Summary
An amazing experience as well as a fantastically designed game
The Good
When facing death on the battlefield, Kratos calls to Ares for help and pledges his loyalty to the God of War to receive inhuman powers. After years of fighting and killing for Ares, a tragic event causes Kratos to realize the true scope of his sacrifice and he sets out to achieve the impossible: murder the God of War. Ares, out of jealousy of Athena, is laying siege to Athens, and as it is forbidden to the gods to fight amongst themselves, they soon help Kratos on his quest for revenge so that he may stop Ares.
The story is told by a female narrator (Athena), using many flashbacks that eventually reveal Kratos' past, at which time the game picks up where the intro (in which Kratos tries to commit suicide by jumping off a mountain) left off. This makes the first part of the game more interesting, as one has yet to learn some crucial details about Kratos' background and it also gives momentum to the story when everything about his past is revealed and the time switches from the past to the present.
The game's presentation more than lives up to its epic story. Graphics are as good as they get on the PS2. The polygon models are detailed, the backgrounds even more so. The texture quality is excellent and there are no slowdowns or other noticeable technical problems. However, what is even more impressive than the technical aspect, is the creativity that obviously went into crafting the world and its inhabitants. Whether you are fighting a giant Hydra on a sinking ship, carve your way through Athens while it is under attack by Ares and his army, or climb the back of a Titan as large as a mountain, God of War will take your breath away on more than one occasion. Even the more mundane backgrounds are brilliantly modeled and beautifully textured. The monster design is excellent and deliberately macabre, which often lends a unique flavor to all the well known monsters of Greek Mythology. It's never taken over the top however, and perfectly fits the game's dark atmosphere.
The fully orchestrated soundtrack is fittingly bombastic and wonderfully archaic. The main theme is simply brilliant and beautifully woven into some pieces of background music. The voice acting is excellent as well. It's one of those rare cases in which I find the German voices to be superior to the English ones, although they are excellent as well.
Gameplay is primarily focused on combat with a handful of puzzles and some surprisingly long and challenging platforming sequences. There isn't too much exploration to be done in God of War. Occasionally, you have to find a hidden passage and there are lots small secrets to be found(usually in form of orbs), but as a whole, the game is rather linear. This isn't a bad thing though, on the contrary. Too much freedom would have upset the game's pacing since the focus is clearly on action.
During the course of the game, Kratos will be able to use two different weapons and four spells. All weapons and spells can be improved by using orbs that are found in chests or vases, or gained by defeating enemies. Kratos' first weapons are the Blades of Chaos, two swords attached to chains. They aren't very powerful but have a very long range and allow many different combos. The Blade of Artemis is the second weapon. It is much more powerful but also has a much shorter range and allows less combos. The spells are: Poseidon's Rage which hits all surrounding enemies with lightnings, Medusa's Gaze which turns enemies into stone, Zeus Fury which lets Kratos throw lightnings at his enemies, and Army of Hades which summons an army of dammed souls that attack several enemies at once. Leveling up Kratos' weapons increases their power and enables him to perform new attacks. Leveling up spells increases their strength, area of effect, or speed (at which you throw lightnings or turn enemies to stone for example). Since there are not enough orbs to max out all weapons and spells, it is important to choose which spells and weapons are most useful, because improving everything just a little is not very effective.
Combat is quite varied as there are plenty of different enemies that have to be defeated in different ways and you are usually outnumbered. To stand a chance against the hordes of enemies, you cannot only perform various combos and use spells, but also grab certain enemies to throw them against other enemies or simply rip them apart. It is also possible to block attacks, and when you hit the attack button in the right moment after blocking an attack, you can launch a devastating counterattack. Many larger enemies, such as minotaurs or cyclopses, cannot be grabbed though and can take a lot of hits. When they are weakened you can either continue fighting them until they are dead, or start a short quick time event to finish them off. QTEs are perfectly implemented and do not only add some variety to battles, but also increase their intensity, as successfully completed QTEs result in spectacular and brutal animations. Finishing of a minotaur for example, lets Kratos tear open the minotaur's mouth and, while you are hammering the attack button, ram his sword into it. Not all QTEs are that simple though. Beheading a medusa for example, requires you to repeat a series of quarter and half circles with the analogue stick. The QTEs are not all that difficult to pull off, but they demand some concentration. They are not meant to be overly challenging, they rather help making combat much more varied, intense and satisfying.
And intense it is! God of War features some of the most impressive enemies ever seen in a videogame. Your first encounter with a minotaur is quite an experience, even though minotaurs are among the smallest and weakest enemies. It is even more frightening to go against two huge club swinging trolls at once, and then there are medusas, centaurs, harpies... . Enemies do not only look different, they also have vastly different attack strategies. Medusas are small and fast and either try turning you to stone or dish out fast attacks with their tails. Harpies are even smaller and extremely annoying. Some soldiers are very good at blocking your attacks, whereas archers attack from a distance, preferably while your busy fighting against other enemies. Larger enemies, such as minotaurs and trolls follow a more straightforward strategy and you have to block and dodge their attacks and choose the right moment to attack yourself. You will usually find yourself fighting against large groups of smaller, or man-sized enemies or small groups of large (or huge) enemies. Every now and then you will also have to go against particularly sadistic combinations of both. Needless to say that boss-fights are even more impressive and challenging. There aren't many boss-fights in the game, but the few that are there, are truly something special. They usually take several minutes and require numerous different strategies. It's not enough however, to simply memorize certain attack patterns, since all fights are, at least to some extend, dynamic. For example, one boss-fight pits you against a number of cerberi, and while you are busy dodging their attacks and fireballs, they keep spewing out small cerberi who, if they are not defeated in time evolve into large cerberi who spew out small cerberi, who, if they are not defeated in time evolve into large cerberi who spew out small cerberi etc. etc.. Combat is the heart of the game and it shows, it's varied, challenging and intense.
There are only a few puzzles in the entire game. They are not meant to keep you stuck for very long, but they serve as a welcome break from all the action. Most puzzles are fairly original, and you won't find any filler puzzles along the lines of "drag a chest across five rooms and put it on a switch to open the door". While there are some puzzles that involve pushing chests and rocks around, they are fairly inventive and actually require you to think in three dimensions. For example, there is one puzzle in which you have to reconstruct a wall by filling out wholes with rocks of different shapes and sizes. Before you can do that however, you have to put some of the rocks on a rotatable platform and bring them into the right position. In another fiendish puzzle, you have to pull several levers in the right order in a short amount of time. The problem here is that you have to run through a field of fast-moving buzz saws in order to reach the levers and you basically have to memorize the entire way if you want to pull all levers in time.
One thing that surprised me about God of War, was the fact that it has a number of long and challenging platforming sequences. Many of these present only a different form of combat as you will find yourself climbing along walls or ropes while fighting off enemies that try to throw you off. Every now and then you will also have to do some platform jumping (or jumping from one rope to the next) - where it gets really interesting however, is in Hades. The first platforming sequences have Kratos walk over a number of rotating pillars. In order not to fall to your death, you have to constantly keep moving while fighting off harpies and archers. The pillars also change their rotating speed and direction and, to top things of, there are lots of huge blades attached to the pillars, and touching them will usually cause you to fall off. Another fiendish sequence requires you to climb up a wall that consists of different parts that move at different speeds into different direction. Naturally, there are also blades attached to these parts and touching them, or getting pushed to far to any side will send you falling down. Fortunately, there are a number of reasonably placed save points in between these passages.
Finally, it is worth mentioning, that God of War also has a number of interesting unlockable features. You can view all cutscenes of the game, a complete making of, all sorts of short movies about different aspects of the game (artwork, story etc.) and also a lot of 3D models of enemies (and earlier versions of Kratos) that didn't make it into the final game. Probably the most interesting feature deals with some passages and boss-fights that could'nt be included in the final game anymore.
The Bad
There's nothing really bad about God of War, only a few minor annoyances.
Combat can become a little repetitive at times. While there are many different attacks, not all of them are equally useful and sometimes you will find yourself repeating the same combo a little too often.
At some points, there seems to be a nearly unlimited flow of enemies, and it can get a bit frustrating if you fight the same group of enemies in the same place for the xth time.
While I personally like the platforming sequences and wouldn't have minded if there were more of them (and if they were longer and more difficult), they can get very frustrating (especially the ones in Hades).
In very rare cases, it can happen that you pass an invisible checkpoint with almost no energy left and, when you die, restart with the same small amount of energy. Then you either have to find a way to survive long enough to reach the next energy power-up, or start from the last save point.
One could complain about the small number of boss-fights, but on the other hand, many of the ordinary enemies are more impressive and challenging than a lot of bosses found in other games.
God of War isn't exactly long. The first time around took me somewhere around eight hours to finish. However, eight hours of brilliance are still a lot better than 20 plus hours of mediocrity.
The Bottom Line
Few modern games are as uncompromising in their design as God of War. In times where many games try to incorporate too many gameplay elements for their own good, usually to appear original or to appeal to as many gamers as possible, and often end up being a jack of all trades but master of none, God of War comes as a pleasant surprise. That doesn't mean that God of War lacks variety, on the contrary. However, where many games give the impression that they include certain gameplay elements simply because they seem obligatory, God of War just throws out everything that doesn't improve its gameplay. It has become a sad tradition for 3rd Person adventures to annoy the player with unnecessarily long but undemanding puzzles - you won't find anything like that in God of War. There are only two different weapons to choose from, but they are very well worked out and combat in God of War is more varied and simply better than in any other comparable game. In most games that aren't pure platformers, platforming sequences are so easy and watered down, that one has to wonder why it was bothered to include them in the first place - God of War on the other hand includes platforming sequences that are probably too long and too challenging for the taste of many casual gamers.
I could go on, but the point is that God of War, unlike too many similar games, knows exactly what kind of game it wants to be and it does not "only" take known concepts to their pinnacle, but also has the guts to do things exactly how it wants them to do, without caring about conventions. That is not to say that it is entirely original or even revolutionary in its design, but it is bold, and just extremely good in everything it does, and a good deal ahead of its competitors. It is as much a gripping experience as it is a fantastically designed game. A must play.
