God of War: Sons of Sparta Beginner Guide: Surviving the Metroidvania

Before he was ripping the heads off of Greek gods, Kratos was just a very angry Spartan trying not to get skewered by basic skeletons.

God of War: Sons of Sparta takes the franchise in a completely new direction. Santa Monica Studio stripped away the 3D arenas and dropped a young Kratos straight into a brutal 2D Metroidvania. If you go into this game expecting to just mash the Square button until everything on the screen dies, you are going to get humbled very quickly. The combat is deliberate, healing is incredibly scarce, and the map is a labyrinth designed to get you lost.

I spent hours getting my teeth kicked in by early game bosses so you don't have to. If you want to survive your tour of Laconia without throwing your controller, you need to unlearn your old God of War habits. Here is the complete beginner guide to mastering combat, managing your health, and picking the right skills in Sons of Sparta.

The Rules of Spartan Combat

Combat in Sons of Sparta is built entirely around managing space and exploiting the stun mechanic. If you overcommit to a long combo, you will be punished.

The Four Colors of Death

Just like the recent 3D entries, enemies in this game heavily telegraph their attacks using specific colored flashes. You must commit these colors to muscle memory immediately.

• Red Flashes: These attacks are completely unblockable. You cannot parry them, and your shield will do nothing. You must use your evade roll to get out of the way.

• Yellow Flashes: These are heavy attacks. They will instantly break a standard block and leave you staggered, but they can be parried if your timing is perfect.

• Blue Flashes: These attacks are sweeping or magical, meaning they cannot be evaded or parried. Do not try to roll through them. You have to stand your ground and hold the block button to absorb the hit.

• Purple Flashes: The absolute worst. These attacks cannot be blocked, parried, or evaded through with invincibility frames. The moment you see purple, you need to physically move Kratos as far away from the enemy as possible.

Spartan Spirit vs. Basic Attacks

You have two primary ways to hit things with your spear. Basic attacks (tapping Square) deal raw damage and cause enemies to drop yellow orbs. These orbs refill your Spirit Meter.

If you hold down R1 while attacking, you perform a Spartan Spirit attack. These attacks actually deal less raw health damage, but they deal massive amounts of Stun damage. You can track this via the grey bar underneath the enemy's health pool. When the grey bar fills up, the enemy is stunned, allowing you to press Triangle and perform a Brutal Kill.

You should always aim for a Brutal Kill. Executing enemies rewards you with significantly more Blood Orbs (the currency used for upgrades) than just poking them to death. The core combat loop is simple: use Spirit attacks to build stun, switch to basic attacks when your meter is empty to refill it, and execute them when they stagger.

Stop Mashing Square

Your basic attacks do not stagger enemies by default. If you try to mash out a six-hit combo on a skeleton, they are just going to hyper-armor through your animation and hit you in the face. Hit an enemy two or three times, back off, wait for them to whiff their attack, and then punish them during their recovery animation. Treat your spear like a spacing tool, not a battering ram.

How to Actually Heal

Healing in the early hours of Sons of Sparta is a miserable experience. You do not have a regenerating health bar, and health drops are rare. You need to manage your health pool meticulously.

The Campfire Dilemma

Campfires are your primary checkpoints. Resting at one will instantly refill your entire health bar. However, resting also respawns every single non-boss enemy in the region. If you are halfway through a difficult dungeon and you backtrack to a fire just to heal a sliver of health, you have to fight your way through the entire gauntlet all over again. Only rest when you absolutely have to.

Farming Green Orbs

If you are desperate for health, you can actually farm it using your Spartan Spirit attacks. Damaging an enemy with a Spirit attack forces them to drop green healing orbs. The healing is minimal, but if you find an enemy stuck on a ledge or trapped behind a barrier, you can safely poke them with Spirit attacks to slowly top off your health bar before moving on.

Grey Health and Blocking

When you take damage, you might notice a portion of your health bar turns grey. This is recoverable health. As long as you do not take another hit for a few seconds, that grey health will slowly regenerate back into actual health. Furthermore, if you hold block with your shield and absorb standard attacks, you will only take grey damage. This makes the shield an incredibly powerful tool for sustaining yourself during long fights.

The Olpe of Wellness

Eventually, the game takes pity on you. Once you reach the Temple of Dionysus (located past the Eurotas River), you will receive the Olpe of Wellness. This acts exactly like the Estus Flask from Dark Souls. You can drink from it at any time by pressing Up on the D-Pad. You refill the flask by picking up excess green health orbs while your actual health bar is already full.

The Best Skills to Buy First

Every time you execute an enemy or open a chest, you earn Blood Orbs. You spend these in the skill tree to unlock new moves. Do not waste your early Orbs on flashy combos. You need utility and defense. Here are the absolute best skills to buy as soon as you have the currency.

Essential Early Game Skills

Prioritize these unlocks to make boss fights and exploration significantly easier.

Skill Name	Cost	Why You Need It Immediately
Agile Evade II	1,000 Orbs	This is the most important skill in the game. It drastically increases the distance of your dodge roll. This allows you to easily roll completely behind enemies when they use unblockable red attacks, giving you free hits on their back.
Laconian Revenge	500 Orbs	Parrying is already strong, but this skill turns it into a lethal weapon. It allows you to perform an immediate shield counter-attack the second you land a successful parry.
Siege Tactic	500 Orbs	Allows you to perform a bashing blow while dodging forward. It is the perfect gap-closer for when you dodge an attack and end up just slightly out of melee range.
Spark Stinger II	500 Orbs	Upgrades your Spark Stinger attack to create a spray of sparks on the ground. It effectively turns a single-target poke into a much safer, longer-range area of effect attack.
Phalanx Splitter I	1,000 Orbs	Gives you a reliable, heavy charged attack. This is exactly what you need to punish bosses or large enemies when they are locked in a lengthy recovery animation.

Map Navigation and Exploration

Because this is a Metroidvania, you are going to encounter locked doors, out-of-reach ledges, and strange obstacles constantly. Do not waste time trying to brute-force a puzzle if you clearly do not have the right tool for it.

Instead, open your map and use the custom markers. The game gives you an infinite amount of map markers, and you can even change their colors. Create your own color-coding system (e.g., Red for fire puzzles, Blue for missing keys) and mark the map heavily. It saves you an immense amount of backtracking frustration later when you finally unlock the necessary traversal gear.

Finally, do not hoard your Blood Orbs. If you see an option to unlock "Vermilion Globes" in the menu, buy it immediately. These globes literally reveal the locations of hidden collectibles on your map, both in areas you have explored and areas you haven't. They pay for themselves very quickly by leading you straight to valuable upgrade materials.