God of War [HD]

A big, epic, action adventure game, with a heavy emphasis on combat. It has many fairly diverse levels, although at some point enemies start to repeat themselves too often and combat feels same-y. All things considered, it must have been mindblowing on the PS2 during its heyday.

The game starts rather poorly and extremely linear, but really opens up later. You start having areas where you can explore and backtrack, and even a few puzzles, though unfortunately not quite enough. In the late game there is some annoying 3D platforming.

It can also be frustrating: the biggest enemy is the camera, which doesn't follow the action well enough in some battles. Also, it's annoying that you can't just manually look around at the scenery. Perhaps most frustrating is the final boss battle: it's a huge jump in difficulty and seems like you can't really beat him without luck on your side. It will likely take you many frustrating attempts.

Tips:

Ares #1: Dodge, dodge, dodge. When you have an in, use Plume of Prometheus (square-square-triangle) from afar, and dodge again. When he's very weak you can grab him (circle) and then you'll have to quickly hit a random sequence to finish him off. Magic is also good: remember that during Poseidon's Rage you can't be hurt, so use it when your dodge brings you too close to him. When he's flying around and throwing fireballs just move around and keep double-jumping to avoid them. If you pay attention you can jump out of their way.

Kratos clones: Plume of Prometheus is the way to go, because it causes a lot of damage to all the enemies in its path. Just keep blasting with it repeatedly aiming just in front your wife and son. Also make sure to move away a bit when some enemies spawn next to you, because those enemies might grab you before you can attack. You don't want anything to interrupt your attacks. Magic is also great when things become too hairy. Use the small respite after a massive magic attack to heal your wife and son. Ignore the enemy on the floating island who is shooting at you: you do not need to kill him to beat this.

Ares #2. Insanely difficult. Dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge. Don't try fancy attacks, just hit square once or twice and dodge away. Just one important exception: hitting square multiple times will do a marching attack towards Ares, and if timed right (and randomly) it will lead to a sword clash, after which you will need to press circle repeatedly crazy fast. If you win these clashes, you will cause massive damage. You can defeat Ares in two such wins. The best time to do this attack is when he stops and grunts after running around chasing you, but it's hard to do because you're probably dodging away in terror. The big problem in this fight is avoiding Ares' many attacks while you look for an opportunity to try the marching attack. (Small tip that most guides miss: if you press block (R1) at the exact right time as it hits you you can actually block his devastating tentacle attack, but it's very hard to do, so not really worth trying. Same for his flying demons attack.) His closing pillars attack (when he moves to the top of the level) is actually easy to avoid. Just wait in the middle of the level and get ready to dodge twice to the left as soon as the pillars appear. You can quickly dodge back and maybe get in a hit or two at Ares, just don't linger close to him because he will quickly recover and strike back.