Part 07: Crepi Il Lupo

Part 07: Crepi Il Lupo

The Wolfman Battle taking NO Damage!

Your next story-line mission is to deliver the letter to Machiavelli near the Terme di Traiano in the countryside.  To fully Sync the memory you need to not lose ANY health.  This is a lot harder than it sounds, because you are about to be set upon by a dozen freaks dressed like wolves who will all attack you!  If you take even ONE hit, you will not Sync 100%, which means if you have not had to replay a memory yet, here is where you will likely be unlocking that Achievement.

First I need to comment that yes, this is total pants.  It is a perfect example of the use of Grief Code in a game to make it harder to fulfill the requirements.  They do this to stretch out the game, make it take longer to complete the section, under the mistaken belief that the longer a game takes to complete, the more "entertainment value" that you, dear sheep of a consumer, will think you have received.  They know that you will be upset by this, and that it will for ten minutes or so, make you not like this game.  But they are betting that once you get through it, like most painful make-work events in life, you will forget about it, and go back to liking the game.

Understand something -- they know that this was a cheap no-talent sister-pimping dog-kicking move on their part.  They are aware that what they have done is absolutely demonstrated to you that they (A) they were unable to come up with a creative way to do this mission, (B) took the easy road, and (C) could not give a rat's ass that in the process of doing this they gave you the finger.

The bottom line is that they know -- they KNOW -- you will forgive them.

This is almost the proper use of the tool called Grief Code, but sadly in this case they do not allow even a bit of damage which makes it a nasty piece of Grief Code.  What I mean by that is this: normally if you take a hit, the health square goes hollow -- if you last X number of seconds without taking another hit, the square fills back in, so you are at full health again.  That is sort of like being stunned but not hurt -- the stunning blow partially incaps you for a few seconds, but you recover, and as long as you did not take another hit in the interim, you took no damage.  Sound about right?

The problem is that with this mission, that system does not count.  It considers ANY  damage at all to be enough to be a fail; even if the box pops back to full health, you still fail.  I am going on like this to emphasize that I understand your frustration, and I sympathize with you, I really do.  Now, do you want to know how to complete this in one-go without their shit-tactic messing up your day?  You do?!  Excellent!

After the CS, when the screen goes white, as soon as the screen fades in from white you need to lock on to the nearest enemy by *tapping* the Left Trigger (not hold it down), then immediately go into the Defensive Stance HOLDING the Right Trigger -- you will NEVER release the Right Trigger through this entire battle.

Now wait for them to attack you, then do a SINGLE COUNTER-KILL.  You must NOT try to do a counter-kill streak using the Left Joystick, because to do that you have to let go of the Right Trigger, which gives them the opportunity to hit you.  Let me restate that -- holding the Right Trigger keeps you in defensive mode, and blocks their attacks.  Releasing the Right Trigger will result in you taking damage and failing this quest.

To recap - tap Left Trigger to lock-on, immediately hold down the Right Trigger and never let it go -- wait for them to attack and, when they do, tap the X Button to counter their attack and kill them.  Now rinse and repeat the counter-kills until they are all dead.  If you watch the video for this part it shows you exactly how you need to do this.

If you follow the above instructions -- and the video -- you can do this in one-go, with zero frustration mate, and considering how chickenshit this particular mission is, getting it in one-go is the players way of giving the finger back to the developers, and isn't that a beautiful thing?

Unlocking The Golden Boy Achievement

-- The Halls of Nero --

Now that you have completed the previous battle with 100% Sync, follow the path to the mission marker and kick in the window, dropping down into the underground chamber, whereupon you will be prompted to start the next mission -- The Halls of Nero -- so go ahead and hit A to accept it.

The objective for this mission is simple: you need to locate the Shrine to Romulus, one of the twins from Roman legend that was raised by wolves.  They were the founders of Rome, and were among the many minor deities that were worshiped on a daily basis by the early Romans, hence the existence of a shrine.

In order to obtain 100% Sync on this mission you must complete it within 8 minutes -- so once you hit the A Button do not waste any time.  A CS will play, and then climb the short column, jumping from column to column until you reach the ledge above, whereupon you will see a switch that you need to pull.  This dumps water into the main pool below.  You need to pull all four levers -- they are in each corner -- once you are up on the ledge getting to the other levers is easy.

Just pull the ones on the left side of the room, then use the columns to move to the right side, and pull the pair of levers there.  Quickly drop to the floor and down the now collapsed pool, and run along the path to the marker on the radar map -- there is a Borgia Flag down here on one of the columns you can grab if you have the time -- and then work your way along the wall and past the locked gate.

After you swing over the gate and drop down, keep swinging the gates until you reach the one with the door at the end, and open it. 

After you open the door and enter, the torch lights in the room illuminate -- you must find your way across this space -- there is a treasure box here if you have the time -- using the columns and walls, and the statues.  If you fall -- don't fall -- you will die (desync)  because that glowing stuff down there is a pool of burning oil.  Just so you know :)

When you reach the far chamber you get a short CS, and then you have to get into the next room.  Go through the hole in the wall, and jump across and reach the other side, work your way up to the balcony, where you will find the treasure that is the goal for this quest.

-- Helpful Hints--

If you take too long in beginning the water portion at the start, or you fall and have to climb back up, start the memory over.  That is the section that causes players the most trouble with this quest, and eats up the most time.  Eight minutes may seem like a long time to do a quest but it is barely enough time for this one.

If you fall and die at any point after clearing the water pool, you have hit a Checkpoint Save, so you do not have to restart the whole quest -- just let it load the Checkpoint and continue from there, as it saved your location and the elapsed time, so you can still complete this to 100% Sync as there is no penalty for death it seems.

If you have any trouble with this, just watch the video a few times, as it gives a complete demonstration of what you need to do to complete this with 100% Synch.  Man, videos just rock for these guides -- I remember what it was like before videos were viable -- we used to have to give step-by-step directions and even then if there was any ambiguity in the environment it often did not work well.

-- Back to Machiavelli --

When you arrive back at the meeting with Machiavelli he is disappointed to learn that this letter is in code -- he was not expecting it to be -- and he will need your help to find a way to decode it!  Follow Machiavelli to the tunnel entrance, where he will show you how to enter and explain them to you.  This is the Fast Travel System for the game -- and while at the moment you only have one destination you can go to because of the story, you will find this to be a very convenient asset to the game!

You are introduced to Fabio, and shown to your quarters, then you have a very strategic conversation with Machiavelli during which you both fill each other in and learn the true state of affairs -- and what you are facing ahead of you for this struggle!

At this point do not be surprised when two Achievements unlock one after the other -- if you have been following this guide you should see the Achievement "Perfect Recall" (30 GP) unlock for achieving 100% Sync in the last Sequence, and of course "Rome in Ruins" (20 GP) for completing Sequence 2.  That marks the end of this section!  Good on ya!