Me and God of War have a very complicated relationship. I love the original trilogy with the over the top combat and the brutality of teaching every god in the greek pantheon why Kratos is not a guy you want to mess with. They are fun and bombastic and very emblematic of Playstation during the PS2 and PS3 era which focused on very action focused titles with a touch of story. God of War 2018 and Ragnarok while good never really captivated me in the same way as the older games in the series did. I always chocked this up to the change in perspective and the combat being a lot more grounded that the Greek games.
So when I saw that God of War was going to have a metroidvania game that took place before the events of the first game I was very intrigued because it would mean going back to when the series was more concerned about pissing off gods rather than raising boy. Will Sons of Sparta be a worthy detour into Kratos’ past or will it be a game better left to the annals of history?
Tale of two brothers
Sons of Sparta is a prequel game that follows Kratos and his brother Deimos as they get their Eiren’s Pass which allows them to explore the lands of Laconia and at the same time they are made aware that a fellow Spartan Vasilis went missing. This troubled Deimos, causing both of them to go on an odyssey throughout Greece as they grow closer as brothers and find out what happened to their fellow brother in arms. We also get glimpses into Kratos as his main goal is to get into the vanguard circle where the best of the best spartans serve in glory. Which if you remember is where Kratos betrayed his brother in God of War: Ghost of Sparta.
Do not go into this game expecting a narrative like in the two recent God of War games filled with drama, tragedy, and genuinely down to earth characters because there is none of that soul present in Sons of Sparta. Even though the games story was worked on by many of the same people of Santa Monica, the developers we can thank for this game are Mega Cat Studio, which is a smaller developer known for their rereleases of the Backyard Baseball games and the Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit. Talk about batting way above your comfort zone. Now to be fair to the game story, there are some good bits to the tale that is being spun. I like how the framing device to the story is Kratos speaking to his daughter about a past experience that relates to her current life in some way. It’s a good glimpse into Kratos as a father before he murders his family, so it’s a win-win. Unfortunately, the dialogue said by adult Kratos and his daughter is just awful quippy dialogue that betrays the seriousness the games have always held.
Kratos is cracking jokes with Deimos and they talk about girl problems which just feel so tonally distant from a God of War game. In fact Kratos is not even that mad in the game and is a pretty reasonable guy which makes his future as the maddest guy in gaming so weird to me. The other characters don’t fare much better but do a pretty decent job in their role in the story. Considering this game has a pretty inconsequential story and feels more like a slice of life, but with Kratos is such a weird story to tell and it just did not work for me. The stakes were way too low and the dialogue was just up to snuff the series which has some of the best writing in modern video games.
Kratos meets Metroidvania
The gameplay on the other hand does end up being quite a bit better. Sons of Sparta is a metroidvania which means the game is all about exploration, progression, and fun combat which is honestly pretty core at the heart of God of War as a series from the very beginning. Since this is young Kratos you do not have the Chains of Chaos or the Leviathan Axe, instead your main weapon is a spartan spear which can customized to have certain effects and special abilities. While at first it can come off as pretty underwhelming, I actually ended up really liking the weapon as you are able to make your build pretty unique and the customization is meaningful like giving your spear poison damage which can stack and the ability to increase the range of the spear which makes for a deadly combo. You also have access to a shield which mainly acts as the way you can parry enemies which give you window to punish enemies and add stagger to them. With enough stagger you can do a finisher which is very flashy.
You can even attach charms to your belt that give you pretty good buffs and can change how you deal with enemies. You can even upgrade Kratos with blood orbs that you get from fallen enemies and through chests which can increase damage, improve parry window timing, and can give you access to some new moves to add to your arsenal. While not the best combat system in a metroidvania, I really did enjoy the minute to minute gameplay quite a bit. There isn’t much new but there is a good enough understanding of the fundamentals to find fun in.
Side content and exploration galore
One of the major benefits of a game like this is all of the areas you get to explore that are not necessarily part of the critical path. There are olive trees where you do mini combat challenges, Circe asks you to collect cat tokens for some extra equipment, and there are even shrines where you can get upgrades for all of the items that become a main part of your kit. I was constantly finding new and interesting side content in the game to dig my teeth into and most of the side content feeds into either the combat or the exploration, which I think was a pretty good choice.
Throughout your adventure you will get plenty of weapons and gear from the gods which will not only give you some options during combat but will also help open up areas for exploration. For example, Victory Sandals give you enhanced mobility and allow you to jump to out of reach areas. You get a ranged weapon to hit items to open doors, a flame weapon to burn wood, and a giant sword that moves stone platforms. Pretty standard stuff if you are familiar with metroidvania exploration at all, but it’s done with enough confidence that I find the general exploration to be pretty good. My only major issue is that most of the rewards you get are not really worth the massive amounts of backtracking that you need to do.
The exploration is not bad but it’s pretty basic with having very clear dead ends and level design that is pretty average and not very difficult to traverse to. You never really have those moments where you are exploring multiple different areas at once and you find your own way towards your goal because this game just loves holding your hand.
Tons to explore, in a straight line
The biggest sin when it comes to a metroidvania is when it’s just a linear adventure but it has some locked doors that you may want to enter if you have some free time. The game will constantly tell you where to go next and it will never miss the chance to tell you what you should do at any given moment. The strength of this format is that the puzzle and moment to moment level design is pretty good and there are some really engaging environmental puzzles. The game is at its best when it plays like a Zelda game where you use the items you obtain to solve puzzles and defeat fun bosses.
The bosses in this game are the highlight to me, being so much fun to beat. They are aggressive and have interesting gameplay gimmicks without feeling too unfair. The Blood Ichor boss in the vineyard was really fun and even involved Deimos as your companion in the fight making it feel like you’re fighting with your brother against an overwhelming foe. In fact most of the fights and gameplay moments where you are with Deimos tend to be the most engaging, otherwise most of the time he just disappears during the gameplay to explore ahead or hang out at a campfire.
Shadowdropped without a patch
Weirdly enough this game actually had quite a bit of bugs and truly bizarre game design decisions. Sometimes the audio would desync and all of the spoken dialogue would either be delayed or the sound effects would just disappear into the ether. I had a few instances where enemies would get stuck on geometry or their AI would just stop working and not do anything. I’ve never seen a metroidvania have bugs like this and I even had the game crash on me. To be fair as I played it, the bugs and performance did get fixed or they were less prominent. Unfortunately, they couldn’t fix the ledge issue when it came to enemy placement. There is this strange issue I have never had before in a metroidvania where sometime enemies would camp out at ledges because they see you and you can’t jump over or pass through them because the game only allows for ground dodges. So there are moments where I am trying to reach a ledge through platforming and I’ll just be spiked down back to a poison pit because I had the audacity to want to progress.
Another issue I had with the game had to do with the spirit meter which is necessary if you want to do anything in this game. If you want to sprint you need spirit, if you want do a puzzle you need spirit, and you if you want to defeat a spongey enemy then you absolutely need spirit. I get what they were trying to do with the system, but it just does not feel very good as it feels super tedious to keep the meter full. I’m fine with the magic meter because that dictates certain special moves and it’s one meter to keep track of. The spirit meter is the worst aspects of a stamina meter with it even taking spirit just to move faster throughout the areas as the fast travel points are way too spread out.
Nice try kid
Contrary to the criticism I have for the game, I really appreciate Sony trying to make budget titles to mix in with their more high budget games. Unfortunately, this game was just not very good, especially when you compare the huge sea of metroidvania games that are just everywhere. This is no Silksong and I think it’s important to learn from the games that are defining the genre, but Sons of Sparta seems way too basic for a genre that has been innovating for years. The excellent animation, amazing boss fights, and the solid combat can’t save the game from being a mediocre metroidvania with the skin of God of War. If you’re a fan of God of War then give this game a shot, but otherwise I would say you could skip out on this adventure.
