God Of War

Yeah, at least go all the way with the remaster.

In all honesty though, I've never been a fan of this franchise. The main hero is one of the most despicable monsters I've ever seen in gaming, and the games focus far too much on violence, sex, and shock value than on the actual combat, leading to it being little more than a shallow button masher. Not to mentioned that is has essentially cheapened the action game genre, since now nearly every single one (even those from Japan) has decided to Follow the Leader.

No offense to fans of the series, but that's just me. Of course, if the next game manages to shake things up, I'm game.

edited 21st Mar '15 8:38:07 PM by LDragon2

you know, acting high and mighty isn't really a good idea, when its specifically stated outright that Kratos is a hero in the traditional sense of a Greek Hero.

Also, As far as button mashy combat, I could say the same thing about the original devil may cry and how you could mostly just spam the basic combo on most normal enemies and they would be destroyed.

As for combat depth, there are plenty of people that can show off the potential of the games combat:

This one, for example

edited 21st Mar '15 9:49:53 PM by Demongodofchaos2

the thing is even the people at Santa Monica admitted they messed up and went too far in making Kratos unsympathetic.

To me Kratos is an example of a lot of things you shouldn't do when making a videogame protagonist (that this is my opinion goes without saying).

1. He's not sympathetic (only in the first game and even then only to a point).

2. He's not interesting.

3. He's not fun to watch or play as since I feel like a horrible human being a lot of the time without there being a greater artistic point to it. there's no emotional gravitas or anything, just really unpleasant.

i've had more fun with games inspired by god of war like Darksiders or the Lords of Shadow franchise than Go W proper, and the protagonist of each game had a lot to do with that. they're very polished games, but I care so little about what happens in any of the games that it's hard for me to enjoy myself.

edited 21st Mar '15 9:59:47 PM by wehrmacht

I like playing as Kratos. I like blowing off steam by ripping apart Zombies, tearing the wings off of harpies, and giving minotaurs dual blade blowjob deaths, because it's actually fun to do in the carthaic sense, and makes QTE finishers satisfying to pull off, something that most imitators fail at doing.

And I liked Darksiders as well, particularly two, and I did connect to Death in that game.

But Kratos to me is the primal feelings found in everyone that they try to hide so much.

Each game has beautiful music and art as well

Asura combines the best of both worlds, though.

edited 21st Mar '15 10:00:05 PM by Demongodofchaos2

Well it's not that the gameplay isn't fun, per se, it's just that watching Kratos act out the gameplay and be well, himself, makes me a bit uncomfortable sometimes because you usually end up doing some pretty awful things in the course of a Go W game to proceed. My memory's fuzzy but I recall there was one point in the first game where you have to sacrifice an innocent soldier to proceed...which Kratos does without hesitation or remorse.

i apologize if i'm not properly explaining myself but playing Go W, while fun and occasionally cathartic, also tends to make me a bit queasy.

edited 21st Mar '15 10:09:10 PM by wehrmacht

Are you trying to use God of War (of all things) to get philosophical about human nature? This guy's reaction kind of proves that catharsis through fictional violence doesn't apply to everyone.

And eviscerating the Greek pantheon is your prerogative, but don't go knocking the original Devil May Cry as if that somehow raises up GoW's failings.

edited 21st Mar '15 10:12:57 PM by Alucard

I can get catharsis from fictional violence fine, usually, just not in god of war in particular.

I get that from listening to Slayer, mostly. My point was that it varies enough by person that implying it's somehow applicable to our nature as humans (instead of the learned behavior that it is) is absurd.

The thing about those combo videos is that, while they do indeed show some really awesome things you can do, they aren't really all that necessary. In games like Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, and Bayonetta, you must use a wide variety of combos in order to successfully take down the enemies, and you are always forced to change your style of play as the situation demands it. In God of War, that's not really needed, because the default attacks are just as effective, if not more so, than using the different combo attacks.

Which to me, is really boring from a gameplay standpoint.

to be fair i don't necessarily recall needing an extensive knowledge of combos in order to get through bayonetta or dmc so much as playing better in general. bayonetta and dmc3 were pretty challenging games even in the "normal" difficulties.

edited 21st Mar '15 10:26:47 PM by wehrmacht

Ascension is apparently free right now on PSN with all DLC.

I thought that "style/combo variation" didn't really matter until Devil May Cry 3. I'm playing MDC 1 HD right now and it certainly seems that way, you're encouraged to S-Rank the crap out of things, but you don't really have to.

I'm fine with God of War, it's an action game past-time. I recently played The Evil Within, and let me tell you, violence and gore hasn't unsrettled me more. God of War and Mortal Kombat are practically confetti to me at this point.

God of War 3 spent the back half of its plot trying to 'redeem' Kratos, and whether that worked or not, I won't criticize this game for an unsympathetic, or an uninteresting protagonist.

I would criticize it for retconning some BS about how all of the other gods were evil(because of Pandora's Box) and Kratos was somehow The Messiah. Greek myth didn't need an excuse to have douchebag gods, IIRC, the Greek Pantheon is already full of dicks. Kratos wasn't targeting innocent people (not saving them either, admittedly)

Gratuitous violence and lack of a compelling storyline though were not among my complaints. Not even crushing Poseidon's maiden really affected me. This isn't the sort of franchise where you're a roided up beefcake who can choose to be heroic, or have a karmic system. To each their own.

edited 25th Mar '15 1:13:56 PM by Soble

You know, it's funny. The music is one of the series' most consistently-praised aspects, but I've always found it kind of boring.

There's only twos track I particularly remember, the constantly reused "Da naaa naaa naaanhhh... nuh nuh nah NAH!"

And the music that plays during GOW 3's title screen.

edited 25th Mar '15 1:15:41 PM by Soble

And the occasional choral bit.

Something else that's always bugged me about this series:

I never understood why you're fighting the undead. Now, you can assume Hades would be controlling them to fight for Olympus, making Kratos's fight against the gods harder. But look at the games in order.

• Chains of Olympus - Kratos is fighting for the gods against Persephone and Atlas. The gods were put to sleep, yes, but are the undead Pokemon or something?
• Ascension - he's fighting the Furies, who have "plague-like cordyceps" shit going on.
• GOW - Kratos is fighting for himself, but receives powers from different gods. Why/how is Ares controlling the undead? I guess he's the "god of war" so you could maybe argue he has control over dead soldiers, but still, it's unclarified. Hades might not have cared about Kratos, but I don't he'd have sent dead legions after him.
• Ghost of Sparta - same here, although Kratos does fight Charon, boatman of the dead, later in the game.
• GOW 2 - Here's where fighting the undead makes some sort of sense, since Kratos is actually fighting Olympus this time.

Only in GOW 3 would Hades be directly commanding the legions of the Underworld against Kratos - but he's literally one of the first 3 figures Kratos kills, so after that - why fight the undead at all?

Ressurrecting this thread:

Nerd Leaks is going to publish God of War 4 leaks in about 20 to 30 minutes.

Based on what Nerd Leaks has said and retweeted, God of War 4 will be set in Norse Mythology.

Here's Nerd Leak's leak.

edited 4th Apr '16 3:59:58 PM by tclittle

I wonder how Kratos is going to try and play the victim card this time.

Maybe we'll get lucky and Kratos will fight his way through a few minor Norse heroes to Valhalla itself...then die horrifically to all of the other gods.

I was hoping they'd go with a new protagonist since we're getting a new pantheon and all. Didn't 3 end with the world being pretty much destroyed and everyone (including Kratos) dead anyway?

Well it also ended with a trail of blood from where Kratos had been leading off over the edge of a cliff so unfortunately the pasty-faced motherfucker survived.

Yeah, I am thinking new protag with Kratos being a bonus boss.

The news regarding the next game tackling a different pantheon reminds me of this

This isn't really news. They've been saying, "Norse pantheon for IV" since III ended.

Is it actually Kratos?

Maybe Kratos's illegitimate Norse grandchild or something. He slept with a lot of females over the course of these games.

Either way someone's going to be pulling the victim card on the Norse gods for daring to not let them be a homicidal psychopath.