Chapter 08: Profession Of Faith

Ancient Training Ground

Start following the path in front of you. When you reach the tunnel, jump up to the ceiling and smash the seed there to find a Blue Orb Fragment.

Lapis River

Use the Sephirotic Fruit on the tree here to drop the barrier from you. Head to the northwest to the Ancient Plaza.

Ancient Plaza

New enemies! These raptor-like lizardmen are called Assaults, and have shields and will lunge at you rather quickly, making them something of a combo of White Knights and Frosts. You can never be sure when they're about to attack you, making it easiest to just pound on them and hope for the best. If they shield up, quickly jump over them and attack them from behind. You can destroy their shields, but concentrating on one Assault will usually let the others attack you unfettered.

Windswept Valley/Ruined Church

Head back to the Ruined Church here. There's another tree section here that you can destroy with the Fruit. Do so and proceed on to the Lost Woods.

Lost Woods

The lost woods is similar to the famous Zelda maze, where the screen repeats itself as you pick exits and you're forced to choose the correct one. The pedestals in the center of this screen will give you some clues, about following the sun and avoiding the darkness.

Look for the shadows that face away from the edge of the screen to know where to go.

What you need to do here is to examine the shadows on the ground underneath the arches near each of the exits. One exit in each screen will have the shadows of the arch falling away from the sun, i.e. the arch's shadow will be extending towards the pillar in the middle of the screen. This is the path you want to take, obviously.

What you want to do first, however, is take the path heading into the shadows, where the shadows point towards the exit of the screen. This will lead to a screen where you have to fight off numerous enemies in order to escape, but if you jump around with Air Hike, you should be able to spot a Blue Orb Fragment in one of the trees nearby. Nab it, kill the enemies, and you'll return to the beginning of the maze. (Note that we found this on the enemy screen that results in heading east and then north; your mileage may vary.)

In layman's terms, heading east, south, and then north will lead you on to the next area.

Forgotten Ruins/Ancient Training Ground/Gran Album Bridge

Boss Fight: Angelo Credo

The first time you face Credo, he is going to kick your ass. The second time you might die, but it'll be a closer fight. After that, you should be familiar enough with his attacks and what you need to do in order to take him down. There aren't set phases here, and in general there isn't a real set pattern he goes through; he simply has a lot of moves that you need to recognize and learn how to avoid.

The thrust here will be to run around Angelo and attempt to hit him with your Buster attack. His problem is with your Demon Arm, so make sure he knows that that's what's beating him. Snatch 3 and Air Hike will be very helpful in this fight.

Abilities

Thrown Swords: Credo will charge up his swords when he has a bit of distance on you and throw them at you. He can throw as many as three of them, but he'll often throw only one or two. If he charges up a second sword after the first, it will come out a bit more quickly than the first one did.

Credo is dangerous and fast, but with a little work you'll nail him.

If you're far away when he starts these throws, you can easily roll-dodge away from them. If you're close to him, you can try to rush up and hit him with a Buster attack.

Sword Combos/Strikes: If you attack Credo's shields directly, he will retaliate with a few different sword combos. Most of these can be avoided by simply jumping straight up into the air and falling back down. These will also sometimes come out of their own accord.

Video Walk-through

Angelo Credo offers up an exhilirating and exciting fight.

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Teleport: When you get close to Credo, he will often teleport away and begin a Slow Walk.

The Slow Walk: After throwing the swords or recovering from a weary stun, Credo will begin walking slowly towards you. There's no attack involved here, or at least there isn't one until he gets close to you. What you want to do here, though, is hit him with Snatch while he's still pretty far away. It will bounce of his shields, but he will immediately charge you with his shield leading the way, allowing you to roll to one side and either Slide or simply attack him from the back, if you're quick enough.

Aura of Swords: Near the end of the fight, Credo will begin taking to the air and say "Now take this!" That will be followed by the appearance of a large group of swords that will float around Nero. You need to strike them all before they converge on your body. The air combo seems to be the easiest way to do this.

Strategy

You need to be very fast here, as Credo moves quite quickly and will overwhelm you if you're not prepared.

The basic strategy is, again, to try and hit him with Buster, preferably after striking him with your sword a few times. What we preferred to do was to wait for his Long Walk to begin, then use Snatch on him from a ways away. (This might not be doable if you don't have an upgraded Snatch ability.) The Snatch will hit his shield and bounce off, but Credo will always charge you after this occurs. You can easily dodge this charge, and proceed to either attack Credo from behind, maybe with a Slide, or attempt to Buster him. A Buster at this point will usually be reflected off of his shield, which will cause a combo to begin. Air Hike up into the air to hopefully avoid the combo, then land near Credo and attempt to attack him from behind or Buster him again.

It's tough to know when to deliver the supercombo, but if you manage to pull it off Credo will take heavy damage.

The thing to keep in mind here is that Credo will appear to be stunned fairly often. Usually he'll kind of appear dazed and appear to let his guard drop, but don't let appearances fool you: you might not be able to Buster him at all while he's dazed, and even if you do, it might be a normal Buster instead of a supercombo. Even if he drops to his knees and looks like he's primed for a buttkicking, you still might only pull off a normal Buster. Normal Busters involve your hand blasting into Credo's shield, which will knock him back and cause him to appear stunned; you will have a hard time getting to him before the stun wears off, however.

What you want to try and do to obtain the supercombo is to switch on your Devil Trigger mode while Credo is using the Long Walk, use Snatch to cause him to charge, dodge, then start attacking. If you can get three sword swings in, you have an excellent chance of following it up with a full-on Buster. If you can repeat this process a couple of times, you will eventually manage to start one of the two supercombos that will be the biggest source of damage in this fight.

Late in the fight, Credo will begin moving much more quickly and will take to the skies a bit more often; you'll need to basically spam him with attacks at this point to win. If you can avoid his earlier attacks, though, you should have a comfortable margin of error to work with.