The problem, however, is Ascension has more detractions than fun additions to the formula. The combat in Ascension plays similarly to GoW III and retains the same basic hack n’ slash formula. Like the story, the gameplay here is good but suffers from feeling too familiar. Yes, it’s a prequel, but after eight years and seven titles in the series, Kratos failed to evolve as a character over that time and still hadn’t here. And yet, he’s never changed in any significant or interesting way. He’s an archetype defined in a way that is rarely so fitting for an action game.
#When did god of war ascension come out series#
While he is a man of violence, he is also a victim of the machinations of the Gods, who are as pernicious in this series as they are said to be in the stories of old. It’s fair to say that Kratos most definitely falls into a clichéd character trope, but he’s still always struck me as an earnest parallel with tragic heroes of Greek myth like Heracles and Odysseus. As a result, the premise of Ascension being a prequel disappoints right off the bat as a follow-up. Looking back, the events portrayed in God of War III were so wholly apocalyptic, with basically all of Greek mythology having been destroyed by Kratos’ hand, that it was reasonable to expect that his butcherings had all but come to an end – at least in the realms of ancient Greece, anyway. Kratos dismembers, disembowels and pulverises fictional antiquity until the credits roll, and is left as he came in brooding, tortured and vengeful. And yes, pretty much exactly what you expect to happen does indeed happen.
Any level of familiarity with the series disarms the ambition of the plot’s creative pacing – I wasn’t the least bit worried about the angriest man in gaming getting out of yet another sticky pickle because I’ve seen him get out of far worse. While the story’s pacing is initially intriguing, the premise of Kratos in bondage isn’t a dramatic or even novel one. Set 6 months after the death of his wife and daughter, thus taking place after Chains of Olympus but before the first God of War, the plot plays out of chronological order, starting in the middle of the story with Kratos in chains and being tortured by one of the Furies. Having played every game in the series save for this one, I had middling expectations which were mostly met but never exceeded.Īscension tells the story of how Kratos came to defy the wrath of the Furies, yet another all-powerful force in the nebulously defined hierarchy of Santa Monica Studio’s rendition of mythological Greece. With the anticipation of the Norse-themed soft-reboot/re-quel of the series just having launched, I took the time to play the last major release in the franchise to find out why exactly it took so long for Kratos to come back from the dead. It’s got everything one might expect from a AAA action game, including outwardly lavish production values, over-the-top scripted sequences, bombastic ultra-violence, and an iconic lead character.
How the hell did we get so sick of God of War (GoW) that it took half a decade to resurface? A person unfamiliar with the series might look at GoW Ascension (hereafter referred to as Ascension) for the answer and come away none the wiser.
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