God of War (2005)

A very fun and challenging action game that is solid all around, from its level design to the variety of enemies. The combat is highly engaging, with a moderate amount of depth—nothing overly complex, but deep enough to stay interesting throughout. The story is simple, yet it grabs your attention, and the plot is strong enough to keep you invested in Kratos’ quest for revenge.

Where the game truly excels is in its presentation, especially when played on an emulator, as I did. It holds up remarkably well at higher internal resolutions, even today. The developers went all out with the cinematic feel: the camera angles, transitions, and seamless cutscenes are impressive, and the voice acting is genuinely great for its time.

That said, I do think the third chapter of the game drags on a bit too long. Some of the platforming sections also feel forced and unnecessarily difficult, especially considering the fixed camera angles, which often take control away from the player.

Overall, this is a great game that left me eager to continue Kratos’ story in the sequels. It’s an experience every gamer should have at least once and a true pioneer of modern action games.

Man. What a game this is. I was fifteen when it first came out. And my mom absolutely would not let me rent it or buy it. Cuz there's like...three boobs you can see in this game. There's also a button that makes Kratos rip people in half, but boobs are where I draw the line!

When I finally got to play it, it stuck with me forever.

I'm a big fan of Greek myth. I just think they're neat. I like giant monsters and the superheroes who fight them.

God of War always felt very classic to me. Not in gameplay, thought it is pretty classic in that regard, but in the story and themes. Kratos fits right in with a lot of characters in the myths. He has a massive flaw that leads to a horrible tragedy. Very tragic, very Greek. There is a character in the myths named Kratos, who, according to wikipedia, they did not name him after. They coincidentally came up with the same name. Kinda cool, I think.

Not sure if you remember, but this game was a big deal when it first came out. The gameplay and story were both pretty lauded. And for good reason. The game is extremely fun. The Blades of Chaos are super fun weapons. They're close-range weapons, but their range is also longer than you'd expect. Excellent for fighting the absolute hordes that will come at you. And the awesome grab attacks with QTEs. Those are really looked down on in more modern design, but I think the implementation here is a bit more complicated than just "press X to win."

Killing enemies with QTEs yields different rewards. Ripping off a gorgon's head doesn't yield any red XP orbs, but you will get a nice boost of magic, or QTE killing a minotaur will reward you with health. The decision doesn't make itself. There are reasons to do either.

I find the story pretty simple, but compelling. Kratos is very well characterized. He's an awful person, and you really get to feel that. How he moves around, fights, manhandles monsters. Great. He's a shitass person who did all kinds of awful things, and only cared when it impacted him. Very human, very sad.

There is a lot of nostalgia in me for this game, but I think I actually liked this more than I did as a teen. I'm not such a hoarder anymore. I think I used Rage of the Gods in this single playthrough more times than I did in the entirety of prior playthroughs. It's better to have something on cooldown than to not use it at all.

Yeah. I kinda dig this game.

Okay, this was WAY tougher than I remember, especially the platforming sections and the final few battles. That being said, super rewarding once you finish it.

The story stuff is pretty light, it's a tale of revenge when you boil it down but it's a damn good one that takes full advantage of Greek Mythology and everything that comes with it.

This was a really tough one to push through. I'll start by saying I actually really liked the story and loved the world it takes place in. I grew up with my dad reading me stories from Greek mythology so this sort of adaptation was right up my alley.

Unfortunately I absolutely loathed the combat and general gameplay. To the point where I strongly considered putting the game down multiple times throughout the 9 hours I spent with it.

Almost every enemy was incredibly spongey, with it taking multiple minutes to kill many of the large ones unless I spammed magic. I'm not sure if I was missing something with the combat but most moves and combos other than the basic Light, Light, Heavy didn't feel worth using because they didn't give much extra damage, were easy to get staggered out of, and took more effort to pull off. At least in the DMC games you have the style score as motivation to mix things up.

The game in general was very easy on Normal difficulty. I say this with the caveat that it is absolutely chock full of instant kills that make it much more frustrating than it would otherwise be. So while in most combat situations I could get the shit beat out of me and still be sitting at like 95% HP, taking a little tumble off a ledge because I used the wrong move at the wrong time meant restarting at the last checkpoint.

This game also managed to earn my personal award for "Worst Implementation of Quicktime Events / Button Mashing." These were responsible for much of my frustration with the game. I was legitimately concerned for the wellbeing of my controller each time I executed a minotaur with how hard I had to mash the 'O' button. And it got so much worse with the final boss. I think I had to retry the button mash / quicktime segment at the end of Ares Phase 1 around 30-40 times before I finally got it right because the windows for quicktime button presses were so short and overlapped with when I was still finishing the button mashing which came immediately before them.

Funnily enough, I found the much-hated sections of the game which revolved (heh) around puzzles to be significantly easier than their intimidating reputation indicated. Specifically the spiked box puzzle and the spiked column were really not that bad.

I really think I must be missing something with this one. The combat seems to get so much praise and while I acknowledge I've never been good at hack and slash games it just felt truly awful nearly the entire time with the exception of a boss or two. Maybe I'm spoiled by DMC, DMC5, and Bayonetta being newer? I liked all of those a good deal. Anyway, I'm going to carry on with God of War 2. Hopefully things will get better there.

Replayed this for the first time in years and it's amazing how much this game gets right. The action is fun and addicting, with enough new elements doled out throughout the game to keep the combat interesting, but never complicating the system so much that it feels like a chore to level up your abilites. The puzzles and such are well done for the most part; there are a few clunky or annoying moments, but not so much that it ever drags things down. I greatly enjoyed how Pandora's Temple was not just a simple "go from the bottom to the top" situation but the temple itself was a puzzle you had to solve.

The story is the best in the trilogy, neither too simple nor too complicated. The flashbacks show how Kratos was manipulated by the gods in a way that makes you sympathetic to his quest but also sets the stage for the depths he will fall to in future games. On top of all this, the soundtrack is fantastic; the best execution of a bombastic, operatic style since Jet Force Gemini. The makers of God of War clearly understood how a game's soundtrack can elevate the game as a whole, and the music really drives home the feeling of being in a Greek epic.

But one of the key things I like about this game is that it does one of my favorite things that games can do: it gives you a sense of place. You're not just sent through a long line of places to battle through, never to see them again once you're done. You move through carefully planned loops where you get to see how your actions have changed the environment once you get back to the beginning of the loop, without being aware that you were in a loop until that point. It's a delight to discover how the different areas are connected, and it allows the game to use locations as foreshadowing for the story. (The moment when Kratos pops out of the underworld from the mysterious grave he saw being dug hours ago is such a great payoff and a perfect example of setting as foreshadowing.) The times where the camera position is chosen to show you the scale of an area are not only stunning to look at, they also reinforce the connectedness. This all makes you feel like you're in a real place and your actions have a real effect on thngs.

This game has so many standout moments that I can't narrow it down to a couple favorites, while none really stand out in a bad way. Overall, this game does a great job balancing its story and gameplay and creating an engrossing experience.

If you like a little (or a lot) of blood and violence, God of War is certainly the way to go. This is the first game I picked up on PS3 after a loooong hiatus from gaming (aka Motherhood), and I gleefully hacked my way through the majority of the story. I won't lie. It was tough for me. So much so that on any mode other than 'easy' I got my butt handed to me--to the point I actually earned a trophy for it.

I loved playing as Kratos. He's bad*** and he knows it. The system for leveling up abilities was simple and a lot of the special moves in battle were easy to execute. I was not a huge fan of the puzzles, but I managed (with the help of an occasional walkthrough), and some of the bosses were confusing at first.

I raged at this game a lot, but overall it's got a permanent place on my shelf.

This game got quite a few friend recommendations and I love Roman and Greek mythology. Add in the fact the action looked fast & changeling to a degree, I was on board.

In a world ruled by Gods & plagued by monsters, the mighty Spartan warrior Kratos is overwhelmed with vengeance. He sets out on a journey to kill the God of War, Ares, who has deceived him into a violent life filled with hate due to the loss of everything he holds dear.

The story makes great use of Greek mythology. Kratos and his personal tragedy fit in perfectly within the setting, it plays like an old tale told in history or English class. At the end credits, a complete story has been told which only caltipults this gem to the essential list.

The Kinecta engine powers this beast, that engine was previously used for another PS2 exclusive, it’s futuristic racing namesake Kinecta. Button mash, hack & slash, light/heavy attack combo accumulation can be used to slice through creatures of mythology such as harpies, cyclopes, sitars, warrior skeletons and many more to fall to your blades. One even has the option with the right joystick to dodge & evade making that hard to beat combatant last breath even sweeter.

The fun, easy combo system allows weapon upgrades, the use of magic, plus help from Gods such as Zeus, Athena & Poseidon never hurts. Kratos makes progress on his pilgrimage to find puzzles alongside some platforming & the occasional combination of elements that require intellectual planning which lead to worthy boss fights against Greek's finest baddies including the Hydra, Cerberus, Medusa & a few gods. Be on the ready for some quick time events to make them reside in the underworld for all eternity.

Rendered cutscenes come in great as a small break from the bloody fun. During battle one can easily see a foe fall in pain as the blade strikes right before decapitation into many pieces. The sounds fill the room as the characters come across very believable due to professional voice acting, Kratos himself sounds filled with remorse, vengeance & anger. Unfortunately there is no replay value except for those who want to relive the adventure on occasion.

God of War comes off as a great start to the franchise and a strong reason for what video games are made to accomplish in the first place: entertainment. The strong Greek influence set this apart from many other titles of it’s generation, allowing freedom in presentation, effect, content & narrative.

I am personally obsessed with Greek history and mythology so you can imagine how delighted I am with the god of war series. I had never played a game that had this type of smooth and diverse gameplay style with so much variety and enemies to fight against. The graphics were quite good for the time and the overall world-building left me hooked. The only thing lacking depth on this first installment was the protagonist who fell into the trap of "angry man seeks vengeance" trope that video game usually defaults into. However, while Kratos was not at his best right off the bat everything around him was amazing as we got a story filled with mythology, fun gameplay, and a daring finale that would continue building for the sequel. I played this game countless times when it came out and it is a shame I can't anymore, RIP my PS2.

This was one of the worst experiences I've ever had playing a game and I'm surprised I even finished it. I HATED it.

The level design was cool at the artistic level, but the puzzle rooms were made extremely poorly. The puzzles were never hard to figure out, but with the awful layout of rooms/poorly made controls, it was difficult to actually finish any given puzzle. My least favorite rooms were the box-kicking puzzle, the cylinders you had to climb in the underworld, and having to find the harpies in the desert.

The combat was frustrating. You play as a spartan with the power of a god, yet killing any enemy takes 50 hits. to take down This was extremely boring. I felt that with a small list of abilities, the options to take down enemies was limited. Having more moves probably would have alleviated most of my pains. If Kratos was more powerful the game would have been much shorter too. I thought the boss fights were nothing special on the combat side of things, but their designs were neat. I had more trouble fighting some of the normal enemies because they would refuse to go down, especially in large groups. The bosses were much easier in comparison since you could focus on a single enemy.

The story also didn't do much to interest me. I did not enjoy that the majority of the game took place in Pandora's temple. The way the rings moved was neat I guess.

I am not one that usually complains much about sexism in games, but this game was just too much for me to handle. There was no need for every woman in the game to have large breasts/be naked. These outfits just seemed illogical and did nothing to improve the game.

I really hate this game.

Sorry for shitting on this game so much, but remember that my opinion shouldn't change yours! ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Played on PS3