Review #493: God of War

 To be fair, there's no single 'god of war'.

Two blades means twice the carnage.

 When people talk action hack-and-slash games three names come to mind: Devil May Cry, for all combo enthusiasts out there, Ninja Gaiden, for people that prefer honing their reflexes and pattern recognition and then there's God of War, which mixes a little bit of both but does its own thing.

 You play as Kratos, a spartan who used to serve Hades but now works for the other gods, Zeus et all, to take him down. By now everyone's familiar with the plot twist, but the game does deserve praise for how they slowly reveal the backstory and why Kratos is doing what he is doing. It's not the deepest or smartest script, but it's pretty good for what it is, although I'm betting you'll forget about the story bits as you go from room to room mowing down hundreds of monsters. As for Kratos, he is fairly interesting since he's not your average hero or anti-hero, since he doesn't have a heart of gold, he is just a prick. The entire game lasts about 7-8 hours, but finishing it unlocks a bunch of extras, like the 10-room challenge of the Gods that unlocks bonus costumes!

The game puts up the spectacle.

 Something the game gets very right is how perfectly action, adventuring and puzzle solving are mixed together. While combat is obviously the focus, there's a fair amount of very decent puzzles that must be solved in order to progress, as well as a good amount of good, ol' walking, exploring and platforming. And it does work very well, because everything is paced so well you'll get breathing room just as soon as combat starts getting too repetitive. It's a good thing that the game is filled to the brim with hidden chests rewarding the savviest players that take their time to explore their surroundings.

 At the start of the game Kratos comes equipped with the Blades of Chaos, twin short-swords embedded to his skin by chains that work wonders at short or long distances. While they'll be your main means of attack, and why wouldn't they since they are so useful, you'll get a great-sword later in the game, which is very slow and has a short reach, but comes with its own moveset and each attack packs quite the punch. Mixing weak and strong attacks you'll be able to pull off some neat combos, there's a decent juggling system and you're encouraged to with the large amount of aerial attacks at Kratos' disposal as well as the fact that enemies can't interrupt your attacks while being juggled.

Calling the game violent is an understatement.

 Kratos is aided by the gods, which means he has access to four different spells that consume magic points. To be honest I spent most of the game just using my three blades, but there were a few occasions in which magic helped immensely. There's a third gauge, the rage of the gods, by pressing both analog sticks(L3+R3) that makes you extra strong for a few seconds that saw more use in my playthrough. Combat feels very solid, very smooth and everything flows very well. While Kratos' has all the means to cause carnage, he's also got many defensive maneuvers, you can block attacks, parry attacks(By tapping block just as you get hit) and dodging by pushing the right analog stick in any direction. There're a lot of options to accommodate for everyone. And it helps that your four spells and your two weapons can be upgraded by spending souls from fallen enemies, so it's in your best interest to slay as many living, and unliving, beings as you can.

 The game's presentation deserves a special mention because the sense of scale is incredible, you'll be traversing beautiful and huge landscapes, and the entire half of the game takes place inside a dungeon that's located upon the back of a Titan. The game feels like an epic adventure. There're many different enemy models as well, although I did feel that there weren't enough proper bosses. Speaking of bosses, while Shenmue created QTEs it was God of War that made them popular and... honestly, they weren't as bad or as pervasive as I remembered them. I mean, would I rather them not being in the game? 150% yes, but I wasn't too bothered by them.

Kratos is standing upon the back of a Titan right there and then. Epic is underselling it.

 The game's tough but fair, although there were three areas that caused me, and others as you would know if you're internet savvy, grief my first time around... but I didn't have troubles with them on this second playthrough. There's an infamous spiked floor area in which you must kick a box, but I cleared it on my first try since I now knew to let Kratos fully charge his kick(And that him finishing his grunt didn't meant that the charge was full). The other infamous area, Hades, in which they forgot to play-test a climbing pole... I also cleared on my first attempt, although I clearly remember being stuck for a while on my first time through. And then there's that 'protection' mission which I cleared on my second attempt with a smart use of Hades' spell. What I mean to say... is that I was ready to claim that the game had a few poorly implemented sections, but they are not. It might take a new player by surprise, but trust me, it's nothing you can't handle.

 God of War is 12 years old and it hasn't lost a speck of its luster. It's still a polished, well-crafted little masterpiece that carved its name into the history of hack-and-slash games. It's not perfect, because while the game blends many elements together, to a surprisingly successful result, the combat can get a bit tiresome at times, and there's also the fact that I have a personal vendetta against QTEs and this game was the one that made them popular... but it's still one of the finest games available on the PS2. And the PS3. And the PSVita. And the PS4... Yeah, Sony loves rereleasing this game, can't blame'em!
 9.0 out of 10