- Like fireworks: Looks great, exciting for a while, but fizzles out quicklyI got the PSP God of War Entertainment Pack - Red as a warranty replacement for my original PSP Daxter Entertainment Pack - Ice Silver. I was looking forward to playing Chains of Olympus, as this was my first experience with the series. I own a PS2, but never bothered to pick up the two console God of War titles.
I've played several PSP games now, and Chains of Olympus LOOKS great. It's possibly the best-looking game for PSP, and as a result, it's a shame that Ready at Dawn will not be making any more for the system. However, that's just about all Chains of Olympus has going for it.
The storyline is sub-par, combining a weak understanding of Greek mythology with a tired tale of deception and revenge. However, this is an action game, so story can be overlooked somewhat in favor of actual gameplay quality. The game is fun for a while, but as you progress through the game you earn spells, most of which are useless, new moves and a new weapon. Once you obtain these, certain moves can be repeatedly spammed to kill just about everything, including bosses. At this point, the fun of the game slowly dies as this formulaic strategy nearly always works and is practically required to beat God mode, the highest difficulty. There is no penalty for dying in the game, which is good, but before almost every boss fight there is an cutscene that can't be skipped. On higher difficulties, this becomes very irritating, as it may take several strategies before you figure out the boss' Achilles heel.
On completing the game, which takes 4-6 hours at most, you earn God mode and can take on special challenges that are at best repetitive and frustrating and at worst mindlessly easy. Beating the challenges and the hardest difficulty unlock new costumes and a small amount of behind-the-scenes content, very little of which is worth suffering through the same horrible plot and repetitive gameplay for, not to mention that you would then have to play through the game a third time to enjoy the new costumes. I felt no compulsion to replay the game a third time, and I only played a second time so I could unlock everything.
Anything below God mode difficulty (the hardest) is quite easy, and God mode simply requires you to perform the same moves over and over again with better precision and timing than before. Some of the challenges are also difficult, but there isn't much of a sense of accomplishment after beating the hard ones, as all you typically need to do is find out which special move fits the situation best and use it over and over again, just like in the actual game. The game itself also contains a few puzzles, but for students of action/adventure games with more difficult 3D puzzles, such as any recent installment of the Legend of Zelda series, they're trivial and hardly worth mentioning, useful only to break up the action.
I don't think there's any reason to buy this game until it's in the bargain bin, or at the very least in the Greatest Hits series. Better yet, rent it and in a week you'll get everything out of the game you could possibly want. With no online play and very limited unlockables, the game's replay value is near nonexistent. I'm glad I got it as a pack-in rather than paying full price for it.
It's also worth mentioning, for those with no familiarity with the series, that this is not a game parents should be purchasing for young children. The brutal violence and small amount of nudity didn't turn me off at all, but could be a bit disturbing for kids.
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