I'm now back from an extremely long hiatus due to the birth of my son, and have several completed games in the can to crank out over the next few weeks. Follower of this blog, rejoice!
No, this isn't a late review of the newest entrant into the God of War series, published in 2018. This is an extremely late review of the first game in the series, which I began for the first time back in high school, and have finally completed as of last month.
I have zero remembrance of why I purchased God of War to begin with. It may have been due to the press coverage around the game, as I was a devoted reader of whatever gaming magazines my friend would bring to school with him. It may have been ads on TV or the internet. It may have been the TOTALLY ADULT look and feel to the box and all of the promised content under "rated M for mature". In any case, I somehow attained a copy without my parents knowing it, and loved the game. I was the only of my friends that had it, and I spent at least one happy week of a summer in high school driving to my friend's house every day to play through the campaign with him, but I got stuck at some point and never finished it, as I did with most games back in my youth. I've had a copy for years ever since acquiring a shiny new copy of the game for PS3 as part of God of War Saga, but hadn't played it at all. I was driven to play it again after release of the newest game, which I'll buy at some point, but it brought back good memories of playing it and I felt like clearing out some more of my extremely dated backlog.
I was nervous about diving in, admittedly. I now have 5 kids, so finding time to play this game with that many little eyes around was difficult. I was also worried that some of the luster would have gone out of the game with time, as the premier push towards the game for me at the time of its release was the mature content and the extremely polished graphics. Extremely bloody and adult themed stuff is no longer the forbidden fruit it used to be, so I was worried that the game may not have aged well in my eyes.
And it's certainly true that some of the shock value/technical polish has definitely gone out of the game over time. Some of that, however, is just due to my remembering the content itself, which made it less shocking. I'm certain that plenty of the stuff in this game would still be delightfully gory today had this game been released in 2018, but it didn't shock me the way I was shocked in 2005. It also felt like some of the sexual content was placed early in the game to get buy-in from teenage boys testing the game out in a rental or borrowing it from their friends, and sells a bill of goods that's largely exaggerated based on the rest of the game. The game still looks graphically fine, and actually looks like an excellent PS2 game. But that's what it is, so the graphical quality was excellent in my book
Some of the approach could have been improved, however, particularly with camera design. The camera is always fixed depending on your location, which is certainly one way to handle cameras, as long as your choices of angle are appropriate for the situation, and the player has enough time to adjust to changing camera angles. In God of War, the camera is a key player in the game, as it intentionally attempts to mimic a cinematic feel to the game that was really unheard of in 2005. The camera artfully zooms in and out on important features, soars to new heights when appropriate, and is generally very good and innovative, particularly for the time. There are plenty of instances, however, when the camera will jerk to a new angle so suddenly that you'll end up heading the wrong direction, back into the previously scripted angle, and this is a very disorienting experience which really takes you out of the cinematic feel of the game. It also killed me several times.
The story is pretty engaging. The game is set in Greek mythology, and follows the journey of Kratos, servant of the God of War Ares, as our hero attempts to enact justice on Ares at the direction of the other gods for a mysterious wrong that is uncovered throughout the story. The cutscenes are all well animated, the voice acting is very good, particularly for the time period, and the basic plot points are well explained and revealed logically throughout the course of the game.
Much of my memory of the game, however, lied to me. This game was actually far better, as a game, than I remember it being. The combat is just flat out excellent, with a fun and rewarding combo system requiring skillful twitchy button mashing that always feels good. Combat is also culminated with frequent quick time events that yield tremendously savage and gory finishers, with big accompanying rewards in terms of health and magic drops, as well as souls to upgrade your weapons and abilities. The bosses are huge and fun for the most part (except for the end boss), and I had an absolute blast taking them down, but wish there were more (there are only three real bosses in the game, I believe). There are also very cleverly designed puzzles in the game that are difficult, but solvable, and that yield good rewards upon completion.
I felt like the system by which Kratos levels up wasn't great. The upgrades take forever to save up for, and just don't feel that rewarding, to be honest. Each additional level improves you marginally, adds a few bells and whistles, but is mostly unremarkable. You finally feel the cumulative impact of your upgrades when you're walking back to face the final boss at the end, and are forced to chew through earlier enemies along the way, but other than that, you don't really feel like you're getting stronger along the way.
The platforming is also a bit clunky, suffering the same fate as many similar games from the era. Judging Kratos' location can be difficult mid jump, particularly in the dark and shadowy world he frequents. Fortunately, check points are frequent, so it never feels crushing when you die during a poorly aimed jump, but it's still frustrating.
The game was nearly the perfect length, and definitely doesn't overstay its welcome. I cleared it in slightly over 8 hours, which was excellent. Despite the short length, it manages to pack in several memorable areas to explore, including the Temple of Pandora, one of the most cleverly designed dungeons I have played through in any game, ever.
All in all, God of War was far better than my memories let on, as I was definitely looking at it through the lens of a worldly wise 30 year old rather than an 18 year old craving some more mature entertainment. If you let the savage veneer of the game blind you to the finely crafted experience that lies beneath, I truly believe that you're missing out on one of the great games on the PS2. I'd recommend it to adults capable of spending some time with the game and enjoying its substantial charms, despite a few flaws. I'll give it a 9.2/10.
Up next on What I'm Playing is a game I've been looking forward to playing for a long time, teaser below...
-TRO
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