Weapons And Magic

As in previous God of War games, Kratos will be able to pick up new weapons and magical attacks to help him in his fight in Chains of Olympus. This section will be a basic description of these weapons and magical attacks.

Chains of Olympus is fairly giving with the red orbs that you'll need to use to upgrade your weapons. You'll gain them very slowly at first, but as the game rolls along you'll find yourself gaining more and more orbs. You'll probably want to upgrade your weapons first, as they'll be what you use against every enemy you face, but by the end of the game you'll probably have enough orbs to upgrade all of your weapons and magic to the maximum level.

Weapons

Blades of Chaos

The standard weapon for Kratos are his trusty Blades of Chaos. These are what you should be pouring most of your red orbs into early on in the game, until you've hit the maximum level for the blades (which is level 5). Higher levels will let you deal more damage with all of your attacks as well as unlock new combos.

One of the best combos is the Cyclone of Chaos, which you unlock at level two; when activated by tapping L + Square, Kratos will swirl his blades around himself, hitting anything nearby multiple times. This is most useful for smaller enemies, like birds or banshees, that can be interrupted by the damage. You can't stop the combo when it starts, so if an enemy can shrug off the damage, they'll simply walk over and hit you as you let the combo whirl. Luckily, you can also perform this move after jumping, which is handy for attacking larger enemies.

Most of the other combos here are useful situationally, such as the Tartarus Rage, which helps knock the armor off of enemies that use it. Just keep in mind that you can't stop a combo when it starts. If you need to quickly dodge away or block in the middle of an attack, you'd be better off sticking with regular attack combinations instead of the Blades' special combos.

Gauntlet of Zeus

You won't pick up the game's second weapon, the Gauntlet of Zeus, until fairly late in the game. When you do, however, you'll find it to be a powerful tool in your fight, and will want to upgrade it as quickly as possible.

The Gauntlet is very similar to the Cerberus/Gilgamesh weapons from the Devil May Cry series of games: it's slow but powerful, and the blows can be charged up by holding down the buttons for more powerful attacks. When upgraded, it has three quick special attacks, including the Olympic Strike, which is handy in knocking off enemy armor, and the Lightning Thrash and Olympic Thunder maneuvers. The aerial versions of these latter two abilities will be handy in taking down larger enemies and groups of small enemies, respectively.

Magic

The Efreet

The first piece of magic that you get is the Efreet, which is similar in usage to Poseidon's Rage or Cronos' Rage from the first God of War games. At its lowest level, this is simply an area-of-effect damage spell that will hit all nearby enemies for a decent amount of damage. It's useful, but not incredibly worthwhile. If you can upgrade it completely, though, the Efreet becomes much more similar to the Atlas Quake of God of War II, in that you'll be able to mash the O button to send large shockwaves towards enemies near you. This also protects you from enemy attacks, making it a handy escape button when you're about to get pounded by larger enemies.

You can probably get through the entire game without upgrading Efreet, if you wish, but if you have to choose one of the spells to upgrade, Efreet is probably the best choice.

Light of Dawn

This is another type of magic that hearkens back to an older spell, in this case Typhon's Bane or Zeus' Fury. The Light of Dawn is essentially a ranged attack, letting you hit distant enemies with powerful balls of light. Levelling up the weapon will let you fire more rapidly and charge up the attacks for extra power, but you probably won't have a lot of time to use this anyway against the powerful enemies that will be your biggest foes. Feel free to ignore this spell if you want to spend your orbs elsewhere.

Charon's Wrath

The last spell you obtain is Charon's Wrath, which will let you shoot your enemies with a pestilent cloud, which will (in the case of small enemies) prevent them from moving and rack up a lot of damage (and a large boost to your combo meter). This will not stun larger enemies, like cyclopes or minotaurs, but can still keep your combo meter alive while you run away from them.

Upgrading Charon's Wrath will let the spell hit more enemies, which is handy. It's a good spell to invest in if you've already upgraded everything else that you want.