God of War: Ascension for PlayStation 3 Reviews by Gamers

God of War ascension is essentially the prequel to the GoW trilogy. It tells the story of Kratos at the moment of his decision to no longer serve Ares, and facing the fury of the... furies... for breaking his oath.

All of the aspects you want in a God of War game are there, but there's something missing. This could be due to several factors, which I'll expand upon in the cons below.

Pros: Kratos has an actual character arc in this. He's still the ridiculously angry destroyer we've come to live vicariously through, but you'll see him smile at least once and you'll see why he's become as wrathful as he is by the first actual GoW (Yeah, we found out why in that game too, but it's expanded upon slightly in this)

The elemental system is good. Essentially it charges the blades of chaos with an element and a magic. It works far better than any other GoW's combat system because it completely gives up on trying to make us use anything other than the Blades of Chaos we were going to be using anyway.

The Combat system is largely the same, but the parry is changed to an active command instead of a timed block. This was done for multi-player purposes.

Cons: Glitchy. I ran in to more glitches in this game than the entire main trilogy combined. Spirit doors (the things that pop up when you need to clear a room of enemies before proceeding) will stick around after all enemies are dead, Kratos will occasionally completely ignore a Quick-time button press, and you WILL get stuck in enemy blenders that will stop you from even moving until the game decides it's good and ready to let you go.

Inconsequential: We already know how this story goes. We know why Kratos turns and why he hunts Ares. That essentially means that nothing that happens in this game matters. There are no shocks, twists, or departures. Makes it all feel like a bit of a money grab.

In all it's good enough and pretty enough to be a God of War game, but nothing at all great or new or groundbreaking.