Second Look - God of War: Chains of Olympus

Note: This review contains spoilers for God of War: Chains of Olympus.

Between God of War II and III, two portable games were released to help fill in the gaps in both the release and the story. The second of these games was God of War: Chains of Olympus, released on the PSP and developed by Ready at Dawn, serving as a prequel to the original God of War. Following the release of God of War III, this game and the second PSP game, Ghost of Sparta, were later ported to PS3 as part of God of War: Origins Collection, featuring an HD presentation and gameplay tweaks to bring them more in line with their console brethren. Though I have had experience with the original PSP release and find it to be a good reason to own the handheld, I remembered having a much better time when it was ported to PS3, which was how I decided to re-experience the game while revisiting the original Greek series. Although the game is very definitely showing its age, especially by virtue of having been a handheld game first, I still found it worth playing as a proper installment in the franchise.

Before the events of the original God of War, Kratos is a loyal servant to the gods, believing they will rid him of his nightmares once he has fulfilled his duties. By the order of the gods, Kratos lays waste to a Persian army invading Greece, after which he witnesses the sun plummeting to Earth. This event, plunging everything in a perpetual darkness, allows Morpheus to reign over the world and place everyone in a slumber. In order to stop him, with Helios nowhere to be found, Kratos must reawaken the Fire Steeds and allow the sun chariot to ride across the sky once again.

While the storyline is generally written well and effectively expands on Kratos’ character arc, the pacing is a little odd. While Morpheus is established as the main threat, he becomes less relevant to the story about halfway through, at which point Persephone is established as the main antagonist towards the end of the game and Morpheus is only mentioned offhandedly from then on, including his defeat. Granted, Persephone’s actions and motivations serve as an interesting parallel to Kratos, but her involvement in the story still feels oddly-placed. These plotlines are bridged by a lengthy visit to Hades, the involvement of which feels mildly forced even though it includes some mild foreshadowing to Persephone, and a running plot thread of Kratos tracking down and eventually briefly reuniting with his deceased daughter Calliope. To give the story some credit though, it does show how Atlas was chained to the Earth, corroborating something Atlas had alluded to in God of War II, and the ending neatly explains why Kratos doesn’t retain his arsenal and further ties it into the original game.

 

Persephone becomes the main antagonist in the third act.

Before getting into the gameplay, I will mention that I played on Bonus Play while having the Spud of War costume equipped, which grants infinite Magic and replaces the Blades of Chaos with potato peelers in addition to dressing up Kratos as a potato. Additionally, all magic abilities plus the Sun Shield and Gauntlet of Zeus remained in my arsenal. I will also mention that, while I did play using a DualSense, God of War Origins Collection makes using it awkward, since for some reason you still need to connect a PS3 controller as Player 1 to select the game. Said controller also needs to be active as Player 2 in order for the DualSense to function as it should during gameplay, resulting in periodically turning the controller back on when it disconnects.

The core gameplay is similar to that of the first two games, but with controls adjusted to account for the PSP having fewer buttons than a DualShock, which were then further adjusted in the PS3 port to account for having those additional buttons back. In the original PSP version, Circle replaces R1 as a context-sensitive button for some tasks, while down on the d-pad swaps weapons, L1 allows you to block, R1 + one of the action buttons activates magic. Due to the PSP only having one stick, dodge rolls are performed by holding down L1+R1 and then moving the stick, which could get awkward at times. In the PS3 version, the controls remain the same, except now you can also use L2 and R2 for L1 and R1 actions, plus you now have the option to use the right stick to more conveniently dodge roll like in the previous console games (and I must say that it’s very satisfying if you’re coming off of the PSP version). To account for the portable nature of the game, the space between checkpoints is made much shorter so that it can more easily be played in chunks, though this has the side effect of making the experience much shorter than its console brethren, plus you only need to obtain five each of Gorgon Eyes and Phoenix Feathers, instead of six, to upgrade your Health and Magic.

 

Kratos has a unique arsenal of weapons and magic, such as the Efreet.

 

While the graphics were pretty good for the PSP at the time, they have since aged quite poorly even for the system, especially when put next to Ghost of Sparta, though the PS3 version is at least more polished. They otherwise feel consistent with the style of the series and are translated decently to less-powerful hardware, though I did run into an odd rendering error where a specific (breakable) rock in the Jails of Tartarus section is rendered as see-through. The music also feels consistent with the rest of the series, although I will mention that my playthrough for this review had an issue where Persephone’s boss battle music did not play until the second half of the fight.

To promote the release of the game, a minigame known as Temple of Helios was released online, which had a number of unlockables related to Chains of Olympus, including concept art and videos. Notably, some of these unlockables include a series of text entries collectively called The Lost World, which expand on the backstories of Greek mytholigical figures relevant to Chains of Olympus. While the minigame is no longer available to play, these text entries have fortunately been archived and are worth taking a look at before playing the main game, presented here for convenience.

 

While not as strong as the first two God of War games in terms of narrative or content, God of War: Chains of Olympus is still worth playing for its contributions to the storyline and Kratos’ character arc. While you will get a similar experience whether you play the PSP or PS3 versions of the game, I would more strongly recommend the latter for the sake of its expanded controls.