Kratos and his mighty blades cross over to the PS3 in HD thanks to this PS3 remake.
Between all of my random gaming sessions on my PC, 360, and PS3 since I bought my PS3, I’ve been devoting time every once in a while to making my way through God of War: Collection, the PS3 HD remakes of the PS2 original God of War and its PS2 sequel, God of War II. I’ve finally completed them both and starting God of War III now. In any case, before I get too far into God of War III and it starts skewing my thoughts on the first two, let’s get to the review.
God of War
God of War was originally released on the PS2 back in 2005 by one of Sony’s own Santa Monica Studio. Hard to believe that its release was only five years ago, but it went on to win Game of the Year awards that year. Being a Sony owned IP, the series has become a series staple ever since then, with titles releasing on both the Sony PSP and PS3.
God of War follows the story of Kratos, a captain in the Spartan army who makes a deal with the original God of War, Ares. In return for saving his life, Kratos gives himself to Ares, and does his bidding. In his bloodlust, he was tricked by Ares into murdering his own family, and the game follows his journey of revenge to kill Ares and become the new God of War. Being based on Greek Mythology, the premise of the game features various characters, locales, and stories from Greek Mythology that have been modified a bit to shape the addition of Kratos into the world. It works wonderfully, and if it’s one thing I can say about God of War is that it’s storyline is phenomenal. The scope is huge, the cutscenes raw, and even Kratos himself is such a well designed and while angry, still quite the likeable protagonist.
Of course, the original issues I had when I played with the game back in 2005 were that the gameplay lacked the enjoyable depth that I had grown accustomed to from other competitors in the same genre, such as Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry. While I do still agree that God of War’s gameplay is not as enthraling as its Japanese competitors, its storyline is so good that it nearly makes me forget about the simplicity of its gameplay. TO be fair though, I don’t have any issues with its gameplay – the various weapons, special abilities, upgrades, etc. work fine – but it just seems to be lacking that special hook I find in Japanese games, such as Ninja Gaiden’s charge and decapitating combo system, and Devil May Cry & Bayonetta’s style system. Of course, God of War’s storyline easily dwarfs anything the Japanese seem to come up with to tell for their action/adventure games, so at least the God of War series has that major strength going for it. God of War also still destroys Dante’s Inferno – so don’t even bother with that one.
There are a couple negatives with the original God of War in the remake – one minor and one major. The minor issue I had with the remake is that the video cutscenes in this game seem to be in its native 480i or whatever form it originally was in back in 2005. It’s definitely rough on the eyes, but because it doesn’t quite affect gameplay, I’ll let it slide. The bigger issue with the game, and thankfully it happens in only a few places in the game, are its more frustrating gameplay elements: the beam balancing and the climb up the towers of spinning spikes towards the end of the game. For a game as fast-paced as God of War, to have to resort to walking slowly across balance beams (and even having to jump over moving spikes, etc.) just gets frustrating. The most frustrating though are several towers towards the end that have spinning spikes and if you mess up and get him by one, you get knocked all the way back down. It happens far more often than you expect, and this part of the game really had me cursing out loud – something that is quite rare for me. Overall though, the game still holds up quite well by today’s standards, especially after the “HD” remake.
God of War II
God of War II takes place where God of War left off, and [MINOR SPOILER AHEAD] Kratos has killed Ares and become the new God of War. Unfortunately, what fun is playing a game when you’re already a God? In any case, Zeus has some beef with Kratos and his war mongering, so he kills Kratos but as Kratos makes his way into the underworld, he is saved by the Titan Gaea. The Titans are basically are the Gods’ parents, and now that both of them have beef with Zeus, they sort of team up to bring him down. Overall, the sequel’s storyline is weaker than the original God of War’s epic scope because it feels a bit forced. In a way, the first God of War game could have basically been a one shot game with a finished storyline but the sequel drags it out a bit. The first half of the game is pretty bland, but the story picks up and finishes strong to set up a conclusion to the trilogy in epic fashion.
While the storyline of the second one isn’t quite as good as the first, a lot of enhancements have been made to the sequel’s gameplay that make the sequel not exactly inferior to the first. The two major issues with the first game – the blocky low res video cutscenes, and the frustrating balancing and spikey tower type gameplay elements were practically removed in the sequel. Maybe the technology got better when the PS2 version was originally released in 2007, and the cutscenes were able to be rendered in 480p then? Who knows – but the cutscenes in the PS3 re-release of God of War 2 are more inline with the new HD gameplay engine. It also looks like the team behind the sequel took the complaints of the frustrating balancing and spikes to heart, as they have been pretty much removed from the sequel.
The sequel also brings more interesting gameplay enhancements with the ability to swing from certain areas with Kratos’s chained blades and stop time during certain parts of the game to gain an advantage against enemies or to solve puzzles. I can’t forget the puzzles – God of War II has several of them, and to a degree, they actually are done well so that there is sometimes a nice little break from all the killing to solve certain puzzles. Often times the solution to a puzzle is something gruesome anyway, but I for one found the increase in the sequels’ puzzles not a bad thing. What’s also good is that the sequel clocks in at about 12 hours compared to the original’s 8 hours, so while the storyline is not as great, from a gameplay perspective, it’s superior to the first.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve never played one or either of these games and you’re a current PS3 owner, I definitely recommend checking this collection out. At the bargain price of $30 retail (or $60 bundled with a PS3 Dual Shock controller), it’s definitely worth owning. It took me about 20 hours to make it through both games, but with several difficulties, and various treasures to unlock, you can play the game for a lot longer if you enjoy the gameplay. Like other popular Western games, the God of War: Collection has a strong storyline, and if story is a major factor in your gameplay enjoyment, the God of War: Collection will deliver. Of course, if you’ve already played the original releases on the PS2, I can’t quite recommend them again, and it’s even difficult for me now to figure out a score for this collection based on games that were re-released. Am I reviewing the games in their original form, the quality of the re-release, or the what the experience would be like for a first time player of this HD collection? This collection certainly doesn’t have any innovation behind it, but it’s a good classic gaming collection nonetheless and worth owning for any PS3 owners that missed out on the original two games on the PS2.
Final Grade: B+
