God of War: Ascension
12 Mar 2013
All releases
12 Mar 2013 - PlayStation 3
13 Mar 2013 - PlayStation 3
14 Mar 2013 - PlayStation 3
31 Oct 2013 - PlayStation 3
Tags
Time to beat
Main story
Main story + extras
100% completion
God of War: Ascension, the seventh instalment in the God of War series, acts as a prequel to the preceding games. The narrative revolves around Kratos, the protagonist from earlier instalments, who was once a loyal servant of the God of War, Ares. Tricked by Ares into unknowingly murdering his own family, Kratos breaks the blood oath binding him to Ares and abandons his former master. Subsequently, Kratos finds himself imprisoned and must navigate a path to freedom, severing the bond between him and Ares. The game retains the familiar hack-and-slash combat system of its predecessors, featuring Kratos wielding the Blades of Chaos. However, a new addition, the World Weapon system, allows Kratos to wield various weapons. Additionally, Kratos can now acquire up to four magical disciplines—Fires of Ares, Ice of Poseidon, Lightning of Zeus, and Soul of Hades—each bestowing unique abilities and imbuing his weapon with magic. For instance, the Ice of Poseidon enables underwater breathing. Rage, a recurring feature, undergoes modifications; it accumulates through attacks, and when the bar is full, it automatically unleashes until the player ceases attacking or sustains damage. Three new relics provide Kratos with the ability to manipulate time, create a "shadow" self, and dispel illusions crafted by his guardians. Notably, God of War: Ascension introduces online multiplayer to the series. Players, before engaging in multiplayer battles, align with one of four gods—Ares, Hades, Zeus, or Poseidon—each offering a distinct set of abilities. As players accumulate experience and level up their warriors, they unlock magical abilities, armour, weapons, relics, and other treasures. The game features four distinct multiplayer modes: Team Favor of the Gods, Match of Champions, Trial of the Gods, and Capture the Flag
In a war between the astronomically large deities known as the Primordials, the madness and rage of the war took form, becoming the three guardians of honor, the Furies, who were tasked with exacting retribution onto any oath-breaker or betrayer. The first victim of the Furies was the Hecatonchires, Aegaeon, who had broken a blood oath to Zeus himself. The Furies set about their task, and, believing death to be too kind for one who had broken an oath to a God, transformed Aegaeon's humongous body into a stone prison for all who would dare follow his example in the future.
Narrative is weak, this time around Santa Monica decided to spice things up to and decided to cut away to different points of the journey atleast a dozen of times, making following the story somewhat hard at times, but they do continue to shift to a more narrative heavy approach, the gradual shift that began with GOW3 and all the way until the reboot. It was rather nice seeing Kratos being and feeling more human in Ascension, showing more emotion spectrum than just anger and guilt this time around.
Gameplay is not as good as in the previous entry, shifted from large weapon variety to magic of greek gods, something I did not find appealing, but picking up destructable enemy weapons did bring some much needed variety. The overall feel of the combat, the sound of weapons have a good punch to it, is rather satisfying.
The highlight of Ascension is the enhanced fidelity and the impressive set pieces that will make you jaw drop even today.
Overall Ascension is just more god of war, if you love this series then nothing should hold you back (besides no current gen port being available, as of yet that is), especially if you miss the huge set pieces and scale that was somewhat missing from in Norse entries.
