God of War: Ascension

“God of War: Ascension” is supposed to work as a prequel to the franchise, but does not offer anything. The combat system might be the most polished so far, but the plot, enemies, and level design are mediocre and uninspired if compared to the previous chapters. We don't even learn anything new about Kratos and his past. The first boss fight reaches jaw-dropping heights, but everything afterward just felt flat and uninspired in contrast.

Every series has to have its black sheep, I suppose. God of War: Ascension is a prequel to God of War that clarifies plot points that nobody was particularly curious about, all while offering some of the least enticing combat at the lowest performance levels in the entire series. Yes, Ascension is that game. The game that every franchise seems to have to endure at some point that you just can't help but feel didn't really need to exist.

I'm going to come right out of the gates and say that this game runs very poorly. Every God of War so far has at least targeted 60 FPS, albeit with some drops. Ascension targets 30, with some drops. In a reflexive hack and slash game, this matters. The combat feels just more sluggish and unresponsive than it did in previous titles. There are so many fancy particle effects going on, that framerate slowdown is a regular occurrence. Couple this with the fact that Ascension's weapon system is a notable downgrade from God of War III, and there's a lot of questionable aspects here that all join together to confuse you.

Instead of getting four different weapons that all act differently, you get four different elemental enhancements for your blades. Fire, lightning, ice, and soul. For the most part, they operate very similarly. Some of the special moves change, and they each have a different spell accompanying them, but it's still the same blades, with the same combos you've been using for several games in a row now. There are no subweapons whatsoever, and instead, the 'world weapon' system is introduced. You can pick up enemy weapons such as swords, slings, clubs, javelins, and shields. Generally speaking, these weapons aren't really effective enough to worry about.

Another minor gripe with the game includes the fact that quick-time events this time around are intermixed with active attacking and dodging during executions. This may sound like a good addition, since more direct gameplay is usually better. The issue with this is that sometimes you're really not sure when the game is about to prompt a QTE, and when the game wants you to manually hammer an attack button and dodge. Eventually, at the end of the game, when you've executed every type of enemy a few times, this becomes less of an issue. But it's a needless addition to learning curve, and lead to a few cheap feeling deaths.

It's not all bad, though. Ascension's puzzle solving is generally pretty fun, including the ability to decay and mend environments and create clones of yourself. But, as with most things in this game, this system is also flawed. Every time you have to do either, a big prompt comes on screen reminding you of the ability. A reminder the first time or two is fine to get a player used to it, but when it comes up every time, there's no real mystery in terms of what you're supposed to be doing. Walk into a room, get the prompt to use the amulet, and the puzzle is usually solved for you just like that.

Visually speaking, the game flips between stellar looking and downright ugly. The environments are usually beautiful. Some particularly lush portions of the game world were jaw dropping, and riding giant mechanical snakes in the snow covered mountains was a thrill. Other times though, things just look lazy. There's a cutscene involving a clone of yourself where the player model is very well detailed, and the clone model looks like something out of a PS2 game. This happens all over with minor character models. It just comes out feeling lazy.

In terms of the story, it's really all pretty missable. It's a prequel to the first God of War, taking place after you swear servitude to Ares, but before you embark on your quest to kill him. There's some nonsense about the Furies and their outcast son, but none of it was really gripping at all. The characters felt weak, including Kratos himself. The ruthlessness in his character that was in the main trilogy was conspicuously absent. Whether you push people aside to save them, show sympathy for other characters, or just in general look vulnerable, it's not the Kratos that we've been conditioned to know in the series. Sure, this is before major betrayal from the gods, but Ghost of Sparta and God of War already established that Kratos has pretty much always been an angry, merciless killer through and through.

Ascension isn't terrible. Some of the set pieces are really a joy to look at, and some of the puzzles are cleverly designed. But the whole project feels phoned in. The performance is bad, the visuals are scattered, the story is borderline pointless, and the gameplay itself just isn't that interesting. But, it's still a perfectly playable game, and has a few moments that will make you smile. It doesn't stand up to the mainline trilogy, and that's unfortunate, seeing as this was the last hack and slash God of War that we got. With a little more polish and a few design changes, it could have been right up there with the rest of them. But you need more than spectacle to create an amazing game.

God of War may have given the 3rd person brawler new life in the mid-'00s but it was never the combat that drove me toward the series. It was the spectacle.

Santa Monica Studio showed PS2 owners what the system was capable of in its final years and it did the same once again on the PS3. After the fantastic God of War III, Ascension feels a bit forced and desperate. It does little to improve on the former games and falls flat in its storytelling. Even worse, it is surprisingly unpolished: a crime for a series that does so little with its screen space and limited combat arenas.

Whether it's by design, such as having to battle a horde of enemies while the camera zooms out so far away that Kratos is practically an ant on screen, or by faulty code that forced me to restart from checkpoints after clearing enemies because the next scene wouldn't trigger, Ascension feels rushed. From its inception to multiplayer-focused marketing (the less said about that aspect of the game, the better), Ascension was never positioned to invite the high expectations the previous entries earned.

If you're a fan of the series, Ascension delivers on some of the aspects that matter most: presentation, world building and gruesome, satisfying combat. Let's hope Ascension is the result of a developer delivering a solid title while on auto-pilot and not a sign of fading inspiration from Santa Monica.