A message to the God of War haters that already entered the thread for some unknown reason : Please don't express your hate in this thread. This thread is about the awesomeness of this epic series and not your trolling. Please kindly leave this thread as the gif below suggests.
WARNING : MEGA ULTRA TURBO SPOILERS AHEAD ! AUTOPLAYING SOUNDTRACK WILL DESTROY YOUR BANDWITH !
It was the April of 2006. My PS2 broke 6 months earlier. I walk into a store and buy another one and browse through the new gamers. I went in with thoughts of buying Shadow of the Colossus.
I picked it up along with a game that I had not heard of before. That game was called God of War. The guy at the store said it was a hack 'n slash like Devil May Cry based on Greek Mythology. Why hadn't I heard of this game before ? I love Greek Mythology, and I loved Devil May Cry 3, so I had to pick this up.
After deciding to check this new game out before SotC (due to my lack of knowledge about it, it'll be completely new to me and my experience would be better) I popped in the disc. I was greeted with a bearded man's face and fires burning behind him in the title screen.
After selecting "New Game" I camera panned back, and the bearded man said "The Gods of Olympus have abandoned me....now there is no hope." and he jumped off a cliff. As the narrator explained about this man's....this Kratos' servitude to the gods and how death would be his escape from madness, he fell into the Ocean, and a flashback took me to the Aegean sea.
I started attacking the grunts with heavy attacks and light attacks and kept thinking if this would be another button masher. The game prompted me to grab my enemies. I did, and killed them in the some of the most brutal ways I have ever seen. After moving down below the ship, out of nowhere, a big ass snake head attacked me. After blocking its jabs at me and gradually damaging it, I pulled off this QTE sequence and it fled.
Not bad.....is what I thought, this game has very good graphics. After an annoying box puzzle and receiving the magic power Poseidon's rage, and learning that this beast was the infamous Hydra in Greek Mythology, I climbed up the ship and saw 3 hydra heads attacking the Captain and his crew.
The captain had the key that Kratos was looking for...unfortunately for him, he got eaten. There must be another way to open that door, right ? After impaling the hydra on the ships' mast, my impressions went from merely "not bad" to "fuck YES !". After 5 minutes of looking around where the hell to go, I realized you have to go into the beast's mouth and meet the ship captain hanging on to his dear life.
So, Kratos will save this guy and ask for his key...standard protocol in action games...much to my surprise Kratos take the key and says "I didn't come back for you" and lets the captain die.
Why ? Why did he let that man die ? Why does he want this key so badly...this Kratos guy is an asshole, I thought (that thought remained throughout the series).
I learn of Kratos' visions and he is tasked with killing the God of War, Ares. His ship arrives in the City of Athens and I proceed to fighting through the city and reach the medusa...along the way I stab a minataur's throat and a Cyclops' eye and activate rage of the gods for the first time.
What was that ? I missed something ? What is that you speak of ? Sex mini-game ? You must be mistaken....I only performed a QTE on a jar which broke and gave me a lot of red orbs...nothing else...
After decapitating the Medusa and receiving the power to stone enemies I proceed to view the battlefield with a huge Ares wreaking havoc on Athens. I wasn't expecting this at all..this guy is FUCKING huge ! How the HELL are you supposed to kill him ?
Fast forward 5 hours. I'm standing in front of Pandora's Box. I learned of Kratos' past and of his hatred towards Ares. I made it through a war torn Athens. I traversed the Desert of Lost souls and completed the puzzles and challenges of the most epic set piece I had experienced in video games till that day, Pandora's temple. And that was on the back of Kronos the titan.
This was epic. Scratch that....this was EPIC !!!!!!!!!!!All the little details were done to perfect. The various types of enemies, the wonderful story, the very good combat system and the wonderful setting, the epic music and the jaw dropping graphics.
Who can forget the first time they align the rings of Pandora, when 3 hours of doing the challenges of the gods assembles the massive structure ?
As I bring the most powerful weapon that can be used by a mortal out, Ares throws a big ass pillar halfway around Greece and Kratos dies. But he climbs of out of Hades itself - fuck that rotating pillar of death !
So I confront Ares himself in my huge form due to the powers of Pandora's box and proceed to beating the crap out of him and finish the QTE within 5 minutes...what an easy boss battle ! But no, I have to protect my family from Kratos clones in the game. After a tough battle which had me hugging my family to give them health (lolwut ?) Ares takes away my powers and I fight with the sword I once walked on.. and finish him off...
"Ares : .... I was trying to make you a great warrior
Kratos : You succeeded"
And I watch in awe as the God of War explodes and the story returns back to that point where Kratos jumps off the cliff to kill himself as he was betrayed by the gods, only to be crowned the new God of War by Athena...what a fitting end to an awesome game. I felt like kissing that guy from the store now...
Roll on God of War II, where Kratos decides to be the asshole he is and attack various cities of Greece to spread the "glory of sparta" and to be betrayed by Zeus (rightfully) and die only to be saved by Gaia who guides him to change his fate.
This brings forth massive destruction and the deaths of some of the best boss battles I've ever experienced. The thing about GoW 1 was, while it was awesome, it didn't have enough boss fights and the variety of enemies was low.
The Colossus boss, the Barbarian king, Thesius, Euryale, Perseus and the Sisters of Fate themselves get raped by Kratos in some of the best ways possible. Some of the most epic moments imo, along with these boss battles, was moving the temple with the steeds of time, seeing the great war, flying to the sisters of fate on the phoenix, the pegasus flight sections.
I also loved Kratos' new toys, the Golden Fleece and the Icarus wings.
The ending was one of the best cliffhangers in video game history, imp. With Athena dead and Kratos bringing the titans back and ascending Mt.Olympus, God of War was set for one of the best finales in video games.
3 painful years I waited. 3 years of restlessness to get my hands on God of War III. The game I bought a PS3 for (along with MGS4 ofcourse).
When I finally got the game I was super excited for obvious reasons. The opening credits brought back amazing memories. The first cutscene where Zeus gives his prep talk as the harpie ascending explodes while the titans climb Olympus made me get goosebumps. For real. It was the best opening cutscene I've seen since MGS4. Helios riding his chariot, Hermes running down Olympus, Hades jumping down as well, Hercules leading his army of undead while Zeus and Poseidon watch. Soon after, Poseidon nosedives down and head butts epithemius and drowns his ass.
Unbelievably epic.
The graphics were jaw dropping. The scale was unbelievable. Titans were falling one by one. Leviathans were attacking Gaia, fucking her sideways. Half an hour in, I learn that the leviathan heads are connected to a central hub. Poseidon. After this unbelievably epic revealation, I proceed to killing the god of the sea with the help of Gaia...have I mentioned that the scale is unbelievable ? WOW!
The first person view (from Poseidon) was one of the most gruesome scenes I've seen in video games. Popping his eyeballs out and snapping his neck makes the sea overflow and swallow the lands causing chaos around.
After falling to Hades (again) and killing Hades himself (what an ugly motherfucker he is) by absorbing his soul (oh the irony!) I get to see the awesomeness of the new combat system with sub-weapons that are actually fun to use. Oh and hell itself is destroyed.
After that I proceed to severing Gaia's hand, Ripping Helios' head from his screaming body, stabbing Perses with the blade of Olympus (Icaras flight sections are amazing imo) all within the space of an hour. I constantly use Helios' head for the lulz and ofcourse to blind enemies and reach the caverns of olympus where there are big ass boxes with Pandora in the middle of it all.
Then I learn that Kratos has to re-open Pandora's box.
After chasing around Hermes and killing him in a way that could be suitable in Friday the 13th, Kratos uses his sexy boots to dart around the minions of Olympus. The air dash is simply wonderful to use. The gameplay is unparalleled imo.
Soon afterwards, I reach imo, one of the best bosses in GoW history in the form of Hercules. This guy looks like hes 10 feet tall and weighs a 1000 pounds. He makes Kratos look like a dwarf. He also sports two glorified boxing gloves (j/k) which are the best weapons in the game imo..
As he tries to throw the entire arena out of the mountain, Kratos has an option to die...or beat his face in with the cestus until he doesn't have a face....I picked the latter option.
After that amazing boss battle, Kratos goes on an errand for Hephaestos (after banging his wife Aphrodite 
) to get himself a new weapon, only to be set up to be confronted by a big ass Kronos banished to Tartarus. With the combination of blinding him with the solar flash of Helios' head, superhuman strength,grappling around, getting eaten, cutting up intestines with the Blade of Olympus, breaking an onyx structure on his stomach, driving that structure through his throat, stabbing him in the head with a divine weapon, Kratos kills his grandfather (lol), Kronos.
Best. Boss fight. EVER.
If I were Kronos, it would be like getting killed by an ant. Thats embarassing, isn't it ?
Kratos being the genocidal freak he is, kills Hephaestos too with the super fast Nemesis Whip while the old man calls for her "daughter" pandora...I felt sorry for him...
My preference of weapons in the game is,
Cestus >>> Nemesis Whip = Blades of Exile > Claws of Hades (They're all awesome though).
After killing a huge Scorpion, assembling the labyrinth, saving the annoying Pandora (Kratos, help ! - FUCK YOU BITCH ! STFU AND I WILL HELP !), breaking the chain of balance and raising the said labyrinth to face off against Zeus by sacrificing Pandora (whom Kratos begins to care abotu...what ? how ?)...All thats in my mind, all this time...
EPIC.
So Pandora sacrifices herself to reveal an empty box and a pissed off kratos. Soon, the chaotic duel is converted into a 3 way battle with Gaia nosing in which concludes with a dead gaia and a ghostly zeus...infected with fear...
So Kratos finally forgives himself for the sins he has comitted (YAY !) and unlock the power of hope stuck within him to beat the shit out of Zeus with his bare hands...mashing the O button like crazy for 5 minutes FTW !
With his Vengeance complete Kratos decides to sacrifice himself to release the power of hope to man kind who need it to survive the tides of chaos he has caused, to stand firm without the need of gods to rule them and take advantage of them as they did to Kratos. He opted to do this instead of giving his power to Athen to keep the Olympians powerless...
Atleast thats what I think anyway...
For every Centaur I gut, every minotaur I kill, for every gorgon I decapitate, for every cyclops eye I pull out for every grunt I use as a battering ram or rip apart ruthlessly, I feel satisfaction. Every boss a magnificent fight, every cutscene epic. God of War III concluded this epic series in awesome fashion and it'll most probably be my GOTY. And this thread...well its about what I feel about this epic series. The carnage that I caused to greek mythology and the Olympians is something I will never forget.
