I thought that all of the God of War games especially the ones that have the sex mini-games took place after Kratos' wife and daughter had died making him a widower. 1:10
It's nice that god of war 3 actually references Chains of Olimpus and Ghost of sparta in some dialogues that few actually notice. Hades says that Kratos killed "his beautiful wife", as she is the final boss in Chains of Olympus. And the greatest mention, is actually Zeus in the end of the game when confronted by Gaia, he says "your pawn has failed you gaia, you should have chosen the other one" is referencing Deimos, as Zeus thought that his birthmarks meant that he was the child of the prophecy that would kill him, but actually was Kratos with his tatoos honoring his brother.
That does raise the question why Gaia didn't save Deimos. She was probably waiting for him to get older, but started putting her attention toward Kratos when she saw him becoming a legendary tattooed warrior.
While kratos is swimming in the blood river you can hear all the stuff that prety much fed kratos' anger and 2 characters stand out to me. One is daimos and other being the final spartan. Contrary how people wanna paint kratos, it shows his regret of teaching his about never backing down and how much the death of sparda affected him
Lol However Chains of Olympus kind of puts a pretty big question mark for The original god of War where Hades helps Kratos out with the Souls of Hades weapon even though Kratos Just murdered his Wife.
@@brentgarlick9605 yeah, that's kind of a plot hole, they could have said that hades discovered who murdered persephone in the second game or something like that.
@@giorno4859 Hades was oblivious to Persephone's plan and Morpheus taking over in COO and even other big figures in the underworld like Charon might have been in on it judging by how Charon sought to imprison/kill Kratos. There's also the fact that Pandora's Box amplified the flaws the gods already had. It would've made Hades even more angry and petty about her death than previously.
14:35 I got confused for a few seconds here cuz I've set the Nier Village Theme as my wake up alarm for months now so hearing it had me reflexibly scrambling to slap the snooze button on my phone screen.
The only game that stood out with me today is ghost of sparta... Why? Just compare his arms of sparta to ragnarok's draupnir. This also the only game where your two weapons have different functions, compared to previous titles. Also ghost of sparta's very hard is really hard and encourage you to use all of your abilities as well as knowledge around enemies.
i hear age of mythology music brain gets happy from nostalgia induced thoughts brain realizes it will never come bakc to those times brain now sad thanks for this
It’s because when a DMC and a Bayonetta fan plays GoW he expects it to be this slashy mix to destroy enemies with open encounters type of Game (even though GoW is just that just to a lesser extent than the others) when it is not he sees it as less interesting and that is wrong just because halo is slower and has reloading unlike Doom that does not make it less interesting simply because they both shooting Games they both have their pros and cons and just because GoW is an action game does not mean it must be like the others to be Interesting GoW is different it is more about calculated and making the best out of your resources it’s cool when you know it’s not JUST being fast and stylish
@@lightmohamed5700 I like both types of action games but I feel like people hold themselves back thinking a game has to fit a mold instead of letting the game speak for itself
27:47 not true whatsoever. I don’t see anyone preferring the “low-key” watered down version of something as opposed to rising stakes. Hence why the game didn’t sell well.
it's hilarious how Ascension was so mediocre and irrelevant that it never really got a ps4 release like God of War 3 did. Freaking metal gear solid is coming to modern hardware before Ascension ever will. 😅 it's a Buggy game that feels rushed despite having 3 years of development. I guess they put too much focus on dem graphics
10:02 Tbf, that moment is really powerful because you know the QTE’s in the GOW series are signs of feats of strength. Yet here Kratos performing a feat of strength: pushing his daughter away. The hardest thing he had to do on an emotional level
@@mangaprofilepicture5820 noooo, noooo, really? can't believe they pulled that off what will they come up with next? kratos fighting his debt as a final boss? kratos dealing with being a shitty father by having to surpass "good father" on the leatherboards on the multiplayer mode? you never know with these wacky guys
PSP has everything Tons of unique games Mountain of rpgs you won't find anywhere A lot of fighting games Surprisingly a lot of good ports or sometimes the definitive version of a lot of games or remakes of old games
and yet people did repeat that joke from PS3 - "PSP haz no gaemz" which looks funny in retrospective for both PS3 and PSP when compared to PS5 and PS4 library
It's interesting hearing your opinion on these often overlooked parts of the god of war franchise. One thing I don't understand though is that Ascension does have a parry. They just gave it an input (I think it was guard plus circle but I could be wrong on the input, haven't played it in years) which required timing instead of getting lucky counters every few seconds, to fit the whole "more skillful" playstyle they were going for. It is a very weird direction to take the gameplay, but as a one off it was interesting at least.
God, seeing KBash praise the God of War trilogy really makes me want to see him check out Darksiders: Genesis after his... Mixed to word it kindly review of the main trilogy. It's also a prequel & it gives a lot of character definition to not only one, but two of the Horsemen in War & Strife with their back to back bantering throughout the game & it has a completely different game play style than the whole series. I feel like it would turn his frown towards the series upside down a bit. I don't know. Hope he at least considers it after reading this comment if he does, it might be too late since that trilogy review was years ago at this point. Darksiders might be derivative, sure. But it has plenty unique to offer. Maybe a new approach to the play loop would make it click for him.
I don't think most Darksiders fans will take him very seriously on a Darksiders Genesis review, even if he likes it. But i would definitely love to see the game (and the franchise as a whole) get more coverage, as well as more chances and resources for good future games. Personally, i had a very good time with Darksiders Genesis when i first played it. I also love that most of the bosses are demonized pre-Abrahamic deities (like Dagon and Astarte) or Abrahamic terms for sinful things (like Mammon and Moloch).
Funny thing, that God of War Saga collection you showed a picture of only had Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta as downloadable games, it included a code all of which have expired by now. So that collection no longer contains everything the box says it does. Thankfully they did release the God of War Origins collection which was on a disc so the PS3 versions did get a physical release.
Chains of Olympus: a decent and competent handheld GoW Ghost of Sparda: it doesnt have the right to look or play as good as it does Ascension: it killed the franchise
No franchise needs to run forever. I liked the 2018 reboot but Ragnarok made me wish they didnt make any games after Ascension. Sony is the one pushing the GOW brand after all not to mention they killed of Infamous because Second son and Last light didnt make the expected amount of profit.
In retrospect the psp games are a downgrade. But relative to when it released it was ourstanding. Portable gaming was not what it is today. I remember being blown away able to play a fully fleshed out GOW 2 type games on a handheld. They were only as compromised as the hardware limitation but it was hard to tell in context. Esp COO, since it was released before GOW 3 so unless you went back to back with GOW 2 (which wasn't in HD) the differences were minimal when you were experiencing it on something you could carry in your pocket. Yah, it's a hard recommend now to someone when there are portable gaming pcs that can emulate the main games but back then they were amazing for what they achieved.
I always loved Ascension. The combat is the main reason I love it so much. I love the elemental blades and the rage meter. I get the hate towards it but Ascension is my 2nd favorite after God of war 2.
If i may ask, what are some of the parts of Ascension's combat you like most, least, and/or find most interesting? Same question for the bosses. I've seen people call the Hecatoncheir parasite quite good, despite camera issues, but Aegaeon proper as more annoying.
@@jurtheorc8117 Besides loving the looks of the elemental blades, I love how each one has a different set of moves that were there throughout the series so it's kinda like you have every Kratos move he ever did in ascension. The rage meter is also very fun to me cause it challenges the player to play more smart and not get hit and if you do that you are rewarded with doing more damage and getting better moves. I love the boss fights especially Castor and Pollux. The soundtrack is also amazing just like any other god of war game. I also love how the puzzles are a bit more difficult than they were in the past games. I love how Kratos is portrayed in this game. He's not just a angry brute like he is in God of war 2 and 3. The game looks beautiful too. The only thing I hate is how the games story is told. The whole thing where it jumps from 4 weeks ago to present day is stupid but I get what they were trying to do.
@@Kanskai Oh man, i didn't even know that all elemental blade variants had different animations for their attack strings. I know there were unique attacks if you fill up the special meter, that could be utilized in different ways (like stunning enemies with balls of lightning, while performing another attack). Seems like something cool that longtime players would get the most out of. I've heard about the difficulty in Ascension as well, with how it's more challenging! Sometimes not for the right reasons, but the idea of Bayonetta by way of Kratos (very evasive, and that evasion is part of building up the offense) so to speak, with the extra moves being a reward for skillful play, is definitely interesting. But if a number of those moves are ones that were already present in the past games, then i can see how that frustrates long-time players. (In regards to that Evasion is Offense thing: A few months ago, a game by name of Clash: Artifacts of Chaos came out that's like a 3D brawler, where you can perform attacks from a dodge move, with the attack differing depending on the direction. There's different fighting stances to try out, and it's very colourful with awesome creature designs. I'm a stranger on the internet, so i don't know your specific tastes, but i recommend to check it out) Castor and Pollux definitely have a memorable design, and reminds me a slight bit of Geryon from Greek mythology (albeit 1 and a half instead of 3 upper bodies). The game Mortal Shell has a boss, Crucix the Twiceborn, has a similar design. Though none of the time powers. I remember watching footage of their boss fight some time ago, and it seemed like it can go on for quite a bit. Requires good attention from the player, both for direct interaction with him, as well as his usage of the environment with that time power. Pretty awesome when an arena gets utilized well in a boss fight. Also, Orkos is a sweetheart and doesn't deserve to be forgotten.
Y'know, as someone who's only real knowledge of the series was playing 1-2-3, it's kinda wild to see the directions they went with the spin-offs/prequels. Gonna have to smoke those someday. :0
Ghost of Sparta has been on my backlog for so long, after watching this I'm gonna move it up a few places because I didn't expect it to be THIS good! Though Chains of Olympus was all right at best, it does have my favourite weapon: the Gauntlets of Zeus. Smacking enemies around with that weapon was always so satisfying
The whole Ghost of Sparta segment is pure catharsis. Thank you for explaining why that is my absolute favorite God of War game in the series, even over GoW2.
I've never seen your channel before and I just got this in my recommendations, but hearing "mash circle to blast rope in random women" within the first minute of the video tells me this video and channel are going to be great content
19:54 this dude has officially lost his rocker. “One of the weaker aspects of the God of War games is the boss battles” literally one of the driving forces and arguably more celebrated aspects of the series 🤦🏻♂️
to each their own i guess, i happened to find them frustrating in a lot of cases, the best ones are really good, but the rest are alright or just tedious, none of them are bad though, most people like them which is fine but you'd be surprised by how many people are not all that impressed by them, besides, he did say "IF you ask ME" he's not speaking for everyone, just his personal opinion
God of War games are way deeper think you think mate but what makes it so special is that it’s not just slash and slash and… more slash like other action games it’s slower more calculated gameplay you have to care about your positioning how make proper use of your magic bar and ACTUALLY how to make the best use of aerial combat and grabs because GoW is different it does not have a combo meter it has a hit counter system which is way different
Completely unrelated, but if you want to see the creativity of the human kind at its zenith and be moved by how far we can push our brains to be innovative and clever, read some Patreon names.
What killed ascension for me is how much the camera zooms away sometimes, the setpieces can be as cool as you want but I should be able to understand where Kratos and enemies are, and I just couldn't.
I think you got something wrong about Chains of Olympus. Kratos decides to leave Calliope because if he doesn't, the world will end, aling with Elysium, which means that Kratos doesn't really have a choice, unless you consider letting his daughter die again is a choice. So for me personally, that takes a bit of the gravitas of the moment away, but it's still a very powerful moment, I just wish it would have been contextualised better. And I absolutely agree on Ghost of Sparta, it doesn't feel like a Psp title at all and fires on all cylinders. I was surprised at how well it holds up when replaying the series recently, it has aged almost not at all. And as always, great video. See your literary english degree was of use for something, making RU-vid videogame analysis which isn't what anyone expected, but here we are.
Ascension is that one weird game where i want to play it so bad, yet i realized all the horror it got. From a weird elementals instead of permanent secondary weapon (even then it's mostly either the swords, the spear or the club, the rest are not existent), weird pacing involving back-and-forth between past and present (why?), Rage Meter that just goes stupid most of the time, an enemy with literal Invincible Mode (yes, all your attack bounces whenever they were on this mode), awful finisher mini-game (it's awful, don't try to say it's otherwise ok?), many weird unutilized promotional material that are genuinely looks good, constant glitches and bugs (that somehow extends to subtitle bug? Wtf), over-emphasis on Multiplayer so much to the point that 90% of NG+ costumes are just Multiplayer armors, weird enemies placement (sometimes there are too many, others too little), Multiplayer that seemingly locked all the good stuffs behind paywalls (cmiiw but i think all Gauntlest/ Cestuses are DLC only), and many more
For people don't know the order, of greek god of war games, its acension, followed by chains of olympus, god of war 1, ghost of sparta, god of war 2, then finally god of war 3. I recomend play god of war 1, and 2 first before play prequels and side game, cause give alot away.
One thing I don't agree on here is when he said at the old games aren't complex enough. They are complex and require a lot of skill Aoy of people who say the older GOW games aren't complex usually played it on easy or normal and never even touched very hard. There are things that make it a complex game like collisions, tricking and positioning, knowing what scales with difficulty and what doesn't, knowing enemy attacks and how to counter these attacks.(there are more things my brain is just fucked rn) The old games aren't exploded by many people which leads to the miss conception that they aren't come or deep.
I also hate how so many "Action fans" just decide that God of War isn't complex or skillful. God of War 1-3's hard and very hard can be some ballbustingly brutal stuff if somebody doesn't wanna learn mechanics or combat properly, which I always liked. Even when someone does and doesn't just mash square square triangle (I mean, they still can, but it'll take infinitely longer) it's still difficult and demands some level of mastery or sometimes damn near perfection. Two particular difficulty spikes in GoW3 come to mind that DEMAND it...the Labyrinth chain defense(s) and the final Hades Cerberus semi-circle at the end.
@@Valanway It's very frustrating to me that "action fans" do this. They critic a game based on 1 experience and that's a frustrating thing because how can an individual provide a critical opinion on a game that they haven't played to it's fullest.
At the time, I actually preferred Ghost of Sparta to III. The console game was incredible in a technical sense, but Ghost really nailed everything else.
There's an action game that's coming out in August called "Atlas Fallen" and it seems to be going for something similar to what you suggested @ 6:55 - 7:15.
Bro I'm excited for you to do 2018 and Ragnarok. I know you usually talk about less-talked-about games cuz you think it's all been said but NOBODY DOES LIKE YOU BRUTHER
After hearing all this puritan bullshit about sex mini games, i'm interested to learn this guy's opinion on sex scene in TLOU 2. I bet he thinks of it as some sort of art and KINO lol.
11:35 Outside of Nintendo and/or series that started their lives on handhelds, the only fanbase I've seen people argue in favor of handheld entries eclipsing home console ones is Sonic the Hedgehog, and even then that point begins and ends with the GBA and DS ones; you don't see people making that argument for, like, Sonic Chaos.
35:06 we’ll u just know this is an outright lie. All the men in this game are brutalised just as badly if not worse and are dehumanised for kratos’ purposes. Helios’ head is used as a torch for the whole game, Hermes has his legs cut off for the sole reason of kratos wanting his boots, perithous is literally burned alive just so kratos can get his bow. Kratos using Poseidon’s princess as a doorstopper is no different than these other than her being a woman, and pandora is a symbol of how far kratos has fallen into his rage, she is a vessel for his revenge and we both know that it would be no different if Pandora was a male, the only reason she’s female in these games is because she’s a female in Greek myth. I understand you might not enjoy seeing women brutalised, I don’t either but don’t make it seem there suffering in these games is unique, you’re making these issues something they’re not. The only place in this game where I can think of you can argue is the nudity and Aphrodite sections of the game.
Both prequels are good but ascension sucks cause it drags too much. The time puzzles are boring as well and slow down gameplay. Should have been on the ps4/ps3 release ngl .
Interesting thing is Kratos actually planned to have daughter with Artemis goddess of hunting with kratos having some bonding first with Artemis then their daughter grown up decided to do "children vs father" family tradition because she thought Kratos leave her. Meaning kratos actually had two daughters and one son from three wives, one is mortal, one is goddess, and one is giant.
