After God of War III, there's a sense that Sony Santa Monica is starting to run on empty, with awesome weapons like the Nemean Cestus gauntlets, Nemesis Whip and Hades hooks eschewed in favour of having the Blades of Chaos as your solitary weapon. Nonetheless, despite the incredible scale and fantastic combat, Ascension feels lacking.
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What follows is a series of flashbacks as we discover how Kratos came to be imprisoned by the Furies, with a series of locations and beasts that are typically vast in scale. As opening set-pieces go, it's pretty spectacular stuff, and clear evidence that the franchise's epic sense of scale and capacity to inspire awe is still very much intact. In God of War: Ascension we begin proceedings with the Ghost of Sparta shackled in chains, before one of the three Furies, the insectoid Megaera attacks, unleashing infecting parasites to reanimate Aegaeon the Hecatonchires, a creature tortured by the Furies for breaking a blood oath. The suitably epic narrative is also all present and correct, yet not nearly as compelling as Kratos' past endeavours.
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Those pesky aforementioned QTEs can prove a bugbear at times, throwing in a curve ball when you least expect it (usually in the middle of a brutal execution, meaning you have to start over), but the new checkpoint save system ensures that the game is fair most of the time, except notably during a quite hideous difficulty spike towards the game's finale, as you face the Trial of Archimedes. Navigation and climbing around locations is now more fluid too, while Kratos himself feels a mite more responsive. While the well is beginning to run somewhat dry in terms of the menagerie of mythological creatures that Kratos can slay, there's no shortage of creativity in the environments that expertly blend puzzling and combat. God of War: Ascension's combat is ever so slightly different then, but the essence of the series remains, with the same kind of truly jaw-dropping set-pieces that the God of War games have made their forte over the years. There's also a new Rage meter that's unfortunately nowhere near as gloriously gratifying as God of War III's, simply feeding into a bar that enables you to let rip once it's full, expiring the moment you get hit. Circle is now used to wield so-called 'World Weapons' like swords, shields, clubs, slings and javelins, or you can stick the boot in with Kratos' Spartan kick when you're unarmed with a secondary weapon. Tethering an enemy enables you to throw, ram, slam or slice them up as you see fit, or you can keep them on a leash and deal with them when you're ready. Using the circle button as Kratos' all-purpose grab and execution move is out, and using R1 to initiate a 'grapple tether' is in. In terms of first for the series, there's clearly been an attempt to mix things up a bit, even if Sony Santa Monica is still essentially playing it somewhat safe and sticking to the established formula.
Some buttonless mini-games help keep things fresh, although you'll still find that you're doing a lot of button-matching sequences as per usual.
God of War: Ascension preserves the core gameplay and still revels in overblown showers of blood and gore then, as well as more then a few quick-time events that are starting to wear a little thin these days. He's still not averse to a bit of dismemberment, disembowelment, head severance and impromptu brain surgery however, which is undoubtedly good news. Having wrapped up the God of War saga with God of War III three years ago, Sony Santa Monica is going back to where it all began with God of War: Ascension, which means more vertiginous monsters, even more blood-soaked hack 'n' slash action and more sweeping, epic, eye-popping set-pieces.Īs a prequel, Ascension deals with a slightly more mortal version of Kratos, which means a slightly stripped down move set, less weapon variety and a slightly less vengeance-fuelled Spartan with a few less battle scars. What would have helped us to absorb more about Greek myth is a few lessons from Kratos, as we've learned far more about the epic stories and the myriad creatures of Ancient legend from the God of War games.
In school, teachers tried to teach us all about Greek mythology, and happily some of it sunk in.
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