__ 
 /   od of War  /------------------------------------------------------------o
|  _ -----o-----\                   The Challenge of Hades                   |
 \_/   (0000D)   \-----------------------------------------------------------o

Both the left and right sides of the stairs have healing chests.  Jump up onto 
the left side of the room to find a door, when you examine it you must accept 
the challenge to make a blood sacrifice.  Do so and a new type of centaur like 
enemies will appear.  There's also a large circle area around the entrance, 
what you need to do is kill enough enemies within this circle so that the door 
opens, it's not easy.  Eventually when you manage to accomplish this the door 
is unlocked and you can proceed through it.  When you come out of the hall use 
the platform beside the door on the left side to jump up to the ledge above.  
Here you will find three chests, two with red orbs and one with a Phoenix 
Feather.  Drop down again and lift up the door on the left side.  

In this hall the floors are behaving rather erratically and it just so happens 
that underneath them there is nothing but lava.  What you need to do is time 
your jumps so that you can land on solid ground, rather than liquid magma.  
Roll past the spears in the next hall as well, then get ready to navigate 
through a maze.  At the first fork the left path only takes you to a face, so 
head right.  At the next fork make a left and you'll find yourself in an open 
area.  At the top there's a treasure chest, open it to get a whole bunch of 
red orbs.  Return to the previous fork and go straight this time, then make a 
left (if you go right, it's a health chest.)  Here you will find a lever you 
can turn.  Turn the lever to raise yourself up to the next level.  Right 
beside the elevator you can grab hold of that block in the wall and push it 
forward so that it drops down.  Run to the end before the path collapses and 
get the red orbs from the chest.  Go back and make a right at the fork, then 
make another right and push the block forward so it falls.  Defeat all the 
enemies in this room, grab the health and open the door down the hall at the 
upper left.  Since you're back here again make a left at the fork.

There's a large crushing block here.  Wait for it to go out and then follow it 
and jump on top.  Kill the enemies here in this area but you can't go through 
the door yet, it says you must kill all the enemies in the maze.  The final 
two enemies are through the door being blocked by the crushinator.  It goes 
further every time until the third time when it resets.  Wait for it to go far 
enough so that you can get through the arch door that it's blocking and kill 
the two remaining enemies in there.  Now you can pass through the door and 
find yourself back in the front hall again.  Step on the large button in front 
of your to raise the huge statue out of the ground.  Jump down and jump into 
the water where the statue came out of.  At the bottom you will find a switch 
to pull, now the head is firing a light beam.  Jump out of the water and climb 
the ladder on the side of the statue.  Turn the lever at the back of the head 
to face it around in the opposite direction and light your path.  Now jump off 
the head, save your game at the bottom of the stairs, and enter that room.

Now here's a little something interesting, all these flaming balls coming 
toward you.  Your job is to navigate between them as you progress up the path 
to try and reach the door at the end in between the slope the balls are 
rolling down.  It's not easy, but not too difficult either.  Refrain from 
using the right analog stick, it will probably do more harm than good, if your 
timing is right you can just run between all of them anyway.  Once you reach 
the end go through the opening and defeat the enemies.  Open the chests here 
to get some red orbs and a Phoenix Feather.  Don't think you're in the clear 
yet however because if you read that tablet you'll realize you need to go back 
out there.  Notice that along the way there were doors that you passed, well 
one of these many doors leads to the path you need to take.  To save you the 
time of looking obviously, it happens to be the third last door on the left.  
This means from the top follow the left wall and go past the first two doors, 
try the third.  Follow the hall to the end and get ready to fight.

A number of large minotaurs wielding deadly dual sided axes await you here.  
Defeat all four of them with your best attack combos along with the archers 
that spawn soon after in order to remove the evil forcefield.  Follow the 
upper right steps up and kill all the enemies in this area, if you're 
wondering why it's a dead end it's because the point of this area is to kill 
the archers, you can't proceed otherwise.  Return to the previous room and 
take the upper left exit.  Jump up and make your way across the rope here.  
Drop down into the arena and get ready for some massive combat against a horde 
of enemies.  After the two minotaurs are killed, or enemies other enemies that 
are the last remaining climb up the ladder and jump to the next ledge.

There's another maze here, at least somewhat.  Go straight ahead at the first 
fork and make a right at the second one to find a chest with red orbs inside.  
Take a few steps back and head left.  Make a right at the next fork and save 
your game.  In this room you have to balance across the thin beam, but as an 
added danger there's a spinning death machine around you as well.  When it 
gets to close double jump straight up into the air to avoid it.  Head up when 
you come to the first fork and then right when you reach the second.  When you 
reach the safe platform cross over on the beam to the right side where you 
will find a chest containing a Phoenix Feather.  Return to the platform and 
head up.  Balance along the next beam and head left when you come to the first 
fork to find a chest containing red orbs.  Go back and continue down.  
Continue moving right at the next fork and open the chest containing a stash 
of red robs.  Now head up at the fork, you need to wait for the one arm that 
doesn't have death blades on it, and then jump onto that one.  From there 
simply walk forward and climb up the ladder.  Balance along this beam here to 
reach the next platform but before you slide down, continue to the right to 
eventually reach a chest with more red orbs.  Head back and slide down.

Descend down the ladder at the bottom and follow the path into the next hall.  
Turn the wheel at the end for a quick scene, then head left to drop down 
somewhere familiar you've been before.  Make your way down and save your game 
along the way.  Be sure you're full healed and all that mumbo jumbo before you 
go out there, you wouldn't want to be underprepared for the... second boss.

Basically this boss does what many gigantic bosses in other games does, relies 
on a huge battlefield with all sorts of crazy stuff going on and pretty much 
confuses you to the point where you think it's hard.  Well I'm here to 
simplify everything and point out that in the end this boss boils down to one 
simple, albeit long, pattern.  First of all note that the boss is easiest to 
fight when you're on the ledge at the lower end of the room so get up there 
now.  This will make the boss come running and put his hands up on the ledge.  
The majority of this boss' attacks can be blocked, the only dangerous ones he 
was are the unblockable ones so I'll describe them first.  When he raises his 
left hand (on the right side from your perspective) then he's going to swipe 
down and grab you.  To avoid this simply double jump to the left, often if you 
do it straight up he still grabs you, so do it to the left.  The second occurs 
only after he charges, a bunch of fire comes up from below you, simply double 
jump to avoid this.  Everything else can be blocked.  Now for actually 
damaging him.  Normal attacks work fine, here's what you have to do.  When he 
runs up to your start slashing and smashing until he gets stunned and jumps 
backward.  Now he will charge at you again.  You need to stun him so that he 
jumps away approximately four or five times.  After that each time you stun 
him he will temporarily curl up on the ground and the circle item will appear 
above his head, so knowing that this will happen immediately after you stun 
him jump down and start running to the top.  Press the circle button to jump 
on top and use the left analog stick to match the screen patterns similar to 
the gorgons.  After doing this the boss will stand up in a daze.  Now is you 
chance, run back to the bottom of the area and pull the switch to load one of 
the logs into the cannon and fire it at him.  Bam.  Now the process starts 
over again, you need to do everything you just did exactly one more time all 
the way up to the point where you fire a second log at him.  After the second 
log is where things change.  Now when he runs up to your and you damage him, 
when he gets stunned bits of his armour break off.  Stun him four or five 
times now to wear off his armour completely and reveal his health bar.  At 
this point he no longer becomes stunned and it's just a matter of fighting as 
you always have been the entire time to wear down his health.  When it gets 
very low, down in the red he'll become stunned just one more time.  This is 
your cue to reach for the lever and bring and end to the long battle.

Following the fight you can now get through the large door via a crack in the 
bottom.  Climb up the spiral stairs and use the save point when you reach the 
top.  Further up you'll find three chests containing health, magic and red 
orbs.  Now examine the book in the centre of the room.  Pull the lid off the 
coffin and take The Architect's Son's Head.  Grab the head and return back to 
where you fought the minotaur, here you will find another of the gods, 
approach it to get a new magic spell, Army of Hades.  Use this magic to defeat 
all the enemies that spawn around here.  Now head through the door Hades was 
blocking and swim back to the room that had the large rolling object.  Press 
R2 underwater when you're beside the skull door to insert The Architect's 
Son's Head and the water lowers down.  Now here's what you need to do.  First 
of all find the lever near the wall, beside it is a door, tap the R2 button to 
lift this door up.  Now run into the very centre of the statue in the middle 
where you will find a lever.  Turn it around and around until it is aligned 
with the door you just opened.  Leave this room and start turning the lever 
beside the door you opened until that door is aligned with the outer hall.  
Now go out to the outer hall and make sure that door lines up too so all the 
doors are aligned with the room with the save point down at the very end.  

Here's a little update note that I believe I missed.  I'm under the impression 
that if you rotate the outer wall you can eventually find a room where you can 
use those two Muse keys you got to unlock a door filled with red orbs and god 
knows what else.  It's around this area so be sure to check it out.

With all the doors aligned head to the save point room at the end and save 
your game.  Here at the back you'll see a shiny handle you can grab, grab the 
handle at the side of the little steps, not the one in the middle but the one 
with the shiny thing on it.  When you push it a cutscene will trigger.  

Run to the very middle and pull the handle to rise up the elevator.  Leave the 
room and start to cross the bridge.  There's a quick scene and then a battle 
with a new enemy, you'll have to defeat three of them before you can proceed.  
As you cross the bridge there is another cutscene, then use the save point on 
the other side.  Read the book in the middle, then begin your trek upward.