God of War: Ascension (2013)

Games that are immediate prequels to highly-popular series installments often get undeservedly bad raps 😦. The narrative can feel like a side-story when the plot doesn't pump the stakes higher & greater critical attention is given to flaws (even if better received series entries had the same, or worse, faults). And to some extent, this is true for God of War: Ascension, which takes place before the events of the first game. Without spoiling anything, if you've already played God of War 1 through 3, then you probably have at least a general idea of where the game goes and how it ends. And reading other reviews, that seems to be the crux of what people were disappointed with.

But taken as just an game on its own, it's still a ton of fun! The level design is fantastic, the controls and combat feels just as good as God of War 3, the writing/voice acting is well done, the cinematics are excellent, and the graphics are easily some of the best on the PS3. It's not without it's flaws of course - The difficulty spikes, quick-time-events are not much fun because of the small timing window, and mechanically, it's cut from the same cloth as its predecessors. In 2023, the multiplayer is also dead, if that is in any way a factor in whether you would have interest. But it's still as well-polished a product as any other entry in the series.

If you enjoyed preceding entries and don't mind that it's a prequel, then you'll still find a very enjoyable game.

Despite all what I'd heard, I actually had quite a bit of fun with this game. Sure the story adds very little (and isn't that well told), and the combat messes with things it really shouldn't, taking out some of the fun and a lot of combos, making it really repetitive for the first half of the game.

But in the second half, I suddenly realizing I was really enjoying it. Once you've put some upgrades into the elemental stuff and unlock some abilities, then the combat opens up and is full of possibility, like it should have been from the start. It was a little late, but not too little.

My experience this game was very influenced by the fact I played it a few weeks after GOW3, a game I didn't really enjoy. The combat was very good, and it had some high points - but the overall vibe was way too heavy and relentless, just stringing together a series of moments where Kratos was just a caricature of walking rage.

Ascension felt to me like having the vibe of an earlier GOW experience with the engine and power of GOW3. Some AMAZING locations, cool puzzles - which were pretty much absent in the third game - hidden temples, and a sense of an epic odyssey. It goes a bit too much into Uncharted territory at times - I laughed out loud when, after operating a set of puzzles which "solution" couldn't possibly have been built with that purpose, I ended up revealing a huge golden temple in a snowy mountain. But the inside of that temple was breathtaking, it introduced a cool mechanic and had a nice boss fight. The whole second half of the game revolves around a pretty cool concept, and my jaw dropped at a couple setpieces.

This is, undoubtedly, a flawed and unnecessary God of War game. And I can very much understand the reaction behind it at the time, especially when people didn't know the future of the series, and of the PS4 game to come. But hey - for someone like me, who's playing through the whole series years after the fact and wants to have some fun - I absolutely recommend it. (This was the first GoW game I actually cared to platinum!)

Soo i've been playing through all God of War games, and i think Ascension is probably the worst one in the series, i know that prequels are usually a bad sign, it's clearly to just make profit of the popularity and success of the franchise, i get it, but still, i was hoping for at least an enjoyable experience, and ohh man... was it not.

Ascension is a good example of creators overdoing it, wanting to 1up it's predecessor and failing, it lacks the balance and great design of GoW II and III.

This game turns into an enemy spawn fuckfest real quick, and somehow this is the first game in the series where the combat feels unsatisfying, the enemies just take forever to kill, the scripted camera movements, don't help, half the time i didn't even know, which pixel i was on the screen, there's way too many tedious puzzles, there's more platforming, than in any other GoW, which is not a good thing, they didn't even bother to hide red and white chests this time, like where's the FUN in that? the design can be very confusing, i had to look up where to go, cause i didn't see a prompt or something. You know GoW I-III knew, how to reward it's player after a boss: It gave you a new weapon, new power, great cutscene... Ascension rewards you with... some more enemies... there's no sense of satisfaction, accomplishment and i just wanted it to end.

It's quite underwhelming, really.

It's clear that this franchise needed a reboot, a fresh take, and i'm soo looking forward to finally playing GoW (2018)

In anticipation of the newest God of War game, I have decided to play through all the God of War games that came before it. I have only played God of War 1-3, and had not yet played the PSP titles, or the prequel, God of War: Ascension. Instead of playing them in the order of their release, however, I decided I would play them in the chronological order of the story.

Doing this comes with a particularly interesting problem: I'm essentially starting with the end. God of War: Ascension is the sixth game in a once huge franchise, a game that didn't make much of a splash when it was released in 2013. God of War 3 was a fitting conclusion, so releasing Ascension felt like an unnecessary continuation in an effort to continue Kratos' story and this successful franchise.

So by starting with God of War: Ascension, I begin this series with an unusual question: Have I grown up to a point that these games full of nonstop blood and unnecessary nudity no longer interests me, or is Ascension just a studio bankrupt of good ideas in a franchise they had already found a conclusion for?

I find myself believing it's a little bit of both. I'll start with the former of my concerns, which is the insane content of Ascension. I don't care that this game is violent and filled with nudity. I'm not a prude. But the way Ascension goes about it feels downright childish to me. There's even one character who has bugs come out of her breasts, which Kratos has to fight. There's really no reason for it, other than some teenage kid with limited access to the Internet will find some excitement from it. Now in my 30s, there's part of me that knows this isn't for me, but even so, I can't find this truly exciting to, say, a teenager. It's over-the-top for over-the-top sake.

On the other hand, it does sort of seem like Santa Monica Studios is uncertain about how to handle God of War after the original trilogy has finished. God of War has always felt like it was never sure what generation of game it should be catering to, in my opinion. God of War still relies on the quick-death mechanics of Crash Bandicoot and PS1 game of the sort, and of course the game is a throwback to the beat-em-up genre that hadn't been a real contender for years when God of War was released.

Yet what I found most interesting about when Ascension was released is that it's coming in the wake of the Uncharted trilogy, which is superior in every way. Especially in the second half, Ascension tries to play up the puzzle-solving and climbing dynamics of Uncharted, but this is rarely as satisfying. Ascension never quite feels like its own idea, instead trying to mimic what worked before it. The same could be said about the other games in the franchise, especially as it looks back on PS1 and early PS2 platforming games for its inspiration, but I'll reserve my judgment for those when I get to them.

It's probably been close to a decade since I played my last God of War game - God of War 3 - but I remember having a ton of fun with the combat system and was intrigued by where the story was going, mostly in relation to Kratos seeking revenge for his dead family. Yet in Ascension, I found both relatively not engaging. The fighting can get monotonous real fast, and the story - which should be a strong point, considering it's told before the events of the original trilogy - are confusing and uninspired. The game jumps back and forth in time so much, it's hard to get a solid idea of what's happening and why I should even care.

As for the combat, sometimes it's relatively simple, but can then ratchet itself way too far the other way. I should point out that I quit the game out of frustration at the Trials of Archimedes, yet still watched a gameplay video for the rest of the game (about half an hour or so). It's at this point that the game didn't know how to ratchet the difficulty in a manageable way. I played Ascension on medium, and after several days of playing, I gave up out of annoyance. There's no way to save, or lower difficulty, or do anything but try different techniques over and over, and if you're like me, with absolutely no change.

Despite what probably sounds like a negative review of Ascension, I still enjoyed myself when playing it. Sure, at times I noted things that felt like the game was going too far, or was baffled by either the simplicity or extreme difficulty of the game, but those times were relatively rare. But I still think Ascension seems like God of War exhausted with its own lack of ideas, a game in desperate need to find its own identity, and relying on the identity of others games as a last ditch effort. I'm glad that the new God of War game seems to take such a drastic turn, but again, it's hard not to see it and compare it to Horizon: Zero Dawn or The Last of Us. Ascension is a weird game to start out this marathon through the God of War franchise, but I think in the long run, it will be an interesting look at the weaknesses of this franchise that is still remarkably fun at its core.

God of War: Ascension, a 2013 installment for the beloved Sony franchise, is as of this writing the earliest installment in the franchise's story, even if it was the last game created for the PS3. While not a terrible game, Ascension falls into many of the classic pitfalls of the series: its gameplay is really nothing more than button-mashing combat with little complexity and semi-original puzzles that tend to get old fairly quickly as they often break up the tension and action of the game. It also includes many of its signature quick-time events, which really have gotten old.

Writing this in 2016, I can safely say that the God of War franchise is a staple of modern gaming, but to suggest that it has in any way evolved since its 2005 debut would be fairly misleading. With 6 games in the franchise and another on the way, the series's presence here feels fairly anemic. The story is only barely comprehensible without a knowledge of the rest of the series, and at its best, the game itself is beautiful but deeply flawed. At its worst, it's tedious, overstuffed with filler material that really has no business being in a game that's supposed to be about action and exciting combat, and instead of fleshing out the backstory of Kratos, the series protagonist, seems to only confuse and befuddle any clarity of the later games.

It also shouldn't be a surprise that the objective of the game is to ultimately confront the three female Furies, who are responsible in this franchise's mythology for hunting down and torturing those who break their bonds or oaths to the gods or each other. What's confusing about the Furies are that they are nightmare creatures feared even by the gods themselves, and thus Kratos's systematic takedown of all three Furies would seem to only set up the rest of the series for a bit of an anti-climax. If Kratos killed all of the Furies before the series even began, then why are the gods any challenge to begin with? In terms of game progression, since Ascension was the latest to be produced on the PS3, it would stand to reason that confronting the Furies is a nice way to amp up the adrenaline given where the series ends in God of War III. Still, that this "world-shaking" event can occur at the very beginning of Kratos's journey for vengeance suggests that the rest of the series really isn't nearly as impressive in scope as it would seem.

These, ultimately, may be minor nitpicks in what is otherwise an entertaining franchise, and certainly Ascension can be entertaining. But aside from the visual appeal of the late-PS3's graphics engine and the wonder of just how immense the locales of the game can be, the story's confusing, muddled, and poorly-paced narrative seriously detracts from the overall enjoyment of the game. Coupled with the game's repetitive and unassuming gameplay, the narrative only serves to frustrate a game that could have had immense potential.

There's little reason to replay the game, too. Of course, there is a New Game + feature, but this is certainly a game that really wouldn't benefit from it; its linear plot and lack of any kind of open world means that the New Game + is really just there to be there, and the game doesn't benefit from it as would a normal RPG--even Kratos's weaponry is fully upgradable well before the game's conclusion.

I got the game at Target brand-new for $4.50. I played it for about 10 hours, give-or-take, so I'd consider that a decent price for an enjoyable time. I'd be upset if I spent full retail price on the game when it came out, but for a bargain-bin game, I think it's at least worth a look, but only if you're already a fan of God of War or other games like it.