OLYMPUS COLISEUM - A HERO'S GAME

General Intro: This is the setting from the Disney movie Hercules. In the Square tradition, it is a series of tournaments where you fight in a gladiator like area to achieve 1st Seed (in other words, first place). Normally you should go here for the story sequence after Wonderland, since it was the other world that you could've gone to from Traverse Town before. It's 2-star difficulty at first. Important things to gain from this place right now are the Thunder spell, and the Sonic Blade ability is also available upon completing the first part of the Coliseum.

The Hall of Gods: There's only two places to go in the Coliseum - inside and out. Outside you find Inside is called the Lobby, and that's where you'll find the sarcastic satyr, Philoctetes. You can explore the outer area, finding the treasure chests around the giant feet of the golden soldier statues, and the Blue Trinity marks in front of them you can get. More on those in the other obsessive section of the website.

LOBBY - THAT OLD GOAT

Philoctetes: When you go in, Phil talks to you thinking you're that half-god Herc. He tells you to move the stone block. Go up and push up against it like you would a crate. Keep pushing until Sora thinks to himself that it's too heavy for him. Then, talk to Phil again. He's going to go bonkers, of course, until he turns around and sees you're not Herc. The sequence then goes into how you and your minions are real heroes! (Uh huh, yup yup.) Also note that there's a Save Point in this area in the left corner beside the Lobby entrance, but it's a different kind of Save Point. You can't go back to your gummi ship from here - you have to exit the Lobby back into the Hall of the Gods and out the Coliseum Exit to get out of here.

ARENA - BARREL BASHERS

First Trial: Once you agree to go prove your bark is backed up by a bite, your first trial of barrel bashing comes. This first trial has 20 barrels for you to smash, in 30 seconds. An important thing to note is your Abilities before you go into this trial. If you have Vortex, you might do a whirling spin and strike (that's the Vortex ability for you) and hit the barrel. That's one hit. The barrels last only 1 combo pretty much, so if you weakened the barrel before Sora has a chance to finish his combo, then you'll have to spend more precious time destroying barrels that could've been finished off easily. Since Sora's finishing move is a whirling attack that'll send barrels flying everywhere, keep this in mind as you move in to attack the barrels. Also use the L2 and R2 buttons to move the camera to your convenience and line Sora up with the barrels.

Group 1 - Charge to the right side of the first trio of barrels. Turn to face them, lock onto the middle one, and start attacking. With luck, Sora's finishing move will knock the middle barrel or the right most barrel into the next group. If it doesn't, then just whack away.

Group 2 - Go to the lone barrel and target it. Line up to face the set of 4 barrels behind the lone barrel, and start attacking the loner to knock them into the 4. Again, if not all of them are destroyed, then quickly attack them and get those done and over.

Group 3 - 6 barrels here. Target the lower middle barrel, and attack the entire group swiftly. Again the aim's to knock barrels into other barrels, preferably destroying the 6 with one attack combo or two.

Group 4 - Hop onto the middle platform to the lone barrel. Move the camera behind Sora and face towards the lone barrel lined up with the 4 barrels behind the previous set of 6. Knock the lone barrel into the four if you can. If not, whack!

Group 5 - The last two barrels, if you're getting desperate for time, requires a little bit of aim. Hop onto the closer lone barrel and knock it towards the final barrel. If you miss, target the last barrel and cast Fire spells at it to destroy it, or jump to it on the platform and take care of it. Overall, this first easy trial shouldn't be too hard.

Second Trial: This hard trial is breaking 25 barrels in 1 minute. It takes a bit of strategy to get them all, but don't be discouraged if you don't get through them the first time. You can fine tune this, because you can't go any further in the Coliseum without beating this trial.

Group 1 - Run to the left, where there's 4 barrels. Destroy them by again, attacking from the side and with luck you'll smash them all by knocking barrels you're hitting into the ones behind them.

Group 2 - Once the 4 are finished, run to the right side, where you'll see a lone barrel facing a set of 2. Knock the lone barrel into the two stacked.

Group 3 - Hidden in the back is another dual set of barrels, one to one. Knock that first barrel you come across into the second one, then return towards the front with the platforms.

Group 4 - Jump onto the lowest platform, and go to the right most of the trio of barrels. Attack from the side, to knock the first barrel into the others.

Group 5 - For the next platform, you should have a lone barrel facing a set of 4. Same strategy here, but the barrels are a little farther so it's likely you won't get all four. Run towards them after you've knocked the barrel at them and destroy the 4.

Group 6 - This second to last group of 6 barrels should be destroyed like the first trial. Just try to get through them as fast as you can.

Group 7 - This is the last. There's 2 barrels left, and you knock the lower barrel towards the barrel on the platform far away from you. If you don't get it, use Fire spells quickly. You can press the Fire button many times in a row to get more fireballs shooting out quicker.

Still Not There: You learn the Thunder spell once you complete the barrel trials. You can talk to Phil again to do the trials over if you'd like, but you want to move on with the story right? Head on back out into the Hall of Gods. Hades appears outside, and in a small story sequence, you get your very own handy dandy Entry Pass. Once you get this, go back in and show Phil you've got your warrant, so he has to let you in. Bring yourself and your minions up to par in your Equipment, Items and Abilities, and then Save before you talk to Phil.

ARENA - THE PRELIMINARIES

Prelim Preparation: The prelims are a sample of what's to come for Coliseum tourneys. The goal is to destroy your enemies quickly and efficiently without being hurt too much yourself. You want to save your Potions for the bosses. This is why we recommended going to Deep Jungle first, because you get the Cure spell which will definitely save your skin. If you didn't go to Deep Jungle first though, you'll have to be fast with your D-pad and select your Items as soon as you can to use on yourself. Don't worry about Donald and Goofy. You can equip them with Potions if you want, but if you're playing Expert Mode, they go through those like a hot knife through butter. You're better off worrying about yourself and destroying the Heartless. Re-equip the Vortex ability if you took it off for the trials. Try not to use your Potions until you're in dire need (aka that low HP alarm blaring is getting annoying) and make sure you run away to a safe spot before using your Items. If you end up using Potions in the middle of a fight area, you'll probably get killed before you have a chance to select and use it.

Enemies: These rounds are made up of Soldiers, Blue Rhapsodies, Red Noctures, Shadows, and Large Bodies. You should have no problem fighting them off at this point, but be on the look out not to get too caught up and attacked from all sides. Those Large Bodies are especially irritating! After you fight through a couple of rounds, you have a short sequence where you see Cloud walk by you (He's really cool with his cloak and all. I smell show down...)

Boss Battle - Cloud: HP: 300, EXP: 80. Hah! Well, after 6 rounds of pitiful Heartless, you get to fight FFVII's Cloud. He's also carrying that huge sword of his, and he has a long reach with this sword like Leon with his gunblade. Cloud is also a lot faster than Leon. DODGE ROLL is essential for this fight. The thing about Cloud is that he yells and shouts before he attacks. Very noisy, but that's good for you. You can dodge or counter, if successfully you get Tech Points. Cloud has a couple of very damaging attacks. He charges repeatedly in succession with his blade, and he'll also swing his sword around, jump really high into the air and come down in a crushing attack from the air. You can Dodge Roll away before he hits, turn and attack him. Don't even think that your minions are good for anything more than healing you and distracting Cloud for moment while you use healing Items at this point. You should know better than that by now, right? Oh, and a thing to know is that you don't have to beat Cloud to keep going. It's not game over, but like meeting and defeating Leon, it's more fun to prove you've got skillz.

ARENA - BAD DOGGY, NO BISCUIT

Hercules Appears: Whether or not you defeat Cloud, the story goes on. On the brink of defeat, a new monster appears. It was a setup from Hades. You get to fight the monstrous three-headed Cerberus... or wait. Hercules comes to the rescue, and holds back Cerberus. You, your minions, and Phil (damn coward) run away! And you go back into the Lobby to escape the wrath of the gate guardian of the underworld.

Restock, regroup: Since you're in the Lobby, take advantage of the Save Point. Restock your Items, check your custom shortcuts, anything that you wanted to tweak before but forgot to do, go do it now. But what's more is that you can run away! You can exit Olympus Coliseum, go to another world to level up, and come back later once you're all powered up. Or... you can go back and whack that bad dog with your metal roll of newspaper...er... Keyblade.

Boss Battle - Cerberus: HP: 600, EXP: 200. Cerberus is a right HUGE boss to fight. The targets to hit are the three heads. But wow, those teeth are killer. Also, there a few other attacks: Cerberus shoots fireballs from his mouths, rears up and stomps onto the ground with a major damaging quake, and he spews Dark magic out from his mouths which cause columns of bad mojo to shoot up at you and follow you wherever you run. The cycle goes just like that. He also bites. The first thing Cerberus does is shoot his fireballs at you. Run around them or Dodge Roll out of the way, and get close to the big dog's side or behind him. When he stops, he'll either rear up and quake stomp, or he'll lean down and spew dark magic. If he does the second, then you have to run around and avoid the circles that will injure you if you stand in one place too long. Run behind and to the sides of Cerberus when this magic is going. While you're running about, Cerberus also shoots fireballs. Eventually he will stop and stand in one place, and start biting at whatever's in front attacking his heads - that'd be Donald and Goofy. This is your opportunity to sneak up from the side, and target one of the side heads. Attack from the sides always, never in front. Use your Target Lock to center Sora's attacks on the heads, and be sure to run off and heal yourself if you're HP is on the low side. You have the whole arena to run and avoid the dark magic attack with, but don't run off too far from Cerberus because you are waiting for the opportunities to attack his heads. If you are at a decent enough level, you shouldn't die. If you still do, keep trying. The key is patience and persistence. If you're a magic type of person, lock onto the heads and cast Thunder, since Fire and Blizzard are most likely to miss. If you have the Scan ability, you should be able to see how much more you have to go in defeating the dog. Once Cerberus gets punished, you win the Inferno Band, which ups defense against Fire and Dark magic.

Conclusion: After you beat Cerberus, Phil recognizes you as a (Jr) Hero and you can compete in the Cups. Go outside to where Cloud is sitting at the steps of the exit. He gives you a new ability: Sonic Blade. That's pretty much his sliding attack he used on you earlier. If you use this ability right, you can do it in combo and the final attack does a lot of damage to your enemies. After you get these things, save and head back out to your gummi ship. The next destination, depending on which path you decided to go, is either Deep Jungle, or back to Traverse Town for Part 2 there.

End Olympus Coliseum 1.