I prefered God of War 1 you guys know why. Hydra's the road to Zeus dad on his retrieving pandoras box, the golden stage with golden water. going to hell, final fight. and the amazing stage in Previous God of War throne. 

3 because it was the first one I played, I was also 10 at the time and so I saw a lot of blood and naughty things (Aphrodite hehe), although objectively the first was just exceptional and is the best from the trilogy.

God of War 3 always felt a bit anticlimactic to me. I liked it fine, but did not care too much about it. I think it was because I never bought that Gaia not helping Kratos because she needed to hang on herself, was this big problem that led to Kratos turning also against the Titans. And it was very dark and the levels felt somewhat samey.

Previously I would have said GoW2 is the best. It really felt like a step up and the action was cool. But again, in hindsight this time, I was not very much interested in the conflict between Kratos and the Gods as presented in part 2. He destroyed a city, became pretty much Ares 2.0 and needed to go. ... Alright I guess.

Part 1 presents something more interesting to me. He is tormented. And he slaves away at the gods commands in hope to get rid of the trauma and that he can finaly sleep without the nightmares. That does not happen and he tries to kill himself. But the gods would not even allow that. If we saw Kratos tormented, plagued by visions in part 2 and 3, I would have liked them much better.

So they are all very good games. But part 1 is the best for me. Also because it feels so memorable. The temple with the rings on Kronos back. The desert. Athens. The sea. Hades. The final fight. (-to echo what op said) It was such an adventure. It still feels epic even if it is small by todays standards. In part 2 there was a temple. And another temple. And the titan shouldering the earth for a short level. And yeah, it felt somewhat less memorable.

GoW 1 had the best story and was the first, so that gets my vote. The 2nd and 3rd, while good, were more of the same. The 1st was just stellar. I loved the minotaur battle.

God of War 2 was my first PS2 game, so that one.

Imho, GoW 3 is the best.

Funny enough, God of War always top itself IMO.
4 is better than 3, 3 than 2, 2 than 1.
I know we have Ascension btw, it was gorgeous and ambitious but that was a prequel to existing games.

(And the PSP games are less ambitious games by nature)

I sure hope 5 is better than 4 as well.
Can't fucking wait.

Hard to say. One of the few series where I enjoy all the games almost equally.

I probably prefer 2 out of the original trilogy just because of the general scope of the game. 3 I think is better in a lot of ways but feels a lot smaller. 1 is still a fantastic game.

And no hating on the PSP games: Ghost of Sparta is a top tier GoW experience... 

I agree. Eles normalmente se superam a cada jogo.

God of War III (of the original trilogy)