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bobobologna on 14 December 2009
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ZenfoldorVGI said:

Naz, know this. This series is not about gameplay, never has been. The gameplay is not deep. It is very, very shallow. The game can be easily beaten with the Square Square Triangle button combo. The gameplay isn't the reason you play this game.

This was a game based off DMC, but it decided to take a different route. Instead of being about deep combat and character leveling(the leveling in GoW is shallow and unnecessary, besides increased your weapons strength to match that of reskinned enemies), the game is about the story, and the puzzles.

A lot of people don't like pure action games. They aren't really into games that require a lot out of you mentally to master, and they don't feel much of a sense of satisfaction for mastering them. There are people would would rather have puzzles, and work things out, and have a pretty fun relatively deep button masher with a great story, some puzzles, and interesting badass character design and development.

What your problem is, is that you went into the game thinking it's about the gameplay, and not the overall experience. That was my problem as well, because there is a shitload of that boring ass gameplay, lol, so I figured that was the point.

It's not. Believe it or not, some people really dig those puzzles, and they even say(on the gamefaqs forums, because I've researched this) that the puzzles and ease of difficulty are what make the game superior to some of its deeper rivals like Ninja Gaiden.

So, knowing that the game is based entirely upon its story, puzzles, ease of access, production values, and main character, there is nowhere to start, but the very beginning, if for nothing else, to take in the relatively small amount of story the first game provides.

If, like me, you are a fan of deep gameplay, and are expecting this to be a DMC clone with a better story that you just can't seem to figure out how to access, give up. It's not that. The gameplay in God of War is nothing if not shallow, and I'm assuming the first time you figured that out, like myself, you were climbing or on some sort of a rope, playing a minigame to perform a finishing move, or in the midst of a quick time even, instead of using a button combination or a technique.

Every boss battle, every enemy, and every scenerio has one strategy. Square, Square, Triangle. That is in stark contrast to bosses in NG or DMC which require often complex techniques to vanquish and are really the main points of those games. The first GoW really has almost no boss battles in it at all, just to give you an idea, but it has hours of regular enemies which are based around puzzles. AKA: Find the enemies in the maze to proceed, or kill the enemies before the time limit is done, or before the wall slams shut, ect. It's the overall feel of the games, and not the gameplay that make these games so popular to a certain mainsteam audience, and so hated by people like myself.

I've played God of War 1, half of God of War 2, half of DMC 1, the DMC4 demo, Ninja Gaiden Black and Sigma, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 demo, bits of Ninja Gaiden 2, and the Bayonetta demo.  I thought God of War got a bit boring, and I love Ninja Gaiden.  I don't "get" DMC or Bayonetta.

I think it's complete bullshit that DMC/Bayonetta/NG are any more complex or deeper than God of War.  They do provide more combos, but that has nothing to do with how deep or complex a game is.  For example, Street Fighter doesn't have combos.  Tekken has a million combos.  That doesn't mean that Street Fighter is a more shallow experience than Tekken.

As for boss fights, I can't think of a single example of a boss battle in any of those games that required "complex techniques" to vanquish.  It's always just about learning the bosses attacks/movements/timing.  In fact, I'd love to hear an example of a boss battle that requires a complex technique, and how/why that complex technique is any different than what's required from any other boss battle.

EDIT:  As for the OP, I agree with everyone who said that if you've played the first hour and didn't like it, nothing else in the game is going to do it for you.  It's not like the game drastically changes in any way halfway through.