Ghost of Sparta is a good game, it has it's moments are set it aside from the rest. But for someone reason when I think back to the end of GOW and the start of GOW2, I was kinda of shocked and happy as the same time (well the happiness happened after the third game but still). First I will start with the shocked part, first and foremost on everyone mind when the booted the game up was, how did Kratos get that kick ass armor?  Secondly Why is so angry? and lastly how did he find out that Zeus was his father? 
But for me again all this happened after the end of the second game but I did not really question things back then because that was the way I was. 
Mostly why i was happy was because of the way the first one ended, (to me anyways) it seemed to wrap it self up nicely in the sense that Gaia (unknown that the time, again for me because I did not question it) say " And every time people go to war, they do so under the watchfully eye of the mortal who beat a God, the new God of war, Kratos" That last sentence  seemed fitting for me. Thus making the second and third game seem like it is a totally different game from the first one. 
Maybe it was because I was at a younger age but I feel GOW1 had a bigger impact not in terms of epicness of battles but the way the story wraps itself up at the end.