It would have been so cool if this game explored Kratos before he killed his family. That way they could show Kratos’ humanity before his fall. They also could have used the Furies’ illusion powers to retroactively explain why he killed them, since they’re all about retcons with this game anyway
To be honest, the story was my favorite part of the game. Kratos did not need Pandora's box to kill Persephone on Chains of Olympus either, she was a godess as well. The guy is the son of Zeus... Also, starting with all the powers right away it would spoil what powers you would get. This is the most human Kratos we got on the original story, you really saw him in pain and suffering for what he did
This dude forgot that different gods can be stronger than others apparently. Like seriously why would you fighting a random person (Persephone or one of the furies) equate to you fighting a navy seal (ares). Seriously though you’d need a lot more power to fight the god of war than you would need to fight some randoms
I like to compare Ascension to a Master of None. In splitting its development between single player and multiplayer, it became worse in both than it could have if it decided to focus on one mode of play.
I remember preordering God of War Ascension. I was disappointed by it. Quite a bit. It’s not a bad game! Really solid stuff. But it’s just little things to me. God of War 3 had the perfect flow to combat if you ask me. Ascension locked all the cool combos behind a rage meter which doesn’t seem wise. The tether was awesome tho. Loved doing that. The magic was pretty basic and kinda useless to me and the camera! The camera dude! This game reeks of going a little too far. Not too much but just a little too much. All the other god of war games keep the camera at the perfect distance even in more cinematic bits. This game doesn’t. I really want to like this game but I really can’t. It’s not a bad game, it’s just not the best God Of War game. That said, wonderful retrospective! I always look forward to your vids and legit wanted to know your opinions on this game in particular.
Currently going through this game right now and trying to get the platinum. I got to say I disagree with the combat aspect in this video because I am having a great time fighting. The blades of chaos into the world weapons into the magic abilities. To me they flow so well and let you experiment in multiple ways along with how great the grabs open up your options. And crowd control. Great video though
I agree with the grab control, and the elements do offer extra (but limited) new combos, but honestly. For me thats the end, God of War 3 basically had this idea with the 4 chained blades at his disposal with their own unique gameplay. Having the rest of your combos locked away by the rage meter, and not having much s. Also as he said enemy varietiy is the worse, when youre fighting bugs, and then all the sudden you have to fight two Sirens ans 2 Wraiths. When Sirens are supposed to be stage hazards, they just make it tedious to play in the hardest difficulty. THE ENEMIES BARLEY HAVE ANY COLLISION DAMAGE AND THERE IS NO ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE! Damn that part did piss me off.
Excluding the new GOW 3 and Ascension are my favourites of the series I get the criticisms but personally i enjoyed the gameplay alot and think that overall the story in old GOW doesn't matter that much
I havent played this one yet. I heard its the black sheep as it simply does what all the other previous games have done with nothing new to offer making it unremarkable. Just more of the same meh
I'm assuming they designed the health and magic chests so in the middle of battle, Kratos has to strategically refill life rather than just hulk smash into another life bar. Which is great for me, im colorblind and have a heck of a time telling the difference between exp and health chests. It sucks. I do find it odd that health refills if a checkpoint is restarted or upon death but I did only play on normal bc I'm not great at these kinds of games.
How does ascension rank? Best graphics - yes (out of the old styled gow games) Best combat - opinionated Bosses - not the best Story - arguably the weakest Gore - Top tier Weapons - weakest (there is only the enemies weapons to pick up) Level design - unique Puzzles - well put together puzzles Magic - arguably the best (Ascension, chains and gow 1 imo have the best magic) It's not a bad game what's so ever, let alone a bad gow game. Not the strongest, not the weakest, but you can argue for it being a prequel, and arguably being the best prequel, that matters and you can say they met their goal in terms of doing that (becuase it will never be better that 3) and successfully making a good MP game. For me Ascension falls right in the middle, but for some reason this is the gow game I've eaten the most, probably becuase of the plus mode, which unfortunately only GOW 2018, GOW Ascension, and GOW 2 have, the rest should have them two smh
The way I describe this game to my friends is simple. "It's the only God of War game I have never finished." I think that gets my point across pretty well. :(
Unfortunately, this commentary is... kind of spot-on. I would maybe criticized a bit more for what it did to the Greek mythology. Yes, I know, God of War has always been pretty liberal and creative in that department, mostly with great results. The elephant warriors, the bug creatures however... Not very interesting creatively and not at all grounded in mythology. And a mantichore with wings..? The same goes for that weird lore surrounding Orkos. It felt like they just had to make a role to give to Troy Baker, whose presence felt mandatory in a triple A title at the time. I remembered this game mostly for having enjoyable puzzles, which in itself is already pretty alarming for a God of War title. Combat just does not flow. Enemies are simply to aggressive to consistently make the most of that weird rage mechanic, and they incessantly spam the same attacks that stunlock you to oblivion. Picked it up again recently, made it to the Grotto before kind of realizing that there had not been an encounter I really enjoyed. Combat feels like a chore I'd rather avoid. Much like in the remaster of Yakuza 3, combat would have been incredibly enjoyable if it had a few minor tweaks. The story adds or changes nothing about the overarching narrative and having to buy an online pass to get one trophy is frankly just insulting. It's reputation as the black sheep is unfortunate but well deserved.
I completely blame Sony for how this game turned out, although it is definitely a sign of the times it was created in. The online multi-player stuff was crammed into every single game during this time period, mainly due to the popularity (and monetary rewards) of first person shooters. I really would love to play the game that Ascension could have been. It's still impressive that while not every game is perfect, that there still hasn't been an absolute bad/bland game put out in the series (in 3d).
The problem was/is........GoW3 made such a deep impact and really peaked the whole franchise Ascension just feels like an unnecessary add on, not bad in general but it cant compare to the epicness the game before handed out so flawlessly
I think this game lack t he epic story that a GOW need to keep the player interested BUT I feel this games was a half step to God of War 2018 With the tone, story and kratos characterization
Played 2 hours of it, but apart from the set pieces it is really disappointing so far- I dislike the limited moveset when Rage meter is not full, the pacing is not great as the corridors and combat feels too samey and the plot is not a huge motivator like with the main trilogy, the character does not have a strong reason to do what he does. What do I care about the furies or the Oracle after having fought Gods (Or armies, chronologically)? There is also little dialogue or world building to flesh out any of it. Platforming is straight out of Uncharted ^^ Not sure if I want to continue just for the sake of completion, it just does not feel like GoW, even the music is off…only thing I enjoyed so far was the sliding ^^
This is the ONLY GOW game that Ive not ever played...I just bought a ps3 with GOW collection and GOW3 and am currently going thru them all in order....I MUST buy this soon. I MUST play this game.....no matter what the yappity ratings say....I love GOW games.
I've been marathoning the GoW games right now because I wanted to play GoW 2018 but stopped at GoW 2 2nd stage when I was younger (Life stuff) I have to say out of all the GoW's i've played so far (currently on GoS) Ascension was infuriating. One thing im suprised you did'nt touch on was the sheer amount of enemies that just go invincible through you attacks interupting your combos and getting free damage. This tacked on by the terrible parry system, zoomd out cameras and jarring mini game timings which I probably did the worst in all the series I wanted to quit. You creditited the atmosphere and level design but I found it dull and boring. Felt way too lonley at times. This was definetly rushed in order to focus on Multiplayer (Which I did not make the effort to play). Otherwise I agree with everything said here. In contrast I immdiatly started playing Chains of Olympus and it felt soooooo good and was fun even if it felt a bit easier, was just nice to play a game not trying too hard to be fun.
Great retrospective on Ascension. It’s definitely the black sheep, the biggest area I liked about this one specifically a little more than others was it’s combat, the tether was always cool and felt more at hone with the blades, you really feel the extension it gives when you can hold onto an enemy while slashing others and then using the one you hold for a finishing blow, it made using the rage meter more satisfying to me and always meant that it was earned. I also love the finishing blows to some of the smaller bosses and some of the Wye where you direct where Kratos moves to and then slash through when it’s free, this is when the camera zooms right in and you really feel the blows, pretty epic. Smaller areas I liked was presentation of course (outside of the screen tear and frame dips and camera zoom outs) and so I liked some of the environments more and set pieces. The biggest setback for me personally was the story, initially I thought it’d show more of his human side and human story, the trailers made it seem like it would cover his time in Sparta and with his family, for me this made sense to build his character and back story as a father more to fit in with his vengeance on more of an emotional level. Pretty dissatisfied with the story overall.
i liked the puzzles and boss fights. the horde of enemies with constant bad telegraphed attacks and often stun locking you is frustrating but i got used to dodging to maintain my rage meter by the end. it's just do a combo, dodge away, repeat, not very intuitive but i got through all that bs somehow.
this is a fun game and great combat ! the story shouldve been told better , and kratos model not look so cartoonish .. the game wouldve been better . also i find some of kratos animations to feel / look rubbery where in gow3 they are solid
I am just finally playing this game now (although I have owned it since 2015 - and started it once at that time too, apparently, but never got far) and ....hm. I quite like it overall. It sure looks gorgeous, though I found the story a bit tough to follow (although I commend them for trying the time jumpy angle. It's something different at least). What bothers me most is that I found it sometimes very clunky in its mechanics (the healing/decay one especially) and sometimes I just didn't know where to go, because the paths blended in so well with the backgrounds. Often I got stuck in places where I definitely wasn't supposed to get stuck only to find out I could climb somewhere haha. Generally it feels like they were almost trying too hard. Like, it sure looks amazing, but I'd like to see where I'm going, too. Staaaap zooming out I can't seee! I also found the combat a bit....hmmm....difficult, or rather repetitive, with the weird rage meter that I seem too stupid to use. I feel like I'm missing something and probably do. I do really enjoy the grappling mechanic though, like where you hold onto one enemy while attacking others (at least I think that was only in Ascension?). Overall though, I am surprised it's not quite as talked about. It's still a pretty dope game. Might've been everyone too tired of Kratos? Personally, I'd still give it a 6.5/10, maybe even a 7. But I'm a sucker for GoW games - and a casual gamer. Also wow, just now realizing that it has multiplayer, too. Weird. GoW does not feel like a multiplayer game to me. Now let's watch the video and see what your points are :)
I haven’t played this game just to save myself the disappointment , but I really liked the mechanics of the combat with the blades , & the platforming. The puzzles were good, not to difficult unlike GOW 1. The story and plot holes are something I can’t accept with this , going back and forth between the past and present is something that really threw me off watching the walkthrough, although i have to say that the enemies are something new, the rating for this game is 4/10. It’s low for many reasons as we know already, but it’s not a bad game so to speak but I feel like the new director and script writers just weren’t up to actually make the story make sense /:
The multiplayer has the worst gameplay balance i ever seen. Reckoning of Zeus + Blade of Olympus meant an insta-win on any fight, as long as Zeus players had enough magic to use that broken floating electrical orb. I think Ascension would have been way better if they only made the game multiplayer and focused on it more. It does deserve a re-release with adjustments. Like making the co-op campaign. Also MightyNifty, we were able to get all DLCs of Ascension for free for a day or two every anniversary since it's released, i was able to get them 2 years later if i recall correctly. You also had exclusive items like Leonidas' set of armor and weapons (iirc) and Kratos' very own tattoo. As for the single player, i think Ascension should have been delayed for the PS4. It would have met their ambitions way better.
I think the biggest issue with Ascension, for me at least, was how EVERYTHING was average. Putting aside the framerate which was ABYSMAL and terrible in my opinion, the story, the music, the gameplay was painfully average. And I say painfully because the other GoW's for me are all at least a 7/10 for me (the lowest being the ones from the PSP). This one was so much less than the others. The visuals are amazing, incredible for a PS3 game, it really shows how much they pushed the PS3s limits with it. Shame they never remastered the game to run in 60 fps at full hd on the PS4 because then the resolution would be much better. For me also the lack of skills, the 4 dpad buttons are all the elemental options but I guess I understand why they didn't want to give you powers like the poseidon skills in other games, it could've been different though. I would pretty much prefer them making the game which is related to when Kratos killed his family, how he rose to the top as a true leader, being a top soldier, something along those lines would've been incredible. Or even, some of the tasks he had to complete for Ares, some sort of creature that Ares wanted you to defeat idk All in all, I think the game is good, but it's average at everything, might as well have never made this game imo, as you stated in the begining, people were fatigued of the series at that point
The most rewarding part of GOW gameplay is the giant slam finishers using the triangle button. Putting that on a meter ruined it for me. I didn't finish the game. Still ticks me off.
Unpopular opinion: this is my favourite GoW game. Kratos' rampage in GoW3 is beyond unbearably primitive, whereas in Ascension, he's fierce without acting like a psycho.
You could have just bought the game for 10 dollars digitally and it would have come with the online pass lol. Anyways, nice vid. You deserve WAY more views.
@@YourVideosDogchitHeresWhy at the start of the game when he's captured then free its shown us flashback weeks before of his journey of how he ended up where he was at the beginning of the game which is why it shows us two flashback and also him trying to break his bond with ares and get the fries off his back who are trying to force him to return to aries also this is not about him trying to kill the gods he didn't even serve them yet until after this game killing them won't be until years later even I could understand what this game is about also this game take place six months after he killed his family
great review but, somehow your mic got worse since 2018. Your gow 2 retrosepctive had much better voice audio quality. Maybe it was a fluke idk but great job regardless
The main gist of the plot is: God of War 1 - Kratos at the start of the game was currently serving the Greek gods, he had grown tired of doing the bidding for the gods of doing their dirty works, Athena appears and convinced Kratos to find and kill his employer Ares to "free" him of his misery and forgive himself for accidentally murdering his family. Ascension - Kratos at the start was already bound and chained by the Furies, thus it was established in this supposed "prequel" that Kratos offscreen already betrayed Ares and seeks for his death, that is why the entire plot revolved around the fury sisters pursuing Kratos for severing his contract with Ares. The existence of Ascension, just made the origin plot confusing, people are baffled of what went first?
In the first game it is explicitly stated that Kratos left Ares 10 years before killing him. Ascension takes place 6 months after Kratos kills his family. In the first game it is stated Kratos knew he couldn’t work for Ares after killing his family. The plot doesn’t get confused, you’re just misremembering.
Ascension is not a PREQUEL, it is more like a REIMAGINING (not a remake) or retelling of the events that happened in God of War 1, the origin story between the two games will just end up being confusing