The Kraken seems to be a popular monster recently. But we'll get to the Kraken fight later. First we get to deal with the inconsistencies of the characters. Namely the Sisters of Fate. Last time Kratos had just sacrificed a Translator to open part of the Temple of Fates. Kratos was congratulated for this task and it would seem that he is encouraged to continue. Shortly into the next area Kratos will encounter two walls of spikes that will slowly move towards each other. You must kill all of the enemies that appear before the walls smash into each other. When the walls start moving you can hear one of the Sisters declaring that Kratos will never reach their temple. This is at least in line with the giant talking statue from earlier but it directly conflicts with the Sister congratulating Kratos for killing the Translator.
But the Sisters really like their death-by-spikes traps. There was the aforementioned smashing walls, you will encounter a similar trap where a ceiling of spikes will slowly lower while you have to kill everything and open a door before it reaches you. Then there is a floor trap where you have to slow down time, open a door, and get across the room before time runs out and spikes pop out of the floor. While lacking in originality, it's still fun and nicely challenging.
But let's go back and break things down a little bit more. After using the Ram's Horn Kratos will eventually reach this ice room. It's a simple puzzle involving light and melting the ice. I found it funny that when I melted the ice that trapped the bird statue epic music started playing. It sounded like I was in battle, I was expecting enemies to appear but I wasn't being attacked. Well, it turns out that there were two minotaurs frozen in the ice and since I melted all of the ice I finally got to fight them. But they're minotaurs, not exactly a tough fight.
The end of this area involved a fight with old fashioned Cerberus. I hate these things and this fight reaffirmed why. These Cerberus would spit out little Cerberus who would then evolve into big Cerberus. I was very grateful for my Wrath form. Made the fight a lot easier but I still had to kill 6 large Cerberus.
Eventually Kratos comes across another Translator. This is a fun, albeit simple, puzzle. The Translator throws himself off the ledge, but there's a time portal that will take Kratos back to the moment the Translator begins running towards the ledge. With a Statue of the Fates Kratos can slow down time, grab the Translator before he jumps, make the Translator read the nearby book and then Kratos can kill the Translator...*ahem*, I mean "sacrafice" the Translator. Turns out that's why the Translators are there, to be sacrificed. What a horrible job.
The Sister of Fate with the implant returns, congratulates Kratos and encourages him some more. WHAT THE HELL...? Do they want Kratos to reach the temple or not? Can't the Sisters of Fate just cause Kratos' fate to be that he never reaches the temple? Bah whatever, let's just go to the Underground.
The Underground has some odd Phoenix puzzle you have to unlock. The hardest part of this area would be what I call the Flame Wall puzzle. There a giant Phoenix statue on the back of the wall in this room and it's shooting a wall of flame along the entire length of the room. Impossible to avoid, unless you have something to block the flames with. And that's where I got confused. Apparently you're supposed to push some statue into the room and use that to block the flames. For me, the statue didn't stand out so I didn't notice it. I kept trying to figure out how to beat the puzzle and I kept dying. Once I found the stupid statue the puzzle is actually easy to beat. The statue gives Kratos a wide area to play in so fighting the enemies wasn't that hard.
Eventually Kratos releases a Phoenix who is only partially released apparently. The Phoenix is being held high in the air by lave and it appears the lava is keeping it trapped. To fully free the Phoenix Kratos must blow a golden horn. It's a simple puzzle and extremly silly in its execution, but it's probably best not to question it. When the Phoenix is free it kindly knocks some pillars off of their pedestals.
The next puzzle is how to raise the pedastals, but it's not hard so I'm going to skip right to the boss fight. This is pretty cool, Kratos and his unkown assailant fight on a 2D plane in front of a big glass window. Makes me think about Kratos in the upcoming Mortal Kombat reboot. What makes the fight hard is that the Man loves to break Kratos' combos. The Man suffers very little knockback so he won't give Kratos a lot of breathing room. I used my Wrath on him and that ended the fight pretty quickly. Kratos and the Man smash out of the window and the man is revealed to be the Spartan that Kratos talked to after Kratos climbed out of Hades. The Spartan reveals that Sparta has been destroyed by Zeus. Kratos mourns the loss of his city.
Kratos cries out to Zeus to come and fight him directly, but instead a really ugly Kraken shows up. The Kraken wraps it's tentacles around the pedastals and a "not fight" begins. I call it a "not fight" because at the start all Kratos will do is yell at Zeus, he won't attack the Kraken. It's funny to see, but I really wanted to fight. Eventually the Kraken picks Kratos up in a tentacle and prepares to crush him. Cue life saving cutscene.
In the scene Kratos sees his wife who is obviously being played by Gaia. Gaia gives Kratos more strength for his Wrath ability and tells Kratos to fight. Since Kratos assumes it's his wife Kratos finds the courage to overcome his grief and turn it into hate, rage, desire for revenge, or whatever Kratos needs at this point.
The actual Kraken fight begins in earnest now. The Kraken fight is part battle, part platforming action and fairly confusing but lots on fun once you realize what you're doing. I figured out the first part because I had played with the switch before and using bodies as weights has been used a lot during the game. You have to get the Kraken to move his right (your left) tentacle by attacking it. This causes the tentacle to move, you then need to place the body of the Spartan on the plate beneath the tentacle opening a steam vent. With the vent open Kratos can reach the Kraken's face. Eventually the Kraken will block the vent by shoving his tentacle into the vent. This fight actually made me think of the Hydra from the first game (hated that fight, but it was fairly imaginative). I got confused because I didn't realize I was suppose to climb the tentacle. It took me 10 -15 minutes to finally figure this out. Once you do Kratos easily chops off the tentacle. Then you have to do a similar pattern to the other tentacle. The difference is that this tentacle becomes stuck in a wall and not in the ground. You have to reach it from the bottom and climb along it that way. I had a really hard time grabbing a hold of the bottom of the tentacle. But once you do you slice off that tentacle and now Kratos has to deal with the tentacles around the pedestals. Kratos must cause both tentacles to slip at the exact same time. I found this tricky because when I finally got the second tentacle to slip the first one would find it's grip again, but I kept at it and threw in some Wrath just for kicks. Once the Kraken slips on both sides Kratos can pull a level and end the fight by shoving an extending bridge into the Kraken's mouth. Holy crap that fight was fantastic. Once I figured out what to do I had a lot of fun, but that Kraken seems to eager to heal Kratos. It drops health orbs on a regular basis so I was never concerned about dying. But killing the thing was very satisfiying.
With the Kraken dead Kratos can finally reach the Phoenix. And instead of asking the noble bird for a ride to the Temple of Fates, Kratos beats the bird into submission. Sweet! I like Kratos' style of not talking it out. He'll just beat you until you admit that he's right and then he'll probably kill you. He seems to kill everyone he meets.
So that's where I sit. Just inside the Temple of Fates. A place where the Sisters of Fates said I would never reach, at least one of them said that. Another one seemed to be encouraging me to reach it. I don't know what the third one thinks. There are three Sisters right?
Next time: The Temple of Fates. You really should have seen that one coming.
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