Every God of War game has a place in my heart, GOW3 having the biggest place. But Ascension comes a close second. The visuals paired with breathtaking sound design was a thing to die for. It is fairly or should I say the most difficult installment. I say difficult, not from "beating it" perspective but from a "styling it" perspective. Its pretty hard to find your footing, with enemies interrupting you left and right.
You have to think on your feet and not just rely on a reflex of light attack mashing to crowd control which has always interrupted enemies no matter the difficulty in the earlier classics. In order to play it flawlessly and smoothly, you have to have pristine crowd control, and know the subteleties of the combat system in and out. To interrupt them you have to rely on heavy attack, that being traingle attack, finishers, magic, plumes, parries, grab slam, grab throws, weapon discard, world weapon having higher interrupt potential which is a games way of telling you to use them more and rely on them as well as the other aforementioned techs.
And because of this difficulty, coming out on top unscathed while styling and dominating the encounter feels so incredibly gratifying for the exact reason. Its not for everyone, and its not a perfect game, with glaring flaws but its an incredible game nonetheless once you can work around what works and what doesn't.
As for the flaws that this game had was otherwise mediocre story followed by trash story telling. Despite me praising the combat for the above reason. The game's take on Rage meter was amazing, but it should have been an immolation meter and have a separate rage meter. I am still fine with rage meter locking in some additional moves as it rewards proficient play. Also hated how special attacks didnt fill up the rage meter, heavy attacks barely fill the rage meter. You would think a game rewarding variety should have added this but no. I also feel that game being at 30 fps really gets in the way, sometimes recovery after an attack animation is way too slow to the point that you are standing still only for enemy to hit you despite you tapping block. Despite Successful parries it sometimes wiffed, same with grab (even though great mechanic) it sometimes locked onto pots and destructibles rather than the enemy. Despite the above flaws I love this game dearly for the things that it does good which is Combat even with the aforementioned flaws. Probably because this was the only GOW games that allowed weapon/element switching which I missed. GOW2 can easily takes its place for me if it had weapon switching like GOW3. But because I love weapon switching on the go is why I like GOW Ascension and GOW3 so much followed by GOW1 and GOWS.
If you are new to this channel do check out my content. You can find content all the way from Dante's Inferno, DMC5, Castlevania Lords of Shadows 1 and 2, Fallen order, GOW3,2,1, Ghost of Sparta, Ori and the will of wisps, GOW 2018, Ragnarok, Wolverine, Spiderman Web of Shadows, Spiderman PS4 and many more from a very combo focused and stylish perspective. And last but not the least, thanks for reading through. I am glad that my passion for hack and slash games reached someone. Nice to have you here, have a great day!
