HaniBall

@rethla: Sounds like the way I felt after 4star'ing the castle with Leon XD

But on topic, the combat felt tight to me. I get the point on parrying but help me, what are some typical situations where you would want to parry. I guess the Amazons would be an example. A Minotaur? But why not block them, wait out the combo and go to town? Or evade and hit their back?

I do play games on hard difficulties. I beat Bayonneta 2 on IC. Revengeance on hard. Heck, I dabbled with Master Ninja in NGS2. But I never felt like the GoW games were challenging me to up the difficulty. (Well, I did play both the PSP games on hard. Blame it on long airplane rides.) Not titan or god difficulty though. Ascension I might almost be tempted to try. Because there is nothing cheap in there. it is just good old combat.

Call me casual but playing 1 on hard wouldn't occur to me because that would mean having to go through the spike crate, rotating blade balancing, rotating pillar etc. And btw, the clones was what I would call "escort mission tense". Even on normal :)

And the spike room in 3 on harder difficulties doesnt sound fun either. Or bouncing the sirens longer perdiods of time in the room after :)

Well I did parry. I parried Zeus :) Otherwise I tend to roll or hold block until I see an opening.

But I can totally see how that can frustrate you.

Me? I liked the bosses better. The likes of Poseidon or Colossus don't really interest me. I liked Theseus in 2, Hades in 3 (first form the phase where you swing around him was unnessessary), and pretty much every boss in Ascension. In terms of enemies the sirens can no longer be played basketball with, which makes them a nice challenge. The Amazon's were also a lot of fun to me. They seemed like they were like taken straight from a Ninja Gaiden game. More like actual 1:1 combat.

Regarding of the older games I think there is a liiiitle bit of nostalgia going on. I mean c'mon the puzzles in the first two games were more frustrating than challenging. And the ones here are actually quite well designed. And in terms of combat I have not seen a level as tense as the trials of archimedes. I had to play the over again because my save game was corrupted and they were tense as hell again. Not cheap tense like the spike battle in the labyrinth but actual skill based action game tense.

The story seems to get a bad rap too. When indeed the story told here is almost a necessary step between him serving the gods and breaking his ties to them. He HAD TO go through the furies for that. It is actually the closest thing to actual Greek drama we'll get out of the series. And it winks at you at the same time, which is a first for the series and to me the real game changer.

But I am not trying to put this over the other games. I love all of them. (CoO was the first I played so it will always be special) But this one does not deserve the bad reviews and overall cynicism it receives. Could they have focused less on MP and put that time into SP. Hell yea. But then They clearly needed more time for the first game too :)

Ah, one more thing in case any reads here :)

How can anybody think this is chronologically before CoO? He is a servant of the Gods there. And here he breaks his oath to them.

p.s. the story with the furies us pure genius. Check out the Orestaia if you care about the lore. I think it may have been an inspiration for GoW in the first place.

And here's my impressions. Spoiler alert I guess, but for a game this old that should be ok?

In nutshell: it's good. So if you want to skip ahead and rip me apart based on that feel free.

Otherwise I will let you know that yes, the pacing especially in the first half is atrocious. You seem to go from fetching one element to the next element without much motivation, much less explanation. When you get to the snakes (and the gliding!) I thought this is it, they have finally gone insane. But I had to admit the Manticore boss was well designed and fun. And Castor/Pollux continued that trend.

I also had to admit I was actually challenged, not just by those bosses but when I got the ice weapon and the goats kept spawning.

But I was still on the fence.

Then? Well then you get to the massive statue. And it was obvious that they had gone insane in a good way. This is SMS way to tell you they are in on the joke. I feel like that is a massive change in tone for a series as dead serious as GoW. And it started clicking for me from there. Who cares about story when you are swinging about and rebuilding a skyscraper of a statue. (btw I am a sucker for the mythology so even the little about the furies you get here still works for me)

I also like the way they changed some of the minigames to "no buttons", well you still click some buttons, but I guess just evading would also end them.

I was never one to parry in GoW games (unlike for example MGR:R, but I guess there you pretty much have to) so the combat felt very good to me. Perhaps better.

And man, the trial of Archimedes. What a bitch! But what a beatiful one! Like a real character action game, Ascension at this point has given you all the tools, and is able to ramp up the difficulty immensely. But you never feel out of control. Again, just like a real hack and slash game. Button mashing is definitely not the way to go here. Much much better than for example trial 10 in GoW1, where I felt you had to get lucky to get to the top. Here you have tools. Learn to use them. Could the game have done a better job easing you into using all the tools. Absolutely. You never even had a chance to use the eyes before this battle and I don't think the game even tells you they can be used in battle. But once you ease in and focus it all comes together.

So yea, I get all the negative reviews. But I don't think this game deserves them. It's good. The finishers are incredible. Well I wouldnt want my son to look over my shoulder while I gut a horse :), but if you are concerned about that kind of thing you already know not to play GoW. Just know it's a bit worse here.

So, if you're a fan of the series, or the genre even, and this one is available for cheap. give it a try. If you approach it with an open mind you might just like it.

I take it you are fond of T-Rex lava pools and christmasy ice caverns :)

the correct rating is:

Demon's Souls - best atmosphere

Dark Souls 2 - best gameplay

Dark SOuls - best forgotten

Still haven't played Bborne so no smart ass comment on that yet.

@agentboolen said:

On the upside though I can go out and buy a 500gb s-ata for pocket change. I think I will do that and simply download every unfinished PS3 game I have on PSN Makes it feel like more of a PC3 but still good to have the option.

Dammit, I tried to download the thing last night and although I completely wiped my trusty old 80gb PS3 it will not install. The file is 35gig and it needs twice that to install.

Well, I thought the psp games offered a nice change of pace, with the hammers and shield in the one and the fire element in the other game. And I understand this one adds the elemental thing back and changes the parry mechanic too. And I guess some other changes, so that sounds like quite a bit of change to the combat tbh. And with the alternative a Ryu with a glowing arm or an Emo kid Dante, I think i'll prefer Kratos, still :)

I bought it for $8. The ultimate addition or whatever its called. That might be why the DLC is currently free.

I was never one to parry much in GoW so I have hopes I can adjust to the combat alright. Actually really look forward to playing it.