Temple of Helios
After riding the elevator, head down the steps to the right to find a Phoenix Feather. With that done, head down the left stairs, kill all of the enemies that appear, and move towards the switch down there. Flipping it will open the gate that you bypassed earlier. Return to the elevator and ride it downstairs, then save your game and again and refill your health if you still have the green chest there.
As you make your way to the gate that you opened, you’ll enter into a fairly tough fight against numerous blade-wielding enemies. These guys can take a beating and can also wear down your health (especially if you fail at a minigame to kill them). Use the L+Square attack to dish out damage to a bunch of them at a time and rack up your hit combo. Eventually the grenadiers will start appearing, who drop health when killed. Kill everyone and move on. Down the hallway you’ll find another grenadier; kill him, pop the switch nearby, then open the door that you were near earlier.
Head down the hallway here. The camera might start to act up on you a bit, but try to make your way down through the corridor on your left. You’ll find a Red Orb Chest on your way. When you reach the next large room, you’ll face off against numerous birds; again, the Cyclone of Chaos (L+Square) attack is your best bet here. There are two large statues in this room. Pull them out from the walls and flip the switches behind them to open up two doors.
Head through the right door first; you’ll fight through a new enemy with golden flaming swords. He’s not terribly difficult to beat, although he’s resistant to grab moves. Use any of your combos that knock enemies up into the air and grab him up there to finish him off. When you’ve defeated all of the enemies, flip the switch in this room, then return to the larger room and head through the left door.
Grand Hallway
After saving your game, grab the chest in the hallway. Again, this might be a Gorgon Eye or Phoenix Feather if you’ve missed any of the previous ones, but for us it was green and red orbs. Head into the next large room here to find more Red Orb Chests and a Phoenix Feather.
Move onto the platform here and strike at the brakes on the chains to start your descent. The flaming swordsmen can rapidly drain your health if they back you into a corner, so do your best to avoid that by using Efreet and Cyclone of Chaos against them. After they’re all dead, a new, armored enemy will appear. Break the armor with your square, square, triangle combo (just tap the triangle; don’t hold it down). After that happens, you’ll be able to block most of the enemy’s attacks while wearing it down from a distance, and eventually kill it with a minigame.
There’s a substantial number of red orbs in the chests here, so grab them and upgrade your Blades to level three if you haven’t done so already. Move upstairs through the hallway to reach another large room with a circular platform in the center. First destroy the statue to your right for orbs, open the Red Orb Chests to your left, then push the pillar over to reach the central platform, where you’ll speak to Eos.
After your talk with Eos, check the platform for a glowing spot on the upper right, where you can tap O to pull down another platform. When you cross it, head to the right and downwards to find a Gorgon Eye and a Red Orb Chest. The red orb chests are dropping 500+ orbs at a go by this point, so do your best not to miss any of them.
Head into the throne room and destroy the throne to nab the Sun Shield. It’s not a new weapon for you, but it will let you rebuff attacks by tapping the L button just before they hit you. Handy enough for normal enemies, but you may still want to simply go all-out with your attacks on the enemies that pop up. It will also let you move through special doors, such as the one behind the throne. Before you do so, though, check out the stairwells on either side of the throne; they’ll lead to a few more Red Orb Chests and a Gorgon Eye.
The Throne Room
After nabbing the goodies, unlock the door behind the throne and proceed through. Open the chests, then head up the stairs to reach the temple exterior again. Head up the steps, fight off the enemies, then use the Sun Shield on the indentation in the ground to reveal another stairwell leading downwards.
In the next big room, find the Red Orb Chest along the western wall, then push the two large statues into the slots in front of them. With that done, pull back the wall between them to create a makeshift ladder, then quickly jump up to the upper ramp here before it retracts back into the wall again. Doing so will place you by a door with two more Red Orb Chests inside.
With that done, return to the wall/ladder and pull it out again. When it’s fully extended, let it go and run around to the left side of it, where a small chamber awaits you. Head into the chamber and let the wall retract, which will place you on the other side of the wall. There’s a Phoenix Feather in a chest on the other side of the retracted wall.
In order to proceed onward here, pull the two statues backwards so that their beams of light are focused on the small disks above the platform between them. Then, jump up to the platform and hold L to block. Mash O when you get the prompt to light up the target across the way, which will reveal a new icon on the horse statue in the previous room. Return to the statue and light it up to power up one of the horses at the Steed Shrine, as well as reveal a new passageway leading downward.
Follow the new path downward to reach the large platform room you were in before; you’ll be on an upper balcony this time around. Nab the Gorgon Eye from the chest to your right, then proceed to the left and into the teleport there.
