He is rather a cruel warrior, and his motivations are not in saving the world. Kratos fights against evil monsters to clear his sins, to find a way to forget his sorrows. He acts on commands of Athene and other Greek gods to… destroy one of those gods, Ares, and to stop his indecent behaviour.
This is, in short, the story of the very first game of the well-known series God of War, a real legend of the game worlds. It was released in 2005 for PlayStation 2. We can play it on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita as a part of the remastered God of War Collection, which includes also God of War II.
Due to the release of the new game God of War in 2018 and its vast popularity in the gaming community, it would be nice to have a look at the origins of the whole series and the hero himself. What is in the basis of this unique game phenomenon, one of the best PlayStation exclusives?
Not a cute guy at all…
Among many other game heroes, Kratos is special. He is not a guy from Doom II, who kills hordes of monsters to save the planet. He is not even Mario, who fights against Bowser for the beloved princess. Kratos is full of controversy inside of him, the guy has created his own problems and tries to solve them. He is not a classic hero, and this surprisingly attracts gamers…
A long time ago, Kratos was a famous Spartan warrior. Once, huge enemy forces attacked his army and the death was almost inevitable. Kratos called for the help of Ares, the god of war, and promised his soul in return. The deal was made, Ares saved Kratos and turned him to the slave. With no mercy, Kratos destroyed villages and killed people – a word of Ares was enough for him to do so. The mystic weapon Blades of Chaos helped in this continuous battle. But then, another one violent mission led the man to a small temple. Kratos killed everyone there and realised later that there were his wife and son among other victims.
This became a kind of cold shower. As if waked of a bad dream, Kratos faced all his atrocities, and memories of them began following him everywhere. The warrior was close to madness, but the Athene appeared and proposed the solution – “kill Ares, and your sins will be forgiven”. She hasn’t cleared all the consequences of the success: the necessity to take the place of that god, and also if this is a reward or a curse.
Kratos agrees and begins his long and exhausting mission – with many cyclopes, gorgons, centaurs, zombie-soldiers, and other re-made mythological creatures to kill on the way. Powerful bosses wait for Kratos… Many puzzles should be solved… The game is long and very, very interesting. It proposes much more than just continuous fights!
Explorations, puzzle solving, deftness
When I (my name is Eugene, by the way:), started playing the original God of War, I was surprised by aggressiveness of enemies, their power from the very start. First, I thought the game will be a kind of fighting adventure with more strong and dangerous creatures around every corner. Then, I realised that fighting monsters asks for resourcefulness – players need to understand a way of defeating particular opponents, not just press buttons as quickly as possible. Especially this is true for bosses, because battles against them can’t be won with only the strength.
Kratos should be very deft in the virtuality. So many traps are prepared for him, so many tricky places to pass through. Pressing appropriate buttons on the gamepad in a right time becomes a kind of art in this game. The developers made this art possible to learn, and first impressions of a too high level of difficulty weren’t absolutely correct.
Still, the game is not easy too! There are lots of places, where I was a bit stuck. Sometimes, I explored the same locations again and again, looking for the way further. Sometimes, my Kratos died in the same room again and again, till I managed to develop appropriate skills.
The game designers surprised me with many different feelings from playing this adventure, with the artistic way to convey the story, with some hidden features, with highly thought-out areas, traps, enemies…
The very first God of War is a very good game indeed! And I think, if you decide to skip it and play only God of War 2018, you risk to miss a huge chunk of the gaming culture.
I played the game on PS Vita – and this was an extraordinary experience. The official PS Store sells God of War Collection for both PlayStation 3 and Vita on these pages:
See also…
Experience powerful battles in this collection of free online fighting games:
Three classic PlayStation games with Crash Bandicoot were remastered and released as Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy:
Patapon Remastered – a classic game of the rhythm genre from the PlayStations Portable era is now available on the modern consoles PlayStation 4.
