After defeating the Greek gods and fighting with the Nordic deities, it was time to return to the roots in God of War: Sons of Sparta. You’ll play as Kratos once again in Greece, but this time, you’re a very young Kratos, who is strong already but not that special when compared to his Spartan peers.
The beat ‘em up and hack ‘n slash formulas won’t help you here, since this title throws Kratos in a 2D Metroidvania focused on exploration. If you’re new to the genre, we will explain to you some basic things that you should know before playing God of War: Sons of Sparta.
Get The Agile Evade II Skill First
Once you have enough Blood Orbs, you can start unlocking skills for Kratos. All the starting ones will cost between 500 and 1,000 Blood Orbs, which you can get from defeating enemies and opening chests.
The first skill that we recommend unlocking is Agile Evade II. With this, your rolls will be much longer, letting you get away from enemies or roll past them, letting you reach their backs and attack. It’s a very powerful skill, both offensive and defensive.
For more info about other skills that you should get first, please visit this guide.
Don’t Smash Your Attack Button
If you come from the original trilogy of the series, you might think that spamming Square in most enemies is a given, and you’ll do that without any issues. Well, it doesn’t work like that in Sons of Sparta. Whenever you normally hit an enemy, you’re not staggering them or interrupting any action.
For instance, you can combo the most basic skeleton creature, attacking more than three or four times, and you’ll receive a blow after the last hit without understanding why.
The only thing to change this is with your Spartan Spirit, by attacking while you hold R1. This drains your yellow bar, but it’s a useful resource — when it works. It isn’t that consistent with the stagerring, so don’t use it with this in mind.
Always Go For The Brutal Kill
This wouldn’t be a God of War without finishing moves, right? Below the enemies’ health bar, you’ll see a second grey one that will rise every time you hit them. Once it’s full, the enemy will become stunned, and you can press Triangle next to them to perform a powerful finishing move called Brutal Kill.
You can finish enemies with any attack, but you should be using Brutal Kill every time you can. The reason is simple: you’ll get more resources than killing an enemy regularly.
Keep in mind that the grey bar will gradually decrease if you don’t continuously strike the enemy.
How To Use Map Markers
The game never explains it, but as in many other metroidvanias of recent years, you can add your own markers on the map. Simply open it, press X, and you’ll see a series of icons that you can use to identify chests, areas where you’re missing an ability or object to move forward, or formidable foes that you aren’t ready to tackle yet.
As soon as you find an area with something you can’t get, don’t forget to leave an icon.
A cool feature not seen in many titles is that you can change the color of the icon, letting you play with contrasts with the regions’ different colors. Plus, you have infinite markers.
Unlock Vermilion Globes Every Time You Can
Vermilion Globes give you hints about where you can find collectibles in the game. Once you pay the required amount of Blood Orbs, you can open your map and see the icons on areas that you have explored and also on uncharted territory. This is extremely useful for finding tricky collectibles.
However, the problem is that you’ll have to use the same currency that you use to unlock skills. This will be up to you, but I strongly recommend focusing on Vermilion Globes first — they will help with your exploration and give you more rewards in the long run.
Master The Parry Mechanic
Parry is always a strong mechanic in any action game, but it’s also tough to master. It’s the same story in Sons of Sparta: you’ll interrupt your enemies’ attacks (any type of enemy, including bosses), and have free hits whenever you do perform a successful parry. However, the timing is more or less tight, and you’ll suffer damage if you fail.
You can stick with only blocking enemies’ attacks if parry is too much for you, since guarding is actually strong in the game, and you can recover your grey health as long as you don’t suffer damage. But if you want to test yourself, I’d recommend trying to get a parry with every new type of enemy you find.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t get it every time; this will help you with the overall timing, and in a few hours, you’ll be a more skilled player than normal.
You should unlock the Laconian Revenge skill when you can. It lets you counter-attack after a parry.
Use Enemy’s Red Attacks To Your Advantage
What I just said about parrying doesn’t apply to red attacks. Once you see an enemy glowing red, you can only avoid the damage by dodging the attack. So the correct thing would be to see it coming, dodge away, and start hitting again when the enemy changes attacks, right? Well, yes and no.
The thing is, when you see an enemy doing their special move, you can normally roll behind them. They won’t stop their attack, and you’ll get free hits while also dodging the danger. Be offensive, even when you shouldn’t be.
Keep An Eye On The Goals Tab
A final tip that isn’t a big deal, but it’s good to check after a few hours. Sons of Sparta has a goals system in which you can get Blood Orbs after performing certain actions, like killing 100 specific creatures.
The game will notify you about this every time you find a new type of enemy or you do something new, but then you won’t have any news until you actually get the goal. So, it’s good to check how your progress is doing, because you might start skipping enemies or avoiding certain actions after a while, without realizing that you’re close to finishing an objective.
The rewards for reaching the goals could actually be a lot better, mind you, but every extra Blood Orb is welcome.
God Of War Sons Of Sparta: How To Heal And Increase Max Health
Here is how to heal and increase your health in God of War: Sons of Sparta.
