God of SNORE

God of War is a snoozefest game, and Dante's Inferno was better.

Am I kidding? Uhhhhhhhhhh, I don't know yet. Let's review some games and I'll see.

I finished my first God of War game the other day-- Ghost of Sparta. Now I'm just casually playing through Chains of Olympus and GoW1. They're fun games. The combat is preddy satisfying. I have few complaints. Some of the enemies & encounters are obnoxious, like the Medusas and the Whatevers--that hide in the ground and jump out at you. You also get hit from off-screen a lot in general, which is really, really, really annoying. But other than thaaaaat, the combat's good. Variety of attacks, grabbing dudes, chucking them like missiles into other dudes. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun.

Maybe my biggest problem with the game is Kratos. I just don't like Kratos. 1- he's ugly as sin(& we'll get to sin later) 2- his voice is stupid 3- he's an asshole. He'll just kill his own men and innocent people for no reason. I'm sorry, the reason is "they're in his way". Sometimes. There was a part in GoS where a guy was trapped in a flaming building, with half his body out. Kratos very easily could have just pulled him out. Instead he dropped a pallet of stones on the building to crush it and the man so he could use his corpse to activate a switch. That's pretty funny I guess.

I just can't relate to him. I get that Ares tricked him into killing his family, but that sounds like a reason to want to kill Ares, not to become some kind of autistic rageaholic toward literally everyone else. He's even mean to the women he fucks in minigames and tells them to get out before he returns lol. The only time I remember him having an interaction where he wasn't being an asshole was when some Spartan gave him a spear and shield, and Kratos said "You've served me well", and the guy's like "t-thank you my lord" and scampers off. Kratos just feels like a powertripping retail manager. I will at least say he has the strength and ability to back it up, so it doesn't feel wrong, it just doesn't feel good.

You know what else doesn't feel good? Climbing. You spend so much time climbing around, moving blocks, doing QTEs, and it's all linear with a hidden chest here and there. It's a little much.

Finallyyyyyy... uh, the story sucked. You find out your brother Deimos is alive. Who gives a shit? You're given a few cutscenes of Kratos and his bro sparring as kids, but it doesn't really do much to make you care about Deimos. In the end, Kratos and Deimos fight, Deimos then suddenly forgives Kratos, Deimos gets killed by Thanatos the god of death, who Kratos then kills lol. Kratos says "WHAT HAVE I BECOMEEE" and a mysterious gravedigger who's very-obviously Zeus quotes Hindu scripture that wouldn't exist for another 2000 years, telling him "You've become death, destroyer of worlds 🤓"

Athena comes and asks Kratos to stop being gay, Kratos refuses and vows to continue being a pain in everyone's ass. As Kratos stomps away, angry as ever and vowing to get revenge on the gods for being correct about him, Athena quietly tells her brother that she's sorry, revealing that she's Kratos's sister, so Zeus is Kratos's dad.

Anyway, who cares? The game's fun at least. You can even play as Zeus in the arena mode.

But what about

Dante's Inferno, the Superior Game(?)

I'm just kidding. But not really. Despite being a God of War clone, Dante's Inferno actually is a better game. The story's more interesting. Instead of "I'm Kratos and I'm MAD", Dante's on a journey to save his beloved, and confront the countless sins of his past. He's not just out for revenge.

As Dante travels through the 9 circles of Hell dedicated to various sin, we learn why he, like all men, are guilty of them all. In the end, Dante realizes that he belongs there, and it's only through that acceptance that he's able to be freed.

Obviously, because this was a game developed and published in 2010 Analmerica, they could not allow the game to be overtly-Christian. So Dante's redemption comes not from God--ESPECIALLY not from Christ--but from uh, himself, Beatrice, and all of the souls of the people he met along the way. The power of frienshiplol. (There's a FEW references to God, and exactly-1 time Christ is named that's unrelated to the story)

Satan also has some weird idea that he'll be able to use Dante's ... soul-power in order to escape Hell, and then conquer Purgatory and Heaven. In real-life canon, Satan is a complete retard, so I guess that makes sense, but it's presented to the player as some kind of serious plan.

So Satan wins a bet for Beatrice's soul, in order to lure Dante down and destroy the uh... chain that's keeping him imprisoned, idr if it has a name. We come to learn that Dante is basically the only guy who can do it, as both a skilled warrior and an unrepentant sinner guilty of murder, lust, gluttony, treachery--everything.

People already call the Divine Comedy fanfiction, so this is like fanfiction of fanfiction.

"That story sounds completely retarded, how can you possibly like it?!" I DON'T, but the thing is, thatlmao the plot-twist of "it was all a ruse to lure you here, I'm gonna escape and rule Heaven!!!" is only revealed at the END, so it doesn't ruin the journey. Besides that, DANTE re-imprisoned Satan single-handedly LOL, so it's not even guilty of the silly popular media portrayal of Satan as "God's equal and opposite". No, he gets the crap beaten out of him by Dante.

The game portrays the Crusades as Christians just murdering innocent people for no reason, led by an evil bishop with cartoony shark teeth assuring everyone that they could sin as much as they wanted to. I'm not actually a historian, I know that's like the pop-culture reddit idea of the Crusades, but I just think that's not super accurate. The game's marketing campaign was also "strangely" focused on hating Christians, from a blasphemous ad for a silly fake Christian game that'd lead to the real game's website, to EA hiring a bunch of fags to pretend to be Christians protesting the game, to get that "OoOoooo Christians HATE this game, it must be great!" attention.

It's a good game though. There was a planned sequel where the enemies would be angels(of course), but it was thankfully cancelled. Sequels in general are often enough worse, gayer versions of the originals, but that would have just been ridiculous. I know "Angels bad" is fashionable, with like, Diablo and DOOM, but it's just very faggy. Angels are based.

Oh, what's that, the actual gameplay?

Uh, it's okay. It's God of War, but you also can use a cross as a ranged weapon. Unlike every-other-game-in-the-world where ranged weapons are weaker than melee, the cross is actually the lmao it's actually as strong as your melee weapon (Death's scythe). So erm, based. The cross being such a powerful weapon in the game sends a positive subtle message: Yes, the power of Christ *does* compel you. Seethe.

You unlock a bunch of movessss, upgraaaades, you can get some relics to equiiiiip, it's all pretty neato. Your available upgrades are decided by your "Righteousness"-- whether you redeem or punish enemies and prisoners. Either path works, but imo redeeming people is easier on your own heart and powering up your cross is waaaaaaay more useful than powering up your scythe. But you can balance it and have them both fully leveled by the end of the game.

OKAY, so is Dante's Inferno a better game? Compared to *every* God of War game? Uhhhhhhhhhh... hm. No, I think they're about the same. Dante might have a better story, but who's responsible for that lmao. What's good about Dante's Inferno is the *original* story, while the story written for the video game isn't great. Gameplay wise, they're about the same. Soooo...

To be more fair, I should compare Dante to GoW 3. Maybe in the future, but honestlyZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzim tired of quick-time events I'mgonna go ttylzzzzz