God of War: Ascension(2013)

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God of War: Ascension NG+ any% speed notes

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God of War: Ascension NG+ any% speed notes

Aggiornato 6 years ago di AKheon

God of War: Ascension NG+ speedrun notes v1.1

Version info

v 1.1, added some formatting to the guide.
v 1.0, first version.

Analysis of Ascension as a speedgame

Pros:

a wide range of cool speed tech

Arguable:

one of the most difficult God of War-runs to learn
a run will be 2,5 to 3 hours long
quite a lot of downtime from unskippable cutscenes

Cons:

some insanely hard tricks
the game will crash or softlock often if you don't know what you're doing
it's Ascension

In short, I would recommend you learn other God of War-games before this, but if you really insist... well, here we go.

Essential tricks to learn (in order of importance)

Quick rolling (other)
Unarmed / Shield Jump (high jump tactic)
Broken Destiny Jump (high jump tactic)
Shield Run (other)
Ledge Magnetism (high jump tactic / other)
Poseidon Tremble speed glitch (other)
Poseidon Tremble high jump (high jump tactic)
Slightly higher double jump (high jump tactic)
LAM (high jump tactic)
Glitched Olympus Strike (high jump tactic)
Rage Break-outs (other)
Tether Break-outs (other)
Shield Discard jump (high jump tactic)
Shield wall breaches (other)
Ice Rage glitch (other)

Please check out the Ascension Glitch FAQ for more detailed instructions:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps3/667703-god-of-war-ascension/faqs/70507

Combat tactics - the short version

for large crowds of very weak enemies: Soul Rage and Cyclone of Chaos.
for large crowds of weak / medium enemies: Soul Rage and Cyclone of Chaos. Maybe Fire or Lightning Magic.
for a very mobile enemy that is hard to hit: Soul Rage spamming. Melee when possible.
for a slow single target enemy: Falling Helios spamming. Rage as a counter attack.
for flying enemies: air Cyclone of Chaos, Ice Rage or Ice Magic. Soul Rage is not recommended against fliers since they tend to rise up stunlocked somewhere you can't reach them.
for Shielded satyrs: Fire Rage, L2+T or Ice Magic for instance to get rid of the Shield pretty quick.

Combat tactics - the long version

About magic

Magics generally aren't worth it, except against large enemy groups. They tend to have a pretty awful time / damage ratio since they are so slow and cinematic.
If you have to use Magic for dealing damage, Fire is usually the best option. It has a pretty quick animation and it deals 2nd most damage.
Ice Magic is unique in that it freezes enemies instead of dealing damage. Use it against flying enemies, or some enemies with long invulnerability periods like the Talos - it's less trouble to shatter than to fight them.
The cinematic slowdown of magic casting shouldn't affect autoscrollers, so you can spam magic during these without losing time (except Fire Magic, since it has that QTE prompt, which also slows down surroundings).

About Rage

Kratos is invincible during Rages, so they can be used as a counter attack.
Fire Rage sets a bomb inside one of the enemies. The damage is not good, but this attack has some other useful properties like knocking enemy Shields off or stunning them for faster mini-games. Its animation is also quite quick, so it's the most handy attack for doing Rage break outs with.
Soul Rage is one of the most useful attacks in the game. Kratos releases some souls which automatically target enemies and deal chip damage to them. The attack has a wide range around Kratos and it automatically homes in on enemies you might not even see. This attack is great for multi-tasking (i.e. dealing damage while already moving to the next place) and works especially well against big groups of weak enemies (like against those Bug swarms). You can slightly speed up the Rage animation by casting it in air just before landing on ground. It also keeps enemies stunlocked pretty well and prevent them from blocking Kratos' attacks.
Ice Rage is kind of useful. It first resets an enemy's state of frozenness, then makes them either frozen or half-way frozen. It's good used in combination with the Ice Magic to freeze a large enemy, but not all enemies can be frozen (or are worth it to freeze).
Lightning Rage... no reason to ever use it.

About melee

First square attack (s1) comes out almost instantly and has a good range. Despite the low damage, just spamming s1 repeatedly makes short work of some enemies like Bug swarms.
Holding down square (Cyclone of Chaos) is a disproportionally powerful attacks with a superb range. It's great for crowds, but sadly it's a little slow to spam.
Holding down triangle in air (Falling Helios) is the single most powerful attack in the game for single target damage. Its range is crap, though, so it can't be used against moving enemies that well. This attack has ledge magnetism properties, and it can screw you over if you're not careful.
Holding down square in air (Cyclone air) is also a very powerful attack. Not as much damage as Falling Helios, but it has a better range and mobility, so it can be used better against moving enemies.
I guess you can do the triangle combo in a pinch too. It's a little slow to come out but the damage is solid.
Don't rely on sub-weapons for damage. Just pick up the Shield for glitches.
Well, Shield can do the so-called Captain Planet that is a powerful combat exploit. But while very damaging and it has a wide range, it's more essential on other categories than NG+.

About items

L2+square slows down enemies. Has a situational use if you want to distract an enemy to get some space for Kratos.
L2+triangle hits enemies. It disperses crowds, which is usually a bad thing. Also doesn't do enough damage to be worth it. However, it knocks Shields off enemies, so sometimes it can be used as a one-time attack to get rid of a Shield.

L2+circle... meh.

Route Notes - New Game

Timesave? - I'm not 100% sure, but the loading times might be a little better if you have either default Kratos costume.

Timesave - Start a new game and then quit it before starting your run to get a shorter loading time before the first cutscene.

Note - You can skip any pre-rendered cutscene in Ascension with the Select-menu.

Timesave - For the Megaera duel, if you rotate l-stick and spam square, Kratos defeats her before she can attack back.

Route Notes - Chapter 1

Timesave - After jumping over the large pillar at the end of the first road, if you land in a specific way to the right you are able to roll afterwards during the short Megaera cutscene, saving a little time.

(There is also a way to entirely skip the short Megaera cutscene by doing continuous Unarmed Jumps, but I'm not sure if it's even worth it.)

Timesave - If you use Unarmed Jump for navigation, it can be worth it to do an air R1 (passive tether) before it to cancel the landing cooldown of the move. Can be seen in the record run at a few times, first time in Chapter 1 at 3:06.

Timesave - There's usually a short loading time before reaching Megaera and falling down to the tether tutorial fight, so I use that time to activate the bonus items. I don't activate all of them to save some extra seconds.

Strategy - During the tether tutorial you have to grapple the first enemy or it just keeps respawning endlessly. After that, there are basically two waves of bugmen that can be dealt with how you please.

Timesave - After pulling down the walkway, Unarmed Jumping to the top should be a little faster than climbing.

Timesave - You can roll -> sprint during the short pause after going through the door to avoid having to stop.

Strategy - For the Bug swarm fight, you can either cast Soul Magic during the transition cutscene to do some early damage to the Bugs as they spawn. Or not, and just use Soul Rage and melee attacks to get rid of them pretty quick. More than one Soul Rage is overkill for enemies this weak.

Strategy - Most bosses in this game have long invulnerability periods you just have to sit through. For this first boss, just avoid its attacks and strike back when its not invulnerable. I like to use air Cyclone because of its range.

Also, Soul Rage doesn't work on most early game bosses. Because this game is glitchy.

Route Notes - Chapter 2

Skip - You can skip the outdoors climbing part on both NG+ and NG by jumping on top of the archway and from there to the switch. The fast way to do this is to just do a Poseidon Tremble high jump. The safer way (which I eventually started using) is to do some Broken Destiny motions before the Poseidon Tremble to gain more height.

Strategy - The appearance of the enemies here is timed. Multi-task and leave Souls to handle the final enemy while waiting for it to spawn.

Skip - do air R1 (passive tether) into the doorway to skip the slow walking part.

Strategy - In the rotating building section, Souls are again useful for multi-tasking. Unfortunately there is some RNG here and the building might delay rotating for a reason or another, wasting seconds.

Just to look cool - cast Ice Magic while grappling out of the collapsing building.

Route Notes - Chapter 3

Note - You can rarely get the Guardhouse Glitch at the start of this chapter. You know you got it if the grapple point won't disappear while flying towards the Guardhouse. As a result, the camera is very close to Kratos and there is also no cutscene when pulling the switch. You can play onward from this point like normal, but you must retry at the checkpoint after climbing up the ladder or else the Cyclops won't spawn. Overall this glitch might waste a few seconds, but I'm not sure.

Strategy - The Cyclops fight is pretty RNG heavy. I never devised a perfectly solid strategy to get the Bugmen to group up so that you can always kill them fast and reliably, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.

Timesave - You can latch onto the grapple point without having to go around and use the ladder by doing a slightly higher double jump, Poseidon Tremble high jump, etc.

Hardlock warning!!! - After activating the grapple point, don't jump to the other side too quick (before the game has finished loading things) or the game will crash.

Timesave - At the boss fight, you are able to do early mini-games to it if you're close by as it becomes stunned, saving a second or two each time.

Strategy - This boss has a ton of invulnerability time. Also, you can lose or gain time depending on its attacks, so there's some RNG here too.

I tried if it would skip doing its bug spawning attack if you never killed the previous bug swarms, but apparently it always does it. So just kill the Bugs so that they don't get in the way of doing mini-games and such.

Softlock warning!!! - At one point I considered luring the boss to the left side of the arena as a speed strategy. At best it might be faster, but it also invites a softlock where the boss becomes invulnerable for no reason and you have to retry. Just to be safe, don't do this.

Softlock warning!!! - After the boss fight, take your time and run slowly through the corridor to open the gate and back. Otherwise, if you're too fast, the game hasn't loaded the Hound enemies up ahead and you get stuck.

Death warning!!! - Don't do Unarmed air attack or Sword charged attack on the elevator or it will arbitrarily kill you.

Timesave - The grapple point at the end of the elevator section is not a "real" grapple prompt. Instead, it's a special type of prompt that can be activated by just holding down R1 while near it. Therefore, to always activate it frame precisely, hold down R1 while Megaera says she has little patience left. This works at a few other places too around the game.

Route Notes - Chapter 4

Just to look cool - Glitch up the erotic cutscene after opening the door using two passive tether break-outs at a correct time.

Strategy - A lot of weak enemies spread all around... it's Soul Rage time!

Just to look cool - Sabotage Megaera's cutscene where she says Kratos has hurt her for the last time by casting Rages and Magics.

Strategy - This upcoming part is basically an autoscroller. It doesn't matter at all what you do until you get a special cutscene where you see the teeth pop up to the foreground sides of the arena. After that, just consistently attacking the right tooth will make it break at a scripted point in time.

Untested - I think you get a different cutscene if you break the tooth on the left side instead, but I never measured if it was faster.

Strategy - Do a quick Falling Helios to make short work of this boss fight. If you're too slow, it will push you to the left side of the room, wasting extra time.

Strategy - For the riding Hecatonchires part, just spam square and read some Garfield comics while waiting. >_>

Strategy - Again, rotating L-stick and spamming square defeats Megaera in the duel before she has time to do a single attack.

Route Notes - Chapter 5

Just to look cool - Do some magic as the screen is transitioning to the Kirra cutscenes.

Note - The musics in this Kirra cutscene are often absent. You often get some music glitches in this game, they're nothing to worry about... I think...

Skip - Skipping the first part of Kirra is the most difficult thing in this Chapter. The first jump is to get around the fight trigger and isn't hard, but the second one (from on top of the roof) is sometimes infuriating. It's better to do a delayed double jump since you need more reach than height for your Broken Destiny jump. As for the jump finisher, if you're scarily close to ground do a Poseidon Tremble / Ice Rage finisher and pray. Otherwise use Unarmed air attack or no finisher at all.

Timesave - do a roll -> sprint into the Fire of Ares intro cutscene.

Skip - Do a Fire Rage near the door, then two Fire Magics to open the doors early.

Skip - You can skip the upcoming fight by jumping over the fight trigger. It's possible to do with just a single Unarmed Jump, but fairly precise. For safer strats, do a bit of Broken Destiny first.

Skip - You can skip the waterwheel part with a high jump. This is a fairly risky jump since the Sling enemies can snipe you out of the air, not to mention the jump itself is precise. Alternative tactic: just kill two of the three enemies and pull the waterwheel grapple switch to get past this part. Don't kill all the enemies though or you'll get a filler cutscene and waste time.

Strategy - For the fight after the collapsing bridge, Fire Magic works decently. But it can also be unreliable and sometimes leaves many enemies alive. I don't really have a better tactic for it at the moment.

Skip - You can skip the Gorgon fight and the preceding cutscene by Unarmed Jumping to the top from the hanging ledge. This is pretty easy to do, but afterwards you also got to clip through the door upstairs since it's not open. Just turn Kratos to face left and do sideways rolls to the side of the door, that should work.

Death warning!!! - After doing the Gorgon skip, Kratos sometimes enters a strange mode where you lose control of him for a second or two. If you're sprinting during this time, you can accidentally run through the walls and die. (been there, done that)

Route Notes - Chapter 6

Note - If you're desperate, feel free to do the Tremble speed glitch on the slide here. There's a one in a hundred chance it will get you safely to the other side, skipping the climbing section! I never found a reliable setup for it, so I didn't do it.

Timesave - Do a roll -> sprint into the Ice of Poseidon cutscene.

Skip - You can skip the Ice power by doing an Unarmed Jump towards the urn in a specific way. It's a bit lucky skip all in all, but who knows if there is a more reliable way to do it.

Timesave - Hold down R1 to grasp onto the faux grapple point during the cutscene, saving two seconds or so.

Route Notes - Chapter 7

Strategy - The Chimera is pretty easy to defeat with Falling Helios, as long as you know when to do the attack so that it won't miss.

Timesave - I use Tremble speed glitch to skip a small part of the slide here, since it can be done consistently. It only saves a few seconds, though.

Softlock warning!!! - Of course, if you're careless the same Tremble speed glitch can end your run too if it throws you into the chasm and checkpoints you there.

Strategy - For the Satyr and Manticore Hatchling fight, I just use Ice Magic to both kill the flyers and disarm and freeze the Satyrs at the same time. It's a great tactic, but it can sometimes miss some of the enemies, so make sure to set it up well. Remember to pick up a Shield before leaving.

Softlock warning!!! - If any of the flyers are missed by the Ice Magic, do NOT use Ice Rage against them. If you miss and accidentally do the Ice Rage glitch via those Manticore eggs, you may accidentally make the fight unwinnable.

Route Notes - Chapter 8

Strategy - Two well-timed Lightning Magics should make short work of the Lightning of Zeus fight.

Strategy - For the fight after the slide, I tend to do Ice Magic to kill both of the fliers instantly. After that I start doing Cyclones at the dogs while Ice Raging the Manticore Hatchlings as they appear. And... that should be it.

Timesave - Again, holding down R1 lets you automatically grab the fake grapple point up ahead on the first frame.

Skip - You can skip a decent-sized chunk of climbing with a Tremble speed glitch. I find that the chance of success of this trick increases if I do a long double jump and try to aim to the left with the speed glitch. I may get stuck to an invisible wall at first, but heading a little right from there gets me to the grapple points up ahead.

Softlock warning!!! - I believe you can ruin your save and become checkpointed into a chasm doing this speed glitch as well. There's a new checkpoint at the climbing wall to the right, so if you touch it and then fall in a specific way... run over man!

Skip - At the grapple points leading to the end of this chapter, do Shield Jumps to avoid hitting the vertical climbing wall. Be ready to hit a (fake?) grappling point with R1 to get past the enemies before they even load. This skip is not 100% guaranteed if you didn't skip the previous climbing section as well, I think.

Route Notes - Chapter 9

Just to look cool - Well, it's an autoscroller with nothing better to do than to entertain. I show off the Captain Planet glitch here because it looks nice. For some reason the element finishers are in slow motion on the snaketrain.

Death warning!!! - There's a short platforming section after riding the snaketrain with Bugs on it. Quick rolling next to the left wall can make Kratos become stuck against a tiny piece of collision and it can kill you. The last checkpoint isn't far away, but it's still a stupid way to lose time.

Death warning!!! - During the next slide, take your time. Don't aim to the left in a vain attempt to save some seconds, because otherwise Kratos is out of sync with the next snaketrain as it comes and you get killed.

Timesave - There's another of those fake grapple points at the end of the Hound snaketrain section. So just hold down R1 to latch onto it effortlessly. This is also useful because it prevents you from accidentally targeting the Hound enemies nearby.

Strategy - If you feel insecure regarding the Tremble speed glitch up ahead, you might want to do a long Broken Destiny jump during the last snaketrain section to delay the activation of the checkpoint that begins near the start of it. This way if you die, you don't have to wait for a full minute for the snaketrain to reach the grapple points up ahead again.

Skip - You can Tremble speed glitch directly back to Tower of Delphi. This is one of the easiest speed glitches and saves about a minute. Just do some air attacks to slow down your flight to help your targeting.

Just to look cool - Because you get back to the Tower so early after the last skip, the game hasn't loaded the Manticore cutscene. Therefore you can easily break out of it using air R1 (passive tether).

Strategy - The Manticore fight has some RNG in it. If it moves around a lot, Souls are handy. Otherwise powerful single target damage from Falling Helios is the best. The mini-game sequence also varies - sometimes Manticore won't attack Kratos at all, which is of course the fastest. During the 2nd phase the Manticore may sometimes create some Hatchlings on the field, which wastes time, so you're lucky if this doesn't happen.

Timesave - It's entirely random, but sometimes rotating L-stick during the Manticore killing mini-game skips the evading slow motion, saving a few seconds.

Route Notes - Chapter 10

Timesave - Shield Run into the pre-fight cutscene up ahead.

Skip - Shield Jump past the Cerberus fight.

Timesave / Just to look cool - I like to enter these green mists with a backwards roll -> sprint. This makes Kratos sprint during the cutscene, which saves a small amount of time I guess.

Timesave - The fastest way I know to break the breakable walls is to do a jump and two air t attacks.

Skip - Shield Jump around the door leading to the hourglass room. This skips a long cutscene, but also a checkpoint, so if you die doing the next skip it's a long way back!

Skip - Shield Jump to skip most of Temple of Delphi. Be quick.

Route Notes - Chapter 12

Death warning!!! - After using the grapple point in the platforming section, Kratos more often than not buffers a ground tether afterwards. This slows you down during a critical collapsing floor section and it can get you killed.

Timesave - You can Shield Jump over one of the chasms where you'd otherwise use a fake grapple point and climb a little. This is a pretty annoying jump, somehow.

Death warning!!! - Don't Shield Jump down the last Slide to save some time. If you're too fast, nothing is loaded at the end of the slide and Kratos dies.

Strategy - Castor moves around a lot and slows Kratos down, so Souls are very good against him. But he doesn't have that much health, so if you do manage to land even one Falling Helios per phase, he goes down very quickly.

Timesave - You can break some of the pillars right before the pillar phase of the fight starts to save some seconds.

Softlock warning!!! - Just to be safe, don't press any buttons during the white fade-in that leads to the cinematic first-person part. Otherwise you might break out of the sequence in a very softlocky way.

Route Notes - Chapter 13

Skip - You can get around fixing the bridge with Shield Jumps. This causes a camera glitch later on after talking to Oracle, but it's not too difficult to play the climbing section blind.

Just to look cool - If you jump into the Oracle cutscene doing air R1 (passive tether), you break out of it.

Skip - Shield Run to go past the Amulet tutorial fight before it even starts. Sometimes the Shield Run takes you further and saves some extra time, sometimes not.

Timesave - Shield Run into the Siren pre-fight cutscene to get right next to the Siren instantly. This speeds up the fight a little too.

Skip - Fix the last part of the bridge from as far back as possible and let go of L2 fairly early. This lets you skip a small filler cutscene. To be safe, you can Shield Run a short length so that you keep moving even if you do activate the cutscene by accident.

Route Notes - Chapter 14

Skip - Skip The Cistern fights by continuous Shield Jumping from on top of the archway. To make this skip completely safe, follow up the second Shield attack with Broken Destiny motions to usher Kratos safely inside the corridor.

Skip - You can skip the Cyclops fight in a few different ways. I think the best and fastest way is to do a combined techniques high jump over the walls to the left. Another way is to clip through a corner to the right and jump down from there, but that's a bit finicky. There's also a slow but safe third method where you Shield Run to the right as the fight starts to exit the fight arena, then use a Tremble ledge magnetism there to clip through the floor (Robin Fleming found this one).

Skip - You can skip the short waterwheel intro cutscene by Shield Jumping around it. It's just barely possible, but can be made semi-reliable with practice.

Skip - You can skip the waterwheel puzzle by continuous Shield Jumping to the higher level and just fixing the waterwheel from there.

Route Notes - Chapter 15

Timesave - Hold R-stick down to roll off the descending waterwheel platform and regain control early.

Softlock warning!!! - If you somehow fail the above trick and have to retry, you may find that the game has softlocked and you can't continue any more.

Note - I've seen a video of Shield Running through the Talos pre-fight cutscene, but don't know how that can be done consistently. It would be a small timesave otherwise.

Skip - Shield Jump out of the Talos fight.

Skip - After jumping out of the water, do a slightly higher double jump + Shield Jump to end up out of bounds. Then swim glitch to the boat to avoid having to wait for it.

Route Notes - Chapter 16

Strategy: The first fight of the chapter is basically a timed fight. Your biggest concern are the Bugmen, so do Soul Rage and try to kill them in a timely manner so that the next wave has room to spawn.

Timesave: If you manage to enter the Empusa fight room early enough, you regain control of Kratos during the pre-fight cutscene. This isn't too useful since you can't see where you're going at the moment, but it might save a few seconds at best.

Skip: Jump out of the Empusa fight with Shield Jumps.

Timesave: Latch onto the first grapple point in the series only after the slow motion has started to skip most of the slow motion.

Skip: Martyr's Chamber skip v3! The first part of the skip is a little finicky to do - I don't have an entirely reliable setup for going out of bounds from the top of the ladder. If you manage to do that, though, the rest of the skip is pretty easy. While inside the elevator, jump while leaning to the right to not accidentally pass through the doorway (which activates the intro cutscene you're trying to skip). Alternative tactic: If you mess up and have to watch the intro cutscene, then do Martyr's Chamber skip v2 instead.

Skip: Since you skipped Martyr's Chamber, there is no Siren fight up ahead. Just escape from the fight room with a Shield Jump.

Death warning!!! - Nothing is loaded outside after you climb up the ladder. Do some air attacks instead of just walking in to avoid a grisly death.

Route Notes - Chapter 18

Note - You will lose the Shield here momentarily whether you like it or not.

Skip - Jump out of the Satyr fight with Broken Destiny jump. Then to the upper level with an Unarmed Jump. Please don't fail this one because the last checkpoint is far away.

Skip - Since you did the previous skip, nothing else is loaded on the upper level and you can run past two fights.

Skip - Broken Destiny jump past the Juggernaut fight too. Slow down the Juggernaut using Amulet if needed.

Skip / Softlock warning!!! - You can skip the entire last fight of this chapter, but only if you do some specific things to ensure everything loads properly. First of all, after blasting your way into the room where you regain a Shield, wait for at least 5 seconds before crossing over because otherwise the grapple point up ahead won't load and this skip will NOT work. Also, it helps to retry from checkpoint after landing on the other side. If you did everything right, doing a Rage break-out of the wall shimmy and then spamming R1 lets you grasp onto the puzzle's grapple point early and you skip this whole part.

Route Notes - Chapter 19

Skip - Skip pushing the rock with a Shield Jump.

Skip - Skip climbing up using a Broken Destiny jump.

Skip - Skip a filler cutscene by using a Fire Rage break-out off the climbing wall jump and then make your jump even longer with a Shield attack.

Skip - Skip fights by hanging onto the ledge ahead, then Shield Jumping over the wall to your back and right. From there, run under the next fight arena and jump up into it.

Timesave - By doing air R1 (passive tether) before hitting the vertical slide, Kratos falls down it instead of sliding, saving a few seconds.

Skip - You can skip the finale of the slow autoscroller with a well-timed Shield Jump. I typically do a Ice Magic when the wheel is at the half-way of the stone block to get rid of any Harpies that might pester Kratos during the critical moments. Then, when the stone block is about to disappear before the wooden pillar, I Shield Jump to the left. Please don't fail this trick either, because the time loss will be massive.

Strategy - Just Falling Helios the Sirens.

Timesave - After fighting the Sirens, if you jump to upstairs from more to the right, you bypass a forced loading trigger that would make Kratos and time stop. This lets you move a few seconds deeper into the unloaded next area while waiting for it to load.

Skip - You skip putting the wheels into motion with droopy Shield Jumps.

Death warning!!! - Don't roll on the cogwheels or you'll most likely fall to your death.

Skip - You can latch onto the grapple point leading to the gauntlet early and skip the chain and fire elevator fights.

Death warning!!! - Remember to wait for several seconds after doing the above skip before breaking through the wall or else you fall to your death.

Skip - Jump from under the wall to the next area using a Shield Jump. This skips a grapple point and some loading, and enables you to glitch up the Gauntlet fight arena in a cool looking way.

Timesave - Avoid fighting Bugs and climbing up the wall by doing a Shield Jump to the final grapple point leading to the Gauntlet. Do the Shield Jump from the left or you miss a trigger for the grapple point, which is fatal.

Route Notes - Chapter 20

Strategy - I find it's convenient to do either Fire or Lightning Magic to kill the first wave of legionnaires in one go.

Strategy - You can sometimes defeat Megaera phase one very quick by countering her soldier throw with a Soul Rage, then going to her and doing Falling Helios. But it seems it's not a 100% guaranteed tactic.

Strategy - In general you want to use Soul Rage a lot here to keep hurting Megaera even though she might block or move wherever around the place. She is also vulnerable to melee after she does her stomp attack.

Softlock warning!!! - After reaching final Megaera phase, rarely the game just softlocks for no discernable reason... Having Soul Rage souls out at the wrong time might be a factor in causing it.

Strategy - During the final Megaera phase, the game expects you to pick up a Javelin. But you shouldn't do that. Instead, just Soul Rage to your heart's content to keep hurting Megaera.

Note - The Daimon duel is pure RNG. I don't have a consistent, fast strategy for it. Sometimes it only attacks you thrice, sometimes more times (wasting time).

Timesave - Take care to not get hit by the sisters' cinematic attacks because those are an embarrassing time waste. Soul Rage is useful for its invulnerability time.

Route Notes - Chapter 21

Skip - Don't rotate the switch all the way to skip a filler cutscene. Then Shield Jump up to the top.

Death warning!!! - While you can Shield Jump over the door leading deeper into the area, you'll probably die when landing on the next platform because there's death collision right underneath and the Shield landing can touch it. So don't do it.

Skip - You can skip using a shadow clone on the button by stepping on the button, then jumping at the grapple point (while spamming R1).

Skip - You can skip the fight and climbing with a Broken Destiny jump. Again, you could do a slightly higher double jump + Shield Jump as an alternative strategy, but it can kill you if you miss.

Skip - Skip pulling the platform with a Shield Jump.

Skip - Skip a filler cutscene by leaving the shadow clone just past the middle of the see-saw platform.

Strategy - While it's possible to quick kill the big Cerberus with an Ice Rage + Ice Magic, it's not reliable since Cerberus has those teleporting and shielding attacks during which it becomes invulnerable. It's more reliable to just do an old fashioned Soul Rage and melee barrage against everyone in the vicinity.

Timewaste warning!!! - When fixing the big chain, you often get a glitch where the chain has wrong collision. This forces you to fix it again until you get it right. To prevent this from happening, fix the chain entirely once, then put it back to the previous half-fixed state.

Just to look cool - You can leave the fire elevator after leaving a shadow clone on the button and hang onto its side to ride up it in a cool looking way. But it's a little too risky to pull off in a single segment, I think.

Skip - Shield Jump out of the fire elevator before it's gone all the way up. There's a hole in the fight barrier that you can escape through to not have to fight all the enemies.

Route Notes - Chapter 22

Skip - You can use the new Ribs skip to skip almost everything in this chapter, or the old-fashioned climbing skip to skip some filler climbing. The new skip isn't too difficult once you understand it. Basically create LAM by latching onto the grapple point during an air special, then do Shield Discard jump with glitched momentum, then at the top of the jump aim correctly and do Unarmed Jump. This too can be followed up with Broken Destiny jump motions to make it marginally safer (in case you aimed too much to the left or right).

Skip - You skip the collapsing platform sequence by Unarmed Jumping over it.

Strategy - If you use the new Ribs skip, you lose your Shield and have to get another one. Fire Rage is one of the best ways to knock the Shield off the small Satyr. Alternatively, if you start the fight on the wrong side of the fight barrier, you can just tether onto the small Satyr to get its Shield effortlessly.

Hardlock warning!!! - Don't use a shadow clone to make the Satyrs here drop their shield. Otherwise the game may crash when the enemies unload behind you.

Skip - You can skip the Satyrs fight if you're fast enough. Or alternatively, do a Shield Jump from on top of the box to the left to get over the fight barrier.

Route Notes - Chapter 23

Strategy - My strategy for the Furnace fight involves awakening all the Hatchlings, then just Ice Magicking everyone so they shatter or become frozen. It's mostly fool-proof, although sometimes a Hatchling can survive this treatment.

Timesave - Ice Rage the block around. But only once, because otherwise...

Hardlock warning!! - Doing Ice Rage glitch more than once increases the risk of the game crashing sooner or later in this map. It can crash either when lighting up the Furnace or when you reach upstairs. In any case, it's pretty annoying.

Note - sometimes Kratos regains movement early while lighting up the Furnace. This can save some seconds of navigation, but if you're careless you can also ruin your run if you run to a wrong spot and become trapped when the fight starts.

Skip - After lighting up the Furnace, you can skip the Gorgon fight by Shield Jumping over the switch and from there to the other side.

Potential skip - Or, you can so a big ass combined tactics jump to reach the upstairs even quicker, but it's a really difficult jump and won't save that much time.

Timesave - Just stun the Hatchlings instead of fighting them with Soul Rage.

Route Notes - Chapter 24

Skip - Skip using the fake grapple point with a Shield Jump.

Skip - Skip the conveyor belt fight in one of several ways. My original tactic was to do a slightly higher double jump + Shield Jump from on top of the chest towards the back and right to slip past the walls and end up near the grapple point. But this is finicky as heck to do. A safer alternative is to Broken Destiny jump there instead. Or do LAM + Shield Discard jump, which is really easy, but will fail if the area hasn't loaded completely yet. Just remember to pick up a new Shield from the upcoming fight...

Strategy - A lot of enemies. I tend to use Soul Rage as usual for the crowds, combined with Cyclone of Chaos. Shadow clone attack knocks Shields off the enemies quickly, so that comes in handy too. Fire or Lightning Magic could be considered if the enemies are at any point very neatly grouped.

Route Notes - Chapter 25

Note - Once past this point, ledge magnetism will automatically work in a hyper-reactive way until you retry from a checkpoint again. This is both a blessing and a curse! Instances where this affects things are listed below.

Strategy - On the fire elevator, you can quickly stun enemies with Fire Rage or by countering their attacks.

Death warning!!! - Don't do Falling Helios near the seams of the arena or you might fall down if hyper-reactive ledge magnetism is active.

Strategy - Provoke the Fire Talos and have it jump into the elevator fire to fuel it.

Skip - You can skip the last enemies on the elevator (once it's risen all the way up) if you have hyper-reactive ledge magnetism active. In this case you are able to latch onto the sides of the big elevator chasm and jump inside it from above, bypassing the closed door. But...

Failure warning!!! - If you try to do the above but don't jump far enough, you get stuck on some invisible collision and have to retry.

Timesave - Whether you enter the elevator from above with ledge magnetism or just by walking through the open doorway, you save time if all the enemies are dead when getting to the top floor since this makes the next area start loading sooner.

Route Notes - Chapter 26

Skip - You can skip parts of the puzzle with speed tactics. A video of it should be pretty self-explanatory.

Route Notes - Chapter 27

Just to look cool - spam R1 during the scene transition to break out of the Manticore pre-fight cutscene in a stylish way.

Softlock warning!!! - If you're playing on the unpatched version, don't retry or die during the Manticore fight or else you'll be sent back to a glitchy checkpoint that can't be used to complete the game from.

Timesave - Shield Run into the next cutscene while the post-fight cutscene is still playing.

Just to look cool - quickly press R1 after choosing to skip the pre-rendered cutscene to break out of the chat with Orkos.

Timesave - Do a Shield Run towards the door to your back in between the two expository cutscenes.

Route Notes - Chapter 28

Death warning!!! - If you still have hyper reactive ledge magnetism active, do NOT use Falling Helios during the Trials fights! Or you do so at your own peril, since Kratos can fall through the seams of the arena that way and ruin your run.

Strategy - The first fight is a mess, and if you want to play it safe just mostly spam Soul Rage. Technically getting some damaging melee in will make things faster, but you got to be careful if you do that. Also don't get hit by the Gorgon grab because that's a stupid time waste.

Strategy - The second fight is mostly timed, so just spam Soul Rage and Cyclone in a relaxed way to deal with the Delos Warriors. When the Harpies arrive, you might as well Ice Rage them to death. Finally, the Talos can be shattered with Ice Rage + Ice Magic.

Death warning!!! - Don't think about showing off during the wait by jumping up the walls using ledge magnetism. Otherwise you hit some death collision and embarrass yourself.

Strategy - Nothing important to mention about the third fight. Soul Rage is your friend.

Timesave - When solving the Trials puzzle, you don't have to rotate the crank all the way to save a few seconds. But if you're feeling unsure of this, don't do it.

Route Notes - Chapter 29

Skip - If you have hyper-reactive ledge magnetism active, as you should, you can skip the grapple switch pulling sequence by doing Poseidon Tremble to the wall behind the grapple switch.

Route Notes - Chapter 30

Skip - You can mess up the cinematic sequence at Alecto with a tether break-out, Shield Run and checkpoint retry. But this trick is mostly handy in a segmented run because in a RTA the loading times get in the way and prevent you from gaining all that much time with this. I guess it should still save 5 seconds when done optimally, but it might be more trouble than it's worth.

Softlock warning!!! - Rarely the game will drop Kratos through the floor after beating the first tentacle and you get checkpointed out of bounds. Don't let this happen. Retry immediately if you don't see Kratos any more during the cutscene or your run is over.

Strategy - The final boss is highly vulnerable to Soul Rage, it's probably a glitch. Just spam it and the fight is over in no time.

Note - Timing ends when pressing the prompt to hit Alecto for the last time.

Just to look cool - You can still do tether break-outs of the ending cutscenes with a good timing.