I am writing this review off the back of my second play-through of the game, back-to-back with its 2005 predecessor - the first time streaming to my PS4, the second playing on disc, remastered for the PS3. At its core, God of War 2 is exactly what a video game sequel should be - an improvement upon the original in every conceivable way. It builds on the solid foundation laid by God of War (2005), improves on what was already great about it, and fixes most of the gripes I noted in my review of the first game.
Story: God of War (2005) benefitted hugely from it's single-focus story, and that goes double for the sequel. Right from the jump, this game is full-throttle, transitioning into the opening cutscene directly from the main menu, and barely taking its foot off the gas for a second until the end of the game. Linda Hunt's narration carries over nicely from the first game, punctuating important moments and revealing that she is the voice of the Titan, Gaia. The story knows the angle it's going for, and wastes no time showing the players what to expect from the game in the opening sequence: Kratos is violent and angry, a walking power fantasy; nobody can stand in his way, and he's going to take on one ridiculously powerful foe after another until he gets what he wants. The game makes this promise at the opening, and delivers on it repeatedly throughout. The whole story carries an epic sensibility to it, because Kratos is the underdog in just about every scenario. As soon as Zeus betrayed Kratos, I knew I was in for yet another wild ride of a revenge tale. Admittedly, I think everyone saw this betrayal coming a mile away, and very little effort is made to disguise this, but I can overlook it for the entertainment value of the game. Throughout the story, Kratos clashes with numerous other characters on similar quests to his - all looking to change their destiny by reaching the Sisters of Fate. This is a clever use of the mythos, both Ancient Greek and canon from the first game, and sets up some brilliant boss battles and one of the games few emotionally resonant moments. While the story overall is wildly entertaining, it offers little in-depth analysis of it's themes of revenge, fate, sacrifice, fathers and sons, cycles of violence etc - but that's not necessarily a bad thing. While I appreciate games that take the time to do this, not every game needs to have that angle; it's okay for a game to just be entertaining and fun, and God of War 2 has that in spades. One thing I will say, though, is that this game is where we start to see the version of Kratos that comes to be the face of the series to outsiders - the sort of one-dimensional, over the top, hyper-angry killing machine. That's not exactly what you get in this game, as it's not devoid of emotionally compelling moments (such as the segment when he finds out Zeus has destroyed Sparta, or the death of Athena), but it's certainly a few steps down from the level of sympathy I held for the tortured soul in God of War (2005). This is the only real negative I have about the story, as Kratos slowly begins to flatten out and lose his nuance.
Graphics: Let me start by saying this game, for the most part, looks absolutely stunning in the remaster for PS3. It's crazy to me that this level of achievement was reached even in the remaster, let alone on the native PS2 hardware in 2007. There are 3 levels of graphics in this game, and none of them are terrible. At the very top are the cinematic cutscenes, the pre-rendered movies that play at a few major story beats. These are utterly beautiful, to a level that feels impossible for the PS2 to have achieved - hats off to Sony Santa Monica for these scenes. Second would be the actual gameplay of the remastered edition. It's smooth as butter on the disc version (especially as opposed to streaming it on my home wifi), the combat animations look great, and the environments are all really visually appealing. Third and last, we have the in-engine cutscenes that fill most of the smaller story beats of the game. These do not seem to have received the same treatment as the gameplay, and look more like they were pulled directly from the PS2. They're not terrible graphics, but the age does show through, especially when compared to the pre-rendered cinematics. There is a very noticeable drop in visual fidelity when the two are placed side by side. The worst offender is the 10-second scene of Kratos being taken by the hands of Death, as it is sandwiched right between the scene of him being stabbed by Zeus, and re-awakened by Gaia to escape the Underworld, both of which are pre-rendered. It's a really jarring change in visual appeal, albeit a brief one. Overall, the variety of graphics quality across the game gives me the notion that if the game were to be re-made from scratch (a-la "Resident Evil" series), it could really be something special to witness on the power of the PS5.
Gameplay: This was the only facet of the original game that I had real issues with. However, the sequel fixes a lot of those issues, and improves upon the better elements from the predecessor. The combat is still super-fluid and satisfying and cartoonishly gory (if frustratingly difficult at times), there is now a counter-attack system, doors now open with R1 instead of R2, beams are wider (but still no auto-balance), puzzles are still intricate and clever, level design shows some good variety, and of course, the boss fights are a crowning achievement. Just to list all the boss battles in the game is staggering, and each of them stands out from the others, feeling distinct, even if some are decidedly less epic than others (looking at you, Perseus). But from the Colossus of Rhodes to the Barbarian King to Lakhesis and Atropos to Zeus, every fight is distinct and fully-realized, and the series is rightly famous for that level of achievement (both in this game and God of War III). However, the camera angle of the game is still fixed, and while it's not as much of a burden as the last game, it's still annoying from time to time. I understand the developers might want to steer the camera sometimes to show the scale of certain levels such as the Steeds of Time, and that the fixed camera is often used to hide collectibles, which is an admittedly smart way to force the player to explore everything, but I think the earlier games could have benefitted from a more Uncharted-style approach to camera (though I realize Uncharted was released after these two games) - in those games, the player controls the camera most of the time, but there are some segments where the camera is steered to show that sense of scale, and the epic feeling of the cinematography is still captured, without fully removing some of the player agency. Again, this is something that could be fixed with a Resident Evil style remake, which I would love to see. My last gripe with the game is that there are still some segments which, even played on Normal difficulty, are frustratingly hard to complete, and at times really detracts from the fun of the experience. It's not enough to really drive me away from replaying the game in the future, but I do wish some parts like that could be tweaked so I'm not dying 20+ times in the same spot.
Overall, this game is a marked improvement over its predecessor in just about every way. It's truly the pinnacle of PS2 graphics, and it has awesome gameplay (for the most part) and a great (though not super-deep) story. It has not completely done away with the gripes I had, but it is ridiculously entertaining and enjoyable, and is absolutely worth a play.
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