LogFAQs > #951508688

Sorry about the long hiatus. Things have been a little busy for me lately - it looks like I'll be moving pretty soon.

I finished God of War III over the last few days. I think it's the best game in the original trilogy over all, but it also has the worst part of all three games. In 2010 games like Mass Effect 2 and RDR, bless them, were trying to push video games storytelling forward. Then you had God of War III with that scene where you do QTEs to make Kratos have sex with Aphrodite while two other girls watch and talk about how good he is at it, which I feel set the medium back by several years on its own. I still find the gameplay a little monotonous at points, but the upgrade system made more sense in this game and I actually used the Hercules Cestus along with the Blades of Chaos. I think I liked how they made the enemies like Sirens and Wraiths have specific counters. The overall highlights were the fights against Poseidon and Cronos. The Cronos fight incorporates the stupid climbing combat but the sense of scale that came with it was really cool. A lot of the encounters with Gods like Hermes, Helios, and Hera were disappointing.

I think the story becomes better the less the writers expect us to sympathize with Kratos. It makes more sense as just a fun romp where we watch a horrifically evil guy go on a rampage for no reason, but this particular game does seem to be trying to give Kratos a redemptive character arc about forgiving himself for killing his family. That's overall more interesting, and it's subject matter that I have found really impressive when it was explored in other games like Silent Hill 2, but I think the execution in GoW specifically is about as sloppy as it can get. My biggest issue with it is that Kratos never stops committing atrocities, so it feels really cheap to have him "atone" right at the end. I mean, he pretty much destroys the world over the course of this game alone. He does things like chaining a defenseless woman to a wheel so that it will crush her body and get stuck to keep a door open for him. I might have liked it better if he actually spared Zeus after that whole psychological horror section during their fight where he makes peace with himself. That feels like it was a chance for him to actually act upon his redemption by ending the cycle of violence he's been keeping on. For most of the last hour or so you're doing escort missions with Pandora who sort of serves as a surrogate daughter figure to Kratos. It kind of predicts those Last of Us and new GoW "Dad games" that have become more popular lately. Parenthood is definitely a theme of the game as shown by Daedalus and Hephaestus having storylines revolving around their kids. I felt like the bond between Kratos and Pandora was so rushed that it felt forced, like Kratos became protective of her simply because the script wanted him to. It doesn't help how it's been less than 2 hours since he murdered her dad.

Anyway, it's a relief to have this trilogy out of the way. I'll try to pick up the pace starting now.

Final Thoughts on God of War III coming up.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 17/129
Currently Playing: Terraria