Imagine this situation: you've played through just about all of Pampas & Selene. You've collected all the items, you've defeated all the demons, you've leveled both characters all the way to their max possible health, and you have full ammo (or Pandora's Box). You could not be more prepared. Throughout the game you've faced difficult challenges, but you've always prevailed, even if it took a few lives. The demons you've faced have all been worthy challengers, not easy to take down, but far from impossible. You're confident, you're prepared, and you're ready to take on the final boss. And then he curb stomps you into oblivion. The Lich King is the most difficult boss in this game by a such a wide margin that he feels more frustrating than challenging. He has a ridiculous amount of health, his attacks are fast and powerful, and some attacks are so enigmatic that you have no idea how to deal with them. But you can deal with them, it just requires specific strategies. Such strategies will be detailed in this guide.

Note that this guide assumes you have the following items: Ares Sword, Winged Sandals, Polymorph, Fireball, Hecate's Scepter, Magic Earrings, Wrath of Zeus, Magic Tome, and Hermes Boots. You will also need to launch a considerable number of fireballs as Selene, so you will need either the Robe of Regeneration and stock up on mana, or have found Pandora's Box.

But before we get to the fight, here's a tip. If you've already tried to defeat the Lich King, you know that before the fight starts, the Lich King teleports in, invulnerable, and delivers a monologue several text boxes long. When he's done talking, the fight begins. This happens every single time and since you'll be resetting quite a number of times if aiming for a perfect fight, you'll be hearing this monologue quite a bit. But actually, you won't be, because you can skip it. If you clear the first text box before it completes, the Lich King will skip his entire monologue and begin the fight immediately. This saves quite a bit of time and sanity, so I highly recommend it.

The Lich King fight is split into three phases. The first two phases take place on the same screen with the same massive health bar, it's more that the Lich King's attacks get more powerful when he's below something around 1.2 health bars. These advanced attacks are harder to deal with and require more advanced strategies, but they're manageable. However, some attacks required a slightly different setup depending on if he's going to use its regular or advanced form, so it's important to keep track of when he's about to switch to his more powerful attack patterns. The final phase of the fight is just a simple puzzle; easy to complete but not immediately obvious, so I will be revealing how to clear it also.

Throughout the main part of the fight, the Lich King will throw out one of four attacks. After attacking, usually before the attack even completes, he vanishes and cannot be hit. He will reappear shortly after the attack is dealt with, in one of four locations. The location he appears at will determine his next attack. I have never seen the Lich King take the same position twice in a row, but it seems mostly random besides that. All four attacks must be dealt with in a specific way. If you go revisit the gods who aided you along your quest, they can give you hints on how to deal with each of the attacks. However, there are better ways to deal with most of his attacks than the ones suggested by the gods. I will be mentioning both the intended method as hinted by the gods as well as the actual strategy you want to use.

When the Lich King appears on the central platform, he's about to summon a wall of lightning that spans the entire height of the screen and moves from one side of the arena to the other. If you get hit by this attack, it does considerable damage and briefly stuns your character. The stun's rather trivial, however, because it will not last long enough to prevent you dodging the next attack.

The intended method as revealed by Hecate is to use blink. This is also the optimal and only solution. There is no way to dodge the lightning wall besides blinking through it. But the position you take and when you blink have a significant impact on how many hit you are able to deal while he's using this attack.

The optimal strategy I've found is to take position on the top right platform. Make sure you go all the way to the right wall and then tilt slightly to turn around. It's better to over-tilt than under-tilt as you absolutely have to make sure Selene turns around to face the boss and not the wall. If you under-tilt in the heat of battle and proceed to the next step (launching some fireballs), Selene will blow herself up with a point blank fireball into the wall. Even if you over-tilt and take a few steps away from the wall, you should still be in a good position to handle this attack efficiently.

Now comes the lightning wall. The basic and advanced forms of this attack are quite similar, the advanced form just travels across the screen faster. The strategy is mostly the same for both forms. What you want to do is launch fireballs into the boss from your position. The lightning wall always comes from the left when he starts this attack, so being on the right platform gives you ample space to see it coming and time a blink. I have found that you can launch five fireballs during the basic form before you need to dodge the lightning wall, but only four during the advanced form since the wall moves faster. If you time it well and launch a fireball such that it hits the Lich King as he become tangible, you can deliver an extra fireball before needing to blink, but it can be risky. Once the lightning wall is around the middle of the platform you're standing on, jump and blink. No directional inputs are required or recommended, just jump and blink. This will teleport you harmlessly past the lightning wall and deposit you on the left side of the platform, right near the edge. Then, when you land, spam fireballs until you have hit the Lich King with a total of at least five fireballs during this attack. You will be just far enough right to not get hit by the explosion. Note that sometimes, if you hit the Lich King as he's becoming tangible, that hit will not count for the five fireballs required, and a sixth may be necessary.

Shooting fireballs after dodging the lightning wall is of ABSOLUTE CRITICAL IMPORTANCE. When attacking, the Lich King will use a random number of waves for the attack. However, if he takes enough damage during an attack (5 fireballs), he will never spawn the next wave. Since you can only hit him four times during the advanced form of the attack before needing to blink, if you do not immediately hit him with the fifth fireball after dodging the lightning wall, he will summon another lightning wall which you will need to dodge. And this time, that second wall will come from the right side of the screen. That then requires you to jump over the Lich King, using a blink to get enough distance, and land on the top left platform. Then you can run (not sprint since you'll skid) or blink to the left wall and turn around, immediately launching a fireball. If you run to the wall, you only have time to launch one fireball safely before you need to dodge the incoming lightning wall, but if you blink to the left wall, you can fit in two. It doesn't matter. Once the Lich King is hit by the fifth fireball, he will start to teleport and become intangible before the sixth can reach him.

When the Lich King appears on the top right platform, he's about to summon a stream of skulls from the sides of the screen. His basic form summons three skulls which are quite spread apart, but his advanced form summons six with much tighter spacing. The side of the screen a skull comes from is random for each skull, so pay attention and be ready to react in an emergency. The skulls will always spawn at your current vertical position and attempt to track your vertical position while on screen.

The intended method for dealing with this attack is hinted by Apollo: use arrows. It takes two arrows to take down a skull and you can fire them pretty quickly. If you stand on the central platform you can gatling fire and wildly alternate directions to dispatch all the skulls rather easily, but this doesn't let you get much damage in on the Lich King.

The better method is to cleave those skulls in two with Ares Sword. The skulls fall to a single hit of that beastly boi. You want to take position on the top right platform (of all places) as Pampas. The Lich King's collision box does not take up the entire platform, so you can perch on the left edge safely. Then face right and swing like an absolute madman. As I said, the side of the screen a skull spawns from is random, so there is some variance in avoiding this attack. However, since you're currently swinging your sword to the right, any skulls that spawn from the right will just walk into the bone grinder. It is possible for a skull to sneak through your attacks, but it is quite rare.

If a skull come from the left, a different tactic is required. Never, NEVER, turn to the left to try to take out an approaching skull. Certainly, you can dispatch the skull that way, but then there's a 50% chance the next skull come from the right side of the screen and there will be no time to turn around and hit it. If a skull spawns from the left side and the next one spawns from the right, they will both reach your position at about the same time. There is no way to deal with both at once, so whenever a skull coming from the left is about to hit you, just jump over it. The skulls do track your vertical position, but they're really bad at it. A quick double jump will clear the attack. Make certain you start moving left as you initiate your second jump. If a skull spawns from the right while you're in the air and still in that horizontal position, it will crash into you without warning. Moving left lets you dodge this possibility. Then, weave through the skulls as you fall. Even with the advanced form, there's enough space between the skulls to pass through the gaps between them.

This strategy concisified is this: stand on the top right platform, on its left edge facing right. Swing like a hero who's trying to make a smoothie with a sword. Any skulls coming from the right mean nothing to you. The moment a skull spawned from the left is about to hit you, double jump and move left. Then weave through the air, avoiding the other skulls as you descend.

If you read the Lightning Wall section, you will know that I mentioned a feature where if the Lich King doesn't take enough damage during an attack he will possibly use another wave of that attack. For the basic form, this damage check is trivial to clear, just don't stop swinging. However, for the advanced form, if the first skull comes from the left, you will need to jump over it before achieving the damage check to prevent his next wave. This is pretty much the only situation where he might get in a second wave for his attacks. However, by happenstance, by the point you need to jump over the skull coming from the left, you will be exactly one sword swing away from passing the damage check. So make certain you hit the Lich King while jumping over the skull. This is simply done by swinging as you jump with no directional inputs. This is no different from the normal strategy because you shouldn't input the left movement until you jump for the second time.

When the Lich King appears on the top left platform, he's going to be dropping some fire on your head. These clumps of flames start at the top of the screen at your current horizontal position and slowly descent at a fixed speed. He can either summon one (basic) or three (advanced) in a row. The delay between when he appears and when the his first fire appears is the same for both the basic and advanced forms, but the delay between waves is longer for his advanced form. The fire will track your horizontal position perfectly. They are dead set on setting you aflame.

The intended method is revealed by Uranus. You are told to think of mines, and landmines are the only such armament in this game. The intended method must be to lay some landmines on one of the upper platforms, either the central or top right platforms as the Lich King will be occupying the top left platform. Then as the fire descends, you stand below the landmine to lead the fire into it, which I suppose destroys the fire. I never used this method because there is a far superior one.

The best method to deal with this fire is to just outrun it. The fire perfectly tracks you normal movement speed, but travels slightly slower than your sprinting speed. The setup for when he uses his basic vs advanced forms are different due to some timing reasons. The advanced strategy can be used to dodge the basic form of this attack, but this will cause the Lich King to send down a second wave of fire. Where as, the basic strategy does not work for the advanced form, but is the only thing quick enough to pass the damage check and prevent a second wave.

The basic strategy starts off on the top right platform. Yes, I know the fire is coming from above, this is still the optimal solution. Where you stand is critically important. If you stand too far to the right, you won't have time to sprint off the platform before the fire hits you. You need to run quite a distance, close to half the screen, before you're clear of the fire, so without falling off the top platform, you will be hit. However, if you are too far to the left, that makes the final and most important step of this strategy more difficult to pull off. I recommend being central to the platform, basically where the candelabra is standing. You have time to launch four fireballs into the boss before his fire starts to descend. It's important you launch all four as you can mess this strategy up by both moving too slowly and too quickly. Once four fireballs have been launched, the Lich King's fire will soon spawn in. Once it has, start sprinting to the left. Do not jump, just fall to the central platform. When you're past about the midpoint of the screen, you should be far enough left of the fire to jump without running into it. So jump and make certain you launch a fifth fireball at the Lich King. If you do not hit him with this fifth fireball he will always spawn another wave of fire, and this time it will be trickier to dodge since you won't be in position. There is enough time to jump over the fire and immediately blink to the right, thus landing on the top right platform and getting yourself back into position with enough time to be prepared for a second wave of fire, but it's better to just hit him with the extra fireball so he never summons that second wave in the first place.

For the advanced form, the fire descends slightly faster and there is not enough time to run off the top right platform if you position yourself at the center. You still want to be on the top right platform, but this time you want to take position on the left, basically standing on the left most tile. You don't want to be too far to the left, but the spacing is quite lenient. Again, you can launch four fireballs from this position. Unlike the basic strategy it's not imperative that you launch all four, three will be sufficient. This is because the Lich King needs to wait for all three fires to leave the screen before considering a second wave, giving you more time to clear the damage check compared to the basic form. When the first fire starts to descend, you again want to sprint to the left, but this time you want to keep sprinting until you fall off the central platform and land on the bottom floor. A few steps later puts you far enough to the left of the fire to jump past it. At this point the fire will also be at the perfect height to jump over it and blink to the right, through the gap between the first and second fires, landing on the central platform. The spacing can be quite exacting, but it's far from pixel perfect. Once you blink back onto the central platform, you still want to be sprinting. You want to continue sprinting to the right and jump back up to the top right platform. Make sure you release the sprint button while in the air while jumping to the top right platform, this will prevent you from skidding to a stop and wasting precious time. Then just turn around and launch two fireballs at the boss to clear the damage check and prevent the next wave. I would recommend always launching two even if you managed to fire four while waiting for the fire to descend. This is because, sometimes both fireballs will hit. I don't know why, because the Lich King usually become intangible after the fifth fireball, but this specific attack sometimes allows six.

Oh boy, here it is, the Spiked Shields of Eternal Misery. This single attack is so poorly conceived, communicated, and executed that it single-handedly soured my opinion of the ENTIRE GAME. When the Lich King is in the bottom left position, he will bring forth the Spiked Shields of Eternal Misery. These shields come in from the right and slowly approach you. They track your vertical position perfectly, there is absolutely no way to jump over them, and they immediately turn around should you get past them with a blink. When they hit you, they knock you back and continue their pursuit, hitting you over and over again. The only way to deal with them is at range, so once they close the distance, all hope is lost. They are also impervious to almost every single attack in the game and have very high defense. Only Selene's ray can damage them and it takes an egregious number of hits to take a single one down. The shields are pushed back slightly when struck by Selene's ray, but the advanced form of this attack decreases the distance they are knocked back to almost nothing, and the advanced form is when you really need to be able to delay their pursuit.

The intended method is hinted by Zeus. He claims that no shield can defend against his lightning. Yes, the intended method of dealing with the Spiked Shields of Eternal Misery is Wrath of Zeus. However, Wrath of Zeus takes so long to activate once an enemy has been hit by Selene's ray, that this method DOES NOT WORK. Certainly, it can work on the basic form. If you tag a shield with your ray as it's coming on screen, it will get about halfway across the screen before Wrath of Zeus activates, killing it. As such, it is a serviceable option. However, for the advanced form, three shields are summoned. You can tag the first and let Zeus take care of it, but by the time the King of the Gods gets off his lazy a** and actually smites your enemies, the second shield is too far to the left for Wrath of Zeus to activate before the shield runs into you, even if you press yourself against the left wall. And remember, there is no way to get past a shield while its alive without getting hit and that first shield will absorb all ray attacks you may wish would just be able to hit the second or third shields.

So, if the intended method doesn't work, what does? Well, astute readers might notice that I said in the intro that a certain upgrade was required, but despite this being the last attack the Lich King can torment you with, I haven't mentioned it at all. That right baby, it's sheep time! Polymorph works on the shields, and it takes them out with a single ray, INSTANTLY. Sure, it take a moment to charge up a polymorph, but it certainly doesn't take as long to charge as Wrath of Zeus takes to activate. Also, you can charge a polymorph before this attack ever begins. Your polymorph charge only gets spent when you hit a enemy who's vulnerable to polymorph with Selene's ray. First off, the Lich King is not vulnerable to polymorph (obviously, he is the final boss after all), also you won't be hitting him with Selene's ray in the first place as fireballs do more damage. You also don't need to hit the skulls (as Pampas takes care of those) or the fire (if you have the magic armlet, you may end up destroying a fire with your blink, but the strategy is to just avoid them entirely) with Selene's ray. So once a polymorph is charged it will always be ready for when the next shield spawns even if that event is several minutes to come.

So, here's the strategy: ABP, Always Be Polymorphin'. As soon as the fight starts, switch to Selene and charge up a polymorph. You can even charge your polymorph during the Lich King's monologue, but at that time Pandora's Box will not be in effect. It is only 1 mana, but you have ample time to charge when the fight actually starts and Pandora's Box is working, so why waste the mana? But if you don't have Pandora's Box, as it's not technically required just very useful, charge whenever. Take position around the right side of the screen, as left as you can while still being close enough to fire a ray through the right wall. With Hecate's Scepter, the perfect position is where the right candelabra on the bottom floor is. Theoretically, I suppose you don't need Hecate's Scepter, you could just stand closer to the right, but it does increase your fireball's damage and you really need that extra damage against the Lich King so you will most certainly have it. Then, when the Lich King becomes tangible, launch three fireballs. If you launch a fireball at such timing that it is already in the Lich King's hitbox when he becomes tangible, you can manage four fireballs which may let you get six fireball hits in during this attack, instead of five. At this point, the first shield is about to appear. The moment it does, hit it with your ray to polymorph and neutralize it. Next, you'll need to be further to the left to ensure you have enough time to charge up a second polymorph before the second shield comes onscreen. There is no reason not to fire two more fireballs into the Lich King for some extra damage as you reposition, so do so. When you reach around the center of the screen, you should have more than enough time to charge up the second polymorph before the second shield gets too close. So, do so. At this point, the Lich King will have taken his five fireball hits prompting him to not continue the attack, so he'll be teleporting away by this point. Since you can't do anymore damage to the Lich King for this attack, you only have to focus on the remaining shields. When the second shield is in range, hit it with Selene's ray to turn it into a harmless sheep which just falls off the bottom of the screen. Immediately once the second shield is dealt with, charge up a third polymorph and use it to take out the final shield. Note that how long you charge is important. If you release the fireball button (which is used in tandem with a directional down to charge polymorph) too early, the charge won't complete and you will not have time to recharge it before the shield reaches you. However, if you hold the fireball button too long, after polymorph is charged, Selene will take the continual fireball input as a prompt to launch an actual fireball. Doing so will delay her ability to fire a ray for the exact amount of time it takes for the shield to get uncomfortably close. There is still time to hit it with Selene's ray and sheepify it before it runs into you, even with the delay caused by accidentally launching a fireball, but the timing is very tight. It's better not to overcharge in the first place so you can fire Selene's ray immediately when polymorph is ready, neutralizing the final Spiked Shield of Eternal Misery. Once all three shields are defeated, make sure to charge up another polymorph so you're ready when the Lich King uses this attack the next time.

There's also an interesting property of this attack that doesn't affect the strategy. All of the Lich King's attacks have a basic and advanced form which is used depending on his remaining health, but only this attack has a third form. If the Lich King is within a very specific health range, he will use an intermediate form of this attack. This intermediate form spawns three shields, but they move slower than the ones created by the advanced form and have a considerably larger gap between each shield's appearance. With this form, the shields move slow enough and have enough distance between them to use Wrath of Zeus on all three. If you tag the first shield just as it's coming onscreen, Wrath of Zeus will trigger when it reaches about the middle of the screen, just like with the basic form, and it's around this time that the second shield will appear. So, once the first shield is smote, you can run to the right and tag the second, smiting it around the middle of the screen and giving you time to tag the third.

Once you deplete the Lich King's health bars, any ongoing attack will immediately end and you will be teleported to a different arena which is just a simple room with a floor but no platforms. The Lich King will be hovering in the air with that accursed cross around his neck and taunt our heroes, saying how he's immortal and cannot be defeated. But, as the lore has told, this is not due to his own powers but rather due to the power of the cross. The problem is, Selene can't even jump high enough to hit the cross with any of her attacks and nothing Pampas can do will destroy it. But remember, this game is not called Pampas or Selene, it's called Pampas AND Selene. With his double jump, Pampas can get high enough to hit the cross, then simply switch to Selene in midair and fire a single ray. Zeus actually seems to be paying attention for once and almost immediately smites the cross, destroying it. The Lich is defeated and peace returns to the land.