So I got the God of War Saga remaster for a christmas present. I hid my immense disappointment and accepted it graciously while making a mental note to get the gift giver a bag of coal next year. But I decided to replay the first game on a whim for lack of anything better to do and boredom.
First, lets establish where I'm coming from. If you know me, you will know I hate Kratos and God of War. Not that they're bad games, because they do have their merits. Wonderful environments. Fantastic art direction (especially the later games). A cool balance of action-puzzles-platforming in it's gameplay and pacing, something I wish other games would emulate better. Really good voice acting and kill animations and music. There are definitely good things to be found in the GoW games.
All the same, for a very, very long time, I hated them viciously, for various reasons ranging from the valid and rational to blind fanboyism. I like to think I've completely outgrown the latter atleast. Anyway, first off, I found Kratos to be a horrible protagonist, and not just because he's one of the biggest douchebags in all of videogaming (more on this later). He's really distracting to play as. Otherwise, I truly did not find the game to be amazing. The basic gameplay got pretty boring pretty fast and there wasn't as much depth to be found as other games like DMC and NG. On it's own, it wasn't bad, but next to those games, it paled in comparison a harder shade than the ashes of Kratos' dead family on his skin. But more than anything, I was genuinely bothered that this franchise (particularly the first game, as I remember GoW2 being a big improvement in various aspects) got as much affection from the gaming community as it did when I felt it was extremely undeserved. Of course, that's nothing new, everyone has their games they think are vastly overrated while the larger community eats it up (call of duty is an easy target for this in today's environment), but for me, that game was GoW, and I hated it for it, and I've never had negative feelings that strong for any game since then. I'm glad, because I wasted a LOT of time and energy in pointless internet debates over various minutae of the game, just to discredit it.
It's been a long time since those days. And really, in the end, it is good to revisit old games (as much as movies and books) every once in a while to re-evaluate them. See how they still hold up. It''s also worth noting that God of War 1 is considered by several people to have has a certain integrity to it compared to the others, which makes a certain amount of sense. This is David Jaffe's original vision that is supposed to focus on the Greek Tragedy aspect of the story, where Kratos is said to be a slightly different character than what the other GoW's portray him as. "Who knows?" I thought. "Maybe this time around, without the fanboy blinders, I'll enjoy it." I didn't do that exactly (though there were parts that I enjoyed), but it helped clarify for why GoW doesn't work for me on various levels, most of them having to do with Big K himself. Also, this is kind of required viewing for this post, because I'm going to refute a few points they made. And if your a fan, watch it anyway, because it's a pretty smart piece of commentary on GoW itself.
I'll start with the positives. I really love GoW's architecture and this shows through even in the very first game. There are places in Athens and Pandora's Temple that are just beautiful. And I really liked the kind of world building that goes on in portraits and statues and things. Not just in the environments, but various characters that help establish the mood and tone of the world (The first warrior who tried to brave Pandora's Temple, for example). There is also a slight steampunk edge to the place. Not enough that it actually is steampunk, but for the purposes of gameplay, their rendition of Greece had to be more advanced than what was there in real life, leading to a lot of intricate mechanisms and even the giant Minotaur in Pandora's temple seemed to be at least partially mechanical (though there was definitely an organic body inside). And speaking of Pandora's Minotaur, that was by far my favorite boss battle in the game and one of my favorites in the whole franchise. The epic music really helped.
Honestly, much of this game would be a lot more fun if I was playing anyone except Kratos. And, again, I don't just mean because he's a douche in the narrative, but there is a certain disconnect for me for just how he plays. Which is ironic, because I often hear that Kratos is one of the best examples of characterization through gameplay. He's a big hulking brute that leaves countless dead in his wake...but that's not how he plays exactly, that's just what he looks like and what is the result of his encounters. Yeah, he looks brutal and his QTE animations portray him as being brutal but how he plays? He's a dancing ballerina. Seriously, with his spinning and how he moves and how the blades of chaos function, there is a big disconnect to me between a guy that looks like he's going to tear through you and he does, but not the way I'd expect. Sometimes, I want to put on Swan Lake to GoW gameplay to see how it fits. Honestly, I feel he plays much more true to form when he's wielding the giant sword Artemis (or Blade of Olympus in the sequels) than when he's twirling around with those chains. Combine his basic style of combat with his presumably fart propelled double jump and certain animations, I have to say I never felt that I was playing an unstoppable badass of rage and testosterone. And it's not that the combat wasn't satisfying to play, because don't get me wrong, it's fun. It's just not the image that Kratos sells....and one I generally don't like to play. Of course, there are vary specific reasons for why he plays like this.
See, the reason Kratos needs his big, wide spread, flaring blades is because of the camera. Camera's have been the bane of action games for a very long time, and a fixed camera angle helps solve many of those issues. However, that comes at a cost. Because it's a fixed camera angle, and you need to be aware of enemies, which means the camera is going to pull back. However, the player also needs to be aware of Kratos and what he's doing at all possible times. So, presumably, this is why he needs HUGE chains that give off the flares that give a very easy indication of what Kratos is doing at any given time. And of course he can't have a whip or something, because all the cool guys use swords, so he gets these rather silly looking ax-sword-on-a-chain that look even more impractical than the standard BFS that most anime heroes are saddled with. I personally don't like them. Other than the aforementioned reasons, I could never figure out how they were supposed to work even within the universe because the chains are never a consistent length or even attached to the swords and they work like rubber bands with how they stretch and snap back("GOMU GOMU NO...."). That's another disconnect, since they're supposed to laden with this image of iron sheered into flesh, but they just don't act like it. But, for gameplay purposes, it had to be this way, because the fixed camera angle demands a weapon with much greater visibility and hit range for the kind of distances it sometimes take, and normal swords didn't accomplish that purpose.
For my part, I would actually like to see them make a GoW game with a free camera just to see how the game would work differently, because I think the fixed camera makes the action less impactful somehow. I can't say for sure but.... look, have you guys ever purposely just killed enemies in high stakes combat by beating it to death in GoW? They just sort of fall over and disappear. It's pretty unsatisfying, whereas if I compare tough enemies in other action games like NG and DMC and Bayonetta, there is always a good feelings at the death of any tough enemy, even if I've beaten them several times before. I know this is also a subjective thing and others might feel differently, but it's something that has bugged me for a long time with this series, so I'd like to see someone atleast test this out. Because I just don't get the same thrill in beating down a minotaur or cyclops as I should unless I play that QTE for the millionth time. And those get so old and stupid looking. Ripping off the wings of harpies is awesome the first time. Several hours into the game, when your mashing O while harpies line up to get their wings ripped off is just stupid. Stabbing a minotaur through the back of the mouth the first time is awesome. Doing it the thousandth time, you just wonder why the bulls keep their mouth wide open like that for you every time.
So that covers gameplay for the most part. It's good, but there is a certain wierdness to kratos as a player character and I think experimenting with a free camera would benefit the franchise immensely. The narrative, or the character of Kratos, is a bit of a different story. There are two chief aspects to Kratos' as a character, Kratos the Badass and Kratos the Tragic Figure. And while I will reference the other GoW's, I want to just keep the character analysis focused to the first one. For the sake of recapping, since not everyone has played it recently, Kratos sells his soul to Ares when he finally is confronted with a war he cannot win, and works for him for a while, before accidentally kills his innocent family when he was intending to kill some other innocent family, at which point he turns against Ares. Then Ares attacks Athens, which prompts the Gods to hire Kratos to get the Pandora's Box, which will give him the power to kill Ares. They can't do it themselves because Reasons© (though Zeus was fine with it in GoW2 when Kratos was fucking shit up...). He does it, upon which the Gods pull a gotcha where they said they would "Forgive" Kratos, but aren't able to relieve him of his memories. Kratos then decides to kill himself, but they apparently waited for him to try and kill himself before rising him up to be the new God of War.
So....Kratos never came off as much of a badass to me. I know, blasphemy. After all, how can a man who has the balls to go and kill a friggen god not be badass? The concept in and of itself kind of presumes badassery, right? Well...he's too much of a pussy, for lack of a better word. Badassery isn't simply superior strength and it's implementation. Bullies or muggers or terrorists aren't badasses just because they can hurt and kill people, even people who are 'strong', right? Or, even if you think they are, that logic shouldn't apply to fictional characters, since any event or characteristic is dictated by the whims of the writer. With fiction, writers can do anything they want. Theoretically, I could write a story about how Steve Urkel blunders into Olympus and somehow overpowers Zeus. Does that make him badass, simply because I could write a story like that? I don't think so. And if nothing else, it's odd to say Kratos is unique in killing a god when it's something we do all the time as videogamers. All the DMC games (yes, even DMC2) and Ninja Gaidens and countless JRPG's and RPG's and other action games, they all had gods or god like characters in them that you flat out kill. If Kratos is badass for killing a god, he's a dime a dozen in that department. So what does qualify as badass to me personally? Well, that's something I've struggled to answer myself. It's hard to pin it down precisely. I think it has more to do with inner conflicts. I find it badass when a character has something they don't want to confront and do it anyway.
So, Kratos....Whats the nature of his inner conflict? His wife and kid are dead, and that makes him miserable. So he targets Ares for 1. Revenge and 2. Nightmares-B-Gone from Olympus Gods Inc. See, the problem is that Kratos' journey to kill Ares is actually the preferable thing for him. It's an excuse. Because he blames Ares for his problems and he wants to kill him, but what he doesn't want to do is confront himself about his own compliciteness in his family's deaths. This is a distinction that matters. Kratos states several times that he entirely blames Ares for his family's deaths, but he's the one who pledged his loyalty, he's the one who was A-OK with murdering indiscriminately. And Ares didn't do anything wrong in terms of his partnership with Kratos. Like, murdering people is obviously wrong, but I mean he didn't break any term of agreement with him. I'm honestly wondering why he even bothered with the tomfoolery. He could of flat out said to him "Go murder your wife and daughter" and Kratos would be bound by his oath to obey. Kratos got fucked and his unwillingness to confront his own guilt for what he did just comes across as cowardly. This continues in the sequels too, where he claims Zeus does him some great wrong because he puts a stop to his warmongering (Which, btw, is literally the exact same thing Ares did that forced the gods to hire Kratos as a deitic hitman). Kratos 'having the balls' to kill Ares is the direct result of him not having the balls to own up to his own fuck ups.
Also, as an aside, I think it's also important to have other badasses to compare yourself to. This is important because part of being a badass is how a character is seperated from the environment. This is a common mistake I feel a lot of people make, where they make the protagonist the only competent person the world. GaurdianE made a thread that explained a bit on how Vergil is important to Dante and the player. Vergil isn't analogous to Ares here, because Ares has a disproportionate power advantage from the onset. Vergil, as a rival, starts off on the same level as the player, but is a character out of the players control in the main game. This is an important thing to establish because it shows that there are NPC's with the same exact capabilities as you, so when the protagonist beats people on a level playing field, that feels badass too. The later God of War's had other Heroes, like Hercules. But in the first game, interestingly, probably has more unique NPC's than any other GoW, but they're all basically created to either aid Kratos or just be cowardly while he's all awesome because he isn't scared about whatever they're scared of. There's the boat captain, who exists just to establish Kratos' dickishness, soldiers and citizens that are all terrified, the Oracle that needs to be saved....just about the closest that comes to Kratos' prestige is the first soldier that Kratos meets once he reaches Pandora's temple. He was the first warrior to try and get through it, and was clearly f'ed up, so as punishment he has to burn the bodies of everyone who comes after. He's essentially the only other Hero that Kratos meets that is like him, and all we really learn about him is how he's a failure. Kratos is the only person that is 1. competent 2. able to intervene and 3. not the enemy. This isn't a huge point, but given all the mythology that David Jaffe was able to weave into the worldbuilding in Pandora's temple and stuff, it's surprising he didn't include any kind of rival character or something to help establish Kratos' badassery, if that was his intention.
But the intent is the question, isn't it? Again, it's often said that David Jaffe crafted this tale around the traditional Greek Tragedies, which Extra Credits manages to give a crash course in with their video. But there is a very strong element missing here: The ending, where Kratos is risen up to be a god. The important distinction here is what Kratos wants is to no be haunted by nightmares anymore. What he is given is Godhood instead. And here is where the crux of whether it is a true tragedy is. Because on one hand, Kratos is now forced to live with the guilt of his family being killed for all eternity. On the other hand, he is a fucking god. And I...just can't see how he as a character didn't come out of this deal with way more than what he was promised.
Because it is simply unbelievable to me that Kratos actually cares about his family, despite his evident sadness. Kratos has been killing people (innocent people from the sound of things in the flashbacks) for years. He's was a warmonger before he met his wife. He was one after he met his wife. He was one after he killed his wife. The only character trait that changes in Kratos in the entire story is that he, himself, is sad and can't seem to get over it. Keep in mind, he has absolutely no interest in doing right by the people he loves. He never asks the gods to bring back his wife and kid. He never asks the gods as a personal favor to make sure they're in Elysium. He never asks to see if he can go down and see them himself. Even from Athena, who is asking him to make the ultimate sacrifice, to who he can basically demand anything he wants, he doesn't ask this. He asks to make his nightmares go away. His pain is the only one that he wants to relieve. He doesn't really seem bothered by the thought that his wife could be getting tortured or whatever they do in hades. At no point do we see a flashback where his wife is not terrified of Kratos. She's either in a flashback asking him to stop his warmongering (to which he replies "lolno"), or she's in that hallucination thing that Ares does to Kratos in the end. And I'd like to point out this scene in particular. Keep in mind that Kratos thinks this is actually real. His wife and child are alive and well again. He's defended them this time. And now, they're safe, and they are begging Kratos to take them home....and he's busy laughing at Ares, all but saying "COME AT ME BRO".
Perhaps there is just a large culture difference between modern society and Ancient Greece, but we're supposed to believe this is a man who would spend 10 years mourning the loss of a wife he ignores at every opportunity, who is characterized by nothing except her ignored plea to have him stop doing indiscriminant murder? Furthermore, we are supposed to believe this is a man who the powers of Godhood have no in the light of that death? That he loves and mourns her so much that, when he finally thinks he has her back, his first priority is to tell his mortal enemy he can blow him instead of making sure she's safe? No....I certainly don't. I have played Chains of Olympus, which at last takes a moment to establish Kratos' connection to his family, where he makes his daughter a flute and has to let her go to save her, but none of this was established in GoW1, which is the one where everyone points to as the main story establishing the tragedy aspect of his character. What I think Kratos is, is a Comedy figure, in the classic sense of the word. He commits the ultimate crime, and is rewarded with it beyond his wildest dreams. He never has to be confronted that it wasn't Ares who slaughtered his wife and child, but he did, of his own will (even if it was in ignorance). He never has to confront what a fucked up person he is. Kratos is a horrible fucking human being and when he was pushed to complete despair, it got reversed in the strongest way possible. As such, I never feel that we get any true resolution on anything here. Kratos is, was and forever shall be a violent idiot. He doesn't change in any meaningful way, and never finds any truth about himself.
If God of war had ended 1 minute early, where Kratos simply fell into the sea and died, I probably would admire it for the tragedy it would truly be. The story of a ruthless man who destroyed all that was good to him, and was never even aware he did it. But being rewarded for it changes everything, unless you take to believe he really just can't get over that wife and child, which is just not a compatible character trait for how he's portrayed. It's simply too big a leap for me to believe he'd mourn someone to this extent, while establishing him to be a sociopath in every other instance, even the few interactions he had with that person he supposedly loved.
So, I've been trying not to ramble, but I've been writing this for two hours, and I think I better end it here. Final thoughts are that God of War is a decent game and other games would do well to emulate certain aspects. In fact, I would love a God of War with a deeper action system and a protagonist that wasn't one of the most insufferable assholes in fiction. I just don't think it should have ever become the megafranchise it became. There are far more deserving games.
Update: I added an additional section here if anyone didn't get enough GoW bashing.
First, lets establish where I'm coming from. If you know me, you will know I hate Kratos and God of War. Not that they're bad games, because they do have their merits. Wonderful environments. Fantastic art direction (especially the later games). A cool balance of action-puzzles-platforming in it's gameplay and pacing, something I wish other games would emulate better. Really good voice acting and kill animations and music. There are definitely good things to be found in the GoW games.
All the same, for a very, very long time, I hated them viciously, for various reasons ranging from the valid and rational to blind fanboyism. I like to think I've completely outgrown the latter atleast. Anyway, first off, I found Kratos to be a horrible protagonist, and not just because he's one of the biggest douchebags in all of videogaming (more on this later). He's really distracting to play as. Otherwise, I truly did not find the game to be amazing. The basic gameplay got pretty boring pretty fast and there wasn't as much depth to be found as other games like DMC and NG. On it's own, it wasn't bad, but next to those games, it paled in comparison a harder shade than the ashes of Kratos' dead family on his skin. But more than anything, I was genuinely bothered that this franchise (particularly the first game, as I remember GoW2 being a big improvement in various aspects) got as much affection from the gaming community as it did when I felt it was extremely undeserved. Of course, that's nothing new, everyone has their games they think are vastly overrated while the larger community eats it up (call of duty is an easy target for this in today's environment), but for me, that game was GoW, and I hated it for it, and I've never had negative feelings that strong for any game since then. I'm glad, because I wasted a LOT of time and energy in pointless internet debates over various minutae of the game, just to discredit it.
It's been a long time since those days. And really, in the end, it is good to revisit old games (as much as movies and books) every once in a while to re-evaluate them. See how they still hold up. It''s also worth noting that God of War 1 is considered by several people to have has a certain integrity to it compared to the others, which makes a certain amount of sense. This is David Jaffe's original vision that is supposed to focus on the Greek Tragedy aspect of the story, where Kratos is said to be a slightly different character than what the other GoW's portray him as. "Who knows?" I thought. "Maybe this time around, without the fanboy blinders, I'll enjoy it." I didn't do that exactly (though there were parts that I enjoyed), but it helped clarify for why GoW doesn't work for me on various levels, most of them having to do with Big K himself. Also, this is kind of required viewing for this post, because I'm going to refute a few points they made. And if your a fan, watch it anyway, because it's a pretty smart piece of commentary on GoW itself.
I'll start with the positives. I really love GoW's architecture and this shows through even in the very first game. There are places in Athens and Pandora's Temple that are just beautiful. And I really liked the kind of world building that goes on in portraits and statues and things. Not just in the environments, but various characters that help establish the mood and tone of the world (The first warrior who tried to brave Pandora's Temple, for example). There is also a slight steampunk edge to the place. Not enough that it actually is steampunk, but for the purposes of gameplay, their rendition of Greece had to be more advanced than what was there in real life, leading to a lot of intricate mechanisms and even the giant Minotaur in Pandora's temple seemed to be at least partially mechanical (though there was definitely an organic body inside). And speaking of Pandora's Minotaur, that was by far my favorite boss battle in the game and one of my favorites in the whole franchise. The epic music really helped.
Honestly, much of this game would be a lot more fun if I was playing anyone except Kratos. And, again, I don't just mean because he's a douche in the narrative, but there is a certain disconnect for me for just how he plays. Which is ironic, because I often hear that Kratos is one of the best examples of characterization through gameplay. He's a big hulking brute that leaves countless dead in his wake...but that's not how he plays exactly, that's just what he looks like and what is the result of his encounters. Yeah, he looks brutal and his QTE animations portray him as being brutal but how he plays? He's a dancing ballerina. Seriously, with his spinning and how he moves and how the blades of chaos function, there is a big disconnect to me between a guy that looks like he's going to tear through you and he does, but not the way I'd expect. Sometimes, I want to put on Swan Lake to GoW gameplay to see how it fits. Honestly, I feel he plays much more true to form when he's wielding the giant sword Artemis (or Blade of Olympus in the sequels) than when he's twirling around with those chains. Combine his basic style of combat with his presumably fart propelled double jump and certain animations, I have to say I never felt that I was playing an unstoppable badass of rage and testosterone. And it's not that the combat wasn't satisfying to play, because don't get me wrong, it's fun. It's just not the image that Kratos sells....and one I generally don't like to play. Of course, there are vary specific reasons for why he plays like this.
See, the reason Kratos needs his big, wide spread, flaring blades is because of the camera. Camera's have been the bane of action games for a very long time, and a fixed camera angle helps solve many of those issues. However, that comes at a cost. Because it's a fixed camera angle, and you need to be aware of enemies, which means the camera is going to pull back. However, the player also needs to be aware of Kratos and what he's doing at all possible times. So, presumably, this is why he needs HUGE chains that give off the flares that give a very easy indication of what Kratos is doing at any given time. And of course he can't have a whip or something, because all the cool guys use swords, so he gets these rather silly looking ax-sword-on-a-chain that look even more impractical than the standard BFS that most anime heroes are saddled with. I personally don't like them. Other than the aforementioned reasons, I could never figure out how they were supposed to work even within the universe because the chains are never a consistent length or even attached to the swords and they work like rubber bands with how they stretch and snap back("GOMU GOMU NO...."). That's another disconnect, since they're supposed to laden with this image of iron sheered into flesh, but they just don't act like it. But, for gameplay purposes, it had to be this way, because the fixed camera angle demands a weapon with much greater visibility and hit range for the kind of distances it sometimes take, and normal swords didn't accomplish that purpose.
For my part, I would actually like to see them make a GoW game with a free camera just to see how the game would work differently, because I think the fixed camera makes the action less impactful somehow. I can't say for sure but.... look, have you guys ever purposely just killed enemies in high stakes combat by beating it to death in GoW? They just sort of fall over and disappear. It's pretty unsatisfying, whereas if I compare tough enemies in other action games like NG and DMC and Bayonetta, there is always a good feelings at the death of any tough enemy, even if I've beaten them several times before. I know this is also a subjective thing and others might feel differently, but it's something that has bugged me for a long time with this series, so I'd like to see someone atleast test this out. Because I just don't get the same thrill in beating down a minotaur or cyclops as I should unless I play that QTE for the millionth time. And those get so old and stupid looking. Ripping off the wings of harpies is awesome the first time. Several hours into the game, when your mashing O while harpies line up to get their wings ripped off is just stupid. Stabbing a minotaur through the back of the mouth the first time is awesome. Doing it the thousandth time, you just wonder why the bulls keep their mouth wide open like that for you every time.
So that covers gameplay for the most part. It's good, but there is a certain wierdness to kratos as a player character and I think experimenting with a free camera would benefit the franchise immensely. The narrative, or the character of Kratos, is a bit of a different story. There are two chief aspects to Kratos' as a character, Kratos the Badass and Kratos the Tragic Figure. And while I will reference the other GoW's, I want to just keep the character analysis focused to the first one. For the sake of recapping, since not everyone has played it recently, Kratos sells his soul to Ares when he finally is confronted with a war he cannot win, and works for him for a while, before accidentally kills his innocent family when he was intending to kill some other innocent family, at which point he turns against Ares. Then Ares attacks Athens, which prompts the Gods to hire Kratos to get the Pandora's Box, which will give him the power to kill Ares. They can't do it themselves because Reasons© (though Zeus was fine with it in GoW2 when Kratos was fucking shit up...). He does it, upon which the Gods pull a gotcha where they said they would "Forgive" Kratos, but aren't able to relieve him of his memories. Kratos then decides to kill himself, but they apparently waited for him to try and kill himself before rising him up to be the new God of War.
So....Kratos never came off as much of a badass to me. I know, blasphemy. After all, how can a man who has the balls to go and kill a friggen god not be badass? The concept in and of itself kind of presumes badassery, right? Well...he's too much of a pussy, for lack of a better word. Badassery isn't simply superior strength and it's implementation. Bullies or muggers or terrorists aren't badasses just because they can hurt and kill people, even people who are 'strong', right? Or, even if you think they are, that logic shouldn't apply to fictional characters, since any event or characteristic is dictated by the whims of the writer. With fiction, writers can do anything they want. Theoretically, I could write a story about how Steve Urkel blunders into Olympus and somehow overpowers Zeus. Does that make him badass, simply because I could write a story like that? I don't think so. And if nothing else, it's odd to say Kratos is unique in killing a god when it's something we do all the time as videogamers. All the DMC games (yes, even DMC2) and Ninja Gaidens and countless JRPG's and RPG's and other action games, they all had gods or god like characters in them that you flat out kill. If Kratos is badass for killing a god, he's a dime a dozen in that department. So what does qualify as badass to me personally? Well, that's something I've struggled to answer myself. It's hard to pin it down precisely. I think it has more to do with inner conflicts. I find it badass when a character has something they don't want to confront and do it anyway.
So, Kratos....Whats the nature of his inner conflict? His wife and kid are dead, and that makes him miserable. So he targets Ares for 1. Revenge and 2. Nightmares-B-Gone from Olympus Gods Inc. See, the problem is that Kratos' journey to kill Ares is actually the preferable thing for him. It's an excuse. Because he blames Ares for his problems and he wants to kill him, but what he doesn't want to do is confront himself about his own compliciteness in his family's deaths. This is a distinction that matters. Kratos states several times that he entirely blames Ares for his family's deaths, but he's the one who pledged his loyalty, he's the one who was A-OK with murdering indiscriminately. And Ares didn't do anything wrong in terms of his partnership with Kratos. Like, murdering people is obviously wrong, but I mean he didn't break any term of agreement with him. I'm honestly wondering why he even bothered with the tomfoolery. He could of flat out said to him "Go murder your wife and daughter" and Kratos would be bound by his oath to obey. Kratos got fucked and his unwillingness to confront his own guilt for what he did just comes across as cowardly. This continues in the sequels too, where he claims Zeus does him some great wrong because he puts a stop to his warmongering (Which, btw, is literally the exact same thing Ares did that forced the gods to hire Kratos as a deitic hitman). Kratos 'having the balls' to kill Ares is the direct result of him not having the balls to own up to his own fuck ups.
Also, as an aside, I think it's also important to have other badasses to compare yourself to. This is important because part of being a badass is how a character is seperated from the environment. This is a common mistake I feel a lot of people make, where they make the protagonist the only competent person the world. GaurdianE made a thread that explained a bit on how Vergil is important to Dante and the player. Vergil isn't analogous to Ares here, because Ares has a disproportionate power advantage from the onset. Vergil, as a rival, starts off on the same level as the player, but is a character out of the players control in the main game. This is an important thing to establish because it shows that there are NPC's with the same exact capabilities as you, so when the protagonist beats people on a level playing field, that feels badass too. The later God of War's had other Heroes, like Hercules. But in the first game, interestingly, probably has more unique NPC's than any other GoW, but they're all basically created to either aid Kratos or just be cowardly while he's all awesome because he isn't scared about whatever they're scared of. There's the boat captain, who exists just to establish Kratos' dickishness, soldiers and citizens that are all terrified, the Oracle that needs to be saved....just about the closest that comes to Kratos' prestige is the first soldier that Kratos meets once he reaches Pandora's temple. He was the first warrior to try and get through it, and was clearly f'ed up, so as punishment he has to burn the bodies of everyone who comes after. He's essentially the only other Hero that Kratos meets that is like him, and all we really learn about him is how he's a failure. Kratos is the only person that is 1. competent 2. able to intervene and 3. not the enemy. This isn't a huge point, but given all the mythology that David Jaffe was able to weave into the worldbuilding in Pandora's temple and stuff, it's surprising he didn't include any kind of rival character or something to help establish Kratos' badassery, if that was his intention.
But the intent is the question, isn't it? Again, it's often said that David Jaffe crafted this tale around the traditional Greek Tragedies, which Extra Credits manages to give a crash course in with their video. But there is a very strong element missing here: The ending, where Kratos is risen up to be a god. The important distinction here is what Kratos wants is to no be haunted by nightmares anymore. What he is given is Godhood instead. And here is where the crux of whether it is a true tragedy is. Because on one hand, Kratos is now forced to live with the guilt of his family being killed for all eternity. On the other hand, he is a fucking god. And I...just can't see how he as a character didn't come out of this deal with way more than what he was promised.
Because it is simply unbelievable to me that Kratos actually cares about his family, despite his evident sadness. Kratos has been killing people (innocent people from the sound of things in the flashbacks) for years. He's was a warmonger before he met his wife. He was one after he met his wife. He was one after he killed his wife. The only character trait that changes in Kratos in the entire story is that he, himself, is sad and can't seem to get over it. Keep in mind, he has absolutely no interest in doing right by the people he loves. He never asks the gods to bring back his wife and kid. He never asks the gods as a personal favor to make sure they're in Elysium. He never asks to see if he can go down and see them himself. Even from Athena, who is asking him to make the ultimate sacrifice, to who he can basically demand anything he wants, he doesn't ask this. He asks to make his nightmares go away. His pain is the only one that he wants to relieve. He doesn't really seem bothered by the thought that his wife could be getting tortured or whatever they do in hades. At no point do we see a flashback where his wife is not terrified of Kratos. She's either in a flashback asking him to stop his warmongering (to which he replies "lolno"), or she's in that hallucination thing that Ares does to Kratos in the end. And I'd like to point out this scene in particular. Keep in mind that Kratos thinks this is actually real. His wife and child are alive and well again. He's defended them this time. And now, they're safe, and they are begging Kratos to take them home....and he's busy laughing at Ares, all but saying "COME AT ME BRO".
Perhaps there is just a large culture difference between modern society and Ancient Greece, but we're supposed to believe this is a man who would spend 10 years mourning the loss of a wife he ignores at every opportunity, who is characterized by nothing except her ignored plea to have him stop doing indiscriminant murder? Furthermore, we are supposed to believe this is a man who the powers of Godhood have no in the light of that death? That he loves and mourns her so much that, when he finally thinks he has her back, his first priority is to tell his mortal enemy he can blow him instead of making sure she's safe? No....I certainly don't. I have played Chains of Olympus, which at last takes a moment to establish Kratos' connection to his family, where he makes his daughter a flute and has to let her go to save her, but none of this was established in GoW1, which is the one where everyone points to as the main story establishing the tragedy aspect of his character. What I think Kratos is, is a Comedy figure, in the classic sense of the word. He commits the ultimate crime, and is rewarded with it beyond his wildest dreams. He never has to be confronted that it wasn't Ares who slaughtered his wife and child, but he did, of his own will (even if it was in ignorance). He never has to confront what a fucked up person he is. Kratos is a horrible fucking human being and when he was pushed to complete despair, it got reversed in the strongest way possible. As such, I never feel that we get any true resolution on anything here. Kratos is, was and forever shall be a violent idiot. He doesn't change in any meaningful way, and never finds any truth about himself.
If God of war had ended 1 minute early, where Kratos simply fell into the sea and died, I probably would admire it for the tragedy it would truly be. The story of a ruthless man who destroyed all that was good to him, and was never even aware he did it. But being rewarded for it changes everything, unless you take to believe he really just can't get over that wife and child, which is just not a compatible character trait for how he's portrayed. It's simply too big a leap for me to believe he'd mourn someone to this extent, while establishing him to be a sociopath in every other instance, even the few interactions he had with that person he supposedly loved.
So, I've been trying not to ramble, but I've been writing this for two hours, and I think I better end it here. Final thoughts are that God of War is a decent game and other games would do well to emulate certain aspects. In fact, I would love a God of War with a deeper action system and a protagonist that wasn't one of the most insufferable assholes in fiction. I just don't think it should have ever become the megafranchise it became. There are far more deserving games.
Update: I added an additional section here if anyone didn't get enough GoW bashing.
