God of War: Ascension

Narrative-wise, God of War: Ascension is as redundant a prequel as the PSP games, bringing a story that adds absolutely no new layer to its protagonist’s struggles. It follows the series’ formula closely, maintaining a sense of scope and epicness by providing exciting and grandiose set pieces, but ultimately falls short on purpose: Kratos will do incredible things once again, but we’ll still be left wondering…why?

The story focuses on the magical bond between Kratos and the god of war, Ares. Being led by a mysterious figure, the Spartan seeks a way to break that bond and finally become free of Ares, but mythical entities called Furies will stop at nothing to ensure that he keeps his oath, imprisoning him.

As expected, the game begins once again with a fight against a giant monster but, especially when compared to the battle against Poseidon in God of War III, this time the creature seems random and without personality. At least the fight looks cool: by grabbing and attacking the monster, Kratos makes the structure he’s standing on move as well, since the creature is connected to it. Soon after this clash, Kratos then uses a similar monster to battle an even bigger one, surprising players with the scope of the fight.

However, this is all happening in a flashforward and, funnily enough, when the narrative moves back to the present, Kratos keeps the upgrades he got during these battles in the future. In Ascension, the progression system makes no sense whatsoever: while the narrative is non-linear, going back and forth in time, the Spartan’s powers follow a linear progression. So, Kratos will be at his weakest at the beginning of the game – but not of the story – and then become progressively stronger. This means that he’ll have the power-ups he got in the future in the present, and lack the power-ups he got in the present in the future. In other words, it’s a mess that the game bets we won’t notice or care.

The sense of scale, on the other hand, is well-built: one huge and memorable sequence has Kratos jumping, sliding, and running across giant metal snakes that are the size of mountains while they move around a huge tower and through caves of ice. The game ends this sequence with one of its many foolish moments, though, since after arriving at the top of the tower, Kratos finds out that a common man carrying apples was able to climb it as well – and just in time to be killed by a monster.

One of Ascension’s main problems lies with its story. Players familiar with previous games will already know that Kratos succeeds in breaking his oath to Ares, so there’s no suspense tied to the plot, no meaningful surprises are waiting for us. The characters are also, as always, one-note in their violence: Kratos is a force of destruction who kills everything in his path and the Furies have no personality either. They only speak admittedly funny insults like “you fight like an Athenian” and meaningless threats like “meet your end,” which is said while Kratos is facing… three dogs.

There is an attempt to tie the events in Ascension to the first God of Wars by creating a traitorous plot to overthrow Zeus, but that doesn’t change anything or shed new light on what happens in previous games: after all, we already know that Ares was not a particularly good person – or god. So, making him even more evil does nothing to the character.

The game also urges us to buy that Kratos fully believes the absurd illusions he encounters at the Furies’ prison. As if he would suddenly see a harem full of women in the middle of nowhere and only become suspicious when he spots one of the Furies’ rings in one of the women. Kratos may be a one-note character, but he is not stupid.

The environments, though, are always grandiose and filled with morbid details. The Furies, for example, are mythical entities charged with dealing with those who break blood oaths, twisting their flash and bones. Their first victim, Hecatonchires, were transformed in the prison itself: an enormous organic structure destined to be a house of torment and death. It’s a pity, then, that these settings are not accompanied by a good story, which leaves them dramatically empty.

Regarding gameplay, God of War: Ascension brings new things and adjustments to the table, especially to the combat. Now, for example, we can grab monsters and run them against walls, which results in special animations, and also kick and punch monsters with the O button. The same button is used to attack with weapons left by the enemies, which vary from spears to swords and maces. Besides that, the rage meter now depletes when Kratos is hit, encouraging us to be on the offensive and use it before it’s too late. And finally, Kratos now has elemental powers at his disposal – fire, ice, electricity, and…souls – each one with its own combos and magic specials, which adds a bit of variety to the proceedings.

We eventually get the power to make objects move in time, too, “healing” or “decaying” them. It’s a neat power at first and an early puzzle about a waterwheel stands out, but it’s never fully developed: we don’t have to pay attention to our surroundings to use the power, because the game always tells us when it is needed. In other words, players don’t have to observe and think too much but only follow the prompts. The same can be said about the ability to clone Kratos, which comes too late in the game to have any real impact.

Finally, we come to the new multiplayer aspect of the game: a chaotic, but fun mess that should have had many more maps to be fully developed. We choose a god as a Patron and then go to arenas to open chests and defeat other players with a rock-paper-scissors battle system, based on grabs, attacks, and parries. It’s just an attempt to make things fresh – but good luck trying to find a match nowadays.

God of War: Ascension focuses too much on the epic scale of the franchise and forgets to make it part of a great story. What the game offers, then, are great but hollow set pieces.

March 03, 2025.