Gorgeous, hilariously savage, but lacking any true innovation
Let it be known that after the release of God of War III, the practice of upgrading graphics and carrying over the same tired mechanics shall be known as... SUCCESS! At least as far as the market is concerned. Yes, this journey with Kratos through the trenches of days-old warfare is a beautiful one, but the same frustrations from the first two games in terms of combat and mechanics (quick-time events are lazy gameplay tricks and need to be innovated on before... oh, it's too late) have been carried over in lieu of a rehaul that might actually improve the series.
True, the sales numbers alone mean the God of War franchise is anything but dead (like Kratos, I'm sure it will refuse to say goodnight for a good long while) so the innovations may be coming once this original trilogy is finished and locked away. Still, losing battle after excruciating battle because I hit X instead of Triangle is not a satisfying way to make me feel like I'm controlling Kratos, but merely (badly) directing this movie that stars one of the angriest, most unapologetically brutal characters in video game history. And no, we do not want to play another sequence where we're either falling down and soaring up some narrow shaft where dodging walls and falling boulders is the main impetus for continuing onward.
Having not played the entirety of the previous tales, I must say that though I'm not exactly certain what went down between Kratos and the gods in parts 1 and 2, the script is suitably epic and twists and turns at all the right times. The idea of killing all the gods in your path is the right direction the series needed to go and the sequences in which these assassinations take place are satisfying in their execution, at least in terms of the visuals. I honestly did not come to this game expecting anything new or exciting in terms of the story and came away fairly surprised by the complexity and originality that the developers managed to squeeze out of this established time period.
If you can stand the frustration of failing quick-time events and don't mind an old gameplay engine with a new coat of paint slapped on top, the jaw-dropping visuals and brutal combat (or directing of the combat, in the case of Kratos' gory finishing manuevers) make this epic a worthy end to a memorable trilogy.
