Never understood why the original would land on all the GOAT lists instead ot this. A true sequel that dials every positive from its predecessor to 11. Its like Doom 2016 vs Doom Eternal.
God of War 1 & 2 almost always looked like a sort of Prince of Persia Warrior Within continuum: an ancient-age splatter wed to dark tones, heroes chaning their destiny, sinking ships, double swords, time travel, a bit of nudity to tiltillate teens illegally buying this under the counter (as I did), and so forth. When a franchise exhausted its trilogy, there was another one ready to recycle it. Not a bad game, albeit the golden age of videogames ended there (late 2000s).
speaking for myself,I had a great time with it at release.