It was a surprise announcement at the most recent PlayStation State of Play – the Greek era of God of War is coming back with a full trilogy remake on the way. And while that’s something for the far future, the present was also taken care of in the form of a shadow-dropped new title, God of War Sons of Sparta.
Not a mainline entry, mind, but instead a 2D “metroidvania” starring a teenage Kratos, long before all the business goes down with Ares and he murders his wife and kid. This prequel story follows brothers and Spartans-in-training, Kratos and Deimos, reckoning with what a duty to Sparta means to them as they set out on a barely-sanctioned quest to find a missing friend. The game’s campaign starts and ends with this hunt for fellow Spartan, Vasilis, which means it’s not particularly interesting on a fundamental level, but it takes flavour from its framing as a lesson from Kratos to his daughter, Calliope, as well as young Kratos’ interactions with the cast of characters in his story.
This is, for better or worse, an act of character rehabilitation for Kratos. No doubt part of an attempt to ease players into the character as he presents in the original games, especially for those who first witnessed him soften in the snows of Midgard. It’s fine, propped up by its coming-of-age setting and sharp dialogue, but it’s a chapter with neither the stakes nor gravitas of any other God of War entry.
Sparta and the greater surrounds of Laconia are at least compelling to explore, buoyed by the staple metroidvania ethos of a map that steadily opens up wider and deeper into increasingly unique biomes. Sons of Sparta doesn’t attempt to expand the genre vocabulary when it comes to the types of traversal upgrades and arbitrary gating that inform its layouts – aside from a strangely long wait for some fundamental tools – but I found some comfort in the familiarity of that design language.
What it does do is mostly successfully translate the look and feel of the series to a retro-inspired 2D presentation full of impressively lush pixel art and an obligatory Bear McCreary score that peppers old-school synthesised melodies in amongst the usual chanting and orchestral swells. I’m not as convinced of the aesthetic in motion, where primitive animation cheapens the action and the subtleties of the art’s palette wind up simply feeling flat. There are some stunning vistas to find throughout, but there’s also a lot of dull stonework and desert between them.
A commendable effort’s been made to retrofit the Greek and Norse God of War progression mechanisms into the metroidvania engine, with coloured orbs that spew from defeated foes and de-lidded chests cycling into their appropriate gauges. Kill a monster conventionally and it’ll bleed red orbs to power your skill trees and gear upgrades, or get fancy with it and you’ll earn green, yellow or blue orbs to fill your health, skill and magic bars, respectively.
Kratos typical offensive mode sees you mashing attacks with his spear, dodging or parrying enemy attacks as they come and then going right back to repeatedly poking them. Nuance comes both from equipping and upgradeable spear components that augment attacks with status effects, new combo enders and other bits, as well as a growing collection of magical trinkets that add helpful ranged options.
This makes for an enjoyable cadence of combat, for the most part, though I found it easy to become overwhelmed by certain groups of foes as projectiles start flying and any combination of the four potential colour-coded attack telegraphs are popping off. Running straight past enemies you can’t be bothered to fight is also a completely valid strategy in most areas, so I’d often choose just to pick off the easy, lonely creeps and critters I came across with green orb-generating Spirit attacks, effectively using them as health pots.
The game’s boss encounters, both mandatory and optional, are almost unanimously disappointing. They tend to skirt the line between predictable and overly demanding, or in the case of what should’ve been one stand-out fight in particular, astonishingly half-baked. There are a couple that are at least visually or thematically cool, but a more compelling line-up would’ve done a lot of good for this game.
I also frequently encountered an enemy I couldn’t confront with the end of a spear, an army of technical issues from stuttering screen transitions to control lock-ups, broken dialogue sequences and plenty more. Nothing game-breaking or that couldn’t be sorted if post-launch support is in consideration, but enough to make a fair few of my in-game deaths feel in bad faith.
Reviewed on PlayStation 5 Pro
Great
- Decent character and dialogue work
- Regularly dazzling pixel-art vistas
- Mash-up of familiar mechanics and 2D combat works well
- A sizeable map that's enjoyable to uncover
Not great
- Messy animations and enemy placements can make some fights a chore
- Not many hits among the cast of bosses
- Core story thread is uninteresting
- A distinct lack of technical polish