God of War: Ascension is the fourth main game to the God of War franchise on consoles. Ascension is exclusive to the PS3, released very close to the end of the PS3's lifespan. As you'd expect, Ascension has similar gameplay to previous games in the series, both in terms of combat, monsters and puzzle solving. The developers have made some tweaks to the combat system though, and not all of it for the better. The biggest noticeable change is the parrying system, which now requires two button presses to execute. Players will need to get accustomed to the combat system in order to maximize its effectiveness on harder difficulties. Ascension is a hack and slash game, and it uses the three face buttons to attack, and the fourth face button for jumping. You are able to chain the various attack buttons into different combos, which will unlock as you upgrade Kratos, the character you're playing as. You can grapple enemies and tether onto them, then deciding whether to pummel them or swing them towards other enemies. It's tempting to just mash buttons and while this will work on easier difficulties, you will get slaughtered if you don't play it smart on Hard difficulty. Furthermore, you can dodge roll and block attacks.
Kratos only has access to one weapon though, and it's his iconic Blades of Chaos. This time around, the Blades have four elements that you can switch at will: fire, ice, lightning and soul. Each element has different effects such as more health recovery or more magic recovery. Unfortunately, the developer didn't use this element feature to its full potential, for example, by not implementing a weakness system, hitting ice-based enemies with fire does not deal bigger damage to them, contrary to common sense. As it is, there is not as much incentive to switch elements. The Rage ability now requires you to attack enemies to fill and also to keep the meter filled. When full, you can activate it to make Kratos' attacks way more powerful. Unfortunately, the meter will drop when not attacking enemies or when Kratos gets hit. This means that you are rarely able to use the exclusive Rage attack combos. Kratos also has access to various kinds of magic. Each element has an exclusive magic attack which uses up the Magic Bar. Kratos will also get artifacts to use in combat such as slowing enemies down and creating a clone. An unusual addition is that Kratos can pick up other weapons to use such as a shield, javelin and sword. Although there are not proper weapons in that they don't have their own movesets. Rather, they augment your Blades and can be discarded at any time.
The story is a prequel, taking place soon after Kratos killed his family and wanting to break free of his oath to Ares. However, Ares needs Kratos to overthrow Zeus. Therefore, he has fallen into the wrath of the Furies and the game is spent by Kratos escaping and eventually, killing all three Furies. The environments, story and monsters takes inspiration from Greek myths. You see gorgons, manticores and harpies but Ascension makes them more grotesque. There is a lot of blood and gore in the game, but it's not as intense when compared to God of War III. The story will be jumping between the present day when escaping from the Furies and also a few weeks ago, which shows how Kratos obtained the artefacts he needed to defeat the Furies. The fact that you jump between the two timelines is confusing at the start as it isn't made that clear when the first flashback happens. It's an interesting self-contained story, and while the scope is not as epic as previous games, it feels more grounded. This Kratos isn't the overly arrogant character that kills everything and this makes him more likeable. Ascension is an extremely linear game as it focuses on the story, the combat and the puzzles.
It is also a short game, taking anywhere from as short as 7 hours to 10 hours, depending on how skillful you are at the puzzles and what difficulty you're playing at. The puzzles are another major element of the gameplay. These puzzles involve pulling levers and manipulating objects in order to open doors and gates to progress through the game. The puzzles are good and not as abstract as they have been in the past. Some puzzles will still stump you for a bit though. Additionally, the artefacts that Kratos has collected and their powers will be incorporated into puzzles such as reversing and forwarding time (i.e. healing and decaying environments) and creating clones to keep a lever in place. There are a number of collectibles to find, from health and magic upgrades, to items which provide cheats on New Game Plus. In line with all other God of War games, there are fixed camera angles. It is used to the game's advantage to hide secrets. When you first start playing the game, you'll probably accidentally dodge roll to your death as you try using the right stick to control the camera before you remember you can't. The fixed camera is also an issue during boss fights where it pans out and Kratos becomes so small, you can't tell what you're doing and what the enemies swarming you are doing. It's frustrating on higher difficulties because it'll probably be the cause of your death.
The graphics remain fantastic. God of War was the game that made QTEs awesome, however, there are just too many QTEs in this game. These include when fighting normal enemies, boss battles and cutscenes. Instant fail QTEs where response time is short will probably catch you off guard and are unnecessary as they detract from the cutscene. Ascension also loves to make Kratos climb up ledges and across platforms. The way the camera pans, and the climbable ledges are highlighted, reminds you of the Uncharted series, but not as smooth. Ascension lacks the Challenge mode of past games, but instead includes an Online Multiplayer component. It uses the God of War hack and slash gameplay and puts you into an arena with other players in various game modes. While it can be fun, good luck trying to find a game now as the player base is pretty much dead. Overall, God of War: Ascension is a good game, although it is definitely the weakest console God of War. After downloading the 3GB worth of patches, this gets rid of most of the glitches and Ascension contains a solid story and fun hack and slash gameplay. It's a divisive title with many not liking Ascension, but it can be fun if you keep an open mind and don't expect the same level of epicness as God of War III.
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