"Suffering for years, Kratos, the once great general, now known as the Ghost of Sparta, had pledged himself as a champion to the gods of Olympus. In return, he hoped only to rid himself of the nightmares that haunted him for far too long."
--Gaia, God of War: Chains of Olympus
"In the darkness, Morpheus, the god of dreams, awoke to a world where he and only he wielded power."
--Gaia, God of War: Chains of Olympus
"Do you think it was my choice to wed a man I did not love? Live a life I did not choose? I was betrayed by the very gods that once saw me as their own. But no more . . . the world will revert into chaos!"
--Persephone, God of War: Chains of Olympus
After reviewing God of War and God of War II in the God of War Collection I eventually purchased both God of War: Chains of Olympus and God of War: Ghost of Sparta for my PS Vita through the PlayStation Store. Fortunately for me, PlayStation Vita owners can access four out of six of the current God of War games. I am thankful that this arrangement permitted me the opportunity to play Chains of Olympus, the 2008 game that brought Santa Monica's grand epic to the PSP. It had large expectations to meet--and it partially meets them. Full of action and renowned characters from Greek myths, it provides a well-crafted but very short adventure.
Production Values
The sense of scale, the epic backgrounds, and the great voice acting all carry over to the PSP well, yet the ambitious scope does not nullify the problems that do exist. Age has weakened the impact of the visuals in many regards. A lot of pixelation mars the aesthetics, something that the larger screen of the Vita (compared to a PSP screen) may hold responsibility for. Occasional freezes interrupt the usual fast pace. In 2017, no handheld gamer would ever point to this as some revolutionary display of hardware. Still, this game would have rested near, if not at, the absolute epitome of handheld graphics upon its release for the PSP almost 10 years ago.
What the game does lose in graphical power contrasts with the fitting and excellent music, atmosphere, and voice acting. The title theme stands alongside other epic menu themes from its siblings, and other tracks fit the story's tone. Terrence C. Carson beautifully voices Kratos and Gaia's voice continues its role as narrator of the story. The production values remain among the strongest features of the title, not that this will surprise lovers of the franchise!
Gameplay
The gameplay of previous iterations in the series gets captured wonderfully in the first handheld game of the franchise. Still, I must warn potential players of its drawbacks. Anyone expecting a 6-10 hour game will find himself or herself disappointed with the length of this offering. It is short--very short compared to many video games. Things like the boss fights reflect this brevity. Chains of Olympus only has four bosses--and two of them, a Persian king and a monstrous basilisk, are defeated within the first 30 minutes. That is not a bad total number considering that the game can be completed in less than four hours, but it does mean that someone who wants epic boss fights will probably want to play a different installment, like God of War II or God of War III. Otherwise smooth controls are interrupted by the fact that certain quick-time events involving the analog stick are very unresponsive. This only seems to be the case during finishing moves for smaller enemies, not bosses. The combat mechanics involve the same classic God of War-style fighting and combos that series veterans will recognize and love.
The item system, consisting of weapons and magic abilities, is a core feature of the God of War series, so both of its components are present here but in a quantity smaller than in some of the other games. Some of the most powerful and memorable items include the Gauntlet of Zeus, seemingly a precursor to the awesome dual gauntlet-based weapon called the Nemean Cestus in God of War III, and Charon's Wrath, a beam based magic attack.
The Challenge of Hades offers some additional play time for players who want to unlock bonus materials like videos, but, as I have already said, the main campaign is short. If you enjoy the formula of the God of War games, expect to like this one also despite its brevity. Simple controls and satisfying combat await. But if you didn't appreciate the format and style in the past, nothing has changed here.
Story
God of War chronology:
1. God of War: Ascension (PS3)
2. God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP, PS3)
3. God of War (PS2, PS3, PS Vita)
4. God of War: Ghost of Sparta (PSP, PS3)
5. God of War II (PS2, PS3, PS Vita)
6. God of War III (PS3, PS4)
7. God of War (currently unreleased; PS4)
Set after Kratos killed his family but before the events of the original God of War, Chains of Olympus tells of how Kratos saved the entire Greek world from annihilation. It opens as Kratos serves the gods in order to receive peace about his past: as a service for Olympus he helps defend the city of Attica from Persians invaders led by the king of Persia. These soldiers fight alongside a massive basilisk, a mythical lizard of unnatural proportions. After defeating the Persian king and basilisk and repelling the Persian army, Kratos sees the sun descend and the world become enshrouded in darkness as what look like ground-level storms appear, complete with lightning-like bursts of energy. An unknown force abducted Helios, and in his absence, Morpheus, the dream god, has become active.
(Spoilers for things in the story after the first 30 minutes lie beyond this point!)
After entering the city of Marathon, Kratos next travels to the Temple of Helios, then the caves of Olympus, which house the "Primordial Fire" stolen by Prometheus (who is encountered in God of War II), which is the "source of Helios' energy". The struggle of serving Olympus receives great focus from Kratos, who verbalizes his belief that he has already served Olympus enough, stating this irritation to Eos, the sister of Helios. "I am but a slave to Zeus and Olympus," he tells her. Interestingly, when Charon, the ferryman of the underworld, calls him "slave to the Olympians", Kratos replies, "I am a slave to no one, Charon". The title may vaguely reference how Kratos views himself as metaphorically enchained by the will of the gods, perhaps?
Eventually, the demigod Spartan ends up in the underworld and chases his daughter Calliope through the Temple of Persephone, the wife of Hades; here he reads the story of her abduction and non-consensual marriage to Hades recounted on a small stone monument. Her mother Demeter would not allow fruit to grow until Zeus allowed her to return to her own world, yet Persephone tragically must split her time between the underworld and the surface above. Thus the seasons take form, for the rebirth of spring accompanies her periodic release from Hades and the gentle decay of fall signals her return to the underworld. Persephone, in the time since her kidnapping, has grown bitter towards humans and gods alike and wants to destroy their worlds, allowing the universe to revert back into the pre-"creation" chaos of Greek myths.
Kratos finds his deceased daughter Calliope in the Elysian Fields only to realize that Persephone has freed the Titan Atlas to destroy the world. Atlas seeks to smash the pillar that holds up the world, destroying Elysium and Tartarus also--and Kratos' daughter Calliope. Forced to decide between embracing his daughter as the world ends or delivering the world and abandoning her potentially forever, Kratos chooses to preserve her existence though it means he may never see her again. The aftermath of the final boss fight shows how Atlas came to be chained, holding the world as he is shown in God of War II. Atlas tells him that the Fates have deemed that they will meet again, meaning that since Atlas had this knowledge before Kratos defeated Persephone he already knew that his goal of destroying the world pillar would not be realized.
As Helios ascends, liberated from Persephone and Atlas, Morpheus retreats. Morpheus seems to have simply taken advantage of Helios' absence and does not appear to have been involved in the plot of Persephone and Atlas to destroy the world.
Intellectual Content
The occasional mild puzzles here do not even begin to match the greatest or most complex in the series. Perhaps the exceptionally short length of the game prohibited the developers from adding more sophisticated puzzles, but the absence of them contrasts with the puzzle variety found in installments like God of War III.
In this story players also experience several of the more tender and human moments in the life of Kratos. Not surprisingly, all of them have to do with his daughter. During his flashbacks of her and his conversation with her in the Elysian Fields, Kratos has never seemed more like a human father. As the first three chronological games in the franchise prove, Kratos was certainly not as sociopathic near the beginning of his servitude to the gods as God of War II, III, and Ghost of Sparta depict. Actually, Kratos represents a more tragic figure than some might realize. Though he seemingly always committed the sins of militarism, arrogance, and murder from his days as a Spartan soldier onward, he truly does become exponentially darker and more violent and impulsive as the series progresses. At least at the beginning of his story--as shown in the video games--he reveals moments of conscience, regret, and even horror at his own nature, but later on he assaults and kills brutally and gratuitously, engages in spontaneous and promiscuous sex, and destroys almost the entire Greek pantheon and landscape. An interesting but often overlooked theme of the series is the fact that vicious people do not always start out as born sociopaths and they can have embers of humanity within them. After all, Kratos did not transform from someone devastated by personal loss to someone willing to annihilate most of Olympus in a short time. His deicidal rampages did not start out of nowhere.
Speaking of the gods, Chains of Olympus highlights the fact that the gods of Greek mythology do not resemble the deity of traditional theism at all--they can fall asleep, die, and they are fundamentally material beings limited to certain space and time. In fact, the Olympian deities and their counterparts are created beings, meaning none of them can be the uncaused cause which created the universe. The susceptibility and vulnerability of the Olympians to death is particularly notable. Not only does Kratos kill the goddess Persephone in the game [1], but Olympus would have perished if the pillar holding the world was shattered by the Titan Atlas. Yes, I know that in Christianity Jesus dies as well. Christ's material body could and did die, but Jesus, as God (John 10:30), adopted a human body for the Incarnation; his divine nature did not die along with his physical body. Both the physical and spiritual natures of deities like Persephone and Ares die in the God of War series, although the spirit of Zeus does survive beyond the death of its body in God of War III's final stage of the last boss fight.
Of course, there are differences between the God of War universe and actual Greek mythology. One in this game is the way Atlas comes to hold up the world. While in Hesiod's Theogony Zeus punishes the defeated Titans at the end of the Titanomachy [2] and sentences Atlas to the burden of holding the world as part of this punishment, in Chains of Olympus Kratos chains the hands of Atlas during his fight with Persephone, leaving Atlas to bear the world. However, the story, despite its deviations from the actual mythology, can make elements of Greek mythology intriguing and accessible.
Conclusion
As the first handheld entry in Kratos' universe, Chains of Olympus succeeded in translating the epic scale and intensity of its console siblings to the PSP. In 2008, it was games like this that helped prove that portable systems could produce console-quality games. In that sense, Chains of Olympus provided a great service to gaming. It may be impressive, but the brevity prevents it from achieving the same level of impact as, for instance, other entries like God of War II. Honestly, the shortness may stand as the easiest target for criticism in the game. But it still provides some enjoyment and backstory. PS Vita owners can download it for $14.99 from the PSP section of the PlayStation Store--and Vita (or PSP) owners who enjoy the series will want to experience this story and the background it provides for the character of Kratos.
Content
1. Violence: Combat involves lots of blood. In one scene Kratos grabs a chest of gold and slams it into the head of a boss repeatedly, smashing the head; in certain quick-time finishing moves he sticks one of his blades down the eyes of Cyclopes before pulling the blade out. Violence remains a central part of the gameplay.
2. Nudity: Eos, the "goddess of dawn and sister to Helios", is topless, but this scene is obviously nonsexual. Gorgon enemies have their breasts exposed (again, this is nonsexual). A part near the beginning features two topless prostitutes, this time in a sexual context. However, the player does not need to approach the two and can walk by them.
3. Sexuality: Kratos can engage in a sex minigame near the beginning with the two prostitutes mentioned above. As in the other games, the minigame does not even show any actual sexual activity. The player can simply walk by, of course.
[1]. This actually means that Kratos had killed a deity before he ever sought to kill Ares. He was a god-slayer before he even became the god of war!
[2]. The Great War between the gods and Titans bears the name of "Titanomachy". Theogony by Hesiod explains this event, and God of War II depicts it briefly in a flashback scene.
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