The announcement of God of War: Ascension was both a glorious moment and a moment of dread. Thoughts crossed my mind that after three brilliant games the series would be dragged on to make a little cash, though thankfully that was not the case! Ascension is a welcome addition to the series and explores another side to Kratos.
Story
God of War: Ascension is set ten years before the original God of War and tells the story of Kratos in search for the truth, showing the characters calmer side. Six long months have passed since Kratos stood with the bodies of his wife and 
child – stained with their blood after being deceived by Ares into killing those he loved. After vowing to avenge them Kratos broke the blood oath with Ares. For breaking his oath he was sentenced to a lifetime chained in a prison for the living damned, driven to insanity by the Furies. Kratos is tested as he seeks his freedom and redemption for his sins.
The story is nothing short of brilliant and ties nicely into the rest of the God of War games. As mentioned earlier we see a calmer side to Kratos in this game which is a nice change, though this did take a while for me to get used to. The pacing felt a bit slow for the first hour of the game but as the story picked up it felt like it kept to a decent pace which will keep players engaged within the game. I don’t want to spoil the story for players, though there are some amazing moments and bosses in game which will show off the true beauty of the God of War series.
Gameplay
The gameplay in the God of War series should be well known if you have played any other entries by now. Combat generally focuses on using the square and triangle buttons to perform blade attacks and circle to perform punches, generally mashing the buttons makes Kratos perform some brilliant moves. Now don’t get me wrong, I know there are combos which can be used to make stronger attacks… but 
essentially all the fighting consists of is mashing buttons. New items within Ascension add to the combat, such as the Amulet of Uroborus which allows you to pause enemy movements and get hits in. This and other additions (which I will not spoil for you guys) improve combat, though sadly there isn’t really any need for them on the Easy and Normal modes due to simple attacks being the easiest option. I used to hate quick time events, but in combat God of War makes effective use of them and I actually felt as if I were performing some of the actions. When you get to the big bosses the use of quick time is brilliantly performed. Damage dealt from enemies also needs to be talked about. I’ll throw this under combat because it seems like the best place for it to be, but the amount of damage enemies deal to you seems to be very minimal on the Easy and Normal difficulties. I understand that they are the easier modes but I played through Normal mode without needing health except for on the odd occasions. When you hit the harder modes though damage dealt from enemies increases causing your health to fall very fast. I just hoped that the Normal mode at least would cause your health to drop a tad faster.
Puzzle elements featured in Ascension were done spectacularly well. The previously mentioned Amulet of Uroborus is used to Heal and Decay parts of the environment, which leaves interesting puzzles where you will have to work out how far to Heal/Decay the environment to allow progression. The puzzles in the game start off fairly easy but as I started thinking they were too easy the difficulty of the puzzles increased, leaving some areas in the game which took me a while to work out the puzzle.
Now so far I haven’t really said anything negative about Ascension, but that’s hard to do with the platforming segments. The platforming segments are genuinely a nice break from the fighting and puzzles, helping to show off the spectacular environments that the game has to offer. Though whilst they are a nice break, the platforming segments tend to go on for longer than they should leaving the player wanting to get back into the fighting sections. It would have been better if the 
platforming segments were shortened down, whilst saying this though there is one chapter in the game as you are about to enter the Temple of Delphi which features a great platforming segment.
The camera needs to be talked about specifically here because it does truly seem to have a mind of its own! Don’t get me wrong most of the time the camera is fine within the game, though there are some segments where the camera decides to zoom out to show players the massive area they are in. Yes it looks beautiful but the problem is it happened in the middle of combat and I could barely see where I was compared to the enemies. On harder modes this could be a problem because health rapidly goes down, though on the easier modes this was not as much of a problem with loosing health. When the camera isn’t trying to make combat difficult, it is positioned in perfect places to capture the beauty of the area you are in, and to show of the sheer size of enemies when you have to scale them when fighting.
Graphics/Feel of the Game
Now I need to clear up firstly that when I mention ‘Graphics’ I do not plan to talk about the quality and how realistic God of War looks, but the look of the locations in game and how they add to the game.
Even though I said I wouldn’t mention it though, God of War‘s environments look highly realistic. There were several times throughout the story I paused and looked at the scenery just because of how beautiful it looked. You can tell a lot of time and effort was put into crafting these landscapes because they do genuinely make you want to stop and take them in. On top of the scenery though bosses and enemies are well designed and fit well to Greek Mythology. The giant bosses you fight look brilliant in the environments and, alongside the camera angles, show off the sheer quality of this game.
Music/Soundtrack
There isn’t too much I can really say on the soundtrack, though it is epic and makes you feel like a true warrior as you are fighting enemies. Sometimes in game the soundtrack seems to pause temporarily and restart which was a shame because the soundtrack really adds to the gameplay.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer… it seems to be a feature which is thrown into every game these days doesn’t it? The recent release of Tomb Raider had its own Multiplayer mode thrown in and quite frankly God of War‘s multiplayer is how I view Tomb Raider‘s. Yes the first few matches are enjoyable but after that there really isn’t anything appealing about it compared to other big multiplayer games. If you are a big fan of multiplayer features on games, don’t get me wrong, you may have hours of fun on this – but if you aren’t a big fan of multiplayer, and didn’t enjoy the multiplayer on games such as Assassin’s Creed or Tomb Raider, you probably won’t really enjoy Ascension‘s multiplayer.
The Positives and Negatives
+ Beautiful, highly detailed environments.
+ Bosses are epic, make the player feel like they are a great warrior.
+ Great use of quick time events.
+ Over the top bloody action makes the player feel epic.
– While the platforming segments are a nice break they tend to go on for longer than they should, making the player want to get back to fighting.
– Camera is awkward at times.
– Same mechanics as previous God of War games, mashing square and triangle pretty much kills most enemies with little difficulty.
– Whilst multiplayer is fun at first, it isn’t really an appealing feature. After a few matches you more than likely will not come back.
The Score
Whilst having low hopes for a new addition to the God of War series I have been pleasantly surprised with a well written, beautiful looking game which adds plenty to the series without feeling the slightest bit repetitive. If you’re a fan of the God of War series you will have an enjoyable experience, and for those who haven’t played any of the games in the series so far this is a great starting point. Whilst the Multiplayer mode may be lacking there is definitely a brilliant Single Player Mode which is the core element of this game.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
You must be logged in to post a comment.