God of War

Evidently an anti-militarist statement on how the gods of war send young soldiers to do their dirty deeds causing irreparable suffering to others and to themselves. Also, perhaps a sick reference to repentant but unredeemed domestic abuse. Of course, it is possible that this only was a simple apology of war.

It's easy to forget that God of War began with a suicide and a sex mini-game, that pretty much sums up its unabashed expressiveness. This thing was FRESH back in 2005 and this format still replicates itself today in more ways than one. It took bits and pieces from Legacy of Kain, Devil May Cry and Prince of Persia to present a final form of many aesthetics we take for granted today. QTEs, button mashing, wall climbing, ledge climbing, ledge walking (and using it for cinematic effect), rope traversal, zip lines, staggered enemies, skill tree upgrade system, recurring tutorials, pot breaking, narrow balanced-based platforms, light puzzles, pushing blocks, vertical level design, large-scale bosses, on-screen chapter titles, orchestral soundtrack.... I'm no expert, but I feel like I've played this game hundreds of times, and I don't think all of these things, and more that I've missed, had been put together before, all together at the same time in the same game.

The rivalry with Devil May Cry 3 is just a matter of USA vs Japan. One gave way to a lot of Tomb Raider, Uncharted... a presentation deeply and irrevocably rooted in Hollywood. The other one continued through Bayonetta and even Dark Souls, gamers games, products of a culture where videogames are their own whole thing.

It still looks good to me, and that is without remasters or HD anything. The combat might not be intricate but it's very addictive and satisfying. I'm not a fan of the platforming, but I appreciate those sections as moments to relieve tension, the same goes for puzzles and bits of exploration. Overall it's still an uniquely intense experience. Plus, it has one of the best narrators of all time.

God of War (2005) is a tough game. Seeing as my first (and so far only) playthrough was on hard difficulty, I remember being angry at a good chunk of it. It felt horrendously unbalanced and unfair at times, especially during the late game. Despite that, I was always being thrust ahead by my desire to see what insane shit would happen next.

The overall presentation is incredible. The bombastic nature of it all was quite the sight to behold, and there were quite a few jaw-dropping moments. I enjoyed exploring the imposing environments and gawking at the spectacular set pieces. The overall art design is brilliant; it's no wonder Kratos and his Blades of Chaos became instantly iconic. Coupled with the epic music, the visuals contributed significantly to the awe-inspiring spectacle of everything. The music perfectly conveyed the hatred and determination that drove Kratos forward through the seemingly infinite pile of corpses he was creating. It was also brilliantly used during cutscenes to amp up the emotional weight of the events and during combat to encourage me to slaughter my enemies. The cutscenes do all of the storytelling here, and it's a fun twist on the usual "you killed my family" trope that ends up making Kratos a pretty sympathetic and easy-to-root-for character. The opening cutscene immediately drew me in, and it was easy to get wrapped up in Kratos's quest for revenge. (Also, as a side note, watching Ares hurl a 300-foot-long spear across the entire fucking Earth just to impale Kratos right after he completed his goal was hilarious and unexpected.) There's such a satisfying and enjoyable brutality to all of the events. A lot of impact has been afforded to even the most minor actions. Allowing me to gut a random civilian for health springs to mind. The larger-than-life scale of everything is used expertly to create some of the most memorable moments I've had in gaming. At the end of the day, there's a lot to love about this game, but there's also quite a bit holding it back.

The gameplay in God of War (2005) is easily what has aged most poorly. The controls felt clunky and unresponsive half the time, and the combat system was limited. Leveling up is waiting to collect a certain amount of XP and feels linear. Only one spell is worth your time (and you unlock it first), and the game hardly does anything to force you to use the small array of other spells and weapons they provide you. The Blades of Chaos are a lot of fun to use, and I was pulling off some dynamic combos that felt very fluid and fun, but they often devolved into button-mashing and frustration. Near-perfect precision on parry timing was a must because the dodge felt utterly useless due to the time it took Kratos to be ready to move again. I often found myself stuck holding block because the enemies never stopped attacking, forcing me to get hit or to get lucky.

The game simply overcrowded or overextended every encounter into oblivion, and that took a lot of the potential fun I could've been having out. Rather than encouraging spectacle and finesse like other hack-and-slashes, it felt like I had to stand still and wait for a good amount of combat. I would scrape by a wave of enemies after playing near perfectly with no health left, and then another wave would spawn with twice as many enemies. Or I would finally overcome a difficult mini-boss only for two more to take its place. This is entirely because on hard mode, enemies will chunk your HP in an instant and you have to absolutely wail on them for them to finally go down. This lack of balance, combined with the clunky controls, leads to quite a bit of frustration. I honestly wish I had realized earlier that it was insanely hard, but I thought I was just getting accustomed to the gameplay. By the time I found my groove, the game got even harder to the point that I would spend three times as long on each area. I only got around 7 hours of in-game time out of this game, but that was more like 25 hours of real time spent in frustrating combat scenarios. The game has overall just aged poorly in terms of its fundamental mechanics, and later games take everything this game has done and do it so much better that it is hard to justify coming back to this game for its gameplay. I love a challenge, but it needs to feel fair, and this game fails to make it fair.

TL;DR: Most of the time I spent playing God of War (2005) felt like trying to pilot a helicopter through a storm while the controls were covered in broken glass, but Kratos crawled out of Hades because he simply refused to die and then grew to the size of a fucking skyscraper to beat the shit out of a god, and that made it all worth it.

“God of War” combined the fast-paced hack and slash combat system of “Devil May Cry” with intense action-adventure platforming segments reminiscent of “Prince of Persia”.

The combat system is nothing technical: it mostly requires intense button mashing and quick-time events as we make our way through hordes of enemies. It was nothing new but brought the genre to a whole new level of intensity.

While the battles manage to be still highly enjoyable even two generations later, the old-school platforming segment did not age too well. The exploration of tombs and temples takes up a large portion of the game, with frustrating booby traps and silly deaths caused by the stiff controls. Pandora’s Temple considerably brought the pacing down, but is an ambitious example of level design indeed.

The gods of Olympus have abandoned me. Now, there is no hope.

A arrupiada que me deu quando tinha seis anos, bicho. Me marcou demais e até hoje vejo nele uma narrativa bastante profunda pro seu gênero, além de um gameplay eficiente, ainda que longe do que a série iria alcançar.

Ever wanted to kill a god? God of War certainly isn't the first game to open up this kind of possibility, but it is perhaps the most stylish to do so upon its release. Following in the footsteps of the Devil May Cry style of hack and slash goodness, God of War adds to the formula with a mythological flair and magic abilities, while retaining the combo-heavy pounding action of games before it. It's gory, satisfying,
and demonstrates a monolithic sense of scale. But it's not all perfect.

The basic gameplay is based around slinging around the blades of chaos Kratos has permanently branded to his forearms. The blades rest on a long chain, meaning you get some pretty serious reach out of them, and the possibilities for flashy combos really elevates above if you were to hold just a regular old sword. Combining light attacks, heavy attacks, and grabs, which usually result in various levels of dismemberment, there are a few different ways to dispatch enemies. Certain enemy types will also counter you in certain ways. If you keep spamming light attack, for instance, you're going to get punished for it. Button mashing can get you through a good portion of the game, but there's going to come a point where it doesn't cut it anymore. Also, there's quick time events. Lots of them. Do with that information what you will.

Combat with the Blades of Chaos is supplemented by four different magic attacks that you get throughout the game, as well as a single secondary weapon with some different strategies. You can inflict an AoE lightning attack, paralyze enemies, create army's of dead souls, or pull a Zeus and chuck lightning. A lot of the time, the magic feels a little bit like a trump card that you're allowed to pull out every now and then, and less like a regular piece of combat. Your magic bar drains pretty quickly, depending on what you're doing, and sometimes the spells have a certain 'too good to use' aura about them.

Combat is broken up with fairly basic, albeit fun to solve puzzles. There was never a point where I felt stuck, and the 'eureka' moments are more of a 'oh, yeah' kind of thing. Basic 'push this block to X' or 'find this object and put it in Y' kind of stuff. The platforming in the game is also pretty fun most of the time, but some of the environmental hazards can go from genuinely fun to horrific really quickly. One specific example of a lowlight includes climbing a spike covered tower that's constantly rotating, and if you happen to get within the spike's hitbox, you fall all the way to the bottom again, forced to start from the beginning. There are a few moments like this, and they can make you want to scream.

The combat itself can have some overall unappealing moments, as well. As a general rule, the game is fun. But some specific enemies are hellish to deal with, and not always in a way that feels fair. Whether you get repeatedly stunlocked, or your dodge is just out of the way of their attack every time, some encounters leave a bad taste in your mouth. Some people may refer to this as an example of a moment that makes you not want to replay a game. I don't think any moments get quite that bad, but by the end of the game, I did have a bit of a feeling of relief. The worst was over.

Visually, the game looks quite good. The sense of scale is great, with huge beings battling in the distance and character models appearing as small specks next to some of the more grandiose set pieces. This is accompanied by a suitably epic music score that knows when to reach a climax and when to mellow out. Some of the quieter pieces are particularly beautiful, often featuring a single voice singing a somber melody. The character models definitely aren't anything to scoff at, and the environments are well done. Admittedly though, they can feel a little samey. The meat of the game takes place in the same temple for a good 2/3rds of the action, and while it does try to change it up, you'll feel like a lot of where you are is...Well, ancient greek interiors.

The story is actually remarkably compelling for a hack and slash action game, too. Kratos as a protagonist is at many times one that is not portrayed heroically at all, only to suddenly have an arc where he gains a bit of sympathetic nature. It's not black and white. The story is told in a fairly nonlinear fashion, with regular flashbacks drawing out the past. These cutscenes are never too long, and they don't overstay their welcome. It's not the most complex story ever, but it's gripping enough to hold your attention and inspire curiosity in what happens next.

Overall, God of War was incredibly well received upon first release, and continues to be a solid game to this day. Hang ups in platforming and combat keep it from being a flawless experience, and the gameplay can at times feel samey, but it's still worth playing. Not in just a 'it's historical' kind of way, but in a 'it's still fun' way. At the end of the day, isn't that all a video game really needs to be? Just genuine fun.

God of War is a series that started the super violent hack n slash games, and this game is brutal. You rip heads and horns of monsters, smash enemies to bloody pulps, impale and slice enemies in half. Its a very gory game, and at the same time satisfying, it plays like a basic hack n slash, you have generic enemies hordes, you take them out and move onto the next area, where more enemies come out and then you rinse and repeat. There are occasional puzzles to break up the monotony, but most of the game sees you doing the same thing, which does get a bit repetitive, but the controls and combat is tight enough to make it entertaining to the very end. But there are some annoyances, there are some really annoying platforming moments, there are enemies that are just horrible to deal with and will make quick work with you, and of course the swimming segments are pretty annoying. The story is pretty minimal and a basic revenge story. I mean God of War at its core is a decent hack n slash game with Greek mythology enemies and characters sprinkled in and it has solid design and epic music. The sequel would improve a lot of the frustrations with this game though.