While their usage feels slightly forced and predictive during the game’s puzzles, they come into their own during combat and give Kratos more fighting options besides the standard weapons. New items are also granted to Kratos through this latest adventure with the highlight of these being the Amulet of Uroboros, which allows us to manipulate time and even revive decayed buildings and structures in certain occasions. These limited-use weapons bring a welcome sense of variety to the otherwise repetitive combat it’s a shame though that the player doesn’t have the option of holding onto a weapon as a permanent part of their inventory. Luckily, the developers have introduced world weapons that can either be picked up throughout the environment or taken from disarmed opponents. Unfortunately, there is hardly any differentiation between the elements aside from a few special attacks, making the decision on which one to use more of an aesthetic choice rather than a fitting of play-style. ![]() Instead of opting to provide the player with four distinct weapons, each weapon is an augment of Kratos’s blades with a different elemental variety. God of War: Ascension maintains the 4-weapon system that was introduced in GOW 3 but handles the mechanic in an entirely different way. While the elaborate combos of past games are still present, they require a full rage meter to perform, and since each enemy hit removes some of the rage meter it was rare that I was ever able to max out the meter and utilize the most powerful combos in the heat of battle. Without a full rage meter, the available combo attacks are restricted in both length and variety, meaning that battles tend to devolve into a repeating (square+square+triangle) combo that proves to be successful but monotonous to execute. However, its usage in Ascension differs considerably and not to the benefit of the experience. God of War veterans will be familiar with the rage meter, which would continue to fill up with successive hits until maxing out, when it could then be activated to unleash extremely powerful attacks over a short duration. No longer is Kratos free to unleash long strings of combos at all times instead, a new system has been implemented which utilizes the rage meter to unlock the full potential of Kratos’s attack options. The most significant departure from past God of War games in Ascension is the way in which combat is handled. The final moments of the story do stand out in a positive way by providing a rare glimpse of Kratos’s humanity but fail to make a strong impact due to how late they occur in the overall experience. ![]() For instance, it feels as though the flashback sequences exist solely as ways to extend the length of the game rather than to illuminate new mysteries and revelations about Kratos’s condition.įurthermore, the story often feels disconnected from the established God of War lore, neglecting to illuminate Kratos’s fascinating origin story as a Spartan warrior and subsequently failing to provide a convincing circumstance for the continuation of Kratos’s journey in the story-sequel, Chains of Olympus. The story has an interesting premise, and that makes it all the more disappointing that its execution does not live up to its ambition. ![]() The story is furthered by a series of cut scenes that bring us back even further in the God of War timeline to the days when Kratos was a Spartan warrior with wife and child intact. Many of the game’s areas are presented through a series of flashbacks which lead up to the Furies’ successful capture and imprisonment of Kratos. He agrees to resume his service to Ares in exchange for the visions to stop. The Furies, goddesses/sisters tasked with restoring justice between mortals and the gods, begin to haunt Kratos's mind and produce illusions of his slain family with the goal of driving Kratos to a point of desperation. The story of God of War: Ascension is set just after Kratos's attempt to break his blood oath with Ares, the God of War, after the murder of his family. While God of War: Ascension is a good game, it never ascends to become a great one due to a combination of misguided design decisions and a general lack of polish that sporadically derail the experience. ![]() Unfortunately, these adjustments and additions add up to a product that is ultimately less than spectacular.
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