Finished this up last night, and I have to say it was one hell of a ride. The combat was so much more fluid. I loved the grapple move, and the secondary weapons (especially the Cestus) were a lot more fun to use than in previous games (with the possible exception of the hard-to-learn but super efficient barbarian hammer in GoW2). The boss fights (except 1) were epic, and there were quite a few of them. Even the grunt fights were mixed up with enough variety to make it feel like you were fighting the same enemies over and over. Those last 2 points were what kept Arkham Asylum from being truly great. As has been mentioned repeatedly, this game is beautiful. The backgrounds and detail are just incredible, and the moving landscape while fighting atop Titans was pretty damn amazing. I thought Kratos and enemies flowed in their attack and traversal movements. DD, the facial work was top notch. I was looking for your name in the credits, but didn't see it. I'll have to watch again when I'm not so damn tired. My chief complaint is the story, although I'm with RC and hated the vent sections. I only died in them a few times, but they just seemed out of place along with a "WTF were they thinking?" musical puzzle. Some have wondered why the game didn't get higher than 9.1's and 9.2's, and I think you should look no further than the story. Spoiler Why couldn't they just have this be about Kratos and his revenge? I didn't see the need to bring Pandora or the box back into the story. Zeus was plenty motivated to kill Kratos because of his war on other cities in GoW2 as well as his lack of respect for Olympus. They didn't need to get all mystic and have the power of the box infecting Zeus. The game should have featured Kratos battling his way to the top of Olympus, fighting Gods and Titans along the way, until he reached Zeus and took the King down. I really didn't like the end at all. I was feeling all epic after the Scorpion battle, beating the Labyrinth, killing that Cerebus, and taking out the statues. Then I apparently took on Zeus in Street Fighter. This was the best they could do for the final boss battle of God of War? The second phase was pointless. At least the fight by Gaia's heart was entertaining, but then the whole trip through that shadow land, the final takedown of Zeus, and the end bit with Athena was pretty lame. I hated to see a great gaming experience end with such a letdown of a battle and story, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the game as a whole.
I disagree to an extent. Spoiler The street fighter battle was definitely weak. I thought the rest was great. Especially continuously mashing "O" as your screen covers with blood while you bash Zeus's face in until either your thumb gets tired or you just get impatient. And I like scene after the credits.
So, beat the game last night on Titan mode. It was very punishing towards the end. Spoiler From the scorpion, to that Icaurs vent to the judges, and then the freakin 3 headed fire dog back down in Hades. I spent a good 3 hrs just doing those. It was brutal, but was a blast! I personally thought the last boss fight was awesome. Spoiler The Street Fighter type fight was fun as hell. The music was epic and it was the king of god and his son going at it fist to fist. What's there, not to like about it? Hitting each other against the wall with brutal force. Awesome! It reminded me of the fist fight between Snake and Ocelot at the end of MGS4, except this was done even better IMO. Then you fight him on a platform which Gaia takes down and you end up inside of her (Developers said they had an awesome epilogue and a final fight on the titan scrapped, but will definitely look into releasing it as downloadable content as they have done enough work on it already. So perhaps you will be able to fight Zeus on Gaia for a little while, or maybe it's just something else that they were talking about). Regardless, once you're inside of her, you get a classic Zeus fight like you did in GOW2, where you're fighting against his magic. This part was hard as hell on Titan mode, but once again, a lot of fun. Next, you finally take him down in first person view after your dream (more on that below), and you beat his ass until the screen turns red and you keep going as long as YOU wish. Like the developers making a point in letting you feel the brutality of Kratos. I loved it, and don't really know what else someone could want. It was an epic boss fight altogether. I loved every second of the game. I also completely disagree on the story complaints. I couldn't have asked for a better ending personally. The whole ending sequence gave Kratos more character than all the hours of the 3 games combined IMO. Spoiler It really made sense out of all 3 games with the ending IMO. In the beginning of the first game, Kratos had lost all hope and was trying to kill himself, because the gods had be-trade him. This was a flashback, and actually took place at the end of the game. Throughout GOW1, Athena convinced him to go open Pandora's box and he would be forgiven for his sins. Once he opened the box, he essentially gave himself "hope" while letting out "fear" on the gods. This made the gods more "mortal" in a sense, as they were able to "fear" death and Kratos himself (You could also say "fear" is why Zeus was so hell-bent on destroying Kratos after GOW1). In turn, it allowed Kratos to kill Ares with the "hope" that his nightmares would end and that he could be at peace. When his nightmares continued, he realized that the gods had be-trade him, and that "hope" was lost until the end of GOW3. It kind of ties into why Kratos is so inhumane for the 3 games, and is able to do what he does without any remorse or guilt. The ending of GOW3 had Kratos trying to save Pandora because he didn't want to kill a child since Hephaestus kept comparing her to Kratos' daughter. She was the one that spoke of "hope" and how it's the only thing that drives us further. She was also the only one able to penetrate the flame of Olympus. We see Kratos opening Pandora's Box after the flame dies out, and it's empty... It's already been opened in GOW1, and the box is what's been driving him forward through 3 games and what's been the Achilles' heel for the gods. Before finally finishing off Zeus, Kratos goes into his dream world where he sees all the people he's killed and the "light at the end of the tunnel" (literally) is Pandora speaking of "hope." He realizes that he's had that "glimmer of hope" (once again, literally) all along, and had suppressed it after the gods be-trade him in GOW1. He finally kills Zeus after his realization, and then seeing the chaos he's created throughout the world with his rage and revenge, he decides to let hope out into the world by killing himself instead of giving it back to Athena. He has nothing to live for anymore... It's the stuff of a classic Greek tragedy. It's hard to make you feel sorry for a character as brutal as Kratos, but I feel the developers achieved that in spades. Yes it's preachy, and some can proclaim it as cheesy, but hell it's Greek mythology. I love Greek mythology! It's very fitting for what the context behind it, and the story just ties together IMO. I much prefer this ending to the predictable usual endings in games like Kratos killing Zeus and yelling "RAWRRR, I KILLED ALL THE GODS." The End... I also have to say the music was fan-freakin-tastic in this game. The chants in Hades, to the uptempo horns blazing epicness during boss battles, to the more emotional soft tunes showing Kratos and the sword of Olympus soaked in blood at the end... Just awesome stuff with the soundtrack. Really shows how a great soundtrack can enhance an experience 10x fold. They also left it open at the ending scene after the credits. Did Kratos crawl away, or did he throw himself over the cliff like in part 1? Guess we'll find out someday... Overall, an amazing experience, which would be my 2nd favorite game on the PS3 as of now. Uncharted 2 still being 1st for now. A second play through of GOW3 might change that though...
Trudging through God of War II right now. I'm not really reading anything in this thread so as to avoid spoilers for God of War III. But really, do people find the obscure puzzles and button-mashing to open doors fun? I get no enjoyment out of these things.
Without spoiling anything, I just finished it and have to agree with you on the ending. It seemed to be the most fitting. I don't get all the fuss about it. Great game. It may be my second platinum trophy.
It does. I don't like thinking too much in games. I don't like having to place the block onto the elevator, raise the elevator, and then push another block under the elevator as it comes down in order to get to a really high spot.
The one thing I really like about the game is the pacing. There really aren't any dull moments in the game.
Well then, you should be just fine in GOW3. The puzzles are pretty self-explanatory and short. Other than one, you should be good in the whole game. Yup, GOW2 and GOW3 have some excellent pacing. Things are never dull and the action is varied and right around the corner at any point.
Agreed. You really do go quickly from set piece to set piece and boss fight to boss fight. I never thought the game ground down to a halt. I enjoyed playing this on Titan too. Some of the bosses were brutal, but I had a real sense of accomplishment after learning their patterns and taking them down. GoW2 is very simliar, but the first had you find monotonous grunts a few too many times without many bosses or epic pieces (excluding the Hydra, Minotaur, and Ares).
how to people survive in Titan mode when blocking doesn't always work? Do you just hit square, square, roll, rinse and repeat?
Well it's hard to explain, but for the attacks that are unblockable, you need to get the timing right so you can roll in and do your combos before rolling out of the way. It's fun to keep getting better at that. Just trying it over and over again will make you better.
Really depends on who you're fighting. Get their patterns down and try different weapons, some seem to work better on certain enemies than others. Also the ability to fly away from an area made a huge impact on my strategy.
It's a lot more about evasion and defense. I used grunts a lot for the battering ram and to throw them at enemies. The grapple move and the Icarus dodge helped out a ton. I also used the bow quite a bit. You can't get a lot of the heavy combos in, but you can often do the first few moves where the don't land and then score the heavy finale on an enemy. The bosses were tough, especially... Spoiler Hades, the Scorpion, and the final phase of Zeus. But those are about learning their patterns and evasion.
I'm playing II right now too. Just beat the Eurlyale (Medusa). But I'm playing in normal, so I'm breezing through. Very fun game so far.
Question on God of War III: can you control the camera? Playing GoW II makes me frusturated because there might be some stairs obscurely hidden behind a bush but I can't see because of the camera angle.
Nope. No camera control in any of the games in the trilogy. GoW3 does have a few panoramic view spots that you can stand at and pan the camera. They actually have a video in the bonus features that talks about the camera team, who claims they couldn't make the game look as good if the player had control of the camera.
Finished it last night. Still trying to formulate my thoughts on the storyline and ending. However, I do wish Spoiler that they wouldn't have taken the easy way out and left it open as to whether or not Kratos is dead. The developers said this would effectively be the end of the Kratos storyline, so it is disappointing to see them not follow through on his tragic conclusion.
