Colosseum Final 2
Colosseum Final 2 is the name Golden Sun gives to the second of the three series of puzzle-based stages that comprise the overall Colosso Finals. This second series is a mandatory affair for Isaac to complete successfully by defeating his opponent at the end in one-on-one battle, the opponent being the Colosso Gladiator Satrage. After winning Colosseum Final 1 and then this second match, Isaac will move on to the last series of stages, the Colosseum Final 3 match, which is the one that he may win or lose without penalty.
General Overview
This second series of puzzle-based stages is longer and more involved. It has five stages, and runs from right to left. Isaac's opponent is Satrage, and he will take one minute and fifteen seconds to complete his side of the stages, exactly the amount of time you would take if you moved as fast as you can without any illegal assistance from your cheering Adept companions and going out of your way to collect all three treasure chests along the path, just like he will.
If you go through these stages as fast as possible with all shortcuts exploited and intentionally avoiding out-of-the-way chests, the quickest amount of time you can reach the end of the match is 39 seconds. With this in mind, safely go out of your way to open at least two of the chests in this match because there is practically no risk of you arriving at the end too late if you skip the chest at stage 4. Successfully exploiting all the shortcuts here, if you open all three chests in this match, you should make it to the end in about sixty seconds.
The best setup for the four Adepts for this second Match is to arrange Djinn until Isaac is either in the Savage class or the Ninja class, and equip on Ivan the Orb of Force from Fuchin Falls Cave and give Mia the Frost Jewel from Altin Peak. Then, have Garet cheer at stage 1 and use the Move Psynergy, have Mia cheer at stage 3 and use the Frost Psynergy, and have Ivan cheer at stage 5 and use the Force Psynergy .
At the arena at the end of the match, the equipment rewards are a Chain Mail (+25 Defense) for the combatant that arrives first and a Cotton Shirt (+3 Defense) for the later one. The one-on-one "boss" encounter with Satrage begins when both you and he arrive at the central arena.
Stage 1: The Mini-Maze
A stage you will most likely have figured out even before the starting countdown finishes, as it is displayed on screen for several seconds before the match officially starts. Starting from the upper right, you would make your way to the stage's exit at the lower left corner of the screen, and the path to do that is the path that winds counter-clockwise through the screen's upper left area. This will take five seconds of running to achieve.
The shortcut in this stage is made if you have an Adept with the Move Psynergy (Garet, again) Move the central of the bottom three earth pillars one space left prior to the match's start. With this pillar in place, Isaac can head down to the pillar the moment the match starts and hop left to the left earth pillar, and hop left again to get to the stage exit faster. The stage will now take above three seconds. While this is not so major a time cut, Garet is best used here anyway.
Stage 2: The Shifting Floor Stage
In this stage, you hop across the shifting platforms whenever they align horizontally. Progress can be slow, but the best and most straightforward way of proceeding is to simply hold the buttons for running left the entire time, and Isaac will be able to hop across two platforms at a time and make it to the end. When hopped across as fast as possible, you can get through this stage in over eleven seconds. One of the platforms you will most likely end on for a short moment as it moves around is the one that parks itself in front of an area with a chest containing a Nut. If you rush over, pick up the nut, and return to the platform for the next time it parks itself up there, you will make it through the stage in seventeen seconds instead.
A shortcut is available here as well, requiring an Adept holding the Halt Gem that can be collected optionally in Vale Cave. That cheering Adept can cast the Halt Psynergy on the operator on the ground that is making the platforms shift positions, so that when Isaac reaches the stage the platforms will be completely stationary, and he can hop across them quickly to the stage's end in about six seconds. Though this shortcut is great for cutting down time, in point of fact this may actually be a shortcut you would want to avoid, because it will be impossible to reach the chest with the nut, and enough other stages in this Match exist that have viable shortcuts that an Adept that could be used here to cheer is better off cheering at another stage. Remember, your opponent Satrage would be hopping across the platforms and getting the nut at length on his identical version of the match's stage series, so it is not bad for you to do the same as you are not really losing time.
Stage 3: The Log-Rolling Stage
You are presented with two logs at the right end of the stage, ready to roll across to the left horizontally. You can barely make out that riding the upper log will be the one that leads you to the stage's end, and taking that route will allow you to complete the stage in six seconds. The lower log would bring you to a small platform island that is effectively a dead-end and a consumer of time... provided you haven't set up the shortcut for exploiting here.
The shortcut in this stage manifests as a cheering Adept casting the Frost Psynergy on the left puddle of water on the ground level so that it will become an ice pillar that Isaac can hop across once he uses the lower log to reach the island and goes to the lower left. Going through the stage through the lower path that the shortcut provides will take up four seconds instead of the six seconds of the upper path.
Stage 4: The Wall
One of the tougher stages in the Colosso competitions, you effectively have to climb up a high wall on the right end and slide down one of the three slides at the left end of the wall, hoping to land on an elevated platform below that you can hop from to the end of the stage. The correct answer is the central of the three platforms, as the other two will drop you past it to the ground below, and you have to waste much time reclimbing the wall. (If in the event you do slide down the wrong slide, the game allows you to make up a little bit of time if Isaac is in the Savage class so he can cast the Growth Psynergy: he can cast Growth on the nearby plant so that it becomes a ladder that is closer to and in plain view of the slides, and scaling the wall through this method will visually assure the player that the correct slide is the central one.) The quickest route through the stage of climbing the rightmost ladder and dropping down the central slide will take about eight seconds.
This stage does not have any available shortcuts that a cheering Adept could help set up, so having an Adept cheer here will be a waste. There is a chest here however, and the method you can use to get to it and retrieve it is the method Satrage will use to get to the chest on his side of the match, so no time is lost if you progress through the stage like this: First, cast Move on the earth pillar and move it right, then climb up the right ladder and immediately climb your way down the ladder to the left of that so that you end up next to the chest, which contains a Smoke Bomb. (If you normally do not use Smoke Bombs in battle, perhaps you are best off going through this stage quick and easy anyway.) Climb back up and slide down the central slide, and finish the stage in seventeen seconds.
Stage 5: The Board Walk
A slightly complex stage featuring rolling logs and stationary earth pillars. You would first roll the right log forward, then you might as well move the right earth pillar just above it to retrieve the Nut from a chest. Then run down clockwise so you can roll the right log back to the right, run to the left log and roll that left, run around that log to roll it back right, and finish the stage in under 19 seconds.
The shortcut to this stage that can be set up by a cheering Adept is the partially broken log pillar at the ground level, which when struck by a casting of the Force Psynergy will snap off its top half and fall into the water on its left, which can serve as a platform to a route that does not involve excessive log rolling. So after entering the stage and rolling the right log left and pushing the right earth pillar left to get the nut, head down and climb down a short ladder onto the floating piece of wood at ground level, walk/hop left, and climb back up on the left end to reach the end of the stage in 15 seconds.
