God of War: Chains of Olympus

This is a review for a game I finished in February 2025. I just felt compelled to write about it now, I guess.

This is honestly a game that I don’t know how to explain that much. It’s God of War, everyone knows how a classic God of War plays right? Probably not everyone I guess.

If you don’t, God of War is a button masher, however, it is a button masher with a lot of style and combos! The game is known for its epic battles against hordes of enemies and is basically a power fantasy. You are literally the God of War, after all.

Kratos is a very angry character, and he is also kind of cool. He is tasked by the greek gods to do many things—I think he’s not the God of War yet or something?—and has to kill every enemy that crosses his path.

I know I just called it a button masher, but there’s an actual science behind it, there really are a lot of weapons and movesets you will be unlocking as the game goes on. Different enemies require very different appraoches, some can only be damaged in a certain way, some can entangle you and you need to break free from their grasp, and there are many of them! You can upgrade your weapons and moves, as well as obtain new ones as the story continues. Keep the hits coming, and you will gain extra points and XP and fill up meters and all of that good stuff that makes your brain happy!

The game also features a lot of locations, both real cities from Ancient Greece, as well as locations from greek myths, such as Tartarus or the fields of Elysium. I should note that the game is extremely linear, an adventure on rails that I actually really enjoyed. Not having to worry or get too lost was nice to see.

Besides the combat, the game contains plenty of puzzles, some of them kind of ingenious, but I have to say I found them a bit out of place sometimes, especially because certain things were just kind of slow to do, such as pushing blocks or using certain levers. They kind of got in the way of the fast paced action during combat, and Kratos’s prowess was relegated to pushing buttons in a specific way (some actions were a bit hard to trigger).

The art of the game is incredible, and the fact that it’s all running on a handheld from 2005 boggles my mind, it just looks gorgeous, even if it has a bit of that “everything is brown” problem that some older “realistic” games suffered from. Enemy design, the animation of every attack and combo, the art and statues all over the place, the fiels of Elysium itself or the giant structures you’ll fight through. It’s all just fantastic.

Again, story-wise, it’s not really weak, but it’s not really that important. I have seen video essays about this game, detailing the story of Kratos’ journey and downfall for revenge, and I guess it is there, but this is also a PSP game that happens between some other games that I have never played, so I had no real stakes to care about. There was one scene that was actually really interesting though, so I’ll not spoil it as it’s rather nice to see.

God of War: Chains of Olympus still plays like a charm, though Ghost of Sparte, the second title for the PSP is technically superior in everyway, this is only noticeable once you compare them. I really had fun with it and recommend giving it a try. Do make sure to level up and get good at the combos though, and keep your health in check, some fights in some checkpoints can get very tedious if you are stuck in a bad state and have to reload a previous save further back. I guess that’s my one complaint, but it’s part of the challenge anyway, lower the difficulty and enjoy the power fantasy if you want that instead.

This is day 95 of #100DaysToOffload