God of War: Ascension is a fine enough game but it struggles to earn its existence. On one hand, I think the combat is a lot of fun, more fun than the usual for these games. The chains being used more and the increased emphasis on grabbing with them makes the gameplay a lot more fast paced, very rarely did I get frustrated with it. Elementals effecting the blades also was a good feature. Im not sure how much of this is new and what was added in GoW3 but I liked it nonetheless. That being said, thats about the only praise I can give this game.

The story is well, it sure is a story. While God of War isnt known for peak story telling outside of the newest entry, I found most of the games to have pretty compelling and enjoyable stories to them. Besides this one. As a prequel it doesnt really bring anything new to the table. The characters are uninteresting, the cool set pieces are few and far between and the story is just unapologetically mid. Its not bad, but compared to past entries I was incredibly less interested in it and all the villains are completely forgettable.

I think the biggest problem with this game is how much it feels like just an attempt to modernize the series and make itself relevant. Sure, graphically its impressive for the PS3 but the art style itself looks ugly and bland like so many other games in the era, it loses most of the charm even the PSP games were able to retain. The menus look like a generic action game and lets not forget everyones favorite 2010-ish single player game feature: tacked on mutliplayer. Its dead now of course but I wager it was never very lively to begin with. All of this just makes the game feel like a bit of a cash grab. Not an effortless one, mind you but a cash grab is a cash grab.

All this being said, I still find it to be a pretty good game overall. The combat is very fluid and although there arent many, the dope moments are certifiably dope. If you've finished the rest of the series and want more God of War you are sure to get something out of this, but it might just make you long to be playing the previous entries instead.

Trophy Completion - 91% (34/36)
Time Played - 13 hours 16 minutes
Nancymeter - 69/100
Game Completion #66 of 2022
June Completion #1

*no I did not forget to change the playtime from my FFA review, they legit both have the same playtime

An unnecessary prequel with a worthless story, frustrating combat encounters, and very little to give praise toward. When I played through all the God of War games in 2020, I specifically bought a PS3 so I could play this game and while I don't regret it due to homebrew being fantastic, I hated the game for the same reasons I do now except I played it on normal. Playing it on hard for the platinum trophy was like throwing myself at a wall over and over to see if I could break through it. Every combat encounter was frustrating, every puzzle wasn't fun, every platforming section was boring. The only thing I can give this game credit for is its visuals - it's absolutely gorgeous for a PS3 game. Much like Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus, you could have easily fooled me into believing this game was released on the PS4 due to the overall visual fidelity. Besides that, I don't think I'll ever have any reason to replay this game again and I'd even go so far as to tell people to steer clear of it.

Damn, that's some good ass cover art. The image of Kratos being chained up, looking down in shame, it's a striking image that makes him look weak, which is the complete inverse of the unstoppable force that he is in the past games. It got me intrigued, thinking Ascension will show a more vulnerable side to Kratos' characters. Unfortunately though, when it comes to the story I think the game drops the ball.

For starters, Ascension doesn't really do anything new with Kratos' character aside from him being slightly less pissed off than usual. Other than that, the plot just reinforces stuff that was made very clear all the way back in GoW1 only with a harder to follow and less interesting plot.

When it comes to the gameplay, this game made a terrible first impression on me all because of the camera. In the opening hours it is zoomed so far out in the larger scale parts that it's impossible to distinguish Kratos from regular enemies. It puts cinematics before gameplay and it is pretty frustrating. Luckily though, this is only really a problem at the start of the game and is a non-issue after the snake part.

Ascension makes a lot of minor changes to the gameplay, some good, some bad. For starters, the combat here puts way more emphasis on grabbing enemies since you can bind enemies with the R1 button and throw them after, ragdolling enemies is always fun. Instead of having multiple weapons, Ascension instead gives the Blades of Chaos 4 elements that you can switch between on the fly. It's essentially an expansion of the fire element you could use in GoS and it makes for one of the better combat systems in the series since the elements all feel distinct from eachother. Ascension also reworks the Rage Meter. Here, the meter goes up when you're doing well in combat, and vice versa. When the meter is full, you get to use a special move with L3 + R3 and you also get extended combos. It's certainly more interesting than how it made you invulnerable in past games, and the fact it rewards you for playing well is a welcome change. However, I think locking away moves until the meter is full is a pretty unnecessary restriction. The last major change that Ascension adds are weapons that drop from enemies like Swords, Javelins etc. The idea of it is cool, but the execution in singleplayer leaves a lot to be desired. There's only 5 weapons, there isn't a lot you can do with them (some can only be used a limited amount of times) and getting them from enemies is awkward as hell since you have to mash circle and hope they drop it. Also, the finishing moves in this game are the best they've ever been with how insanely brutal they are here.

Though it has its faults, the combat here is still solid, but where the game undeniably shines is in the puzzles. The amulet of uroborus lets you manipulate time and the oath stone of Orkos lets you be in 2 places at once. Ascension uses these to create the most interesting puzzles in the series and it required me to think outside the box on multiple occasions, unlike in prior games where the puzzles are mostly really basic.

On a side note, I hate the enemy designs here, I can't quite put my finger on it but they just look off compared to the rest of the series.

When playing Ascension you can really tell the developers are a little strapped for ideas but I do think the game changes enough to narrowly escape feeling like just another GoW game. I can't really see myself ever going back to this entry over GoW3 but I still enjoyed the game overall.

The overall GOW combat is still really satisfying and visually this game looks outstanding (even if it takes a toll on the framerate) but the overall story feels very held back by its prequel nature more so than the PSP prequel.
Theirs a sense of monotony at this point, from the levels to the overall feel, rather than it feeling grand and powerful it feels like they didn't know what to do after GOW3 so they want back the last possible place they could go; plus they needed to get more out of the GOW3 engine they made because it was stupid expansive.

Again I don't think this is bad or even lazy, but the GOW well had been pretty dried up and completely out of original ideas, and compared to other spectacle Fighters released that year (DMC Reboot, MGR) it just felt antiquated.

God of War comes back to consoles with its most tepid launch in the franchise. A return to consoles returns the grand scale that's been sort of missing in the two portable version.

Unfortunately, some of the new things Ascension tries to do with scale and presentation don't work all too well in execution. The game plays around with the camera a bit, shifting some of the set pieces as you play on them. You could start a battle right up near the camera, only for the object you are riding on to shift to the foreground or for the entire object to flip over.

It's an interesting idea in concept but the game fails in executing this in a satisfying and cool way. This is mostly due to the color palete of this game. Ascension, unlike God of War 3 suffers from the same issue a lot of PS3 games did of being a bland and drab color palete that's mostly filled with different versions of grey.

Because very little pops out or looks different, especially from the perspective of both Kratos and the enemies of the game, everything gets lost in the shuffle when these perspective shifts occur. I was constantly losing Kratos in a sea of enemies, having no idea where I'm aiming my attacks, if I'm taking damage, if I'm even attacking in the first place. These shifts don't last forever and do usually go back and forth but it's still frustrating to be in the middle of a combo and then thanks to a shift in the perspective, I'm no longer sure if the combo is going on still, let alone if I'm down on the ground or taking damage.

The combat in this game also is the weakest since the first game which doesn't help these shift in the perspective either. I can't quite put my finger on what's off about it, it just feels completely different. A bit stiffer, a bit slower perhaps. It's nothing that is one massive shift, a few minor changes across the board that just change everything in a negative way.

My issue with the combat also comes to a head near the end of the game. There's a final area that, because of the changes in combat, I had the worst time with. It's a three part, three level battle with no save points in between and no way of regaining health. It's a huge spike in difficulty that, with the changes in combat, make it an absolute chore to get through. Results obviously may vary but there was one point I actually thought about just dropping this game altogether instead of giving the section another chance. Rarely have I done that with a game but this one makes that very exclusive list.

It's also because the story, simply, isn't that interesting. Why stick around to see how this story ends if I don't care about it? I usually play games for the fun or for the story. If neither are good, there's no point in sticking around. My pride eventually got the better of me though and I managed to power through it, it's just unnecessary to take this shift in difficulty out of nowhere really. Especially since there's no way of changing the difficulty once you've started playing.

Since this is near the end of the game and the rest of the game is boring but rather harmless, it's not all that bad despite my varied critiques. It's still rather good looking in spite of the grey palette, the scale and scope are back to console levels, though again, not every set piece works. The game is also gorier and more brutal than ever.

If the scale and over-the-top brutality are things you enjoy about this series, this game may hit better for you than it did for me. But for me, the combat is such an integral part of this franchise and what's made it so fun, both on console and on handheld. That piece being so poor this time around, it leaves Ascension at the bottom of my list of God of War games and the toughest to recommend in the franchise up to this point.

Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

"Now we are empty. Now we are nothing."

Graphically, artistically, and narratively the best one of these at the time of its release - but demonstrably the worst in terms of its combat. Like yeesh, these never had the most optimal fighting systems to begin with but here everything seems to happen a second or two after you initiate it (or try to, with how much more often you'll be caught in a move in a series where that's already super common), the dodge roll is as nonfunctional as it's ever been, its blocking sucks, fury mode or whatever tf that was sucks almost as much, and the secondary weapons feel clunky and unnecessary. It's easy to see the faultlines from being bogged down by seventh-generation lameness - particularly its tacked-on and tossed-off multiplayer mode, which invaded many single-player flagships at this time to satisfy the hunger of casual CoD addicts and is absolutely LOADED with a laundry list of stupid microtransactions. But it's also one of the best looking games on the PS3, like seriously fucking WOW. Look at this wild behemoth!! Its spectacle is fitting and in no short supply to match - scaling and fighting through the massive Apollo statue, riding all those giant mechanical snakes, and the enormous Hecatoncheires prison (the latter of which being a strong contender for finest setpiece ever in a GoW game) and more all pop right off the screen - they're some of the greatest environments in the franchise flat-out. Plus it's cool seeing Kratos with some actual pathos here, smiling and shaking/holding people's hands in a way that actually feels natural (unlike, say, Hitman: Absolution's take on its antihero). I gotta give at least some points to a prequel that actually feels semi-authentic (can't say the same about Ghost of Sparta). Amulets are cool, final boss is epic, not even nearly the worst entry - honesty, one of the better ones! Has flaws but so do the others.

I played this game with the mindset that it was gonna be bad but it was actually quite decent.

I actually do not understand the hate of this game it's just a decent God of War prequel that vaguely adds stuff to the story and I don't care if it just milks the franchise and ruins the story or whatever it's fucking God of War nobody came for the story until 2018 but fuck this is 2013 we just want funny Kratos killing god things with epic QTEs and cutscenes and this game did just that.

I'd say the most mediocre aspect of the game is the main gameplay since it was dumbed down from 3, it's kinda hard to make God of War 3's gameplay even simpler but they did it. I'd say the enemies feel a bit more like damage sponges at times but the main gimmick of the combat is the hook so if you never bothered using it no wonder you'll dislike the game but once you get the hang of it it's simple and enjoyable. The level design is honestly great, I was fearing that the game would be more like a gimmicky collection of enemies' gauntlets but it just plays like a good ol' GoW game.

You can also tell that this game received a much lower budget than 3 with worse visuals and gameplay and they also tried to give this big gimmicky multiplayer mode to sell more copies I guess? I don't even know if the servers are still on so I have no idea how it plays but maybe it was fun who knows?

Anyway, if anyone wants more of the original trilogy after playing God of War 4 and 5 it's definitely worth playing! And I had a ton more fun playing this than the last two entries of the franchise.

As part of my journey to try and Platinum all God of War games before Ragnarok, here comes Ascension.

Played on Playstation + Premium on the PS5!

All in all, it was good. Nothing spectacular. I enjoyed the grapple variety in combat as that helps you navigate some of the tougher battles on Hard Mode. Some of the fights got frustrating with the difficulty, especially the Trails of Archimedes! The worst!

The story was interesting, but just typical pre-2018 Kratos things. In search of truth no matter the carnage really. The villains are a good foil for Kratos I would say. All decently developed enough to justify why Kratos is important to their plans.

Puzzle wise, I enjoyed a majority of them! Might be some of my favorites in the series. All clever ways to solve them and I enjoyed the implementation with the items you get throughout the game for the puzzles themselves.

The Magic variety wasn't all that new for the series, but this is supposed to be a prequel I guess. They all feel like they've been in other games before. With these same Gods that they're based upon.

Overall, I do enjoy God of War Ascension and I'm glad I got to play it finally. Would recommend it for people, but don't expect anything too grand.

De longe o ponto mais baixo da franquia inteira, não só pela história inexistente ou as péssimas mudanças de gameplay como o sistema de "Deflecting" que é literalmente um downgrade do parry super agradável dos jogos anteriores.. mas também por errar até mesmo nas escolhas estéticas, representações mitológicas e senso de power fantasy, coisas que todos os outros jogos acertam. Um "belo" exemplo de uma prequel feita de qualquer jeito que não acrescenta em quase nada a experiência da franquia em sua totalidade.. pulável.

It's clear so much effort went into this but the result failed for me on most every front. Combat continued to focus on breadth not depth, and the system for leveling up your combat items was odd, making it hard to justify using anything but the default blades until way too late in the game.

The story tries to humanize Kratos more but doesn't convince, and you can feel the painful way they're trying to slot a story into a part of the timeline that's ill-suited for any particularly dramatic character arc.

Adding to the lack of the sort of fiery single-minded mission the other games had is horrible pacing, with long-in-the-tooth puzzle+combat slogs that just had me exhausted by the time I was even halfway through the game.

One good thing! The boss battles are pretty jaw-dropping (though overly reliant on quicktime events). Phenomenal for a console that's about as powerful as a Nintendo Switch - and hard to think of many games two console generations later that can match them for polished spectacle.

Underappreciated for sure. 2013 was already a decent year for PS3 exclusives and Ascension was one of the highlights among them. I think Ascension's lacklustre reception has more to do with the fact that it was following up what is still probably the best western pass at an action game, and relatively soon after it came out (~3 years), rather than any particularly egregious shortcomings of its own.

One common criticism was that it was 'safe' or 'more of the same,' which was never something I agreed with. For one thing, it made the pretty bold and controversial decision to eschew the action game convention of unlocking alternate weapons as you progress through the game, instead giving you elemental modifications for the Blades, while incentivising spatial awareness via both temporary but powerful weapon pickups that drop from enemies and a mechanic that rewards avoiding damage by giving you access to more powerful moves.

None of this is new to the genre as a whole, and the damage avoidance mechanic could occasionally feel restrictive in the more difficult bits. But within the context of the GOW series, these things made for some nice mechanical shake-ups which also helped to reinforce why the Blades are such a big deal throughout the series' narrative.

Narrative is another thing for which Ascension probably deserves more credit. Despite the 2018 game being so highly praised for showing a more mellowed out Kratos, that had already been done (and I would argue more effectively) in every game that preceded it. Ascension in particular placed enough of an emphasis on this that I recall it being part of the pre-release marketing, and I think it delivered on it pretty well. Orkos is probably the closest we've seen to Kratos having a conventional friendship with somebody, Kratos' wife Lysandra is finally given a name to make his grief more personal, Kratos reacts to a god impersonating Lysandra with hapless confusion rather than anger(!), and the occasional visions of Kratos without his ashen skin also help to visually humanise him in a way not seen since the original game.

Finally, the multiplayer was absolutely ace. Not only was it incredibly unique in terms of gameplay (the closest thing to it is probably Anarchy Reigns), but it also regularly pumped out extra modes, weapons, maps and other content all for free, with little references to Greek mythology popular and obscure littered all over the place. It had some balance issues (I spit on the name of P*seidon), but they were more than worth putting up with for a gameplay experience that you couldn't get anywhere else, neither at the time nor now. I'm inclined to believe Santa Monica have my back on this one given how many mechanics they lifted straight out of Ascension's multiplayer and put into 2018 (pause combos, elemental status effects, special abilities on a cooldown, stat-based armour customisation, etc.), albeit being a lot more sensibly implemented here than there.

Ironically, despite getting shit for its alleged derivative-ness around the time of its release, games like Ascension are pretty far and few between in the current gaming landscape. I doubt it'll happen any time soon, but I think it'd be really refreshing to see Santa Monica come out with something more like this than continue along the franchise's current trajectory. In the past 8 years, I think it's fair to say we've seen a lot more releases big and small which more closely resemble 2018's style of gameplay, tone, visual design and narrative structure than those of Ascension.

Give me back over the top spectacle that makes my console struggle to breathe, unashamedly videogamey violence and T.C. Carson pls.

God of War Ascension is a good game that shows that Santa Monica knows very well how to build epic and action-packed experiences, however, the story it has and the fact that it includes a multiplayer mode are a sign of how stagnant of ideas they were in terms of what direction they wanted to take God of War, their flagship franchise.

Literally throughout the entire game one half of me was going "Wow, this is pretty amazing" and the other half was going "What's really the point of this game?", haha, I really, really don't understand what the point is. Making a game that tells the story of how Kratos broke his oath with Ares is unnecessary and redundant, and while the story tries to be "good", it's just there for decoration to justify a new God of War game. It's pretty forgettable and carries no weight whatsoever in all the other games. I think if you want to know more about Kratos' past, God of War 1 and Chains of Olympus itself tell more than enough to know why Kratos is such a trauma guy.

(I won't cover the multiplayer in this review, because although it looks entertaining and I just found out that it's still running as of this writing, I don't think there are many people playing it at this point and I don't have much interest right now either).

But hey, as unnecessary as this game is, I won't deny that it's very pleasing to see another God of War game with the same production values as GoW3, and by that I mean showing off scenery and animations with a ton of quality; if you ever, for some strange reason, wondered what an elephant's brain would look like, this God of War answers that question. Combat is just as refined as ever, there are a couple of changes to the button configuration and interface, but everything is done with the same care as the other God of War. A mechanic of being able to take secondary weapons is added, but the way it works, it seems like a mechanic taken from the multiplayer mode that doesn't end up working really well in the main campaign, I guess you can see it as a small addition and nothing more. I guess the only new mechanic that is tied in with the story is that Kratos can't do his iconic full combo with the Blades of Chaos as he needs to fill up a fury bar to unlock it, which fills up when you do a big combo in a row without taking damage, and it's a weird change that I didn't really like, but I guess it doesn't really affect much in the grand scheme of things. Speaking of the new powers that are there to expand the combat of this GoW, there is actually very little variety of weapons and magics this time around, as there are only 2 in the entire game, but it's made up for with the elemental Blades of Chaos. In total there are 4 elements and each one expands and changes Kratos' combos in its own way, as well as giving you an unlockable special move once you reach the last upgrade. I really liked the elements thing and it was a very nice addition that makes it cooler to fight with the Blades of Chaos.

The locations you visit in this game look spectacular, yes, Santa Monica worked some black magic to make this run on a PS3, it's simply mind blowing, and there is a very good variety of scenarios, although because this game lacks justification, many times I felt like I was visiting a bunch of random places with no connection and really no apparent reason. But what was great for me is that in this game there are a lot of puzzles, I think it is the game in this series where more attention is given to them and where I had more fun doing them, and the best thing is that later in the game you get a magic to solve puzzles related to time manipulation, and it shows once again the capabilities of the PS3 by how spectacular it looks in action.

One thing that bothered me at first is how cinematic this game tried to be with some sequences, but then those same type of sequences were repeated later on and they really weren't as bad as they seemed, I even enjoyed them for how they played out with the scenery, I'm sure Santa Monica took a lot of inspiration from Naughty Dog and the Uncharted series for some of these sequences.

Conclusion
God of War Ascension is a good game that contains all the elements to be a main game... well, almost; It lacks one vital element for me, which is a story of magnitude, which even a Spin-off like Chains of Olympus has, I mean, part of the core of every God of War game is that there is something to unveil, or that there is a final act that carries a repercussion for later games, every game in the series has this without exception (not counting Betrayal because that game was only played by 5 people), every game with the exception of Ascension. Here everything Kratos does feels insignificant, and somehow makes this God of War feel incomplete by lacking an interesting story to tell. I feel that this God of War is the least transcendent for that very reason, but at the same time, it is undeniable that Santa Monica Studio did an excellent job with this game, as it is a quality game with the same length as any other main game.

A quick note that I only finished this on hard mode, and not on Titan; Think of this more of an “impressions” writeup than a full review.

Still plenty of fun to be had here; It’s classic God of War, which is a formula that’s almost impossible to actually make badly. Unfortunately, there are a lot of changes here that really make this worse than it should be. It’s a shame because with a few tweaks, I could see this being one of my favourites in the series.

The most obvious change of note is the new rage system; meter fills up as you attack with the Blades of Chaos, and Kratos can’t use certain combos that he previously had access to until he fills up that meter. Probably the most infamous change, but I think there are a lot of other aspects to its design and what surrounds it that just make it feel like even more of a middle finger.

To first focus on the rage system itself, a good chunk of Kratos’ (Already smaller) moveset DOESN’T fill the meter; Throws, finishers, parries, and world weapons. It’s only standard attacks from the chains that work. Throws, I can understand, seeing as they give i-frames and are some of the safest moves in the game. But the lack of rage on parrying is baffling given the fact that it’s already been nerfed (L1 + X and endlag instead of just L1), and hasn’t seemed to have gotten much stronger. World weapons not giving rage is also just another reason to barely use them, if most of them lacking much in the way of significant attack power isn’t enough. The second is its extremely punishing nature: Get hit, and the meter drops. And if you’re hit while in rage state, poof, you’re out. As a result, unless I was abusing the shield glitch, I didn’t find many moments where I actually wanted to keep the rage state up instead of just immediately expending it on the special attack.

That second point ties into the enemy design. In principle, I like how ridiculously aggressive the enemies in this game are; Some of the most aggressive I’ve seen in an action game to date. But a good chunk of them are harder to stun than in past games, and they seem to have a greater quantity of difficult-to-avoid grabs that force you into QTEs and instantly drain all of your meter; See the Sirens, and Gorgons for the worst examples of this. And in the case of the Talos enemies, they straight-up can go into a state where if you light attack them, you just get hitstunned. Combine this with the chaotic as ever encounter design of classic God of War (Though fair play to the game, it doesn’t ALWAYS throw those enemies at you, and there are a good number of encounters where the game actually pops off), and a generally weaker Kratos with more limited tools, and I found myself falling into boring, defensive play that devolved into spamming magic for i-frames more often than I would’ve wanted.

Then we get to Kratos’s actual toolset in this game, and… It’s a mixed bag. To add in some positivity, the new grab system I really like. Kratos can now leash enemies from afar, and drag them around the arena, being able to slash with the chains (Which DOES build rage), evade, slam or throw enemies. Gives a lot more dimension to the already fairly unique grab system of this series. But outside of that, the elemental Blades of Chaos are a pretty weak substitute for having multiple weapons, with the main attacks on each of them being mostly the same and the variations stemming from magic, rage attacks, and L1 + Square and Triangle. And the world weapons, while interesting in concept, generally fall apart in practice. 3 of the 5 weapons’ are largely unhelpful, with the best move upon obtaining them to chuck them away immediately for decent damage and stun, and the shield being completely broken due to a glitch that allows you to switch elements while using the plumes, causing it to fire off multiple times at once.

Balancing in this game is generally not great, with probably the highest quantity of tools in the series that feel mostly useless, and as per usual for God of War, a few tools that are absurdly overpowered; To give a couple of examples for each, respectively, we first have the Ice of Poseidon on the chains, which does some of the worst damage amongst the elemental options and whose freezing barely works. When you DO manage to freeze an enemy, it takes an absurd number of hits to actually shatter them which by then, the enemy will have already unfrozen from time. On the second front is the Oath Stone of Orkos, which is an item has a high area of effect, damage, stun, and recharges fairly quickly. You really want to throw this one out a lot later in the game.

I’ve been relatively harsh on this game, but that’s mostly because I just find it to be less than the sum of its parts. You could easily pitch this to me in a way that would sound like a perfect God of War game; A revamped and more in-depth grab system, meter management that rewards both strong offense and defense, some of the best sound design in an action game to date and graphics and art direction that are still jaw-dropping today? Fuck yeah, sign me up. But I came away from the game feeling with a general sense of “meh”; Here’s hoping for a re-release on newer consoles at some point at least, so we don’t put that last point to waste. Will probably revisit this again in the future on Titan mode to try sorting out how many of my problems with this game were just skill issues, since at the end of the day, I still find a lot of its ideas compelling.

Note: This game was played via PSNow streaming. Overall I have a wired connection felt no impact on responsiveness and overall a testament to how great PSNow was! This game pretty much felt like i was playing local.

🎮 Platform: PS5 - PSNow Streaming
⌚ Time to finish - 10h
🏆Trophy completion - 67%
🤬Difficulty - felt easy. I played on normal.
🌄Graphics – It is ps3 graphics I believe so it wasn't bad but also not amazing. I did not find it to be distracting or much of an issue. Still felt very immersive.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Up to par with all the other GOW 1&2 games but I did just come from GOW3, and does not beat GOW3.
📚 Main Story / Characters – I was a little disappointed here. I wanted to learn more about his backstory. I got some glimpses of things I already knew, just in a little more detail.
🤺 Combat – The boss fights were great. However, regulary trash mob combat was repetitive. Considering gow3 wasnt repetetive this was a let down. I felt I was hitting the same 3-4 buttons even though i was trying to switch it up. I also felt the mob+wave composition was not creative or varied enouhg but the basic formula is still here, so it still makes for great combat.
🧭 Side Activities / Exploration – did not do the collection trophies and the hard mode run. The ones I did collect were fun and some of them required skill so I had to try a few times. Pick and choose what you think is fun and go for it.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Fluid, awesome. On par with all other GOW games.
📣 Voice acting – On par with all other GOW games.
🥇 Best thing about the game - Combat and Kratos!
👎 Worst thing about the game - The puzzles. Some them were straight up dumb and found it very hard to figure out without looking it up. Not enough visual clues.
💡Final Thoughts:

If you are a GOW fan there is no reason not to play this. It starts off A+ level and then goes down to an A- level. I felt it needed more boss battles and varied tactics to take down monsters. Of course they fixed all this in GOW3 so they must have learnt from this.

I didn't remember Ascension being this bad.

The story of this game is awful: I have no idea what Kratos is doing half the time or why he's doing it. There's no tension, no sense of urgency, no levity, and no dramatic weight. Every character introduced in this game is completely forgettable and adds nothing to Kratos' character arc or the lore of the series, there are also questionable liberties taken with the mythology.

I would say the game looks and controls well- if it didn't come off the heels of GoW 3. The biggest spectacles and best encounters of Ascension would be the weakest parts of GoW 3, and I mostly just find it frustrating that skilled programmers were wasted on such a lackluster project as Ascension. Most of the game's ideas are lifted from other GoW games, and I don't buy for a second that all of this happened prior to Chains of Olympus. Seriously, how is Kratos killing a god at the end of GoW 1 such a big deal if he already killed all three furies? Better question: why were Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta delegated to handhelds while this game got a console release?

Ascension has some value: it still looks good, the combat is occasionally fun, and the time-altering mechanic can lead to some cool puzzles; but those things weren't enough to stop me from being bored most of the time.

Ascension definitely has its fans and good from them. As for me, it feels good to have Ascended past this game.

This may be the weakest of the God of War games but it's still way over-hated. The presentation is amazing, as always these games push their system's limits. The environments and level design are huge and wonderful to look at. The music is great too. The story isn't as necessary in this game but seeing Kratos a lot more calm and mellow in Ascension works super well.

The combat didn’t really need to be messed with but I think some of the experiments here are still good, I like the Blades of Chaos being interchanged with different elements instead of having different weapons, that’s neat. It also replaces the O button with temporary sub-weapons, which is cool. The combat makes this game stand out from the others in the series, and it’s pretty bold for doing that. Some other mechanics were changed kinda unnecessarily too, for example, climbing. Other than that, this is still a very fun game.

Overall Ascension is a good game, it’s lacking in the story department, and a lot of the gameplay changes feel unnecessary, but the beautiful presentation and action sequences make up for that. Regardless, the gameplay is still God of War, which means it’s brutal, epic, and violent action with amazing scale and spectacle. So, even if it feels like Ascension isn’t necessary, I still like its place in the series.

People use to underated that game so much, and that makes me think why that happens, cause in my opinion It s incredible.
I think people underate that game cause the story s not so conected with the main games, and as that game s a pre sequel, people expected a Lot in terms of backstory developing for the main games.
That game trys to inovate with some mechanics, as lightining Attack, water Attack...I think that's another point that people disliked, but It Just seems to be no open minded people who think that. Well, It s Just Fun and great playing that game you know ? Shut up and re-play that shit, you Will see why I think It s great.
The story s repetitive ? Kratos Will Hunt gods oh hohohoho, yeah. But actually, All the GOW are kinda that so...If you look at that game Just as a "game" and not a part of a whole saga of GOW, you Will enjoy much more.
8,6

A lot of people gave this game an unfair treatment simply because it was the follow-up to the amazing game that is God Of War 3. I believe it's hard for any game to follow that one up only a couple of years afterwards. It is a solid prequel that has fun boss fights as well. In my opinion this game is the equivalent of Batman Arkham Origins. As that game came out after Arkham City (arguably the best game in that series) and Origins like Ascension was also a prequel. If you enjoy the older God Of War games then Ascension is definitely worth checking out. If you're newer to the franchise I would actually recommend playing this in chronological order as you get to try out mechanics from 3 while also having your introduction to the franchise not be as dated as God Of War 1 is