NoGameNoLife God of War: Sons of Sparta Review

Summary Played the game for about 4-5 hours on the spartan (hard) difficulty, saw about a third of the regions, got a couple of powers/upgrades. Overall, I just got frustrated by some of the game mechanics/designs and don’t really want to slog through the game anymore when I have other backlogged games. Background Am a GoW fan as I have played a lot of the old GoW games on the PS consoles and PS portable. Really enjoyed GoW (2018) and GoW Ragnarok. I also like metroidvania games (Metroid Dread, Ori, Hollow Knight, Silksong) but it pains me to say that I did not enjoy Sons of Sparta. And I think it has a lot to do with certain game mechanics which really frustrated me. I’m gonna start with my biggest gripe: I do not enjoy the combat and often felt frustrated upon dying. Issues Clunky Combat: I have a lot of gripe with the combat but if there was one word to describe all my feelings is that it felt clunky. I never felt that way playing any of the other GoW games, and I’ll try to explain why I feel this way. • Animation locks I keenly felt this when trying to parry or taking damage from enemies. I had a lot of trouble trying to parry mid attack animation where it felt like there was no animation cancel. Parrying only seemed to work when I’m not attacking and waiting for the enemy to attack. I don’t ever remember having this trouble with parrying in GoW (2018) or GoW Ragnarok mid attack. Also, the parry window seems a bit weird to me that I never fully got the hang of it even after 4-5 hours, it felt like you had to parry before the enemy attack motion as every time I try to parry when the enemy attack motion is midway, I always get hit. You also get briefly stun locked from enemy hits and when the enemy had multi hit combos you are basically stunned for that duration and other enemies can just gang up on you. This leads me to my next complaint. • Lack of hit registration Enemies hit you, you get mini stunned or stun locked if it’s a combo but when you hit an enemy its like you are hitting an immoveable statue. They just do not react whatsoever. This in combination with a couple other issues (detailed next) make it very frustrating to play. • Enemy hitbox contact damage and knock back So the game is designed that if you get close or occupy their hitbox you get damaged and knocked back. And well, it sorta sucks when the enemy is an immovable statue. Kratos’s basic attack animation naturally moves the character forward as well as additional skills such as his 2-hit combo after doing a dodge roll. Well… what happened to me often is that when I dodge roll and do that 2-hit combo you move into the enemy hitbox, get damaged, and knocked back into the thing you were trying to dodge out of in the first place. The game also sucks when you are having to fight multiple enemies. Due to no hit registration/reaction from Kratos, enemies just tend to keep attacking you. And since the parrying window feels off for me, I decide to just dodge more, right? While dodge have i-frames, but if there is an enemy occupying the space you are dodging into you take damage, knocked back, mini stun/animation lock, and get hit by the enemy you were trying to dodge away in the first place. Not really fun. Also, trying to get onto a platform/elevation when the enemy is edge camping is so frustrating due to the hitbox contact damage. • Combat skills seem worthless The combat skills don’t really change the game much. There is no game mechanic incentive that I have found where I’d want to use them that often and found myself sticking to the basic 1 2 3 4 combo. Got a skill where I could pogo (like in hollow knight), damage was so tiny that it was practically worthless. QoL problems The game feels unpolished and lack a lot of the quality-of-life stuff you’d see in modern metroidvania games. • Map is barebones Global map is very much like old Metroid games, boxed rooms with entrances and exits. There is a legend with some information but after playing Ori and Hollow Knight this map design is very old fashioned as it provides no information about each room’s layout. You also don’t get any options to put custom markets (at least I can’t find out how). • Teleportation spots There are teleportation spots but the coverage is pretty meh. And why isn’t there one in Sparta? Considering there is a pretty important merchant in the city for upgrading/purchasing equipment having no teleportation spot conveniently close seems like a misstep to me. The closest spot is about 5-8 min trek through what felt like 10 rooms to get to that merchant. Conclusion Every time I died or have to make certain treks through the map, I just feel oddly frustrated as though I’m fighting with the game design/mechanics. My 4-5 hours just didn’t feel quite as fun and with backlogs of games like FF7R, Yotei, Dispatch, Indiana Jones, etc. I just didn’t want to keep playing, which is pretty rare for me. Even for a GoW IP game it just doesn’t hold my attention or interest. If you can tolerate some of the game’s clunkiness, then its probably an average (if not slightly below average) game at 3/5 stars. But for me I’m gonna have to rate it a 2/5 stars and wouldn’t recommend this game when there are other options.