God of War III - Hope, Be More Useful

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*wipes tears from his eyes*
Holy crap.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
hehehehehe....
hehehe...he..he

The game is over *snort*. Credits are rolling as I type this (hehehehe). They'll probably finish first, but boy do my sides hurt. The ending, HAHAHAHA!!! If you want to call it that.....it's just so, so, HAHAHAHAHA!!

Yeah, I'll try to take this seriously. If that's possible. This is quite literally the ending where the writers just said, "Screw it. Just kill everything." Now if you actually expected more from God of War then you were playing the wrong game. The dev team does make a grab for the artistic side right at the very end, but it does feel pretty tacked on. Oh, and there's an extra scene after the credits now, great. So here we go.

Kratos was standing on top of the Labyrinth. He needs to climb that Chain again and it's a long climb back up to the top to reach the Flame of Olympus. Once at the Flame Kratos pushes a lever that slowly raises the Labyrinth up to the Flame. There's not actually enough room for the Labyrinth to fit so parts of it break off and it breaks off parts of the environment it gets dragged through. All the while Pandora cowers in fear. It really is a great metaphor for Kratos' life. Kratos has moments of sheer brillance, but in the end he destroys everything. With the Labyrinth up at the Flame the building he's in is pretty much decimated.

Pandora's Box is now accessible so Pandora makes a dash for the Box. Kratos has a last second change of heart and tries to stop Pandora. Kratos has pretty much made saving Pandora equal saving his own child. Pandora escapes Kratos, but Zeus has already shown up and now he stops Pandora. Zeus threatens to kill Pandora but Kratos convinces him to fight instead. So it's round 1 of Kratos vs Zeus.

This fight is actually pretty cool. It takes place on a 2D plane and it's a brutal knock-em-down drag-it-out free-for-all. Well, not really. Zeus does have a pattern and it needs to be cracked if you want to beat him. I found that L1+O is actually really effective against Zeus in this fight. It tends to break most of his attacks. Most of Zeus' attacks carry him forward so it's easy to get behind him and wack him around. This is a fun fight and once again I can easily see Kratos in the new Mortal Kombat.

Once Zeus goes down (down, but not out) more destruction happens and more of the building collapses. Pandora has to run on a giant chain while it's falling into the massive pit below, it's unintentionally comical. But eventually she's able to make a dash for the Box. Kratos actually grabs her and stops her but the power of the Box is trying to suck her in. Zeus encourages Kratos to save her but he then makes the mistake of telling Kratos not to fail like he's failed his entire life, like he failed his family. That was a stupid thing to say. Kratos snaps, lets go of Pandora and attacks Zeus.

So Pandora hits the box and the box unlocks much to Zeus' horror. Kratos opens the box and it proves to be empty. An incredibly happy Zeus tells Kratos how much he's failed and then he leaves. No choice but to follow. The box may be empty but Kratos isn't done yet. He still hasn't had his revenge.

Kratos finds Zeus outside at a gazebo-like overhang. Very few words are spoken and the battle gets underway. It's time for Kratos vs Zeus round 2. But this isn't an actual fight. I can only assume that you can die, but you can't beat Zeus yet. Eventually Gaia shows up. I was pretty certain that Gaia wasn't dead yet. Gaia yells at Kratos for the condition that the Earth is in and she tries to kill Kratos and Zeus by crushing the gazebo. Kratos and Zeus both escape by diving into a hole into Gaia's body that Poseidon opened up at the beginning of the game.

I'll say right here that I'm disappointed that I don't get an actual fight against Gaia. Once inside you move pretty quickly to Gaia's Heart. I was really hoping that Kratos would fight Gaia (similar to the Cronos battle) and eventually end up inside her at her heart. Instead it's fairly straight to the heart and on to the final(ish) battle.

It's Kratos vs Zeus round 3: The Battle for Gaia's Heart. No I'm not just trying to be funny. During the fight both characters can use Gaia's heart to recharge their health so whoever controls the heart can control the battle. But only slightly. Kratos really needs to stay on top of Zeus in this fight and he needs to unleash the Rage of the Spartans whenever possible. Zeus makes clones of himself during the fight and he can make a lot of them. This can greatly complicate the fight, but the Army of Sparta is a great nullifier and can quickly reset the playing field. If the player can stay on top of Zeus that will prevent him from creating too many clones. Once Zeus goes down a QTE begins, predictably this ends with Kratos stabbing the Blade of Olympus through Zeus and into Gaia's heart. There a big explosion and it's believed that the fight is over.

Here's where things get silly and I feel my laughter is justified. You're given control of Kratos again. Kratos finds Zeus' body and he pulls the Blade out of Zeus' body. At this point Zeus' spirit rises up, knocks Kratos over causing Kratos to lose all of his items except his regular blades, drains Kratos of all of his power (at least they didn't wait until the start of the next game this time) and kills Kratos again.

Kratos ends up in a "dream-like" darkeness state. That's the best way I can think of putting it. The whole thing has a slight fish-eye look going for it to try to give it a surreal effect. Kratos is mostly black now with glowing highlights and his tattoo glows bright red, this is also an attempt to create a surreal look (beating the game reveals this to be Fear Kratos). Kratos wanders what I assume is actually the corridors of his mind. But luckily plucky young Pandora makes a reappearance after her "noble sacrifice" and encourages our "hero" to continue forward. Kratos needs to learn that he can earn his forgiveness by forgiving himself or something along those lines. Kratos has to relive his biggest failures. Those would be when he killed his wife and daughter, and when he killed Athena. But Pandora tries to help him past of all this.

Eventually Kratos finds himself in bloody water where he's hearing voices. It's intrepid young companion Pandora to the rescue again. She leads Kratos to Pandora's Box, which is still empty. But Pandora tells Kratos to use the power of Hope! It's what we use when we have nothing else (get it? you know, since Kratos lost all of his items and powers earlier?)! Go Team! So that was the dev team's one attempt at being artistic in the whole series. It makes me laugh. Kratos using the power of hope, hehehehehe.

Now if you know anything about Pandora's Box, Hope is what laid at the bottom of the Box and, according to Greek Mythology, it's the one thing that didn't escape when Pandora opened it.

Apparently Pandora's words have an effect on Kratos as he comes back to life. He frees himself from Zeus spirit. Take note that Kratos' hands now have a blue flame glow. Kratos pulls out his normal blades and you get to fight the Spirit in First-Person Mode. It's an easy fight, eventually the spirit turns back into normal Zeus and Kratos begins to pummel him, still in First-Person. This part is dumb. Technically Kratos can take out his endless frustration on Zeus corpse by just smashing the O button. Eventually the screen will be covered with blood. You won't be able to see anything except for red and you can still smash the O button repeatedly. If you stop pressing the button the screen clears and Zeus explodes. Kratos now gets to stare out over a wasteland.

It's at this point that Athena appears. She demands that Kratos give her the power that he used to kill Zeus. Kratos tells her that the box was empty. Time for a very silly reveal. Through this cutscene it is revealed that during the first game, when Kratos opened Pandora's Box he actually released everything that was inside of it. The Darkness infected the Gods and that's why Zeus became so paranoid and desperate to kill Kratos. Kratos was actually infected with Hope. It was Hope that allowed him to kill Ares. This basically means that the events of the third game were pointless! Kratos always had the power, opening the box was dumb. The whole quest to open the box was dumb. Every part of it was dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Anyways, Athena still demands the power and Kratos tells her to screw off and that his vengeance ends here. Kratos picks up the Blade of Olympus and stabs himself with it, this spreading the power of Hope into the air and giving to whatever creature remain alive. Athena is mad, calls Kratos a disappointment and then leaves. We're shown Kratos with a massive hole through him slowly bleeding out. Roll credits.

And then the credits end. There's a short scene after the credits. It shows a trail of blood where Kratos had been lying that leads towards the ocean and then vanishes over a cliff. This of course leaves the ending ambiguous. Kratos may now find some way to survive and return for God of War IV: The Search For More Money.

I don't even know what to say now that it's over. The third game ends with the Earth as a wasteland. Kratos may or may not be dead. Hope is spread among whatever poor survivors are still hanging around. It's just such a sad state. This is all made worse by the shoe-horned story that was thrown together for this game. Yes it really is that bad which is shame since the combat is still so much fun. But let's be honest, that's why you play these games. You're not looking for something that makes sense, or blows your mind away. You want over the top action and God of War III delivers in spades. The games attempt at redeeming Kratos is just unnecessary. Kratos is a monster, a force of nature the likes the world never needed to see. They really should have just left it at that.

Now what should I play next?