Overall a kind of tedious game where I didn’t enjoy the gameplay loop much. It’s not hard by any means just kind frustrating and clunky until you figure out the quirks then end up feeling nothing but just wanting it to end… And then it just goes ON AND ON AND ON.

The good:

One of the best looking ps2 games with such nice reflections it makes me wonder what we even need ray tracing for. The final boss fight is also quite good.

I actually really enjoyed the final level getting thrown down into Hades because it wasn’t actually that hard but did feel like crawling out of hell itself. Cool area design and the people falling from the sky screaming was a nice touch.

The mid:

The combat is ok I guess its just disappointing that you unlock all these moves but there’s no real use for them in the game. A lot of fights you are expected to parry (had no luck with dodging has no iframes also awkward to use with right analogue) and in order to parry when you need it limits you to light attack combo which is all that can be animation cancelled out of. I suppose this was still quite advanced for the time it came out so I can’t be too harsh. Combat generally boiled down to mash square then L1 repeat. Sometimes square ans triangle and if ur really lucky L1 and circle!!! Then spam Poseidons spell cos its the most generally useful. Like i feel you either go the DMC route with combat and add depth and utility to all the moves or you go the dynasty warriors route and let me just smack down some goons but this game doesn’t really do either. The spartan rage or whatever its called i didn’t get to use often as it takes forever to charge almost forgot it existed.

The puzzles are ok, very easy to solve just tedious block moving things. I think the middle section of the game having the wider area wrap around in on itself as you solve puzzles and gain abilities was quite cool.

The story is ok. Cutscenes and narrative are rationed heavily its got in total maybe like 5 minutes of cutscenes overall so its spread thin.

The bad:

Fucking platforming and wall climbing. You have no ground shadow to see where you’re landing like cmon we learned this in the ps1/n64 era but also there’s just loads of really boring wall climbing sections. Slow, tedious, insta death if you don’t wiggle your stick hard enough… Like why so many? Padding? Just give me more combat rooms ffs. Oh i do love having all my combat abilities taken away and reduced to 2 shitty moves to poke other person on wall. A lot of the platforming is very frustrating for no good reason and i ended up using save states to not eat my own fingers off doing them.

Enemy variety is confusing? The game actually has a fair few enemy types but they seemingly get used once or twice and then never seen again. The second half of the game is filled with like the same 3 enemies over and over. The composition is also strange it doesn’t try anything fancy it just throws small enemy then big enemy then bigger enemy on loop so combat gets very repetitive.

And finally the music. I mean it was good for the first hour the horns and drums very ebic but it just doesn’t stop and its the same shit the whole game. It gets incredibly grating after a while but it also plays in sections it shouldn’t while no combat is happening and I’m just walking around.

Oh finally finally the QTEs just suck but they’re never good in anything (except ninja blade) and they went for the worst variation of qtes with no margin for error at all

Next up. Dark Cloud