God of War: Ghost of Sparta

• 1. Introduction

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  God of War: Ghost of Sparta began as a puzzle hidden behind a trophy. Players who earned the platinum trophy in God of War III were pointed to a website, spartansstandtall.com. The page showed torrential rain falling into a body of water, and a Spartan shield ringed by a meter. Fans guessed that each player who reached the trophy and the site was filling that meter. On the 4th of May 2010, the meter hit its maximum. The site changed one last time. It now showed Kratos standing above a reflection, beside the logo of a new PlayStation Portable game. That game would send the God of War back into his own past. What was Kratos hoping to find there? How do you fit a console-sized epic onto a handheld? And why did critics praise the result while asking whether it dared enough?

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• 2. Chains and Fire

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  Two chains are wrapped around the wrists and forearms of Kratos, and at their ends swing the Blades of Athena. These twin blades are his main weapon, and the whole combat system is built around chaining their swings into combos. Late in the game he gains a second weapon, the Arms of Sparta. It is a spear and shield, so he can guard with one and throw the other at distant targets.

  A fire ability called Thera's Bane sets the blades alight. It works like the Rage power of earlier games, with stronger hits that pierce enemy armor. Like the Items in God of War III, it refills by itself, and a Fire meter tracks it. Some doors will only open to Thera's Bane, and the Arms of Sparta also clear obstacles. Kratos can learn up to three magical abilities: the Eye of Atlantis, the Scourge of Erinys and the Horn of Boreas. Poseidon's Trident returns from the previous game and lets him breathe underwater, which matters because parts of this adventure keep him submerged for long periods.

  Minotaurs, cyclopes, harpies, Gorgons and satyrs come straight from Greek myth. Undead legionnaires, keres wraiths, geryons, automatons, Boreas beasts and Triton warriors were inspired by myth but invented for this game. The camera is fixed and the game is single player. Between fights, Kratos climbs walls, leaps chasms, swings on ropes and balances along beams. Some puzzles are as simple as shoving a box into place. Others ask the player to collect several items from different areas just to open one door.

  The combat was reworked so that Kratos can, in the game's own words, "pummel enemies to the ground as well as throw them". He can also strike enemies in mid-air. An "augmented death system" adds animations tied to specific weapons and spells. Quick time events handle stronger enemies and bosses. The challenge mode, called the Challenge of the Gods, offers five Challenges of Ares, plus eight Challenges of Athena that must be unlocked. A typical task is to kill every enemy without being hit. Unlocking happens in a mode new to this game, the Temple of Zeus, where players sacrifice red orbs for bonus costumes, behind-the-scenes videos and concept art. A Combat Arena lets players choose their opponents and the difficulty. If the player selects the gravedigger there, Zeus himself appears.

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• 3. Atlantis and Beyond

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  Poseidon built Atlantis in this alternate ancient Greece, and the Temple of Poseidon stands inside it. The story is set between God of War in 2005 and Betrayal in 2007, apart from its flashbacks. Near Atlantis rises the Methana Volcano, a real place in the world. Here it is held in check by archimedean screws, and it serves as the prison of the Titan Thera. Automatons stand guard over her.

  On the outskirts of the city sits the Temple of Thanatos. Inside it is Death's Gate, the portal into the Domain of Death. Later in the game a sunken version of Atlantis becomes a location of its own. The journey also passes through the island of Crete and its capital, Heraklion, and through the Mounts of Aroania. Sparta, with its Temple of Ares, is on the route, as are the Mounts of Laconia.

  One brief scene plays out above Athens, at Suicide Bluffs. It is the highest cliff in that city, it overlooks the Aegean Sea, and it keeps returning in the adventures of Kratos. What happened to him on that cliff is revealed only late in the story.

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• 4. A Marked Warrior

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  Deimos, the younger brother of Kratos, was born with strange birthmarks, and that frightened Olympus. An oracle had warned that Olympus would fall not to the Titans, who were imprisoned after the Great War, but to a marked mortal warrior. Zeus and Ares decided that Deimos was that warrior. During the boys' childhood training, with Athena looking on, Ares burst in and kidnapped Deimos. Kratos tried to stop him but was swept aside and scarred across his right eye. Athena kept Ares from killing the boy, since she knew his eventual destiny. Thanatos then imprisoned and tortured Deimos in the Domain of Death. In his brother's honor, Kratos later gave himself a red tattoo identical to that birthmark.

  Years later, Kratos has replaced Ares as the God of War on Mount Olympus, yet visions of his mortal past still haunt him. Against the advice of Athena, he travels to the Temple of Poseidon in Atlantis. The sea monster Scylla smashes his ship off the coast, and he drives it away. After skirmishes across the city, he finally kills the creature.

  Inside the temple he finds his mother, Callisto, who tries to name his father. Then she suddenly turns into a hideous beast, and Kratos has to fight her. As she dies, Callisto thanks him and begs him to look for Deimos in Sparta. Before leaving, Kratos frees the imprisoned Titan Thera. Her release makes the Methana Volcano erupt and destroys Atlantis. While escaping, he meets the enigmatic gravedigger, who warns him against alienating the gods. Callisto's last request now points him toward Sparta, the city where the brothers grew up.

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• 5. Brothers in Death's Domain

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  In the Aronian Pass, a goddess named Erinys is waiting for Kratos. She is the daughter of Thanatos, and she has been searching for him since Atlantis fell. After a vicious fight, he kills her. In Sparta, he finds a crowd pulling down a statue of Ares so that one of Kratos can take its place. He chases a dissenter loyal to Ares into the Spartan Jails, and the man releases the Piraeus Lion. Kratos defeats both. At the Temple of Ares, the spirit of his child self tells him to go back to the sunken Atlantis and find the Domain of Death. A loyal Spartan hands him the weapons he used as a Captain of the Spartan army, the Arms of Sparta. Back in the drowned city, Poseidon greets him with great resentment for sinking his beloved Atlantis.

  In the Domain of Death, Kratos frees his brother. Deimos is furious that the rescue took so long, says he will never forgive him, and overpowers him. Thanatos intervenes, hungry for revenge over Erinys. He drags a protesting Deimos to Suicide Bluffs, the cliff where Kratos once tried to end his own life, and Kratos saves Deimos from falling to his death. A grateful Deimos then helps him fight the god of death, with the Arms of Sparta in his hands.

  During the fight, Thanatos realizes that Ares took the wrong Spartan. The real mark was on Kratos: his red tattoo and the white ashes of his wife and child bound to his skin. Thanatos kills Deimos anyway. Grief sends Kratos into a rage, and he unleashes his true power to destroy Thanatos. He lays Deimos in a grave and leaves the Arms of Sparta standing as its marker. The gravedigger says that Kratos has become "Death... the Destroyer of Worlds." Athena appears, begs forgiveness and offers him full godhood in return for her silence about the truth. Kratos ignores her and returns to Olympus, vowing that "the gods will pay for this." As he walks away, Athena whispers, "Forgive me... brother."

  A post-credits scene shows the gravedigger placing Callisto in a grave beside Deimos, with an empty third grave nearby. He says, "Now... only one remains." The last image is Kratos on his throne on Mount Olympus, in his Olympian armor.

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• 6. Pushing the PSP

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  Development of Ghost of Sparta took 23 months. Ru Weerasuriya, who had directed God of War: Chains of Olympus, could not return because of his busy schedule at Ready at Dawn. Dana Jan, the lead level designer on that earlier game, took over as director. Work began in 2008, and Jan told an audience at Comic-Con 2010 that the aim was to make the game "bigger". Chains of Olympus had "pushed" the PSP to its functional limits, and he said this sequel took the handheld to its "absolute capacity". More enemies on screen was one visible result. Sony promised "state-of-the-art visual technologies" for "higher quality environments and characters", and "over 25% more gameplay" than Chains of Olympus, with more bosses too.

  Jan explained the setting by saying that placing it before the second game "seemed to make a lot of sense to fill in that void." He admitted the team worried about the slow story scenes. God of War "usually doesn't slow...down", and they feared these scenes might not keep players interested. For the puzzles, the team aimed for surprise, because players expect to "push something, carry a body or smash something with the blades." Jan also confessed he was "intrigued" by the flashbacks in the first two games, and said "There's definitely a back story to Kratos that nobody's touched on."

  Deimos was no last-minute invention. According to Jan, the first reference came in the finale of Chains of Olympus, when Helios asks "Do you think that they'll survive?" and Athena answers "They must." That line was "purposefully put" there, he said, and God of War III also refers to Deimos. Jan confirmed that the brothers are not twins and that Kratos' father is Zeus, while "Deimos' father is more of a mystery." A soldier named Dominus appears in the game as a nod to the original name of Kratos. Jan also said he did not know where Betrayal fits chronologically in the series.

  Several voice actors came back. Terrence C. Carson played Kratos, Erin Torpey played Athena, Gideon Emery played Poseidon, Steven Blum played Ares and Paul Eiding played the gravedigger. Linda Hunt returned as the narrator. Mark Deklin voiced Deimos and Arthur Burghardt voiced Thanatos. In the childhood flashbacks, Antony Del Rio spoke for young Kratos, Bridger Zadina for young Deimos and Jennifer Hale for Callisto. Erinys was voiced by Erin Torpey and Jennifer Hale through overdubbed voices. Fred Tatasciore played Lanaeus, King Midas and the small role of Zeus. The voice directors were Kris Zimmerman and Gordon Hunt. Josh Keaton, who had voiced the loyal Spartan soldier earlier in the series, did not return, so Gideon Emery took that part as well.

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• 7. Launch and Extras

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  On the 15th of June 2010, Sony showed a cinematic trailer narrated by Linda Hunt at its press conference for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, known as E3. Attendees of the event could also play a demo at the Sony booth. That 15-minute sequence sent Kratos against sea and land enemies, with the sea monster Scylla as the main opponent. It also showed the Arms of Sparta and the Eye of Atlantis in action.

  On the 3rd of September 2010, Ready at Dawn emailed demo vouchers to people registered at GodofWar.com and SpartansStandTall.com. PlayStation Plus members got early access on the 7th of September. On the 28th of September, every PlayStation Network member could download it. The full game reached North America on the 2nd of November 2010 and mainland Europe on the 3rd. Australia and New Zealand followed on the 4th, and the United Kingdom and Ireland on the 5th.

  Pre-ordering at select retailers brought downloadable extras: the original soundtrack, a PSP theme, a PS3 dynamic theme called "Palace of Hades", a PSN Avatar and a Legionnaire Skin for use in the game. There was also a documentary, God of War - Game Directors Live. PSPgo owners received the same items if they bought the game between the 2nd and the 23rd of November 2010. GameStop added an exclusive Challenge arena, "The Forest of the Forgotten". A limited-edition bundle contained the game, a voucher to download Chains of Olympus, a UMD of the 2010 film Kick-Ass, a 2 GB Memory Stick Pro Duo and a black and red two-toned PSP-3000. Specially marked packages carried a code for a "Deimos Skin" in God of War III, which European buyers can still get by purchasing the game from the PlayStation Store.

  Gerard K. Marino and Mike Reagan composed the soundtrack, released on iTunes on the 18th of October 2010 with three bonus tracks from Chains of Olympus. Square Enix Music Online gave it 8/10. It judged that several tracks served purely contextual purposes, while the rest compared well with the main series scores.

  The PlayStation 3 got its own version on the 13th of September 2011 in North America and the 16th in Europe. The God of War: Origins Collection bundled remastered ports of Ghost of Sparta and Chains of Olympus, with high-definition resolution, stereoscopic 3D, 60 frames per second, DualShock 3 vibration and Trophies. By June 2012 that collection had sold 711,737 copies worldwide. On the 28th of August 2012, it joined God of War Collection and God of War III in the God of War Saga for North America.

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• 8. Verdict

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  Metacritic summarized the reviews as "generally favourable". Nicole Tanner of IGN wrote that in gameplay "there's nothing unique here, but that's not a bad thing." Chris Pereira of 1UP called the controls "largely the same" as before but still "an extremely well-paced action game", worth playing "unless you've become truly tired of the franchise". Randy Nelson of Joystiq warned, "if you were hoping for something really innovative, you're out of luck." Joe Juba of Game Informer said the tweaks "go a long way toward improving gameplay" and called it a "must-play for God of War fans", even though it "doesn't have any mind-blowing moments".

  The story drew some of the warmest comments. Pereira found it "a more personal story than the other GOW games". He also called its sex mini-game "arguably the most over-the-top of the bunch". PlayStation: The Official Magazine said the game offers "an immersive experience on par with many of the best PS3 games". Simon Parkin of Eurogamer was the sharpest dissenter. He praised the battle system, but felt "a sense that Ghost of Sparta is a step back for the series". He argued that the developers had "taken away the sense of wonder" and that the series was "principally concerned with endlessly upping the ante". In his view the game was best enjoyed by newcomers.

  The visuals won nearly everyone over. Tanner said the graphics were "better than a big chunk of PS2 games" and called it the "best-looking game on the PSP thus far." Nelson said they were "the best you've ever seen on a handheld" and made the first two PlayStation 2 games look dated. GameTrailers promised "the very best visuals the PSP has to offer". Even Parkin called the set-pieces "incredible" for a handheld, though he thought they "seem tired" next to the opening of God of War III.

  At E3 2010, the game collected nine awards, including "Best Handheld Game", "Best PSP Game" and "PSP Game of Show", plus three nominations. PlayStation: The Official Magazine gave it a Gold Award. Kotaku named it an "Editor's Choice" and called it "a palm-sized epic video game." It won "Best Handheld Game" at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards and was nominated for the "Handheld" award at the 2011 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Video Game Awards. By June 2012 it had sold well over a million copies worldwide, ranking among the best-selling PlayStation Portable games of all time. At the 14th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, now the D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences named it "Portable Game of the Year".

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