God of War: Ascension Review - Beating a Dead Centaur
God of War: Ascension is a new God of War game. The statement may seem obvious, but as the game’s defining characteristicm it’s worth putting out there. While Kratos’ newest adventure shows how the Spartan bucks his personal fate, Ascension’s destiny was set the moment it was conceived. As the sixth entry in the God of War saga, much of the game serves up exactly what those who have played the series would expect. While minor gameplay tweaks have worked to make the combat seem more technical, Ascension is simply more.
When innovation, nuance and complexity fail, the modern video game generally falls back on shocking violence. God of War is an excellent example of gaming’s status quo and, while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing unto itself, without any new systems or a substantial tonal shift to hide behind, God of War: Ascension reveals that, no matter how polished, the appeal of blood and gore and women and monsters has its limits.
If nothing else, Ascension makes a great first impression. The game is far and away one of the best looking games on the PS3. You won’t ever mistake it for photo-realism, but Ascension is proof that developers still haven’t tapped the console’s true potential. Like any thing that knows it’s beautiful, the game gives players plenty of opportunities to admire its graphical fidelity with vistas showcasing long draw distances and moving buildings that shuffle and shift in defiance of our expectations.
Unfortunately, the game’s visual quality does itself a disservice at times. God of War has always been known for its violence, and Ascension delivers. Fantastic as they are, some of the game’s most brutal moments feel unsettling, instead of awe-inspiring. (For example, Kratos ends one of his quick-timed event kills by scalping a monster, leaving their brain exposed.) The game’s graphics aren’t the only reason Ascension’s violence feels less engaging. A thin layer of plot development fails to re-establish the bond between Kratos and the player: That disconnect leaves the gore feeling like an unnecessary spectacle instead of bloody gratification.
Set right before the beginning of the original God of War, Ascension brings us to Kratos has forsaken his bond to Ares, but hasn’t begun his journey for revenge. Before he can defy, he’s is imprisoned by the Furies, a trio of lady-like creatures who enforce the agreements struck between gods and men.
The premise has nice allegorical vibe, but game never builds that idea up into a fully functional story. Kratos runs where the camera directs him, kills things in magical arenas, and is occasionally reminded that “freedom” and “the truth” are his reasons for fighting. And you’ll need to be reminded: Whether you’re invested in the series or not, you will lose track of the moment-to-moment narrative.
As a prequel to a game with a well-defined narrative arc, Ascension’s plot is restrained by its pre-ordained finishing point: No matter what happens, Kratos must end up where he began in the original God of War. Ascension skirts around the issue with superficial story beats and a decided lack of character development.
Even the ghost of Sparta feels like a shadow of his former self: By the end of the God of War trilogy, Kratos was little more than anger personified: He didn’t have a personality beyond yelling. Kratos’ memory is wiped, so he doesn’t know why he should rebel, which means he’s not angry. While you might expect a seemingly pensive Kratos to make up for enthusiasm with genuine thoughts or feelings, as it turns out there isn’t much more to the man.
If you can avoid paying attention to overarching story, you may find the moment-to-moment playing of Ascension modestly enjoyable. God of War has a nice little niche is the world of action games: Its combat has enough complexity to reward skill, but doesn’t hamper novice players by demanding technical perfection. Ascension’s combat-related tweaks serve to build up that philosophy, adding more attacks to Kratos’ arsenal, without actually adding a technical barrier to entry.
Intelligently conceding that most players will never switch away from Kratos’ iconic chain-blades, Ascension trades Kratos’ traditional arsenal for elemental variations on a single weapon. Each element—fire, ice, lightning, and soul— comes with its own combo bonuses and magic attack. The elements are mapped to the d-pad, theoretically allowing you to switch elements on the fly.
Kratos other new attacks come in the form of consumable secondary weapons, which Kratos finds or steals from enemies. Relegated to one button, secondary weapons add a new type of strike, like a javelin projectile or a slow, heavy club swing, without having to choose between the weapon you know and the one you don’t.
Both the elemental blade and temporary weapons add a little much-needed variation to Kratos’ limited move set. When used wisely, they do a good job of enhancing the controlled chaos that Kratos inflicts when a combo gets going. On the other hand, the lack of variation in Kratos’ fighting style inevitably slides from fun and familiar to one-note slashing. Though it’s a good idea in theory, switching between magic types mid-combo is impractical, and so that variation comes when you make a concerted effort to use them.
Apart from the tweaks and changes, there are moments in Ascension where the game’s simplistic combat becomes a hindrance. At times the game will throw one or two more enemies at you than it should, making for areas that feel more unfair than challenging. What’s more, there are one or two extreme difficulty spikes where its questionable whether players really get the tools to win.
Given everything that’s been said, the fact that Ascension also sports the series’ first crack at multiplayer. Sony Santa Monica deserves kudos for trying to do something interesting instead of doing the easy thing—In God of War’s case, a wave-based co-op gauntlet. Ascension is a necessary step towards bridging the gap between action-brawlers and competitive multiplayer, but doesn’t completely get it right.
In multiplayer, teams of two-to-four class-based warriors—every player gets a set of skills based their alignment with one of the gods—who run around maps clobbering each other and accomplishing objectives. Ascension’s biggest success is translating the core combat of God of War, the series biggest selling point, into multiplayer. Fighting real people in God of War presents different challenges than fighting the single-player campaign, but it feels the same.
God of War: Ascension’s multiplayer fails to build that base gameplay into something substantial. The limited set of game types don’t do enough to make games feel like a free-for-all. While it may invoke momentary likenesses to fighter-action hybrids like Power Stone or Anarchy Reigns, God of War’s particular brand of combat seems to favor button mashing over skill or tactics when squaring off against human opponents.
Without cultivating a deeper narrative or mechanical hook, God of War: Ascension is proof that there’s merit to the idea of letting a franchise end gracefully. They say it’s always better to leave fans wanting more. After Ascension, only the series most zealous fans will have any interest in seeing Kratos ever again.
