God of War III - Leaving Hades

Wandering through Hades isn't that complicated. Thankfully it's pretty straight forward since I wanted to get Hades out of the way quickly. Sure Hades was a great platforming area in the first game and it was a pretty short area in the second game, but it just feels over used. I wanted to get on to new territory. Thankfully there's some great Kratos moments in here. Especially when Kratos randomly burns some guy alive and steals his bow. I don't quite get Kratos' motivation behind this. The guy offered Kratos his bow anyways if Kratos would just free him. Kratos says nothing about it, but in the end he just ups and kills the guy by using a Cerberus to burn him. Random. The bow is Kratos' second "magic", if you hold the attack button long enough it the bow will shoot a flaming arrow, this is used in a lot of puzzle solving.

The game has also changed how collectibles work. In the first 2 games Kratos needed 6 eyes or 6 feathers to get an upgrade. Now you only need 3 and there are minotaur horns thrown into the mix. The upgrade appears to be smaller this time round though. I guess they want to allow Kratos to upgrade on a more regular basis. I really have no opinion on this, both of these mechanics work. The newer version just tends to reward the player a little more regularly.

Running around Hades there is quite a bit of name dropping going on. The developers seem to love to randomly throwing Greek stories into the mix and mash them into a barely recognizable form so they fit the God of War story. The worst culprit here is Pandora. You meet her father, Hephaestus and he mentions that his daughter Pandora is still alive. I assume she's the little blue flame girl that Kratos encounters during the level. But the first game dealt with Pandora's box. Somehow they're going to have to reconcile Pandora being here and Pandora's box already being opened by the wrong person. Especially since Pandora's box was suppose to unleash all of the world's suffering, not cause a mortal to grow really tall.

Then there's Persephone, the wife of Hades who apparently Kratos killed in the Chains of Olympus PSP game. I've never played the PSP game so I didn't know this but it seemed like important information. But Hades (the God) is a real dick, especially since he involved his own wife's corpse in the puzzle that allows Kratos to reach him. Not a new trick, the Architect of Pandora's Temple did the same thing in the first game.

The boss battle against Hades himself is actually pretty simple. Hades uses a weapon eerily similar to Kratos' own and in the end Kratos nabs the weapon for himself. The best part of the fight for me was when a half destroyed Hades pops out of the River Styx and Kratos uses Hades own weapon against him. This was a pretty fun challenge, especially with all of the swinging back and forth around the destroyed arena. Kratos eventually rips Hades soul out of his body and the God of the Underworld dies (just to note, he also doesn't explode). Hades' death means that the souls of the dead are no longer trapped in Hades (the place) and they seem to be streaming into the world of the living.


 Kratos eventually tells Hephaestus that he won't look for his kid and Kratos leaves Hades. We now end of in Olympia where Kratos encounters Gaia. I love this part. Kratos helped Gaia and in return Gaia screwed him over, so in typical Kratos fashion he returns the favor. Gaia begs for his help, instead Kratos cuts off her hand and sends her plummeting off a cliff. Very satisfying.

Olympia continues the trend of being a straight forward place but you encounter the stupid mechanic of using Harpies to get across chasms. There's a Centaur battle (lame) and a Chimera battle (easy, but the Chimera's look cool). The highlight so far has been the encounter with Helios. Helios is the guy who rides his flaming chariot and that causes the sun to move across the sky. Kratos apparently helped Helios in the Chains of Olympus PSP game (*sigh*, I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of information). Helios tries to trick Kratos under the guise of friendship. Kratos returns the favor by ripping off Helios' head! Good stuff. Helios' head is used to reveal hidden passage ways and it also works like flashlight in dark areas. Sounds like a godd use of a head to me.

And that's where I'm at. Still wandering around Olympia. Oh, I forgot to mention the Minotaurs. First, very sweet looking, major props to the art team. Second, Minotaurs no longer randomly spin along the ground during their brutal kill! Sure they still have a fixed camera angle kill, but Kratos now gets to wrestle them into the proper position. It works, it's not immersion breaking and I really like it.

Next time: More of Olympia.