
God of War III Glitch & Things of Interest FAQ v. 2.6 (7. 8. 2014) Written by AKheon, findlestick, satvara & n3obuddha, additional info provided by GMG and Riningan. See the end of the file for more info. 0. Table of contents -------------------- 0. Table of contents 1. Introduction & abbreviations + glossary 2. General glitches & tricks 3. Level-by-level glitch walkthrough 4. Legal information, contact info, credits, etc. Abbreviations: GoW = God of War GoW II = God of War II GoW III = God of War III (simple enough) BoA = Blades of Athena BoE = Blades of Exile RoS = Rage of Sparta HoH = Head of Helios ...and so on. NG = New Game (or sometimes NP = Normal Play) NG+ = New Game+ (glitch) CG = Combat Grapple JJ = Jest Jump A.I. = artificial intelligence c: = credits to § = note to self / does anyone else know better? * = general note Version history: v. 2.6 (7. 8. 2014) - added some more new finds around the game. File size: 248kb. v. 2.5 (18. 7. 2014) - a massive update! - revised intro. - edited and rewrote a lot of text for extra clarity. - changed some formatting. - added timetags to links. - added new videos that were omitted for some reason. File size: 234kb. v. 1.8 (4. 6. 2014) - added a new speedrun to the listings (by Exe). - listed a new trick or two. File size: 197kb. v. 1.7 (29. 9. 2012) - made videos of two Combat Arena glitches. - added little info here and there. File size: 190kb. v. 1.6 (30. 6. 2012) - added links to Findlestick's and Tyrhhjy's speedrun records. - fixed a little of formatting. File size: 189kb. v. 1.5 (22. 5. 2011) - added info on two new jumps - added a lot of new findings around the game - fixed links, re-wrote things... quite a big update File size: 188kb. v. 1.0 (18. 12. 2010) - many additions from Findlestick - small edits here & there (like more video links) File size: 136kb. v. 0.9 (27. 7. 2010) - findings from Youtube and some other unfinished business attended. File size: 123kb. v. 0.8 (17. 5. 2010) - everything we could think of, put in one file. File size: 119kb. 1. Introduction & abbreviations + glossary ------------------------------------------ Ah, God of War. This game series is mostly known for its visceral combat and high production values, but God of War-games also tend to have awfully many glitches in them. Which is good! ...in a way. Depends on your viewpoint and the glitch as well. While having your game freeze is typically not very amusing, at best glitches are positive things that can be harnessed at will for the purposes of speed gaming and entertainment. There exist numerous exploits to skip large sections of the levels, as well as more humorous sightings like Kratos swimming in air or talking to invisible characters. Join us, as we delve deep into the quirks of God of War III programming and witness shocking, glitchy sights... ... in the end, it is ensured that "only Chaos remains." For the first time, the writing was done co-op thanks to the wonders of modern technology and real-time collaborative editing services. Eased the work load quite a lot. How can you tell who wrote which parts? If you're attentive, you'll notice differences in the styles here and there... Enjoy it as an easter egg of sort. Note: this FAQ was written for the unpatched version of God of War III. Things may vary in unforeseen ways in the patched versions. Most importantly, the NG+ glitch does not work if you have patched your game. Current speedrun records...? Exe is doing single segment runs of God of War 3 as of 2014. His current fastest time is 1 hour 27 minutes 43 seconds in real-time, with the category of NG+, Spartan-difficulty and Fear Kratos as costume. In other words, it's the fastest, cheesiest possible category (pretty popular choice among runners). Videos: 1, exe's run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9nKUlwccBE Findlestick did a segmented speedrun of this game in New Game+, Spartan, Fear Kratos conditions at the end of year 2011. He finished the game in under 1 hour 30 minutes (in-game time) using most of the known skips, including early chain break. Videos: 1, all four parts of the run: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gscc-uphOQs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEp57PGpM4w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCjRPgwl_a4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB4pVotiz3w Tyrhhjy also did a segmented New Game speedrun on Chaos-mode in Summer of 2012, finishing the game (according to him) in 2 hours, 51 minutes and 38 seconds in-game time. Videos: 1, five parts of the run: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyE-50LGHFg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktThrHFtKrk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih0c5NbaXp0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blsAont6X0I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj1_-QhIGv8 Glossary: --------- Launch = An attack capable of launching enemies high up in air. Lift-up = Kratos himself rising up during a launch. Bounce = An effect in which an enemy will bounce a bit after a succesful hit. It's not as high as a launch. Knockback = An effect in which the enemy is knocked away. Downed = An enemy which has fallen on its back/on the ground. Collision damage = Damage from f.e. thrown enemies. Enemies that get hit by other enemies, basically. False grab = Kratos' reaction for trying to grab an enemy that does not respond to a grab at the moment. He fumbles backwards, wasting time. But sometimes you can use a false grab to manipulate enemy behaviour (like against Gorgons). Infinite air grab/Orion's Harpoon = some enemies can be air grabbed or Orion's Harpooned indefinitely, without them having a chance to escape. The enemy section far below lists which foes are subjectible to this kind of cheap but fun strategy. Out of bounds = Anywhere outside the intended game area. Sweet spot = a tactical place on the battlefield where your enemies either can't reach you or due to A.I. limitations won't be of danger. Break out = Kratos breaks free out of some scene or action. Not as common in this game as in GoW II, where you could keep moving during some cutscenes by switching weapons at a correct time, to name an example. 2. General glitches & tricks ---------------------------- "New Game +" As you know, God of War III doesn't have a New Game+ mode where you could start a new game with all weapons and gear at hand. Sort of a shame, really, but in the unpatched versions of the game you can use a glitch to do exactly this! You need Combat Arena to do this glitch, so beat the game once, then beat all the Challenges, and then... Step-by-step instructions: 1. Load the Combat Arena and set difficulty to Titan or God. 2. Die enough times to be offered "switch to easy" option. 3. Select either "Yes" or "No". It will take you back to Main Menu. You will get Maxed Out Trophy at this point if you didn't have it already. 4. Start "New Game". You can select any difficulty to play your New Game+ on, even Chaos, even if you have only beaten Normal yet. 5. You will have all the weapons when you start on Gaia and will be all Maxed Out. Blades of Exile will be at Lv. 1 when you get them later on, though. You can also give Kratos infinite health from the Arena options and it will carry into the main game. This will cause him to never take damage from enemy attacks and he also becomes immune to most death collisions - which means that you can fall into a bottomless pit and survive. Note that if you have infinite health on, you can only die by having Kratos become petrified in air, so you want some Gorgons as your enemies in the Arena when setting up the glitch. You can also put magic and item gauges on infinite from the Arena options, but those values are not guaranteed to stay with you when you begin the new game. It does occasionally happen, though. Videos: 1, n3obuddha's tutorial of the NG+ glitch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REwJhKZs9h4 Other notes about NG+: - There is probably no way to start NG+ with all weapons at level 1. - NG+ will not disable trophies. - You can also do Challenges with the NG+ glitch activated. This allows you to take all your gear to the Challenges, usually infinite health as well, removing any challenge from the Challenges. All this is examined with more detail at the end of the level-by-level sections. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of NG+ glitch in Challenges: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em-_NXzZGs4 Other notes about infinite health: - Some people have complained about losing infinite health at some point during the game, but it's never happened to us during playing and testing. It should stay on for the entire duration of the game. - Well, Kratos CAN actually take damage even with infinite health on, it's just exceedingly rare. Few attacks like Hades' barbed wire deluge will still cause damage like usual. Hera's Chalice will still drain Kratos' health as well. - If Kratos falls into a bottomless pit with infinite health, he stops at the death floor and starts shaking wildly. You usually can't control Kratos after this, so you need to retry. - Kratos is still not immune to all forms of death triggers. Some cause a Game Over without causing damage, and Kratos is still subject to those. You find this sort at The Caverns for example. "Swimming glitch" A fan favorite. Swimming glitch in God of War III works almost exactly the same as it did in the previous titles: swimming like normal, except outside walls. The glitch is started by hitting water surface and then going out of bounds, or the other way around... as simple as that. You can... - see the game levels from a whole new perspective! - get past most obstacles without troubles. You can't... - use this glitch before killing Hades (to oversimplify). - open chests or operate many other R1-prompts. - do almost any damage to enemies. Swimming glitch ends, if... - you hit water surface. - you hit a climbing wall. - you retry from some checkpoints. Basically, after killing Hades you get an item called "Hades' Soul" and that has the same function as Trident did in God of War 1. Without it you can't dive at will, which is very problematic for the purposes of this glitch. Kratos tends to rocket skywards uncontrollably if he can't dive off the water surface but instead swims off its edge. So, to prevent that you need the Soul. Sometimes while swimming around, Kratos enters t-pose. The most likeliest explanation for this is that the game has unloaded the proper swimming animation since you aren't supposed to be able to swim in most maps. It's just a visual oddity and doesn't effect your ability to move around the game world. Videos: 1, an example of this glitch from Realm of Hades and Olympia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYVVxe0KSZY "Reverse swimming glitch" Much as you can swim where there's air, you can also go run laps in some place where there's supposed to be water. An example way to do this is to drop into some pool from out of bounds, bypassing the water surface that would start swimming-mode. But there is also a technique to breach water surface at will in this game: jump and spam Blades or Cestus magic over water to have Kratos breach the surface eventually and end up at the very bottom, still walking like on land. A very reliable way to do this is to hold R2 down, then spam X and square over water with the correct magic active. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of Kratos breaching water surface (mind the volume): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCHtSeaUr9I#t=61 High jumps introduction As the previous God of War-games have shown us, being able to jump higher or longer than normally possible can have very destructive results. It is in fact entirely its own glitching art form to generate techniques that can be used for doing the highest or longest of jumps. So, let's see what jumping tricks GoW III has to offer... High jumps part I: "Severe Judgment jump" The very first jump used for reaching higher-than-usual places was the "Severe Judgment jump", which takes advantage of the normal momentum of a jump combined with Whip's Severe Judgment (air) to reach a decent height. To do it, do a Severe Judgment almost instantly after a double jump. Then, you can cancel out of Severe Judgment at the top height by flicking Bow or Head on very quickly, and are then free to follow up with any other normal air move. Especially combined with Hermes Dash, which gives you even more height and also allows Kratos to grab ledges higher than he logically should, you are able to traverse many places normally inaccessible to Kratos. You can also do a sort of Pseudo Infinite Jump using SJ, but it has a very limited use. Basically, if Severe Judgement (air) makes a "hit" as Kratos is on his way up, the next SJ continues to make Kratos rise higher, unlike when normally jumping because of the constantly diminishing momentum. Kratos will keep rising as long as he makes a new "hit" with each successive SJ. So you will need an enemy or another target to keep hitting for this variation to work. A good (but useless) place to try it is at Olympia against Gaia's wrist. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of the basic SJ jump: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXbl9lu8F6I 2, Findle's vid of the Pseudo IJ variation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ2__QG86YE#t=283 High jumps part II: using Rage of Sparta The next way to gain a small bit of height during a jump is to flick Rage of Sparta on and off very quickly during any air move, as long as your vertical momentum is still good. Especially Cestus' Crushing Strike (air) is good for this purpose. Try it out by doing CS right after a double jump, then flicking RoS on/off at the top. This also has a strangely powerful effect in water: do a CS so that Kratos is practically touching the water surface, then flick RoS on/off. Kratos is thrown upwards for almost a double jump's worth with one jump alone! Combinations which use RoS do not obsolete Severe Judgment jump because: 1, SJ jump's superior air momentum helps grab out-of-reach ledges better. 2, RoS jumps are more arduous to perform. 3, you don't have RoS at all parts of the game. Near the start of the game very simple high / long jumps that only involve doing a double jump, a basic Blades air attack and a flicked on RoS can help do new skips. Videos: 1, see the above AKheon's vid High jumps part III: Special air attacks There are a few air attacks in GoW III that allow you to return to a neutral air state afterwards, meaning that you can jump or Glide after them. This is the mechanism behind the traditional high jump: doing an ascension, for example, then returning to neutral air state to use your double jump high up in air. But since the first GoW the developers have realized that too much air mobility for the player can be a dangerous thing, so they've tried to limit attacks that return to Kratos to a neutral state. Regardless, a few still slipped through... These attacks are: - Claws' Combat Grapple (that hits something) - Augean Stampede (air) - CG against burrowed Wraiths ("Wraith Jump") - Tormenting Lash (air) (have to switch weapons during attack) - Unending Sorrow (air) (have to switch weapons during attack) - after backwards Hermes Dash with any other weapon equipped than Blades Note that for the best effect, you must not have exhausted your both jumps, so get Kratos in air with an ascension or just jump only once. There's also a mechanism in the game that returns Kratos to idle state where he can jump again after falling long enough after your last air attack. But this takes way too long to be useful in high jumps. Some more info about these jump variations follow... "Claws CG High Jump" The closest thing to a traditional high jump this game has. Launch an enemy and Kratos in air, hit enemy with Claws CG, then you are free to do double jump high in air. For this game's standards this jump kinda lacks a punch, but it has an use or two around the game. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of Olympia ledge shortcut that uses this jump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb4K2_0JFlo "Wraith Jump" (c: satvara) One of the earlier high jumps. Kratos is able to return to neutral air state if he uses Combat Grapple on a burrowed Wraith, and thus get higher than normal. Videos: 1, satvara's original video featuring this jump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhWFRByy57Y#t=45 "Sorrow Jump" (c: AKheon) Unending Sorrow (air) is overall the most "convenient" of these four air attacks for high jumping since you can do it without any enemies around and doing it doesn't cost you too much height. Highest enemy-less jump variations become possible thanks to this trick. So, the instructions for this "Sorrow Jump". First, launch Kratos in air. The Whip ascension is recommended for doing this because it has a better air momentum than the other ascension-type moves, meaning Kratos falls down slower during US. Whip's SJ ground is another good alternative, but it doesn't give you as much height. At the top of the ascension, do Unending Sorrow. During US, switch weapons to Whip. Then, at the precise moment, jump and follow it up with a Severe Judgment jump. If you timed it correctly, you will rise a good length higher up than a normal SJ jump would allow. It might not seem like much, but this small increment in height already allows new skips around the game. Video demonstration: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrD3QjKBrP8 "Augean Stampede high jump" Really a misleading term because you can't use Augean Stampede in a literal high jump - it's just too slow for that. The move might come in handy in some very specialized circumstances to reset Kratos' air state, but other than that, just ignore this one. Same goes for Tormenting Lash and backwards Jet Dash. Centaur jump (c: AKheon) The Centaur is an unique Soul Summon that has a lot of collision to its body. Kratos can Glide or fall against it if it is stationary right beneath him, and apparently doing so for a few seconds resets Kratos' jump count and he can do another double jump in air. This means you can use the Centaur as a sort of movable platform from which to start Severe Judgment or various RoS jumps from. The overall height you gain is roughly the same as in Sorrow Jump, and it doesn't need Whip, so it's a variation useful to know. But it does have its drawbacks too... General notes on this trick follow. - You need Lv. 5 Claws to cast Centaur General, which can be a tall order in a NG speedrun. - You need a corner to keep the Centaur stationary enough that Kratos can balance on top of it and regain his jumps. - In some areas Centaur auto-targets nearby things and is fairly uncontrollable. - The double jump effect doesn't work at every location...? Testing of this trick is still underway. - It's also possible to breach walls using the Centaur. But this is difficult to do at will. Jumping against a wall or a corner while casting Centaur works, and some spots are more reliable than others. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of Centaur jump and wallclip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhpljioZRgI "Combat Grapple High Jump" (c: AKheon) The combat grapple of this game is an unique attack in the sense that unlike air grabs and such, it does not bring enemies to Kratos... it takes Kratos to enemies. And if the enemies happen to be flying very high in the air, Kratos becomes elevated in a moment's time. At one stage, finding new ways to jump higher became a question of finding great enemy launching techniques with the tools the game offers at any given time. Nemesis Whip's Righteous Ascension plays an important role in the highest versions of this jump due to its unique multi-hitting nature and great speed. A basic variation using this ascension is just to do 'triangle' once, launching the enemy in air. Then, cancel or wait out the move so that you can start anew with the next 'triangle' press. Then do the full ascension - with correct timing, each hit connects the enemy, all during the time Kratos is rising upwards, leading to an extra-high launch. If the Combat Grapple connects too (which isn't a given with the unpatched auto-targeting system), Kratos is sent very high up in the air. Of course, your enemy has to survive the launch in order for Kratos to be able to CG him at the very end. Righteous Ascension seems to be the most gentle of your launchers, capable of sending even weak enemies quite safely into the air if you just do it right... another reason to use Whip during CG high jumping. Another thing that helps with this jump is to increase difficulty so that your enemies are hardier and you can use them for higher jumps. Notes on other weapons and CG high jump: Blades of Athena... just leave this weapon alone, it doesn't even have a CG. Blades of Exile has a slow, high-damaging launcher, so it can't be exploited very well. This weapon is at its best in conjunction with the Bow, which you get early on in the game, and with which you can not only juggle enemies but make your CG jumps higher. Read more on "Bow height gaining." Claws' launcher is fast and can be spammed for double launches pretty easily. The weapon also has launch options such as Olympus Fiend summon. Olympus Archers can be used to juggle enemies further. Too bad the weapon's CG is useless for this sorta high jump, since it won't take Kratos or the enemy anywhere, but you can always switch to another weapon before CG, so it's not too bad. Nemean Cestus has many moves that launch the enemy, but all are slow. Maybe leave this weapon alone too. General notes about CG high jump usage: Bigger targets are easier to hit. Minotaurs and Gorgons make the best jump candidates. Archers are not good, not only because of their freakishly low HP, but also because they are not suspended in air during CG. This makes it impossible for you to gain decent height if you try to CG jump using them. Any ambient movement a level has may make it harder for Kratos to target foes above him. For example, doing this jump at Gaia's Heart has proven to be difficult. CG high jump is mostly obsolete during NG+ because of Jest Jump (further below), which is far easier and faster to do. CG and Bow height gaining: When both Kratos and a foe are in air, spam Bow shots as fast as humanly possible, and then do another CG to lift Kratos up to the foe's level. Takes some practise to know how much is good... after all, too many Bow shots may lead to CG missing because of too much height difference or the foe passing away in the middle of the jump. Simply put, you gain height as long as the foe lives. You can also gain height by double launching an enemy with the Whip, then shooting the enemy with Nemesis Rage to hold it in air at its peak. From there you simply CG the enemy quickly and repeatedly, Kratos and the enemy will rise up quite high. Blades CG doesn't combo with itself very well, so it's recommended you cancel it each time by buffering an air melee attack before doing another CG for a faster pace. This doesn't work with all enemies. These technique are rather picky about it, actually. Human-sized foes (except archers, lost souls and civilians) are your best bet. I don't think this works with Minotaurs or Gorgons. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid (Showing Bow height gaining) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWIyhUboUws 2, findlestick's vid (Showing CG height gaining) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc3_kdymnIQ "Jest Jump" or "Jest CG" (c: GeMStuff) Deceptively simple, but powerful. It is a glitch which affects Combat Grapple math because of a certain combination of moves. Instructions: do a fully charged Hermes Jest, press X at the end of it to launch Kratos in air, and then successfully hit an airborne enemy with a Combat Grapple. The enemy will begin rising up in air very rapidly after CG makes a contact, with Kratos becoming dragged upwards simultaneously. This trick ranks among the best high jump techniques in this game so far. JJ doesn't work with all enemies. Human-sized foes (except archers, lost souls and civilians) are your best bet, as well as hounds, Skorpius spawn, Sirens, etc. But Minotaurs and Gorgons are seemingly immune to it, and since your foe has to be airborne for the glitch to happen, enemies like Taloses are also out of question. You must use other CG than Claws' because otherwise Kratos himself won't gain height. Other tidbits: - You don't have to launch the enemy using Hermes Jest. All that is required for this trick to work is that an enemy of the correct type is airborne when Kratos Grapples him (after a charged Hermes Jest launcher). Even Zeus can be used to Jest Jump during his flying attacks! - If you CG an enemy that's too close to another launched enemy, the enemy you are targeting might get "stuck" and not rise up fast enough to avoid getting tackled by Kratos, and so the trick fails. So, avoid launching groups of enemies in air when doing Hermes Jest to avoid clutter. - You get more height depending on your distance to the foe you are Grappling. - If the enemy you are going to tackle has a too low HP, the CG will not let you ascend. Instead, Kratos does a strange horizontal tackle to the enemy in air without much height gain as the enemy dies. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of both this and Bow height gaining: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWIyhUboUws 2, GeMStuff's original combo vid which showed this trick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BoHu8FTyxk "Ladder Infinite Jump" (c: findlestick) Early 2011, an odd way to get Kratos to rise up seemingly infinitely was found. As the name suggests, this infinite jump can only be done where there are ladders, and you also need Boots and preferably upgraded Whip to do it. For some reason jumping off a ladder glitches up Hermes Dash and makes it cancel instantly if you try to do it. Keeping the right analog held down will start Dash endlessly again and again as it keeps interrupting, and as an extra feature Kratos' momentum remains mostly unchanged during this time. So if you just did an air attack with great upwards momentum, the glitched Hermes Dash barrage will make Kratos rise up in air indefinitely. Here are simple instructions for doing the jump using the Whip and Bow, as it is the easiest and most powerful combination of moves to get extra height. First get on a ladder, then jump off it. You then need to do a Severe Judgement jump while in the air, and at a very precise moment - when you see Kratos rise up - make Bow active with L2 and also start pressing forward with the right analog stick (air Dash). It takes a few goes to learn the timing, but when done correctly Kratos will rocket upwards. This trick can be done with many other special moves too, but you have to interrupt them with RoS, so these variations are not as convenient. The cheapest variation - in that you don't need upgraded weapons or Whip to do it - is simply to Glide for a short time before pushing right analog. At a certain point in Glide, Kratos will get a decent upwards momentum with a ladder jump. Needs some practice, but it could come in handy in NG-conditions where you may lack Whip. It's lovely to rocket up infinitely high, but at this date Ladder Jump also has some harsh restrictions. For example, making Kratos do a proper free flowing Jet Dash during or after performing this jump seems impossible. At best you can make Kratos temporarily move horizontally while in this state by flicking the right analog stick forward - sometimes Kratos will do a short Dash, during which you can start leaning forward on the right analog again to have Kratos keep the forward momentum and start moving in air horizontally. But this is hard to do at will, and can't be relied on. Or you can spare your double jump for more convenient navigation with the possibility to Glide after you've reached a height suiting you. That's another alternative. It's not 100% clear as to why this jump is possible, but one theory could be that when Kratos jumps back from a ladder he takes some of his "climbing data" with him, and that combined with Dashing with Hermes Boots causes Kratos to switch between his climbing data and dashing, thus causing strange breakouts between the two. Sometimes a similar effect happens after hitting a rare type of death collision as well... Videos: 1, findlestick's original vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB7p0XrIet0 2, AKheon's vid of using ladder jump to help skip Olympus Gardens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjZqxSyAvzQ "Death platform jump" (a.k.a. BJJ or "Infinite Health Jump") The newest addition to the collection of jumps, this one is unique in that it needs infinite health (NG+) for it to work. It also allows potentially infinite height gain, which is rare in this game. The cause is this: some insta-death platforms throughout the game make Kratos to enter a specific death animation which starts with a small upwards motion and can be repeatedly cut off. The death sequence is persistent and always just starts again even if it is cut off, allowing gaining infinite height... but this persistence is also a bad thing, as it means that this jump can only be ended by landing on solid ground (after which Kratos turns to normal). Also, during this jump Kratos can't be moved to any direction, other than turning RoS momentarily on and steering to a direction, but this is painfully slow. You can invoke this specific death animation at will by Gliding or Alt Jet Dashing against some slanted collision which prevents Kratos from landing for 15-17 seconds. Once you've done it, Kratos dies on the spot, but with infinite health you can use his untimely death for starting your infinite jump. Another way to invoke this death animation is to freefall for a time holding down block. It is sometimes an useful variation when Dashing deep out of bounds without another way to rise upwards. The effect differs depending on what weapon do you have equipped, but the only way to actually gain height with this is to keep Blades as your active weapon. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid ("Hara-Kiri Infinite Jump"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJhmICAl4zE 2, findlestick's practical example of using this jump at The Caverns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-nxQnFPshI 3, AKheon's original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtm4n4ohIvs#t=133 Double jump slightly higher A small, occasionally useful mechanic in God of War III and Ascension. The game thinks Kratos has hit ground a little before he lands, allowing you to do a new double jump from slightly in air. This is useful in squeezing everything out of your regular double jump. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of using this trick to skip Hades Palace 1st floor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuYLYVQXwAg Double Glide jump (c: findlestick) If Kratos runs off a ledge while X is held down, he will instantly start a Glide instead of falling, and at the end of this Glide he can do a double jump and yet another Glide! This is quite a neat trick for extending Kratos' jumps in the early game where you don't have Boots of Hermes yet. But it has the drawback that you can't use it if a ledge is protected by an invisible collision "lip" that prevents Kratos from running off it. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV3A_nT_7Zo#t=20 "Jet Dash" (c: Findlestick) Practically the most important air movement technique in the game. To do it, you must have Hermes Boots. Here's a video tutorial, for beginners. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT6wpckrTBI The basic mechanism behind it is this: Hermes Dash allows almost completely horizontal air movement for a brief time. The problem is that it has a rather big cooldown (to prevent abuse just like this technique is). This cooldown can be cancelled by flicking Bow or Head momentarily, making things smoother, but not completely smooth because the Bow/Head has its own cooldown. However, it too can be cancelled: by doing a normal air attack. The Nemesis Whip's air attack is recommended because it allows Kratos to stay in air the longest. Jet Dash advantages: + Since this movement style is so fast, some areas can be got through before everything in them has loaded, occasionally even allowing the skipping of events or getting behind walls before they load. + Not only can you fly in straight lines, but you can manouvre around corners and change directions mid flight, almost like a fly that buzzes around. + You can use it as a battle exploit in areas of the game where the battle is in a confined space, and you need to retreat very rapidly. + Kratos gains more height by each Dash if he does this technique against some walls. It might be that the walls have to be angled. This phenomena is called "Jet Ascension." Jet Dash disadvantages: - In some parts of the game there are invisible walls specifically blocking air moves (even Dash). It's a hindrance more than a true disadvantage, since you can first do a normal jump through the invisible wall and then begin Jet Dash. - Unless on NG+, you have to wait 'til getting Boots of Hermes to do this. - Some checkpoints take a while before they become active, perhaps because of loading reasons. Since you move so fast, you may have Kratos end up in a strange situation (like get stuck or die) before a checkpoint activates and then become checkpointed at that exact moment, ruining your progress. - Sudden camera angle changes can make it difficult to steer Jet Dash. "Alternate Jet Dash / Blades Jet Dash" (c: AKheon) Later on an alternate method for doing Jet Dash was discovered. Alt JD is done by having the Blades selected and Bow as the active gear, then jumping and leaving L1+L2 pressed down while L-stick & R-stick are moved in the direction you want to go. The game does the rest for you. Alternate Jet Dash advantages: + Alt Jet Dash is extremely simple to perform, just hold a few buttons down. + Alt Jet Dash's sidewards movement is one of the fastest ways to move in the game, and even its forward movement can be used to make Kratos travel further distances than with regular Jet Dash. + Alt Jet Dash doesn't require Whip for best results, which is good because outside NG+ you don't have Whip with you for most of the game. + Most advantages of normal Jet Dash also apply. Alternate Jet Dash disadvantages: - Forward Alt Jet Dash has a slower speed than with normal Jet Dashing. - Sideways Alt Jet Dash is so fast that it becomes very difficult to control for human reflexes. - Jet Ascension doesn't seem to happen as much when doing Alt Jet Dash. - Most disadvantages of normal Jet Dash also apply. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid that features Alt Jet Dashing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EQ3S-FzGRA Mysterious levitation collision: At a few places in the game there exists special collision that will make Kratos levitate and rise up in air at a fast speed if he Glides against it. So, keep an eye out for this type of collision - it's a very good way to gain height. Videos: 1, satvara's vid of utilizing levitating collision at Path of Eos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_omjm1l4ro Running on death collision: If you have infinite health (from NG+ glitch), Kratos can stand on top of death floor almost as if it was normal floor and use it to run. You need RoS to control Kratos after hitting death floor, though. This trick is pretty specialized and usually does not come in handy because you mostly find death floor deep down in some pit where you shouldn't need to go in the first place. But it has its perks. If you do RoS attacks and shut off RoS during the time Kratos has a lot of speed, Kratos will start gliding on the death floor super fast! That's something fun to try out, at least. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of super fast gliding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRS9a3rlezo#t=121 Lenient air momentum (water): This glitch still exists in God of War III, albeit in a more limited form: mostly on water. It remains to be seen if some new high jump technique will come to be with this knowledge... Moves that give noteworthy lenient air momentum in water: - Blades of Athena's Tartarus Rage (air) - Cestus' Crushing Strike (air) - Whip's Deadly Reprisal (air) "Lenient air momentum (LAM)" (c: AKheon) In God of War 1, doing air specials right before hitting ground caused their aerial momentum to linger on Kratos for a while, allowing better high jumps. It's been recently discovered that you can create LAM with certain moves in God of War III too, and do some high jump variations using them. First discovered way is to do Augean Stampede (air) at a certain height so that it resolves right before hitting ground. Kratos also has to be running. If both of these conditions are fulfilled, Kratos gets a nice amount of LAM for his troubles. Second way is to do any air CG right before hitting ground, so that Kratos sort of hovers above ground while finishing the move. If you cancel the CG with Bow at this time, Kratos gets LAM once again. LAM can also be created on water or rope by interrupting many slower air specials, but this is not as useful as being able to do it on land. Effects of Lenient Air Momentum: - your next air attacks will have superior air momentum. However, using a double jump or ascension drains all LAM away, so you're restricted to using LAM with only your first jump. - if Rage is activated in air, Kratos gets a large height boost (at the expense of destroying his current momentum). - certain attacks can stop at water surface if Kratos has lenient air momentum. For example, Crushing Strike. - in God of War 1, LAM caused other strange side effects as well, such as being able to breach water surface or rising floor with attacks, or do triple jumps. It remains to be seen if LAM in God of War III has any side effects like that. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkObPes3xws Tidbits about some other mechanisms: Auto-saves: - They are not exactly the same as checkpoints or normal saves, though sometimes the three overlap. - If you sequence break too heavily, the auto-save labels become confused. For example, early chain break causes the Zeus auto-saves be labeled "Hermes". Cutscenes (using game engine): - Cutscene triggers make Kratos break out of seemingly every attack. - If an enemy gets stuck on Kratos' path during a cutscene, Kratos ignores it but can't push the enemy away either. He just twists about until he has passed the obstacle or the obstacle has left on its own volition. Cutscene proceeds like normal. - During most scripted scenes Kratos can't be hit by enemies. However, on the rare occasion he is vulnerable to attacks, and glitches typically follow. Cutscenes (pre-rendered): - Pre-rendered cutscenes are usually reserved for really important moments in the game, like character deaths or if Kratos takes off to a whole new level. Sequence breaking-wise it's hard to get around them because they are usually tied to critical loading triggers... - In at least one spot in the game (chain breaking), it's possible to enter save menu right as a cinematic begins. The cinematic plays in the background of the save menu without audio. Saving and reloading, retrying from checkpoint or just exiting the save menu causes some complications in the frame rate and audio of the FMV, and there's a chance that the game crashes after the FMV. If you wait out in the menu until the FMV ends, the game won't crash, but the audio of the FMV plays out by itself as normal gameplay continues. If you now exit to main menu, the FMV audio continues to play in the background! - Forcing save menu on top of the FMV can't be used as a speed strategy because time runs while the cinematic is in the background... not good. Insta-death platforms and triggers: - There exists several different types of insta-death platforms. Kratos becomes completely immune to most of them with infinite health (NG+), but some will still prompt a game over upon contact. - If Kratos hits an insta-death platform which is rendered safe to him thanks to infinite health, he just starts bouncing repeatedly, as if dying each frame/once per few seconds but with game over screen never showing up. At this point, if RoS is turned on, depending on the platform type, Kratos may actually start running on top of the deadly surface, reaching areas never before accessible! Grapple points: - If you cast magic after letting go of a grapple point with another weapon active than the Blades, instead of doing the sub-weapon's own magic Kratos does a graphic-less Army of Sparta or Divine Reckoning (depending on which Blades you are using). - After letting go of a grapple point, there's quite a bit of cooldown before you can activate Rage of Sparta, for some reason. Stonefreeze: - Stonefreezing works a bit differently from the previous games. For instance, your foes can be frozen in any position, instead of them being replaced by a generic 'statue' when they are stonefrozen. - Stonefrozen targets can't be Combat Grappled, grabbed or hit with Fiery Inferno. - Any falling enemy, even if only partially stonefrozen, will become shattered upon landing. - Kratos can't be stonefrozen when he is riding a foe. - If Kratos has infinite health (combat arena, NG+), enemies can't break his stonefrozen form with their attacks. But falling down while stonefrozen will still kill Kratos instantly. - If Kratos becomes stonefrozen while gliding with Wings, he will continue gliding safely all the way to the ground level despite becoming a statue. - Rage of Sparta breaks you out of being stonefrozen instantly. Portals: - If you cast magic when entering a portal, you can expect some graphical glitches (like screen changing color but nothing else happening). - At some portals, if you attack instantly after coming out, Kratos will climb on an invisible rope for an instant, then stops. This also happens if you swim through those portals. - At some portals, if you glide in them with Wings, Kratos will glide out too, except in a strange position and Wing-less. - If a portal malfunctions, Kratos just falls out-of-bounds to his death. Reason... loading error? Unknown at the moment. - With the exception of the dogs at the dog kicking puzzle at Poseidon's Chamber, enemies are not programmed to enter through portals. Should Kratos interact with an enemy in various ways as he and an enemy pass through a portal together, the game reacts strangely to this mainly due to the fact it causes a contradiction. Kratos can pass but enemy cannot, resulting in interesting breakouts. Including an invisible force that thrashes Kratos around the room violently, and Kratos performing a killing animation while being transported back and forth from Portals. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o0CedIfpuA#t=121 Ropes: - Most attacks cancel immediately if Kratos hits a rope during them, but not all. For example Whip's Deadly Reprisal (air) looks really fun if you do it on rope, with Kratos doing the attack while attached to the rope. - Kratos is unable to latch onto rope during some attacks. Most noticeably during any ascension. Mysteries: - Falling through floors: Kratos inexplicably falls through the floor. Sometimes by getting hit by an enemy, and other times for no reason at all. Very rare. Videos: 1, ThaFuuuuu's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMAlXjeFNqw - A dislodged riding section: is this a same thing as a normal glitched minigame, except leading to a riding section? The results are, at least, more impressive... Videos: 1, airboii's vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRHcvuQGT8Y - Maybe due to some sort of loading error (?) - and on very rare occasions - Kratos can be loaded without his blades. Resulting in Kratos doing the physical actions of attacking with his blades, but with no blades present. Video demonstration: 1, 5haughnessy's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR3R0clyC9M Weapons and magic: A. General Moves Auto-targeting problems: Many attacks, including grabs and combat grapples, are subject to the strange auto-targeting system this game has. It overrides player's commands and often makes Kratos attack enemies he wasn't even facing. The game seems to favor bigger and "more important" enemies over smaller. This is very bad in fights such as the one against Hades Cerberus Breeder, causing the strategy of grabbing puppies and throwing them back at HCB to become suicidal if the Satyrs or HCB are too close to Kratos. It also messes up CG high jump attempts pretty often. Note: I hear a patch has fixed the auto-targeting. Pressing R1 at the end of some moves (like second square hit in BoA/BoE combo) cancels the recovery animation the move has, returning Kratos to standing upright or in a battle-ready idle stance. Just a hidden property in some moves. Air grab glitch: With at least two techniques, it's possible to create air grabs that Kratos breaks out of almost instantly as they start. This means that the enemy will enter the air grab animation while Kratos is free to move and do other things. These techniques are... 1, Claws' air 'triangle' (bouncable foes only). Hit your enemy so that he will bounce in air, and do a grab right before Kratos hits the ground. 2, use Whip's ascension. Tap triangle twice to launch the foe and get Kratos slightly up in air. Cancel the move by flicking Bow/Head, then do a quick air grab. If this trick is done to Harpy Queens, they become able to 'duplicate'. As you jump from one Harpy to another, hitting the second Harpy causes the first Harpy to re-appear in Kratos' hands (despite having been torn apart a second ago). This does not count as a kill, and might be useful during Harpy crossings in a pacifist run! If you run off a ledge doing some attack that interrupts, or holding X down to do a Glide, Kratos still has two jumps he can do in air afterwards. This is a mechanism that wasn't there in the previous God of War-games. The first jump is heavily affected by air momentum and not very useful, though. There's more about this in the jumps section, in the section about Double Glide jump. A lift-up to follow a normal ascension can be done in two ways: either by keeping triangle held down, or by letting go of triangle once the attack is on its way and then pressing X. Just a small detail. There are a few special moves in the game as well that will launch Kratos if the player presses X during them. All Combat Grapples (except Cestus CG) have a weapon switch check at their beginning, which means that Kratos should in theory switch weapons at the very start of the move, if a weapon switch was buffered. But it has massive loopholes in it. Because Kratos may do the CG using a different weapon, but the CG data is still from the original weapon. This kind of glitches also happen if you switch weapon as soon as you begin doing a CG. Air Combat Grapples can be interrupted by casting magic, which can look a little strange. You can also cause a graphical glitch using BoE magic: do Blades air combat grapple, switch to another weapon, then cast magic. The magic Army of Sparta begins, but most of the special effects don't show. Claws of Hades, Nemean Cestus and Nemesis Whip have combat grapples you can 'combo' by keeping L1+O held down. Moves that end with Kratos rushing down (Tartarus Rage (air), Crushing Strike (air)) can cause a glitch on when done against a water surface from a correct height. Kratos gets "stuck" on top of the water surface for a few moments, as if falling but frozen in air. If you hold R2 down, you enter a mode in which pressing any combat-related buttons cause Kratos to do magic, although he can otherwise move normally. Best effects can be seen with Claws, Cestus or Whip magic. Some attacks that don't become cancelled by a weapon switch are subject to wrong weapon graphics if you switch weapons at a correct time. The attack's properties change in a subtle way in the process, for example many wrong weapon attacks can't be interrupted by blocking or rolling although it is otherwise possible. The attack's damage modifier may also change in the process. Rapid Switches are the easiest attacks to do using a wrong weapon. You do not have the ability to Rapid Switch until you've more than one weapon in your arsenal. Oddities about specific Rapid Switch-moves are listed in the weapons-section below, although the game lists them as general moves. B. Blades of Athena You have these at the beginning of the game, or if you've turned the Godly Possession Aphrodite's Garter on. You also get to keep Blades of Athena for most of the game if you skip the cutscene where Athena gives you new Blades. BoA works pretty much identically to the Blades you have in God of War II. These Blades have a bit sucky damage modifier, and you can't improve it because BoA can't be leveled up. However, a small exploit exists for increasing your damage: if you switch to BoE in the middle of a BoA attack, the attack's damage is calculated through BoE damage modifier instead. Best in conjunction with multi-hitting special moves. You need Aphrodite's Garter to do this, of course. Both of the Blades in this game are able to do combos that continue onto another weapon (Claws). Try fifth square hit: switch to Claws during it, and continue with a square or triangle attack. Depending on your timing, you are able to pull off a Claws light or heavy finisher out of nowhere, or a Plume with another weapon's graphics. Unfortunately this does not work with any other weapons. The combo just cuts off unremarkably. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of doing a Blades -> Claws combos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSF2kOCNIY0#t=8 You are able to do Blades of Exile's Rapid Switch using BoA! Jump down while blocking, and after landing quickly switch weapons to something else and press X. Instead of Icarus Ascension, you get the Rapid Switch. An alternative method to do this is to do a roll. During the roll switch weapon to anything else and hold block. Kratos should enter a wrong blocking stance for just a moment, and during this time you can press X to do Rapid Switch. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of using BoE Rapid Switch with BoA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSF2kOCNIY0#t=43 Icarus Ascension can be done over chasms without Kratos falling down. It is also an unique ascension in the sense that it gives far better air momentum than most other ascensions, and can be better for high jumps because of it. Cyclone of Chaos hits 10 times if Kratos is right next to the enemy and all the hits hit. Since Tartarus Rage (air) continues indefinitely as long as you don't hit the ground, it's possible for you to balance precariously on top of bigger enemies (like Taloses) and gain a lot more hits than normally possible. This technique is not easy to do. Hyperion Rise is another ascension that has the sweet property of "defying gravity." You can do it over chasms, and Kratos won't bat an eyelid. Divine Reckoning: - This magic only has a ground version. If you try to cast it in air, Kratos is brought down to the ground level extremely quickly before the magic is cast. - It seems to hit a maximum of 9 times. - Like all ground-only magics, you can breach water surface by spamming this on top of water for long enough. - Kratos is invincible while casting it. - If you switch Aphrodite's Garter on/off as this magic is being cast, it loses its graphical effect. It doesn't get interrupted and still does damage, though. C. Blades of Exile New Blades that you get from Athena near the start of the game. They're close to the classic Blades in functionality. The biggest difference is the different triangle combos, and the few new special moves like CG and Rapid Switch. There's a chance to do a shared combo with Claws using either of the Blades. With BoE, both fifth square hit and second triangle hit allow weapon switching during the move, after which you can continue the combo into a Claws finisher or a Blades attack with wrong weapons graphic (depending on your timing). It's too bad that this doesn't work with other weapons, the combo just ends. If you change weapons during the ground Rapid Switch, the move only does its first hit and then abruptly ends. Air Rapid Switch goes further and cuts off immediately if you try to switch weapons during it. If you hold block, switch weapons away from Blades and then do Combat Grapple, you get a slightly glitched Grapple. For example, you can do a regular style grapple using Cestus or Claws, and they create a smaller knockback than Blades CG. If you Dash towards a climbing wall from a certain distance and hold block when hitting the wall, Kratos will enter a mixed state of climbing and blocking. He looks like attached to the wall in blocking pose for a few seconds, then everything returns to normal. The only attack you can do in this state is the air Blades Rapid Switch. Rage of Sparta "exploit": At BoE levels one to four, Rage of Sparta cuts off suddenly if you upgrade weapons or switch Aphrodite's Garter on/off. On the surface it seems like just another way of turning RoS off, but it has a hidden property of cancelling the cooldown RoS has, meaning that you can activate another RoS pretty much instantly afterwards. On level five RoS will for some reason not become cancelled any longer by doing this. I've tried making high jumps somehow even higher using this mechanism, but if you cancel RoS this way your air momentum becomes very bad and you fall down to ground almost instantly. It has a very small use in the CS high jump, which you can now extend with another CS and RoS cancel for more height, but it's not much and the conditions are quite specialized, so... Note: RoS also won't get cancelled if you're using the NG+ glitch, regardless of BoE level (read more at the start of level-by-levels). There is some other condition to this too, one which might be related to Godly Possession usage, which prevents this "glitch" from occurring. Army of Sparta: - As with Divine Reckoning, this magic is ground-only. - Kratos is invincible while casting it. - If you switch Aphrodite's Garter on/off as this magic is being cast, it loses its graphical effect. It doesn't get interrupted and still does normal damage, though. - Same thing if you upgrade Blades while casting the magic. - If you do Blades air combat grapple, then switch to another weapon, then press R2, Kratos does this magic but the graphics are again glitched. D. Claws of Hades Hades' own weapon, forcibly taken from him in the first quarter of the game. The small hop Kratos does during fourth square hit is just for show, he doesn't actually leave the ground. The fifth square hit induces a Orion's Harpoon-like effect to the foe that was hit. It doesn't work on all foes, even those that can be Orion's Harpooned normally. The 'triangle' ground hits form violet clouds that always appear at a fixed distance away from Kratos. They are not constrained by collision, and so you can use them to deal heavy damage from behind obstacles and walls. I think they also have a decent radius of effect to them. Using the 'triangle' air hit, you can create air grabs which Kratos breaks out of with bounceable foes. I think this is because the moment when the enemy becomes bounced is so late during the move. There's a little more about broken air grabs in the General Moves-section above. You can do infinite ground combos using the two very versatile combo moves: ascension (without lift-up) and Mourner's Lament (avoid finisher). While blocking, you hear the sound effect for it repeat periodically for no reason. Maybe a bad sound loop? If you cast a Soul shortly after quickly blocking in air, Kratos gets stuck in block-stance while falling even after you let go of L1. If you do this weapon's Rapid Switch, but use directional keys to switch weapon to anything else but Nemean Cestus instantly after the move begins, and hold block after the move ends, Kratos enters a glitchy blocking state which holds on its own even after you let go of L1. If enemies attack him, he just sorta slides away from the attack instead of doing any sort of reacting movement. Unblockable attacks still hit you like normal. You can do nothing in this mode except use magic, items or do another Rapid Switch (which always switches weapon to Nemesis Whip/Blades, as if your weapon was NC all the time) after which the glitch ends. If you accidentally hit an enemy while preparing this glitch, your weapon will switch back to Cestus, which is pretty strange. Other small things about the Rapid Switch. During this move, Kratos moves at a very fast speed and a bit flattened due to his pose, making it suitable for getting him into cramped spaces. For example, this is the only move with which Kratos can squeeze himself through/behind the Path of Eos sightseeing pedestal (if it should count). The air version of this weapon's Rapid Switch allows a barebones "long jump" that would come in handy before acquiring the Boots of Hermes... if only you didn't get Cestus after you already have the Boots. Oh well. Simply do the move, but switch back to Claws as quick as possible. Repeat. With quick fingers, you will move a bigger distance in air than with just gliding with Wings. Although both of these Rapid Switches are done with Cestus out, they don't damage onyx targets like Judges' stones. The onyx rules are pretty arbitrary in this game... Tormenting Lash (air) is a rare air move after which Kratos can do a jump... but only if you switched to another weapon during the move. This is not as useful as doing the same thing with Unending Sorrow. Unending Sorrow allows you to lift Kratos up if you press X at the end. It's a sort of secret within the move. A more interesting secret is found from the air version of this move. If you switch weapons during it, Kratos returns to idle state at the end and you can do your 2nd jump or Glide in air. This can be used for doing the highest known high jumps in the game. And... one last thing. If you buffer a square hit after Unending Sorrow (air) at a correct time, you will get an air triangle hit instead for no reason! This weapon's air Combat Grapple (contacting a foe) is one of the very few attacks that allow Kratos to jump in air after usage. Another thing: only one batch of skulls can be out at any time - additional combat grapples have no effect until the previous skulls disappear. If you block, then switch weapons and do Combat Grapple, the ensuing grapple is a glitched one. It does extremely little damage and causes knockbacks (to some enemies). Pretty useless overall. Soul Summon: A new type of magic in God of War III. Summons can be cast without a particular animation, although there is a short "pause" whenever you cast during which you can't do other moves or activate R1-prompts, etc. There's a hefty cooldown on many summons. You can bypass this cooldown once by entering Start-menu and re-selecting your current summon. Since in this game using the menu doesn't count against your time, this is a viable speed strategy for dealing more damage in less time. Warning: messing around with this too much has a tendency to crash your game. I'm serious. - None of the souls have any weight. You can't press buttons on the ground by placing souls on them, for example. - Souls fall through water surface unaffected. - Switching to another soul while another is still on the field makes the first soul(s) disappear. - Some Souls give hits from unique targets that don't give hits otherwise. Likewise, some souls don't give hits even though they ought to. Tidbits on particular Souls: "Cerberus Mongrel". If cast towards walls in air, it sort of sticks to the walls and descends slowly, unlike other summons. "Olympus Archer" can be used to juggle enemies. The effect is stunning with four archers and Kratos himself shooting arrows at some airborne foe. Each archer shoots 8 shots before dissipating. "Gorgon Serpent" is one of the rare ways to stonefreeze your enemies in this game. Not as efficient as stonefreezing in previous games. "Olympus Fiend" is a quick, spammable launcher-in-a-pocket. They can explode in air if you had enough height when casting them. "Chimera" shoots fire balls, but they don't actually light things on fire. Chimera's attack works as a "dissension", bringing any airborne enemies down as they are hit. "Cyclops Berserker" falls through walls and floor quite easily. "Centaur General" is the summon that has the most collision in its body, which means it can be utilized in some interesting non-offensive ways. It can push Kratos a noticeable length if you cast it next to a wall and Kratos is in the way. Kratos can even become pushed off rotating cranks this way. If moving when cast, Kratos zips a small length forward. If you have the Centaur stationary (f.e. running towards a corner), you can start gliding on top of it or do the Centaur jump. Rarely the Centaur can also push Kratos through walls. Too bad it doesn't seem you can glitch cutscenes with it... "Siren Seductress'" shockwave effect is not visible at every location. The attack itself may or may not do damage if this happens. E. Nemean Cestus A pair of giant fists taken from Hercules. Acquired around the half-way point in the game. It's difficult to see, but when you block with Nemean Cestus, Kratos is making an angry grin, like when attacking. Blocking in air a little before hitting ground makes Kratos land without an animation. Looks slightly odd. The first part of the square attack seems to be useful for getting Kratos into cramped spaces, because he moves at a quick pace and collision a bit flattened (due to his sideway pose). You can do a glitched Cestus Plume that does no damage to anything. First choose Blades as active weapon. Press block on for a moment, then switch weapons to Cestus and hold down triangle. If done at a correct timing, Kratos will switch to Cestus and do an unexplainable Plume with Cestus in hands. This is easiest if you haven't learned Blades' L1+t move yet. If you do the ground Rapid Switch, but switch weapons back to Cestus before the move ends, and do L1+O as quickly as possible afterwards, the move that begins is Blade of Exile's Hyperion Ram! And this is regardless of your current Blades at the moment - it works even at the beginning, where you don't have BoE yet (NG+). Augean Stampede (air) is one of the very few air attacks in this game after which Kratos can do a jump. Attacks like these can be the ingredients of high jumps... But this one is just too slow to be of any use in something like that. On another note, Augean Stampede (air) can be used to do the lenient air momentum glitch if the move entirely resolves before Kratos lands and he is running. Crushing Strike (air) is an useful move for high jumping because of the height boost it gives with RoS cancelling. It is also the only known air attack in the game which will continue until Kratos hits solid ground (or some types of insta-death collision.) This feature came in handy in one of the Olympus Garden skips! You can increase Cestus quick rolling speed by holding down block and spamming square while doing forward rolls. This way Kratos won't waste time doing the first square hit between each roll. After starting a forward roll and buffering Savage Charge, if you switch weapons, Kratos gets completely stuck with his weapons out. You can only rotate him around and not do anything else. You got to retry or get hit by an enemy for the state to end. Note that you can turn RoS on and watch enemies fail to damage Kratos while he is in this ridiculous looking situation as a humorous bonus. The CG of this weapon is different from the others in that it pulls the enemy to Kratos (instead of Kratos pulling himself towards the enemy). It does not always work because many enemies are immune to it, and even normal enemies have phases during which they can't be hit with it. Due to a glitch, it occasionally launches some enemies (Minotaurs at least) very high into air after hitting. Nemean Roar: - Kratos is invincible while casting it. While casting, Kratos moves through enemies/targets as if they weren't there. - This is an useful move for pushing non-enemy characters around the game world (like Poseidon Princess). - Like Divine Reckoning or Army of Sparta, this magic is ground-only. - It damages some onyx targets, some it leaves unscathed. - This magic might not do full damage to targets which become bounced. - You can cancel out of the fully upgraded magic after its mid-way by doing a jump. F. Nemesis Whip An electric, whip-like weapon forged by Hephaestus after beating Cronos. Has many pretty unique functions compared to the other weapons. The Whip is a pretty slippery weapon and its attacks start automatically if you just hold the respective attack button down when switching weapons, unlike with Blades, Claws or Cestus. This works both on air and ground. Whip has many attacks you can extend indefinitely by keeping the attack button pressed. This also works with several of its air moves. If you accumulate a long enough combo, unusual orbs will start pouring out of enemies - magic, rage and possibly even health orbs are possible. Using the unique multi-hitting ascension move ('triangle'), you can create glitched air grabs during which Kratos is free to move around the place. Read more about this in the General Moves-section above. Ground Severe Judgment makes Kratos do a pretty high jump up in the air. It does not rise him to a height a normal ascension does, but it leaves him with good air momentum, allowing this move to be sometimes useful in Sorrow Jumping (for example, in spots where you don't have room to do the normal Whip ascension and don't want to bother with Icarus Ascension). Another asset of this move is that it "defies gravity", in other words, it does not cut off even if Kratos takes a step into a chasm. Severe Judgment (Air) is a move which is useful in high jumping. As long as your current momentum is good, you gain a lot of height by doing this move in air (and cancelling out of it with, f.e. Bow). It also has the property of launching ground enemies if you manage to connect it. Deadly Reprisal does not leave ground although it looks like Kratos is leaping. Deadly Reprisal (Air) looks very cool if extended by holding 'triangle' down. It also has a special glitch effect if done right before Kratos latches onto a rope: Kratos does his lunge while staying on the rope's level before the move finally ends and he starts hanging from the rope like normal. If you have BoA as your Blades, you can only buffer into a square attack from Whip's ground Rapid Switch (unlike with BoE). This is because of the fundamentally different triangle attacks between the Blades. The air Rapid Switch has a few oddities with it. First, if you cancel it with Bow or Head, Kratos becomes stalled in air for a moment. Second, if you switch weapons to something else than Blades, the move's properties change a bit. You can't cancel it with an air grab or Bow/Head any longer, for example. Nemesis Rage: - Kratos is invincible while casting it. - It gives you hits even when it strikes special targets that won't give hits otherwise. - If the bolt hits an obstacle instead of an enemy, it dissipates a lot faster than it should. But sometimes the attack just cuts off too soon for no reason even when hitting an enemy properly. - A single lv. 3 attack seems to hit max. of 22 times. G. Items Bow of Apollo: - Fiery Inferno arrows pass through targets, and can as such hit and light multiple targets on fire. - Foes light on fire in different ways. Some can only be lit once at a time, but some (like cyclops) can be repeatedly lit on fire. Fire can spread from one target to another if they're close enough, but this doesn't happen with all enemies. Some foes don't light on fire at all. - If you upgrade this item while you are charging Fiery Inferno, the graphical effect of gathering fire disappears. Head of Helios: - Solar Flare can stun enemies for decent periods of time. Weak foes stun longer while some stronger ones only stun momentarily or not at all. - During Solar Flare, the sounds of the game fade momentarily. Very noticeable if you visit the menu as the screen flashes. - If you upgrade this weapon while it is active, all graphical effects disappear momentarily. - If you evade at a correct time after flicking on Head (or after doing either of its attacks), you will evade as if you had the BoA or BoE equipped regardless of what weapon you were currently using. After only one roll, Kratos switches back to using your current weapon's evade move. - If you cast Helios Flash in air so that the flash begins right before hitting ground, and then refrain from pressing any buttons, Kratos's stance remains that of the HoH but with a weapon out instead of the head. It seems this is only a cosmetic thing, and it ends as soon as you move Kratos. - Alternatively, you can do the same thing while running. Kratos enters the Head of Helios walking animation but with his weapon out instead of the Head, and his walking is sped up in a comical looking way. If you have Cestus on, you can also see Kratos wearing both of his Cestuses in his hands and one extra Cestus on his back! Comical, but again only a cosmetic thing. Boots of Hermes: - Hermes Dash is the key ingredient for the all-purpose horizontal movement tool "Jet Dash". - if you do a backwards Dash with a non-Blades weapon equipped, Kratos returns to idle state at the end of it and is able to use his 2nd jump or Glide in air afterwards. - Hermes Rush/Jest allows Kratos to pass through some projectile attacks without damage. - Hermes Jest allows glitched, extremely high launches in certain conditions. Read more in the section about "Jest Jump" far above. Also, if you try to cast Cestus' magic after using the Jest lift-up, the magic which starts is a graphic-less version of the Blades magic. - If you upgrade Boots while doing its basic move in air, after landing there is one frame of time during which you can interrupt the move by jumping which is normally not there... curious. H. Relics Icarus Wings: - Probably for reasons of Rapid Switch convenience, you lose the ability to do Icarus Ascension and Icarus Strike right after that fateful cutscene at River Styx, though the rest of your Wings abilities remain. You can get this move back by using the Godly Possession Aphrodite's Garter, which turns your BoE back to the Rapid Switch-less BoA. - As in GoW II, Icarus Ascension "defies gravity", you can do it into chasms without Kratos falling down. - The animation of Kratos falling flat on his stomach after gliding too long can push him through walls if he is in a cramped place. Very hard to do on purpose: only known chance is at the Poseidon Princess room. - There's a long jump exploit using Glide. "Double Glide jump". There was a section about it above, in the jumps section. Blade of Olympus: - If you have infinite health, you can run on top of a certain type of insta-death platform using Rage of Sparta. RoS also allows you to descend through another type of insta-death platform... useful in rare circumstances. - The basic Rage of Sparta combo makes Kratos zip forward at very fast speeds. Before the last strike, his speed rises high enough to make him noticeably sink into, for example, chests. So far, this observation has not helped in breaching any walls in the game, though. - Rage of Sparta can be activated during climbing or rope sections as well, but it only stays on during the time you are attacking. It helps Kratos to not get interrupted if enemies attack him, but... it probably doesn't increase the damage he does. - Rage of Sparta ends if Kratos runs into a climbing wall. I. Enemies Note: for bosses, you're just going to have to browse the level-by-level listings to see what's written of them. Only normal enemies are included here. Olympus Archer: - Can be infinite air grabbed? - Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned? - Can be stunned with HoH. - When combat grappled in air, they keep falling during the entire attack, unlike the majority of foes in the game. Olympus Fiend: - Can be infinite air grabbed. - Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned. - Can be stunned with HoH. - Their specialty is being very aggressive blockers of all sorts of projectile attacks. - During their death attack they can't be targeted or hit. - Their death attack does not begin in some conditions. - If Cyclops Berserkers are around, Fiends will actually mount them! This can only happen at the Combat Arena because these two enemies never meet during the main game. Unfortunately this mount doesn't have a proper moveset, only the fireball from the Fiend and one melee attack from the Cyclops. It seems that this enemy wasn't finished because they knew it wouldn't be seen in the main game, so there are plenty of glitches to be had during this encounter. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of Fiends mounting Cyclops: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0OHc1KwALk Bronze Talos: - Cestus' combat grapple only works at point blank range. - Can't be launched. - Can't be stonefrozen. Stone Talos: - Cestus' combat grapple only works at point blank range. - Can't be launched. - Can't be stonefrozen. - Can't be lit on fire. Centaur General: - Cestus' combat grapple is repelled. - Can't be launched. Cerberus Mongrel: - Rideable foe. - Cestus' combat grapple is repelled. - Can't be launched. - Can be stonefrozen, but only by reflecting a Gorgon's beam. Gorgon Serpent summon or normal freeze beam will only slow it down, in addition to making its textures go dull gray. Hades Cerberus Breeder: - Cestus' combat grapple is repelled. - Can't be launched. - Can't be stonefrozen. - In Combat Arena, due to a counterattacking glitch or something similar, he might start fighting you relentlessly even though his attack is 'off'. - In same conditions, he might get stuck in a strange 'taunt' animation until you try to approach him. Chimera: - Cestus' combat grapple is repelled. - Can't be launched. - Can't be stonefrozen. Woman of Olympia: - Very talkative. - Kratos can bump into them to make them stumble. - As you may have noticed, during the game civilians utter comments relevant to the latest plot changes (e.g. about world growing dark after Helios gets it). - Extremely low HP. - The Claws' Soul Rip souls do not bother to attack this "enemy." - Nearby enemies sometimes start targeting them instead of Kratos. - They don't have a spawning animation in Arena, they just suddenly appear. Olympia Citizen: - Very talkative. - Kratos can bump into them to make them stumble. - As you may have noticed, during the game civilians utter comments relevant to the latest plot changes (e.g. about world growing dark after Helios gets it). - Extremely low HP. - The Claws' Soul Rip souls do not bother to attack this "enemy". - Nearby enemies sometimes start targeting them instead of Kratos. - They don't have a spawning animation in Arena, they just suddenly appear. Cyclops Enforcer: - Cestus' combat grapple only works at point blank range. - Can't be launched. Cyclops Berserker: - Rideable foe. - Cestus' combat grapple is repelled. - Can't be launched. Cyclops Remains: - Cestus' combat grapple is repelled. - Can't be launched. Olympus Sentry: - Can be infinite air grabbed. - Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned. - Can be stunned with HoH. - On rare occasions, these enemies can be seen 'crawling' down on the ground despite having their legs intact. - Shielded Sentries can slide around strangely when hit with Nemesis Rage. § - Shielded Sentries can survive if dropped into water, but only as long as they have their shields intact. This can be tested at Poseidon's palace. - In Combat Arena, if you retry, the first Sentry spawns will have glitched shields on them. The shield can't be broken with Cestus hits, among other strange things. After that legionnaire dies, the later spawns will have normal shields again. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of glitched shields: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C93VhG3pAU Olympus Legionnaire: - Can be stunned with HoH. - Same shield glitch in Combat Arena as with Olympus Sentry. Cursed Remains: - Can be infinite air grabbed. - Can be stunned with HoH. Harpy: - Can be infinite air grabbed. - Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned. Harpy Queen: - Rideable foe. Any weapon's Combat Grapple starts the ride, as do air grabs and Orion's Harpoon. - Subject to being 'duplicated' upon being ridden in certain conditions. Basically, you need to do a air grab break out to it first... there was more about this in the general moves-section. - A rare glitch allows Kratos to start riding the Harpy Queen right as it becomes stonefrozen. It works out like normal, but the Harpy's graphics are mostly invisible. - Also rarely Kratos can break out of riding the Harpy Queen, so that he is riding with nothing and the flight fizzles out pretty soon. - At the end of a Harpy ride, any enemies in the vicinity are highlighted, and if Kratos leaps he targets towards them. If the enemy he targets is another Harpy Queen, he starts riding it. Other enemies, Kratos just falls at them and they get pushed away or even rise up in air momentarily (looks funny with the Cyclops for example), but nothing else happens. Special: flying lessons from Harpy Queen There's a bizarre glitch with which you can start riding other enemies than the Harpy Queen, taking both Kratos and the unsuspecting foe into the skies. The other enemy won't die after the flight like the Harpy, but the graphical effect is very cool looking. (c: Magnetro) To do it, go to the Arena with a Harpy Queen and another enemy. Note that this doesn't work with all enemies... there's a list below that details what enemies are suspectible to this glitch. First do Claws CG to the other enemy to make souls fly around the place. Have the Harpy Queen close by so that it gets hit by some souls and falls lower... the Harpy Queen must be at a certain height for this glitch to work, nearly at the ground level. Then, while the souls are still buzzing around, do a normal grab to the Harpy Queen. This should start the glitch. Enemies you can do this with: - Olympus Archers - Olympus Fiends - Cerberus Mongrel - Chimera - Woman of Olympia - Olympia Citizen - Cyclops Enforcer - Olympus Sentry - Olympus Legionnaire - Cursed Remains - Harpy - Gorgon - Gorgon Serpent - Skorpius Spawn - Minotaur Elite - Minotaur Brute - Feral Hound - Hades Cerberus Whelp - Satyr - Siren Seductress - Lost Soul - Wraith of Olympus This list may not be final. It appears harder to do this glitch with some enemies, and it could be that some glitch opportunity just went unnoticed. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRJTA70ze9Q Gorgon: - Can be manipulated into shooting freeze beams with 'false grabs.' Gorgon Serpent: - Cestus' Combat Grapple only works at point blank range. - If she becomes stonefrozen when she shoots those freezing beams at you, the beam itself becomes frozen in the process too! Kratos is stonefrozen repeatedly if he happens to be in the line of fire. Skorpius Spawn: - Can be stunned with HoH. Minotaur Elite: - Cestus' Combat Grapple yields strange results pretty often. Sometimes the enemy gets knocked off into a strange direction, sometimes the Grapple becomes blocked right before Kratos would throw his punch, sometimes the enemy starts sliding momentarily after the grapple... Minotaur Brute: - Cestus' combat grapple yields similar results as with Minotaur Elite. Labrys Minotaur: - Cestus' combat grapple yields similar results as with Minotaur Elite. - Claws' combat grapple is repelled. Feral Hound: - Can be infinite air grabbed. - Can be stunned with HoH. Hades Cerberus Whelp: - Can be infinite air grabbed. - Can be stunned with HoH. Satyr: - Can be briefly stunned with HoH. - Cestus' combat grapple yields similar results as as with Minotaur Elite. - In a rare glitch witnessed by shinobier, this foe "played dead" by not rising up after being knocked on its back during the HCB fight. Olympus Guardian: - A regular Olympus Sentry behind a shield. - Their shield blocks all non-Cestus attacks with only a few exceptions (like Cyclops Berserker riding attacks). They are immune to being lit on fire, stunned by HoH, grabs, launches... However, they are not immune to being stonefrozen, and this weakness should be taken advantage of. - If you die in the Combat Arena, after retry these foes have a glitched shield. It doesn't get broken with Cestus hits. You can also grab the enemy despite the shield being there. Spawns after the first one will have unglitched shields. Olympus Sentinel: - A regular Olympus Legionnaire behind a shield. - Read section on Olympus Guardian for more info on the shield. Siren Seductress: - Can be briefly stunned with HoH. - Can be infinite air grabbed although their mini-game phases will interrupt the technique. - When in their ghastly form, they can be glitch hit with Combat Grapples if they happen to get in the way. They become visible for a moment, and a hit is registered, though the attack itself doesn't seem to even begin (except with Claws' air CG, which can even send skulls at them on contact!) Lost Soul: - Very talkative. - Can be stunned with HoH. - Kratos can bump into them to make them fall down. - The Claws' Soul Rip souls do not bother to attack Lost Souls. Wraith of Olympus: - Can be infinite Orion's Harpooned. - Can be briefly stunned with HoH. - It can be stonefrozen while it's burrowing inside the ground. It's very hard (if even impossible) to shatter the foe like this. - If you stonefreeze it roughly the same time you pull it out of the ground with Cestus' combat grapple, it becomes invincible for the duration of the stonefreeze. No attacks or magics will harm it, which looks pretty eerie. Credits to Magnetro for this. Hades Hand: - Only met in a few places throughout the game. Not in Combat Arena. - Cestus' combat grapple only works at point blank range. - Claws' combat grapple is repelled. 3. Level-by-level glitch walkthrough ------------------------------------ Different markings are used for different entries: - Sequence break (you are able to skip portions of the game) - Collision flaw (wall, floor, etc. has a noteworthy 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) - Wasted potential (something that doesn't appear to work, unfortunately) - Strategy (listing some useful tip or strategy) - Sweet spot (a location which allows strategic advantages) - Untested (something that no one has tried? wrote it down here) - Random (some tidbit) <Main Screen> Other: what? glitches in the main screen? Exe noticed during one of his speedrun attempts that rarely Kratos can disappear after changing his costume. Having NG+ activated might be necessary, but it's not known for certain. If you now go and quickly start a New Game, Kratos only pops up later on the screen and game doesn't start properly. After that you can start moving Kratos... yes, you can start playing as Kratos in the title screen! Moving some steps can cause Kratos to fall down and hit death floor. It's unknown thus far what might happen if you died and retried. Most other things are unknown as well at the moment since this glitch is so rare. But it looks pretty nice! Videos: 1, exe's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDI47pUqf-A <Gaia> Other (NG+): if you change weapons right after the first cinematic ends, the Blade of Olympus that Kratos brandishes may turn invisible in the following cutscene. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrsUCW9R9E8 Wasted potential: first fight can't be skipped The first room can be easily left with Jet Dash. Crooked parts of the walls around the backside of the room can give you the necessary height boost ("Jet Ascension"). The pathway on which the first boss fight begins will be almost completely horizontal, but once you climb it up, the boss fight cutscene activates and everything continues like it normally would. Unfortunately the game seems to crash not too long afterwards, because the last phase of the boss fight is cut off with the cinematic which would normally begin after first fight. The misplaced cutscene plays for a few seconds, then freezes. You can also leave the first room by doing an Icarus Ascension on the left of the burning log, at a specific time, so this can be done on normal New Game as well, if it should matter. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of escaping the room in New Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVSf_3Wk6G4 Untested: what would happen if you jumped over the log, killed the last enemy in the first room, then activated Hippocampus' entrance scene right before the cinematic begins? You'd need to delay the last sentry's death somehow, by shooting it with a burning arrow maybe. Other: If you are out-of-bounds to the left of the very first 'room', you can Jet Dash to Gaia's left wrist/hand. It has full walkable collision that has an empty "metallic" sounding collision when Kratos runs around on it. You can even do horizontal grapple climbing inside of Gaia's curled palm and fingers. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5loAPvalXpw#t=169 <Hippocampus> Wasted glitch potential (NG+): You can skip the Hippocampus battle trigger by doing a high jump into Jet Dash against the invisible wall of collision that traps you once you cross it. This lifts you up high, and by going left or right you can get out of bounds and walk around on lots of walkable collision. You can then walk up to Gaia's hand without Hippocampus there (from slightly out-of-bounds), from there you can Jet Dash to an area that looks like the grapple wall you come to later, but it has no collision. (Untested: Getting to this grapple wall at other phases of Hippocampus). Other: backtracking during Hippocampus fight Trigger the Hippocampus fight from out of bounds, then damage Hippocampus until it makes Gaia's arm turn over to the climbing phase. If you do this, you can actually grapple climb all the way back to the very start of Gaia. All the while you see Hippocampus unload (except for its breath). When you get to the start of Gaia, Kratos keeps switching from being invisible to visible very suddenly, and the whole first Gaia room looks (graphically) like a completely differently designed area. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boyDAH90Qi0 <Mount Olympus> Sequence break (NG+): using high jump and Dash, you can get over the wall before the first ledge shimmying part. From there you can skip going by the ledge as well as a cutscene and some enemies. Later on, Gaia's graphics may be somewhat glitched. Hope you don't mind. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyeyBhNBZJg Wasted glitch potential (NG+): it's possible to reach the chain with Jet Dash, etc. but it's just a cardboard cut-out and nothing's actually there. Videos: 1, Findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuy0c9Tfk6s Skip (NG and NG+): you can skip the grapple point intro by doing Jet Dash from the ground level to the next ledge. In normal New Game this scene is also skippable: climb the ledge from as left as possible, so that you can R1 the grapple right before the scene activates. Speed strategy (NG+): after the grapple point section, you can Jest Jump for a very quick climb up the mountain ridge. Videos: 1, Findlestick's vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAz0pAbVSZ8 Wasted glitch potential (NG+): By doing combinations of high jump and Jet Dash from left of the broken climbing ladder, you can do an elaborate skip directly to underneath the bridge that Hippocampus destroys later on. First do Jet Ascension from as left as possible to end up on some walkable collision near the climbing wall. From there another SJ jump with Jet Dashing to the right leads you to more walkable collision higher up. And with one final SJ jump and Dashing you end up inside the crevice under the bridge. This would be a good speedrun strategy if it was not for the fact that you skip the trigger that loads Ares' tomb, getting you stuck. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5loAPvalXpw#t=243 Other: By Skipping specific triggers on your way to the climbing ledge, you get a glitch where Gaia is actually standing at the exact place where Perses normally is. Other: By Skipping specific triggers on your way to the climbing ledge, you get a glitch where Hippocampus breaks free from Gaia's grasp near the entrance to Ares' tomb. She then freezes/breaks down, resulting in Hippocampus thrashing around madly as if it was still trying to break free from Gaia's grasp. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noMLiDkcV6Y Skip (NG+): you can skip the cutscene of the pathway being crushed by doing a high jump and then Dashing at top height over the area. This is pretty hard to do in my opinion with a Severe Judgment jump alone. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EttrNWttyk <Tomb of Ares> Sequence break (NG+): you can do a high jump and grab a ledge at the top of the large door that leads you to Tomb of Ares, and from there jump outside bounds. Those who have mastered the Jet Dash are able to jump from on top of the door straight to the platform with save point. At first it doesn't look like anything is loaded behind the door, but if you run back towards the save and return, Gaia should have appeared like normal. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aKeHrsZ4FQ Other (NG+): If you enter the Tomb with the door closed, during the Centaur cutscene you can hear hooves clopping behind the closed door, but no one will enter... Yes, the Centaur gets stuck outside the room. You can attempt to fight it there, but if he tries to do the dash QTE attack to Kratos, the game may freeze for unknown reasons. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACgjw0i1dUs#t=30 Skip (NG+): an easier way to skip the whole switch-pulling ordeal is to high jump from on top of the ladder platform and from there Jet Dash towards the other end of the area. You can easily grab a ledge there and then merrily continue on your way. You can also skip pulling the lever by doing a vertical Ladder Jump followed by a horizontal Ladder Jump to cross the gap. But this is extremely difficult to do because you have to rely on luck to be able to do a horizontal Ladder Jump after a vertical one. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of the first method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvJbybqsMSg Speed strategy: you can pull the switch while ignoring the Centaur if you're lucky. If you have the Centaur smash headfirst into the wall, he will be stunned a moment, and this is usually enough to pull the switch. Wasted potential (NG+): it's possible to Sorrow Jump over the edge of the save room, and from there Jet Dash to multiple locations. Returning outside is possible, but you can't do anything there but play around with the Centaur that was left behind the door (if you spawned him) or just return back upstairs. Jet Dashing beyond the gate to the right is novel, but not too useful, it seems. You can't R1 the gate from the wrong side, nor can you access the next fight like this. If you want, you can walk down from the ledge and Jet Dash a bit forward, reaching a climbing wall that doesn't lead you anywhere. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACgjw0i1dUs#t=190 <Hippocampus part deux> Random (NG+): projectile attacks have immense troubles hitting this boss. Wasted potential (NG+): you can exit the battlefield by Jet Dashing while the boss is stunned (the back wall gets an angle which allows you to Jet Ascend out of the room, although difficult). But there is nowhere in particular where you can go from here? You can see a bit of the Gaia's innard area beneath Hippocampus, but there is no collision or loading points. <Heart of Gaia> Out of bounds (NG+): with Sorrow Jump, you can go outside bounds from the first room. The procedure is tricky - you must keep Jet Dashing a bit towards the camera and to the right. It's likely that this doesn't come very handy in a speedrun because the location of the next loading triggers force you in bounds pretty soon anyway. Also, it's possible to jump over the blockage that you'd normally have to climb over. Doing this without touching the ceiling grapple at all may cause the next area to not load. So, it might not be worth it to do a Sorrow Jump for skipping 5 seconds of climbing. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACgjw0i1dUs#t=237 Wasted skip potential (NG+): it's possible to cross the heart room without touching the floor by Jet Dashing, skipping the intro cutscene to this place. But the next area won't be loaded this way. (Could use more testing?) Skip (NG+): you can skip the block pushing puzzle by climbing to the platform that has Zeus' Eagle and Jet Dashing over the chasm. Or, even faster, you can Jet Dash against the back wall beneath the climbing vines to Jet Ascend all the way up to the vines. Wasted skip potential (NG+): the "inpenetrable substance" around Gaia's heart cannot be interacted at this time, even if you had Gauntlets with you. Even if you go over it using Jest Jump, so that you get a direct contact to the side of the heart, you can do absolutely nothing there. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACgjw0i1dUs#t=251 Speed strategy: Don't push the block into the hole all the way or else you'll activate a cutscene which shows you where to go next. You hear a sound when the block is in deep enough, so stop pushing it at that point. Wasted potential (NG+): I'd like to try to access the next grapple point out of bounds, bypassing the climbing bit and possibly some triggers. But the walls are extremely high on the walkway with soldiers. Well, to be honest, I did succeed in it using JJ and bow height gain, but I can't remember the results being too remarkable. Speed strategy? (NG+): you can skip a part of the climbing wall by doing a high jump and Jet Dashing into the wall. Might save a negligible amount of time. <Poseidon> Random: Camera during Poseidon fight can be messed up by some unknown factor, making it hard to read his attacks. Other (NG+): if you leave the fighting area, you can backtrack and go back to climb down Gaia's head. Due to the skewed angle this looks weird, as if Kratos was climbing on air. Kratos also turns to climb upsidedown momentarily. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVSf_3Wk6G4#t=31 Speed strategy (NG+): Skip 1st part of Poseidon fight At the start of the fight, you can easily leave the area by doing a combination of Jet Ascension and Jet Dash. If you then Jet Dash to around Poseidon's back, you can R1 the grapple point that is hidden there, and that will throw you directly to Phase 2 of Poseidon. Basically skipping Phase 1 of the Poseidon battle. It's hard to say how much time it saves, because the Phase 1 doesn't take long by itself, especially on NG+. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jByCMC10CIc Wasted potential/Cutscene skip (NG+): early final Poseidon scene You can Jet Dash directly from the 1st Poseidon battle to the Entrance to Ares Tomb (with the help of infinite health glitch and RoS to help you float a little along the way as well). Even tho you didn't kill the first Poseidon phases, the final Poseidon is there. You can brutally finish him off, but nothing happens afterwards, not even his death cinematic, but if you go to the hole that Gaia's finger should be in (it is not there at this point). The game will load the complete cutscene with Gaia and Zeus. But after that, the Hades section does not load. You just get a blank screen and you can hear Kratos moving around in nothingness. If you save using the save point nearby after killing Poseidon and then restart, you will end up back at the Poseidon 1 fight. Should you now deal with all the phases of the fight like normal, after the cinematic in which Poseidon is thrown against the cliff, strange things happen. For one, Poseidon is absent from the whole area. The scene of Kratos interrogating him takes place from a distance, with dialogue mostly quiet, and the ensuing finisher QTE never takes place because Kratos cannot mini-game something that isn't there... However, if you now go over to where Gaia's finger should be (it is still not there), the Gaia cutscene starts, but with Gaia totally invisible/absent from it. After some strange graphical glitches, the next cutscene returns to normal (Gaia visible again). And then the rest of the game loads normally. So, to sum up this strange series of events, the cinematic in which Poseidon dissolves and the lands flood becomes skipped. If you could reach the final Poseidon scene under 45 secs (approx. length of the skipped cutscene) time would be won. But it's not an easy task, since it's difficult to control Jet Dash during this bit. Recently Findlestick found out that it's far easier to do this skip during the last phase of the Poseidon fight because you can control your flight better (due to less ambient movement in the level). You should Jet Dash from the cliff right before the long grapple sequence, or use a checkpoint exploit to end up on top of one of the grapples (read more below) and Jet Dash from there. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of early Poseidon scene & wasted potential http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz-pkdwYfbU 2, findlestick's vid of successfully finishing the skip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVSf_3Wk6G4#t=59 3, findlestick's vid of Jet Dashing from the last Poseidon phase (and more) video not available at the moment Other (NG+): Nemesis Rage bolts have immense difficulties to physically hit this boss. This holds true for Poseidon himself when you are in the second part of the fight. It seems this low accuracy thing is true for all projectile weapons - after all, it's the sort you are not supposed to have at this point. Other (NG+): During the "O" bashing minigame on Poseidon's giant form, you can switch weapons between each hit. It looks silly, that's all. Other / Cutscene skip (NG+?): if you restart from last checkpoint while you are on Gaia's head (at the grapples), and then spam R1 as the game is loading... Kratos will breakout from the grapple and he will be transported to standing directly on top of the grapple, once the game has loaded. From there it is possible to Alt-Jet Dash to the final Poseidon, this is the quickest way to get to him in order to skip the cutscene - later on - where Poseidon dissolves. (So this is also a possible speedrun strategy IF done quickly enough). Breaking out from the grapple also causes it to malfunction, you can then R1 that 1st grapple endlessly, causing Kratos to loop his swinging animation. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iAOcUJ54EE#t=171 Other: At the final R1 of grapple points, even if you press R1 after the prompt is gone and Kratos has visibly missed it, game registers it as success and Kratos is suddenly teleported to top of the claw. Other (NG+): If you have infinite health, even if you miss the final prompt of Grapple sequence [mostly a SQUARE], next cutscene of Gaia punching Poseidon will still be triggered as if you never missed it. The scenes with Poseidon after that don't start properly, though, since the game won't transport Kratos out of the bottomless pit he has well sunken into by then. <Entrance to Ares Tomb> Other (NG+): You can make it so that Poseidon has his mini-game circle rotating around his head all the way through the very serious cutscene where Kratos talks to Poseidon. This is done by doing an early visit to the final Poseidon from on top of Gaia's head, then pound Poseidon's head in until you get the mini game circle. Then restart, this results in Kratos going back to the top of Gaia's head, if you play on normally from there you will get this glitch. Other: sparing Poseidon... almost When you finally find yourself in front of Poseidon, you can't move an inch. The only thing you can do is 'grab', and we all know what happens after that. However, if you retry from checkpoint and manage to jump away from Poseidon the instant gameplay continues, you can reach the nearby save point and create a new checkpoint. After another retry, Kratos can move completely freely around the place for a change. But none of this will change Poseidon's fate, since Gaia intentionally keeps from showing up until the resounding snap of the unlucky Olympian's neck is heard. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMpc6xaCX_8 Other: glitching Poseidon's death QTE Do a high jump towards the wall behind him, and you can grab a secret ledge and end up behind collision. You can do various kinds of displaced QTEs from there. It's the easiest to grab the ledge doing SJ jump, but you can also use the "slightly higher double jump" exploit during NG to grab the ledge. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVo0zervwYM Other (NG+): Poseidon is a special target who only gets hits from some attacks. Interestingly, unlike many other subdued Olympians, he can be targeted with Combat Grapples. Haven't found a way to move his sorry ass around the room, though. Other (NG+): When you press L3+R3 to gouge Poseidon's eyes out, Rage will be activated. You can turn it off and on again. Speed strategy (NG+): If you hit the trigger that makes Gaia's finger move while you are out of bounds, you set up the game to make Kratos break free from his weakened state when he reaches the River Styx. (Read on below for potentially quicker methods of achieving the River Styx break-out). It's possible that it isn't enough to be just out of bounds - you may have to be falling and hitting death collision (with infinite health) for this break out to happen. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFW4IhH-XKM <River Styx> Other: you can break out of Kratos' weakened state at River Styx. Retry from checkpoint and do a jump the first moment you can. This trick is about frame perfect, so expect to fail some times before it works. Once you've managed to jump just once, Kratos has left the weakened state and can swim at a normal pace in addition to being able to jump, etc. This allows you to not only complete this part slightly faster, but you get some surreal imagery at the power draining scenes if you are traveling airborne! When you reach walkable ground, Kratos has a tendency to revert back to the weakened state, but you can prevent it by either blocking or keeping a combo of some sort up. Another way is to quickly let go of block when near the book and then R1 it - this allows Kratos to revert to normal permanently for this short stretch of time before the Athena cutscene. There also exists another way to break out of Kratos' weakened state here. When the ramp to higher ground begins, hug the right side of the wall and attempt to do some L1-special. Eventually Kratos will do it due to a collision flaw, and if you keep blocking afterwards you get to keep non-weakened state indefinitely. BUT: remember that while this method is reliable and fast, you MUST retry after reaching near or beyond the Gorgon fight arena or else the game will crash when approaching the upcoming bramble wall. An unfortunate side effect of the trick. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of the checkpoint retry method http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCHtSeaUr9I Other (NG+): if you land onto a spot of ground which activates Kratos' weakened state while holding Bow, Head or Boots active (easy to do using the above collision flaw), Kratos' state switches to a sort of combination between the two. He moves very slow and pants while holding Bow, Head or Boots out. He can do attacks with them, in some cases reverting to normal and in some cases back to weakened again. You often lose the ability to turn while in the weakened mix-up state. Switching from Bow to Head (or vice-versa) in the middle of an attack or even letting go of L2 may cause the game to crash. You can walk into the Athena cutscene in this state too, but nothing too weird seems to happen. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR5bjJBR5aI Wasted potential: the walls of River Styx are outrageously high, and it's unlikely you could escape and avoid losing Rage of Sparta here. Sequence break (NG+): skipping Blades of Exile You can jump over the trigger which begins the cutscene in which you chat with Athena for about 2 minutes and you get Blades of Exile. Saves a lot of time in a NG+ run! Actually, this is only a temporary skip because the game eventually gives you the Blades without you being able to do anything about it - right before you face off final Zeus, you get lvl. 3 Blades out of nowhere. Pretty neat, I guess. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrD3QjKBrP8 Swimming glitch (NG+): start swimming glitch at River Styx Yes, it's possible to gain useable swimming glitch from River Styx even without Hades' Soul. It turns out that the weakened swimming style Kratos starts with helps to bypass the water surface property which rockets you skywards. First, you have to skip the Athena cutscene for this to work. After that, jump back towards the River Styx from the first grapple point and Jet Dash. You will end outside bounds but swimming. Kratos should return to the original weakened swimming style, and then you can just leave like normal, except... the weakened swimming style can't be controlled very well, and it's really slow. What to do? Well, swim far enough to activate a grapple point, voila. Until then, enjoy the drunken camera that follows Kratos as he desperately swims through the skies. Note that you can't take this unique swimming style very far into the game - if you don't cancel out of it into normal swimming glitch using a grapple point, you will rocket towards the skies as soon as you go far enough into Realm of Hades and the 'idle' swimming stance comes up. While it is possible to get back into the River Styx outside bounds and swimming on normal NG as well, it's impossible to skip the Athena cutscene before it. As a result, you can't get back into the weakened swimming stance and it's impossible to do anything with the swimming than skyrocket in air. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWa81lFbgWg <Realm of Hades> Other / wasted potential: getting early Regen Magic Kratos gains regen magic during the tutorial fight where you get to use Army of Sparta for the first time. We tried all sorts of things to break the fight, including taking a Sentry in front of the fight trigger to dash into the cutscene in hopes of getting past the barred gate before it rises up... but the distance you need to cross is just barely too long! Alas. Besides, it turns out - verified using swimming glitch - that even if you were to escape the fight early, the next path (leading to Perithious and Judges) does not load. So for the purposes of New Game, regen magic can't be got from here. You can, in fact, get regen magic on NG+ from here, but under rather special conditions. First of all, you need to do the swimming glitch as detailed above. Then you need to swimdash into the regen magic fight to end up on the wrong side of the barred gate. Kratos freezes after the fight cutscene, so you have to retry first... but this on the other hand reverts Kratos back to the weakened mode he was in River Styx! You have to arduously swim against some collision on the right side to have Kratos slowly rise up. After getting to the height of the chain, swim out of the fighting arena and go around the platforms carefully (to not get tangled up in some random collision) to reach the grapple points on the other side and activate one. Now you have normal swimming again and are free to continue with regen magic with you. But you only really have one option, and that is to do the sequence break that takes you forward in time to the moment you have to enter Hades Palace next. So if you want regen magic early on NG+, you can't do early chain break, which is sub-optimal for speed. Also, since it's NG+, you have Godly Possessions anyway for any infinite magic needs... So doing this trick kinda lacks a point then. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghqkmkCUMYo Sequence break (NG+): skipping much of the Realm of Hades You can load Hades' Palace early once you've activated a trigger at the corridor leading back to Realm of Hades from the rotating room. Fortunately, this is an easy thing to do - just use one of the grapple points to gain height and then Jet Dash to the balcony where there's the Pandora statue, backtrack a little and come back. Voila. This skips everything up to the point you have to fight those two Cerberi in front of Hades' palace. But since you can't perform the early chain break this route, this skip is not utilized in most NG+ runs. So far this skip can't be done in a NG run, and it's uncertain if the player should do it even if it was possible because it would mean skipping the Bow, and it might be impossible to finish the game without Bow. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF8wSUE51S8 Wasted glitch potential: Early Hephaestus visit By Jet Dashing to the brambles that are near the rotating room, you can eventually make Kratos reach Hephaestus early. Unfortunately nothing comes from doing it at this date except a humorous glitch where you get a cutscene of Kratos talking to an absent Hephaestus. Making it look like he has lost his marbles... a recurring theme in this game. (Glitchwise that is!) Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aVzY5gPblY Fight skip (NG+): you can skip the short scene of Hades talking and the Army of Sparta fight by Jet Dashing to the next platform. It's very likely not possible to do this skip on NG because the trigger is very far reaching - all the way up to the rope. Fight skip (NG+ only?): You can skip the first Gorgon fight by doing Jet Dash from the rope to the behind of the arena. It might be possible on normal New Game, only much more difficult, because you'd have to shimmy outside bounds for a while and then do some accurate Gliding. Another NG+ alternative is to do Sorrow Jump from on top of the chest and Jet Dash the rest of the way - this is probably easier than the original method because of the better camera angle. It's also possible to leave the fight after it starts by using CG high jump or JJ, but it's slower. After doing the skip, there's a stretch of time that has to pass before the next area loads. During this time you can Jet Dash into the nothingness to cut some corners as the next area materializes around you. However... the loading trigger for the pre-Judges area is easy to miss, so this might not be worth it. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of the original skip method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqcKXk3EPUI <Peirithous> Sequence break (NG+): skipping Bow You can Jet Dash from the broken bridge straight to the next place very easily, past the bramble obstacle. Or just shoot the bramble wall using the Bow, it's even simpler. Or you can even jump over the wall with Sorrow Jump. You can also do a variation of this skip on New Game. Using a series of Glides from the broken bridge, with some out of bounds floor as your aid, you can make your way past the bramble wall without Bow. But for some reason the next area is not loaded at the moment. Maybe the game actually checkes whether Kratos has the Bow to load the next area? Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of doing the skip on NG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV3A_nT_7Zo#t=116 Speed strategy: you can use the "slightly higher double jump" exploit to jump on top of the chandelier above Peirithous without its cutscene activating. Well, you have to watch the platform later on anyway, but this way you save a few seconds because you only need to lower the chandelier once. The timing is pretty precise and the time save small, so don't fret if you don't get it in a run. A safe alternative on NG+ is to use a Severe Judgment jump to avoid the platform and accomplish the same thing. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid (NG strategy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caRYLLAN0XQ Wasted potential (NG+): the bramble prison can't be targeted or lit on fire with the Bow. Also, you can't swim inside the brambles if you have swimming glitch: it's surrounded with collision. Other (NG+): swimming inside the cages on the walls, Kratos becomes imprisoned there! There's collision on all sides, so you can't leave once you go in. Collision flaw: the left side of the broken bridge has some uneven collision to it. You can take the bramble pot and actually push it down into the river! I also tried to enter the river riding Cerberus, but seems Cerberus was too big to enter. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRS9a3rlezo#t=71 Random: The Cerberus riding bit lasts until you've lit Peirithous on fire. Speed strategy: after getting the Bow, some enemies will spawn. You don't need to fight them, and in a speedrun you shouldn't. Also, if you kill all the foes you get a small extra cutscene that is another extra deterrent to fighting here. <The Depths of Hades> Skip (NG+): skipping the Harpy cutscene As soon as you enter the larger area, there is a collision hole to your right. Rolling against the gray mound sometimes gets Kratos through and he can go stand on the mound. From there you can Jet Dash past the Harpy scenes. The collision breach is easiest to do with either Claws or Whip roll. There's an alternative way to do this skip, using a variation of CG high jump to that one Lost Soul wandering about before the cutscene trigger. You need to be on Chaos-mode to do this or else the Lost Soul doesn't have enough defense to survive this high jump. Then, there's actually a third way to do this skip, and it's to do Sorrow Jump against the right-hand side corner just inside the corridor. There is a wall breach there, but it can be tricky to utilize. Oh, and Findle found a fourth way as well, and it is by Sorrow Jumping from on top of the chest in the middle of the area. Man, so much work done for skipping that one little cutscene... Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of the collision flaw method http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oKOHOfNiOU 2, AKheon's vid of the Chaos-mode alternative http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwoGvFzTvZw 3, findle's vid of the 2nd Sorrow Jump alternative http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_PGejWxaE Speed strategy (NG+): You can skip parts of the climbing wall by utilizing Jet Dash. However, be warned that if you fail to latch onto the wall and Jet Dash too far out, the game may checkpoint you as you fall to your death and you have to reload your last save to continue. Cutscene skip (NG+): you can skip the Judges overlook scene by Jet Dashing from the climbing ceiling to the 2nd grapple point. The 1st grapple point isn't active at this point, so you have to Jet Dash a bit blind to reach the 2nd one. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwoGvFzTvZw#t=22 Cutscene skip: From the overlook, you can Jet Dash over the closed gate and gain early access to the first portal. Or on New Game, you can Glide a part of the way. Then you have to use one of the Judges' hands as a platform and do another jump to go the rest of the way. Fortunately it's not too difficult. Just make sure not to aim too far to the right because Kratos can't stand on there. Doing this skips the cutscene where the Judges judge Kratos. The only thing that cutscene does is to open the gate you just went around! Videos: 1, Satvara's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKpq6qB_AGk <The Three Judges> Sequence break (NG+): Early chain break After a long time of uncertainty, it was finally verified by Findlestick that it is not only possible to break the chain the first time you reach The Three Judges, but that there is a powerful sequence break as a reward. This trick does not work in the most obvious way. After breaking all three neck stones and the exposed chain pieces, you should see the cinematic in which the Judges get smashed. After that, gameplay continues like normal. So, where's the sequence break? It is a few levels ahead, at the Chamber of the Flame, where turning the crank throws you straight to end game and you skip a whole bunch of fetch quests and other distractions in the process! The glitch does not seem to happen with 100% certainty, but here are 7 steps which most likely lead to success: 1. after the Three Judges overlook, latch onto the 2nd grapple point and Jet Dash directly to the upper level or just behind the first gate ("early access to the first portal", listed above). 2. Break the onyx stones of the first two Judges. 3. If you want to open up a decent way to exit the yard later on, enter the second portal and pull the switch to open the gate. This part is optional, you can also leave after breaking the chains later using another route ("cutscene skip", listed below.) 4. Go down to the Judge on the lower platform and break his stone. Then high jump over his head, down to the base of the chain. This is an important factor in this skip, because using the portal to go down to the base of the chain will result in a game crash. 5. Break the chain as soon as you can after getting to the base of the chain. If you don't see the chain breaking cinematic a few seconds after breaking the chains, you'll see it later when moving onto the next area... if this is the case the skip will not work, and you should retry. 6. If the game crashes at any point, especially after the chain breaking cinematic, don't fret. Just load the auto-save and it's likely you can continue like normal afterwards. 7. Do Erebus Trials and continue on with the game like normal. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPmxKJ8lPKUv Wasted glitch potential (NG+): it's possible to enter the save menu right before the chain breaking cutscene begins during early chain break. However, time keeps running during this time, so the hope of saving in-game time with this was was crushed promptly. Also, saving game during the cutscene just sends you back to the start of the cutscene when you retry (in addition to making the game crash almost certainly after the FMV ends). There's some more info on this in the section of second Three Judges visit. Speed strategy (NG+): when doing Augean Stampede to one of the chains, sometimes the other chain gets damage for no reason as well. When you get to it, it's already 'yellow' and needs but a few hits to break after that. This has to be done as quickly as possible after retrying from the checkpoint. Random: you can attack the Three Judges, but it's useless. The chest plate of the leftmost judge actually repels Kratos if he tries to grapple it. Sequence break (swimming) (NG+): you can skip Erebus Trials by swimming. When changing maps to the next area, Kratos is teleported in the middle of strange blackness. The next map is loaded, but it's pretty far away so you have to swim the rest of the way. Swim to the back and left, and eventually you'll get there. It's possible but rather slow to do this skip on NG+ as well without swimming. You have Jet Dash beneath the next map and then let Kratos fall down. Then get ready to do the death floor infinite jump ("BJJ") to lift Kratos up to the level of the next map again. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMrqRYR3F4U#t=57 About Trial 1: just spamming magic won't work here. The game expects a certain amount of people to be converted into wandering souls - until that the enemies just keep spawning endlessly. Random (NG+): leaving the trials early by using Jest Jump is possible. The graphics in the upper areas disappear, much like if you escape the Hellbreeder fight later on in the game. Cutscene skip (NG+): after fighting through the Erebus trials, do a high jump/Jet Dash from the lower right half of the arena straight to the passage that leads you to the next place. It skips the Pandora cutscene and some navigation. The easiest way to do this is to do Severe Judgment jump from on top of the Erebus Trials pedestal towards lower-right of the screen and then Jet Dash (until camera changes). Other: from the end of the rope climb, you can glide over to the first Judge and land on an invisible floor in front of the statue's chest. At this date there is no use to this glitch. Videos: 1, atethenojeans' vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oua8peqP1A <Path to The Forge> Wasted potential (NG+): the walls here seem too high to cross with even Sorrow Jump. Cutscene skip (NG+): do a Jest Jump or CG high jump to a nearby Fiend, and Jet Dash to the vent puzzle room outside bounds. You skip the cutscene at the entrance (in addition to cutting a few corners in getting there). Speed strategies: quicker vent puzzle completion First of all, on NG+ you never have to light the vent on fire for the first time. You can just Jet Dash against the right wall for Jet Ascension-effect and reach the higher level in no time. On NG+ you can Jest Jump using one of the Fiends for a quick foray onto the highest floor (use the back corner for Jet Ascension effect). At the top floor, grab the pot and shove it between the railing and the elevator machinery, then try to turn it counter-clockwise. The pot will rise up on the railing, and from there you can just kick it to the vent. Note that the small mise scuttling around can actually break Kratos' hold of the pot. You probably need luck to prevent this from happening. It's untested and really hard to do, but it might be possible to finish this puzzle on NG+ without even touching the pot. First, you can lower the grid by jumping on a very small piece of invisible collision on the fence (around where there is the big rock) and doing Icarus Ascension towards the grid. Kratos should just grab the grid and you complete the first phase of the puzzle. Then.. you'd have to do Sorrow Jump from on top of the same small collision. It's uncertain if you'd have enough height, but just to throw this theory out here. An alternative might be to do a JJ using a fiend that spawns if you start moving the pot a little. If it worked, you could skip the scene of the pot exploding and vent activating. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of some of the above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqy1qN1_UVM Random: touching the edge of the grid while rising up using Wings can cause Kratos to switch to climbing stance although he is flying up in air. This air "climbingness" doesn't last long, only until you fall back onto solid ground. Collision flaw: by Gliding against the 2nd floor vent puzzle floor from the front-right, Kratos can sink inside the wall and start walking underneath. You can make your way into the room with a lot of Hades' Arms early this way, but it serves no purpose since you get stuck. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV3A_nT_7Zo Other: at the area overlooking a strange golden dome, there's an unique Lost Soul who does not attempt to attack you (unless you provoke it). The souls from Claws CG do not try to target him at all! Wasted potential (NG+): it's possible to JJ outside bounds by using one of the sentries that spawn after you defeat the two Stone Taloses. You can take a stroll on top of the golden dome! From there it's possible to reach the area that's past The Forge's closed exit gate, but nothing beyond is loaded (it is speculated that the loading trigger is in the middle of the path in The Forge). Cutscene skip (NG+): from the golden dome, you can also Jet Dash straight to the save point of The Forge. Hephaestus never loads if you do this, and so the cutscene of the place, if triggered, will contain Kratos speaking with a voice in his head with no one else around (or so it looks like). But this is not the reason you flew all the way to this place - instead, it was to skip the cutscene by going to the Aphrodite portal using the wall with Boots of Hermes and then Jet Dashing over the cutscene trigger to freedom! This is only one alternative to skipping The Forge cutscenes on NG+. There are some others listed below... Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9TlfmxL17I <The Forge> Speed strategy (NG+ only?): Jet Dash over the intro cutscene to The Forge. Camera angles turn quite bad as a result, but they're manageable once you retry from checkpoint. As another speed bonus, you don't have to pull the switch that opens the gate out of The Forge if you do this - the gate appears to have unexisted while you weren't watching (at least if you retry from checkpoint). Cutscene skip (NG+): the Hephaestus cutscene can also be skipped by moving pretty high up on the staircase and then Jet Dashing towards the gate. There is a collision flaw to the left side of the gate that Kratos can breach through at the correct height, so you never have to go meet Hephaestus this way. Wasted skip potential (NG+): at this point, the portal to Aphrodite's Chamber is inactive, and it's certain that Pit of Tartarus is unloaded as well. It's also possible to reach the underwater areas where you will end up after defeating Hades, but you can't go into the Throne area itself because it's unloaded (and as far as I can tell, it can't be made to load from here.) Random (NG+): if you swim past the gate to Pit of Tartarus, Kratos may freeze momentarily in an alarmed standing pose, as if you hit a cutscene trigger. But nothing in particular seems to happen. Another oddity you can find by swimming: to the right of The Forge, there's a small black collisionless cube floating by itself. Sequence break (NG+): you can skip Rage of Sparta (along with the cutscene before it, and the tutorial fight) by doing a high jump towards the background wall at a correct spot before the trigger. Jet Dashing, you can reach the entrance to the Palace this way quite easily. You can enhance the skip further by going behind the gate while at it, skipping the Cerberi fight as well. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of skipping the RoS cutscene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF8wSUE51S8 <Palace of Hades> Sequence break: you can skip the fight with Cerberi at the Palace's gate by Jet Dashing around the gate on New Game+. However, this skip can be done on NG too with some extra platforming. Go near the gate, then jump on top of the right foot where there's some floor for Kratos to stand on. Then do a small high jump to reach the platform where the right Cerberus is laying: double jump, air triangle attack after second jump and a quick flick of RoS to give Kratos extra height and length. After getting on the platform, double jump and Glide to the left platform. From there do a high but short double jump to get on top of the left foot. And on the left side there is less invisible wall on the way so you can do a short Glide to land on some floor of the entrance hall. Then just move forward to hit the next fight and you're set. Skipping the lobby fight as well while out of bounds seems difficult, but hasn't been completely disproven yet. § Videos: 1, satvara's vid (NG+ strategy): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXYVBfYdb6E 2, AKheon's vid (NG strategy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7-bnaYzpfA Battle exploit (NG+): You can high jump/Jet Dash to the platforms the Hell Breeders are waiting on and light the brambles on fire from there, starting the fight from complete safety. But this is of temporary use only since eventually you will have to drop down to ground level to be able to minigame the Breeders. Untested (NG+): it's possible to skip the fight in the lobby by just leaving it early. However, it's uncertain if it is possible without swimming glitch because a part of the ceiling is blocked by collision and you'd have to go pretty high up too. Maybe with JJ... Sequence break: skip the 1st floor of Hades Palace (c: findlestick / AKheon) Doing a small high jump from on top of the stone stack, you can grab a ledge ABOVE the wooden frame that stands in the back of a room. This takes you directly to the room above it where the Minotaurs and Dogs normally appear. This is a very useful and easy skip of the very first part of this puzzle, and can be used in NG too if you use the "slightly higher double jump" exploit. Videos: 1, findlestick's original vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ2__QG86YE#t=12 2, AKheon's vid of this skip in NG conditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuYLYVQXwAg Sequence break: reach the lower floor elevator early This skip is basically an improvement to the above 1st floor skip, and it obsoletes the 2nd floor time save tactics listed below as well. First climb the tree. From the top of the tree's climbing wall, do a quick double jump and then Glide back towards the tree at a certain angle to grab an invisible ledge a little above Persephone's coffin. On top of the coffin the camera angle is not particularly good, but you can fix it by doing a stationary RoS high jump for example. After that, you can Glide to the back of the room, going around the Hades statue, to grab another invisible ledge. This makes the following part of the skip easier, but it is not mandatory to do. Your next goal is to land on some floor close to where the wheel on the first floor is. So find a pillar-like structure from far left and attempt to land a little to the right of it, Krataos should land on something that sounds metallic. Then, do a droopy double jump to the back and left to drop down under a wall that is in Kratos' way and Glide inside the elevator room. Be careful not to slip in bounds here by accident. Now you can play this dungeon onward having reached the elevator early. This way Kratos can go up to the upper left switch room before even activating the entire puzzle. Read more about the possible side effects of doing this from below. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qgIr1vZ7Yc Other: if you do things in the wrong order and put the stone block under the 2nd floor elevator before making the elevator descend, upon returning upstairs the stone block and the elevator are back up but neither can be ever activated or moved again. So at worst you can screw yourself over with this. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ2__QG86YE#t=45 Sequence break: skip a part of the 2nd floor puzzle If you get to the left-hand upper area early and complete the puzzle task up there before even having lifted up the coffin and "activated" the puzzle, you basically do a part of the puzzle without the accompanying bothersome short cutscenes, which saves time. You also skip having to turn the crank one extra time doing this, which also saves you the trouble of dealing with the spawning enemies as well. On NG+ you can do a SJ high jump and Jet Dash under the ladder holes. If you aim away from the ladder, Kratos can grab an invisible ledge and pull himself up. This is harder to do on the left side for some reason. But there is a way to do this on NG as well. First of all, do not turn the crank in the middle after arriving to the 2nd floor of the Palace. Instead, head to the left path and climb the ladder. You need to do a droopy double jump and Glide to land on top of Hades' right arm. After on the arm, you can walk on it to reach the left upper area early and save time. Note that the wheel which pulls in Hades' arm glitches up if you activate it too early. So if you're careless, you can get yourself stuck here... don't do things in the wrong order. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of 2nd floor time save https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMrqpT-4P1s 2, findlestick's vid of an invisible ledge near the ladder hole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ2__QG86YE#t=24 Other: another related glitch to accessing the upper areas early is that Kratos teleports in a strange way after rotating the left wheel and putting the stone block under it. You hear the sound of the block being in place, then after a few seconds Kratos teleports back to the stone block mysteriously. If you try to open the nearby chest at that time, Kratos breaks out of it as he teleports. While the chest becomes opened, all of its contents disappear and this is basically a good way to waste a chest. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ2__QG86YE#t=178 Sequence break (NG+): skipping entire Hades Palace puzzle v1 (c: satvara) There are at least three ways to skip the entire puzzle inside Palace of Hades. The first method was found by satvara: Climb up the big tree and get to the higher area with chests. From there you have to jump to a secret ledge which is situated inside graphics at the area below Hades' statue. It's easy to reach with Severe Judgment jump + Jet Dash. Don't start the jump too near the chests, or else you get blocked by additional collision. Now, when on the secret ledge, the tricky part begins. You have to do another high jump (Severe Judgment is again enough) towards foreground. You need to Jet Ascension against the collision of the Hades statue lower half and Jet Ascend on top of a small floor. If the graphics get all messed up, it's a good sign and means that you've accessed the boss fight map. Then just start Jet Dashing deeper into the area until the boss intro starts. Videos: 1, Satvara's original video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSbIOMMFKnI Sequence break (NG+): skipping entire Hades Palace puzzle v2 (c: findlestick) This is findlestick's newer and arguably easier method: after climbing the tree as high as you can, jump off and do a small high jump followed by Jet Dash inside the tree. Or, you can also do a very quick double jump followed by Gliding to hit it, if that is easier for you. Kratos should grab a ledge slightly above to where the coffin is and start standing on it. From on top of the coffin you can then Jet Dash and end up at the upper level where the Hades statue is. Or to skip the entire puzzle, you can High Jump and then Jet Dash directly around the Hades statue and end up inside of it. Once inside the statue, you can hit a trigger that loads the start of the Hades battle and then Jet Dash to the background and end up at the Hades battle (Thus skipping this puzzle). Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_77Grfx4Vc Sequence break (NG+): skipping entire Hades Palace puzzle v3 An extra method for doing the skip. If you go to the left path from in front of the Hades statue, you find some urns at the end of the corridor. Jump behind the rightmost urn, then run against the wall and slowly turn Kratos a little to the left. With a correct angle, a double jump will make Kratos breach the wall here, and from there you can Jet Dash around the corner and backwards to hit the trigger that loads the boss room. Quick reflexes are needed. Videos: coming soon <Hades> Other: being out of bounds as Hades fight starts You end up out of bounds as the Hades fight starts using one of the NG+ Hades puzzle skips listed above. You can for example Jet Dash directly to the top of the roof of Hades' battle arena. From there you can see Hades in the background (near his throne) while he says his long speech to Kratos. If you are still on the roof at the time of the battle, hitting some sections of the roof registers "hits" but you can never get Hades to his next phases via this. If you then jump back down to the arena, the whole area is much darker than normal and "sweet spots" become active at some of the edges of the arena. It's possible for you to end up swimming under the arena as well. But this is not a bad thing: it allows you to skip the soul drain Hades attempts to perform on Kratos, saving maybe 5-6 seconds. You can also swim a bit outside the arena itself, but it seems there's collision preventing you from leaving the fight completely just yet. Another test has revealed that the next area is not loaded at this point yet. If you are floating in the water (out-of-bounds) or if you are standing under the arena at the end of Hades' long speech, Kratos will get stuck in an odd pose for a while. If he is under the arena he will walk around in an odd/unnatural pose. Activating RoS will make him glow blue but without Kratos going into his normal RoS animations. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of the RoS oddity and seeing Hades before the fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ2__QG86YE#t=223 2, AKheon's vid of swimming below the arena http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD8l59elPi8 Other: Sometimes if Kratos should be in mid air at the time that Hades grabs Kratos and throws him. The entire animation will take place high in mid air. (Looks comical). Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXUL74maNj8#t=320 Speed strategy: break out of tug-of-war Retry from checkpoint when the 'tug-of-war' phase of the fight begins. Tap X so that Kratos may jump as soon as gameplay continues. It doesn't always succeed because of the strict timing, but if it does, Kratos breaks out and can move freely during this phase and deal the required damage to Hades in record time (with Bow, for example). (c: satvara) This breakout can also be done by keeping block held while wantonly changing weapons (NG+). Videos: 1, satvara's original vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6tz1ZURgh0 Wasted Glitch Potential (NG+): additional glitches during tug-of-war fight If you break out of the tug-of-war fight, you can enter the water by spamming Nemean roar at the right time, or by spamming Nemesis rage to the left and right of the arena. This is not easy to do at first, but it stops Kratos from being forced to enter the animation where he is dragging himself out of the water. Once in the water, the trigger that forces Kratos into the animation where he is dragging himself out of the water becomes defunct, and you can now move around freely and do some unusual things! You can even leave the arena at this stage but the next area is not yet loaded. However, some of the strange glitches you can then do in this area include, doing a chaotic nonsensical tug-of-war with Hades while they are both on the same side of the water. You can activate the mini-game where Kratos throws his blade at Hades' head while they are both on the same side of the water, this causes Kratos to teleport oddly back to the other side of the arena and the mini-game where Kratos slams Hades against the roof becomes displaced. Kratos can also engage in the tug-of-war while standing underneath the arena, this causes Kratos to look like he is fighting one of his own blades. The blade will thrash around violently in air with a life of it's own, as if it were possessed. Hades can also sometimes go into his earlier phases during this tug-of-war phase, including where he does Soul Summon and where he makes his Claw come out from the floor or his claw will even come out from under the water if Kratos is in the water at the time. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid ("Hades Battle Goes Wrong") http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB_0QHG5We0 2, findlestick's vid ("Kratos Tugs Invisible Man") http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHklx7v90o4 Wasted potential: during the Claws tutorial, the walls around you are too high for you to escape by any known means. Speed strategy (NG+ only?): fast Hades kill For an unknown reason, sometimes Hades can go down in just one round during this last phase of the fight. It's a nice speed strategy if it could be done at will. Videos: 1, clockworkexe's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1yjYX-fXqA <Hades' Throne Room> Other: starting swimming glitch (and getting regen magic) There are multiple ways to go out of bounds while swimming in this area, and as is the tradition, this allows Kratos to go and swim in air to his heart's content. As a very noteworthy bonus, having swimming glitch also makes it possible to get Regen Magic soon afterwards. First method was found by satvara. You have to swim until you come out of the submerged tunnel before the Claws tutorial fight. You have to go as left as possible and do a jump towards the foreground. Now, the game zips Kratos back inside the submerged tunnel and everything looks to be fine... but is it? After waiting a few seconds, Kratos will get sucked into the ceiling. At first he can't swim dash or move very fast for reasons unknown, but if you lower Kratos' altitude just a little bit you get back freedom of movement while still remaining inside the ceiling. Then, doing a swim dash to the right at a certain point - roughly around the spot where there's the grating in the ceiling - Kratos goes through the wall and you can continue swimming in air. Videos: 1, Satvara's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_oLAxUqotc Later findlestick found another method. Swim along the water's suface from the save point towards Hades' body until a wall of collision naturally stops you. Stay on the right side of the tunnel. Get Kratos just slightly submerged. Hold left analog towards the right and also hold triangle down. There's a small flaw in the collision around here that Kratos pops through with some luck - you'll notice it once Kratos rises back to water surface deeper than normal. From there you jump and Glide a little to the side to touch water surface while entirely out of bounds... and go from there. This is a bit trickier method than the above, but in some circumstances the camera angles are more manageable. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ2__QG86YE#t=340 Since you get swimming glitch before the Soul Summon tutorial fight by either of these methods, you can proceed to activate the fight - the fight grants you regen magic - and then escape it by swimming. This lets you keep regen magic. However, this comes with a price: you cannot switch weapons once the tutorial fight begins. The game locks Kratos' weapon to be the Claws of Hades... but fortunately you can get around this by selecting Blades immediately after closing the Soul Summon prompt that appears just as you enter the tutorial area. If you skip all the other regen magic tutorials in this game as well, you get to keep regen magic all the way to the end of the game. Getting to The Forge at the end of this all is slightly problematic since you need to swim there without the camera following Kratos. Just a general hint, aim to the left and up. And before leaving, you first have to hit a certain trigger that is to the left of the Claws tutorial fight. You know when that map is loaded when you hear the sounds of smithing in the distance. Swimming glitch (NG+): by doing Severe Judgment jump and Jet Dash, you can breach the wall to the left in the small area after regen magic fight. From there you can drop out of bounds and hit water at the same time, starting swimming glitch. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYVVxe0KSZY <backtrack to Olympia portal> Cutscene skip (swimming): you can easily skip the Hephaestus cutscene. Swimming glitch location (NG+): if you didn't get swimming glitch just after Hades' Throne Room, you can also get it here at the Forge. It is done by Alt-Jet Dashing from in front of Hephaestus, using the out of bounds-spot to the left and steering quickly towards the foreground (stay as close as possible to the outside of the rocky wall). It's then possible to end up underneath the pool that is near Hephaestus, from there you just need to touch the water that is in front of the lever. On NG+ the easiest way to do this is by doing a death collision jump that will hit water surface eventually. Since nothing is loaded beyond the tunnel you then just simply swim out through the tunnel on the left of screen with your swimming glitch! This can be repeated later on in the game when you return to this same location. It's only after you have Boots of Hermes you can do this trick on NG too. To hit the water surface in front of the lever, you can just barely hit it by Jet Ascension from sideways Alt Jet Dash. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBxzi-qY3_0#t=125 Speed strategy (swimming): you have to turn the rotating room for some way before the Realm of Hades loads again, but you don't have to turn it all the way. Turn it to the first stop and then just swim your way out. Note that on Chaos-mode you won't survive turning the crank while swimming because of the enemies, so you must end swimming at the checkpoint leading to the rotating room. Dash into the rotating room at ground level and retry, and afterwards Kratos should be back on his feet and swimming glitch is over. Sequence break (NG+): skip navigation and Olympia intro cutscene Turn the rotating room until its first stop. Then, from the right hand side of the rotating room you can do a Sorrow Jump up onto a ledge and from there you can go directly to Realm of Hades. This also lets you to skip a trigger close to the rotating room that loads the Olympia intro cutscene later on when you get to the start of Olympia, saving further time. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64_aUEa-gxk Cutscene skip (swimming): you can easily skip the cutscene which shows you the Hades-Olympia portal as your next destination. Other (swimming): at this point, if you're swimming, I suggest you end swimmingness at the climbing wall nearby. Otherwise you'll get stuck at City of Olympia's gate. Skip (NG+): you can skip the short scene before entering Hades-Olympia portal by SJ jumping over it. If you had skipped the portal showing cutscene earlier, this procedure becomes more difficult for some reason - but not impossible. In this case I suggest you Jet Dash over from the save point platform towards the backside of the portal. <City of Olympia> Random: The portal back to Hades does not work. In fact, there's absolutely no collision around it. Cutscene skip (NG+): if you had earlier skipped the trigger in front of the rotating room that loads the Olympia intro cutscene, you will skip it now and Kratos - after falling in unloaded darkness for a few seconds - will be free to move the instant he arrives. Note that because Kratos is "off-camera" the controls will be - for the most part - in reverse. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64_aUEa-gxk Random (swimming): after arriving to Olympia, you lose control of Kratos. The only way to get around that is to skip the intro using the skip above. Even after that, swimming at Olympia is very difficult because of the horrible camera and the fact that when Gaia climbs up the ridge and the screen starts shaking, you again lose control of Kratos. Pretty annoying. Swimming exploration reveals some strange test object floating in nothingness past the Olympia gate. It looks like two cubes with lightning shooting between them...? There's also a collision-less piece of a bridge floating nearby. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of the strange objects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYVVxe0KSZY#t=196 Wasted glitch potential (NG & NG+): can't skip Gaia's arm You can Severe Judgment/Jet Dash to grab a ledge on top of Gaia's hand and proceed from there. However, until the whole ordeal with Gaia is dealt with, including throwing her severed hand off the ledge, the next place will not load. You can't break Gaia's arm without having first seen the cutscene of Gaia asking your help, so you also can't skip that. If you skip Gaia's arm, then go and activate the Olympia door and then retry, upon retry Gaia's hand will be both invisible and invincible. If you already severed it, it will be invisible until you touch it. You can backtrack to the area where you came from to have Gaia climb up the cliff again... but the arm remains indestructible because the game thinks you never saw the intro cutscene with her. Interestingly, when examining the door with Gaia still there breathing down your neck, I sometimes "won" the Door to Olympia fight with the dogs still spawning. Too bad this knowledge probably can't be put to use... well, except maybe in a pacifist run? Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bemqOab3dEk Sequence break (NG+?): You can completely skip the battle at Door to Olympia simply by using Jest Jump in tandem with Jet Dash to get into the cave. If this can be done with a simple CG high jump as well, it can be done on New Game as well, but this is unverified as of now. Another way to skip the fight is to not start the fight at all, then Sorrow Jump against the shield to the left of the door. There is an invisible ledge there Kratos can grab and pull himself up. After having done that, you are out of bounds and free to Jet Dash wherever you want... although the camera will hate you if you try anything crazier than a simple jump beyond the door, so that is recommended. But if you want to try, you can get some extra height by jumping against the double doors and grabbing another invisible ledge there for extra Jet Dash distance. Note that it's not advisable to reach the Centaur fight arena directly from here because a loading trigger for the areas beyond is in the corridor before the City of Olympia-save point. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of the first method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0MNV-gVH5k 2, findlestick's vid of the newer (recommended) method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwFcAXKnRus Other (NG+?): By doing things in a strange order you can get the first Harpy to do all its "cutscene motions", but with Kratos free to move around. If you then grab the harpy during its "cutscene flying motions" Kratos will passively grab it with both hands while flying and will not stab it. Eventually the Harpy will vanish into thin air, and Kratos will fall. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QsRyY-b1Aw#t=217 Speed strategy (NG+): You can Jet Dash through all the sections that normally demand you use a Harpy to get across. Sequence Break (NG+): skipping Perses cutscene v1 and random bits You can skip the Perses cutscene a few different ways. One method is doing a high jump into a Jet Dash from on top of one of those golden chests and then onto an invisible roof above the Harpy crossing. There is a wall of collision that you need to Glide around while on the roof to be able to access the Centaur battle arena. You can leap directly to the Chimera battle from the Harpy crossing rooftop, but nothing interesting happens. You get missing scenery, and annoying skewed camera angles as well as become stuck - until restart. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of the skip route: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kApRgKbOV8 Sequence break (NG+): skipping Perses cutscene v2 Another, more direct way to skip Perses cutscene is to just Jet Dash around it. A reliable setup for doing this is to examine the green chest near the save point to align Kratos, then double jump and - without touching left analog stick at all during this time - Alt. Jet Dash forward for a decent length, then to the left. Camera angle should change and show the next area, and from there you can easily navigate your way on solid ground. One thing to beware, though: if you hit the Perses cutscene trigger while out of bounds, your game will crash. So do your best to prevent that from happening! If you use this setup, you can easily avoid this fate, though. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EQ3S-FzGRA Sequence break (NG): skipping Olympia on New Game (c: findlestick) It's possible to skip the Perses cutscene on New Game as well by using a Harpy to reach the roof level at the end of the 2nd crossing, then jump and grab a difficult-to-hit invisible ledge. After climbing up, you are on the Harpy crossing roof and can go around and jump to the Centaur fight arena as usual. Apparently by first launching the Harpy in air and then doing a normal grab to it Kratos gains more height, making this part of the skip easier to do. As a side effect of skipping the cutscene, there is now a glitched Harpy at the corner close to the Chimera fight room that you can use to get to the next area early, but the procedure is difficult. You need to approach the Harpy out of bounds by slowly moving towards it on the ledge to the right. Close to the Harpy, you must hit it with a melee attack to push it away from the corner or else Kratos and the Harpy get caught by some collision. Then, when grabbing the Harpy you should aim your grab and flight to the left a little to prevent the Harpy from unloading - it tends to do that if you fly to the right too early. Finally, when riding the Harpy you should only press forward on the left analog once every 1,5 seconds or so to get the Harpy to move a longer distance before dying. Done precisely, Kratos should be able to jump and reach the balcony, thus skipping almost everything in Olympia. An alternative that is mostly viable on NG+ is to have Lv. 4 Claws and use US to let Kratos do his second jump and Glide at the end of the Harpy ride. This skip was originally discovered in the GoW III Demo, where it was easier to do since Kratos could do a Glide after riding on a Harpy. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDtnTZ_sEFw 2, findlestick's original vid of doing this skip in the GoW III Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUDQVVM7c3k Sequence break (NG+): You can cross the big chasm with Jet Dash quite easily here, skipping any events related to Chimera, crossbow and Harpies. For another small skip, stay outside bounds after reaching the other side, by for example landing on top of one of the pedestals which line the outside of the wall. From there, Jet Dash to the bridge on the right of screen, and bingo! Depending on how direct your route is, rarely the ledge civilian may not spawn. If that happens, just retry from the last checkpoint and he should appear. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up1jO8uKeg8 Wasted Glitch Potential (NG+): After a high jump (or: from Harpy crossing rooftop) you can Jet Dash across the big chasm and get directly to the ledge where the civilian is or onto the lowermost ledge of the climbing bit which takes you to the Helios arena. Novel as this is, it's useless. When you proceed to the battle arena, Helios is totally absent from the complete cutscene, as are the soldiers that fall from the sky. The Cyclops never appears and the battle never takes place. You then get stuck because the next area is not yet loaded. If you now jump back outside bounds and activate the trigger which loads Helios' appearance (it is on the walkway that has the ladder at the end of it), you do actually get Helios to appear. Unfortunately he is just a prostrate character model whom with you can't interact in any way. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of some of the above things http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kApRgKbOV8 Battle exploit: You can make the Centaur fall out of bounds by getting on top of the block that the harpy was standing on in the Perses cutscene, then shooting Bow shots to provoke him to do his charge attack. If you then successfully win the mini-game, the Centaur will plummet down and die in the chasm. Other: For an unknown reason you can get a glitch at the Chimera battle arena where the floor graphics don't load. It looks like Chimera and Kratos are battling while floating in mid air. Videos: 1, dz1700's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w_MkiopoNo Battle exploit (NG+): You can leave the Chimera Battle by high jumping up on walkable collision that is above the Ballista. From there you can high jump into a Jet Dash and go over the Collision that is at the entrance to the battle arena. (But this is pointless since you can skip this whole fight anyway.) Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QsRyY-b1Aw#t=231 Speed strategy / Other: After the Harpy crossing - to the right side of the screen - there are some 'secret' ledges that Kratos can climb that lead directly to the bridge on the right of screen. It's almost as if this had been an alternate route to get through this area that was abandoned by developers. Regardless, you CAN use it as an alternate route, in a NG run for example. Just steer a Harpy to the right so that you can jump on some floor out of bounds, and from there use the ledges to go to the path leading to Helios. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid showing the secret ledges: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bKom8aq7Aw#t=24 2, findlestick's vid of using ledges for speed purposes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV3A_nT_7Zo#t=51 Speedrun strategy (NG+): Olympia ledge speed route Get on the ladder and do a moderate ladder jump to rise in air. After that carefully Glide on the ledge... but keep Bow active when landing to keep Kratos in his normal state instead of beginning shimmying. If the civilian spawned, you can launch him in air and use a small high jump (for example with Claws grapple) and grab a ledge on top of the civilian. And from there it's just a matter of jumping directly up onto the arena. You may be wondering... why not just use ladder jump to reach the arena without going by the shimmy at all? You get stuck if you do this because there is still a loading trigger on the shimmying path you need to hit to load Helios. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb4K2_0JFlo Speed strategy: after killing the civilian who blocks your path on the ledge, drop down with R1 as soon as possible. This is because Kratos moves faster when hanging from a ledge. Other (NG+): If you do things in completely wrong order, the civilian might re-appear after you've already killed him once. The civilian stands in the usual 'idle' pose for character models that have no animation going on. He does not block Kratos' path, and if Kratos tries to grab him, Kratos gets teleported back a few hundred meters, to the gate which he has to open after crossing the chasm. Incidentally, that was the same spot my last checkpoint had brought me... <Helios> Wasted potential (NG+): You can't destroy the onyx shielders guarding Helios with your Cestus. You can - however - do a simple roll against their shields, and Kratos will penetrate them and end up inside the soldiers' guard formation. While in there, you cannot interact with Helios or the soldiers or harm them in any way. Also, the secret door on the side of the cliff can't be unveiled before Helios has lost his head. In fact, you don't even want to mess up with the secret door before finishing Helios because the door can glitch up and become inoperable afterwards. It's possible to get past the door by doing high jump to the upper ledges and jumping from there, but the areas beyond aren't even loaded at this point! D'oh. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-zxTXgCqeA Other (NG+?): If Kratos is not inside the actual arena when the Cyclops drops from the sky, Kratos will do his animation where he drops to his knees, but the Cyclops will never actually appear. And you can't progress if you hadn't already used a Cyclops to break all the shields of the soldiers. Other (NG+?): If you break the onyx shields of the soldiers, then leave the battle arena and then return back from the normal entrance. When you return, all the soldiers that had shields will begin to "surf" around on their shields along the arena floor. They can only be killed by grab and kill attacks under these conditions. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QsRyY-b1Aw#t=253 Speed strategy: at the section where Helios tries to blind Kratos, by positioning your arm correctly you can get to Helios without Kratos stopping once during the whole trip. Sequence break (NG+): skipping most of Path of Eos v1 There's a very curious collision flaw on the stony ledge above the Path of Eos doorway. Jump up to the ledge, then double jump against a certain spot to boost Kratos very high in the air. From there you can directly Jet Dash ahead to skip nearly all of the Path of Eos. (c: satvara) Videos: 1, satvara's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_omjm1l4ro Sequence break (NG+): skipping most of Path of Eos v2 An alternative way to do this skip is to reveal the large door after Helios. After it has been revealed it gets a lege above it, so do a high jump, grab the ledge and climb up. From the top of the door area, you can Jet Dash directly to where where the Wraiths are, before the Icarus vent. (c: findlestick) Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb4C6SxfF4M <The Path of Eos> Sequence break: you can skip the short intro cutscene if you move through the area fast enough. (c: satvara) Videos: 1, Satvara's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhWFRByy57Y Speed strategy (NG+): By doing a CG high jump into a Jet Dash towards the stone bridge on the right (by using the soldiers near the savepoint), you can skip everything from the the savepoint all the way to the Wraiths. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPbtnM5FWAs Speed strategy: the Harpy fight is not necessary to fight, though targeting the door with HoH might be difficult with all the harpies around. Speed strategy (NG+): instead of using the head to reveal and disappear the door during the Harpy fight, just high jump and grab a ledge above it. From there, Jet Dash to the area past the horizontal climbing rope. (Thus also skipping the rope climb section). Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM2YhP4X1Hk Speed strategy (NG+): you can skip the Pandora cutscene by grabbing a horizontal wooden plank in the roof of the cave after a SJ jump. From there you can Jet Dash directly to the area where the Harpy normally sits. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM2YhP4X1Hk#t=31 Speed strategy (NG+): instead of riding a Harpy, Dash through the air to the next platform. Fight skip: you can glide past the trigger which begins the first fight with Wraiths from the side. (c: Satvara) Videos: 1, satvara's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhWFRByy57Y#t=36 Sequence break: using the technique of "Wraith jump", Kratos can climb on top of the nearby shelf and gain enough height to make it through the ceiling and Glide to the big heat vent. This is only possible if you didn't skip the first Wraith battle a moment ago. (c: satvara) Alternatively, you can (on NG+) do a Severe Judgment jump on the same shelf or grab a secret ledge that is behind the shelf at roof level. You can also leave during the Wraiths battle by doing some form of CG high jump towards the chain. However this method is redundant due to the quicker skips available. Videos: 1, satvara's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhWFRByy57Y#t=45 2, findlestick's vid of the CG high jump tactic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM2YhP4X1Hk#t=66 <The Chain of Balance> Speed strategy (NG+): it's possible to Jet Dash at the lowermost level to cut a few corners when going for the first climbing wall. On the higher level, you can Jet Dash straight to the grapple point. As a bonus, one of the falling rocks is noticeably stuck in air later on, looking silly. Other: sometimes at the end of the 2nd flight part Kratos won't reach the Caverns but instead falls back down again, to his death. If this happens while having infinite health, Kratos breaks out from the Caverns cutscene and starts to fall back down the chain while out of sight. The camera then also starts to go in reverse (back down the chain), RoS speeds this process up. Eventually he will stop at a certain point down the chain, and all you'll hear is Kratos grunting and 'hurring' until restart. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksFXLo5iRE#t=109 <The Caverns> Sweet spot: enemies won't notice you that well on the corners of the box. Sequence break (NG+): it is in fact possible to skip most of this visit to The Caverns by doing a precise Jet Dash. Infinite health is a requirement, though. Better description to come soon... Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-nxQnFPshI Other (NG+): If you shoot the brambles at the first box, and then do a high jump onto the area above the burning brambles, Kratos will grab a ledge and stand up on it. The box that you are supposed to ride on then goes away like normal but without Kratos on it. When the box arrives at its destination, the camera stays fixed on it while Kratos is stuck miles away. You can only hear him moving around while he's stranded even on restart. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksFXLo5iRE#t=133 Other (NG+): you can shoot a pre-emptive Nemesis Rage at the chain the two Minotaurs are about to chop off. During the cutscene, the Minotaurs keep getting hit and the chain is worn out for no reason. Collision flaw: rarely a Minotaur can get stuck inside the large chain in the middle. It flickers while trying to reach Kratos, turning around on the spot. Eventually it can break out again. Wasted potential (NG+): you can Jet Dash to the entrance you'll come to later, but nothing is loaded there. Sequence break (NG+): skip meeting Hermes The first Hermes cutscene can be skipped by going around the cutscene trigger. You can either walk on the edge of the box from the left or just Jet Dash to the platform near the chain. After that, you need Sorrow Jump to jump on top of the chain, since the part you can climb onto starts higher than you'd think. Unfortunately this skip is not possible on NG because of the last jump. There is no way to gain such height at this point in the game yet. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1wOjLouwRY <Chamber of the Flame> Other (NG+): if you jump back on the chain and visit the mountain screen, then come back, the game will freeze in one of the Hermes cutcenes. Wasted potential (NG+): using a wall breach to the right of the locked door, you can go out of bounds and see what's behind it early. Unfortunately nothing is loaded there at the moment... Random (NG+): This is the point from where you will skip straight to the end of the game if you had performed the "Early chain break" earlier on. After climbing up the chain, you'll notice that you can instantly access the upstairs area and turn the crank all the way. Since the game thinks you are turning the crank for the second time, the game will then load the cutscene of Kratos pulling up the Labyrinth. And after that, you get to fight Zeus... Sequence break (NG+): go to Hermes early You can skip having to reveal the images on the wall with Head of Helios and also the entire Hermes conversation by high jumping onto the broken pillar that Hermes is supposed to break, and from there you can jump to the balcony area before the climbing grapple wall, everything after that loads normally. This skip should only be done after seeing the Athena cutscene at the blue flame. If not, the game crashes either at the swinging grapple, or if you skip it, at the ledge that leads around the corner of the building. To remedy this, its important to see the cutscene at the flame first for everything to load normally. Something untested: these days it's possible to skip that ledge as well. Would the game not crash afterwards if you did this, perhaps even allowing a skip of the blue flame cinematic? Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksFXLo5iRE Cutscene Skip? (NG+): It's possible to jump over the trigger that plays the Hermes conversation where he's flicking a coin in the air, by using Sorrow Jump. But that trigger is also active near the area where you would need to high jump to grab a ledge to get to the next area, making the jump extremely difficult. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8I29MbuHSc#t=432 Speedrun Strategy: Method 1: At the grapple wall (just before the swinging grapple), you can roll at the top of the grapple wall and fall down its side, from there you can Glide over the swinging grapple and make it to the bridge rather swiftly. If done correctly, you skip some climbing and also the small cutscene of the rock breaking a part of the bridge. If you have a problem with Kratos not jumping when you need him to, try to use your double jumps a bit earlier during the fall. Method 2 (NG+): This is a much faster way, just Jet Dash from the top of the building where the rail is broken and directly to the bridge. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid (method 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJxC3SMekIo 2, findlestick's vid (method 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Bz-a9reA0 Wasted Glitch Potential (NG+): If you do the above mentioned skip (with the Jet Dash) but go too far past the point where the first rock hits the bridge, you'll skip a loading trigger. This results in you being able to move quickly across the entire length of the bridge without it falling, you can hear civilians screaming, but cannot see them. You can still climb the ledges (with strange camera angles), but the floor of the next area never loads. Speed strategy (NG+): at the end of the bridge area, high jump over the wooden post and simply Jet Dash to the next section. Make sure to land near the start of the next walkable section, otherwise you skip a vital loading trigger and you will get stuck. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrsUCW9R9E8#t=270 Speedrun Strategy (NG+): At the grapple that Hermes hangs from you can skip a cutscene and some lever pulling simply by Jet Dashing from the platform where the lever is, and directly to the next bridge you jump to. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Bz-a9reA0#t=13 Other (NG+): At the collapsing bridge with the grapple points, you can actually beat Hermes to the door that he enters. You can do this by Jet Dashing from near the end of the bridge and making a "Bee line" to the door. However, the door has an invisible wall of collision that Kratos cannot go past. At that stage, Hermes runs past Kratos. Sequence break (NG+): From the ladder to the left of where Hermes enters, you can quickly rocket up and get to the upper area by using Ladder Jump. A good consequence of this is that you skip a loading trigger, and as a result you don't have to see Hermes run across the tightrope towards the big Athena statue. Everything loads normally after doing all this. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iAOcUJ54EE#t=6 Other (NP?): if you use ladder jump to skip over certain loading triggers on the way to the catapult, you then cause the catapult to malfunction in various ways. For example, when you rotate the catapult the game will suddenly load 2 entire catapults in 2 different positions. One is loaded in the position it was before rotating the catapult, the other in the position after the rotation. These 2 catapults are superimposed onto each other, one has collision and a functional R1 prompt. The other catapult has no collision nor is it functional. If you R1 the catapult that works - Kratos will do his normal mini-game - except that at the end of the animation (where he clings to the flying boulder) the next cutscene won't load, and instead Kratos breaks out and suddenly ends up back at the two catapults. From there you can R1 the catapult endlessly and keep breaking out of the full animation. Or R1 the catapult and spam buttons, this will cause the next 'Athena Statue' custscene to play and everything then loads as normal, or Kratos breaks out just as the cutscene kicks in. This gets you stuck, because Kratos is still back at the location where the catapult was (but now ALL graphics but Kratos are unloaded) and Kratos ends up falling into unloaded nothingness! Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8I29MbuHSc#t=463 Wasted Glitch Potential (NG+): At the catapult that Kratos uses to get to Hermes. You can get inside the catapult area early (before it's rotated in Hermes' direction) simply by pulling the crank almost to the end. And then quickly Jet Dashing to the opening. Unfortunately, you can't shoot the catapult in some strange direction because the R1 function is not active at that time. Videos: 1, findle's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksFXLo5iRE#t=154 <Grand Vestibule> Wasted skip potential (NG+): you can't skip Hermes, because a few rooms away there exists naught but unloaded nothingness. Cutscene skip (NG+): by Sorrow Jumping, you can go above the cutscene in which Hermes confronts Kratos, saying "I will not be bested by a mortal!". It can be activated later on for some ghostly fun - the audio plays, but no one is there. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of the results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtm4n4ohIvs#t=192 Speed strategy (NG+): If you go to the Grand Vestibule save point during the fight with Hermes (possible with Boots) and make a checkpoint, after retry Hermes stands completely still, takes less damage to defeat, and you skip his death speech as an added bonus. You might be able to stop Hermes in strange positions or locations for even more glitch potential. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0v0POXk0jQ Wasted glitch potential: can't spare Hermes It's possible to leave the Hermes battle arena early by doing a Sorrow Jump from the very left (foreground), and land on a ledge. From that ledge you can simply Jet Dash out-of-bounds and get around the invisible wall of collision that normally stops your progress. You can then get to the next/upper area by using satvara's "collision breach method" that can normally be used to skip the Hermes Boots tutorial (see below for more info). This would have been a good speedrun strategy...however this is all in vain because the next area is still not loaded at this late stage. Sorry Hermes... Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iAOcUJ54EE#t=73 Wasted potential: During the Boots of Hermes tutorial fight, the wooden wall can't be traversed using the Boots. Sequence break: you can skip the Boots tutorial fight (and a small scene after it), using a wall breach and a secret ledge at the top of the statue's head. This can also be done by high jumping and grabbing the ledge of the wooden structure at the savepoint, or by simply doing a Jest Jump up to any of the higher platforms. (c: satvara) Videos: 1, Satvara's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWCBAnEBdGY Wasted potential: you can jump over the outdoors fight trigger in front of the Upper Chamber of the Flame, but at the price of the Chamber itself not loading. <Upper Chamber of the Flame> Sequence break: skip Music Puzzle You can skip the entire music puzzle by jumping out-of-bounds from the top of the cylindrical stairs and by falling under the floor near the gate of the puzzle. This lands you at the savepoint that's before Hercules. The Hercules' area is not yet loaded, to remedy this, just climb the stairs and go to the end of the hall and then return. After an extremely long pause, the Hercules area will load normally. Another variation to doing this skip is by doing a wall breach at the bottom of the stairs instead. You have to do a small high jump and Jet Dash towards the foreground from the foot of the stairs (where's the chest). At a certain spot the wall gives way and Kratos flies out of bounds. But this method is slightly riskier because the camera does not always cooperate, and this collision flaw is more difficult to utilize than the one at the top of the stairs. There is a disturbingly long pause again later when you climb to the Upper Chamber via the big chain as well. You can turn the crank at the blue flame later in the game, even tho you skip the music puzzle. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of the first method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o11G2hMeOc 2, findlestick's vid of the second method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcviPm9cU04 Speed Strategy: At the music puzzle you can get up to the top area that has the turning mechanisms without having to use the air vents on the sides, instead you can just do a Jet Dash ("Jet Ascension") against the front of the music puzzle and Kratos will quickly rise up. Wasted potential (NG+): you can skip the scene of the elevator doors closing by doing Sorrow Jump from on top of the chest. However, the area leading to the Forum will not load if you do this! Wasted potential (NG+): after completing music puzzle, you can visit the chain from which you climbed earlier, and after returning, the stairway and the pillars have no collision at first. But hitting a certain trigger on the lower floor will load the collision back up again. Anyway, the game is prone to crashing during the upcoming cutscenes or if you try to access The Forum after doing this, so... don't. Wasted potential (NG+): if you decided to skip Hermes, it's recommended you do not activate his cutscenes after returning here later in the game because that will only cause trouble for you. Hermes appearance cutscene itself is glitched, with Hermes absent from it. After that, going to turn the big crank at the flame will load a wrong cutscene! Instead of the Three Judges holding on to the chain, you'll get the same cutscene as before with Athena chatting with Kratos. After that, Kratos will get stuck in place forever. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksFXLo5iRE#t=31 <The Forum & Hercules> Wasted potential: you can't take a Wraith with you to the Hercules fight arena as it will unspawn when the map changes at the bottom of the stairs. Speedrun Strategy: You can skip having to walk down the spiralling stairs simply by jumping out-of-bounds along side the stairs. This will land you right next to the savepoint. Sequence break: Skip Hercules (c: findlestick) It's possible to skip the long cutscene with Hercules as well as 99.99% of the fight! Firstly, the cutscene can be skipped by high jumping up onto a ledge above the arena entrance and then Jet Dashing around the cutscene trigger quite widely. If you then go near the front of the arena while out of bounds, you hit a trigger that makes 7 brightly colored geometric shapes appear on the arena floor. After returning to the arena, you'll find out that 6 of these shapes have a R1-prompt to them, and they almost act like a remote controller for the fight. What each R1-prompt does: 1. Black one on the far left: Resets the entire fight from scratch. 2. Orange one on the left: Resets the "1st phase of Hercules". 3. Green one in the middle: Resets "Hercules without a helmet" phase. 4. Purple one on the right: Resets "Hercules without helmet or gauntlets" phase. 5. Black one on the far right: Starts the final Hercules cutscene. 6. Orange one at the entrance: Opens a hole in the floor collision, but nothing seems to load under there until you kill Hercules. 7. Orange at the back: This one has no prompt (at this date). Note: Once a particular R1 prompt is activated, all other R1 prompts will no longer appear. But you can reset these boxes back during the battle by leaving the battle arena and returning via Jest Jump/Combat Grapple jumping using any of the undead enemies. (Remember, the geo-boxes will only appear when you reach certain out-of-bounds areas. It's recommended to exit towards the southern side of the battle arena and return). So, the fastest way to skip this fight would be to skip the Hercules cutscene trigger, and then press the Black geo-box on the right to make Hercules go directly to his final mini-game battle (where he flips the arena up). This can be done on NG too because a RoS high jump is enough to land on the invisible ledge above the doorway. Videos: 1, findlestick's original vid (NG+): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqbO0eLHLKA 2, AKheon's setup of the skip (NG): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lBup1EQwPQ Other: glitching the Hercules fight using the geometric shapes Some interesting combination of glitches can be done with the cutscene skip and the geometric shapes. For example, it's possible to drag Hercules all the way to the savepoint during the 1st phase of Hercules, if you had earlier skipped the Hercules cutscene where the gate normally gets closed. There is a boundary in that hallway where strange things can happen when Kratos and Hercules interact with each other while crossing it. Hercules can also be made to breakout from his rock throwing animation by R1'ing a geo-box during his throw, this will cause the rock to land and remain on the arena. If you then happen to make Hercules restart his rock throwing phase after all this - and damage him enough to go and grab a rock - he will either: (a) Grab a rock from a wall like he normally would. (b) Go to the wall and try to grab a rock where there no longer is a one, this causes him to just run aimlessly against a wall forever. (c) He will detect the rock that is on the arena floor (due to the previous breakout) and he will very strangely bury his entire body into the arena floor and grab the rock and throw it. At times he will be standing up very high in mid air when he throws this rock. You can also make all of the enemies including Hercules drop down an open hole near the entrance of the arena if you had earlier R1'ed the orange geo-box near the entrance. Videos: 1, findle's vid (of each geo-box R1 functions) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shrvbb2YocA 2, findle's vid (of some of the glitches above) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si6DeEnGlQQ Random: There's no collision over where Hera and Hercules are staying, so if you try to go there you just fall through the floor. However, if you skipped the Hercules cutscene earlier and then trigger the start of the game with the geometric shapes, there seems to be some collisions that you can stand on next to Hercules up on the Podium that Hera watches from. You can attack Hercules, but of course no damage can be inflicted on him at this stage. Random: tidbits from around the fight After the second time Hercules becomes impaled into spikes, he loses his helmet and then does an attack which destroys all Sentries of the area. But I've heard reports of some Sentries suriving all the way into the final phase of this fight. At the end of second phase, Hercules stuns Kratos momentarily and turns away to brag at Hera. If there's something that deals damage for a long time on the battlefield (like Nemesis Rage bolt) Kratos might wake up from the stun only to notice Hercules is about to plant a fist in his face. As Kratos steals Hercules' weapons from him, if you keep L1 pressed down after QTE ends, Kratos gets to keep his old weapon of choice at least a while longer during the fight. Random: For those squeamish of violence, you can opt to not punch Hercules in the face at all. Eventually the game automatically makes Kratos punch Hercules so that they both fall through the floor. Hercules' face will be completely smashed regardless at the very end, and this is some seconds slower than just punching the guy. <Sewers> Sequence break: It's possible to go around the exit gate by activating an easy swimming glitch here, but the teleport trigger taking you to the next area is not there until you have pulled the exit switch. You can still do the skip, but you have to manually swim quite a long distance to reach the next map like this. For precise directions, do this. First swim through the exit tunnel to load a new camera angle. Enter menu for a second to clean up the messy OoB background residue to see things clearer, then start swimming up and towards the foreground for over a minute... also a little to the right. Eventually you see the next map's objects and lights floating in the distance, so just swim there and you're set. This skip allows you to keep regen magic if you have it. While doing this skip is slower than the other regen magic / fight skip listed below, it is extremely easy and reliable to do, and looks crazy... might be useful in a single segment run if you want to play it safe. So far it's not possible to do additional sequence breaks at Poseidon's Chamber while swimming, so you have to end the swimming at the entrance. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkydTBsFnTk Regen magic (and fight skip): When approaching the Nemean Roar tutorial battle room, you can stay to the left-hand side of the corridor and at the very end do a high jump towards the switch. Keep Jet Dashing 'til you breach the wall. From there you can operate the exit switch early, prompting a horde of onyx shielders to appear like usual. Smash the onyx shielders' shields, so that they turn normal, then "Jest Jump" or CG high jump using one of them, all the while avoiding activating the regen magic battle trigger. Jet Dash to the exit afterwards. (c: satvara) This allows you to not only keep regenerating magic (until Nemesis Whip tutorial at least, but that too can be skipped), but you are able to switch weapons at will (because you skipped the part which locks Kratos' weapon to Cestus). Videos: 1, satvara's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8u7K5lBV_k Random: If you activate the regen magic battle while having the horde of onyx shielders around, the actual regen magic fight will have maybe 3 or 4 enemies, then their spawning stops. This causes you to get stuck, because the blue walls never dissipate around the room after having won. Speedrun Strategy: After the Cestus tutorial, you can easily jump over the shielded soldiers by doing an ascension followed by a simple Dash. <Poseidon's Chamber> Collision flaw: you can get outside bounds right at the start by finding two chests in the foreground and doing a high jump from on top of them towards the camera. Kratos is able to climb a ledge there. Sequence break: by using the aforementioned ledge, you can jump and Jet Dash over the intro cutscene & fight. You can Dash all the way up to the watery room with spikes, but it's more difficult than landing inside the preceding corridor. In this case you skip meeting Poseidon Princess, but this is not a real time save: upon returning, you'll still stumble upon the cutscene. But at least it looks glitched (with Princess absent) for maximum mayhem. This skip is possible on NG as well, but you need to squeeze everything out of the height of your jump. First do a "slightly higher double jump" and follow it up with a RoS high jump. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid (NG strategy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFS3HVe0oGM Wasted glitch potential: after pulling the crank for the first time, you can try to Jet Dash through the temporarily open exit gate... but there's collision in front of it. Collision flaw: you can access Poseidon Princess' room early by jamming Kratos between the pillar and the side of the gate in front of the room. Do some Gliding, and if you're lucky, Kratos will slam down on his stomach as he ends up inside the room. This has not come in handy so far because trying to use the blue portal at this stage will only cause Kratos to fall into his demise in the spike pool, and it isn't possible to leave the room any other way either. Wasted glitch potential: it's possible to reach the last area of Poseidon's Chamber early, but you won't see the Pandora cutscene nor will the next area load. It seems that the trigger for the Pandora cutscene is in the girl getting crushed... but it's unknown thus far what is the trigger for the next area loading. Some sequence break might still be possible when we know more. Wasted glitch potential: getting swimming in the small circular opening seems impossible because the collision always pushes Kratos inside the hole if you try to access it from outside. Speed strategy: you can get to the first switch in the water spike room by doing Jet Dash from the stairs. Random (swimming): pulling the switch that spawns Feral Hounds will freeze Kratos in place. But Kratos will regain movement if you retry from checkpoint. Wasted Glitch Potential: At the dog kicking puzzle, it seems that you can't Jet Dash to the portal under the lowering floor on first arrival, due to collision in front of it. But it doesn't matter anyway since you can't use the portal in Poseidon Princess room without the Princess dying until the lowering platform is at a correct level. Random (swimming): you can play the Feral Hound part surprisingly far in while swimming. The Hounds can be lured to jump through the portal by their own volition, and eventually when the platform is low enough you can go and fetch Poseidon's Princess to get her on the platform. Unfortunately after that point Kratos freezes on the spot again and you can't proceed. Random (swimming): the cutscene where Kratos frees Poseidon Princess can glitch up visually if Kratos is swimming. His animations happen at an angle and he can completely miss Poseidon Princess this way. Random: on the wall there is a painting of a wimpy looking Kratos fighting an indifferent looking Ares, and a painting of wimpy Kratos killing "Icarus" (Actally, this Icarus painting is there twice! But the second one is placed off-camera since they never considered that anyone would ever see the replica painting.) The finer details of these paintings can be better appreciated thanks to swimming glitch. Trophy exploit: Killing the endlessly respawning dogs at this dog kicking puzzle allows you to get the "Hitman Trophy" in addition to racking up some orbs from combo bonuses. videos: 1, vettefan88's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_AswCRLYEw Other: the lowering platform can be fooled into rising all the way up even with 4 dogs on it by touching it very quickly and then jumping away. Wasted potential / Untested: if you got 4 Hounds on the platform, then escaped the big room somehow and entered the Poseidon Princess room from the wrong side and used the portal in her room, you'd probably skip the cutscene of Kratos freeing the Princess. However, so far there is no realistic way to accomplish this... Random: if you return to Poseidon Princess room during the fight on the moving platform, some dogs will occasionally disappear, perhaps by falling outside bounds through the portal hole. Once when I did this, on returning to the platform Kratos just fell down to the spikes - too many dogs had disappeared since the last time Kratos was there. Sequence break: Towards the end of the Dog Kicking puzzle (just after the girl runs through the portal for the last time). You can completely skip the battle with the 2 Bronze Taloses, simply by doing an ascension from the top of the floor that moves up/down, and then Jet Dashing directly to the exit. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFZx6E1bNds Speed strategy (NG+): you can skip the last fight before setting the girl to her demise by having Hephaestus' Ring turned on. Kratos turns the wheel so fast he manages to get everything done before enemies even notice him. By the way, during the actual cutscene Kratos is invincible to damage, so you don't have to worry about enemies interrupting Kratos. <Upper Gardens> Sequence Break: skip Cronos When you reach the Upper Gardens you can skip the entire bridge puzzle and in the process you skip the entire Cronos section. You also skip getting the Nemesis Whip, which is sort of a bother on NG since doing some of the highest jumps becomes more difficult. But with NG+ thats no concern. (c: satvara) On NG+, you can also skip the entire Cronos section simply by activating the bridge with Whip, since you already have it. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgU0biGsLro Random (swimming): If you have swimming glitch activated while in this area, you can see the Olympian Gardens directly below. But it's not the "real" Olympian Gardens, it's a simplistic/basic prototype of it. (A bit like "Alternate Steeds" in GoW2, for those of you familiar with this glitch). <Aphrodite's Chamber> Wasted glitch potential: it's possible to use Sorrow Jump to grab a ledge high above the closed Portal and jump into the portal itself. But the portal is not functional at this time. <The Forge & Tartarus> Swimming glitch: if you want to explore Tartarus/Gates of Tisiphone, Aphrodite's Chamber, Poseidon's Chamber, Daedalus' Study, Olympian Gardens, The Caverns and so on while swimming, you ought to do swimming glitch here in the same way as detailed earlier on in the FAQ (reach the water tunnel under The Forge outside bounds, hit the water surface, then just swim out). Note 1: if you do this swimming glitch at this stage of the game, the portal to Aphrodite will NOT let you through at first for some reason. So you have to get behind/next to the portal (while out-of-bounds) and hit a certain trigger while avoiding another. Only then will the game let you get through the portal! But once you do that - strangely - the game will let you go through back and forth like normal. Note 2: if you want to take this swimming glitch beyond the Daedalus Study, I recommend going there before getting swimming glitch and pulling the lever. Namely because Kratos gets stuck if he pulls levers while swimming. Videos: 1, findlestick's first vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z05VMpdqQ8M 2, findlestick's second vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58EUNH7_r2Y Random (swimming): as you enter the door to Tartarus - Hephaestus unloads the instant the door is closed. This was discovered thanks to swimming glitch. Wasted glitch potential: the watery looking textures behind the chest and other areas do not count as 'water', so getting swimming glitch by using them is not possible. Other (swimming): if you have swimming glitch activated and the undead soldiers try to "pack rush" and grab Kratos, they comically bounce off him due to Kratos' swimmingness. The Centaur also never tries to engage Kratos in the mini-game due to this. <Gates of Tisiphone> Wasted glitch potential (swimming): if you have swimming glitch activated, it's not possible to get the area behind the door/puzzle to load without at least starting the puzzle. Which cannot be done while Kratos is swimming, he will not R1 the chains. However a way was later found to open the gates and then return to this area with swimming glitch intact, this is covered later on below just after "Forge re-visit'... Other: findle has reported to have breached the Gates of Tisiphone by high jumping and then Alt-Jet Dashing around from on top of the chests on the upper left hand side of the puzzle. It looked like the next area was loaded but he fell out-of-bounds and has not been able to replicate it since. <Cronos> Other: re-visiting Cronos with swimming glitch It's possible to return to Cronos after having offed him once... only to find him alive and well! The procedure itself is detailed below, in the section The Forge re-visit, but the unique and bewildering effects this exploit has on Cronos are detailed here. Once you reach Gaia's hand, you will see Cronos suddenly appear standing far in the background (his back towards the previous savepoint). He stands there inactively asides from just panting, you can swim to him and explore him. Inbetween his feet there are 4 orbs floating in nothingness, one of the orbs has - what look like - shadows of human souls on it, another orb looks similar to planet Earth, and another has a blue flame shooting out of it. None of these orbs have R1 prompts (unlike some other out-of-bounds objects in this game, f.e at Hercules battle and outside Daedalus). You will also hear the sound of Onyx breaking mysteriously when you get near Gaia's hand. It also happens each time you restart from the hand checkpoint. When activating the R1 prompt, the cutscene with Cronos will start...but sometimes you actually see - normally unseen footage - of Crono's face close up before he picks up Gaia's hand. It looks kinda creepy since you are not expecting it, and especially since his face slowly emerges out of a totally black background. It's almost as if you have caught the game with "it's pants down" as it's preparing Cronos for the start of his cutscene. Unfortunately the game won't let you progress beyond the first mini-game with Cronos while having swimming glitch, because you can't activate Head of Helios when Kratos is in his swimming state so you get stuck until restart. You can also re-visit Cronos without swimming. So what happens is that Kratos can get past that Head of Helios part, only to find out that Cronos lacks collision... Kratos will fall down the instant the cutscenes are over. After a while Kronos shifts into - what looks like - his next phase, but by then Kratos is down near his feet and stuck there. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid (revisiting while swimming): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBxzi-qY3_0 2, findlestick's vid (revisiting without swimming): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8I29MbuHSc#t=294 Wasted glitch potential: At the first phase of Cronos' arm (below his wrist), you can do a Jet Dash towards the Camera just as his arm becomes vertical. You actually leave his wrist completely but at this date it does seem that you can't skip to a next section, or to return to a previous section (Before Cronos). Speed strategy: You can "Jet/collision ascension" up between Cronos' fingers as he brings them down to "squash you like a pest" so that you are at the top of his fingers as soon as his hand has come down. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QsRyY-b1Aw#t=136 Wasted glitch potential: At the first swinging grapple, you can swing and Jet Dash and go behind that belt (with the onyx section). There is walkable collision there, and you can use it as a battle exploit by killing the enemies that are on the other side of it, while being totally safe. Unfortunately, after you kill them it seems - at this date - impossible to return to the other side due to invisible walls of collision. Other: If you Jet Dash away from Cronos' palm before Cronos splats them together. Kratos will appear from in between Cronos' palms, no matter how far away Kratos was at the time of Cronos smacking his palms together. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QsRyY-b1Aw#t=147 Wasted glitch potential: There is walkable collision above Cronos' shoulder that you can CG high jump to. From there you can walk around behind the metal areas on Cronos' shoulder. Then you can Jet Dash to Cronos' face where Kratos can walk around and inside of Cronos' face. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QsRyY-b1Aw#t=167 Wasted glitch potential: If you can get past the blue onyx on Cronos' chin, you can walk on Cronos' face early (you then get a funny view of Cronos' mouth and nose). But there is no chance of sparing Cronos at this date by doing this. Other: as Cronos is dying and doing a faceplant, if you Jet Dash you can end up flying over the blue onyx stones and the cutscene trigger of Hephaestus making Kratos the Whip. Later on Aphrodite's Chamber's door also lacks a R1-prompt. (c: 0ZAZU) Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8I29MbuHSc#t=403 <The Forge re-visit> Sequence break (NG+): it's possible to leave through the portal and skip the cutscene where Kratos takes the whip. It can be done by High Jumping/Jet Dashing over the 'electric post' on the right (one of the posts that you normally electrify to kill Hephaestus). From there you can do a Death-collision jump up to the platform and enter Aphrodite's Chamber. (It might also be possible to get up to that platform by doing a Sorrow Jump over the electric post on the right of screen). Note: If you then want to leave Aphrodite's Chamber through the door near the savepoint, you must get swimming glitch at the Forge first because the door has no R1 prompt at this stage. However all of this is useless for any speedrun because it all takes way too long to do. If you then re-enter the Forge, the game unloads the Hephaestus-giving-Kratos- the-whip phase, and instead reloads an earlier phase of Hephaestus. This also reloads Tartarus (for the most part) behind the door that has the Hades emblem. It's then possible to get beyond that door and enter Tartarus if you have swimming glitch activated. From there it is possible to swim through the Gates of Tisiphone and reload Cronos again after already having killed him. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBxzi-qY3_0 Infinite red orbs: as Hephaestus is handing you the Whip, don't pick it up. Instead go and save. Now, each time you retry there's a stream of orbs flying at you, and you can touch the save point between retries to keep the orbs every single time too. You make a little under 100 orbs per each retry, so it's not a super fast method of getting infinite orbs, but practically effortless. Something like this can happen at Labyrinth as well... wonder what causes it? Other: if you fail the QTE and Kratos gets electrified, you can keep delaying the inevitable by turning Hades' Helm on again and again. The Whip will move on its own over Kratos' fried corpse if you continue this long enough. Wasted glitch potential: You can get regenerating magic at the Nemesis Rage tutorial by CG high jumping out of the tutorial. Unfortunately, you get stuck with the Whip for the rest of the game, meaning that you won't be able to break any onyx at areas that it is required in order to progress. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn2MmRVUPSs Speedrun strategy: Instead of opening the door that leads to Daedalus' Study, you can Jet Dash left through the wall. This will leave you inside the end of the next hallway and you save a few seconds. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztfW8fzmsj8 <Daedalus' Study> Wasted glitch potential: Under rare circumstances, the ballista can become completely dislodged from the ground. It can then be moved around freely around the room and even pushed into one of the portals, this has no effect on the ballista. Many untested possibilities open up. Are there any further glitching possibilities using this? What happens if you drag the ballista back out of the Study and fire it around near the bridge? Or firing it directly from in front of the Portal at ground level like it is not supposed to happen? Or drag the ballista around while the rope is already through the portals? Videos: 1, K3V408's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe27W0lilYA Other: you can reach the yellow portal which you'd normally reach with Boots with a Severe Judgment high jump. Collision flaw: at the upper balcony with a switch, there's some strange collision to the sides of the portal. Wasted potential: you can skip this whole area doing a stylish sequence break, grabbing a secret ledge on top of the gate with the Zeus seal, and getting out of bounds that way, but the next area is not loaded if you do it this way. And I don't think it would've saved much time because shooting the crossbow is quite simple. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyeyBhNBZJg#t=109 Other: it's possible to get out of bounds at at least 3 areas in the Study. One is by Sorrow Jumping over the yellow portal at the top. The second is by rolling next to the golden chest that is at the upper left of screen, and the third way is to make Kratos jump and land on some pots that are to the left hand side of the blue portal that is right of screen. If you jump on those pots and spam X, it's possible (but extremely difficult) to get Kratos out-of-bounds, left of the column that's there. Wasted glitch potential: the puddles of water on the ground are not 'proper' water, so you cannot get swimming glitch when you touch it out-of-bounds. Random (swimming): if you have swimming glitch activated and go out-of-bounds to the left of the Daedalus study, you will see a strange geometric 'Green house' floating in nothingness. It has an angled roof structure, plus what look like handles on all sides. To top it off it has 4 geometric cones attached on all sides of it. This house shimmers oddly as if it's graphics were bordering on being 'unstable'. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBxzi-qY3_0#t=584 Random: if you have swimming glitch activated and go out-of-bounds to the right/back of the Daedalus study, you will see two extremely large geometric golden pillars that resemble 'cricket stumps'. The large golden pillars on the left have a functional R1 prompt at it's very top, it you activate this prompt, those pillars (on the left) suddenly rise up all on their own complete with an actual cutscene. The golden pillars on the right do not have an R1 prompt, but should you approach it, you will suddenly get a cutscene of what looks like an old video tape glide through the air towards the Daedalus Study. We have no idea what functions all these mysterious objects serve, it would be interesting to chat with a game designer/developer to find out what these objects do. If you are a game designer/developer please contact us so we can have some idea. (If you worked on the GoW series...even better!) Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58EUNH7_r2Y#t=41 Other: if you have swimming glitch activated and Kratos is in the neutral 'Sled-riding' pose, and then goes through the blue portal that is at the lower/right of screen. He will emerge from the upper/right portal doing a 'rope-climbing' animation and he will then stay in that rope-climbing pose. He will then swim around in this position...but every now and then he will actually do his rope climbing animation while swimming around. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58EUNH7_r2Y <Olympus Gardens> Random: after sliding down the pole and going further into the corridor, the previous area unloads. At this point you can go and get back on the pole using a high jump... but it seems you can't go out of bounds here since the walls enclosing the pole are still too high. Other (swimming): if you have swimming glitch activated, go to the end of the hallway that leads to the Olympian Gardens and then go right. If you do, there is a massive 3D area of lush looking green trees and mountains that can be explored. This area is easily 10 to 15 times larger than the actual Olympian Gardens itself! As you swim through it, it feels exactly as if you are in a totally different God of War game... (maybe Kratos is having a 'lucid dream'?) Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58EUNH7_r2Y#t=156 Cutscene skip: you can skip the 22-seconds long cutscene which shows you a general view of the place by jumping over it. This is possible on NG without upgrades or Whip as well if you use "slightly higher double jump" followed by a RoS jump and Jet Dashing. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of doing this skip on NG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R8kx0P6To8 Cutscene skip and other glitches: a Tale of Two Heras After much headache, a way to skip the first Hera cutscene was finally found. Do Sorrow Jump towards the left-side corner that forms as the corridor ends and the outdoors area begins. Keep Jet Dashing towards the corner. Eventually, Kratos clips through and with Jet Dash reaches the garden safely. This is very difficult or at least seemingly random to do... You don't have to worry about having to skip Hera's Chalice scene, because it doesn't occur like this. Consequently, it means that the bizarre way of skipping this Garden (has its own chapter later on) is not available if you do this. Now you are able to do some never-before-seen glitches at the Garden as well. For one, you have two Hera models: the one at the entrance, and another at the second half of the garden. You can move the first model around by pushing it (doing Cestus magic towards it, for example), but it's arduous. And the camera angles at the Satyr corridor are totally atrocious. Regardless, if you manage to push the first model all the way to the bowl which you will eventually have to dump Hera's corpse into, it too will get a circle prompt above its head. Congratulations, there are now two corpses you can carry around... Strangely enough, the first model can't be dumped into the bowl because an invisible wall near the bowl blocks it. You can also push the first model to the exit of the Garden, but not much can be done there. You could also try to glitch the cutscene itself, although you don't have much to work with because if you didn't activate a certain trigger at the stairway leading to the cutscene (before doing this skip!), Kratos just freezes but no cutscene ever starts. Same thing happens if you wander too far inside the garden before activating the trigger. Also, skipping this scene causes no enemies to spawn, so you can't try to glitch things with them either. Videos: 1, "tale of two Heras", AKheon's vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO30rNrjUPo Random: if you have swimming glitch activated, go high above the Olympian Gardens. You will see 5 sets of bizzare geometric golden loops rotating into each other in a very interesting way. Oh... and there is also a corpse floating high up in mid air all by itself nearby aswell. (Note: These object are there only sometimes, I think they appear/disappear when certain triggers are crossed/skipped). Incidently...the corpse is located at the same area that Kratos gets teleported to (initially) when he is broken out from the cutscene where he picks up Hera's Chalice... Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58EUNH7_r2Y#t=505 Random: if you have swimming glitch activated and explore underneath the Olympian Gardens, you will see some white block-like objects that look like discarded game-design elements. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58EUNH7_r2Y#t=302 Cutscene skip: you can skip the cutscene of Kratos picking up Hera's Chalice by doing a CG high jump or JJ using one of the enemies that spawn nearby. If you extend the jump using bow height gain, you can get to the yard with the ladder using this trick. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlOaNgjb0gQ Sequence break: strange way to skip Olympus Gardens Due to a very odd glitch which occurs if Kratos is hit by an enemy during the pre-scripted Hera's Chalice cutscene, you can completely skip this area without problems. In order to set up the glitch, you got to first skip Hera's Chalice cutscene, then approach its trigger from the "wrong side". The enemies that spawn will follow you all the way to the cutscene area, giving you a chance to start this glitch. Ok, so once Kratos is hit, he will re-appear at a completely different area (long before the camera even shows his new location). The place Kratos ends up at may be the unloaded Study you passed through earlier. Kratos will stay put for the remainder of the cutscene, but the first attack you do afterwards has Kratos turn slanted indefinitely! Definitely strange. The best use for this strange state is doing Crushing Strike (air) using the Cestus - Kratos begins flying horizontally, and very conveniently almost towards The Caverns entrance. This flight lasts endlessly, so you got to cut it off using Rage of Sparta. From there Jet Dashing to The Caverns entrance is not a big deal. Videos: 1, AKheon's original vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq_A7kYejNk 2, Findlestick's vid showing this trick from a clearer angle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwiBHoaJkn8 Speed strategy: you can get on the bridge early by doing a Severe Judgment jump (and Dashing). From on top of the bridge, you can avoid opening the gate and climbing the ladder there by jumping over an invisible wall towards the background. You can end up all the way to the area where the first bowl is. Speedrun Strategy: You can completely skip the Satyr battle simply by high jumping/dashing over the loading trigger. And the Satyrs never load. A quicker way is to get youself stuck behind the green chest before the Satyr section. This will cause you to be pushed through the wall and directly to the pushable button that's on the ground. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid of the second way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7WdsDQKMco Trigger skip: after passing Satyrs, the cutscene in which the gate closes behind you can be jumped over. Sequence break: skipping the rest of Olympus Gardens Push the moving pedestal towards a wall so that the high end is against the wall. The game may allow Kratos to get through the wall this way. Doing this near the exit allows you to just jump to the pathway that leads you to the next area. Note: it's recommended to retry from checkpoint once you reach the pedestal, or else Hera's death scene may suddenly start playing when you are trying to exit. It isn't dangerous, and it doesn't always happen, but it wastes time if it does. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PS_DMN_eJY Other: If you skipped triggering the cutscene on the pushable button earlier, you can trigger it by putting Hera on it at this stage. This causes a contradiction in the game, resulting in a 'Dali-inspired' bizzare cutscene. You see Kratos drop Hera, but he retains his arm up as if he was still carrying her with Hera's massive minigame circle rotating before Kratos' face. Kratos has a bizzare/unnatural look on his face, almost as if hypnotised. At that stage you see Hera's cup float about all on its own, as well as the green stone. The cutscene that reveals the puzzle layout has all its green effect missing, and if you make Kratos walk around, he does so, but with his arm up as if he was holding Hera. If you then pick Hera up, Kratos carries her for a while but then he freezes and drops her, at that stage Hera's body drags itself along the floor - seemingly - all on its own. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okvJP22QCSc#t=192 Other: early Hera's corpse The trigger for the idly sitting Hera model to appear to the main yard is in the next doorway from the pedestal. Somehow activate a checkpoint and after retry, Hera will have died for no reason. You will have her corpse in the main courtyard long before even seeing her death cinematic. Note that once you finish filling up the first bowl, the corpse disappears again (only to re-appear after viewing Hera's death cinematic). Speed strategy: you can use the pedestal to push Hera's corpse around at a higher-than-normal speed. Wasted potential: you can get Hera's corpse on top of the small square stand right next to the last bowl you are supposed to fill (this is before the bowl has moved its location). Unfortunately, getting her into the bowl may be impossible... so close, but so far. Also, you can't get Hera's corpse on top of the moveable pedestal using the green view - when the green view ends, the corpse just falls down to the ground, as if it had been laying on nothing. Other: after doing things out of order for a long time, messing around with the set, the gate at the end of the first bridge turned invisible. Other: after putting Hera into the bowl, she can't be grabbed and carried around again. ...unless you go to the last save and make a checkpoint and return. You can drop her out of the bowl, but aside that she won't move an inch. The game must've thought her still in the bowl. Other: If you skipped the Hera's Chalice cutscene earlier and then activate the green effect, you can skip the trigger/cutscene where Kratos breaks the green crystal by using the "strange" Olympus Puzzle skip (detailed above). You get to see Kratos cross the harpy chasm while the green effect is still activated. However, the effect goes away the instant you reach the other side of the chasm. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwiBHoaJkn8 Speedrun Strategy: You can Jet Dash over the large Harpy Crossing chasm. This is faster than using the Harpies. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCMlQHNweoY Sequence break: you can skip using the crank to open up the gate made of blocks by doing a high enough jump. The most realistic way, even on NG, is to use a Harpy that flies high enough. Get it close to the gate, then jump to grab a ledge near the top of the gate. Climb over, and you can Jet Dash even deeper into the area to save extra time. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV3A_nT_7Zo#t=130 <The Caverns part 2> Wasted glitch potential: You can get out-of-bounds and under the platform at the rotating wooden cog. This can be done by doing a normal jump onto the wooden cog, then another jump in the same direction. From there you can jump to the wooden platforms that are above and to the sides of the cog, and from there glide to left of screen. Once there you can jump/glide to under the platform, but nothing is loaded yet below it. Untested: after riding the elevator down, it's possible to get over the walls using Sorrow Jump (and maybe other high jumps). You could probably Jet Dash and cut a few corners, but to what extent without skipping important loading triggers, it's hard to say. Sequence break: you can skip the intro cutscene and the ensuing fight with Cyclops by Jet Dashing straight to the corridor with the save point. Videos: 1, satvara's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqzL3V3jZx0 Sequence break: you can skip straight to Skorpius by doing a pretty crazy manouver using long Jet Dashes and levitation glitch. First get to where you meet Daedalus. Then start levitation glitch against one of the corners of the ledge, and after gaining a lot of height you can Jet Dash to the entrance where you come to the Skorpius fight from. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV3A_nT_7Zo#t=155 Skip: you can Jet Dash over the large hall without having to fill it with water. Swimming glitch: you can start swimming glitch here. First fill the hall with water, then roll behind the right chest - this is easiest with Whip roll. From there do double jumps against the wall to the right to breach it. Now you can Glide and hit the water from out of bounds and start swimming glitch. Videos: 1, AKheon's original vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Oy-uCm00iY Other (swimming): if you have swimming glitch activated, It's possible to trigger the Cyclops fight followed by making the boxes move by activating the R1 prompt nearby that makes the boxes move (at the battle that is normally after Skorpius). The Cyclops then lose their AI as their boxes - along with them - get transported to a totally different area. But this is not recommended, because you will not be able to fight the Scorpion later, because the Skorpius box has been moved before the fight has taken place. If you start fighting Skorpius after the box has been moved, the fight glitches up before it even has a chance to begin. The Skorpius Spawn that appear keep falling and dying as soon as they appear, and soon Skorpius itself emerges. It tries to grab Kratos, but then they both suddenly freeze in mid-air. It's possible to try fighting Skorpius without swimming glitch as well with the box absent. Just flying to the box, Kratos dies during the cutscene where Skorpius Spawn appear and you finally get the game over screen after Skorpius appears. With very precise maneuvering you can start the fight but make it to safely on solid ground... this allows Kratos to stay alive as the fight starts! But this variation is doomed also, as Kratos dies for seemingly no reason when Skorpius tries to grab him. Since you became checkpointed, you are now stuck and die almost instantly each time you retry. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of Cyclops fight glitches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z05VMpdqQ8M#t=636 2, findlestick's vid of fighting Skorpius with the box absent (swimming): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwiBHoaJkn8#t=153 Skips: you can high jump over the trigger which shows you around the darkened room. It's possible for you to continue Jet Dashing from the heights to skip the dark walkway. Not sure how close to the exit you can get to by Jet Dashing from here. § Speedrun Strategy: on the platform that you use Hermes' Boots to climb a short wall, there is a piece of collision that should makes Kratos levitate up into the skies if he Glides against it. From the heights you can Jet Dash over the door to the next area saving maybe a second. The piece of collision that makes Kratos levitate is located on the front of the platform that is facing the camera. Just to note that once you levitate, it's possible to get to the box where Skorpius is while out-of-bounds. But this is very tricky because the loading triggers are in areas that are difficult to get to. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBm3UayCdtU Random (swimming): if you swim to the chain that Kratos will fly upwards during the Skorpius fight, camera angle will change respectively. Kratos is also tied down close to the chain by an invisible wall of collision, and you get stuck. Too bad there don't seem to be any triggers here that would help skip Skorpius. <Skorpius> Other: Kratos is teleported inside the Skorpius fight arena as the boss appears. Speed strategy: before breaking the first 3 of its legs, weaken the other 3 considerably as well because in the second part of the fight it flees often and there is less luck involved if the remaining legs don't have full HP. Other: sometimes one of Skorpius' legs that has a broken onyx appears visually as if it still had onyx on it. It's just a random graphical glitch. Random: to further add to the frustration caused by this boss fight, if you're too close to Skorpius when it turns around and flees during the second phase, you may get pushed through the floor and fall to your untimely demise. <The Caverns backtrack> Other: if you Alt-Jet Dash directly to the first box ride box without using the grapples on the way, you can activate it like normal. But this way no enemies will spawn during the box ride. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXUL74maNj8 Sequence break: you can skip the box rides after defeating Skorpius by doing an intricate jump. First, use the vent to get to the higher platform. From there, jump towards the lower left side of the big box that is blocking your view. Drop down fairly low to avoid getting hit by insta-death collision, then Jet Dash to the boxes. Note: if you skipped The Caverns intro earlier, you'll have to re-skip it now! Just jump over the floor before where the corridor starts and this should do it. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Oy-uCm00iY Other (swimming): If you engage the second grapple while having swimming glitch activated, Kratos will get stuck at the 3rd grapple with arms and legs flailing uselessly. (Looks very comical). Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXUL74maNj8#t=201 Sequence break (swimming): you can start swimming glitch in the hall with two branching paths after defeating Skorpius to skip meeting Daedalus and also cut a few corners during the upcoming platforming section. A nice time save, and as an added bonus, you can activate the Daedalus cutscene after the Labyrinth is complete for some graphical oddities. Note that after activating the R1-prompt which constructs the Labyrinth Kratos is not transported to the Labyrinth entrance since he was swimming, so he has to manually swim there instead. Not a big deal, wastes some seconds. However, if Kratos was moved by the box at all during the cutscene, the camera will be very bad at this point. So be careful that does not happen. Videos: 1, AKheon's original swimming & cutscene glitch vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Oy-uCm00iY 2, AKheon's fast setup for the skip (NG): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X71cOf0llBg Wasted glitch potential (swimming): the area of Labyrinth is a whole new level altogether, and you can't access the outside of it with swimming glitch from The Caverns. <Labyrinth> Random (swimming): turning of the room ends swimming glitch. Battle exploit: you can jump over the barrier and defeat your enemies from complete safely. That is, if you can reach them from there. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_QinKgZiac Sequence break: you can skip the 2nd room of the Labyrinth by going out of bounds using a bizarre physics glitch that tosses Kratos around. You should first view the cutscene that shows you the 2nd room before doing this glitch, though. Better instructions coming soon... Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5agY_W14UB4 Wasted glitch potential: it's possible to high jump on top of the doors which open and close at the end of the long corridor after 2nd room, but it isn't of much help in this instance. Reaching the areas above early (using infinite death floor jump for example) is possible, but Pandora never materializes there, getting you stuck in the last room of the Labyrinth. As a funny bonus the "Hope" cutscene is glitched with no background graphics or Pandora nowhere to be seen. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of getting to the above areas early: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iAOcUJ54EE#t=360 Sequence break: skip 3rd and 4th Labyrinth rooms From the 3rd romo, it's possible to get out of bounds and Jet Dash straight to the corridor past the 4th room to where the Heart of Labyrinth save is. First use Hermes' Boots to climb the wall, then do a high jump towards the wall on your left. There is a secret ledge there, using which you can jump through the ceiling. Jet Dash towards the background and to the right to reach the bridge leading to Pandora early. As a funny bonus, Pandora is invisible in the upcoming cutscene if you did this. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0FLh1lzmeM <Heart of the Labyrinth> Infinite red orbs: you can do a very slow infinite red orbs glitch here. After having broken the onyx leading to Pandora's room, return and save at the save point. Now, every time you retry you get a bunch of orbs from the broken onyx, and if you create a new checkpoint by touching the save you get to keep them too. But this is literally only 8-30 orbs per retry, so you have to spend a while to get a noteworthy amount of orbs. Wasted speed strategy: it's possible to open up the small hatch during the fight with Gorgons and soldiers, but Pandora is not going to enter before the fight is over. Other: Once you've pulled the crank and Pandora has entered the hatch, Kratos will remain in that pose if you keep R1 held, even tho the room has changed and the crank is no longer there. Other: At the end of the battle with the Gorgons and co, you can get yourself trapped in the cage with Pandora by rolling quickly into the cage instantly after Pandora has entered it. Other: if you're too late in letting Pandora out of the cage that is being penetrated by large blades, you get game over (unsurprisingly). The game counts the cutscene in which Pandora is exiting the cage as time she is in danger, so you might fail even though she gets scot-free! Wasted glitch potential: The instant you've pulled the crank and Pandora has escaped the puzzle, you can make Kratos roll inside the trap that Pandora has just left. The blades in the trap don't harm Kratos in any way. He can even climb around inside the trap. Unfortunately (at this date), you can't get to the next room from inside there to see if there are any speedrun/exploit potentials. From inside the trap you can only backtrack to Pandoras cage, and as amusing as it is to see some graphical glitches...you get stuck! Out of bounds: it's possible to get Kratos to climb on the other side of the long ladder leading up to the Pandora water trap (so he will be climbing out-of-bounds). It can happen by accident, but it can also be done on purpose. To do it, simply make Kratos jump back from the upper section of the ladder into a descending Ladder Jump (so drop down to the lower section of the ladder while Kratos does his Ladder Jump animation). When the camera angle changes to show the bottom section of the ladder, Kratos will breach the collision of the ladder if you spam L1 while pressing Kratos against the ladder (during the Ladder Jump animation). Wasted skip potential (NG+): skipping water trap room Do the out of bounds glitch mentioned above. Once you are climbing on the out-of-bounds side of the Ladder, doing an ascending Ladder Jump will make Kratos rise up and skip the trigger that normally loads the upper section of the ladder. Most of the time Kratos will then grab a ledge and end up walking around on the top of the box belonging to the the lower section of the ladder. If you then walk to the right/towards camera and do a high jump into Jet Dash, its possible to reach the next savepoint that you normally get to after completing the Pandora water trap puzzle (using death-collision jump). However, it's of no use because Pandora can't get to the next chamber since you leave her behind, getting you stuck. Interestingly, it turns out that the upper area of the ladder is actually to the upper right of the lower section of the ladder...if that makes sense? Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of the skip and the glitched Hope-cutscene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iAOcUJ54EE#t=360 Other: two Pandoras and other oddities By doing things in the wrong order, you can have two Pandoras appear in the water trap room! First skip to the corridor after water trap room after the Gorgon fight, then enter water trap room and activate the prompt that turns the room around. One Pandora appears out of nothing in the middle of the room and falls down to the rotating blades below. Then, if you leave the water trap room you can go to the room's entrance and hit another trigger that loads yet another Pandora to appear - she too falls down to the rotating blades. If you now leave the water trap room again and backtrack to the smaller blade trap after the Gorgon fight, there is no one inside the cage as the blades start descending. You can hold the little door open, but there is no Pandora to escape from the trap, and thus you automatically fail the trap at the end and get a game over. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8I29MbuHSc Wasted potential: if you activate the final R1-prompt of the water trap room early, it changes color but nothing else happens. Collision flaw: at the lower edge of the water trap, there's a small ledge Kratos can stand on, or accidentally pass through the wall to become trapped with Pandora! It's the easiest to hit with a SJ jump to a quick Dash. While inside the trap, you can't pick up Pandora. If you do get inside when the water is flowing, you have less room to move, with an invisible ceiling right over you. Maybe it is the platform the swimming pandora rests on? Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymk-UluM-RM#t=125 Speed strategy: using the same collision flaw, it's possible for you to finish this puzzle room using an alternative route. The correct position is pretty hard to hit, but you can potentially save maybe up to 20 secs of time and cause a few glitches in the process. First, you skip pulling the platform away from the wall, and the cutscene in which water flows into the trap. Yes, the timed section of the puzzle never begins this way and Pandora doesn't drown no matter how long you wait here. Later on this causes some graphical glitches of Pandora inside the box, and at the very end she strangely ends up fainting on top of the box... Because of Pandora's strange location, you break out of the scene in which Kratos talks to her afterwards and can move during this short time. Like in the Oracle skip of GoW 1, you can still hear the sound loop of the victim's shouts of help even after you've saved her, making light of the whole situation really. It's also possible to use this route using Sorrow Jump, which is a far easier method. Or if you have infinite health (NG+), you can just land on top of the spikes and activate RoS to run to one of the climbing walls and continue from there. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymk-UluM-RM Speedrun strategy (NG+): you don't need to wait for that large spiked cube to drop before climbing on the grapple. Thanks to infinite health, when the cube drops on Kratos it just goes through him. And from there Kratos will either continue climbing like normally (saving time) or he will 'shake' violently as the cube pushes him up through the ceiling in preparation to do the following skip featured below... Sequence break: water trap room skip It's possible to skip the later half of this room on both NG+ or NG. By just breaching the wall from the side Pandora is at, you can skip finishing the water trap and continue into the "endurance room". However, you should only do this after having turned to room upside down, or else Pandora will not teleport to Kratos afterwards, getting you stuck. The original NG+ method found by findlestick was to let Kratos get crushed between the roof and the moving block that has spikes all over it. When Kratos is pushed against the roof, he goes out-of-bounds and ends up standing on top of the box. From there you just need to double jump followed up by doing a Glide towards the background. If done right you will end up at the next savepoint before the endurance room. A newer, faster and NG-compatible method is to turn the room upside down, then jump to the climbing wall to the back. Then jump away from the wall and Glide to the left-back side to walk on an invisible ledge. If you jump and do a Dash at a correct height, Kratos will mistakenly start climbing the climbing wall that's under him from the wrong side, and just like that, you're out of bounds. Just Gliding will again suffice to reach the Hope-cutscene and continue from there. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid of the original NG+ method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVtMwRmr2xw 2, AKheon's vid of NG method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyhpcFlYXHs Wasted glitch potential: you can Jet Dash above the Hope-cutscene in the next corridor after having escaped the water trap early, but you get stuck since you need Pandora to press down the button that makes the Endurance room rise up. Wasted glitch potential: You can skip the battle trigger for the final fight by high jumping onto the rails in front of you at the lowering platform. But since the hole for Pandora to crawl through is not revealed at this stage (coupled with the fact that Pandora is left behind when doing this) you can not proceed and get stuck. Other: By high jumping up onto the rails before the final fight (at the lowering platform) you can jump up on the roof and do pointless roof grapple climbing. Battle exploit: At the final fight, you can jump up to the ledge and be out of harms way by doing a CG high jump or JJ. It's best to then drop down behind the bars so you can more easily deal damage to enemies while being out of harms way. Other: You can get stuck if one of the Wraiths burrows itself up onto one of the upper platforms of this area. It can't be killed (most likely) thus causing you to restart and do the entire battle again. Videos: 1, MegaCinnamonRoll's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb-C5Duv4Uo <Top of the Labyrinth> Wasted potential: There's the Chain of Balance again, but it seems Kratos refuses to climb it yet at this stage. <Three Judges backtrack> Fight skip: well, skipping most of the fight at least. You can use CG high jump on Satyrs to exit the Hades Cerberus Breeder fight early. The rest of the Judges area suffers from graphical glitches after this, though everything works normally. It's unknown what would be the easiest way to do this skip on NG, where you don't necessarily have Whip for doing the CG high jump with. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7hr538pWBE Wasted potential: it's impossible to return to any of the Hades areas you visited near the start of the game. In fact, trying to leave by the exit near the rope cross will crash your game. Nothing also happens if you try to swim up the chain. Speedrun strategy: You can get down to the 3rd Judge's onyx stone by using CG high jump or JJ to get over a wall of collision and then Jet Dashing to the lower platform, skipping the climbing wall. And you can get down to the chain by high jumping over that same Judge's head directly down to the chain base. Now, the second time here at The Judges, after breaking the chain there will be a short glitched scene of Kratos floating next to the pandora statue wearing his Cestus while in a static flying position (loading time?). Then Kratos will suddenly be flying up the Icarus vent after a short while. Wasted glitch potential: After doing the shortcut above, when you then break the chain, there is a short period of time where Kratos is free to move around as the next cutscene loads. If you then R1 the savepoint, you will see the chains breaking cutscene while in the save menu. After the cutscene has completed, Kratos is still near the chain, but the chain is "floating" there without the blue sections there. There's some more info on this in the first Three Judges section as well. Videos: 1, findlestick's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gV99kRson8 Random: The flight up takes a lot less time than the flight down... <Zeus 2D-match> Wasted potential: this arena has a ceiling, so getting out is probably impossible (despite the fact that you can get to the very top - Zeus is suspectible to Jest Jump!). Random: Zeus stops using air attacks after you drop his health down to the level where the mini-game prompt activates. Guess the developers thought it would be too annoying for you to chase him down if he continued flying around the place. Other: you can break out of the second mini-game (which ends the fight) by casting some damaging Soul right before grabbing Zeus, making the soul hit him while Kratos is rushing him towards the wall. More specifically, Zeus becomes broken out of the mini-game! Kratos continues running towards the wall for a while by himself and the camera becomes glitched, but that's all the good this trick is for. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR5bjJBR5aI#t=82 Other: Maybe due to some loading error, Zeus may become "invisible" during this fight. Videos: 1, ovendonkey186's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8YmsD8mA3s <Destroyed Chambers> Other: one of the pillars in the area can be attacked with magic to gain hits. This isn't useful in any way, unless you have regen magic and want to build an extremely long hit combo effortlessly. Other: You can Jet Dash over the trigger which begins the next Zeus fight. Nothing interesting happens - Zeus is just a passive model you can push around the room with your attacks. If you push him too south, the next cutscene begins with him absent, and the entire first fight is spent with him stuck outside the arena. There's also some walkable collision on the left and right side of the higher area you come from, blocked by rubble. You can go around the rubble with a Jet Dash if you're curious. Videos: 1, romvaleri's demonstration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fGyuj82HNs Random: The first fight is a timed section, and it doesn't matter whether you attempt to attack Zeus or not. Other: by accident or potentially on purpose, you can get Kratos fall out of bounds when the scene shifts into Heart of Gaia. If controlled - pushing Zeus outside the arena in the previous fight with him might be a factor - you could probably skip some navigating inside the Heart, saving time. However, for most people this glitch is an unwanted guest, and they become stuck since they become checkpointed outside bounds and always die when this section begins. Videos: 1, Arcaniel's vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlhx_-gG7XE Wasted potential: it seems that in the small screen before the Fear Kratos-sequence walls are too high to cross with known jumps. <Fear Kratos> Speed strategy: You can move for a few seconds in complete darkness before the intro cutscene kicks in. Random: If you load the auto-save that begins from this area, you can access Start-menu (which you couldn't otherwise). Visiting it reveals that at this point Kratos has lost everything of his gear except the Nemean Cestus, Icarus Wings and Boots of Hermes. Event glitch: If you retry, at the very start of the intro cutscene you have a small period of time during which you can do moves, influencing the next section slightly. Changing weapons to Nemean Cestus and then trying to attack causes the Cestus to appear and get stuck on Kratos' hands, and the lighting around Kratos diminishes greatly. It's also possible to get Boots of Hermes on Fear Kratos, but trying to use them crashes the game. Videos: 1, AKheon's vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyeyBhNBZJg#t=150 <End game> Speed strategy: Stop bashing Zeus' head in after the screen turns red, or else the section will continue indefinitely. Random: Speedrunners might wonder at this point how are they gonna measure their game time in the end. There are no save possibilities and you can't access Start-menu to view your time either. Well, here's a solution: load the auto-save that begins from the cutscene of fires of hope gleaming in Kratos' eyes. Now you can for some reason access Start-menu, and the final time can be seen. And of course a RTA doesn't have this problem. <Challenges> Other (NG+): using NG+ glitch in Challenges If you start NG+ glitch and then enter any of the Challenges, you can take all gear and infinite health into a Challenge, usually making them very easy to complete in the process. For example the Challenge where Kratos is supposed to get stonefrozen X amount of times without dying... with infinite health this challenge becomes nearly impossible to fail. Some challenges are a special case, though, like Bare Hands. Kratos will not get Blades when entering this challenge, but he can change to any other weapon just fine. Attacking is finicky, but getting hit by an opponent sometimes unlocks his ability to attack back. Rapid Switch into Blades does not work. You can even do invisible attacks with Kratos' missing Blades with enough trickery, but any triangle moves will crash the game, so this is not advisable. Videos: 1, findlestick's quick vid of NG+ glitch in Challenges: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em-_NXzZGs4 4. Legal information, contact info, credits, 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 questions, you ought to contact the primary author's Youtube-address: https://www.youtube.com/user/AKheon Additional thanks (and links): ------------------------------ - Findlestick, for having actively written this thing, for one. http://www.youtube.com/user/findlestick - GMG, for being everywhere where GoW is being talked about. http://www.youtube.com/user/bigvee FIN
FAQ Display Options: Printable Version