Charon is the boatman of the river Styx and sidelines as a shopkeeper for Zagreus. Under the right conditions, you also have the chance to fight this character. Here’s how you can unlock the secret Charon boss fight in Hades.
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How to Unlock the Charon Boss Fight
Unlocking the Charon boss fight is a pretty tricky task. As the resident shopkeeper of the Underworld with a very enigmatic background, the path you need to take in order to fight him almost seems purposefully obscure. Here’s what you need to do.
Beat the Game at Least Once
One of the requirements that will trigger the opportunity for Charon’s boss fight is to beat the game at least once. This means escaping the underworld, going through all four biomes, and defeating all four main bosses in one run.
Increase Charon’s Affinity
Another task you need to complete is to increase Charon’s affinity. You can do this by giving Charon a bottle of Nectar. You only have to do this once. As soon as one heart from Charon’s affinity is unlocked, the next step just involves patience and perseverance.
Keep Visiting his Shop
To trigger Charon’s boss fight in Hades, you’ll need to collect and “borrow” the bag of gold that will spawn behind him every so often. There is no official or exact percentage in regards to how often this bag of gold actually spawns, but in most cases, it will appear once every three visits to Charon’s shop. With that in mind, just keep visiting Charon’s shop whenever you can.
Another thing you should keep in mind is that the bag of gold will not spawn if the shop is situated right before a boss fight.
As soon as you spot that glimmering bag of gold, just pick it up and the Charon boss fight should follow shortly after.
How to Defeat Charon
Unlocking the Charon boss fight is a daunting task in and of itself, but actually defeating him is where the real fun and challenge begins. Charon is definitely one of the tougher bosses in the game and defeating him will reward you with a Loyalty Card that will reduce the price of the items sold by Charon by 20%. On top of that, you’ll also get to keep the 300 Obol that you took from him.
Charon’s attacks are insanely powerful. Thankfully, he also telegraphs his attacks. He only uses four attacks, which are:
- Charge Attack – If you’re too distant from him, Charon will charge towards you at a pace slightly faster than his average speed. He’ll then follow up with a melee attack using his oar.
- Wave Attack – Charon can send a purple wave towards you which he does by flinging his off-hand across his body. If you’re at a decent distance from him, you can dodge this attack easily.
- Oar Swipes – Charon will swipe his oar in front of him. There are two variations of this attack: one is a normal swipe, which he normally does in three successions. Another is a bigger, wider, more powerful one marked with his purple magic. When he does these attacks, get behind him or get as far away as you can from him.
- Wave Pulse – If you get too close to Charon for too long, he will emanate a wave pulse that will stun you.
Purple orbs will also occasionally fly across the arena during the fight. The arrival of the orbs is preceded by Charon pointing his oar forward. Make sure to watch out for those as well.
The key to defeating him is to wait for openings and not to rush in mashing the attack button. Ranged weapons such as Coronacht and Exagryph may also do well against him. Just keep watching out for his attacks and you should be able to best the boatman of the river Styx. You don’t need to deplete his health to zero in order to defeat him. The boss fight is over when his health drops to about 20%.
Note that this boss fight doesn’t only happen once. In fact, one of the prophecies will task you to defeat him two times in a row. Just watch out for that bag of gold to appear to fight Charon again.
