Sounds like a pretty desperate attempt to stir up a few more sales. I have a feeling this game did pretty terribly in sales. There was practically no hype for it, and my general sense is that people just don't really care.
I mean... I had to make this thread like 2 days before it came out just so we can talk about it. Nobody at all was talking about it before.
Last week I read it sold less than half the number of copies that GoW 3 in the same time frame.
That would've been from the UK. But to put that performance in perspective, it still managed to be the second best selling game in the series (in that time frame, of course).
I don't expect Ascension to sell as well as GoW3 but I've no doubt it'll still do really well. GoW3 just happened to have a ton of build up and hype that propelled it far higher than any other game in the series, while Ascension hasn't and has dropped a bit.
As for the thread creation, that's the same kind of treatment all PS3 exclusives get around here, isn't it?
Oh and I think the talk of paid off reviews and the game being a train wreck is crazy talk. It's buggy, yes, but it's not even remotely in the same league as say, a Bethesda game.
The GoW Saga thing is just because the downloadable codes for the PSP games become inactive after the 31st, so they're trying to move units before the games only technically include 3 out of 5 GoW games.
I don't know why they put a time limit on the keys, seems a bit shortsighted to me.
Wait, so the Saga Collection isn't all five games? It's just 1 through 3 with codes to download the PSP games from PSN, for a limited time? That's pretty dumb.
Ok, so I put in a decent chunk of time into Ascension tonight.
And I realized something. I have no idea what the story is. Like... at all.
I got as far as the giant robot snakes and killed the Wyvern boss.
And as I was doing that big area, I realized that I have no clue what the point even is. Am I hunting the Furies down? Is Kratos mad at them? Why is he mad at them and why did they chain him? I mean, yeah, he betrayed Ares in God of War 1, but that was like 8 years ago. I feel like they should have shown me what happened or reminded me or something.
Also, maybe a little bit more backstory on who or what the Furies even are. I mean sure, the game starts "in medias res" or whatever the term is. In the middle of it. But I've got like 3 hours of gameplay in it now, maybe more than that, and I feel like I am no longer in the middle of it and they need to clue me in on what's going on.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying killing dudes. I just have no clue what's going on or why. In fact, I don't even know where I am. Is this supposed to be taking place somewhere in Greece? Am I in some sort of limbo or faux-underworld?
I think he's asking if it eventually shows what led to the opening scene of the game, which I am also not seeing yet.
Without giving me some kind of timeframe, it sounds like the events of God of War happened like this:
Kratos receives the Blades of Chaos.
He accidentally kills his wife/kid.
-???-
Curses Ares, vows revenge.
-???-
Is in chains, because you can't break an oath with a God.
(and actually, how long was he imprisoned?)
Did he immediately get hunted by the Furies the second the words 'fuck you' left his mouth? How quickly did they subdue him? For all I know these events happened almost instantaneously, which is kind of hard to swallow considering the previous backstory is:
Kills wife/kid
Curses Ares
Events of Chains of Olympus
Is riding on a boat in GoW1.
And nowhere did they mention it being a struggle just to have the choice of being insubordinate.
I guess the question I'm left with is, once he kills the Furies, I'm to assume Ares was like a super villain who just lost his most powerful assets in taking down Kratos... so for the entirety of God of War: CoO and GoW1, is he just throwing all his shitty monsters at you in a feeble attempt to stop you while crying into his Oikos yogurt?
By the way, if they wanted to switch up the franchise and not lose their setting/main character, I would love to see a pre-family murder Kratos game
He wouldn't have the Blades of Chaos yet, so they could go with a sword-based system and really refine it, make it feel completely different
They wouldn't have to lose the blades (and since they've been as iconic to the character/series as anything, I doubt they'd want to), if they went with a game set while he was serving Ares. Presumably the God of War would have had Kratos kill some impressive things.
I could also serve as a way to screw with players by having them play through the whole 'burn this village to the ground' part. You'd know what you were doing, but you'd do it anyway, just to keep playing. Nice parallel with Kratos just fighting because he enjoys it, you get to ask the player 'what are you complaining about? You're the one who did it'
If you don't know when he gets captured, then you're not done with the game yet, so just keep playing and you'll find out.
+1
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The_SpaniardIt's never lupinesIrvine, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
Just beat the game, trial of Archimedes was not hard at all. I don't know what people were complaining about, one of the tougher encounters sure, but I beat it first try without coming close to dying.
Also the story is kinda muddled:
For breaking your oath with Aries, you are tortured and driven mad by the sisters forgetting what you've done in the process. You spend the game trying to figure out how and why you broke the oath, then when you find out you spend the entirety of GoW 1 trying to forget again. Poor Kratos can't catch a break. Though what doesn't make sense is his level of fervor in his refusal to go back to being a subject of Aries if he doesn't remember what he did or why he broke the oath to begin with.
Just beat the game, trial of Archimedes was not hard at all. I don't know what people were complaining about, one of the tougher encounters sure, but I beat it first try without coming close to dying.
Also the story is kinda muddled:
For breaking your oath with Aries, you are tortured and driven mad by the sisters forgetting what you've done in the process. You spend the game trying to figure out how and why you broke the oath, then when you find out you spend the entirety of GoW 1 trying to forget again. Poor Kratos can't catch a break. Though what doesn't make sense is his level of fervor in his refusal to go back to being a subject of Aries if he doesn't remember what he did or why he broke the oath to begin with.
One thing I've noticed about the combat in this game - which I don't like - is that there seems to be a small delay between when Kratos attacks and when you can roll or block. In previous games you can interrupt a combo with a roll, but this time it seems that once he starts swinging, you gotta finish the swing before you can evade. That makes combat a lot trickier, especially on hard. Block also seems to be that way. You almost gotta be standing flat-footed in order to block. If you're moving or attacking, your character won't instantly raise his blades if you tap the L1 trigger.
So I've had some time to sit down and get through single player - I finished the 'three weeks previous' section and am now a bit past the intro level.
I really think they're hinting at an Egpytian GoW next. There's even a note before the Oracle that says "I come from the land of the Pharoah. It is so cold here... (etc)"
Other than that, the combat has kind of taken an unrefined turn, but I'm glad they changed it up. The only thing that sucks is when they introduce a new element to your weapon, they throw like twenty goat/bug people at you and are like "Here, try out your new weapon!" but you usually have no magic or idea of what exactly your element adds. Hades's was surprising when I had a giant hand come out of the ground and souls flying everywhere once I got a combo to actually complete.
And while the story is extremely muddled and the audio issues tend to peter off as the game progresses (they still pop up every now and then), the thing that I'm finding the most fascinating is the level design, the puzzles, and the enormous vistas. There are some locations they have painstakingly crafted out just so you have something awesome to look at while you ride by
in a giant fucking robot snake, you don't even get to really traverse them. That isn't to say the snakes aren't fucking awesome though. Sweet Jesus.
So yeah technically this game still needs patches and I wish they had another month or so to fine-tune the combat, but after getting through the first Hecatonchires section, I can confirm you no longer feel like you're losing hearing in both ears and the game gets MUCH better.
Oh, I especially love the button-less QTE events. Best fucking iterative design in the series.
I actually don't really care for the new "QTEs" where you just spam the attack button and then dodge when they super telegraph that they're about to attack. It just seems like lazy design. Rather than showing Kratos do some cool moves, you just enter into a minigame that's basically just attack-attack-dodge over and over until the enemy dies.
I'm stuck on the boss at the end of the Temple of Delphi. On hard that guy does a ridiculous amount of damage. And it seems inconsistent. One time I'll get hit and I might only take 5% of my bar, and the next time I'll take 25% or something. Anyway, I haven't played in a few days cause he frustrates me. I need to give it a go tonight.
How do action games get made where you cannot cancel any action with a dodge or block?
I mean didn't they look at this before they were done? You'd think someone would have said "I can't dodge out of this animation" and that would have been seen as a problem.
I mentioned that earlier, Viskod. The blocking and evading both took a major downgrade in this game.
Also, some of the weapon upgrades actually break your ability to combo. I forget the name of the move, but you execute it with L1 + Square. That move is terrible if you try to break out of a block into an attack, because the move itself is not interruptable, so once you start swinging your chains around in a circle like an idiot, you can't break out. Makes a block-attack-block combo nearly impossible.
I should have mentioned, I'm not playing on Hard, I find the combat too broken/frustrating in this one to bother. On Normal you can basically mash whatever buttons you want and you'll still somehow win. Hence why I'm referring to it as needing 'a few adjustments' as opposed to 'what the fuck is this', which is what I was saying on hard mode before I restarted. I like what they're doing, they didn't do it right, but they had to change it up somehow. Hopefully they figure it out for the next one.
The fights I hate most are where it pits you against two of those Talos statues - having to wait until they come off of invincibility is boring and usually the stages/their attacks don't afford you enough room to really 'switch targets', you just kind of run around doing wimpy square attacks ad nauseum. Runner-up goes to the Hades weapon element's magic attack - SUDDENLY HUGE ARMS that knock all enemies out of their range of attack, then the attack goes on for another six or seven seconds not doing anything. I feel like Hades weapons/powers get shafted every single game due to some kind of ass-backwards design flaw.
Apparently they also added 'marks' which are just body tattoos to further distinguish your heroes in multiplayer, which was in the patch but wasn't immediately available (but are now)
I'm wondering if the marks will also disappear during brutal kills, leaving mine/others heroes bald and flailing about clad only in underwear.
Oh, and they're adding a fourth weapon class at some point. I have this odd feeling they might bring back the cestus.
Patch 1.04 is currently in QA and should be out sometime this month. It fixes the audio glitches and makes a bunch of improvements to the multiplayer (including a new level cap and more unlockables). Here's the full description.
I don't really understand the matchmaking. I've been in games where I'm level 5 or so and there's another dude who's level 18. Obviously he's going to wreck my shit.
I could understand if you are distinguished by what skills you have and there's a rock-paper-scissors aspect, but with enough stats and higher level spells no amount of good counters is going to help you win against someone that much stronger than you.
I don't really understand the matchmaking. I've been in games where I'm level 5 or so and there's another dude who's level 18. Obviously he's going to wreck my shit.
I could understand if you are distinguished by what skills you have and there's a rock-paper-scissors aspect, but with enough stats and higher level spells no amount of good counters is going to help you win against someone that much stronger than you.
This right here is the reason I'm never going to play the multiplayer.
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I don't really understand the matchmaking. I've been in games where I'm level 5 or so and there's another dude who's level 18. Obviously he's going to wreck my shit.
I could understand if you are distinguished by what skills you have and there's a rock-paper-scissors aspect, but with enough stats and higher level spells no amount of good counters is going to help you win against someone that much stronger than you.
This right here is the reason I'm never going to play the multiplayer.
I mean, it's still fun, but it's not balanced at all. I've sat down intending to only play one round out of boredom and then an hour later I put it down reflecting on how cool that was, but at the same time lamenting that it'd be perfect if all the people in the match were around the same 'power'.
Which scares me with these "elite" levels coming in 1.04, so I just envision entire teams getting destroyed by a level 40 guy using ultimate magic.
Patch 1.04 is out. Here's the official change list:
"Elite Levels" - Going Beyond Level 30 - You may be a Champion already at Level 30, but to truly become a legend of Olympus, you'll need to become an "Elite Champion". We've increased the allegiance level cap from 30 to 40. With the addition of 10 levels for every God allegiance, we are introducing a new God item, two new relics, and an ultimate magic for every allegiance, unlocking powerful new abilities. To all Warriors rising to become an "elite" Champion of Olympus, now you have a new goal to reach. It will not be an easy journey.
Player Stat Card - you can now access various stats about your Champion's performance including kill-death ratio, wins, losses, and more. Access directly from the customization menu.
Game Mode Inspect Card - in the Game Modes menu, we've added an option that allows you to see the scoring rules for each Game Mode so you understand what each objective is worth when in battle.
Match of Champions 4-player scoring adjusted to 1600 favor (from 2000) balance match times in line with the rest of the Multiplayer modes. This now makes both 8 and 4 player Favor of the Gods the same 1600 scoring win goal.
COMBAT
Zeus Spear now uses correct damage multipliers: L1 triangle special was not correctly using elemental damage multipliers (was using physical instead).
Global Spear Attacks: Triangle in the air with spear was unblockable, yet could still be parried, it can no longer be parried.
Poseidon Shield God Item: The shield will now become active when the player recovers rather than while still in the activation animation.
Adjusted stats of the Hades spear to better suit the intended gameplay.
Medusa Armor is now slightly easier to acquire.
The healing amount granted to the player when using the Poseidon Heal Magic will now increase as the magic is ranked up.
Miscellaneous fixes to slow debuffs/animations not displaying correctly. Will now prevent most related cases where the player would get get stuck in a bad state, and unable to respawn. This is greatly improved, per this fix.
God ability pickups for new God items now appear in the correct order in the customization menu.
KEY BUGS ADDRESSED
Addressed all major audio issues - most commonly noted for single-player. The sound mix will no longer drop out.
Spartans no longer stuck in a stoned state when they are hit by the Hammer of Helios explosion.
AUDIO: Sound channel output bug: Game now defaults to stereo for all new players. Existing players with preferences set already should double check their in-game sound output options and make sure they are set for the speaker configuration they are using.
AUDIO: Addressed issue with music being too quiet in various parts of the game.
AUDIO: Addressed sound mixing issues affecting cut scenes and major boss battles throughout Hecaton Level.
AUDIO: Fixed a sound mix problem during the cutscene in the Hecaton bordello (outdoor wind sound was playing when you are indoors).
AUDIO: Fixed missing sound FX impacting some moves for War Hammer of Ares, Maul of Zeus, Spear of Hades, Blade of Poseidon, Cronos Blade.
AUDIO: Music now plays in Trial of the Gods (1 and 2 Player) for Desert of Lost Souls.
Time for me to finally get my Hard playthrough started.
Oh and the game sold pretty well in the US. A little more than Gears Judgement and a little less than Tomb Raider, all of which sold over 600k.
The_SpaniardIt's never lupinesIrvine, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
Oh poop, just traded this in and remembered about the Last of Us demo that's tied to the disk... Oh well, guess I'll have to wait to be able to play it.
Also before turning it in I tried to do just a single MP round, was put into an arena match with clearly high level characters. It was fun not getting a single kill with my level 1 character, not just that but almost not even getting off a single attack with the amount high level on noob anal massage. I was even being devastated and juggled right out of spawn.
Posts
That is what the linked article says, yes.
Just wanted to note it in case people jumped at this before reading the article.
Plus I like crushing people's hopes and dreams.
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
I mean... I had to make this thread like 2 days before it came out just so we can talk about it. Nobody at all was talking about it before.
That would've been from the UK. But to put that performance in perspective, it still managed to be the second best selling game in the series (in that time frame, of course).
I don't expect Ascension to sell as well as GoW3 but I've no doubt it'll still do really well. GoW3 just happened to have a ton of build up and hype that propelled it far higher than any other game in the series, while Ascension hasn't and has dropped a bit.
As for the thread creation, that's the same kind of treatment all PS3 exclusives get around here, isn't it?
Oh and I think the talk of paid off reviews and the game being a train wreck is crazy talk. It's buggy, yes, but it's not even remotely in the same league as say, a Bethesda game.
Balder in norse mythology. Dies due to treachery. Can't come back through more of the same.
He gets pissed in the underworld, busts out, kicks off ragnarok and chops down a line of gods in his way, burning the world to ash along the way.
Norse mythology is basicallu built around this tale
I don't know why they put a time limit on the keys, seems a bit shortsighted to me.
And I realized something. I have no idea what the story is. Like... at all.
And as I was doing that big area, I realized that I have no clue what the point even is. Am I hunting the Furies down? Is Kratos mad at them? Why is he mad at them and why did they chain him? I mean, yeah, he betrayed Ares in God of War 1, but that was like 8 years ago. I feel like they should have shown me what happened or reminded me or something.
Also, maybe a little bit more backstory on who or what the Furies even are. I mean sure, the game starts "in medias res" or whatever the term is. In the middle of it. But I've got like 3 hours of gameplay in it now, maybe more than that, and I feel like I am no longer in the middle of it and they need to clue me in on what's going on.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying killing dudes. I just have no clue what's going on or why. In fact, I don't even know where I am. Is this supposed to be taking place somewhere in Greece? Am I in some sort of limbo or faux-underworld?
Orkos explained it to him when he told him to seek the Oracle.
The snakes are Pythons, because Python the Greek Earth Dragon that presided at Delphi was always represented as a serpent.
Without giving me some kind of timeframe, it sounds like the events of God of War happened like this:
Kratos receives the Blades of Chaos.
He accidentally kills his wife/kid.
-???-
Curses Ares, vows revenge.
-???-
Is in chains, because you can't break an oath with a God.
(and actually, how long was he imprisoned?)
Did he immediately get hunted by the Furies the second the words 'fuck you' left his mouth? How quickly did they subdue him? For all I know these events happened almost instantaneously, which is kind of hard to swallow considering the previous backstory is:
Kills wife/kid
Curses Ares
Events of Chains of Olympus
Is riding on a boat in GoW1.
And nowhere did they mention it being a struggle just to have the choice of being insubordinate.
I guess the question I'm left with is, once he kills the Furies, I'm to assume Ares was like a super villain who just lost his most powerful assets in taking down Kratos... so for the entirety of God of War: CoO and GoW1, is he just throwing all his shitty monsters at you in a feeble attempt to stop you while crying into his Oikos yogurt?
He wouldn't have the Blades of Chaos yet, so they could go with a sword-based system and really refine it, make it feel completely different
They wouldn't have to lose the blades (and since they've been as iconic to the character/series as anything, I doubt they'd want to), if they went with a game set while he was serving Ares. Presumably the God of War would have had Kratos kill some impressive things.
I could also serve as a way to screw with players by having them play through the whole 'burn this village to the ground' part. You'd know what you were doing, but you'd do it anyway, just to keep playing. Nice parallel with Kratos just fighting because he enjoys it, you get to ask the player 'what are you complaining about? You're the one who did it'
Also the story is kinda muddled:
I guess he didn't like being driven crazy
I really think they're hinting at an Egpytian GoW next. There's even a note before the Oracle that says "I come from the land of the Pharoah. It is so cold here... (etc)"
Other than that, the combat has kind of taken an unrefined turn, but I'm glad they changed it up. The only thing that sucks is when they introduce a new element to your weapon, they throw like twenty goat/bug people at you and are like "Here, try out your new weapon!" but you usually have no magic or idea of what exactly your element adds. Hades's was surprising when I had a giant hand come out of the ground and souls flying everywhere once I got a combo to actually complete.
And while the story is extremely muddled and the audio issues tend to peter off as the game progresses (they still pop up every now and then), the thing that I'm finding the most fascinating is the level design, the puzzles, and the enormous vistas. There are some locations they have painstakingly crafted out just so you have something awesome to look at while you ride by
So yeah technically this game still needs patches and I wish they had another month or so to fine-tune the combat, but after getting through the first Hecatonchires section, I can confirm you no longer feel like you're losing hearing in both ears and the game gets MUCH better.
Oh, I especially love the button-less QTE events. Best fucking iterative design in the series.
I'm stuck on the boss at the end of the Temple of Delphi. On hard that guy does a ridiculous amount of damage. And it seems inconsistent. One time I'll get hit and I might only take 5% of my bar, and the next time I'll take 25% or something. Anyway, I haven't played in a few days cause he frustrates me. I need to give it a go tonight.
I mean didn't they look at this before they were done? You'd think someone would have said "I can't dodge out of this animation" and that would have been seen as a problem.
Also, some of the weapon upgrades actually break your ability to combo. I forget the name of the move, but you execute it with L1 + Square. That move is terrible if you try to break out of a block into an attack, because the move itself is not interruptable, so once you start swinging your chains around in a circle like an idiot, you can't break out. Makes a block-attack-block combo nearly impossible.
The fights I hate most are where it pits you against two of those Talos statues - having to wait until they come off of invincibility is boring and usually the stages/their attacks don't afford you enough room to really 'switch targets', you just kind of run around doing wimpy square attacks ad nauseum. Runner-up goes to the Hades weapon element's magic attack - SUDDENLY HUGE ARMS that knock all enemies out of their range of attack, then the attack goes on for another six or seven seconds not doing anything. I feel like Hades weapons/powers get shafted every single game due to some kind of ass-backwards design flaw.
Supposedly they made the Trial of Archimedes easier - you get a bit of health between waves.
I'm wondering if the marks will also disappear during brutal kills, leaving mine/others heroes bald and flailing about clad only in underwear.
Oh, and they're adding a fourth weapon class at some point. I have this odd feeling they might bring back the cestus.
I could understand if you are distinguished by what skills you have and there's a rock-paper-scissors aspect, but with enough stats and higher level spells no amount of good counters is going to help you win against someone that much stronger than you.
This right here is the reason I'm never going to play the multiplayer.
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
I mean, it's still fun, but it's not balanced at all. I've sat down intending to only play one round out of boredom and then an hour later I put it down reflecting on how cool that was, but at the same time lamenting that it'd be perfect if all the people in the match were around the same 'power'.
Which scares me with these "elite" levels coming in 1.04, so I just envision entire teams getting destroyed by a level 40 guy using ultimate magic.
Time for me to finally get my Hard playthrough started.
Oh and the game sold pretty well in the US. A little more than Gears Judgement and a little less than Tomb Raider, all of which sold over 600k.
Also before turning it in I tried to do just a single MP round, was put into an arena match with clearly high level characters. It was fun not getting a single kill with my level 1 character, not just that but almost not even getting off a single attack with the amount high level on noob anal massage. I was even being devastated and juggled right out of spawn.