God of War 2: Completed. TIme for a rant!
To be frank? It was just GoW1 with different spells, 2 new weapons replacing the Artemis Blades, and new dungeons. Yeah, I know; Mega Man does the exact same thing every game, but Mega Man is a simpler game and that's the entire formula you need to keep the series good; good levels, decent bosses, good weapons, bam! Decent Mega Man game. God of War, however, has a lot that could be added or fleshed out, but honestly, feels like they didn't.
First off, Combat. Its...still generic. The enemy variety really pales in comparison to that of Devil May Cry...it was about akin to Onimusha enemy variety, thing is, Onimusha has more simplistic gameplay, so you can't get TOO creative with enemies there, so whatever. God of War? Not so much. That's what really makes DMC vs. GoW battles different; DMC gameplay is rather dynamic cause the enemy variety is all over the place, and things stay fresh. God of War feels like a generic hack and slasher, and its more just "weak enemy vs. big fat durable enemy vs. agile enemy." Also, you had too many "fuck you" attacks for groups of small things. Be it "Spinning Chains of Death!" after upgrading, your magic attacks (especially Atlas' move), or the simple "Push Circle to rip Zombie in half".
Also, I definitely prefer the Lock on and dodge manually style rather than having a dodge button; Bayonetta has a dodge button, but let you use the Lock on + Jump for dodging, and dodging was a lot more fluid and spammable there, and doing it felt more rewarding (WITCH TIME YAY!), but here...dunno, felt like the only dodge was a back dodge for big elaborate moves. Well, blocking was certainly handy, which brings the Onimusha parallels back! Aerial Combat was also bland, not that there was much of that, but also the fact that juggling enemies wasn't as fun...yeah.
Really, just the combat system got monotonous, and was too polarized, and there was enough variety in it that they could have done so much more. That's what makes GoW fights pale compared to DMC and Bayonetta fights; the latter two actually make full use of their combat systems and make you try out all your options, rather than resort to "Attack things til they die."
Having more bosses was nice, having most of them be gimmicky was not. The Fight with Atropos and Lakhesis was cool until I realized there was a gimmick attached to beating them that I couldn't figure out. The fight with Clothos, meanwhile, was less than cool, cause you had to rely on weird visual cues and trial/error until SOMETHING worked. And then Zeus is painted like a standard one on one fight, but it seems to have specific triggers for when he does what (that or Rage of the Titans ups damage a lot more than I give it credit for, but its hard to tell.)
Oh, yeah, NO HEALTH GAUGES was another bullshit thing for bosses. Its nice to know if you're actually making progress on a boss for somethings with vague visual damage cues (I guess you could use your Combo meter to compare), and how effective certain moves are. I mean, DMC games, yeah it's hard to tell if Ebony and Ivory are actually being blocked or doing legit damage, but the game has a health gauge and when the enemy is hit by ANYTHING, it shakes as though to show "They're taking damage, EVEN IF AN INSIGNIFICANT AMOUNT!" I guess with gimmick style bosses, its hard to have a health gauge, but its still something that would have been appreciated. And frankly? Bayonetta had similarly styled bosses, and it had health gauges, so...yeah.
I know comparing Bayonetta to GoW2 isn't fair cause Bayonetta came out years later, but I just can't stop the comparison cause the things Bayonetta did different from DMC often felt GoW-like, just they were handled so much better...except for Quick Time Events; GoW2 was definitely more lenient just cause it gave you enough time to SEE THE DAMN BUTTON; I've stated that Bayonetta's biggest problem was probably how not-lenient its QTEs were.
But then, Bayonetta handled the "Kill Boss" QTEs better. See, in Bayonetta, when you kill a boss, and have to QTE him to death, once you start it, you've won; what the game instead lets you do is try to get a bigger bonus in terms of rewards by performing the QTE properly (its always a rapid button push or spin circle.) In GoW2, failing one means you take damage, and have to start over again; its kind of obnoxious to go through an entire boss fight, but then have to restart it cause you failed the QTE.
The game also had obnoxious puzzles, climbing sections, and platforming scenarios (though they weren't as annoying as in GoW1 at least.) I ranted in Okami how Block Pushing Puzzles suck ass and should die as a general rule, and praised Okami for, depsite being a Zelda Clone, more or less lacking them, the closest it had was a rare Ball Pushing Puzzle, which are MUCH faster and there were so few and far apart, they didn't hurt things much.
So why is God of War, which is primarily an action game...so obsessed with using them? THEY'RE NOT FUN DAMN IT! Nor are they mentally stimulating; they're tedious, and they make the game artificially longer, NOT HARDER! Devil May Cry got it right by having its "Puzzles" basically be the most basic Resident Evil style plot progression, which is to say just Emblem Fetch Quests, which while not ideal, its not offensive. I guess DMC4 had the rotary blade puzzle, but there like 3 of those the entire game and they were easy to figure out and done within 2 minutes instead of 10 (plus more stylish *AND* those rotary blades could actually be used in Battle for some unique kills.)
I know, God of War =/= DMC, I'm aware of that, but that doesn't mean I can't help but stand by that DMC just feels like such a better handled action game, mostly cause it lacks a lot of factors that detract from action. DMC focused on action above all else...well, that and COMPLETELY OVER THE TOP RIDICULOUS STYLE! This isn't to say that God of War isn't stylish; it most definitely is, just more of a "We're gonna impress you!" style rather than "...physics? What's that? *has Dante ride up a tower with a motorcycle*" Not trying to bash God of War here, just noting that DMC was more entertaining cause it pushed the style to its ridiculous limits, rather than being merely fancy.
That brings me to plot. Honestly, I know, ACTION GAME PLOT and all that, but...God of War 2's plot is something that I feel honestly negative about. I know, I haven't said much good about GoW2, but its plot really annoys me.
See, GoW1's plot was mostly just a vehicle for the gameplay and it worked. Ok, so Kratos is a dick and a sociopath, that's fair, though I don't like him...but at least I can side with him cause Ares is a bigger dick, screwing Kratos just for the shit of it, so whatever, lesser of two evils, that's fair. I can route for Kratos there for that reason.
GoW2, I didn't get that feeling. Kratos was more or less falling into the same damn trap he freed himself from in GoW1, and it was so blatantly obvious, so its like they didn't care and just went "people liked him cause he's a sociopath, lets go with that!" They tried to justify Zeus as being worse, but I didn't buy it. The ending made it especially clear that Kratos was not the one I wanted to win; he gets the scenario explained, and what's he do? He pretty much blows it off just to destroy everything with 0 justification, and sides with the group that...is very clearly JUST USING HIM. Well, I guess if they're trying to make Kratos out to be a Bad Guy Protagonist, then congrats, you succeeded; pity I still don't like him. Sociopaths can be well done, but Kratos is just angry and homocidal. Its especially bad since GoW1 showed shades of depth in him, so I was able to accept it more there; here they sort of blew it off, only making him go all "VENGEANCE!"
I guess I could go on, but whatever; I don't care if GoW2 got like the 15th best game out of GI's 200 best, I don't care if its one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, I don't care if I seem like a whiner, GoW2 just isn't very impressive once you get past the stylish cutscenes and what not. I guess the game is good at all those "Shallow" qualities, but doesn't really do it where it matters. I dunno, is there something I'm missing here? The combat system is generic, the plot is poor, the non-combat gameplay aspects are just boring...seriously, I've never been so questioning as to why a game gets so much hype.
