Shadow Ruins Walkthrough Courtesy of Tyme

Shadow Ruins Walkthrough Courtesy of Tyme:

Upon entering the SR you find youself in a room with two Athena statues. You can't do anything in here yet so head thru the room and start left or right down the hall. It doesnt matter which way because the halls will close off and those two statues from the entrance room will come to life. Kill the two statues and in the alcoves that they were standing in will be levers to open the halls back up.

Once this is done head back into the hallways that closed on you and go left. At the end of this you will come to a room with bookshelves where you will find a "loose Tome". Trigger the tome to open a secret room just outside this room where you came in to get some treasure. There is a gate in this room that will be activated after you complete some of the other puzzles, keep this in mind and check back here for it.

Now head back to the T intersection from the entrance room and go past the first room thru the other hallway that was closed off. Once you make a left and round the corner you will see some rune glyphs on the floor leading into another hallway to the right, but for now pass those and head up the hallway where it will turn left.

You will come to a room with two more Athena statues facing each other and more books. This is a very important room because this is probably where you will end up stuck like I did. What you want to do is stick a shadow stone into these two statues which will open the gate in this room. However if you have aleady repeatedly tried to solve the chess puzzle you will have already used your stones and will get stuck here. I can't remember if you have a stone at this point but go ahead and try to bring one of the statues to life. If not we'll just continue on. There is another loose Tome in here which opens another treasure room just outside.

Now head back up the hallway towards the rune glyphs you saw on the floor and follow them into the room. You should see a pit filled with columns that have rune glyphs on top of them. Yeah this is a no brainer, simply jump on the same glyphs in order as they appear on the floor in the order of outside the room heading in. Easy. On the other side of this room there is a gate to your left and your right, head into the left gate.

When you go into the gate on your left it will be a small room with pictures of a Knight fighting a beast on the walls. The knight's sword points you to the door you need to go into to solve this multi-room puzzle. Getting thru these rooms deposits you into the Shadow Realm, a confusing and frustrating realm of floating islands. See my notes at the end concerning the shadow realm. Once you find the door out of the shadow realm it takes you to a room with another pit and more columns with glyphs on top of them.

In alcoves to the sides are statues that will try to push you off but they won't get the chance because you're going to do this correctly. The way this works is, when you jump onto a glyph column it pushes you over to a glyph of the same type.

Look at the blue glyph, this is the one you use to get across. It will take you across this pit in a zig-zag manner. Across the pit thru the door is a treasure room and an activatible glyph button on the floor. Press the button. Once you're done doing your thing on the other side drop into the pit and the gate down there puts you at the door back on the side you came in at. Head thru the gate.

NOTE:If you have a stone hammer from the second loose tome treasure room (and you can use it) try fighting the statues on the treasure room side of this pit. You can reach those two and they give 400K+change exp.

At this point head back to the Tome room with the two statues that I said was important and try to bring them to life.

NOTE: If you fall there will likely be some wraiths or shadow beasts down there, if its shadow beasts put on the gas mask from Naga Temple and it renders their gas attack useless on you.Don't worry about falling, head into the cave down there, and open the treasure chest then head into the gate. This deposits you into a shadow realm. Once out of the shadow realm you come out of a gate in the hallway near the SR entrance and the glyphs on the floor leading into the pit you fell into are on your right. However, you can turn around and go into the gate you just came out of to a room with fire spouts, which I will explain below, and come back to the puzzle above afterwards.

As said in the note above there is a gate in the hallway near the entrance room next to the glyphs on the floor leading to that first pit. This door leads to a room with some fire spouts and a couple jumps, it takes a few seconds to get the timing but once you're across you end up in a room multiple platforms on the walls and a tower in the center. This one again is pretty cut and dry. Wraiths spawn on the platforms on the walls and shoot magic at you. Avoid their magic and circle the center tower looking for a loose brick. Once you find it and trigger it, it will open up part of the base of the tower allowing you to jump up and grab the ledge. There are three or four levels each with a loose brick and each opens up a piece of that level allowing you to jump to the next. Once at the top you will find your rune button. Activate it and a shadow gate opens on one of the wraith platforms on the wall. Take this gate. Again make your way back to the statue room I said was important and try to bring them to life.

By now you should have the two statues in the second loose tome room you went to dead and have the gate in that room activated. When you enter the gate you will see 3 Golden Athena statues and the room will have 4 shadow gates but some will be inactive. These shadow gates lead to a totally different shadow realm in which there are treasure chests containing shadow stones.

Enter the first active shadow gate in this golden statue room and once in the shadow realm go from shadow gate to shadow gate looking for the chest. Usually when you get to the shadowisland with the exit door on it dont go thru the door. Instead go thru the shadow gate and that should take you to the island with the chest on it. Then find the island with the door again and that will take you back to the golden statue room.

Once back in the statue room use the stone you got from the chest on the golden statue and bring it to life, kill it and this will activate a new gate in the room which leads to another shadow realm with a chest in it. Repeat this until all three golden athenas are dead and enter the last gate.

You should find yourself in a square room with 4 platforms in each corner and a big shadow gate at the bottom of a pit. There are two platforms circling the center of the room. To the lefl and right are pedestals for shadow crystals and across the room from you is an inactive shadow gate. Jump on the circlin platforms and go into the left room. This pedestal has a stone on it. Take the stone over to the room on the right and place it on the pedestal which activates the shadow gate opposite where you came in. Enter that gate and get the rune glyph button.

Now, remember the first pit with columns that had rune glyphs on top of them and the rune glyphs on the floor leading into that room that gave you the order to jump on them? The one with the left and right gates n the other side where you followed the picture of the knight on the wall? Yeah that's the one. Well that's where you're headed, only this time take the right door.

Inside you will find a knight in the middle of the room being tortured by wraith mages with a gate to your left and right. Behind them is an inactive gate with four glyphs, 2 on each side. Three glyphs should be lit but the top left is not. The ones that are lit are the glyph buttons you've been pushing and this knight will help you get the fourth as soon as you help him. Ah, progress sweet progress.

After talking to the knight you'll know that the only way to kill these wraiths is with the Shadowslayer shadowsword. Take the gate to your left and grab the shadow stone from the statue then head back into the room with the knight.Now take the door that was on your right when you came in and to what is, in my opinion, one of the most infuriating parts of this dungeon.

You should be faced with a long pit filled with water and four platforms that raise and lower seemingly at random. At your feet is a giant glyph tile that acts as a switch for the shadow gate on the far side of the room. You must hit this switch and then jump on the platforms to get to the other side on a 30 second timer. If you fall in the water the gate closes and you have to restart the whole thing.

NOTE: You can exit this room to the room with the knight, wait a few seconds and then re-enter the room with the platforms. Wait for the platforms to all go down and then as they come back up try to get across. This is your best chance for making it with the least amount of pain and suffering. You have plenty of time on the gate so wait for them to go down don't try to enter the room and start jumping immediately.The first time they come back up is in perfect order.

OK so you made it across the platforms and you are in a room with a pedestal in front of you. There are several pillars and a bunch of glyphs on the floor and four Athena Chessmen standing at the far end of the room. This is the chess puzzle. If you are here before you have done the other puzzles you should leave and come back once what I've written above is finished.

What you want to do here is get 2 of the chessmen (I chose the two on the right) that are next to each other as far forward as possible without moving the other two so you can get behind them. This is like a chessgame and as such if they get into position to attack you (From the front or sides) then they will and a porticullis (a metal grate) will come down at the back of the room and block off the Shadowsword. If this happens then just kill the one chessman that attacks you, take his crystal, and put it on the pedestal at the front of the room to try again.

Once you have the shadowsword take it back to the room with the knight and use it to kill the wraiths. He will then tell you to take it to "a statue in his image". This statue is thru the door that was to your left when you first entered this room, opposite the room with the water and platforms.Enter that gate.

This room has many shadowgates and four statues of the knight. Place the sword in the hand of the statue with his arm raised and the ghost of the knight will appear and tell you to follow him. He will then go to a gate which you must enter. This brings you to the same room where he will go to yet another gate. This happens several times until finally the gate he directs you to drops you in what is the worst shadow realm of this entire dungeon.

This shadow realm is one of the longest and hardest to get out of by far and will really start to piss you off. It seems that you will cycle thru certain islands unless you hit the one gate that is a switchback of sorts to the island with the door. What I did(after nearly and hour of trying) was figure this to be the case and alternated 2 of the same looking gates to one different. For example one gate on any given island has a rock to the right with 2 stalagmites in front of it and the other has 6 stalagmites, 3 to either side. Go thru one twice then switch to the other one time and repeat until you find the door out.

When you finally find the door out of this shadow realm you will get spit out into the room you followed the knight around in, the room you entered the shadow realm from in the first place. Only this time you will be on top of the small structure in the center of the room and on top is your last rune glyph. Hit the last rune glyph button and the building lowers leaving you in the room with all the gates. The gate on the right of the statue holding the sword takes you back to the room the knight was being tortured in.

NOTE: If you're quick enough you can hit the last run glyph then drop down and run inside the little building. This takes you to a secret room below with treasure chests. Be quick though.

Now it's time to go thru the door that you have put all this work into. Inside you will see a knight statue to your left and right and a corridor with fire spouts in it. The jump is seemingly impossible to make but the statue on the right raises a platform in the pit between the first fire spouts. In the center is yet another statue that raises a platform for the second pit. Jump across and head thru the gate.

We're cooking with gas now and getting close to the end of this dungeon. In front of you should be a hallway that goes left and right at the end. Go left to find some wraiths and a shadow stone on a pedestal surrounded by some purple stuff. Jump or backflip over the stone and grab it while in the air and take it to one of the pedestals at the back of the room. Once placed there a laser beam will go up to the ceiling. Head out of the room and back down the hallway you havent been down yet.

Here you will find more wraiths only these ones you can't kill. Above you there is a vortex and the final shadow stone is swirling around overhead. Backflip into the vortex or jump into it from one of the raised platforms in the corners and when it sucks you up there hit shift repeatedly and hope for the best. Eventualy you will get it, once you have it take it back to the first room and put it in the other pedestal which will lower stairs in the middle of the room that lead down to the final boss.

The final boss room is shaped like a pentagon. It is actually a pentagram but only one point of the star is open. The others are concealed by walls. In the center of the room is the relic, The Rod of Divinity, but you can't grab it yet. What you need to do is beat on the boss until he disappears. When he disappears he drops a crystal which you must then pick up and place in the statue's hands at the point of the pentagram.

Doing this will make the boss reappear behind one of the walls of another star in the pentagram revealing another statue. Repeat this until all 5 points of the star have crystals in the statues hands and you can then grab the rod of divinity. You must use the rod to kill the boss as it is the only weapon that can kill him.

NOTE: The final boss summons minions. Use them to block his magic spells, he will kill his own guys and save you a few potions.

A word about shadow realms.

If you are reading thru this walkthrough and are expecting to go thru a shadow gate and see the puzzle I described but instead are in one of the shadow realms dont worry. A few of the puzzles in here require you to go thru a shadow realm and the exit door will lead you to the puzzle. There are several shadow realms, some lead to puzzles and the ones from golden statue room have chests in them.

I found that using the shadow gate that has the rock with two stalagmites in front of it gets you to the exit door faster in all the shadow realms except for the one the knight leads you to. Avoid that shadow realm after you're finished with it is my advice.

All of these puzzles can be done in any order as long as you save the chess puzzle for last. I spent hours in here before finally finding a post that was 4 pages in on a thread saying I couldnt complete it and I had to use a resave that was outside the SR.

Again anything that is out of order here or wrong please correct it if you are absolutely certain that it is wrong. This was done from memory not while I was doing it so I'm sure I have at least one thing wrong.