And here we are at Pandora's Temple. This is one of those points where God of War gives you a true sense of scale. The temple seems huge and Kratos seems small. It's very well handled. Apparently Kratos spends three days scaling the temple.
Upon arriving at the Temple I quickly encountered who I will refer to as Caretaker. Caretaker is burning the bodies of the MANY people who have tried to conquer the Temple and failed. He has Harpies bringing him a body about every thirty seconds or so, you do the math. Caretaker whines about the number of people who come to the Temple and throw away their lives. ATTENTION GODS OF ANCIENT GREECE: Pandora's Temple is the worst kept secret ever! Caretaker half-heartedly opens the way for Kratos to enter Pandora's Temple proper.
Pandora's Temple is broken up into 6 parts. This is also the section with some of the slowest, most aggravating gameplay in the entire game. God of War is mainly an action game, that is it's strength. The combat system is loads of fun. The over the top moveset, gore and Kratos' personality re-enforce this. So when you suddenly run into one of the many puzzles that you have to solve in this section the game really starts to drag. Pandora's Temple also has the worst sections for backtracking. You are forced to do so repeatedly, often with no clue that going backwards will help you continue forward. Kratos' full backstory is also revealed while exploring the temple.
So you start off in the Rings of Pandora. First you find a note from the architect of Pandora's Temple, Pathos Verde the 3rd. He's very proud to be working on the temple. The Rings is a very small section that you eventually follow to a small room, but the room you enter becomes a central hub for most of the level. You have to run past some smashers, clear some bad guys and secure the room. You pull a switch and for all your effort you are rewarded with a turnstyle back in the main ring. This turnstyle is actually a lever that you use to rotate the ENTIRE RING! This is pretty amazing considering the size of the ring.
Turning the lever will eventually reveal your next path. This is where you acquire your second weapon, the Blade of Artemis. It a giant curved blade with lots of power behind it. It lacks the reach of the Blades of Chaos, but makes up for that with it's strength. It's a fairly strong weapon that I recommend you learn how to use. It's also a far simpler weapon then the Blades of Chaos.
From here you enter the Challenge of Atlas. The Challenge of Atlas confirms how many people make it to the Temple of Pandora every year. At one point you cross a rope bridge and on both sides of the screen are epic battles between normal people and various demon thingies. It really makes you wonder why no one has found the Box before now. There are plenty of people here. You think one of them might have accomplished the task by now.
The Challenge of Atlas isn't too complicated, but there is backtracking, but that happens everywhere around here. You eventually find your way to the coffin of the architects first son. The architect is very sad is son is dead, but he died in service to the Gods. Know you have to do? You have to violate the son's coffin and steal his head. Keep in mind the Temple is around a thousand years old, but the architect's son's head is in pretty good condition. With the head in hand you are taken back to the little hub room I mentioned earlier. With the head you can access the inner ring.
The inner ring has this giant barrel rolling around in the middle of it. You actually have to get on top of the barrel and ride it to a ladder. Climb that ladder and run down a hall to enter The Challenge of Poseidon.
I HATE the Challenge of Poseidon. This area has some of the lamest traps and introduces one of the most annoying enemies in the game, the Cerberus. You encounter these enemies at the very start of the Challenge. It's an amusing scene where a cute little dog appears and threatens Kratos. Kratos gives it this, "Wha...?" look. The dog then poke'-evolves into a three headed Cerberus. The little dogs aren't that bad, the problem is that lots of little dogs appear and each one them has the ability to evolve. At one point I had 5 Cerberus running around. It was a nightmare. I finally unleashed the Wrath of the Gods! Wrath of the Gods is Kratos' super form. He's covered in electrical looking armor, he now causes major damage, and cannot suffer knockback. You can also upgrade it so you get infinite magic. Spamming Poseidon's Rage is awesome fun.
Since this is the Challenge of Poseidon and Poseidon is God of the Seas this challenge naturally deals with water and Kratos gets the ability to breath underwater indefinitely. That's where things get annoying. There is this underwater section where there are moving walls, Kratos has to avoid these walls by quickly swimming past them. If you get caught by a wall, the wall proceeds to smash you into another wall and it's auto game over. I died enough times here to be offered EASY MODE! (which only affects COMBAT!) and I was awarded a trophy for sucking so much. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS OK? This section is not fun, it's a "throw down the control aggravating and never come back" section, that's what it is!
Your main goal in this Challenge is to acquire the diving ability. With this ability you make your way back to the hub room, and then back to the inner ring and into this giant pool of water with a giant statue in it. You can now reach a hole in the bottom of the pool and swim to your next destination.
Alright, that's enough typing for now. Next time, the Challenge of Hades, the Cliffs of Madness and how much Greek Gods suck!
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