3.75 Stars
It has all of the elements that made the other God of War games great. Challenging combat, a decent story, epic moments, and solid bonus content. However, I have 2 significant issues.

It seems that a few boss fights require you to be grabbed in order to advance. There are also a few fights where an object must be destroyed to advance. The latter is never alluded to. Even worse, an infinite amount of enemies will respawn until the object is destroyed. Both situations resulted in unnecessary deaths and confusion.

Despite my complaints, this is another worthy spin-off to the series.

Platform: PlayStation 3
Date Started: January 9th, 2023
Date Finished: January 9th, 2023
Time Played: 4 Hours

"The destroyer of worlds."

God of War: Ghost of Sparta is a solid entry into the God of War franchise, and another offering by Ready at Dawn Studios.

Whilst this one isn't as compelling as Chains of Olympus it still stands as a good time, telling another essential part of Kratos' story - that of his brother Deimos, alongside his mother, Callisto. It further explains and explores exactly why he is even more enraged at the Gods in the last two Greek entries, which I thought was a great touch. I liked this idea, but it did feel a little out of nowhere with these characters not being mentioned before, so I didn't feel any sort of connection to the story of Krato's family here like I did with his daughter in the previous title.

We also seem Kratos venture to Atlantis at the start and take down quite a significant god by the end, although that last point having no consequences or mentions in future games due to when this and them were released is kind of a shame and somewhat breaks the story. Overall it's quite good stuff, though, and once again slots in nicely to the chronology, perfectly setting up God of War 2.

The combat is once again nice and satisfying, with some good new additions like the flame swords that charge up and allow you to break enemy armour. I really liked the spells and whatnot this time around, too, the lightning one in particular was great when levelled up, but both were good at allowing you to control and fight multiple enemies from different directions and once when surrounded.

So, that's one more game down, and with only the final two main titles left in the Greek Saga, I look forward to continuing and finishing off this adventure fairly soon.

Somehow even less remarkable than Chains of Olympus. The fire mechanic is...there, but it's not particularly engaging or unique, and the level design is very bland. Moreover, the item placement is flat out embarrassing: just about every Gorgon Eye, Phoenix Feather and Minotaur Horn is placed right on the beaten path, and the ones that aren't might as well be. You didn't exactly have to go on expeditions to find the ones in the prior games, but they were usually at least somewhat cleverly hidden. In this one, it's hard not to feel a little insulted when you find several of them placed right next to save points. Combat is God of War, it's whatever, though there are a few enemies that are really annoying like the Keres Wraith, whose grapple move has an ungodly huge hitbox, and the basic Minotaur, whose charge move can unceremoniously lock you into a QTE mid-combo and immediately be failed. The story's not bad but it's an interquel, so none if it is ever mentioned in the games that preceded it and it might as well not exist. As a whole it just feels like a cashgrab. "Billy, the PSP's on its way out, slap together a game in a huge franchise so we can get a few bucks at the last minute." Weaksauce.

Ghost of Sparta feels to Chains of Olympus as God of War II feels to God of War. The games all function relatively the same, which at this point into the franchise feels almost more a curse than a blessing, though they also build and riff on each other in slight ways. I found Ghost of Sparta to be a more cinematic experience than Chains of Olympus, feeling even less like a handheld title than its predecessor, but it also contained some of the most annoying enemies in the series to date along with the most forgettable arsenal. That said, this is still a definite improvement over Chains of Olympus, and well worth playing, it's just that playing these games in such quick succession makes it clear how unwilling the developers were to diverge from this formula.

Games I Dislike That Everybody Else Likes

The only one of these I don't really care for. If you thought God of War III felt samey while also looking really grey and uninteresting, just wait until you get a look at this! After how much I dug Chains of Olympus I was expecting this one (its other PSP counterpart) to follow suit, but no - I'm shocked at how inconsequential this feels. Its most grievous sin is committing the video game prequel kiss of death: making every 'new' addition to its franchise lore seem completely pointless by setting it up just to delete it immediately after, so everything can go back to the status quo by the end anyway (rather than, you know, telling its own story that actually sticks around). Storytelling here is totally nonexistent, Deimos was done so dirty and even by GoW standards a lot of this is just futile misery porn BS. While CoO benefitted from its smaller scale, this one feels strangled by it - trying to tell this momentous, grand melodrama by rushing right through everything. It's got good things - Sparta is cool, all the boss fights are solid, the Arms of Sparta rock, and we (finally!!) even get some new enemies here that are fun to fight! Still have my usual quibbles with the combat though - stunlocks here there and everywhere, some bad hitboxes, the Wraiths are objectively bullshit to fight in this game, and - while I still vastly prefer it to GoWIII's item meter - one out of every two times you activate the fire meter it just does nothing lol. Strong contender for worst QTEs ever, too. Just an overall hollow, nothing experience. By this entry these games felt like they were starting to suffer from the same genre fatigue as, say, the Guitar Hero games in the late 2000s.