*God Of War 3 Thread v2.0 + Interview Stig Asmussen

[Npl]

*Another thing I read a lot in forums: people start with 'Hard' mode right away, and then get annoyed, when the game actually gets hard...

I wouldnt mind it getting hard as whole, its that the game is way too easy on normal outside of boss battles

*It is interesting to note that you can parry a lot of stuff, I did not thought about in the first encounter (using the golden fleece)...which makes some stuff easier than in the first GOW games.

*To be honest: the standard difficulty in GOW3 is combarable (if you ask me) to the easy setting in GOW 1 and GOW 2. If you want as much challenge as in GOW 1 and GOW 2, try the 'Hard' mode!!
So if you guys could beat GOW1 and GOW2 on standard difficulty (without ever changing to 'easy' battle mode) - I wonder why GOW3 in standard mode causes any challenge for you?!?!

I told you why.
Having to pass 4-stage bosses which require learning their patterns, then die on the 4th stage and have to play minutes to get the again. eg. I still dont know how to dodge the water-breath of stage4-horse-thingy. Visually the only spot thats not covered is rather close to the enemy, but the startup-animation for the attack is similar to its claw-grab which kills you if you stand close. Am I supposed to find out by try-and-die where Im supposed to hide from that?
On normal I just wacked it to death and could easily take a few hits, its way too easy for my liking. On hard it pisses me off so much by dying so often by attacks I had no chance to learn to evade... and then having to run towards the boss, watch an unskippable cinematic and go through 3 stages of tedious dodge and attack cycles you cant speed up either because the enemy doesnt gives you much freedom on how you fight it - you always have to wait for its atack-cycles to finish

Perhaps hard if fine on a second walkthrough, as you learned the bosses already. But Im kinda forced to play on normal because of this and the way to easy regular fights already killed all excitement I had to play the game.

 

[Billy Idol]

I wouldnt mind it getting hard as whole, its that the game is way too easy on normal outside of boss battles

I told you why.
Having to pass 4-stage bosses which require learning their patterns, then die on the 4th stage and have to play minutes to get the again. eg. I still dont know how to dodge the water-breath of stage4-horse-thingy. Visually the only spot thats not covered is rather close to the enemy, but the startup-animation for the attack is similar to its claw-grab which kills you if you stand close. Am I supposed to find out by try-and-die where Im supposed to hide from that?
On normal I just wacked it to death and could easily take a few hits, its way too easy for my liking. On hard it pisses me off so much by dying so often by attacks I had no chance to learn to evade... and then having to run towards the boss, watch an unskippable cinematic and go through 3 stages of tedious dodge and attack cycles you cant speed up either because the enemy doesnt gives you much freedom on how you fight it - you always have to wait for its atack-cycles to finish

Perhaps hard if fine on a second walkthrough, as you learned the bosses already. But Im kinda forced to play on normal because of this and the way to easy regular fights already killed all excitement I had to play the game.

I can fully understand that you are annoyed by this, there are a lot of games which annoy me as well in the same way...so this was not meant to mock you!

Probably I had just luck with GOW3 as such a situation does not occur (which basically occured in GOW1 and GOW2 every fight or so!), and of course as you said: I started at normal my first playthrough and learned some of the boss patterns - but to be honest, normal is so easy that it is often not even necessary to take much care for the patterns...so I needed to learn most of them, the 'Hard' way

But with respect to your water horse problem, if I remember correctly (I hope so), I have the solution for you:

The trick is to never let the horse do its 'water breath' !
How so? During the horse stays in the back and prepares for the water breath and than walks towards the 'front' - do as much damage you can (I think you need some combos here) to the horse, or its 'spider leg' in the front! If you do sufficient damage to the horse (leg), the horse tumbles back without the water breath!

In this video, the fight is shown, and I think that the stage you have trouble with is about at 4:00 or so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpo1XYFelJg

just take a look how the player tries to do much damage and how the horse finally gets kicked back...is this the stage you talked about?
Of course, in hard mode you need more damage and the timing with its water breath is a lot closer...but it is not impossible!

 

[nightshade]

The entire first level boss fights are ridiculously hard first time if you directly start on titan. (except for the last battle with mega size poseidon..which just requires patience)

 

[Npl]

just take a look how the player tries to do much damage and how the horse finally gets kicked back...is this the stage you talked about?
Of course, in hard mode you need more damage and the timing with its water breath is a lot closer...but it is not impossible!

Nope, its the very first encounter with the beast, pretty early in the game. Im not sure you are guaranteed to interrupt the boss in time if you whack him hard - if you fail you`re pretty much screwed - a single claw attack killed me easily with lots of health left.
I know that alot people often bitch about missing checkpoints, this is the first time I do it myself

I somehow never had those probs in the first two GoWs (apart from the infamous final battle in GoW 1). GoW 1 had few bosses, either as proper multi-stage Boss-Battles or sprinkled through a level at manageable doses (read not 5 minutes and 4 stages for every glimpse of a boss, times a many). AFAIR GoW 2 had more bosses but handled them similar.

GoW 3 went into overdrive with that damn horse atleast. And its kinda the worst Boss-battle mechanics if you just have to sit out and get dictated what to do most of the time (fixed arena, dodge here, dodge there). I cant remember all Bosses of previous titles now, but surely they never showed up in such unpleasant regularity.

I stopped a bit after making peace with Helios (the only kinda peace Kratos understands ) on normal - I wish I could dial the difficulty back up between bosses.

 

[Sigfried1977]

In my opinion no boss battle in God of War III is even remotely as difficult as the first game's infamous final battle (took me about 5 hours to pass on the highest difficulty) or Theseus in part 2. (which is where I gave up. God of War II had bosses a plenty by the way)

I'm also happy that God of War III ditched the many instant death situations that were so common in the first 2 games entirely (like finish off these dudes before a giant trapdoor underneath you opens, or before you get squished by spikes, or roasted by fire)

 

[Billy Idol]

In my opinion no boss battle in God of War III is even remotely as difficult as the first game's infamous final battle (took me about 5 hours to pass on the highest difficulty) or Theseus in part 2. (which is where I gave up. God of War II had bosses a plenty by the way)

I'm also happy that God of War III ditched the many instant death situations that were so common in the first 2 games entirely (like finish off these dudes before a giant trapdoor underneath you opens, or before you get squished by spikes, or roasted by fire)

On 'Hard', I had a few problems with Zeus at the end, took me a lot of tries...and I thought that this was really tough?
Although I learned that you can block and counter nearly all of his attacks, then I could beat him 'rather easy' ...

 

[Cornsnake]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/1946-No-Redeeming-Value

This is an excellent breakdown of where the storyline of the GoW series goes wrong. Contains spoilers on all the games.

Watch the other shows aswell. There is some very good constructive criticisms on the games industry in general in there.

 

[nightshade]

That was an awesome breakdown...gotta agree with this guy.

 

[djskribbles]

After owning this for months, I finally beat the game (twice). Some of the most epic battles in my gaming history and some of the best visuals I've ever seen.

Found this sweet combo video and thought I would share. Very impressive stuff.

 

[Billy Idol]

Found this sweet combo video and thought I would share. Very impressive stuff.

Hm...I have to say...that this is indeed the coolest stuff I have ever seen!!

Thanks for the link!

 

[djskribbles]

Yeah, I've seen a lot of crazy combo videos from Bayonetta, DMC3/4 etc., and this is one of the coolest ones I've seen. They are very well thought. The moves/weapons in GoWIII are so flashy and badass that it makes these combos look sick.

Question:

Spoiler

There's a lot of moves/magic that I didn't even know were possible. Like how does he use the magic attack with the big blue tornado thing? And that move where kratos uses his wings to toss himself high in the air? Don't you lose these things after Athena turns your blades into the blades of Exile? And I didn't even know it was possible to juggle the bigger enemies.

edit: nm, I see there's an item that allows continued use of the blades of athena.

 

[Billy Idol]

Question:

Spoiler

There's a lot of moves/magic that I didn't even know were possible. Like how does he use the magic attack with the big blue tornado thing? And that move where kratos uses his wings to toss himself high in the air? Don't you lose these things after Athena turns your blades into the blades of Exile? And I didn't even know it was possible to juggle the bigger enemies.

I wondered the exact same thing myself. I don't know the answer. But some of the stuff in this combo vid where in arena fights, where you get special abilities depending on the challenge.
And I know that after completing the game once, you have access to the God items you have found during the game. Those God items (I think you can activate them in the start menu!?) give you different abilities and extra stuff...probably some of them are that you get those extra abilities and the stuff shown in the vids?

 

[patsu]

The video makes me feel guilty about completing the game on Easy. I didn't know they made so many special moves in the game. Never thought of using Medusa spirit against Medusa. XD

I picked up all the gods' items and forgot about them. They should have shown these during the initial promo. I see the game somewhat differently if everyone can use these combos.

The story critic above is spot on too. I also felt the void when Kratos destroyed everything in his path in the end for no good reason.

 

[Nesh]

After owning this for months, I finally beat the game (twice). Some of the most epic battles in my gaming history and some of the best visuals I've ever seen.

Found this sweet combo video and thought I would share. Very impressive stuff.

There is a glitch at the end. I wonder how they did it. If Kratos falls off the cliff in a certain way in that area, he will appear in another area where he will die with a glitch animation?

 

[bystander]

On 'Hard', I had a few problems with Zeus at the end, took me a lot of tries...and I thought that this was really tough?
Although I learned that you can block and counter nearly all of his attacks, then I could beat him 'rather easy' ...

Aside from Chaos difficulty I don't anything in the game was as tough as the Challenges (of Exile). The time limit on them made some of them ridiculously tough (as much as the 10th challenge in GoW). I'm talking about these three challenges below:

 

[assurdum]

Aside from Chaos difficulty I don't anything in the game was as tough as the Challenges (of Exile). The time limit on them made some of them ridiculously tough (as much as the 10th challenge in GoW). I'm talking about these three challenges below:

OOLndyZkXMY[/media]

 

[Arwin]

I have finished the game a lot of times, even to chaos difficulty, where hell is the challenge mode?

Can't you find the Challenge of Olympus menu option? Or the Combat Arena?

» How do I unlock the Combat Arena?
Beat the game on any difficulty to unlock Challenge of Olympus. Beat Challenge of Olympus (all challenges) to unlock the Combat Arena.

 

[assurdum]

Can't you find the Challenge of Olympus menu option? Or the Combat Arena?

» How do I unlock the Combat Arena?
Beat the game on any difficulty to unlock Challenge of Olympus. Beat Challenge of Olympus (all challenges) to unlock the Combat Arena.

I have unlock the combat Arena but I haven't any new 'mission' l, only the same Arena of the Challenge and personal setting of type of enemies, number, weapons & so on, but nothing like this ... I mean, what I have missed?

 

[Arwin]

I have unlock the combat Arena but I haven't any new 'mission' l, only the same Arena of the Challenge and personal setting of type of enemies, number, weapons & so on, but nothing like this ... I mean, what I have missed?

I think these are all in the Challenge of Olympus. Probably you just don't remember these levels and all you miss is a piece of your memory.

 

[Billy Idol]

I bought this book at Gamescom:

http://www.play-mag.co.uk/interview/god-of-war-novel-author-interview/

it is not the best book in the world, but it was fun to read, because it tells the GOW1 story, and I tried to remember the corresponding game scenes while reading - fun!