God of War (2005)

The traits of the classic Greek hero differ substantially from the ones of a contemporary one. While the latter is tied to the morality of their society, the former is in no way concerned with notions of right and wrong: their vocabulary, instead, circles around the concept of glory. Kratos, the protagonist of God of War, is one of those heroes. He massacres the innocent, commands vast armies, scales titans, escapes from deadly traps, faces colossal monsters, and even attempts to kill a god. He does terrible things, there is no doubt, but also incredible things.

God of War begins with its most fantastic battle: Kratos needs to eliminate a huge Hydra that is sinking ships in the Aegean Sea. The multi-headed serpent is fierce and pierces the structures of vessels in search of the Spartan, spreading chaos and destruction. The hero, however, can withstand the force of the creature’s jaws, matching its fury and violence. The visual spectacle is achieved with quick-time events that attempt to fully capture the scope of the action by allowing more elaborate choreography and camerawork.

The game’s plot is simple: Kratos is imbued with the mission of killing Ares by the gods of Olympus. The war god had become a nuisance, attacking the city of Athens without provocation, and needs to be eliminated – as a reward, Kratos would have his dark past forgiven.

In God of War, Greek mythology is modified without any shame when it gets in the way of the game’s story or action: there are a ton of minotaurs and medusas, for example, ransacking the city of Athens, killing everyone in their path. The Olympian gods are represented a bit more faithfully: they offer small aids to their champions but prove to be considerably treacherous.

Early on in the game, Ares’ minions are easily dispatched by the Spartan: Kratos’ blades, which are attached to chains embedded in his flesh, cut through the air, tearing apart and vaporizing every enemy they meet. This first level quickly shows the brutality of the action: Kratos rips the heads off of his enemies with the push of a button. The combat system is a simple one, mixing wide horizontal attacks and short verticals ones with grabs in easy-to-perform combos. The spells that the gods of Olympus offer Kratos also guarantee a good visual spectacle: one electrocutes all nearby enemies, for instance, while the Spartan screams. It becomes clear, then, that without a high budget, God of War would never have worked; without its eloquently brutal animations, the combat would lose its main appeal: the spectacle.

After all, Kratos will decimate armies of monsters, but unless you’re facing them on harder difficulties, he’ll be able to do so with the same strategy every time: the Prometheus Plume combo (square + square + triangle) can dispatch basically everything in the game. However, increasing the difficulty encourages players to learn each monster’s attack pattern and how to make good use of spells to beat them.  One of the causes of these problems is that the game has very few boss fights, which would have helped push the player to think about what they’re doing: there are only three, including the Hydra at the beginning and Ares at the end.

Considering that the fight against the Hydra is arguably the most impressive of the three, this means that the game’s action is not structured very well, making God of War feel like it had its climax during its first few minutes.

The level design, on the other hand, is much better developed, becoming progressively more complex: large locations, for example, will eventually interconnect when certain buildings collapse. And the scope of the environments also increases: the best example is Pandora’s Temple, a huge maze that is chained on the back of the Titan Kronos. The camera angle first shows a desert stretching far beyond the horizon while the Titan travels vast expanses with a single step, and then focuses on the temple’s entrance, revealing several harpies feeding on the remains of fallen warriors.

Pandora’s Temple is a huge, complex maze, filled with deadly traps and terrible monsters. There are corridors decorated with spiked plates covered in blood, halls that require human sacrifice – which Kratos never hesitates to offer – giant lava pits and sunken tunnels that lead to centaurs, medusas, and minotaurs. Although the absence of a boss at its end breaks the growing tension, Pandora’s Temple still remains the most impressive and memorable location in the game.

Since spectacle is the main attraction in God of War, special attention has been paid to the game’s presentation, which certainly pushed the PlayStation 2 hardware to its limits back then. Some environments, such as the ships in the Aegean Sea, are being constantly destroyed by monsters, while several huge creatures occupy the screen. Meanwhile, the soundtrack builds up the adrenaline through the aggressive use of choirs and drums.

The heroes of ancient Greece were heroes because they did extraordinary things: they provided spectacle for the people. God of War certainly follows this guideline, delivering relentless action and a memorable adventure.

August 15, 2018.

Review originally published in Portuguese on July 18, 2015.