Introduction
So uh, been a while since I talked about the original God of War trilogy on this channel. Just over 3 years to the day, in fact. Those videos are the reason I switched my channel over to the retrospective style which is great, I love making these long-form deep dives and I really appreciate those of you patient enough to wait for more, so here it is, the beginning of the end- today is the start of my newest series of retrospectives covering the lesser-known games in the Greek saga- Chains of Olympus, Ghost of Sparta, and Ascension.
Originally I said that these games were more like spin-off titles and not really worth diving into, but it turns out there’s plenty to discuss here. The first two games, released on PSP were technical marvels for the time and some of the best games on the system. With that came some tricky obstacles and creative solutions that definitely make the two worth discussing. Ascension is still the only game in the series to feature multiplayer, and all three games delve further into Kratos’s past.
After marathoning the main titles I got a little tired of the repetition, particularly since I had played all 6 games before, but while waiting for Ragnarok I’ve been wanting an excuse to hop back in. Plus, when you start something and don’t finish, it always leaves that nagging voice in the back of your head. Like with the previous videos, I’ll be playing the games on PS3, with the PSP ports being those found in the God of War Saga. I’m also going back to the original segmented format to keep things consistent. With that said, it’s time to don the blades once again in God of War: Chains of Olympus.
Development History
Much like the other games I’ve covered, Chains of Olympus was helmed by another new director- Ru Weerasuriya. Which makes sense given that this is the first game to be developed not by Sony Santa Monica, but by Ready At Dawn Studios, known today for their work on The Order 1886 and the Lone Echo VR series. Back then the main title they were known for was Daxter, but that definitely inspired confidence in Sony and shortly after the release of the first God of War game and a pitch from the team, Chains of Olympus was greenlit and development began.
Over the course of 2 years the team would go on to upgrade their own custom engine for the game and even convince Sony to update the firmware of the PSP to utilize the entire 333 MHz processor, despite a reduction in battery life. And despite a couple of delays, the need to cut some puzzles, characters, dialogue, and even an abandoned multiplayer mode, the game was released on March 4th 2008 in the US.
A critical and commercial success, Chains of Olympus was seen as a technical marvel for Sony’s handheld and won a host of awards, being seen as a fantastic translation of the God of War gameplay to a portable system. Eventually it went on to sell 3.2 million copies making it the 7th best selling game on the PSP. So now the question is whether the game deserved all this praise and if it’s still worth playing all these years later.
Opening Sequence
Upon booting up the game we’re shown an angry Kratos staring at the screen just like the others. And I have to say that while the graphics have been upscaled for the remaster, the actual designs and spectacle are the same as they were on the PSP and this is a really impressive way to show off how good the character model looks. I start it up on normal like I did with the first 3 games and we’re off.
There’s a quick recap of Kratos’s motivation of serving the gods to rid himself of his nightmares before showing that he’s in Attica protecting the city from the invading Persians. Kratos stands on a rooftop and begins to fight with the basic attacks and grab still here. It’s amazing how much it feels like playing the PS2 game despite being on such a small device. Kratos takes out a Persian ship and hops into the building to open chests.
So far things have been pretty standard, but upon trying to leave the QTE is interrupted when a cyclops bursts through the door, only to then be interrupted again when the basilisk drops by to eat it in a single bite, beginning the first boss fight. It’s not much, but I love the double subversion of expectations.
The basilisk doesn’t really look like the rooster dragon that it should be in Greek mythology, more like an overgrown turtle without a shell, but the fight is a solid means of teaching players to block and dodge its two main attacks. Plus its bite attack is a solid callback to the hydra fight in the first game.
One thing I should mention is that while the game’s resolution has been improved, there’s another change in the PS3 version that makes it a better playing experience than on the PSP. Here, dodging can be performed by moving the right stick like in other God of War games, but since the PSP doesn’t have a right stick, players could only dodge by pressing L and R. It’s a minor change, but given that blocking and magic are also relegated to those buttons I could see it being an annoyance to play on the original hardware.
Anyway, Kratos smacks the lizard with a column in the first quick time event and while I’m not a fan of the buttons in the center of the screen, this game was modeled after the first, so it gets a pass. We then go along the beach, slowly pushing a battering ram towards the city gates (which is a bit weird considering Kratos is supposed to be protecting Attica, not storming it). There are also some hidden crates lying around, typical gorgon eye and red orbs. Nothing new here.
Once the gates are open, the NPCs spawn a bit late and then begin to fight. Kratos continues, taking out some archers after a brief swimming lesson and spotting the basilisk wreaking havoc through the city. There’s also a really funny bit from the developers where the player gets an achievement for crossing all of the beam segments in the game after passing the first and only one. A cute way to acknowledge an annoying element in the first game.
We then come across the first mini-boss, the Persian general, tormenting some captive women. Kratos tells him to fuck off, he insults Sparta, and all of us know that was a pretty bad call. The fight is really easy with his men going down from a single grab and his attacks being slow and easy to dodge. In the ending cutscene he busts out a fire demon to use an area of effect attack, but for some reason he never used it in the fight itself. He begs for his life, Kratos beats him over the head with a chest, and we get the Efreet magic spell to use as an AOE attack. There’s a quick sex minigame and we continue on our merry way.
Kratos goes on to kick over some ladders, shoot the basilisk with a ballista, take out the first cyclops, do a bit of climbing, and reach the first puzzle. Although honestly, it’s not really a puzzle so much as a pair of keys needed to open doors by placing the box and dead body onto a couple of switches. The game also forgets to mention that crate kicking is back, which I didn’t realize until halfway through the game, something that makes block pushing even more tedious for those who don’t realize it’s an option.
Finally, we come face to face with the basilisk out in the open. The fight itself is pretty similar to the first encounter with the only change being the need to fight more aggressively to push the monster back without being forced to lose ground along the bridge and the fire needing to be jumped over instead of dodged around. Eventually the beast will back up to the wall, spit some fireballs, and then take some damage in a quick time event.
From there it gains the ability to shove Kratos into a wall and initiate a QTE, but after another successful push down the bridge and a few more hits, there’s a quick beat down and the basilisk is destroyed. For what it is, it’s a fine fight with plenty of spectacle and while it’s not particularly special for the series, the ability to retain some of the sense of scale from the console games is impressive.
Kratos leaves Attica and as he’s yelling at the gods about his servitude the sun coincidentally and literally falls out of the sky. He goes to Marathon to investigate with this funny little run and comes to find that Helios has fallen and Morpheus, god of dreams, is gaining power.
All in all, this opening does everything it needs to do. It teaches the controls, sets up Kratos as a character for those who haven’t played the console games, introduces the premise of restoring Helios to the sky, and serves as a fantastic demonstration of how much power this game’s going to squeeze out of the PSP.
If I had any complaint it would be that the opening does nothing new and feels kind of generic for the series. When I replayed the 3 main titles, I remembered a lot about them because of how epic everything felt, and while this intro is fun in the moment, it’s just kind of missing that wow factor that sticks with you after playing. Still, the team wanted to make God of War on a handheld and no one can deny their success in that regard. But let’s see if the game develops an identity of its own going forward, with the best place to start being the story.
Story
That said, the story is expectedly light. Kratos makes his way through Marathon and comes upon a statue of Athena. She tells him that the gods are falling asleep and he needs to restore Helios before Morpheus gains too much power, reminding him that their aid is the only way to rid himself of his nightmares. From there it’s pretty much one long trek to find the god and restore him to the sky.
This begins with an exploration of Helios’s giant temple of a sun chariot, where he comes to find the god’s sister, Eos. Her power is weakening, but she tells Kratos that the titan Atlas has escaped captivity and abducted her brother, promising to convince Zeus to free Kratos of his nightmares and servitude if he succeeds. Kratos laments that he’s a slave to the gods and doesn’t believe her, but she instructs him to find the Primordial Fires and awaken the steeds, leading him to their master.
And he does, making his way through the chariot until the steeds are brought back to life and take him for a ride as he falls asleep. He has visions of his past- carving a flute for Calliope and going on murderous rampages. Upon waking up the chariots drag him all the way to the underworld… Again. Seriously, Kratos drops by here and leaves more often than Zagreus.
He rings a bell to summon Charon, ferryman of the River Styx, who says they’re both slaves to the gods, but Kratos rebuts that he’s no slave… despite contradicting that statement like an hour ago. He never really asked for anything, but Charon tells him to leave as it’s not yet his time to die before attacking. There’s a quick unwinnable boss fight and Charon tosses Kratos down into Tartarus which, again, contradicts his earlier statement that it wasn’t Kratos’s time.
Kratos smashes his way through the underworld, finds the gauntlet of Zeus, and uses its power to return to Charon and destroy him before following the light of Helios to the Temple of Persephone. Along the shore he sees his daughter Calliope playing her flute.
One thing I haven’t mentioned much is Kratos’s hallucinations. In the beginning, he continuously hears a familiar flute melody everywhere he goes. He soon remembers it to be a song of his daughter Calliope and eventually remembers making her the flute. Now however, he sees her in the flesh and chases her through the temple before eventually confronting Persephone at the gate to Elysium.
She tells him he can be with his daughter, but must sacrifice his power to become worthy and the world of man will suffer as a result. Predictably, Kratos immediately gives everything away and walks into Elysium. Here, Persephone reveals her plan- Atlas is using the power of Helios to destroy the world pillar, which will in turn annihilate humanity, Olympus, and Elysium. All because of their fury over the gods’ betrayal (Persephone being forced to marry Hades and Atlas being thrown into Tartarus after the war with the gods).
Kratos, in an incredibly awkward QTE, forces Calliope away. I understand that this is supposed to be more about Kratos mustering up the will power to give her up again, but considering that both of their souls will be wiped from existence, it’s not much of a choice and really out of character for Kratos to struggle so much. He runs around killing the residents of Elysium to regain his powers, much to Calliope’s dismay. He then hunts down Persephone, kills her, and binds Atlas to the world pillar, forcing him to hold it up for all eternity. Atlas says they’ll meet again, Kratos rides the chariot back into the sky, Morpheus is pushed away, and Greece is saved.
In a post-credits scene, Kratos falls to the Earth, nearly dying by the suicide bluffs, but he’s rescued by Athena and Helios. Not entirely sure why he had to land here, maybe they’re implying that Kratos woke up on the cliffside and thought to himself, “Golly gee, if I ever decide to off myself I’ve gotta do it here, what a view!” But either way, that’s the end of Chains of Olympus.
So how’s the story? It’s... fine. On a basic level it’s really similar to the first game. Kratos is given a mission from the gods, goes on an epic quest involving a bunch of characters from Greek mythology, and eventually succeeds in his mission. Unlike the first game however, there really isn’t anything unique or memorable here. When I think about the first game I think about the creativity of going through Pandora’s temple on Cronos’s back, the crushing defeat after finding the box and instantly being killed, the emptiness Kratos felt when jumping from the cliff at the end of the game, but here it all feels fake and inconsequential.
And to a degree that’s understandable. This is a prequel in a series where future games were in active development so the writers kind of had to leave everything back where they found it, but even at the crux of the game’s climax, Kratos needing to forsake his daughter in order to save both her and the world, doesn’t really carry much emotional weight. Like yeah, it’s sad that he has to give her up, but between the awkward minigame and suddenness of its appearance, and Calliope’s irrelevance to the rest of the plot it all feels like manufactured melodrama. It’s also not clear why killing the residents of Elysium gives Kratos his weapons and experience back. Supposedly becoming a monster again grants him power, but that’s just a lazy way to write off his earlier decision, further emphasizing the pointlessness of the whole Calliope plotline.
There are also a few inconsistencies. For one, why would Persephone tell Kratos about her evil plan? If she had just kept her mouth shut Kratos never would have come after her. Plus the visions of Calliope that Kratos had were never explained. A single line from Persephone about using an illusion to direct Kratos to her would have been fine, but instead it’s left as Kratos’s schizophrenic episodes I guess.
Also, the implication of this story is that killing the gods in God of War 3 would have likely caused the souls of his wife and daughter to suffer, but at the same time the developers of God of War 3 left in that Kratos killed Persephone as a major reason Hades was so pissed at him. It’s also strange that Hades wouldn’t be mad at Athena too since Kratos was acting on her orders. It’s just an odd repercussion for the future which tells me the series is treating these games as… semi-canon. It’s not a fault against this game, just felt it deserved a mention in retrospect.
However, Kratos killing Charon and Persephone and defeating Atlas proves that he always had the power to kill a god, making his entire search for Pandora’s box in the first game kind of moot. Obviously this game had no control over what future writers would do, but they even failed to stick to the canon of the one game that was already out.
That said, the story isn’t awful, just simple to a fault and poorly thought out. It gets the job done and leaves enough intrigue to keep the player wanting to see what comes next throughout. So while it’s not going to blow anyone away, it sets up a solid framework for a fun, action-packed return to ancient Greece for another adventure. It’s serviceable, and for many players that’s more than enough.
Characterization
Likewise, the character writing is just acceptable. Throughout the story, the only two characters to get any development are Kratos and maybe Persephone, but at the very least there is a central thread tying all of the characters together- the deception of the gods. Atlas is a titan betrayed by the gods, Persephone was forced to marry Hades and live in the underworld, Charon is another of their slaves, Athena keeps Kratos in service to the gods without promising his freedom while Eos literally makes a promise that she fails to keep, and even Morpheus (though not so much a character in the game) immediately begins to seize power over the other gods as soon as the opportunity arises.
The entire plot pretty much screams the message that the gods aren’t to be trusted. That promises are made to be broken and everyone is out for themself. Where does that leave Kratos? Pretty much in the same place he was at the beginning. In fact, this entire game he’s just a broken record yelling about how long the gods have kept him in their service and not much else. It’s a shame because this is the perfect game to delve further into his character since the plot itself was constrained by the console games. It would’ve been the perfect time to introduce a moral dilemma or inner conflict for your character, but throughout the game Kratos is just his usual self.
Now, I’m not expecting him to go on a journey of self-reflection or anything, but if he could have learned something from this endeavor it would’ve made the story that much better. Maybe after saving Helios he could have mentioned Eos’s promise to Athena, who would have denied him yet again. To which Kratos could have responded that he would agree to one more mission because the gods need him as much as he needs them with Athena agreeing to give him his final mission after defeating the Kraken, thus tying directly into the first game.
Instead, Kratos starts the game in service to the gods and tired of their bullshit and ends the game in the exact same place. Everything with Calliope is more or less pointless since, again, he starts the game with her being lost to him forever and ends in the same place. Maybe if the game had shown more of his relationship with his daughter through flashbacks we could have gotten some emotion out of the ending, but it fails because while the subject matter is undeniably tragic, none of that tragedy is conveyed to the player.
Then there’s the queen of the underworld, Persephone. She kinda comes out of nowhere towards the end, especially considering that Morpheus was nowhere to be seen, but she acts as a foil to Kratos. She attempts to do what he would end up doing himself in God of War 3, destroy Olympus and Greece with it. She takes action against the gods who wronged her rather than continuing to serve them like Kratos.
However, with her limited screen time and the lack of any prominent side characters, there’s never enough development to really get to know her. She’s just a textbook villain and while there’s nothing wrong with that, it definitely would have been better to either flesh her out throughout the game or make Morpheus her partner instead of Atlas to keep the writing a bit tighter.
So much like the story, the character writing in this game is just okay. And while I’d normally bemoan something so generic, I’m sure the team had a hard enough time getting such a massive game onto such a weak system, so a game light on plot was more or less necessary. It’s disappointing, but understandable. Nothing that’ll stick with you after finishing, but enjoyable enough while playing to provide motivation behind the violence and destruction.
Presentation
Of course, nothing makes violence and destruction more satisfying than getting to see it all unfold before your eyes. I’ve already mentioned that Chains of Olympus is a great looking game, but there are some very important caveats. First, the original hardware looks much worse. Going by videos I’ve found online, Kratos can sometimes appear to be a pixelated mess when the camera zooms out which could have major gameplay ramifications, so please only consider this video applicable to the PS3 remaster.
Second, the game looks good… considering that it’s a PSP game. See, while the PSP’s resolution may or may not affect the impact of the game’s visuals, one truly impressive achievement of Chains of Olympus is the massive scope. The enemies all have distinct designs with many carrying over from the first game, the lighting effects like reflections in the floor add a nice touch to make the world more immersive, and the locations are all distinct, with a wide variety and intricate set dressing.
There are a few problems though. The aforementioned enemy pop in, the occasional frame drop (even on the PS3), the AI being a bit goofy and dancing in the distance before being aggroed, shadows jumping around between light sources… There are some moments where the camera pulls away to show more of the environment like in previous games, but that kind of ruins the illusion by showing how empty the rest of the world is, but honestly these are all extreme nitpicks that don’t affect the game in the slightest. On the whole Chains of Olympus is a fantastic achievement on the PSP to the point where the upscaled version on the PS3 is still a decent looking game.
And of course the music is stellar as always. Gerard Marino returns with yet another fitting score for the series. In fact, it may be one of the best. I mean, the series' music is incredibly consistent and does tend to blend together since there’s very little that stands out from the rest, but when it comes to having a purely epic score to set the tone for a battle, it does the trick.
...That is, when it exists. There are a lot of sections in the game that are completely void of music, opting for sound effects instead. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need a symphony blasting into my ear every second of the game, but the silence in some scenes leads to them feeling awkward and empty rather than epic and exciting. Worst of which being the first phase of Persephone’s boss fight.
Plus the voice acting has, unfortunately, taken a step down. I do feel bad saying this, particularly after getting Terrence C. Carson’s name wrong in my first two videos, but all of the performances in this game feel half-baked and almost emotionless. Or at least, like they were given poor direction. See, the voices are spot on and there is emotion behind them, but more often than not it seems as though the voice actors weren’t sure what was happening in the scene they were voicing.
All in all, the dev team certainly tried to do the best they could with what they had for Chains of Olympus. The issues don’t detract from the experience in any meaningful way and the look of God of War has been perfectly translated to the portable screen. Of course, that wouldn’t be possible without some classic God of War brutality to back everything up.
Combat
I have to admit, I feel a bit like a broken record here, but once again the most impressive thing about the combat in Chains of Olympus is how accurately it translates the console experience onto the handheld. Every attack is fluid, every hit is satisfying, and every fight has the potential to be really fun.
Pretty much every attack is taken directly from the first game. The combos, block attacks, and more are all here. Climbing combat is exactly the same. Upgrading is still done through the pause menu, with red orbs unlocking new combos for the chains and power-ups for spells. The finishing QTEs are randomized with prompts in the center of the screen and while I dislike those choices, they were just being accurate to the first game’s style, so I can’t really fault them for being faithful.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a major caveat to the controls on the PS3 when compared to the PSP. I have the advantage of using the right analog stick to dodge while PSP users had to press L and R to do so. I imagine many PSP players accidentally blocked or used magic while intending to dodge, since I myself accidentally dodged on more than one occasion. It’s nothing too major, just another reason why the PS3 version is clearly superior.
As far as the arsenal goes, there’s one additional weapon to use in addition to the blades- the gauntlet of Zeus. At first, it seems like a heavy weapon, but in reality it’s more a weapon of patience. It doesn’t have the reach of the blades, but can charge up for more powerful hits. It’s not incredibly useful, but against larger foes or when breaking down shields it serves its purpose. It’s a great way to spice up combat for sure.
There’s also the sun shield, but that just allows Kratos to parry projectiles and stun enemy attacks. It’s fun to send blasts back at opponents, but it’s just this game’s equivalent of the golden fleece.
The spells on the other hand are super boring. They almost entirely consist of reskins of the first game’s spells. The efreet is an area of effect attack that can be improved by mashing circle after levelling it up, exactly like Poseidon’s lightning. The light of dawn is a projectile attack with extremely limited use like Zeus’ fury only slower. And charon’s wrath coats enemies in a fire that stuns them in place while damaging them, serving a similar purpose to the medusa head.
Look, I know this game didn’t have a lot to work with as far as source material goes, but that should be more of an excuse to experiment with new ideas, not stick to the status quo. With the blades I understand as they’re part of the series’ identity and part of what makes God of War’s combat so unique when compared to other beat 'em ups, but the magic? This game just got lazy. Not to mention this also opens up the door for questions regarding the future. Why doesn’t Kratos use some of these abilities when going after Pandora’s box? Hell, why can’t he breathe underwater anymore? I’ll admit, the story implications are nitpicky, but overall it just shows a lack of effort on the developers’ part and it’s pretty disappointing.
Also disappointing, though much more understandable is the camera. Typically in this series, the camera pans out during a battle to allow the player time to see an enemy approaching from behind. It makes fights more cinematic and prevents cheap pot shots from enemies you otherwise couldn’t see. Chains of Olympus has the worst camera in the series by far. I can’t even count the number of times I got smacked from behind by some fucker with a death wish. It’s infuriating and means that half of the time combat encounters are spent running in circles to ensure you can still see both Kratos and the enemies by backing yourself up against a wall.
And the worst part is that I totally understand. There’s not much the devs could have done here since the PSP simply wasn’t powerful enough to render everything that would need to be in frame for the combat to work properly and even if it was, the low resolution would have made Kratos extremely difficult to see. It was a catch 22 because while they could’ve forced enemies to run in front of Kratos before attacking, that would’ve felt unnatural and been easily exploited. I feel for their struggles, but it really is a disappointing result.
Their solution is one that I’m not entirely sure I agree with- dumping health and magic boxes everywhere. Chains of Olympus is by far one of the easiest games in the series, mostly due to the amount of help you get along the way and enemies dealing little to no damage when compared to previous outings. While it is still fun to play and the bosses can pose a real threat, it does lose the feeling of a man pushing through a gauntlet of obstacles with each step forward being met with resistance in favor of feeling more like a set of levels meant to be completed, going from an adventure to a video game.
So overall, the combat in Chains of Olympus isn’t bad, in fact it’s incredibly impressive, but it’s exactly what you might expect when you hear the words ‘portable god of war game’. It’s exactly like God of War 1, only not quite as good. Still an enjoyable experience, but not a memorable one.
Enemies
And I really wish that logic didn’t extend to the enemies as well, but uh… It’s just God of War 1 again! Well, okay, not entirely. For one, there are new redesigns of old creatures and enemies like the banshee are here in place of the first game’s sirens. There are also some new monsters, it’s just that the roster is so slim that the game uses a bunch of reskins as a cheap trick to make it seem like there’s more variety than there really is. And don’t get me wrong the designs are pretty great across the board, just not the combat design.
For example, the morpheus beast is really similar to the first game’s cerberus, but not as interesting. At first the beast really only has one attack, a claw swipe that can be easily blocked. It gets a pounce attack and some fire breath later on, but never truly feels like a challenge for what’s more or less intended to be the most fearsome monster in the game. Even the sphinx mini-boss is just a stronger, faster version of the morpheus beast, showing that the well of ideas truly was dried up.
There is however one major exception- the hyperion guard. And unfortunately this exception isn’t very exceptional. The hyperion guards and their stronger variants, the death knights, hold shields that require a square square triangle attack (or sufficiently powerful magic attack) to be shattered. It’s just so weird requiring the player to use a specific combo to defeat this one enemy, taking some of their agency away in combat. Plus, their shields respawn after a bit of time passes, making them repetitive to fight as well. They aren’t a terrible inconvenience or anything, just a hindrance to the pace without offering any additional dynamism to a fight.
On the bright side there’s a change to the harpies that I really enjoy. In the other games, harpies fly offscreen and chase Kratos around before attacking with a dive bomb. It was effective at keeping the player moving, but got to be more of an annoyance when too many of them were on screen. Here, they perform more of a sweep attack that can be blocked. It’s not revolutionary, but I do prefer this version of the enemy and applaud any positive changes to the established norm.
There are also some variants of soldiers, cyclops, and minotaurs with armor that require the gauntlet of Zeus to destroy. This is actually a great way to implement a shield without interrupting the flow of combat. Not only does it force the player to adapt to new situations and add variety to their attacks, but it also encourages them to branch out from the likely stronger blades of chaos to take out these other foes. It’s not like they’re anything new or innovative, but they are well thought out additions that add some much needed variety.
Why is that variety so necessary though? Because despite this game being a few hours shorter than the first and having a much larger roster to plow through, the game insists on making combat encounters as mundane as humanly possible. I’d say a solid 50-70 percent of the encounters consist of a bunch of enemies that can be taken out with a single grab accompanied by one or two of the larger enemies.
So little is done to shake things up that the game feels like it’s on repeat a lot of the time, much like the first game. And while the encounters work well enough to make the game as a whole enjoyable, they never manage to reach the heights of the other games. The enemy variety is improved, but the combat encounters don’t reflect that and it’s a shame that Chains of Olympus couldn’t experiment a bit more to make the game truly engaging from start to finish.
Bosses
Unlike the standard encounters however, the bosses are some of the best and most memorable in the series thus far! I’ve already covered the basilisk in the opening and the Persian general and sphinx mini-bosses, but those are all used to either teach the player certain mechanics or shake up combat encounters. They serve their purpose, but the other bosses are where things get really interesting.
Charon is the first and it’s honestly really boring. Just slap the guy with the chains until the fight’s over and then he sends Kratos into Tartarus in a cutscene. Of course, that’s not where the fight truly ends. Rather, it’s upon returning with the gauntlet of Zeus that the fight truly begins.
The first phase is pretty similar to the initial encounter, with Charon swinging and throwing around his scythe, as well as an evasive maneuver in which he slips underground before sliding away only to pop out and fire some energy balls that can either be dodged or reflected. He also has a new attack where he blasts Kratos with a beam from his eyes that’s pretty tough to dodge and leaves the player stuck in place taking damage for a while. It’s a solid start.
Eventually he’ll fly up to the front of the ship where he’ll begin to heal from the flames, forcing Kratos to use the gauntlet to shatter one of the pillars holding up the platform before he reaches full health. With the first pillar down his attacks become a bit faster and after the second he gains an area of effect wave that’s pretty easy to dodge, but adds another layer to the fight and after the third pillar falls Kratos is able to beat the ferryman for good by impaling him against the ship with his own scythe… Or so he thinks.
Charon rips himself off of the scythe and uses the top half of his body to fire more energy balls that need to be reflected in order to shoot him down and finish him off for good. It’s a cute fake out that leads to a satisfying conclusion. Honestly, the fight isn’t anything super radical or different for the series, but it’s got multiple phases, a few surprises, a decent enough challenge, and lasts for just about the perfect length of time. If you’re only going to have a few bosses in your god of war game, enemies like Charon are a great example to follow.
Unfortunately the next boss is almost the exact opposite- Calliope. In this battle, a small, child-like beast clings to Kratos’ leg, requiring the player to shake it off by mashing the circle button. Technically the fight has three phases, with each new phase requiring more button presses to progress, but a QTE-laden boss fight really isn’t what the game needs. It’s not even flashy or satisfying when you win- no decapitations or shoving a blade through the enemy, just letting them run away. Completely out of character for Kratos. Oh well, at least the fight is over quickly and we can head on over to the final boss- Persephone.
This showdown begins with Kratos hopping onto her back before she throws him inside the world pillar and begins the fight. Persephone has a few basic attacks- she can punch, summon a boulder to throw, ram with her shoulder, and fly towards Kratos before tossing him to the ground. These all have much shorter wind up animations than any other enemy in the game, some of them can’t be blocked, and she hits surprisingly hard. This phase is alright, if a bit long since her health bar goes down really slowly even at max level.
Eventually she gives Kratos a comforting hug before ordering Atlas to squish him, causing Kratos to pin him to the earth and fly back inside for phase 2. This time around she’s got three new attacks- an energy ball, a beam of light that she chases Kratos with, and a bunch of energy pillars that burst from the ground. This phase consists of dodging attacks before playing a bit of Gannondorf-style energy tennis, getting a few shots in, and repeating until she’s down. She can also move from pillar to pillar, but it doesn’t change anything about her attacks so it’s kind of pointless.
You may have also noticed this giant glowing circle on the ground, which is really confusing for the entire fight. For one, it kind of comes out of nowhere, no bit about Helios granting aid or a burst of sunlight coming from his destroyed prison, just a random circle. Standing on it reflects the sunlight forward, making me think that it was used to reflect Persephone’s energy beam, but it does nothing. Only at the end, when she’s down on her knees is the beam used to incapacitate her before Kratos delivers the final blow ending the fight. It definitely would’ve been better to leave this circle out until then, but after taking some damage most players should understand that it’s not useful until later.
The fight overall is pretty good. Persephone’s first phase is missing music and her health bar is ridiculously big which makes the fight a bit too long and repetitive, but her attacks are varied, the phases are distinct, the action is tense, and it serves as a satisfying conclusion to the adventure.
Platforming
Yeah, so… This is gonna be pretty short. Porting God of War to the PSP was an impressive endeavor, but cuts had to be made somewhere. Obviously that couldn’t be combat, meaning the platforming got the axe. Kratos still has his entire moveset from the first game- swimming, walking along walls, climbing, and such, but it’s never really utilized as part of a challenge. No time-sensitive chases, dodging obstacles to progress, or tricky jumps and it’s a double-edged sword.
Unfortunately, the mechanics are all here and someone decided that meant they all had to get used. So Kratos goes for a swim despite it only ever amounting to a change of scenery with some red chests to be opened slowly. He can climb on walls and fight some enemies, but much like in the first game it’s just a waste of time used to transition between different parts of a level.
On the other hand, it does offer a lot of streamlining opportunities. Getting rid of the plank walking with a little joke was great, as was the ability to slide across chains instead of slowly meandering forward while enemies shimmy towards you. And while the obligatory sections mentioned earlier are pointless, they’re equally rare. As a result, this is a God of War game made for those who enjoy combat and not much else.
Puzzles
Which of course means the puzzles got the shaft as well. In fact, in the entire game I can recall maybe 3 sections that could really be considered “puzzles”. Most of the time the game just directs the player to a lever and while some rooms may be set up to look like they have a trick up their sleeve, they almost always direct the player towards progression with an obligatory fight to tie the room together.
The one major exception is the light reflection puzzle in the temple courtyard. Here, the player has to take the statues around the courtyard and place them onto certain switches to reflect the light into other statues and eventually get all four to shine a light in the center where Kratos can activate the second horsey.
And when I say this puzzle is a stand out, that’s not necessarily a good thing. While I like the concept, in execution this whole area is a mess. Not only is it incredibly straightforward since each statue is clearly used to unlock the next, but needing to slowly slide these blocks around the courtyard is just a huge waste of time. It seems like the team was trying to go for a similar concept as the light and ice room in God of War 2, but while I commend their efforts to at least attempt to add in a puzzle, it’d probably be better if they had omitted the puzzles entirely.
Level Design
Chains of Olympus is definitely an odd game to describe for the series. Because while it does have everything one might expect from a God of War game, a bit more attention could have been paid to either fleshing out or omitting different gameplay elements depending on what worked best for the PSP. Unfortunately as I mentioned earlier a lot of the classic control schemes are still in the game, but they fail to justify their existence by adding value to the experience. It seems like overall the team wanted to add things in because they’re supposed to be in a God of War game regardless of whether or not they work for this particular game, leading to a few bloated sections or speed bumps in the pacing that wind up feeling like they exist to pad the runtime.
For example, one of my favorite things to do in a God of War game is to find red chests and upgrades hidden around the map. Seeing something just off camera and figuring out how to reach it is rewarding and usually feels well earned. Chains of Olympus has these as well, but there’s a major issue stemming from the PSP’s limitations- invisible walls.
Typically the only invisible walls in the series exist to prevent the player from accidentally jumping off a cliff, with solid ground having various elements or wreckage blocking the player's path otherwise. However I think the limited processing power of the PSP prevented the team from adding too many environmental obstacles and forced them to be replaced with invisible walls instead. Either that or having too many objects in the foreground might have made the environment difficult to read on a 4 inch, 480p screen.
Why does this matter? Well when it comes to a linear game with unlockables usually hidden just off the beaten path, an open space usually indicates a secret of some kind, but here a lot of them are unintentional. So while the chests in this game are some of the easiest to find in the series (to the point where I was fully upgraded by the end of my playthrough), the process of hunting them down becomes tedious with the number of dead ends the player will find along the way.
It’s not a major issue, but it is something that shows why changes to the level design need to be considered when moving to a new platform. One such change is the frequent save points. This game litters the environment with save points after every one or two battles. This makes perfect sense given that someone playing on the go may not have time for extended gaming sessions. A simple solution to a problem posed by the shift to portability.
On the other hand, it is a bit detrimental when playing on the PS3. As mentioned earlier, blue and green chests are also scattered around everywhere, making this one of the easiest games in the series by far. Plus with the constant saves comes a change in pacing. Since each save point indicates the conclusion to a section of the game, the game rarely has a natural flow for an extended period of time, leaving it feeling like a bunch of individual levels with a story loosely tying it together rather than an adventure (kind of similar to how God of War Betrayal was presented).
Of course, this is no fault of the developers, it’s just an unfortunate consequence of taking a game intended to be played in chunks and putting it on a home console. It doesn’t ruin the experience or even cheapen it all that much, it just doesn’t particularly translate to the PS3. And a big part of why that’s worth pointing out is that it stands out from the rest of the game, which by all accounts is an otherwise spectacular translation of the series’ core.
With one exception. Now look, this is gonna get petty and I’ll admit that I may be the one at fault here, but I need to talk about activating the statue of Euros. So the player walks into this room with some statues and a wall with a recessed handle. They push the statues forward and the handle comes out, allowing them to pull the wall back and form a staircase. Climbing the staircase, they’re introduced to the statue of Euros, spirit of the east wind, and a door that can be opened with the sun shield to get two red chests. Here’s the question- how do you proceed?
Well when I tell you I couldn’t figure it out for a solid 20 minutes I am not exaggerating. I eventually looked it up in a walkthrough and it turns out this room confused a lot of others as well. It turns out that when the stairs are pulled out, you have to run into a secret hole their side, similar to finding the secret elevator in the underwater pillar in the first game, except everything about this is terribly designed.
First, there’s no reason to have the stairs be pulled back in, it only wastes the player’s time. Second, the camera in god of war 1 showed the hole under the column in plain sight when the player went underwater. Here, the player has to specifically choose to look on the side of the stairs before the camera shows the hole. Plus, in that puzzle the statue of Athena points directly at the secret path, here we have the statue of Euros which only tells us that it’s the East wind, meaning I tried looking on the right side of the stairs since that would be eastward, but had zero reason to check the left side.
Like I said, this is likely the most asinine nitpick I’ve ever made in over 5 years of creating videos, but it blows my mind how a single room can get so many basic design principles so very wrong. I want to be clear that I do not hate Chains of Olympus. I very much enjoyed the experience. But despite this particular room likely only being an issue for me, it’s probably going to be the only part of the game I really remember years from now.
Final Thoughts
Alright, now that that’s off my chest, I want to reiterate that I did enjoy Chains of Olympus. It accomplishes exactly what it aims to- being a God of War game worthy of the name. In fact, I’d absolutely recommend it to anyone who’s played the other games in the series and is looking for more and I hope that someday it gets ported to modern consoles so it can be played by more fans without needing to buy a PSP or a PS3.
However, if you’ve played the first three games and don’t really feel a need to get more out of the series, I’d say skipping this one is fine. There’s no major plot elements that could come back in future games, no platforming or puzzles to vary the experience, and the combat is mostly just more of the same. It’s enjoyable while playing, but not something that will be remembered too long afterwards.
Though Chains of Olympus definitely deserved its praise at the time and I commend the developers for their well-earned success. Next time I’ll be going over Ghost of Sparta, the PSP follow-up taking place between God of War 1 and 2. Be sure to subscribe if you want to check that out, leave a like if you enjoyed the video, drop a comment down below to let me know your thoughts on Chains of Olympus, and as always, have a mighty nifty day today.