Ending Kratos saga couldn't have been made better in God Of War 3
When we last saw Kratos, he was riding up Mount Olympus on the back of the Titan Gaia, ready to get all kinds of nasty on Zeus (who'd tricked and killed him at the beginning of God of War II, and then escaped justice at its end) and the rest of the Olympian gods. That's exactly where GoW III opens: the Titans are still slowly making their way up the mountain, and it's up to Kratos to keep the gods' army of skeleton warriors off Gaia's back. After he's battered his way through a few dozen of them, he'll face the game's first real challenge: Poseidon, god of the sea, who appears as a water giant riding a team of massive, crab-like horses.
As a single horse-creature burrows through Gaia's arm like some kind of gross parasite, you'll get your first real taste of what Sony's been hyping as "Titan gameplay." The landscape – actually just Gaia's forearm – buckles and shifts as the water-horse yanks it around, forcing Kratos to climb up its sides and monkeybar underneath it during the fight. Meanwhile, the action zooms in and out for dramatic effect, frequently reducing Kratos to a tiny onscreen speck (which doesn't get as confusing as you'd think) and giving you a real sense of the massive scale on which these creatures operate. It's all pre-scripted, but it's impressive nonetheless.
As gargantuan as Poseidon's water-horse is, it's as vulnerable as anything else to Kratos's Blades of Athena, and before long Kratos has torn off its jaw, stabbed it through the heart and pummeled its master to death in one of the most jaw-droppingly ugly beatdowns ever to appear in a videogame. Soon afterward, however, events conspire to send Kratos rocketing back down to Hades, where he (once again) loses all his powers and sets the game's real plot in motion. Yes, he's still hell-bent on revenge – but before he gets it, he'll have to murder his way up the Olympian hierarchy, endure the pleas of an imprisoned girl who reminds him of his long-dead daughter and be reunited with a powerful artifact from his past.
Losing all your abilities so soon after getting a taste of fully powered-up Kratos isn't so bad, seeing as you're guaranteed to get better stuff down the road. And God of War III's new weapons and powers are better – better-implemented, more useful and much more fun to use than those in previous games. For starters, no longer will you be forced to choose between Kratos's chain-blades and some big, kludgy weapon that isn't much fun to use. While Kratos's new Blades of Exile handle more or less the same way his favored weapons always have, the three new additions to his arsenal – the soul-stealing Claws of Hades, the lightning-infused Nemesis Whip and the lion-headed Nemean Cestus – are all cool variations on the chain-blade theme.
The new weapons all handle differently, sure, but they also do a good job replicating the unique sense of fun that comes from making Kratos whip blades through the air in fiery arcs – something that was sorely lacking in previous games' secondary weapons. Each one also has a unique purpose that makes them indispensible for combat and puzzle-solving; the Cestus, basically a pair of oversized gauntlets, is super-strong, and is the only weapon that can crack obsidian objects, which naturally you'll run into a lot.
Meanwhile, the Nemesis Whip – which can be flailed around by holding the button down on each strike, racking up ridiculous combo counts – is key to restoring power to the broken Olympian machinery. And while the Claws of Hades don't really come in useful for solving puzzles, they can rip skull-shaped souls out of enemies, which then whirl around like deadly purple fireballs.
Making each weapon more vital is the overhaul to the game's magic system; instead of simply switching between spells, each weapon now has a spell attached to it, which grows in power as the weapon levels up. Your magic meter is also kept separate from the new item meter, which refills automatically and enables you to wield things like Apollo's bow (which can be charged to shoot flaming arrows) and Helios's lantern-like head (once you've freed it from his body, of course).
All these new additions are a considerable improvement to God of War III's combat, taking something that was already fun and ironing out anything that felt sucky or unnecessary.
Of course, combat and quick time events are far from the only things God of War games offer. While they're continually overshadowed and sometimes nearly forgotten, the series has always excelled at huge, elaborate puzzles that incorporate the environment in interesting ways. GoW III doesn't fall flat here, delivering an assortment of memorable and frequently strange challenges, like the musical one mentioned above. Even more striking, however, is a perspective puzzle that forces you to "see like the gods" to shift its platforms and stairways around until it looks like they're interconnected, at which point they will be. (Yes, exactly like echochrome.)
Most of the puzzle action takes place in the Labyrinth, revealed as an assortment of what look like massive, hanging crates in a cave halfway between Olympus and Hades. At first, you'll battle across the tops of these as they shift around their enormous cavern, and occasionally you'll have to keep a few minotaurs from hacking away at the chains that keep the boxes aloft, which gets frustrating fairly quickly. It's only when you come back later in the game that the Labyrinth's true potential is revealed, as a series of twisting, trap-filled cubes that each contain a puzzle (usually of the sliding-block or hidden-switch variety) you'll need to solve to get through.
As always, the strength of these puzzles isn't in their size or elaborateness. It's that while they're clever, they can almost always be solved just by quickly taking stock of what's in your immediate surroundings. If a puzzle ever seems tough, just experiment with what's around you; you'll get it eventually.
Speaking of things that are enormous, we should take a moment to address one of the promises Sony made early on. In our first real preview with the game, we got to hear all about Titan gameplay, which as we said earlier was supposed to be a revolutionary idea that would set entire levels on the bodies of Titans. These Titans, in turn, would behave dynamically as they wandered around a huge, persistent game world, making for landscapes that would shift unpredictably with every movement. Sadly, it didn't go down quite like that (although to be fair, that idea probably would have been terrible in practice). But while we don't get to climb around on an assortment of Colossus-like Titans, there are two (entirely linear) areas that treat their bodies as moving levels. The first is Gaia, whom we discussed earlier, and the second is a familiar face who shows up late in the game. We won't spoil too much, aside from saying that popping gargantuan, oozing sores is one of the least-gross things you'll be subjected to.
So, Sony didn't entirely come through on its promise, and there are only two Titan areas in the game. However, what's there is pretty amazing, and the shifting nature of the Titans' bodies – pre-planned or otherwise – makes them two of the most enjoyable levels in the game. It just would have been nice if there were one or two more of them.
But then, in spite of this being the "final" God of War game, there's always room for more Titans in any potential sequels – and the ending, conclusive as it is, leaves that door propped open ever so slightly. If you're a God of War fan, though, it may not be quite the ending you were hoping for. If you're expecting to see Kratos redeem himself, learn the true meaning of friendship or be tearfully reunited with his dead wife and daughter in the Greek afterlife – don't.
At the same time, though, the plot manages to derail itself into cheesy, mawkish sentimentality about "hope" more than once, which feels awkward coming from such a relentlessly amoral franchise. Throw in a viciously cheap final boss and a too-long sequence that steals liberally from Max Payne's overdose-fueled nightmares, and you've got an endgame that skirts awfully close to satisfying, but never quite gets there.
While not a huge leap forward for the franchise, God of War III refines its already-fun gameplay to near-perfection while delivering the clever puzzles, high production values and pure, rage-fueled brutality fans expect. Add a memorable cast of characters and buckets of gore, and Kratos's last adventure is also his best yet.