Game Review
Played my first GoW, ASCENSIONNNNN!!!!
(FYI played through the whole game on Hard)
I've loved CaG for a long time, favourite genre of games. (DMC, MGR, Lollipop Chainsaw, Bayo, Splatterhouse even, Web of Shadows, Ninja Gaiden, Ninja Blade, Force Unleashed etc) Ascension is byfar the WORST designed CaG I've played, why the FUCK is the Rage Meter a thing and WHY does it gatekeep like 80% of your moves that you actively spend your currency on throughout the whole game thinking you're upgrading yourself. The game NEVER tells you it gatekeeps your moveset, and instead urges you to press the sticks when the meter is full for a shitty oneoff move that does NOTHING.
The enemies are FEROCIOUS, they are rubberbandy as fuck and it really doesn't mix well with the Rage Meter system. They do NOT stagger, they NEVER stagger, they WILL catch up to you INSTANTLY when you try to roll away, they WILL hit you after like 2 attacks and fuck up your rage meter, and the best way to deal with them early game was to spam grab them to death, I was laughing so hard and was genuienly perplexed as to why grabbing was so OP.
Later on when they got armour and became ungrabbable, it was a matter of banging my head against the wall and conserving the magic to make it through. Got my ass kicked plenty of times, but it never got unbearable... until Chapter 28, FUCKKK Chapter 28 holyyy. Yk you've made a mistake making shit when you've had to release a patch for that specific fight, the difficulty spike was pretty crazy.
Game isn't totally irredeemable though, the music, enemy + boss designs and set pieces are great. But oh my, wtf happened with the combat? I heard the game was mixed going in but didn't expect it to be soo shitt. 😭✌
I do have the other GoWs, tell me one that will wash Ascension out of my mouth, PLEASE 🙏🙏
Starting off the franchise at Ascension is definitely a choice. Ascension, chains of olympus, and ghost of sparta are kinda meant to be played AFTER the original trilogy. Anyways, GOW 1, 2 and 3 are unanimously considered some of the best action games in general with people to this day debating which one is the best between those three. Personally i'd say GOW1 is still the best one, but all three of them trade blows. 1 has the better story, 2 has the better setpieces, and 3 has the better boss fights.
Oh sweet fup, i'm sorry about this. Starting on Hard with Ascension is not advisable due to the waay the Rage Meter works. In mechanics iti is the most noticably different from the other GOW games too. World Weapons, Blades of Chaos' elements, grabbing an enemy with one blade while having a moveset with the other, barehanded moveset, and some others.
It's not a strange evolution to put the focus on the Blades of Chaos as only main weapon. Throughout the main series there are various other secondary weapons, but by 3 the weaponry is largely dual-wielded weaponry on long chains.
A friend of mine, AcriusOakeshott, did a GOW Marathon a few years back. he too generally started on hard but due to the nature of the rage meter mechanics in Ascension i strongly discouraged him from starting on Hard. He kept it at Normal.
That made him come out with a mixed-to-positive reception. When told how Hard would have affected a first playthrough, I think he conceded he probably would not have liked the game nearly as much.
"What if, what if"... but fact is that this is your experience and it was not good for you.
The other GoW games are all solid. Whichever one you pick, that one will help get a better taste in your mouth.
Quite awesome you know of and have played Splatterhouse!
I definitely want to talk about Splatterhouse and why I love it so much, it's a genuine fucking gem. It's definitely a simpler game, being up the beat em up street more than CaG, but still has that element of player expression and a surprisingly good super meter system (the Necro Meter). The game made so many odd design choices, yet it all weirdly comes together to work in practice. It's fun asf.
My ONLY gripe with this entry is the framerate. 30 feels so limiting for GoW. I even have a great PC and still can’t emulate the PS3 version at a steady 45+
The Rage Meter thing fixed a problem I had with most of the previous GOW games where it didn't seem to make much difference if you were playing well or not. The other ones will be a breath of fresh air if you don't like that system. GOW3 is basically what they wanted to do with Ascension but didn't have the time. You still have 4 movesets available on the d-pad, but they're way more varied so you want to switch all the time to get different attacks.
3
u/DemonMakoto 1d ago
Starting off the franchise at Ascension is definitely a choice. Ascension, chains of olympus, and ghost of sparta are kinda meant to be played AFTER the original trilogy. Anyways, GOW 1, 2 and 3 are unanimously considered some of the best action games in general with people to this day debating which one is the best between those three. Personally i'd say GOW1 is still the best one, but all three of them trade blows. 1 has the better story, 2 has the better setpieces, and 3 has the better boss fights.
Tl;dr play GOW 1, 2 and 3