Game:

God of War II (2007)

Duration: 3:04:48

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0

Originally recorded: August 7, 2022 (Happy Birthday, Mike!)
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In the end, I guess I was worried over nothing. I did end up finishing this game up in four streams... and I didn't even have to resort to "going into overtime" to make that happen. It's funny, I remember hearing all these years about Halo 2's odd pacing and blatant cliffhanger, but honestly, GoW2 felt like it had the same issue. Granted, from what I can tell, both the second and third God of War games were in development simultaneously, but that just doesn't explain how abrupt the game's wrap-up was. I literally killed all three of the Fate Sisters within the course of about 90 minutes, despite being built up as major antagonists throughout pretty much the entire game.

The fight with the first two Fate sisters -- and yes, I agree with KI's assessment that it was a "singular" fight -- was pretty weird. Especially when on my first attempt, the first sister ended up glitching out on the final phase of the fight. Absolutely bizarre. I have to wonder if that ever happened to anyone else. Either way, the fight itself was interesting, as was the fight with Clotho, the final sister. Puzzle bosses in action games are a guilty pleasure of mine, but I kind of wish that the fight's setting had drawn a little more attention to some of the gimmicks necessary to progress. Seriously, I couldn't tell the climbable walls apart from the standard ones.

The final boss fight with Zeus was certainly... interesting. I have to admit, I did worry that I might've been spinning my wheels at various points during the fight, given the lack of any clear signs of progression in the middle of the fight. Aside from Zeus's attack patterns getting more and more complex, I just didn't see much of a difference. Honestly, the fact that the transitions kept repeating themselves led me to worry that I was missing out on something really obvious that I needed to do to continue the fight. And of course, everything concluded with an extended length QTE. What else could I hope to expect from a God of War game?

While it's clear that I won't be "finishing the fight" any time soon, barring some 'divine intervention' from Sony themselves, we did end up discussing some possible other GoW-themed streams that I could do in the meantime, while we wait for a good way to stream GoWIII. We do have two PSP spin-off titles we could work through, and KI seemed particularly interested in seeing me play Chains of Olympus. Apparently, that game's an interquel that takes place between the first and second game. He was originally put off by the PSP version's controls, but from how he described them... I can't really say I'd be that bothered by the limitations of that system. We'll just have to see if anyone bites at the prospect of me playing PSP games. Granted, GoW may not be all that popular with my so-called "cabal of imaginary friends" in the first place. After all, KI was only able to get me to play this by nominating it as a bonus game, as opposed to it winning a nomination in my main batch of games.

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