As we return to the adventures of gaming's shoutiest protagonist, I must wonder exactly whose idea it was on the Olympian council that the man who spent the entire last game stabbing minotaurs in the throat as a coping mechanism was perfectly suited to, and wouldn't abuse the position, of the new god of war.
I guess that might as well lead in to the fact that I don't find the story in this game anywhere near as interesting as it was in the last one, as the majority of it begins and ends with "Zeus killed me. I kill Zeus now." There is one stand-out moment towards the end of the game that brings it back to the heights of the first game, but overall, story-wise, it's not as good. Better paced, maybe, at least half of the game isn't spent in one singular location, but nevertheless it does slightly feel like they didn't have anywhere else to take Kratos' character in after the first game.
But, then again, story isn't a huge selling point for this game, and what is there is still entertaining enough. It's the ultra-violent, ultra-satisfying, ultra-angry combat that lies at the heart of God Of War, and on that front, it's back and better than ever. It feels less monotonous, there's extra weapons to muck about with, the spell balance is much better than the last one (where spamming Poseidon's Rage was typically how you got from A to B when using spells), and there's a wider enemy variety, more bosses, and even more puzzles.
The game looks great too, it fully deserves the title of the PS2's swan song, and the environment design is utterly gorgeous, much more so than the first game in my opinion.
And overall, I think it's ever so slightly better than the first.
I guess that might as well lead in to the fact that I don't find the story in this game anywhere near as interesting as it was in the last one, as the majority of it begins and ends with "Zeus killed me. I kill Zeus now." There is one stand-out moment towards the end of the game that brings it back to the heights of the first game, but overall, story-wise, it's not as good. Better paced, maybe, at least half of the game isn't spent in one singular location, but nevertheless it does slightly feel like they didn't have anywhere else to take Kratos' character in after the first game.
But, then again, story isn't a huge selling point for this game, and what is there is still entertaining enough. It's the ultra-violent, ultra-satisfying, ultra-angry combat that lies at the heart of God Of War, and on that front, it's back and better than ever. It feels less monotonous, there's extra weapons to muck about with, the spell balance is much better than the last one (where spamming Poseidon's Rage was typically how you got from A to B when using spells), and there's a wider enemy variety, more bosses, and even more puzzles.
The game looks great too, it fully deserves the title of the PS2's swan song, and the environment design is utterly gorgeous, much more so than the first game in my opinion.
And overall, I think it's ever so slightly better than the first.