Last week, Sony capped off what might have been its best State of Play presentation with big announcements from Santa Monica Studio. On top of remaking the original God of War trilogy, God of War: Sons of Sparta was shadow-dropped after long being rumored to be in development. As you’d expect, it sent the internet into a bit of a frenzy, but after rolling credits on the game, those who decide to see it through should find a solid story of a much younger Kratos we aren’t familiar with. The problem is seeing it through will require patience likely too demanding for a Spartan.
The one time you’ll get to see pixel art Kratos chill with Calliope.
God of War: Sons of Sparta opens with Kratos’s daughter, Calliope, moping around following an argument with her mother, Lysteria. In an attempt to make Calliope see reason, Kratos begins to tell her a tale of his own about duty, and that’s where the action really begins.
You play as a 13-year-old Kratos as he goes through the grueling Spartan agoge training with his younger brother Deimos at Laconia’s capital, Sparta. In their training and duty to become Spartan soldiers, their comrade Vasilis gets lost while in field training, and they bring it upon themselves to find him. This puts them on a forbidden journey of sorts through Laconia, encountering deadly foes from Greek mythology, while receiving gifts of Olympus to aid in their quest.
Sons of Sparta marks the first God of War game since God of War: Ascension to bring the story back to its Greek roots, rather than the Norse mythology that God of War and God of War: Ragnarok followed — so far back that it follows Kratos as nothing more than a brave teenager hoping to become a Spartan, long before he was bestowed with the Blades of Chaos.
This setting and plot definitely had me intrigued, because while we’ve seen bits and pieces of the man Kratos used to be in other God of War games, we never really saw who he truly was before that. The opportunity to see him as a kid before he became the grumpy Greek god or the Norse father he is now kept me interested in seeing it through, despite the kind of game that it is.
God of War: Sons of Sparta, the only 2D sidescroller that makes you have to press a button to climb the ladder.
Confirming the rumors, God of War: Sons of Sparta is a 2D Metroidvania. It isn’t one of those nifty eight-hour indies either. The sheer size and scope of the map in Sons of Sparta is surprisingly huge, which, at least to me, was good and not so good.
While I appreciate the genre, they rarely ever hold my attention long enough to finish the main story. The last Metroidvania I actually beat was Tales of Kenzera: Zau, and if we’re going to make one-for-one comparisons, Sons of Sparta isn’t nearly as fun. But the fact that it lent itself so well was another pleasant surprise, despite games like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown proving that it’s not that out of the ordinary.
The main things you need for a Metroidvania to work are a map that’s simple to navigate, while also blocking paths you’ll know to come back to later as you get more abilities. Sons of Sparta does exactly that in interesting ways that can also sometimes lead to awkward fumbling.
At first, all Kratos and Deimos have are their spears and shields to defend themselves, in addition to standard jump and roll abilities. Along the journey, you’ll come across Gifts of Olympus, which round out your arsenal of abilities while also doubling as ways to solve certain puzzles and getting through certain obstacles.
On top of that, you’ll eventually gain the ability to climb and double jump to get to previously unreachable areas. It’s traditional Metroidvania fare, and almost every area you explore comes with something new to add different wrinkles to exploration. Unfortunately, the quantity and variety can be overwhelming, especially when you consider that the majority of these abilities aid in battle.
The game even features a shmup segment.
Contributing to the overwhelming nature of the abilities and the aforementioned awkward fumbling is the weird control design. When you’ve played one pixel art 2D Metroidvania, you feel like you’ve played them all.
That said, I had a rough time in the first few hours getting used to the fact that movement was primarily done with the analog stick. It was also weird to have actions like climbing ladders tied to the triangle button instead of just jumping into them. Want to drop from a ledge? It’s not Down+Jump; it’s Down+Triangle. I felt like I had to unlearn the basics of a Metroidvania, which to me remains questionable.
Combat also starts off as a slow grind. The majority of my fights were just me running up to enemies and poking them with the spear, and rolling behind enemies to dodge their strikes. Killing enemies primarily results in them dropping red blood orbs, which are used as currency to upgrade your skills and equipment whenever you come to a campfire to save the game. The problem with the skills is that they’re mostly for countering and defense, making your offense limited to different ways to stab your enemies. You can use the Gifts of Olympus like bombs, projectile balls of energy, a boomerang, or the Blade of Olympus, which you unlock later in the game to mix things up. They’re all cycled through with the D-Pad, though, so it’s hard to really pick a weapon at will to use. The local Spartan blacksmith also only has different spears and shields to use with different abilities, so you’ll spend most of the game relying on the same strategy when it comes to fighting.
While the actual combat itself leaves much to be desired, once you actually have all your abilities at your disposal, things really open up, especially with the bosses. There is one boss in the game who is essentially recycled twice, except with more moves each time you fight it, but I took that as an opportunity to show that my Kratos really grew as a warrior. Plus, the supernatural gifts you acquire definitely add some fun to them when used in tandem with the spear. Being able to see opposing health bars for every enemy also makes things intense, but they also make things annoying when you die knowing an enemy only has a sliver of health left.
There’s a lot of ground to cover in this game.
The biggest issue with the game as a whole is that it takes every excuse to stretch the experience out. Nearly all of this game is spent looking for your friend, who turns out to be pretty much the weak link during the Spartan training. Having to tread all the places you do in Laconia, while it is nice to see the sights — especially for someone who did enjoy the pixel art and storybook-esque visual style — just doesn’t make any sense considering who you’re looking for and what your actual duty to Sparta is. It took me roughly 18 hours (though I did idle a bit) to roll credits in this game, and there really isn’t much of a desire for me to go back and find everything.
On top of the length pacing issues, every time I idled on the PlayStation home screen with the game on, or even woke my PS5 out of rest mode while the game was still loaded, I ran into issues with lagging dialog. I even had to go through two particularly hard bosses twice because the game would either soft freeze or put me into a situation where I was locked into the screen I was in, with no way to move forward or backward on the map. More time definitely needed to be spent with QA for these rather simple polish issues.
It has some real issues as a whole, but I really enjoyed my time with God of War: Sons of Sparta. Black Cat Studios did an admirable job translating the God of War experience into a Metroidvania. It’s nowhere near as fast-paced as any of its AAA entries, but I thought the story they told and the game’s end was a nice mix of what we’ve seen from the series in the past and the present. That said, slow pacing and fluff really prevent this from being a wholehearted recommendation, especially with its $30 asking price when far superior titles can be had for much less.
God of War: Sons of Sparta was shadow dropped after long being rumored to be in development. As you’d expect, it sent the internet into a bit of a frenzy, but after rolling credits on the game, those who decide to see it through should find a solid story of a much younger Kratos we aren’t familiar with. The problem is seeing it through will require patience likely too demanding of a spartan.
Last week, Sony capped off what might have been its best State of Play presentation with big announcements from Santa Monica Studio. On top of remaking the original God of War trilogy, God of War: Sons of Sparta was shadow-dropped after long being rumored to be in development. As you’d expect, it sent the internet into a bit of a frenzy, but after rolling credits on the game, those who decide to see it through should find a solid story of a much younger Kratos we aren’t familiar with. The problem is seeing it through will require patience likely too demanding for a Spartan.
The one time you’ll get to see pixel art Kratos chill with Calliope.
God of War: Sons of Sparta opens with Kratos’s daughter, Calliope, moping around following an argument with her mother, Lysteria. In an attempt to make Calliope see reason, Kratos begins to tell her a tale of his own about duty, and that’s where the action really begins.
You play as a 13-year-old Kratos as he goes through the grueling Spartan agoge training with his younger brother Deimos at Laconia’s capital, Sparta. In their training and duty to become Spartan soldiers, their comrade Vasilis gets lost while in field training, and they bring it upon themselves to find him. This puts them on a forbidden journey of sorts through Laconia, encountering deadly foes from Greek mythology, while receiving gifts of Olympus to aid in their quest.
Sons of Sparta marks the first God of War game since God of War: Ascension to bring the story back to its Greek roots, rather than the Norse mythology that God of War and God of War: Ragnarok followed — so far back that it follows Kratos as nothing more than a brave teenager hoping to become a Spartan, long before he was bestowed with the Blades of Chaos.
This setting and plot definitely had me intrigued, because while we’ve seen bits and pieces of the man Kratos used to be in other God of War games, we never really saw who he truly was before that. The opportunity to see him as a kid before he became the grumpy Greek god or the Norse father he is now kept me interested in seeing it through, despite the kind of game that it is.
God of War: Sons of Sparta, the only 2D sidescroller that makes you have to press a button to climb the ladder.
Confirming the rumors, God of War: Sons of Sparta is a 2D Metroidvania. It isn’t one of those nifty eight-hour indies either. The sheer size and scope of the map in Sons of Sparta is surprisingly huge, which, at least to me, was good and not so good.
While I appreciate the genre, they rarely ever hold my attention long enough to finish the main story. The last Metroidvania I actually beat was Tales of Kenzera: Zau, and if we’re going to make one-for-one comparisons, Sons of Sparta isn’t nearly as fun. But the fact that it lent itself so well was another pleasant surprise, despite games like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown proving that it’s not that out of the ordinary.
The main things you need for a Metroidvania to work are a map that’s simple to navigate, while also blocking paths you’ll know to come back to later as you get more abilities. Sons of Sparta does exactly that in interesting ways that can also sometimes lead to awkward fumbling.
At first, all Kratos and Deimos have are their spears and shields to defend themselves, in addition to standard jump and roll abilities. Along the journey, you’ll come across Gifts of Olympus, which round out your arsenal of abilities while also doubling as ways to solve certain puzzles and getting through certain obstacles.
On top of that, you’ll eventually gain the ability to climb and double jump to get to previously unreachable areas. It’s traditional Metroidvania fare, and almost every area you explore comes with something new to add different wrinkles to exploration. Unfortunately, the quantity and variety can be overwhelming, especially when you consider that the majority of these abilities aid in battle.
The game even features a shmup segment.
Contributing to the overwhelming nature of the abilities and the aforementioned awkward fumbling is the weird control design. When you’ve played one pixel art 2D Metroidvania, you feel like you’ve played them all.
That said, I had a rough time in the first few hours getting used to the fact that movement was primarily done with the analog stick. It was also weird to have actions like climbing ladders tied to the triangle button instead of just jumping into them. Want to drop from a ledge? It’s not Down+Jump; it’s Down+Triangle. I felt like I had to unlearn the basics of a Metroidvania, which to me remains questionable.
Combat also starts off as a slow grind. The majority of my fights were just me running up to enemies and poking them with the spear, and rolling behind enemies to dodge their strikes. Killing enemies primarily results in them dropping red blood orbs, which are used as currency to upgrade your skills and equipment whenever you come to a campfire to save the game. The problem with the skills is that they’re mostly for countering and defense, making your offense limited to different ways to stab your enemies. You can use the Gifts of Olympus like bombs, projectile balls of energy, a boomerang, or the Blade of Olympus, which you unlock later in the game to mix things up. They’re all cycled through with the D-Pad, though, so it’s hard to really pick a weapon at will to use. The local Spartan blacksmith also only has different spears and shields to use with different abilities, so you’ll spend most of the game relying on the same strategy when it comes to fighting.
While the actual combat itself leaves much to be desired, once you actually have all your abilities at your disposal, things really open up, especially with the bosses. There is one boss in the game who is essentially recycled twice, except with more moves each time you fight it, but I took that as an opportunity to show that my Kratos really grew as a warrior. Plus, the supernatural gifts you acquire definitely add some fun to them when used in tandem with the spear. Being able to see opposing health bars for every enemy also makes things intense, but they also make things annoying when you die knowing an enemy only has a sliver of health left.
There’s a lot of ground to cover in this game.
The biggest issue with the game as a whole is that it takes every excuse to stretch the experience out. Nearly all of this game is spent looking for your friend, who turns out to be pretty much the weak link during the Spartan training. Having to tread all the places you do in Laconia, while it is nice to see the sights — especially for someone who did enjoy the pixel art and storybook-esque visual style — just doesn’t make any sense considering who you’re looking for and what your actual duty to Sparta is. It took me roughly 18 hours (though I did idle a bit) to roll credits in this game, and there really isn’t much of a desire for me to go back and find everything.
On top of the length pacing issues, every time I idled on the PlayStation home screen with the game on, or even woke my PS5 out of rest mode while the game was still loaded, I ran into issues with lagging dialog. I even had to go through two particularly hard bosses twice because the game would either soft freeze or put me into a situation where I was locked into the screen I was in, with no way to move forward or backward on the map. More time definitely needed to be spent with QA for these rather simple polish issues.
It has some real issues as a whole, but I really enjoyed my time with God of War: Sons of Sparta. Black Cat Studios did an admirable job translating the God of War experience into a Metroidvania. It’s nowhere near as fast-paced as any of its AAA entries, but I thought the story they told and the game’s end was a nice mix of what we’ve seen from the series in the past and the present. That said, slow pacing and fluff really prevent this from being a wholehearted recommendation, especially with its $30 asking price when far superior titles can be had for much less.
by Danreb Victorio
