YMMV / God of War: Ascension

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• Demonic Spiders: The lightning Sirens, who wield a wide variety of various electrical attacks and tend to attack with other monsters, staying back to snipe you as their more close-combat oriented partners keep you busy. Combining with gorgons, they single-handedly made the Trials of Archimedes much more difficult that the other sections.
• So Okay, It's Average: Compared to its predecessors, Ascension received mixed to mostly positive reviews. Interestingly, a big part of this is because, due to the mechanics, having elemental damage types instead of additional weapons like every other game in the series, and having a story involving a FAR more compassionate Kratos than players had ever seen (to the point where he makes his older self in the Norse Saga look like a bully in comparison), the game really does play and feel like it could have been the literal first game in the series (or maybe a remake of one considering that, despite coming out after III, chronologically it's the first game in the series timeline to take place).
• Scrappy Mechanic: The rage meter. One of the largest changes to the combat involved Kratos being unable to use certain attacks unless the rage meter is filled up. If you get hit, the rage meter goes down, and you're unable to use those attacks. This was clearly an attempt to encourage both aggressive, and skillful play by constantly attacking, while avoiding damage. However, many of these locked moves are basic moves that you are able to use anytime in the previous games, so understandably, this change was not met positively.
  • Parrying. In previous games, parrying was tied directly to the blocking button. A regular block will prevent damage from normal attacks, but timing a block at the right moment will parry the attack back at the enemy. In Ascension, parrying is now tied to TWO buttons that need to be pressed simultaneously at just the right moment for the attack to be reflected back. This makes blocking and parrying two distinct actions, which forces the player to choose between the two during intense moments, frequently leading to mistimed presses. What’s worse is that parrying locks Kratos into a stance that lasts a couple of seconds and can’t be canceled, leaving him open to attack by aggressive enemies whenever a parry misses.
• Sequelitis: While still garnering positive reviews, Ascension ultimate ended up becoming the poorest reviewed game in the series. This is due in part to being the second prequel game in the series. The fact that it followed up on God of War III which was seemingly the Grand Finale didn't help matters. On the story front, Ascension also faced an uphill battle on trying to portray Kratos as sympathetic after a Too Bleak, Stopped Caring mentality had already taken hold of the fanbase. Not helping matters is the story getting criticized for being redundant as both Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta had already contextualized Kratos' hatred for the gods.
• That One Level: The Trials of Archimedes. Basically, you must endure three waves, each with powerful enemies consisting of lightning sirens, gorgons, harpies and other powerful enemies. The real kicker is that there is little to no health powerups and if you die, you have to start from the first wave all over again. It became so bad that a patch was later released that made it so you regain health and magic for each of the waves cleared.
• Vindicated by History: While Ascension is still considered mediocre at best by a significant portion of the fanbase, its overall reception doesn't leans towards negativity as much as it used to. Interestingly emough, the game's vindication happened not because of GoW players giving it a fresh overview, but because of a common misconception spread by gaming articles – their retrospectives on Ascension tend to conclude that the game flopped because of God of War's formula becoming stale by 2013. Once this perception reached the fanbase, people who've actually played the game began pointing out that this barely played a role, and the game was met with a mixed reception mostly because of being released after God of War III, which set very high standards for certain aspects, while also upsetting people who wanted a continuation of Kratos' story instead of another prequel. Nowadays, fans of Ascension bring more attention to the game's positive aspects, such as beautiful graphics, a more nuanced combat, and a solid story in a vacuum.

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