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Just finished God of War 2 last night - finally got around to playing these (PS3 version).

God of War 2 is one of those sequels that pretty much fixes every annoying fucking thing in the original - and that primarily is the original's simply obnoxious and cheap difficulty level at times. I'm thinking specifically of the Hades areas near the end of the game - when I started God of War 2 right after finishing the first, I was gritting my teeth in preparation for cheap, bullshit difficulty combined with tedious platforming near the end of the game, but never found any!

It was just so much better. No fast moving side-scrolling alternating conveyor belts heading towards rolling crushers which you have to walk through all the while being attacked by harpies which dive bomb you in attacks unblockable except by rolling and jumping whilst being shot at with explosive arrows?! Thank fucking Christ! I died so often during that shit the game offered to reduce the difficulty to Easy, and I accepted - fuck that noise- and it was still bloody hard. Its bullshit there's no option to turn the difficulty back up, though.

One question re: God of War 2 though. At the end, you barrel out of the mirror to change your fate just as Zeus is killing the 'past' version of you. Now, would past version of you still escape from the underworld and do the same thing you just did to change his fate or would he just die and oh noes paradox!

The Ares boss fight in GoW is the hardest thing I've ever successfully done in a game. At one stage the game is all "oh, you suck, wanna turn the difficulty down?", but this merely fueled my rage.

I still haven't got around to GoW3.

One question re: God of War 2 though. At the end, you barrel out of the mirror to change your fate just as Zeus is killing the 'past' version of you. Now, would past version of you still escape from the underworld and do the same thing you just did to change his fate or would he just die and oh noes paradox!

There is actually a deleted scene in GoW2 where Kratos finds and decapitates logic.

adam_grif wrote:The Ares boss fight in GoW is the hardest thing I've ever successfully done in a game. At one stage the game is all "oh, you suck, wanna turn the difficulty down?", but this merely fueled my rage.

See, I never got to experience Ares on Normal difficulty because I had already reduced the difficulty from a previous rageout with those stupid conveyors. Fucken ...

On the other hand, Zeus in God of War 2 was fairly easy to deal with on normal difficulty - I only died during the QTE sequence - I couldn't believe how quickly you had to start tapping O before he kills you.

There is actually a deleted scene in GoW2 where Kratos finds and decapitates logic.

I can just picture that.

Vympel wrote:One question re: God of War 2 though. At the end, you barrel out of the mirror to change your fate just as Zeus is killing the 'past' version of you. Now, would past version of you still escape from the underworld and do the same thing you just did to change his fate or would he just die and oh noes paradox!

It's pretty clear that it's a paradox. After all, there's no need for Gaia to wake Kratos up to get control of the Loom, because she already has a Kratos who has control of the Loom.

I've just done pretty much the same thing, played the PS3 collection back to back, plus doing the third, and yea, II > I, although I can't say I had any trouble doing that exploding arrow and jumping bit. The one thing that got me though is how did Kratos use the Loom to go back in his own time line to the war between the Titans and Olypmus considering he'd never been there?

adam_grif wrote:The Ares boss fight in GoW is the hardest thing I've ever successfully done in a game. At one stage the game is all "oh, you suck, wanna turn the difficulty down?", but this merely fueled my rage.

Same, that fight got really annoying after a while.

Because by changing his fate he was going to go there with the loom so of course it was on the loom for him to go there and I've gone cross-eyed.

I don't remember having that much trouble with the first two God of War games except for some of the annoying puzzle stuff. I am mildly annoyed at the fact there's a new PSP game for the series coming out though, given the ending of GoW3 seem to make Kratos' fate rather final.

Vympel wrote:Because by changing his fate he was going to go there with the loom so of course it was on the loom for him to go there and I've gone cross-eyed.

Remember, the Loom contains the fates of all things, mortal or immortal. Operating the Loom is obviously abstracted for the purposes of gameplay, but he could have zipped along Gaia's fate.

General Zod wrote:I am mildly annoyed at the fact there's a new PSP game for the series coming out though, given the ending of GoW3 seem to make Kratos' fate rather final.

Ghost of Sparta is set between the first and second games.

Isn't that his godhood period? What, he's supposed to lose his power then fight to get it back?

Posiden mentioned something about Atlantis. Kratos will probably nuke atlantis. it does feature the last spartan and gives him more depth.

I thought GoW3 (don't know what happens in it) ends with a trail of blood leading somewhere implying that Kratos isn't dead?

Just started playing GoW3. Its really hard getting used to some things - the button prompts in QTEs are so tiny and hard to notice now!

Vympel wrote:I thought GoW3 (don't know what happens in it) ends with a trail of blood leading somewhere implying that Kratos isn't dead?

It does, but it's just a stinger for fanservice. Thematically it would be inappropriate for him to survive, given the finality of the whole shebang. You'll understand when you complete the game.

Thanks for those casual GoW 3 endgame spoilers in the GoW 1 and 2 thread, guys. GoW is a storytelling masterpiece, and you should feel ashamed for ruining it. Why else would I want to play it now?

adam_grif wrote:Thanks for those casual GoW 3 endgame spoilers in the GoW 1 and 2 thread, guys. GoW is a storytelling masterpiece, and you should feel ashamed for ruining it. Why else would I want to play it now?

GoW 3's story was pretty much a rehash of GoW 2's and can be summed up as Spoiler It held pretty much no surprises. I would have preferred the version David Jaffe outlined in an interview where Kratos kills Zeus in the first five minutes and then numerous gods from the other mythologies show up to take advantage of the power vacuum. Then Kratos gets the gods to fight amongst themselves which wreaks havoc on the world and causes the people to stop believing in the gods, rendering them powerless. Still a bit cliche, but at least it would have been something new. Also they really should have used the titans more.

What difficulty did everyone who had trouble with Ares or the game in general play on? I didn't have trouble with the final boss until I played on God difficulty. In the first stage Ares' attacks were really easy to block and dodge but in the second my family kept dieing. I had to really get good with counters and time my magic attacks well. It was months before I finally beat it after quitting in frustration for week long durations. I don't think my palms had ever sweated so much.

I remember something about a back-and-forth meter and being the size of a mountain. I recall being immensely frustrated.

Ford Prefect wrote:

Vympel wrote:I thought GoW3 (don't know what happens in it) ends with a trail of blood leading somewhere implying that Kratos isn't dead?

It does, but it's just a stinger for fanservice. Thematically it would be inappropriate for him to survive, given the finality of the whole shebang. You'll understand when you complete the game.

I never got any such impression from the ending. As far as I could tell the only thing they meant to imply that Kratos was dead as a doornail.

That doesn't make sense. If he's left dying in a place, and then the game goes back and shows you the body is gone, that's pretty much the exact opposite of clearly implying that he's dead.

Vympel wrote:That doesn't make sense. If he's left dying in a place, and then the game goes back and shows you the body is gone, that's pretty much the exact opposite of clearly implying that he's dead.

I assumed that someone or something took his body away. Not that he walked off under his own power.

General Zod wrote:
I assumed that someone or something took his body away. Not that he walked off under his own power.

Or dragged himself off. But in any event, you're a strange person - can you think of any say, film where the body of a protagonist / antagonist was left supposedly dead somewhere and when they discovered the body was gone, everyone assumed that someone had taken it away, as opposed to the person not being really dead?

Vympel wrote: Or dragged himself off. But in any event, you're a strange person - can you think of any say, film where the body of a protagonist / antagonist was left supposedly dead somewhere and when they discovered the body was gone, everyone assumed that someone had taken it away, as opposed to the person not being really dead?

Between Kratos running the sword through himself and Athena's reaction it's a bit of a stretch to imagine that he somehow survived enough to limp off on his own. Especially considering how injured he was after fighting Zeus.

Vympel wrote:That doesn't make sense. If he's left dying in a place, and then the game goes back and shows you the body is gone, that's pretty much the exact opposite of clearly implying that he's dead.

Ford Prefect wrote:stinger for fanservice.

No, seriously, the entire game plays out in way which says 'finality'. A five second shot doesn't completely invalidate the thematic finality of the rest of the game.

Fair enough. Note I haven't finished GoW3 yet and as I said about I don't know exactly what happens in the game apart from the fact that Zeus and Kratos die.

Edited the title.

Just finished GoW3 earlier tonight - marathon session. Zeus was a bastard until I got the pattern and parry stuff down, especially before fighting inside Gaia.

But, as for the ending - yeah, I don't think Kratos is dead. Or if he is, the series isn't going to stop (excluding Ghost of Sparta for PSP, of course - man Chains of Olympus was one awesome PSP game - looked better than the PS2 games!)

Two reasons for this - first of all, there was the really obvious hint going back to the 'Kratos next adventure' video in the original God of War - i.e. Kratos' brother who's stuck in Hades - Zeus refers to him so explicitly when shouting at Gaia, he may as well have put up a billboard.

Second, I didn't see how an ethereal ghostly Athena pulling the sword out of Kratos, expressing her disappointment and going somewhere speaks to much finality ...

The Titans are dead and almost all of the Gods are dead. There isn't really anything left for Kratos to do; seems pretty final to me.

Vympel wrote:Second, I didn't see how an ethereal ghostly Athena pulling the sword out of Kratos, expressing her disappointment and going somewhere speaks to much finality ...

Did you miss how the game confronted Kratos over his issues and then essentially resolved them? The game, beginning to end, is presented as the 'final chapter'. Hence 'my vengeance ends now', the fact he stabs himself to death and so on. That speaks to me more than 'trail of blood going off the edge of a cliff'.