Endgame discussion — SPOILERS!!!

Let’s see if I can remember exactly how this all ended…

I finish the Zeus fight and go stabby stabby like a good Kratos, impaling Zeus into Gaia’s heart in a two-for-one deal.  Things fall down all around and Kratos regains consciousness next to a sword-pinned Zeus.  Kratos pulls the sword out and walks away.  We could have ended the story here and I’d have been happy.

However, Zeus goes into spirit form and goes after Mr. K — I’m asked to tap on the circle button but I die anyway.

Everything is dark and I’m suddenly playing a really really slow version of “This Is Your Life.”  Artistic storytelling recap of the previous games all the way back to Pandora, who does her Jesse Jackson impression.  After a long walk and swim, you’re back against Zeus, first-person style.  Short battle, then asked to tap circle to bash Zeus’ head in.  As Kratos pounds on Zeus’ face, the blood splatter covers the screen.  Circle button cue continues to be visible…I keep pressing circle.  Still going…and by this time I’m wondering if the game glitched on me.  The wife, who was watching this part, suggested I stop.  I do, and so does Kratos.  Yay me!  This could have been ending numero dos.

Athena shows up and asks for the power of Pandora back.  This is when we realize that when Kratos opened Pandora’s box the first time (first GOW), all the evil things within affected the gods while Kratos took ‘hope’ into himself.  It wasn’t so much vengeance as it was hope that he was drawing his determination from.  Anyway, Athena asks for the hope back.  Kratos looks at the sword says the line “my vengeance is…” [something] and stabs…himself…releasing hope into the world.  Athena goes “that was supposed to be for me!!!  they don’t know what to do with it!”  Athena walks away, credits roll.  This could have been ending numero tres.

At the end of the credits, we go back to the scene of Kratos’ suicide…except he goes Boba Fett on us by showing a blood trail all the way to the cliff-side of the mountain but no body.  No confirmed death.

Enter the potential God of War IV — “Killed ‘Em All and Back For More”

Now looking into completing the challenges, as well as starting over (probably in easy mode) to mop up some of the trophies and items that I’ve missed.  Looking at the online guides for input…it doesn’t look like I get to keep all my powers when I start over like I was able to in the prior GOW games.  Also, it appears trophies won’t be available if I turn on the bonus items.  Bummer all.  Then there are the bonus videos they supplied, which I haven’t gotten to yet.

And there you have it, my thoughts on playing God of War III.

more spoilers…

Hera’s hedge maze was well made.  It took my tired, sleep-deprived brain a while to figure that whole mess out.  Before anything else, let me take this moment to finally mention something that I seem to have failed to bring up in all my previous posts: WTF IS UP WITH THE PANDORA PLOTLINE?  I guess we’re going for the father-child angle again, and it does seem a little tacked on.  It’s like Kratos goes from vengeance-vengeance-vengeance to “save the kittens” all of a sudden.

Heph talked a lot about Pandora, and was very protective of her.  He was trying to gain Kratos’ sympathy since he can relate to having a daughter.  I thought Mr. Bad-ass was over that by now since it’s all about Zeus with him these days.  At Hera’s hedge maze, she taunts him and tries to hit him a couple of times but he wanted nothing to do with her…until she starts trashing Pandora.  Kratos gets pissed and kills Hera.  No quick-time event, no blade swinging, nothing.  Just a cutscene where Kratos kills Hera.  The body comes in handy in the puzzle room, too!

A day ago, maybe, I’ve come to realize that the game just starts throwing more enemies at you.  Many times, I’ve heard myself saying “please let that be the last of them” as I nurse my sliver of a health bar.  I mention this because the next section on the way to the labyrinth becomes a hack and slashfest.  Having to use Helios to light the way added to the immersion factor.  Seeing MANY scorpions in the distance was disheartening at times.  Hack, slash, jump — giant scorpion.  Power up that cestus, guys, the game requires you to use it.  Scorpion dies after a long dance and flying mini game.

We meet Daedalus who’s still hoping Zeus keeps his kid Icarus alive.  I could’ve sworn I killed that kid in the previous game and I have the wings to prove it…but Daedman doesn’t know that.  Twisty-turny Rubik’s Cube journey, get Pandora (who appears to be invincible, by the way).  Escort mission, break her out of a dunk tank, falling blades, a horde of enemies, etc.  At the end of it, Daedman writes you a love letter with his hands bound…he’s good.  Oh, as you’re walking, Pandora waxes poetic about her dad Heph and Kratos gets all sentimental about parenthood.  Lost somewhere in there is the fact that KRATOS JUST KILLED HEPHAESTUS A FEW SCENES AGO!!!

Time to raise the cube up to Olympus, which means hitting the three kings in the back of the head.  After fighting off numerous strong and annoying foes along the way.  Break the chain, turn a crank, cutscene of Rubik’s cube wrecking Olympus.  Now for your WTF moment: Pandora wants to jump into the flame and Kratos once more turns softie and instead wants to bake cupcakes and attend PTA meetings for Pandora.  Fight with Zeus, pandora takes the opportunity to jump into the flame.  Pandora’s box turns out to be empty.  Zeus mocks him.  Save point.

Another Zeus fight and the formerly-presumed-dead Gaia shows up.  This shows you how slow my brain had been working all this time.  In the beginning of the game one of the first real puzzles you had to solve was near her onyx-protected heart.  Having her hand chopped off like Luke and falling down the side of a mountain didn’t seem to kill her, even as Cronus lamented over her supposed death.

I start cestus-bashing the heart, Zeus shows up, fight happens, he gets all split-personality and all seven of him gang up to kill me.  Screw that, I said.  Time for bed.

Late night so I didn’t get a chance to get through as much as I would have liked to.

More spoilers…attach your own disclaimer accordingly.

When I last left Kratos, I had dropped him off at the cake-and-ice-cream shop for some much needed R&R.  However, It seems he’s still upset about the whole ‘revenge on Zeus’ stuff.  You know, I guess cake and ice cream DOESN’T solve everything.  Thus the game continues –

I did the Aphrodite quick-time-event mini-game a few times — for the red orbs, kids, the red orbs.  I have many weapons to power-up and couldn’t pass up the red orbs.

Then there was that talk with Hephaestus that I was pseudo-dreading.  Heph asks Kratos about A-Ditty and Kratos brushes it off and gets back to the task at hand.  Very focused, this guy.  No incriminating text-messages, no press conferences, no public apologies, just gets on with it.

I’m sure Heph was still a bit miffed when he sent Kratos off to go find some specific rock in Tartarus.  Eventually Kratos spots Cronos giving Gaia a high-five. (confirming that Gaia is now dead)  Neat battle with Cronos follows with more god-climbing (though nothing like the A-Ditty god-climbing) and some nice brutality.   Weird how his zits ooze out living creatures.  Found the rock in his belly, and then eventually brainstabbed him with the sword.  He was all “you got what you wanted, now leave me be!”  One more round of cake and ice cream and Kratos might have just let it slide but no, he still has anger issues and only stabby stabby seems to help with that.  Cronos is perma-404.

Kratos takes the rock back to Heph, he makes a whip out of it, hands it over, and proceeds to shock Kratos with it.  I know — some guys just hold grudges for too damn long.  Lamest boss-fight ensues and Heph is killed in I’m guessing under two minutes.

Kratos goes to meet up with Ditty again for more red orbs.  After that, I head outside and the disembodied voice of Athena informs me that…wait for it…the Nemesis whip thingy allows me to do FORCE-LIGHTNING!!!  About damn time.

Platforming on some bridges, into some other room where Daedalus left a note saying he traded favors with Zeus to get his kid Icarus back. (intentional pun, though I never did play that NES game).  I hop around and flap my ‘borrowed’ wings a few times for the sake of irony.

And this is around where I left off.  Some portals, a ballista, oodles of goodies, and two chests hanging from the roof.  I’ve managed to pick up the other goodies but haven’t quite figured out how to handle the last two yet.  I went on ahead to see Hera’s garden maze but am hoping I can restore back to a save-point so I can get those chests ’cause right now, it’s all about the red orbs and loot.

SPOILER ALERT — I will bring up names and situations from the game.  If you do not want to know which people from the Greek Mythology roster gets what, you should probably stop reading now.

Day One Recap:
On day one, Poseidon, Hades, and Helios were offed.  A few titans were ticked off but I didn’t see any bodies so I can’t tell if they’re taking dirt naps or just hanging out where I can’t see them.

Onto Day Two:

Sweet Yeti of the Serengeti!
The whole bit with Hermes (last name unfortunately NOT Conrad) was well done, if not slightly annoying.  The look on Kratos as he eyed those shoes was priceless.  It basically said “Nice kicks…can I have them?”

Sparta’s Got Talent:
I do not do well with rhythm games and there I was forced to adapt or my game progress would come to a screeching halt.  Since I had to go through that, I only wished that the designers animated Kratos to do DDR moves on the floor.  I can see the GOW spinoff now — “Harpsichord Hero”

In-Cestus:
Interesting fight with Kevin Sorbo with jealousy weaved into the story.  I feel that Hercules’ demise was somehow an allegory of how the game’s writers put Kratos into existing Greek myths.  The writers donned Kratos as a glove and bashed Greek mythology into an unrecognizable pulp with him, took from it whatever served their purpose and disposed of the corpse with complete disregard.  Am I complaining?  Hell no.

Do-a-ditty:
Right around here is where I stopped.  Besides the fact that the upcoming conversation with Hephaestus will be hella awkward, I also have a few issues about all this.  Here’s a guy soaked in the blood of his enemies, has Cyclops eyeball all up in his fingernails, and hasn’t seen a bar of soap in days.  Nevermind the fact that he has also killed off the other gods and all that drama.  It’s all good, says Aphrodite, as she invites him to stay for some hot coffee.  Kratos is a pimp.

Now a few more random thoughts on continuity:
Some time had passed between the stories in first game and the second game.  However, the third game picks up right where the second game left off — SO WHERE IS MY FORCE-LIGHTNING???  Did he hit his head and forget during the maybe 10 minute gap that had elapsed between the second and third game?

Also about continuity — what happened to the head of Euryale that Kratos had hidden up his nether-region this whole time?  Did it dissolve like some sort of suppository?  All I’m saying is that the man has no place for pants pockets but always seems to reach back to where his a-hole would be to pull out inventory items.  Worse yet, all of the things he had dutifully kept there during the second game — cyclops and gorgon eyes, phoenix feathers, Euryale’s head, etc. seem to have gone missing at the beginning of GOW III.  Having such things unaccounted for MAY explain why Kratos is so angry all the time, though.  So for now, Kratos, take Helios’ head out from up in there, take a shower and go out for some cake and ice cream.  I’m sure you’ll be feeling much more chipper afterwards and you’ll forget about all this Zeus-killing business in no time.

No?  Well alright, party on.