Playing this now.

I will not stop until I beat it at least once.

Currently in the ships fighting sea monsters. Just Got Poseidon's Rage.

In some city. Got Medusa's Gaze and upgraded it to get the projectile version. Sometimes I find the beam version is more useful depending on the enemy and their positions.

I use the jumping heavy alot as he comes down because it bounces a lot of enemies.
Noticed you can loop some like this with the air grab.

> Jumping Heavy
Fantastic setup since it launches as you note. ST (square triangle) is also a quick launcher and at times faster.

> medusa's gaze
Great for mass nuking. Note that enemies that freeze in mid-air instantly die on impact with the floor. If you 'break' enemies you get bonus orbs.

> airgrab loops
The best kind. You can either do ST into ground-to-air grab and just slam them constantly into their mates. Or jump up and air-to-air grab them to death (safer, but lower AoE potential).

>Fantastic setup since it launches as you note
Even on gorgons and minotaurs.

How do you deal with giant type like these ogres? Just hit and run? I seem to never have MP when I fight them so don't know if they can be frozen.
Not everything is blockable right?

>Great for mass nuking
I'm saving up for the 360 blast.

>ST (square triangle)
Been using this a lot too.

> Note that enemies that freeze in mid-air instantly die on impact with the floor
WHAT?
That's amazing.

I also love how gorgons can freeze other enemies. Got her to take out a few minotaurs once.

>If you 'break' enemies you get bonus orbs.
Saw that it would say like 'crushed +15' or something.

>You can either do ST into ground-to-air grab and just slam them constantly into their mates. Or jump up and air-to-air grab them to death (safer, but lower AoE potential).
Feels really fun to do too.

If I grab on the ground I like the throw because it can hit other enemies. Seems to do a lot of damage too.

Blocking is really important, which I remember you told me about a whole ago. Enemies attack quite often even though I'm only on normal.

Just finished a puzzle where I had to save some woman hanging from a rope. Now I'm supposed to go after Pandora's box.

Really like the level design. Lots of hidden side areas with goodies. The best kind of PS2 goodness.

By the way I'm playing the PS3 collection, Asia version. Has tons of blood and violence. I thought it would be censored.

> ogres
Propper spacing can have you wail on them from one of their sides as their attacks whiff. Spells are a great boon against them too. They can be frozen. You can't block all their attacks IIRC.

> gorgons freeze other enemies
It's super neat.

> throwing
Note that you can redirect the ground-to-air throw (sorry GMG, I forgot the name haha). Allows for some good sjhnenigans. Also can throw them off the stage for an OHKO. Note that you can also do this against far larger foes if you launch them with Hold-T.

> blocking
It's super improtant, the roll is a trap honestly.

> PS2 glory
It's super fun, and I agree very well paced and designed. It has some really fun levels and honestly some stages look jawdropping in their ambition for a PS2 title. Like seeing Ares fight in the distance, or when you're walking on the back of Chronos later. Fucking great.

Great to see you enjoying this finally!

Fun topic. Love seeing someone through a classic.

>They can be frozen
Delicious.

>throwing
How do you aim it? I noticed a light around enemies.

>the roll is a trap honestly.
Definitely found that to be the case. Works for avoiding gorgon's stone beam though.

Desert area with the three Sirens.

Couldn't see any other way to beat them other than to throw out two attacks then block just incase they throw a lightning ball. They only stay frozen for like two seconds. Still useful to catch her while the minotaur are around. They can hit her too.

Earlier I fought some ogres and they break so fast after being petrified. But things like Minotaurs take more of a beating.

Just got the door opened and saved. Will continue after dinner.

Note: I haven't touched other magic outside of that time I was forced to throw lightning bolts at they guy holding the bridge switch.

Just watched some of Taz's run. I'm ashamed of myself.

That air loop on minotaurs.

And how is he rolling forever?

I'm confused as to how anyone thought you could SST this game.
Even on normal you get destroyed for spamming it. How did this even come up? Were they on easy or something? Or is it just a lot of idiots parroting what they heard?

Damn it. Fought a group of sirens and only on the last one remembered what Roy said about freezing them in the air!

> throwing aim
You hold the direction after Kratos grabs him, should work. The timing is a bit finnicky. It only works on ground-to-air.

> roll trap
A lot of the common mentalities will see you dead here for real.

> sirens
The camera is a tool you can use to keep foes off-screen. Enemies CANNOT attack off-screen and will cease any animations they are doing if they go off-camera.

> petrify
Wait until God of War II where you get a giant-ass hammer that nearly OHKO's petrified enemies.

> magic
They have their uses. Lightning isn't that great imo, but you can use the 'grab lightning' startup animation to cancel a ton of your animations. Poseidon should always be done in the air (less recovery) and is more of a screen-clearer. Hades (you get that one a tad later) is busted beyond repair. If you max that one out you can kill the final boss in like 3 casts haha. I feel magic was still in its infancy here, GoWII really upped the bar on that regard.

> Taz makes you feel shame
Wait till you reach your boy roy (hahaha). Nawh Taz is absolutely fantastic. I also highly recommend Bick's runs and Shinobier. Wolf(?) is also great.

> rolling forever
You can cancel the roll animation with a regular light-attack, then cancel that attack with another roll, completely removing roll-recovery.

> the legendary SST meme
I honestly have no clue. The game can be pretty fucking brutal on Normal already, let alone higher settings. I cannot imagine playing this game with SST spam. What most do is just SST, then dodge back and SST again. This CAN work, but it's super tiring and takes forever as you're generally just chipping enemies out with the splash-damage of the plume.

>Enemies CANNOT attack off-screen
Haha. I've been running around trying to keep sight of threats believing they could get me.

>nearly OHKO's petrified enemies.
Definitely going to play it straight after this.

>Wait till you reach your boy roy
You got vids? I'll check them out once I finish.

>roll cancel
I figured it out not long after posting. You can just hold the stick down and pressing attack makes you roll. It's very similar to the infinite dash in Knack 2.

>This CAN work
Sirens and gorgons just dodge it, and big guys can catch your dodge if you don't get out super early.

Using SST only would actually count as a challenge run.

Would be really interesting to find the origin if the SST meme.

I got Blade of Artemis but don't like it at all. I can't grab anymore.

Maxed Medusa's Gaze. Also leveled Blades of Chaos and got that DT-like thing.

Fought like 4 gorgons at once and was having trouble until I realized you can slam them repeatedly by grabbing in the air and kill them really fast.

> play GoW immediately after
I'd sooner say, give GoW1 a replay first on Very Hard if possible.

> vids
Got a NUR and PAIN+ run. The NUR is still...pretty timid since I'm learning as I go. The PAIN+ is pretty well done imo, though still a student there too.

> SST challenge run
Hahaha, it would be. I do find it interesting though, the meme is so big that even the director noted it as the main reason for changing the main-weapon in God of War 2018 (which, ironically, has its best combo BE square-square-triangle haha). Yet every player I meet that tries the classic series notes the same: it's way too hard to rely on just that.

> artemis
It's a great ring-out tool. Note that switching to it is fully invincible, great for on the fly i.frames against shockwaves etc. Its special moves also deal BUCKETS of damage like the stab. It's a high-DPS weapon.

>I'd sooner say, give GoW1 a replay first on Very Hard if possible.
Before I do harder modes (if I do them) I want to see how good I find the base games.
I'll need to buy GoW3 again too.

These more powerful ogres take too long to freeze. I find these the most annoying to fight because you can barely hit them before they attack and their range is huge.

Wtf happened in this Cerberus fight? Got to a point where there were 5 of them plus little dogs. I couldn't move. Do three dogs combine into a big one? Died a few times them somehow managed to keep the number down because the camera focuses on a sma area near the sealed path to the next area. Maybe some being off camera stopped them from combining?

Done the Hades part. Enemies are getting annoying now by blocking a lot.

Done.

Did not like the late game enemies. Final boss fight sucked too.

The clones were fine on normal. Struggling to see how anyone would do that on a challenge run on the highest mode.
Only thing that looked like it could work was when somehow the clones started spawning on one side. I was able to SST them repeatedly (using SST as a short chain and to launch) and throw on the clone that sometimes spawned ony side. Not sure why this happened because at first they were appearing all over the place.

Not a fan of the platforming, climbing, rope hanging parts. That blade tower was a pain in the ass. Unskippable cutscenes too.

Started GoW2. Haven't really progressed. Got to the first savepoint.

> ogres
They are definitely a tad annoying, you aren't alone in this.

> Cerberus
The little dogs eventually grow into big ones, so it's a fight about keeping up the pressure.

> Final Boss
He's pretty intense once you get his moveset down. Doing him on a NUR/PAIN run is very cathartic.

> Clones
It's a nightmare, I've never attempted them on a challenge run.

> GoWII
Good luck! Note that magic and alternative weapons are far improved in this entry.

Just got the bow. Thought it was a weapon but it's in the spell slot.

Pretty cool though how you can whip it out instantly and even juggle.

What's up with grabbing now? Sometimes he does the one from the first game. Most other times he slams them into the ground then throws. Thinking it might be a directional input.

Grabs are now more dependant on enemy-type IIRC, so some enemies get the original grab while others get the new one. They streamlined this more in GoWIII to be more intuitive.

Just got the lightning orb magic. It's cool how after launch you can juggle with it (whether you launched with them or from the ground) and can then switch to the bow and continue juggling or really do whatever you want.

You can't infinite grab from the air and slam anymore?

ST launch doesn't work on minotaurs now.

The guy you beat before getting the lightning magic. Bit of a pain once he summons minotaurs. He also blocks a lot. Not sure if anything decided when I could get in a hit. But all of his melee was blockable so not too bad.

ST launch got a bit retweaked, hold-T is always the 'big boy' launcher though and works the most consistently. So use that one I'd say!

Almost forgot about that one. Since ST worked do well in the first game I almost never used hold T.

I think I mainly used it with sirens because of how likely they were to dodge after being hit. Hold T worked really well then petrify in the air for an instant kill.

Is Medusa Gaze in GoW2?

Got it.

I like the hammer. It can send out a soul as a projectile. Jumping L1 and L1+2 and ground energy waves. I took out a group of soldiers and two minotaurs from a distance. Soul doesn't do much damage but causes hit stun most of the time.

Hammer didn't seem too good on big stuff like bosses because you can't block everything. Wonder how good the souls upgrade is?

Fought another boss. Some invisible guy with a magic shield. Annoying.

Is there a trick to damaging bosses like this faster? Like the previous human boss, he blocks almost everything and I have to chip away. Noticed late if you attack him near a wall he impacts with it even though I didn't knock him into it.

Fought these guys that teleport and summon minotaurs. Really annoying. I grabbed him constantly, won the QTE which launches, then beat him a bit. Then two of them appeared. Did the same while dodging the monsters.

I like the environments so far. The secret areas and treasure boxes really remind me of Knack 2 as does the level.design.
Liked some of the puzzles too. A few gave me trouble so far.

Yeah I've been playing KnackII on and off and they really took a lot of inspiration from classic God of War it seems. They have the same set of perks.

> Hammer
I usually used it to smash frozen enemies to pulp, never used the souls so much though they for sure can be handy.

> invisible boss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKh-G8hfGxk

>playing Knack 2
Even the button mashing when lifting doors looks and feels similar.

>invisible boss video
That's pretty much what I did. Blocking while waiting for openings.

I think I might be close to the end now. I'm at the Palace of the Fates now I think.
Got a spear and the earthquake magic but don't use them much. Though the earthquake one was good for the part with those 3 headed dogs and puppies that kept growing. Was able to keep them all stuck while I attacked the big ones.

Done.

Didn't like the bosses but enemy fights were great.

Don't have GoW3 right now but will grab it soon.

GoWIII is an interesting one, since it changes quite a few combat mechanics by introducing the battering-ram (which is fantastic). It has quite the 'bombastic' opening though which takes a while to get through but is pretty stellar. Once you get to Hades' realm it becomes the typical GoW game again.

Are you going to play the entire series or just the original trilogy?

I do want to try the PSP ones. There's another collection for those on PS3. Might try Ascension at some point just to understand where people are coming from when they rate each game

After finally playing this myself, I can safely say it's nuts that anyone says this game lacks depth.

They're either lying for a reason I do not understand, or they've never played it and are just parroting.

>After finally playing this myself, I can safely say it's nuts that anyone says this game lacks depth.
Indeed. Probably just played the game on Normal. Plume is also easy to remember and pretty safe, so maybe they didn't want to bother trying anything else.

Then there's a few people I've seen which claimed that VH just made the enemies beefier, which supposedly took them forever to kill. They obviously don't know about ringouts, grabs, or petrification. Just to name a few obvious examples.

>never played it and are just parroting.
Highly likely, yeah.

Roy:
>recommend Bick
Doubtful you'll find anything of substantial value. Some of his advice will probably point you to the wrong direction. His playlists aren't really "guides", either. By "guide", you would assume he premiers a working strategy, but he merely records himself getting his ass kicked and barely making it through.

>shin
Often found lacking in strategy making, but making up for it with great skill.

>quick rolling with square cancelling
To note it, GoW1 has the most advanced traversal tech. The improved version of the noted is cancelling rolls with 'X' (stricter timing). Another is cancelling Hermes Rush (R1) with a jump into a roll (applicable for LVL2+ Blades of Chaos). Last is cancelling Hermes Rush with a well-timed Zeus' fury (very tiring and impractical).

>traversal tech
I've been meaning to ask, in what way do you use roll + X? It's uncomfortable to do so with just my thumb, I need to put my index finger on the right stick, and press X with the middle finger, but have to switch to using my thumb during combat.

>in what way do you use
I prefer putting my thumb on the right stick and pressing X with my index finger.