Still struggling with Alfheim portals despite having done my first run on normal and 20M Halos..

[mike_87]

So the other day i finished my first run on normal, i left the halos out that run because it seemed many guide authors were advising us to wait until we have all weapons and accessories to make the portals easier.  I have now pretty much got the best gear equipped on my second Hard run but certain portals are still giving me grief.  therefore I have just left one or two of them. so far, im now on chapter 5.  I am stressing because from what I read prior, getting 20m halos and then buying everything in the game would apparently make them a walk in the park but they havent.  For instance just, i was struggling to pull off a Punch Kick Punch combo during the portal at the end of chapter 3.  What am i doing wrong?  Wont i need another two runs after this one really?  Because I understand that the goals and target times of these portals change with the difficulty.  So I'm wondering if I just need to do an extra normal run later specifically targeting the portals.

[Spike_Hostile17]

I dont know whose guide you have been using but you dont need ANY item to plat the game. After my 1st playthrough, i replayed every chapter in Hard  doing the Portals. You don't need to farm anything at all. I have seen people farming halos during 2 or 3 hours to use the cheat codes, that's like the time it takes to complete the Prologue up to Chapter 14 in Climax ... such a waste of time.

 

All the Portals are very very simple in Normal and really doable in Hard, except maybe the ones requiring to kill the angels with Torture Attacks (just using a Torture attack without getting the kill doesn't count) that may take few tries. Just learn the patterns of the enemies. The big dogs for example are incredibly easy to dodge and counter. Only the fast angels with huge claw hands are a threat. In Hard mode, the requirements for the portals are slightly higher (for example how many Torture attacks you have to do) and the enemies are usually the evolved versions of the existing ones in normal. But nothing impossible. As you know in the Portals you can't use items and no matter how much health or mana you have, you can't get hit more than 3 or 5 times so your 20M halos are pretty much useless. And when your purpose is only to quickly get rid of the enemies (not trying to build up your Magic gauge), the  combo is the basics. You have to be able to pull it off consistently while dodging with  if necessary even if you have to interrupt your combo.