United Stateshttps://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/565102-gods/faqs/45710
that's a good starting place for general info on the items, you absolutely cannot beat the game with the starting knife but since i'm pretty sure that you're forced to pick up better weapons along the way that's not a concern :)
the only time you don't want to just pick up all available weapons is maybe the last section where you want to get the maces so you can get the 12 damage axes to use for the final boss fight, i think you can mess that up and have to break the blocks with fireballs which takes much, much, much longer to do.
it's been a long time since i've played this so i don't have a lot of really good info here beyond that but if i were getting back into it to try and improve my time i'd watch the current WR for an idea of what you want to be doing. also, i would investigate where you can potentially death warp or use invincibility from deaths/items to save time, because those are two things that definitely make a huge difference in this run both in giving you pity bonuses (you get extra lives for having 0-1 lives in some spots) and just barrelling through an area that would otherwise kill you without having to do a switch puzzle, etc.
it would probably need its own category since there's variances between the different platforms (especially snes which has slightly different controls [specifically re: ladders] and runs much faster than the other versions of it)
