Sons of Sparta has been a blast, there’s no two ways about it. Seeing a younger Kratos during Spartan training alongside Deimos is a refreshing change of pace — raw, hungry, and still sharpening the instincts that made him a legend. But that doesn’t mean his time as a young Spartan is a walk in the park.
You’re going to find yourself outmatched pretty quickly if you approach this new adventure with anything short of your best fighting skills. Luckily, we’ve been through it all and lived to tell the tale, and decided to help you start your journey armed with knowledge, while Kratos brings his still-developing yet awesome abilities to the battlefield.
Let’s dive right in!
Train Your Muscle Memory Right
You’re going to notice that attacks come with four different colors, and knowing what to expect when each one is displayed can help you prepare your response without really thinking about it. Look at it like a sort of rock-paper-scissors situation, and you’re golden.
A red attack must be met with a dodge, allowing you to reposition and get in a few hits of your own. A blue attack must be blocked while a yellow one can be parried to get your enemy off balance. A purple attack must be avoided at all costs. Internalize the colors and you’ll find yourself reacting to your opponents just as a Spartan would, with your reflexes taking over in the heat of battle.
Know Your Enemy Drops
Like enemy attacks, the drops you can obtain from them once are tied to the type of attacks you hit them with. For instance, landing basic attacks nets you yellow orbs that refill your Spirit meter, allowing you to dish out more stun damage via Spartan Spirit attacks. Those attacks net green orbs that provide health.
Since all of your orbs are absorbed automatically, irrespective of whether you need them or not, paying attention to your health, spirit, and magic is important to sustaining your attack potential over the course of a fight. Red orbs drop naturally upon defeating enemies, while blue ones drop from enemies that use magic attacks.
Know When To Back Off
Remember when we said that blue attacks need to be blocked? That’s a good time to reset spacing and regain your rhythm, adjusting your spacing just about enough to ensure that you can punish your opponent’s recovery animations once you do.
It can be easy to just back away completely out of attack range, acting on instinct instead of using the moment to try building up stun or perhaps unleashing a devastating counterattack. A true Spartan stands their ground while using their enemy’s own moves against them, after all.
Know When To Go In For The Kill
You should be treating every yellow attack as an opportunity to show your foes exactly why they should fear you in the moment and for a long time after. Parrying is a great way to shift the momentum of a fight in your favor and keep it that way for as long as your enemy is still standing.
Getting the timing down means that you’re not just avoiding damage, but actively opening up your foes to stuns and powerful counterattacks, unleashing your might on them before they even realize that they’ve made a grave mistake coming after you. The best warriors don’t just wait for opportunities, but create them on the fly.
Abuse The Stun Mechanic
There are many ways to stun your opponents, and you should be looking to do that as much as you can if you want to come out on top of each fight. Your shield is a good place to start, allowing you to learn how to block or parry effectively while building up your opponent’s stun bar. Spirit attacks are another great option, and mixing them in from time to time as you get the chance to do so is going to help.
Aside from these easy-to-access methods for stunning, charged, strong attacks, any environmental hazards, specific skills that are tailored for stuns, and of course, an upgraded spear are all options to let you get your opponent to the ground and let you unleash your highest DPS attack to close things out. Just be intentional about it, and you’re going to find that most enemies in the game are unable to withstand the incoming onslaught.
Invest In A Diverse Loadout
As you dive deeper into the adventure, you’re going to find enemies that come with aura shields, which only take damage from specific spirit or magic attacks. To that end, you’re going to have to think like a Spartan and prepare for every eventuality in battle. The way to do that is to have a reliable attack to break through those shields.
Make sure it’s one that you’re comfortable using, and that you know exactly how long it takes to start, execute, and recover from, to ensure that you’re ready to cause some mayhem once the shield is down. The last thing you want to do is waste your energy on attacks that don’t hurt your enemy. Inefficiency is not the Spartan way.
Purple Attacks and Positioning
We know we said purple attacks must be avoided at all costs, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be punishing them at all. Like with blue attacks, calculating an optimal amount of space to stay out of harm’s way while giving yourself the room for a counterattack is the way to go. Work against the instinct to panic roll, and you’ll soon find yourself reacting to them with a grin on your face.
Yes, they’re deadly if they connect and can have you facing death sooner than you’d like. But like any other attack you’re facing down as Kratos, they’re a chance to take advantage of the situation and showcase how he is the embodiment of a Spartan warrior, and a deadly fighter as his skills improve. We all have to start somewhere, right?
Use Spirit Attacks For Stability
It can be tempting to abuse your Spirit attacks to stun your opponents faster, as they do trade damage for more stun build-up. But we’d recommend being a little prudent in their use, as they’re also a way to get health orb drops when things aren’t going your way.
Despite your skills, mistakes do happen, and in a battlefield such as the one Kratos participates in, those mistakes can prove fatal if you don’t have the means to take them in your stride. Save a little of your spirit bar for such situations, using all the other ways we’ve outlined to get those stuns and just let loose on your opponents. It doesn’t matter how fast you take your opponent down, but how efficiently you manage to do so.
Buffs
Your buffs are not meant to be a last resort response that you use when you’re panicking or in a pinch, but are rather useful tools that lend versatility to your fighting style. Don’t hoard them for emergencies, but use them as versatile tools for the situation at hand.
Melee-focused ones are best used as combo extenders, allowing you to dish out damage while letting you reposition right after them and prepare for a counterattack, while the ranged ones can be used to take out hard-to-reach enemies or deal with particularly aggressive ones from a safe distance. You could also use them if you find you’ve messed up on positioning yourself after a blue or purple attack, sustaining your onslaught while you close the gap.
Don’t Sleep on Movement Skills
While it can be hard to ignore skills that let you deal more damage, given that we’re in Kratos’ shoes, you must remember that his speed is equally a part of his skill set as much as strength is. Just because movement skills don’t dish out damage doesn’t mean that they should be ignored.
Sons of Sparta is a platforming game after all, and since that genre revolves around loot, moving faster through levels is a great way to ensure that your inventory always has what you need to be more effective in the field. You’re also going to be avoiding more damage if you can outpace your enemies, too, so that’s a win-win for every movement upgrade you invest in.
Backtrack At The Right Moments
While we’re on the subject of movement, backtracking as soon as you get a new tool is a reliable way to ensure you’re not missing out on awesome loot for more upgrade materials from harder-to-reach or previously inaccessible areas that you’re going to find as you keep exploring.
Try to make a mental note of where you find locked gates or places blocked off by out-of-reach switches or brambles, for which the sling and fire are appropriate ways to tackle them, respectively. Come back to them when you get the means to deal with the obstacle at hand, and you’re going to find even more options to improve traversal, using upgrade hubs, meaning that each run is improving your power.
Play To Your Strengths But Cover Your Weaknesses
All of us approach combat differently, and the true warrior knows their strengths while being humble enough to admit their weaknesses. Of course, your enemies don’t need to know that, and using your spear and shield attachments to cater to your specific playstyle is going to have your foes wondering how you’re able to dispatch them so easily. If they’re capable of thought, that is.
Since attachments have their own upgrade trees, use one to play to your strengths and the other to cover a weakness. Don’t like crowds? Ensure that you’re adding ways to manage them easily. Do you like to strike from a safe distance instead of getting close and personal? Try to extend the range of your spear or add a few ranged attacks into the mix.
Get your attachments and skills to work in tandem, and you’re going to be a force to be reckoned with on the field.
Use The Battlefield To Your Advantage
The best fighters don’t just rely on their own weapons, but use the battlefield to its fullest. Kratos is no exception, and using any throwables in the environment to open a fight is a great way to get some free stun build-up before you even start sticking an enemy with the pointy end of a spear.
But try to keep a few of them handy to interrupt attacks or as a way to ensure you’re beginning your combo with a hit against foes that could spell trouble for you. Use the arena to its fullest, and your enemies will learn to rue the day they ever met you.
Practice Makes Perfect
The best Spartans are the ones who don’t neglect their training, and taking Kratos on farming runs from time to time ensures that you’re doing all you can to be prepared for the challenges ahead. But too much practice can leave you fatigued when you need your tired muscles the most.
To that end, easily repeatable runs that do not require you to stray far from your resting spots are the way to go. It also pays to keep a target in mind, such as your next skill node or an attachment tier for either your spear or shield. Hit it and continue on with your adventure, knowing that you have done all you can to be at your best for the challenges ahead.
Don’t Sleep On Optional Content
Speaking of being at your best, the optional gauntlets are a great way to chase down buffs that you can then use to gain a leg up at enemies. Go for one as soon as you hit a new attachment tier or gain an important skill, as you can use them to familiarize yourself with a new move or upgrade, or perhaps when you find that your farming runs aren’t quite cutting it.
This approach means that you’re always close to another upgrade, making your time with the game all the more efficient as a result.
And that’s all we have for you as you take on the adventures of a younger Kratos.