Was it Good? – God of War (2005)



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The gods of Olympus have abandoned me, now there is no hope.

Let’s head back to 2005 and replay the game which started it all, the original Kratos adventure through Pandora’s temple to find the power to defeat Ares and save Athens.

I’ll be critiquing every mechanic and reviewing every cutscene as we ask, God of War, was it actually any good?

Thanks as usual to my very patient Patreon supporters who keep the channel alive.

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35 thoughts on “Was it Good? – God of War (2005)”

  1. Well first of all, every musing you have about the combat in this video is mostly worthless as it comes from someone with no experience besides the training wheels "mindlessly mash buttons" difficulty. And actually i can tell by the gameplay in the video that you never grasped the concept of attack properties as i never once see you capitalize on the fact plumes for example put enemies in a launched state.

    Oh wow. God of War had a parry and counter before muh Souls? Truly mind blowing. It's not like you can go play PS1 action games with a parry and counter system or anything. In fact, there's bound to be some arcade 2D Beat 'em Up with a parry and counter system. "le Souls invented X" mentality will never not make me laugh.

    "Flying Imps"? "Trolls"? Christ almighty…

    The Blade of Artemis' only flaws is that it has a small and kinda repetitive moveset and can't parry. However the only thing that moveset can't do is break shields and it's an extremely powerful weapon. You easily have the orbs to max out both weapons in the course of a game if you aren't dumb enough to kill every Minotaur and Gorgon with the finishing move. Which by the way is something didn't even occur to you, that there is incentive and choice when it comes to how you kill those big enemies. One of the problems with the Blade of Artemis could have been solved by giving it the moves of the bridge sword, which are completely wasted on that boss fight.

    No hint the trap is there? You mean besides the bloody spikes behind the closed gate the game made a point of showing you? lmao

    Yeah, see, in the non training wheels difficulties, spamming hold square against everything only gets you killed. I mean you literally put up footage of it doing nothing but getting you hit in this video, it's just that getting hit means nothing in baby mode.

    The hades vertical spinning blades are such a meme. I remember never having any problem with them at release and i actually replayed the game in the HD collection version last month after not having touched it since release and got the no hit trophy on it the first time. I don't see how anyone can have any problem with such a simple traversal puzzle. I think people just repeat the meme because that's what they expect other to hear. The horizontal spinning blades are hard if you don't know exactly what to do and even then there is a real danger of dying. The vertical ones are free, easy to do and with no instant death penalty.

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  2. Without a sequel, the idea of Kratos giving up suicide at the end doesn't seem in character. He seems the type to have a goal and ruthlessly march towards it. I expected him to challenge Athena by continuously throwing himself off the cliff.

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  3. i feel like you are embellishing quite a bit how " amazing" some of these combined mechanics are to drive forward an opinion you already have. just an observation. A problem with the medium of essays really

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  4. Hey Josh, not sure if anybody else has pointed this out yet, but at around 1:05:40 you talk about the spikes being the first trap in Pandora's Temple which didn't give any hint on being there beforehands. I noticed, though, that before going down and opening the way to the chests, the spikes are already covered in blood hinting at people having been killed by them before.
    It's still probably way too subtle especially with such a short time given to realize that, but technically there is a giveaway.
    Just noticed that and thought you might enjoy the observation

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  5. The new GOW games are not a reboot -_-

    A reboot would mean a new story but the new games tell the stories of what happened AFTER the events of the older GOW games meaning that GOW 2018 and Ragnarok are sequels not reboots.

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  6. Too bad everything Josh praises in this game came at the direction of David Jaffe.
    Never knew about the phone thing at the end. It makes Jaffe even worse by outing himself IN the game. That's David cage levels of hack shit.

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  7. you’re very wrong about rage of hercules being the best combo in the game for every situation.

    It doesn’t have the slam attack to launch or break through shields/ blocking opponents, like plume of Prometheus or the slam at the end of Spirit of Hercules. (plume of prometheus is widely regarded to be the best ground attack string)

    It also has a relatively low range which makes it a poor choice for zoning, and it doesn’t offer the safety that arial combos do.

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  8. Ragnarok was a massively inconsistent disappointment, and I figure time will not be kind to it as its deep flaws come out into the open. Not only was it more movie than game, but hell the original from 2005 was a better movie AND a better game.

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  9. While I remember the first God of War fondly, it always felt kind of 'meh' to me. I finished it once and traded it in. Now, the sequel, that one I recall as being much more of a standout and actually finished multiple times.

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  10. If you have a PS3 get the God of War Collection the HD remakes are perfect wide screen versions of the game plus you get the PSP HD remakes. I played GOW 1 and 2 to death on PS2 but the screen tearing and needing component cables to play semi HD in 480P in progressive scan are headaches from the past plus not all HDTVs have component input.

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  11. It's incredible that there are a lot of people (especially video game journalists) that say (or pretend) that GoW 2018 was the first really good game of the series. Lol no. This trilogy is amazing, and far more nuanced than those people gave it credit.

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  12. i loved this game i remember playing it all day with my friends and finally beating zeus, was my birthday actually :), im not a fan of modern gow its more like a movie and feels overly sentimental

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