God of War: Ascension
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God of War: Ascension is a 2013 action hack and slash game developed by Santa Monica Studios and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the seventh game in the God Of War series, the first chronologically, as well as the first to include multiplayer. It is a prequel to the games, set six months after Kratos murdered his wife and child.
Why It Rocks
- The game uses a more enhanced version of the engine used for God of War III, allowing for some of the most realistic graphics on the PlayStation 3.
- The game makes it to where Kratos is a lot calmer and seemingly more depressed given how soon it was from when he killed his family. It's also a great contrast to show where Kratos was mentally when his vengeance journey started versus where he is in GoW III.
- A decent story that explains that Ares chose Kratos because he was looking for the perfect warrior so he could overthrow Zeus and that Orkos death is the reason for Kratos' nightmares in the first game.
- Introduces multiplayer, a first in the series, with customizable characters as well as lots of modes, weapons and maps.
- Some new magic and items.
- Magic
- Fire of Ares: Emits fire from the Blades and when the Rage meter is charged, Kratos throws his Blades into an enemy and plants a searing core of fire. Incinerating enemies yields Gold Orbs.
- Ice of Poseidon: It breaks blocks and freezes enemies. It can also summon glaciers to damage foes and also had the ability to freeze enemies and then instantly killed them by shattering them. When the Rage meter is charged, Kratos impales enemies with his Blades and blasts the power of Poseidon into chained foes. Freezing enemies yields large Red Orbs.
- Lightning of Zeus: Electrify enemies quickens your attack and damage in combat. When the Rage meter is filled, Kratos channels the lightning of Olympus into his Blade to shock enemies. Electrocuting enemies yields Blue Orbs.
- Soul of Hades: Release the souls of the Underworld to do your bidding. Vaporizing enemies yields Green Orbs.
- Items
- Amulet of Uroborus: The amulet was stolen by Castor and Pollux from the Oracle of Delphi and contains the power to warp time around the object or enemy it hits. He uses it on several occasions in the game, able to heal or decay. In the E3 Demo, Kratos uses this ability to reconstruct an elevator, which is destroyed by Charybdis (Alecto). When used on enemies, they are slowed for a while, so if they are in the air at the time the magic is activated, they remain there for a few seconds. This ability does not deplete Kratos' magic, instead, it requires the relic to recharge for a short amount of time.
- Oath Stone of Orkos: This stone contains the power to create a shadow of Kratos. This power is used to solve puzzles as it copies Kratos' pose to hold cranks and chains in place. Later on in the game, it had to be used in combination with the other items to solve a puzzle.
- Eyes of Truth: The Eyes of Truth is an item given from Oracle to Oracle to overcome the dark magic of the Furies. Kratos obtains it during his journey and can use it dispel the magic barriers created by the Furies.
- Magic
- The game introduces a new disarm mechanic. This allows Kratos to disarm his enemies and use their own weapons against them. They can be discarded anytime, by doing so, he throws the weapon at an enemy stunning them in the process. There are five weapons that are present:
- Sword
- Spear
- Club
- Shield
- Sling
- Great soundtrack by Tyler Bates.
- Great voice acting.
- There are artifacts that grant benefits similar to the Urns and Relics of the Gods when playing New Game+.
- Prisoner's Oath Stone - Grants infinite rage
- Circe's Vial - Allows Kratos to have the triple of the length of Combo time.
- Oracle Seeker's Offering - Kratos will collects ten times the amount of red orbs.
- Aletheia's Charm - Decreases damage taken by one-third
- Boat Captain's Idol - Grants infinite magic
- Orkos' Cloak - Causes your Health meter to slowly increase over time.
- Stonemason's Chisel - Reduces cooldown time
- Archimedes' Treatise - Automatically wins all context sensitive minigames.
- Statue Worker's Idol - Increases stun time
- Antikythera Mechanism - Constant Health drain (non-beneficial effect)
- Early versions came with a special beta for The Last Of Us multiplayer.
- Online pass of the game also gives you Zeus and Clark from Dead Space for free on PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale.
Bad Qualities
- Some aspects have been changed for the worse.
- Unlike any of the other GoW games, there are no sub-weapons which means you can't make more elaborate combos, leading to the gameplay being all the more repetitive. This might have been done to encourage the use of enemy weapons.
- One of the largest changes to the combat involves the Rage meter. This meter doesn't increase Kratos' damage to enemies nor does it let you charge up your combo meter faster. Instead, it's now tied to the ability to use certain attacks, that is, unless the Rage meter is filled up. If you get hit, the Rage meter goes down, and you're unable to use those attacks. This was clearly an attempt to encourage both aggressive, and skillful play by constantly attacking, while avoiding damage. However, many of these locked moves are basic moves that you are able to use anytime in the previous games.
- The balancing is bad.
- The weapons aren't that powerful. The Blade of Chaos specifically don't get that much more powerful when upgraded. Even when fully upgraded, it takes almost as many hits to kill low level enemies as it would at level 1.
- The same goes for the upgrading system. Everything doesn't require much orbs with everything costing at most 5,000 Orbs, however the last two levels of the Blades require lots of orbs with level 4 requiring 12,000 and level 5 requiring 25,000.
- All of the Magic are reuses of Magic from previous games and instead of them being some kind of magical item they're instead elemental powers that are harnessed by the blade which is basically the equivalent of Fire, Ice, Electricity, and Soul.
- Fire of Ares is just a weaker Thera's Bane from Ghost of Sparta.
- Eye of the Storm is similar to that of Horn of Boreas from Ghost of Sparta.
- Lighting of Zeus makes the Blades just like the Nemesis Whip from III.
- Soul of Hades is just like the Claws of Hades from III.
- Some multiplayer modes can be repetitive.
- The combat arena and challenges were removed in favor of multiplayer (though there's a special gauntlet mode in multiplayer where you keep fighting enemies, can be played alone or multiplayer).
- Poor optimization.
- Unless you have lots of space on your PS3 hard drive, it is highly recommended to get the game physically, not digitally, since the game on the PS Store is over 80 GB, making it perhaps the largest PS3 game. It's even larger than many PS4 games.
- The game struggles to have a consistent frame-rate with it dipping into 15 FPS most of the time.
- The Trials of Archimedes. Basically, you must endure three waves, each with powerful enemies consisting of lightning sirens, gorgons, harpies and other powerful enemies. The real kicker is that there is little to no health powerups and if you die, you have to start from the first wave all over again. It became so bad that a patch was later released that made it so you regain health and magic for each of the waves cleared.
- Artificial Difficulty:
- Every time you receive a new weapon or magic, you will often fight against first level enemies and the game temporarily gives you unlimited magic in order to demonstrate your newfound powers against them. However, when you receive a new upgrade in this game, you will receive a new weapon element. While that sounds good enough, the problem is you will only utilize their powers if you either max your rage level which requires you not get hit (which in this game, is incredibly difficult), or if you waste your red orbs just to level the weapon to its maximum with the sole exception of the fire element where you will receive the magic. Essentially, when you first received it, it's no better than an ordinary weapon and since you couldn't even switch the element, the showcase sections has turned from feeling badass about your new powers into one of the most tedious enemy sections in the game in one of the worst level designs possible.
- They made it to where enemies with weapons can block most of your attacks including heavy attacks which makes all the more difficult to not only kill enemies, but also avoid being hit.
- One of the main criticism of the game is towards the story for being redundant as both Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta had already contextualized Kratos' hatred for the gods.
Reception
God of War: Ascension received "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic. Critics praised the fundamental gameplay and spectacle, but were critical of the lack of new ideas and gave a mixed response to the additional multiplayer mode. Alex Simmons of IGN said the redesigned combat system adds a source of depth: "Learning how to use each power effectively... provides a strategic lifeline when there's no energy re-gen chest nearby". Although he initially found the World Weapons useful, he felt that they became unnecessary after upgrading the Blades of Chaos. Simmons felt the magic system was a "positive step"; since magic attacks are unlocked at a later time, players cannot rely on them as much as they may have done in previous installments, which encourages players "to think wisely about where to allocate experience points rather than being the ultimate badass from the outset".
Combat and the new gameplay mechanics were well-received, with Dale North of Destructoid saying "God of War has never looked or played better than this", and Xav de Matos of Joystiq commenting that the combat is simpler than in God of War III, and rarely required much adjustment. Opinions on difficulty varied; Simmons felt that most of the gameplay was balanced, and that Ascension "is probably the easiest" in the series, but both he and Hollander Cooper of GamesRadar commented that some areas, such as the Trials of Archimedes, were too difficult. Simmons felt that in some sections, the many enemies made dying feel "cheap and frustrating", and in Cooper's opinion, some points in the game "test your patience, rather than your skills—including one (the Trials) that's easily the most difficult section in any God of War game to date, for all the wrong reasons".
Both Simmons and Matos criticized the story; Simmons felt that although the narrative is "meticulously delivered", it "felt a bit incidental", and said that in comparison to Zeus and Ares, "the Furies don't quite cut it". Matos was critical of the plot framing and the narrative structure as "just too chaotic"; he argued that "the narrative fabric woven throughout the franchise has begun to split", and Ascension does little to enhance its characters "in any meaningful way". He did praise the game for providing the "distinct God of War flair" known to the series.
Accolades
Unlike previous installments, God of War: Ascension won no awards, but it was nominated in several Best of E3 2012 categories by various media outlets. These nominations included "Best Action/Adventure" and "Best Multiplayer" from Game Rant, "Best PS3 Game" and "Best Action/Adventure Game" from G4, "Best PlayStation 3 Game" from Destructoid, and "Best PS3 Game" and "Best Action Game" from IGN. The game was a nominee for "Best Visual Design" at the 2013 Golden Joystick Awards. At the 2014 Writers Guild of America Videogame Awards, it was a nominee for "Outstanding Achievement in Videogame Writing" and during the 2014 D.I.C.E. Summit, it was a nominee for the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences award for "Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design".