God of War: Chains of Olmypus — the Voyage

There's something about this game that doesn't even make me want to be witty. I think, by the end of it, I just didn't want to be associated with it.

I want to preface this by saying that I'm a bit short with this game because my particular copy took forever to load on certain parts. I'm not sure if the UMD couldn't be read, if the game was a bit too scratched up, or what, but after the Charon battle, I had numerous problems loading the game thereafter. I would get to Calliope playing her flute and then the game would freeze—sometimes even white screen. It took me hours (a couple of days even) to get the game to load right. So that alone soured the experience for me.

Onto the game itself, Chains of Olympus is an extremely short game. It only has eight hours of gameplay. From what I've seen, there aren't many hidden goodies (though if there are, they're pretty well hidden).


The puzzles are trying but good as always. This is definitely a good lateral move for the other games. This game does give you a bit more of the familial feel-goods, and it does add on bitterness when dealing with the gods. The boss battles are a bit difficult, but only in one similar way. You've to learn their patterns. And with Charon, it's a bit easier to get into his movements, as he telegraphs his movements quite often. The same can be said of a certain goddess towards the end, but she becomes a bit more random towards the end.

Both of those boss battles alone are really long, especially if you're prone to making mistakes. With more tries comes less patience, and apathy starts to set in. The battles aren't as engaging, especially the final boss battle towards the end. The less you care, the more mistakes you make, and that makes it less desirable to play. The battles can be highly repetitive, and even though you get four different skills (your blades, a gilded fist, Charon's magic, Apollo's shield, and Apollo's magic), you'd probably end up sticking with just four of those if the game didn't demand you switch up every now and again.

Kratos controls rather well. The button allocation is a bit different than what we're used to (primarily because two trigger buttons are missing). It takes a bit of getting used to and can prove for a hilarious readjustment when switching to and fro consoles. You don't have to worry much about the camera as there aren't too many situations where it'll be in your control. You especially don't have to worry about it during battles as the camera doesn't wander around too much. It's very easy to keep track of your opponents. And if they wander off camera, all you've to do is just wait for them to come back!

The end of the game came a bit too quickly for me as I was actually surprised when it was over. This game was one that I could hardly keep in my hands. I just wasn't that interested. I love Kratos' character and the world's lore and all, but there was just something about this particular installment that just didn't grab me as much as the others. Out of all of them, this definitely isn't my favourite installment of the game, but all of that said, I'm glad that I, at least, had the chance to experience it. It's a pretty good way to kill time.