VideoGame The Trilogy: A Mixed Bag
I've long been interested in God of War, but haven't had a console to play it on until recently. Having played through the original trilogy in rapid succession (the first two games on the Vita and the third game on the PS3), I've found that the game has is a mixed bag- strong combat, an interesting setting with an unlikable protagonist, decent platforming and poorly designed puzzles- that generally does best when it sticks to its strengths.
The plot of the series starts off with Kratos, a Spartan warrior, on a quest to kill Ares, the God of War, in order to be freed of the nightmares he suffers after killing his wife and daughter in the god's service- he succeeds, but unable to get the release he desires, eventually targets Zeus, a revenge that results in him wiping out most of the rest of the Greek Pantheon. The setting is an interesting if highly dark look at Greek mythology, but Kratos' largely selfish goals and lack of regard for anyone besides himself makes him highly unlikable, and it's hard to root for his enemies, either. Kratos was the most sympathetic in the first game, partly because Ares was a clear-cut villain, but Kratos was hardly heroic himself.
Of course, you don't play games like this for the story as much as the gameplay. The combat, which is the heart and soul of the series, is masterfully done, with a fluid combat system that allows you to string together combos of hundreds of hits with various weapons and spells, as well as finish off your enemies with brutal Quick Time Event finishers. This aspect of the game refines itself a bit more with each passing installment, with the second and third games featuring memorable boss encounters that were largely absent from the first.
Unfortunately, the platforming isn't done quite as well. Kratos has enough maneuvers to keep things interesting, but some parts, such as the infamous spiked column in the first game, are needlessly frustrating. Some sequences in which you climb walls or across ropes include enemies, evidently as a way of injecting combat into platforming sequences, but they generally put up little more than token resistance. At its best, the platforming is a decent change of pace, and at worst, it's poorly designed and frustrating.
The puzzles are the weakest part of the series. In most of them, the solution is relatively easy to figure out, but difficult to put into action, partially because the developers tend to rely on timed sequences rather than make puzzles appropriately challenging (for example, in the second game, you have to run through a corridor, pull a switch and lift a gate before a spiked wall catches up to you), and it's especially tedious when you have to slowly turn a crank in order to get through a puzzle. Thankfully, there are fewer annoying puzzles in the third game.
All in all, if you're looking for fun action, don't care about the story and can put up with frustrating parts, God of War might be right for you.
VideoGame Easy to Criticize, but Hard to Dislike
I should preface I haven't played through the whole series personally. I have played through God of War 1, God of War 2, God of War 3, as well as parts of Ghost of Sparta, and Ascension. I have not played Chains of Olympus (because I do not own a PSP) or Betrayal (As I don't generally play Mobile Phone Games). I know those games storylines, having watched them, but I can't personally comment on the experience of playing them.
The God of War series is very easy to criticize as a series. Almost strangely a lot of the criticisms are of a moralistic nature (Sexualizes Women in a way that is cartoonish and demeaning, Immature Power Fantasy, Glorifies a man that is by all accounts a terrible person etc.). I say "strangely" because it was of my assumption that these were done in an attempt yes to appeal to the target market but also in fact to fit the Ancient Greek Milieu. After all it would seem to me the same kind of people who are in God of War's target demographic are also the kind that were the target of Classical Greek Myth. Classical Greek Mythology was rife with Dionysian (see what I did there) levels of debauchery, rampant sexuality (particularly rape), morality that would be seen as very blue-and-orange to us, and protagonists that were less then exemplar. It's not Plato, sure, but not every Ancient Greek was Plato.
I am well outside the "target" demographic of God of War, being: A: Female B: Japanese (Foreign to Greco-Roman Culture, and it has been noted on TV Tropes no less that God of War wasn't very popular in Japan due to it's excess in Hyper-Masculinity and it's lack of "Kawaii" and Bishonen)
That said I liked the God of War series. The core mechanics are fun to play certainly, and the series does a good job not only establishing atmosphere but SCALE. It is quite impressive how great a scale the God of War franchise captures. Likewise I am a history fan and a mythology fan, so the finer aspects of Greco-Roman Mythology in the games was appreciated.
Not everything was perfect though. The story of the first game very well mirrors Classical Greek Tragedy (though obviously with a slightly happier ending for our dear Kratos) but the stories of the rest of the game are less compelling. They aren't insulting to the player's intelligence as some have said, they are just far more standard fair. Also the puzzles and environmental bits were annoying more often then not. The series really was at it's best when it was depicting epic battle, and padding the game with bits that were frustrating was less then pleasant to deal with.
Overall they are an enjoyable experience game play wise, particularly in combat itself. The series is very good at making everything around you really FEEL epic and grand. It is a series that the Classical Greeks might say appeals to Pathos, rather then Logos. However the environmental bits were annoying and the story parts kinda dropped off after 1, but not enough to do much damage to the series.
4/5
VideoGame An Exploration of a Different Kind Of Protagonist
I'm not here to talk about how the God of War games play. The style is down to an art form at this point, with many subsequent games/franchises aping the light attack/heavy attack system and the Go W games themselves always flowing smoothly in combat, and the later games look gorgeous. Not much to discuss.
I'm here to talk about the story, and more specifically Kratos.
Kratos is not a good man. He has a tragic past that helps explain why he's so callous and amoral, and to be honest he goes through even more shit throughout the franchise by losing more people he cares about and slowly realizing how bad he's become. However, I don't think this excuses how he disregards the lives and safety of his fellow man at roughly every chance he gets (save for Ascension) and as the games go on, he dooms more and more people to a life of suffering or death just to have revenge on those who have wronged him.
But even though he is by all rights an asshole (and the games don't even try to paint him as a good guy beyond "this is who you're playing as"), this doesn't make me dislike him; rather, I find myself appreciating him more due to the few moments when his humanity shines through.
Every game has at least one - God of War has him repulsed by the slaughter of soldiers in the temple; II has him legitimately regretting killing Athena, even if only for a bit before focusing on attacking Olympus; III has his entire relationship with Pandora; Chains of Olympus has the heartbreaking scene with his daughter in Elysium; Ghost of Sparta has his quest to rescue his brother; and Ascension has, well...every interaction with allies or neutral characters. In fact, Ascension shows him at his most human, when he would still help his fellow man survive even if only in the most minimal of ways.
And that's what prevents me from labeling him as a complete monster. In all the games, there is evidence that Kratos is still a man, even if a sad and broken one, underneath his raging exterior, and the fact that he finally realizes the hell he's wrought on the world at the end of III cements this. He's not uber complex like Dio or Guts, but at the end of the day he's more than your average angsty badass hero.
Oh, and the storyline is astonishingly close to that of an actual Greek myth, in which Kratos would undoubtedly be considered a hero, so there's that too.
VideoGame Complete Monster: The Game
I'm going to make this review short and to the point: I cannot stand God of War. I've always seen it as a self-important, needlessly mean-spirited series that desperately tries to be Rated M For Manly. The series fails in this regard, if not every regard. The only thing I can really compliment the series for is its mechanics, and even they are not unique.
The game's writers try to make Kratos seem like a Byronic hero, a bad ass who rages against the system that has taken everything from him. In theory, this could make for an interesting character; I'm reminded of Guts from Berserk, who fits a similar mold but is ultimately far more sympathetic — he's aware of his flaws, but has trouble overcoming them, and he tries to do the right thing despite the brutality it may involve. Kratos, on the other hand, is more like an unintentional parody of this trope: he has no redeeming qualities, he's incredibly selfish, he's childish, he slaughters innocent people, and he manipulates other victims of the gods. This last point is especially troubling, because it shows what a hypocrite Kratos is. I doubt the creators meant to portray our "hero" this way, but it's interesting that Kratos spends the whole series wangsting about how the gods betrayed him and trying to get revenge for the things (he believes) they've done to him, and yet he has no qualms with murdering people who are trying to achieve the same goal, or are simply trying to survive the horrible circumstances they've been given.
Apart from Kratos' Complete Monster status, there's also the rampant sexism prevalent in the series. Yes, I know that women (and men) were heavily sexualized in Greek mythology, and are often portrayed as nude or semi-nude; however, in a series that strays so far from the source material that it might as well change the names of the mythological figures, I won't accept that it's "being true to the source." Female characters rarely wear more than panties (or the Grecian version thereof) or a shift. I would be more accepting of this if the men were just as sexualized (after all, it is Ancient Greece).
In the end, God of War is an ultraviolent foray into an adolescent boy's fantasies, where the hero treats other people like garbage, kills for the hell of it, is an all-around Marty Stu, and doesn't have to answer for his misdeeds.
VideoGame Immature? Or is this what Greek mythology was really like?
The ancient Greek myths were very violent and family unfriendly, full of twisted morals and backstabbing with humanity as the collateral damage. While to many, the ancient myths are little more than an academic subject regarding a bygone era, they actually make the perfect backdrop for a Rated M For Manly video game series.
Kratos is angry. Kratos wants to kill the god of war. In so doing, he's going to kill the many things trying to kill him. And anyone who gets in his way.
Kratos is, quite simply, the most unlikeable character I've ever seen. He randomly kills villagers who happen to be in his way, which is encouraged by the game, such as when he's climbing along a wall and the only way to get past a scared villager who's clinging on for dear life is to throw him to his death. And he's nasty in the plot, too. When he kills a hydra and goes inside its mouth, he finds a sea captain hanging onto the hydra's throat to avoid slipping down into its stomach. As the captain thanks Kratos for rescuing him, Kratos's response is, "I didn't come back for YOU!" as he takes something the captain was carrying on-hand, leaving him to fall back down into the hydra's stomach.
This, of course, makes him Bad Ass, does it not? As do the dark colors, the Real Is Brown visuals, and the self-important orchestrated music.
While I have to say that I hate the style of this series and hate Kratos himself, this probably is how the ancient Greeks and Romans saw their heroes - as tough, mean, clever men who did whatever they had to in order to get ahead. Their heroes and gods had many glaring character flaws, and heck, the gods fought amongst each other for supremacy all the time. Which is precisely what Kratos does once he becomes the god of war himself. The God Of War series' story might actually appeal to the ancient Greeks and Romans if they were transported to the present day and given a chance to experience it.
So despite my personal dislike for the Rated M For Manly style of the series, I will give credit where credit is definitely due: This is the video game equivalent of the stories that ancient people themselves told and enjoyed. And for that, I have to say that it's very well-done.
But it just ain't my thing.
VideoGame This Should Not Have Been a Franchise
So God of War is a pretty good game. It's got a big shiny presentation, a nice balance of flashy combat, puzzles, and a story that doesn't suck. It was actually a pretty good story, considering the medium, and it introduced Kratos, an anti-hero protagonist who was fairly complex and somewhat sympathetic while still being a badass.
It was a really good game. The story, while it wasn't mind-blowing, was decently-told for what it was, and it had a very nicely-defined beginning, middle, and a conclusive ending that put a nice little bow on Kratos's story.
Then they made sequels. Of course they did - the first game was a huge hit that everyone loved. But the problem is... God of War shouldn't have had one. For one thing, God of War's gameplay mechanics weren't very unique. They weren't supposed to be. The design philosophy called for a very streamlined experience that polished existing gameplay ideas (a spectacle combat game a la Devil May Cry) rather than coming up with new ones. And the sequels continued with this by contributing nothing gameplay-wise. Sure, you'd get a different set of spells and some new weapons, but for the most part, the games are all pretty much identical.
But that's not the problem. The problem is the story sucks.
In the first game, you have to stop Ares, because he's stomping all over Athens. But Kratos has a personal stake in it because of his own past and relationship with Ares. Come the start of the second game, and Kratos is doing exactly the same thing Ares was doing in the first game. It's a small detail, but it undermines the first game by showing that at the end of all that he learned absolutely nothing, and the entirety of the second game is him trying to get revenge against people who were only stopping him from murdering people.
That sums up why the sequels stink: they take what was one of the most acclaimed new video game protagonists in years, and turn him into one of the worst characters in the medium. Goodbye, tormented history and arduous struggle for redemption, hello being a whiny crybaby throwing an extended temper tantrum.
To say nothing of the series's shameful treatment of classical mythology or how the entire third game is drawn out and only possible because the protagonist is an idiot.
In short, a decent game followed by pointless, stupid sequels.