God of War: Chains of Olympus

Meio sem gracinha, tem nada de especial pra série. O aspecto mais interessante é que está em um console portátil.

Beloved franchises frequently have a hard time jumping to a handheld console. The gameplay of the originals is expected, and the scope is dreamed of. God of War: Chains of Olympus tries its best to emulate the gameplay of the first two God of War titles, but suffers from some weird compression issues. It wants to absorb the scope of God of War II, but tries to cram it all in to a game that clocks in at under half the length. The actual action does an admirable job of emulating its big brothers, but a few things do get lost in translation. Some other things, however, convey good, strong concepts.

Chains of Olympus isn't all just copy and paste. While the classic God of War formula of stop a big boss, go to a big area, spend most of your time there, then kill the bad guy is intact, there are some original tricks the game has up its sleeves. One change from the console games that the game introduces is quick casting. Instead of clumsily selecting your spell with the D-pad and then casting, you simply click down R, and select the corresponding face button for whichever spell you want. This could have used a UI element to it, though, as you're tasked with remembering which spells are mapped to which button. As long as you're paying attention, it's not a huge issue, but a quick reminder would be nice.

The variety of spells has also been overhauled, albeit with fewer options. You also have the opportunity to wield Zeus' Gauntlet, which can be most accurately compared to the Barbarian Warhammer from God of War II. It hits hard, while having a little less reach. So the game isn't starved for content, but it is very short. It can be beaten in under five hours without any real issue. With this short length, the pacing is also a little out of place. Right when the game feels like it's picking up, it ends. Red orbs are rewarded in excess to make up for the shorter amount of time you're spending, and it feels like every five minutes, you run into another phoenix feather or gorgon eye to upgrade your health and magic.

The other issue here is that with how small the game is, the secrets really don't feel that secret at all. Most of the upgrade chests are in plain view, and due to the low resolution being upscaled for the PS3, any abnormalities that may obscure these secrets stick out like a sore thumb. There are other mechanics that literally only show up once in the entire game. For instance, the classic balancing act walking over a beam is used exactly once. (Humorously, the game offers a trophy for completing all beam walks) Things like this make the game feel like it may have been rushed or unfinished. I can't speak to the truth of that, but it's an overall compact experience. Sometimes the compactness of the game is good, but other times, it suffers for it.

In terms of difficulty, Chains of Olympus is notably easier than its full sized counterparts. The enemy design is, for the most part, very simple. This results in pretty one-sided encounters. There are a few enemy types that do get a little more challenging, but for most of the game, you can breeze through everything without feeling too on edge. The platforming is also virtually non-existent when compared to the console games. There are a few fun moments here and there, but it's mostly moving from point A to point B. The final area is especially monotonous, with multiple rooms repeated two or three times. If you've played Halo: Combat Evolved, it reminds me of the Library. It's just a dull experience, which the climax of the game shouldn't be.

Another issue the game has is a remarkably weak story. For the first half of the game, it's established that the primary Antagonist is Morpheus. He sends a lethal fog across the land and spreads his minions throughout the area, all while banishing the Temple of Helios away to ensure the sun can't interfere. This is a reasonable setup, but it's all brought down to nothing when Morpheus simply retreats. Morpheus is never actually shown on screen in any way. Not in a cutscene, not as a character model, nowhere. You're left to aimlessly wander until at the last minute, Persephone is actually the main villain. Yes, Persephone, who has not appeared at all for the entire rest of the game. It's a real hack job of a story, with loose ends and sudden shifts and jerks in different directions the entire time.

Chains of Olympus is about what you'd expect from a handheld adaptation of a console classic. It's not completely gimped, but it is marred with issues that keep it from being a viable competitor to the throne. It's a quick enough experience to where it doesn't feel like a huge waste of time, and it's perfectly playable. The ho-hum nature of the game is fortunately intercepted by a few clever design choices, though. If you want God of War on the go, or are just looking for every little fix you can find, it's a fine enough game.

This is my first God of War game. Yes, I know, I know. PSP isn't exactly the best way to be introduced to any big-sibling franchise, but thems the breaks. I had never played a GoW game and wanted to give it a shot for a fair price. Right off the bat I noticed two things: First, the graphics on this are great. Almost up to the standards of the PS2, which is impressive. The second thing I noticed was how the lack of a second joystick really mares the experience. While the game does an admirable job trying to accommodate for this fact, it never really succeeds.

Otherwise this seemed like a pretty standard hack and slash that I don't think I can be bothered to finish. The story is pretty unsympathetic, and the gameplay never really changes from 'mash buttons in order to get to the next arena to mash buttons and then fight the boss by mashing specific buttons.' It's not a bad game by any means, and I'd be willing to give an HD collection a try, but this specific entry is one for those who are already in love with the series.

God of War came to PSP pretty late, the series already had 2 games on PS2 and PSP was already nearing the end of its life cycle. But to be honest this isn't too bad for a PSP game, it plays pretty similar to the PS2 games, although it is way shorter and has more basic combos. The story is pretty average, its a prequel to God of War II and takes place while Kratos serves the Gods, and to be honest it doesn't really add anything nor does it hurt anything, it just sort of feels like filler that is there to make a quick game. There are some decent bosses and the game isn't bad, but it isn't nowhere near as good as the console God of War games. For PSP this is great, but outside PSP this game is pretty bland.

If you were expecting God of War just with lower res due to the more limited hardware of the psp, you will come out disappointed out of this one. Chains of the olympus is not only a step back visually, its worst than god of war 2 in terms of gameplay by a large margin. There is much less combat options, to the point where the most viable way to win the game is by spamming square square triangle. The enemies are also nothing to write home about, with very few new entries. The puzzles are dumb down, the secrets are dumb down, and the bosses are few and very simple. I beat this game on the hardest difficulty and even at that level its fairly easy.

Plotwise its a prequel to the events of God of War 2. It has all the issues of a prequel, and there really is no way they could make this game justifiable through its story. Its feels very clearly from the beginning like a quick grab in. It paints Kratos in a more human light, as he searches for his daughter, but otherwise its a failed opportunity.

Its still a fairly competent action adventure game when played in isolation, but i can only really recommend it to try hard fans of the series. Its a huge stepdown from all the mainline entries.

All one could hope for is a faithful God of War-lite out of Chains of Olympus, which it fully delivers on. So much so that the only true surprise of the game is that it's one of the select few to accomplish such a seemingly capable feat (from the eyes of a consumer). In the vein of Metroid [メトロイド] series, the Grand Theft Auto series, and the Castlevania [悪魔城ドラキュラ] series, Chains of Olympus is a near excellent addition to a series that could hold up as a triple AAA release on the past generation's consoles, as well as a generation later on a handheld.

Ready at Dawn, developers of this side-story in the GoW cannon, have once again, as they did on Daxter, brought a PS2 mainstay onto the PSP with surprisingly little missing. The graphics look near PS2 quality, the production lives up to the series, and the fighting is as addictive as ever. The game truly is GoW-lite, taking the best of both games and makes a much more tame pace and plot built around the always compelling gameplay of the series. The game is worth playing, if you found yourself going through either of the God of War games a second time or have a desire to fill in backstory. I can't fault Ready at Dawn for not making a game as rich or exciting as the previous games, but there is a bigger problem that takes away from the experience.

The controls are horrid in this game and it's entirely the PSP's fault. I've always defended the system for having better graphics and being a better multimedia hub than the DS, but Chains of Olympus is "exhibit A" on the detractor's side. It's tragic that Ready at Dawn created a faithful portable adaptation that I want to immerse myself in, but couldn't for more than an hour because how bad my fingers would hurt. To the game's credit, I fought against the pain, most of the time, because how addictive it is but found the problem to take much fun away overall. This largely has to do with the weight of the system and how hard it is to hold on to the triggers for hours. I own the original PSP model and I know the later models are lighter, so perhaps that addresses this issue. Either way, I'm going on my experience on my legit PSP system -- a valid point that many who play the game may share.

Despite not being as original as the previous games and having cumbersome controls, Chains of Olympus is one of the best handheld experiences I've had in some time. If I played the game on consoles I would bump it up half a star, but, for better or worse, this is the handheld, high production action/adventure we've always wanted. I couldn't ask for much more without sounding unreasonable, so I accept the game for what it is. It doesn't have equal ground as its predecessors, but considering where it's coming from and who it's coming from -- in a way it does.