God of War III Notes

 

The credits show over a recap in silhouette of the first two games.
I choose Normal mode.
We see the titans, I presume, climbing up mount Olympus.
The Gods led by Zeus watch their approach and then descend to start attacking.
Kratos is on the shoulder of Gaia as she climbs.
Poseidon attacks using tentacles of water filled with sea creatures to make the shape of horses. They grab Gaia and prevent her from moving upwards.
We start by having to kill some skeleton warriors.
Left stick moves Kratos. Right stick makes him dodge roll in a direction.
Square makes a short attack, Triangle a heavy attack.
X is jump. We can double jump and use wings to glide with a third press of X.
R2 is use magic which unleashes an environmental attack.
L1 is block.
We have to attack the beast that is grabbing Gaia to get it off.
We get up close and beat the crap out of it until it lets go. Kratos is left flying in the air and lands on Olympus itself. We are clambering around on vines  on the walls.
i find a chest and get some red orbs by pressing and holding R1.
I start climbing around Olympus until I see Gaia getting attacked again by the sea serpent.
We have to make our way to her. We come to a building. Inside under the floor frozen is Ares the fallen God of War.
A simple puzzle here sees us pull a lever and get to a moving platform that appears before it retracts to progress.
A large centaur attacks here and needs to be beaten until a circle appears above it's head. Once it does this starts a gory quicktime sequence where we disembowel it.
We come back out onto the back of Gaia again after being attacked by the serpent.
Another boss encounter where we have to attack it until a circle appears. Then cut off one of it's claws.
We then have to attack it and wear down it's health again and tear open it's heart.
We then hurl the claw we cut off of it into the heart.
We now have to go inside Gaia.
Inside after some clambering we find the heart of Gaia.
We have to use a movable column to progress here.
We learn that Gaia's heart is surrounded by impenetrable rock.
We can move and rotate the column.
We encounter some enemies and find that we can grab with circle and then use the enemy as a battering ram by using Square.
We come out onto Gaia again and face the Poseidon boss for the first time.
This is much the same as the horse tentacle thing, but has Poseidon on top.
We have to beat him up and then once he is circled do a quicktime sequence.
This does not kill him and we have to go back and wear him down again. The second time though Kratos drives right through the beast and arrives on the other side with a mortal form of Poseidon which we beat to a pulp and gouge out the eyes of in quicktime brutal o vision.
One God down already?
The body of Poseidon falls into the water and we see the sea rise up and swallow most of the land masses.
We get a save point here.
Gaia and Kratos continue to the top of Olympus where Zeus is waiting.
Zeus zaps Gaia with Lighting and knocks Kratos and Gaia down mount Olympus. Gaia badly hurt manages to grab on. Kratos can't keep his grip though, for some plot convenient excuse.
Gaia betrays him and lets him fall. He plunges down into Hades.
In the river Styx Kratos is stripped of his powers.
Athena comes to him and tells him that she is now a higher being than a god.
Athena tells Kratos that he needs the flame of Olympus to kill Zeus.
Athena does something to Kratos's blades.
We now have some platforming and some power ups to collect by going off the beaten path.
We fight some soldiers on a dias then use a long chain to grapple to the next area.
There are soldiers on the chain which we need to fight also.
The next ares is a cylinder trap and we fight soldiers and two gorgons consecutively.
I come to a path that is covered in bramble, there is no way through right now I am told.
In the next large open area Peirithous is trapped in a prison of tinder. He asks for freedom, he will give us a bow in return.
This is a puzzle.
We have to use a pendulum type affair to jump to a platform and move a mobile fire brazier.
The fire brazier is set alight by a dog in a cage at the far end.
The brazier then allows us to glide up high using our wings and it as a thermal.
We can then reach a lever which lets the dog out.
We get to ride it and burn up loads of enemies.
We then get to burn the guy we are meant to save.
We get the bow anyway.
We can now burn down the brambles to progress.
A new flying enemy like a bat with humanoid body attacks. We are show that by holding L1 and pressing circle we can grapple towards an enemy.
We come to a new area. The judges of the underworld.
Large statues with their hands on a large chain.
A message tells us that those to be judged must first complete the trials of Erebus.
The trials are familiar hack n slash waves of monsters to be defeated.
First humans who are grabbed by hands coming from the ground. They are turned into lost souls if the hands get them.
Second wave is lost souls who are turned into harder creatures like soldiers and minotaurs if they reach the gate and touch it.
The next wave has gorgons, bats and minotaurs.
Once done we go to the platform and are judged. A portal is opened for us to go through.
We have some minotaurs and some platforming.
Then we see a statue holding a blue tiny flame girl.
Hades talks to us and Kratos asks for a fight as usual.
Hades tells him to wait his turn.
We cross a chain.
Then we come to a room where we have to light another fire to create an updraft.
This takes us up to a platform with a lift and a timed switch. Above the lift is an exploding barrel production line. We can move the barrel around but there does not seem to be anything to do with it. I eventually work out that you have to take it back down in the lift and push it into the original fire to make it burn brighter to take you higher.
In this new area stone giants with hammers come alive and attack.
Hephaestus appears trapped in the underworld as a giant in a small cave.
I manage to get enough orbs to upgrade the blades of exile, which makes them stronger and unlocks some new moves. Pressing L1 and square does a spinning attack.
Opening a switch unlocks a door behind us which takes us to a circular room with a wheel in the middle. This lets us move the room around until the door faces a new direction.
In the new area the blue ghost child is present. The blade of Olympus is stuck into a bronze statue. The child ask Kratos to help free it, but he is reluctant.
Not the choice I would have made, Kratos is really a bit of an asshole.
We get to take the blade of Olympus and by pressing L and R 3 when a meter is full unleash it's power.
We are back at the door we could not pass earlier. This time with the bow we can burn down the wood preventing us passing.
Two dogs from statues above the door come alive and attack.
Each dog must have two of it's three heads ripped off then finally killed before being able to pass through the door.
In a small lobby we face a few waves of soldiers and dogs.
Inside this is a large area with a tree in a base of water.
There is a wheel which when turned opens a gate. The time to get up to the gate is not long enough so after bit of exploration there is a weight which can be pushed against the wheel to keep the gate open.
At the top of a long ascending hall we find a statue of Hades. When turning a wheel a casket is brought up from underneath. It contains a woman. It is Persephone the wife of Hades.
Swinging the casket at the statue brings down two ladders at either side.
Now we have a puzzle where we have to open the statues arms using two pulleys.
The thing is that the handcuffs which hold his arms apart both open at the same time. So while you can get one hand cuffed to get the next one in cuffs you need to open the cuffs again which lets the first hand out. The solution is to go down on a lift and get the stones from the first wheel you wedged them in and bring them back up on the lift to one of the pulleys upstairs. This allows you to keep one arm in check with the pulley while you get the other one into the cuff.
now you can swing the casket at the chest of the statue.
You then jump through the hole this makes in the chest of the statue to face Hades for a boss battle.
The boss battle with hades is a complex one. You have to attack him and avoid his blade attack which is similar to kratos own blades. When you wear down his health you have to QuickTime a lump of his flesh off. This piece of flesh tries to get back to Hades. Do this twice and after more QuickTime the battle changes. Hades gets bigger and you 
have to avoid him by swinging on grapple points. Wear him down and you get some more QuickTime to finally finish him off. You get his blades and his soul, which will allow you to swim in the river Styx without harm.
I swim in the river and find that you can dive down. I find Hades helmet. Passing through hades body second out into a new area. I get soul summon which allows you to summon a soul to attack your enemies. I can now use the dpad to switch between claws and blades. The river comes out back at Haephaestus. He tells kratos about his 
daughter and asks kratos to rescue her. There is a bit of backtracking to the revolving cylinder. This time we have to fight gollums and dogs.
Kratos then ends up back at the start of the Hades area and a new portal is activated.
Going through the portal takes us to the city of olympia.
Kratos encounters Gaia and chops off her hand making her fall. No forgiveness is given.
We come to a door, which will only open after some soldiers and dogs have been killed.
We come to harpies, which can be ridden on over gaps. Kratos does this by stabbing them so you can only go a short distance before you die. Handy other harpies can be jumped to in the air.
We come to the open city and find the Lava titan being harrased by Helios.
We fight some soldiers in a square area then a centaur and more soldiers.
Some chests change colour so that you can choose which orbs you want to get from them. Blue for magic, green for health. Red powers up your weapons.
We then fight a monster with a snake for a tail, a lions head and horns like a goat.
It take a bit of killing.
Then we fire a catapult at helios and the titan grabs him and cushes him and hurls him away into the city.
We then have to cross a large gap on the harpies.
Then fight some soldiers and run around the city a little.
We come to the badly hurt Helios, although he has a lot of soldiers as bodyguards.
We can't break the turtle formation that the soldiers make with their shields around Helios. A handy cyclops turns up and we get to ride it a control it when it's energy is worn down. This makes short work of the shield formation and we can then take down the soldiers.
Helios is left unguarded. He tells Kratos that the flame of Olympus must consume him before he can wield it. Is he lying? Kratos kills him anyway. He tries to use light to kill Kratos and we have to use Kratos' hand to block the view to get close before pummeling Helios and ripping off his head.
The head is useful it can be used to reveal secrets.
The head can be shone around by pressing and holding L2 and moving the right stick.
It reveals a door in the rock that was concealed. We go through and we are on the path of Eos.
It is dark and we need to use the head to navigate and help us fight harpies and soldiers.
The little blue girl turns up again still asking for help. Kratos is rude as usual.
We have to ride the harpies again across a gap.
There are some new enemies here called wraiths that can hide under the ground, we can grapple them to pull them out of the ground.
We have some more wraiths and archers in the distance to deal with.
I come to the base of a long shaft with a huge chain leading up it called the chain of balance. Kratos jumped into the updraft and we have to fly up the shaft at high speed avoiding beams and rock walls.
At the top we strike the lava titan in quicktime.
Then we are inside the top of the shaft clmabering around as it collapses around us.
This is quite an annoying section, quick jumps and falling rocks emphasise how hit and miss the platforming here can be.
Eventually another shaft with harder obstacles and we come out into a large area with crates suspended from a cave ceiling. It is called the caverns there is a glowing cage in the middle.
Shooting bramble from a wheel releases a mechanism and all the crates shift around.
We can now grapple to another crate.
The journey on this crate is not so nice, as we are attacked by waves of soldiers, archers, minotaurs and a three headed dog. We get to ride the three headed dog and make a mess of a bunch of minotaurs.
The minotaurs attack the chain holding the crate and if I don't keep them off it the crate falls and we die.
We come to Hermes who is fairly flippant, he obviously hasn't seen what happened to Hades, Helios and Poseidon yet. Hermes can run very fast, which is good as he just pisses Kratos off some more. We grapple up and climb the chain which after much climbing leads us to a room called the flame of Olympus.
Inside the flame Kratos sees Pandora's box
Athena appears and tells Kratos that when Zeus triumphed over the titans many years ago, the weapons he used used were too dangerous to stay in play. He locked them in the Pandora's box. When Kratos opened the box to kill Ares he did not release the worst. The box must be retrieved from the flame and opened again to gain the power to kill Zeus. Only Pandora herself can do this.
There are portraits hidden on the walls of the chamber that are reveled using Helios' head.
We go outside onto balconies and find Hermes waiting. He taunts us and gets Kratos to chase him. We have some clambering and fireballs set light to the platforms making it an against time rush.
checkpointing is poor in these sections and you end up repeating them and repeating them.
We chase Hermes through city streets filled with enemies and civilians. Hermes sits atop a statue and taunts us. Kratos uses a catapult to knock down the statue.
We find Hermes in the rubble, badly injured. We still have a hard time hitting him but he stays in one place at least. Eventually I wear him down. Kratos them lops of both his legs in quicktime and he dies. Hermes turns into a plague of locusts and flies away.
We get his boots.
The boots can be used like the head and the bow. Holding L2 and pressing X does a dashing attack.
They can also be used to run up walls and wall run.
We come to an open area and can see the civilians being plauged by the locusts.
Larger soldiers and huge gollums with maces attack.
We go through a door and are now above the flame of Olympus.
In a corridor off the main dias we encounter sirens.
Above this we come to a spiral staircase and thena large room.
There is a dias with the button symbols on it and a picture of a sword which must be made  right by turning levers above the picture. When the sword is formed facing to the right then the statues grab levers.
We then have to play guitar hero. I kid you not, you have a fairly complex quicktime sequence in the form of a tune which makes the statues move the apparatus around.
We go back to the flame and turn the crank which opens a door.
Hera appears and taunts Kratos. Hera is the wife of Zeus and while she appears to have no love for him she does not want him dead. She sends Hercules who is Kratos' brother to kill him. Hercules is jealous of Kratos and is all to happy to kill him and take over the mantle of God of War.
The fight against Hercules is long and hard. At first there are loads of soldiers to take care of. Eventually they stop coming and we get hercules to ourselves. He has huge lion gauntlet. In the arena he can slam us against pillars of thorns. We can also do this to him at specific times.
After a long fight he starts to lose it and we get his gauntlets off him. Using them is still a hard fight. Eventually we get a quicktime sequence where he lifts the whole floor of the arena and tries to tip us into the abyss. We end up pummeling his head into mush. Hercules is down.
We get the neman Cestus as the gauntlets are called.
The cestus can cause a shockwave when slammed into the ground that is deadly.
It can also be used to break open oynx sealed objects.
We come to a series of small corridors and rooms, there is a woman who seems to be a prisoner and the blue flame girl is here again.
In a room we go through a portal and find a platform that sinks with out weight.
We pull a switch and platforms rearrange. We can now kick hell hounds into the portal and get them to weigh the platfrom down for us.
Now we are in the cells and Kratos frees the chained up woman.
She runs out and straight into the dogs, from which we have to save her.
We then have to fight two hammer gollums which are hard to kill.
Then some more soldiers with shields and another gollum. We chain the girl to the wheel which we need to keep the gates open and can now get through to the statue of Pandora.
Kratos calls Pandora and she appears in the flames in the statues hand. She tells him to come to the labyrnth to save her. Zeus' voice can be heard telling Kratos to stay away.
The double jumping in this game needs some work.
We come to a bunch of high platfroms which need turned in the right direction by using levers.
We come to Aphrodites chamber, she offers Kratos some sex, I decline. She tells us that to get to the labyrynth where Pandora is being held we must ask the help of her husband Haephestus. She opens a portal to him. Through the portal we are back in Hell.
Haephestus tells us that he forged Pandora's box and Pandora is the living key to the box.
He lied to Zeus in earlier games when he told him that storing the box on the Titan Kronos would keep it safe, so that he could protect Pandora who he loved.
Heaphestus tells us that he will forge us a weapon with which to kill Zeus. I presume in order to stop Kratos from getting Pandora and opening the box. Will opening the box kill Pandora?
We are to fetch an object for Haephestus with which to make the weapon. He opens a new door for us to a place named Tartarus.
This isn't a friendly place as we meet hordes of soldiers and a centaur.
Then up to the gates of tisiphone for a bsttle with two snake/lion/goat mashups.
The gate is a sliding block puzzle that needs many switches and jumps with the hydra and normal to scale to the top and open the gate.
We are now in the pit of Tartarus and a handy book tells us that this is where the Titans and Gods fought. Also where the Titans got banished to once they lost.
We fight some soldiers, then find gaia's hand. Chronos rises from the rubble and tells Kratos that he is going to kill him for what was done before.
We blind Cronos then start running around on his body fighting soldiers.
We end up on almost all parts of Cronos, fighting soldiers and gollums, hanging from his belly, his arms, his legs. While he tries to swat us Kratos stabs and pokes at vulnerable areas. There is a lot of swinging from grapple points also.
Eventually after fighting some skinned cyclops and soldiers on the titan's shoulder we are swallowed by it. Inside we must slide down it's gullet avoiding a mass from above that descends and kills you.
We then cut our way out of Cronos using the large sword.
We get the Omphalos stone in the process.
We then break the anchor that holds the stone around Cronos' back. This makes it whip up and spear him through the chin. Kratos then smashes it for good measure and sticks the sword between Cronos' eyes. One titan down.
Back to Haephestus with the stone and he makes the weapon. As he does he looks decidedly shifty. Kratos also wonders if he didn't send him to Chronos in the hope that the titan would kill him.
Haephestus gives Kratos the weapon but turns on him and tries to fry him with green lightning.
Kratos survives and through quicktime we spear Haephestus on his own machines and he dies.
We get the weapon though, it's called the nemesis whip.
Back through the portal to Aphrodite for a quicktime shagging session.
Then we can now charge up the broken pillar with the nemesis whip and make progress.
We come into a room with portals.
It is the study of Deadalus, who has been tasked by Zeus to build something to keep Pandora inside safe from any who would see the key to the box. There are some puzzles here for bonus items.
There are items found in chests like gorgon's eyes, minotaur horns, etc. which raise your health and magic bars.
We find Hera in the garden, she tells us that what we are doing is destorying the world, no sun, the seas in turmoil covering the lands. Plague amongst the mortals.
The murdering of the Gods is removing their beneficial functions from the world as well.
Hera throws he goblet away and Kratos picks it up.
In a narrow corridor we encounter new goat like humanoids with long staffs. They are fairly hard.
I spot a hazy area in the garden, using the head of helios I find a chest. I have noticed a few of those, but just thought it was heat haze or something.
A dias on the floor suggest we need to use a stone which can show us the future path of the Gods.
This is an escher like trick of perspective, a set of steps lying on the ground when looked at by the statue form a step to the next level. While the statue's eye glows we can climb up the steps.
Next we have to move a plinth with steps until it makes a cup fill with water to hold open a gate.
Hera is here again and Kratos gives her a wide berth until she calls Pandora a whore, why should he care, he obviously does as he snaps her neck. More plague is released into the world.
There are two more cups to be weighted with water, but how.
After much puzzling I find a way to get water into the other cup and Hera's body into the last.
This makes a path all the way to the other side.
Kratos crushes the stone so that none can follow.
We go across a large gap with the aid of the hydras.
Inside this new door is dark tunnels and a lift.
We are back down in the cave with the huge boxes on chains. Is this the Labyrinth, a maze inside the boxes and the boxes shuffleable.
There is a large fight on top of one of the boxes. Large gollums with maces en masse. We also get a cyclop we can ride on but he does not last long against a gang of gollums.
After this a save point and we progress through some more dark tunnels.
On top of the next box we get a boss battle against a giant scorpion.
This is a break the armour on the legs kind of affair. Then we have much quicktime to kill it off finally.
Our prize for killing the scorpion is it's sting, this can be inserted in pieces of the labyrynth and makes it shift it's configuration.
We move around many grapples and plaftorming, back to the room where we first found the keyholes for the ice stone.
Then we meet Deadalus who is chained up in one of the blocks.
The labyrynth is finally assembled and we enter.
There are a few boxes we have to traverse, one have lots of gollums with hammers and dogs.
The next is a puzzle where we have to move the gravity of the box and place a weight on a door stud.
The next is a fun room with spikes to negotiate.
Then a room with spiky floors to survive waves of wraiths, minotaurs and soldiers.
We then come to Pandora and we rescue her. We can carry her and lift her up to higher ledges. She opens doors for us as well.
Once she gets trapped in a room with descending blades, we have to get across some clambering stages to free her before she is minced.
We cross a bridge and Pandora tries to tell Kratos that hope is more important than vengence.
We have some more puzzles and then a long and hard fight box with what must be fifty enemies of varying types coming in waves.
We are then on top of the Labyrynth. Pandora tells Kratos that he must break the chain and lift the labyrynth up towards Olympus.
We have to dive down the chain tunnel, which is starting to be an annoying mini game.
At the bottom we fight a three headed dog and a few pole goats.
Then we have to knock the crystal from the back of the heads of the three judges.
They are guarded by some varied groups of enemies.
When this is done the chain can be broken at the crystal base and we go back up the chain to the labyrynth. Athena is talking to Pandora when we get there. We are told to raise the labyrynth. Kratos has to climb the chain again.
At the top of the chain we turn the crank and the chain rises bringing the labyrynth with it. The devastation is awful and there is little left of the labyrynth and the rest of the innards of Olympus when the chain reaches the top. Kratos meets Pandora and she is ready to go into the flame. Kratos hesitates and tells Pandora he will find another way. She is ready to die for Kratos and runs to the flame only to bash into Zeus.
Zeus grabs Pandora and hurls her away. Then Kratos and Zeus start to fight.
The battle with Zeus takes place on a beam so it lends itself a 2D feel. It feels like you are playing Street Fighter or Tekken.
Zeus punches or zaps with lighting at first. He also grabs and slides you.
Once his energy is down you have a quicktime sequence then he starts using the lightning more heavily.
Again wear him down for some qucktime.
This time Pandora makes a break for the chain. Kratos stops her until Zeus enrages him so much with his taunts that he drops Pandora and goes for Zeus again. Pandora is sucked into the flame and everything goes black. Kratos wakes to find Pandora gone. The box is his for the taking. Kratos goes and opens the box only to find it empty.
Zeus taunts him once more and vanishes.
Looks like we have a break in the battle. There is a save point.
I follow Zeus out onto a balcony and found he has went into a pillard dias. We fight him again.
Gaia appears, not dead obviously and grabs the whole dias off the top of it's peak.
She tells the pair that they are wrecking the  world and they must both die.
Zeus asks Gaia if her pawn has failed her. He suggests she should have chosen the other one.
Gaia crushes the building and both Zeus and Kratos jump free and enter the insides of Gaia.
Inside Gaia we break the material surrounding her heart and start wailing on her exposed heart.
Zeus comes for another fight.
This is the final one and it's hard. Until I realised that the nemesis whip grab attack is really good for keeping Zeus down and stops him making clones and using most of his attacks.
Gaia's heart is a source of health for both of you and you must use it and keep Zeus away from it.
Once done there is a quicktime sequence where you stick the sword through Zeus and into gaia's heart killing them both. In the ruins of Olympus after Gaia has turned into a dust and rubble storm on top of it Kratos finds  Zeus's body and pulls the sword from it.
Zeus then appears in huge god like glowing white form and snaps Kratos' neck.
We find ourselves in a dark rock like area glowing grey and red.
Some kind of limbo or afterlife.
There is not much to see other than a pedastal.
Voices can be heard.
A red line of blood appears and we can follow it. Kratos is haunted by visions of his families death.
Pandora calls to us and a light appears in the distance. We are back at the pedastal and Pandora lies there. Kratos picks her up and she tells him that the fires of hope will set them free.
She turns into fire and lights the brazier. A lamp can be lit from it.
We find our family again and there is a voice talking of forgiveness. Kratos hugs his family and it seems that they forgive him.
Pandora urges Kratos onwards. We see Kratos stabbing Athena.
Athena urges him to confront his demons and lay them to rest.
Kratos comes to a cliff edge and jumps in, he lands in water.
We start swimming around as voices rage and yell from the past.
Eventually after a long swim we come to Pandora's box and open it.
Pandora tells him that hope is the most important thing in the world, it is what you fight with when you have nothing else left.
Kratos comes back to life and we start to fight Zeus again in a first person perspective. Hacking with the blades then fists until Zeus is a bloody pulp.
Athena arrives and asks for her weapon back, the one that Kratos used to kill Zeus.
She explains that she placed the most powerful weapon in the world in the box along with all the evils when Zeus sealed it the first time. She wants it back.
When Pandora's box ws opened the first time evils were released in the world, it seem that the weapon was given to Kratos that first time as well, hope is the weapon.
Kratos appears to be about to kill Athena again, instead he stabs himself. This releases Hope into the world. Athena seems disappointed. The camera pans away from Kratos' corpse and the credits Roll.

You don't get to save after the Zeus and Gaia meet near the end. The time on the save game there was 12:52. I would estimate a further two hours after that, so 15 hours play time for my first play through on Normal (God) mode. 47% of the trophies.

I have now unlocked

Challenges.
Chaos mode
Costumes
Videos

I tried the challenge mode and this sees you basically in an arena fighting enemies with special buffs or debuffs. For example the first challenge sees you fight soliders and you must keep their numbers below fifty. Survive for a set time and you win. Simple fun and I am sure these will keep avid God of war fans going past the campaign.