Regardless of the cloning and the downfalls, it's a good game.
In this game, players assume the role of “Kratos”, a hero which may not fit in most fairy-tales. Kratos is barbaric, screams like an elephant, looks pale, has red tattoo over his body, and a scar on his face and he is bald(So much for celebrity-looking handsome heroes). You start off in the game, watching Kratos plunge into his own death, and from that point, the story is traced back 3 weeks earlier where you will be told how the events have unfolded, and what has led to Kratos jumping off a high cliff.
This game is based on ancient Greece mythologies, where Ancient Gods were mentioned. I would not give off too much of spoilers here, but it is suffice to say that Kratos was bound to the God of War, Ares, as his servant. One day however, things went wrong and Kratos started to hate his master, Ares. He henceforth set sail on a series of quests and set his journey to destroy Ares. Yes, vengeance is the theme in this game, and it is well told. To cut things short, Ares laid siege to Athens, a city of Athena. Athena is Ares’ sister by the way. Since the gods prohibit gods from battling each other, Athena has no choice but to call upon Kratos, a mortal trained by a god, to kill god himself. In doing so, Kratos must uncover Pandora’s Box, which is hidden far away in some crazy place and a mad temple full of traps that even the Temple of Doom can’t offer, and then kill Ares.
You must have read from other reviews about how great the graphics look, and yes, it does look impressive. The environments are destructible, and the character resolution is sharp. Design of backgrounds such as the temple, the city is good. You will at times travel to underwater areas where again the landscape is beautiful. I don’t have to describe too much about it, but all you need to know is that this game offers graphics that would certainly be one of the best for a PS2 console. The in-game cut scenes, however, could have been further improved.
In this game, you will be mashing on the buttons of your controller, and perhaps at some point of time, you would smash your controller and chew on the analogue stick. The action is intense, and your hands may get cramps. It is by all means fast-paced melee action, with puzzle solving along the way, and of course the Indiana Jones type of traps that will be a trial for your skillful fingers. The controller layout is simple, and one will need only half an hour of getting used to it. Kratos wields a double blade which is chained to his forearms (You will know why from the story later) and his weapons function like a whip as well. You can whip enemies into mid-air and then slash the hell out of them. You will be collecting another weapon in the game, which is a huge blade. Kratos can also cast some spells, or summon hell’s spawn to aid him in his quest. Different weapons will give you different combat moves, and it is all by means of pressing the buttons in the right sequence, while some action has to be executed by means of pressure-sensitive control.
Perhaps the new intuitive thing in this game is the “mini-game” part where you whack an enemy until his health point is low, and a circle button will appear above his head. You then press the circle button near that enemy to enter into “mini-game” mode. The mini-games may require you to press the correct buttons in time as prompted by your screen, and you will see Kratos performing some stunts to kill the enemy. Some mini-games may require you to rotate you analogue stick in the correct manner as prompted on the screen and again Kratos will stylishly finish off his enemies, and you gain health points or magic points to fill up your bar. During boss battles, you will have to again go through some different mini-games to defeat the boss, which is interesting in a way.
You have a health bar and magic bar on the upper left hand corner of the screen. You can level up your weapons or magic level by red orbs which you will constantly collect throughout the game, by opening chests, destroying crates or boxes or even sarcophagus. You will thread a path filled with traps and some athletic stunts like walking on thin planks with giant axes swerving around you, jump onto a rope and swing your way to another side, or slide on a rope etc. There are also many puzzles where you have to move statues around or even race against time to reach a door etc.
A good thing about God of War that makes it player-friendly is that if your hero dies after you have gone through a major trap or a major hurdle in the game, you can restart from a checkpoint after that hurdle and it makes life easier for you. Trusts me, if it was not for this feature, this game would become super-tough even for seasoned veteran players. This game is by the way tough to certain extent. While veteran action gamers would take it as a challenge, newbies would likely give up on the normal mode and go play something else. Most of the times your “blocks” are not useful against enemy attacks… They will just swing a huge mace at you and your hero goes limp onto the ground. You will be relying mostly on your right analogue stick to evade attacks.
The backdrop music is good, which sends a mystic feeling at the right point of the game. The music also increases its pace when there is battle going on. Sound effects are clear and well engineered. Enemy taunts and even Kratos’ grunts sound authentic. The experience of whipping is intensified via the hard and brutal sound effect.
What is bad about the game?
First of all, it looks way too much similar to famous action games like Devil May Cry and Prince of Persia. For example the double blades, and how you could level up using red orbs… and also your hero could double jump and perform stunts, and of course the style. Then it resemble Prince of Persia games in many ways…Take those traps in the Temple for example, it resembles the traps in a castle, and walking on thin planks just like in Prince of Persia, and the traps such as the protruding blades from the grounds, and the giant axes, the crumbling walls…and you break walls to discover secret chests…These are just to name a few.
Other than that, the mini-games and traps could be annoying. For some boss battles you will have to repeat the same mini-game for like 2 or 3 times in order to kill it. Then there are the traps, which sometimes will make you want to throw the game away. The traps are sometimes tedious, and repetitive, and one would wonder why the hassle of all these unnecessary traps in an otherwise great action game. You will die over and over again when you are at some traps. Last but not the least, at some point of the game, you will have to kill hordes and hordes of enemies, and I am sure I have at least killed like 30 centaurs before I could open a stupid damn door, and mind you, the centaurs are very strong and you will be cursing a lot when you battle them (Or when you restart over and over again)
Then the illogical part is that, Kratos is very agile, but he can’t seem to catch hold of the thin planks when he is falling down. You will fall easily to death if you slipped from the planks and you would wonder why the hero is so useless when he can double jump in mid-air and evade attacks like a salamander on the ground.
There are also some loop-holes in the story, which remains a puzzle for me. For example what happened to Kratos before the story of vengeance starts? Did he serve Athena or serve Ares in some mad quests?
Of course I have to mention the difficulty level of this game, where most newbies will find it almost impossible to get through some puzzles and some crazy mini-games where your fingers have to be extremely fast, and your enemies can still jump at you even when your blades are hitting them. You also have to do a lot of back-tracking which kinds of bore you after all the fast-paced action.
Conclusion:
Regardless of the cloning, and perhaps the mad traps and puzzles, this game is definitely worth a play. I would not say that it is one of the best, but it is definitely something new in this genre. An average gamer can finish this game in around 15 hours of time, and veterans may love this kind of challenge.