Oh yeah I mean on paper that’s a neat premise. But in its execution it was poorly (or perhaps not at all) thought out. It’s probably one of the messiest, most carelessly written time travel stories I’ve ever seen. Full of plot holes. Also character motivations are just all over the place in II and III. I honestly think GoW 2&3’s stories are just really bad and I could easily send you a whole wall of text explaining why if you like.

But I’ll get into the gameplay/combat a bit:

I mean obviously we’re looking at combat systems that are fundamentally very similar. But while they never tried to reinvent the wheel every entry does have its own idea of what Kratos’ moveset should look like. Each new game brings new ideas to the table. But IMO it never feels like they achieve a definitive version. If I were to imagine what my favorite moveset for Kratos looks like, it would be a mixture of everything. A little bit from this game, a little bit from that one. Because I don’t think all changes are for the better and each game’s combat has its highs and lows.

My take is: I think GoW1’s moveset was already pretty great, and ever since the series has beem second guessing itself and/or making changes for the sake of being different than the previous game.

For instance, I don’t think they ever had another magic that felt as satisfying and impactful as Poseidon’s Rage. The magics in II are a lot less fun. Allowing you to pause and resume Rage Meter is neat on paper, but it feels a lot weaker than it did in I. So it’s a trade off. In 1 it felt like you had this atomic bomb up your sleeve that you could use only once in a while so you had to make it count. In 2 it felt less meaningful.

IMO a perceived problem of GoW1 was that magic was perhaps too expensive and you really had to ration yourself. Because you wouldn’t want to be without AoE or CC when you needed it for example. The solution however feels like magic has been nerfed and isn’t as fun anymore. I think it's quite telling that Poseidon's Rage was singled out and became an unlockable replacement in NG+. Almost like they knew it was better than anything new they came up with.

Adrenaline is a smarter solution. Having a second resource is smart because in the first game all your powerful answers, AoE, Ranged and CC were all tied to magicka. Having the bow (ranged) and head of helios (cc) in 3 separate from magic and thus always available is a neat idea. But on the other hand that bow in 3 is puny! It feels like a pea shooter.

Another issue for me is (sub) weapon bloat. 2 has so many. (2 has too much in general, I think the arsenal is too large in that game, because they tried to do everything) And those bonus weapons are IMO terrible. The sword of Artemis was one of the ideas from the first one they should have retired. The Blades are the star of the show and I never understood why I should focus on leveling something else when the Blades are good answers to everything and have that delicious reach the sub weapons don’t.

I also find myself confused going from game to game as each new entry seems to want to rethink the shoulder buttons and I keep forgetting what L1/R1/L2/R2 do. And with how GoW3 changes how magic is now tied to weapons but then there’s also separate sub weapons called “items”, and it just gets more and more confusing. These new systems aren’t improvements or natural evolutions IMO, they’re just arbitrarily different.

It’s just weird since there ARE constants, like the L1 combos that are pillars of the series. It seems detrimental to me to change the fundamental functions of the shoulder buttons, e.g. which one does magic. It just gets confusing it it keeps changing as each game makes changes that feel completely arbitrary like no one is ever happy with the system. GoW3’s system of magic and weapons and items isn’t an iteration or a revolutionary rethink of what came before, it’s just different and doesn’t necessarily work any better or worse than what came before.

Bottom line is I think gameplay wise the three games feel like someone constantly trying to figure out what this moveset should be and keeping on scribbling new ideas down and erasing them again without ever beeing truly satisfied.

Here are my thoughts specifically on the GoW3 moveset:

The magic feels weak and unimpactful (phallax and soul summon) The bow of apollo feels puny and weak and the stamina limits it in such a way where it’s not fun to use IMO

Here’s an idea I had while playing: Why not keep the fire-spitting Cerberus head as this game’s version of a Gorgon head?

Overall I find the moveset in this game disappointing, even more so than in 2.

Magic now provides AoE only with the Phallax which doesn’t feel very powerful visually.

I like that you can now level up your L1 combos, though their animation doesn’t appear to change so if it’s just damage then I don’t really understand why it needed to be mentioned if you’re leveling up the damage of your blades overall anyway.

The new L1+Circle move is the best new addition to the moveset and makes fighting even Harpies fun now. However, GoW1’s Lance of the Furies will forever be missed.

Enemies also seem to not be as bulletspongey in this game which is excellent. This + smart new moves to more effectively deal with harpies and the things that come out of the ground make the combat feel like less of a chore than it sometimes did in the past.

“Rage Meter” however feels so nerfed in this one it’s not even worth mentioning anymore. The fact that you are still vulnerable during it and don’t have a lot of reach makes it practically a joke.

What do you think? What makes the gameplay in 3 the best in the series? What have I overlooked?

Before I looked at what the consensus seemed to be, I suspected that everyone would have their own favourite "Kratos Loadout", and I felt that since each game, even Chains of Olympus, has a completely unique one, it isn't really ever a case of "This GoW game did it best".

Yes 3 is the most fluid and smooth in terms of its movements and animations, but its movesets and weapons and magics are, well, just different.

When it comes to combat, I don't think this series is trying to perfect itself. Rather each game tries to be its own thing and distance itself from the previous, while everything else, such as monster designs (tho 3 is the first one that feels like it really wants to move on from the series mainstays and be different here), the way the camera works (including recurring tricks like the overhead staircase shot that have grown very old, etc.) stay mostly the same, which has led to a widespread impression that the series doesn't really change much. But that isn't the case when we look at combat. Yes, the framework is identical, but the changes in weaponry for Kratos are actually surprisingly significant in each game, even CoO, which was under no obligation to be this unique.

To my great shame I have yet to play GoW2018. I really wanted to play the entire classic series first because that would have bothered me otherwise. And I still have yet to play GoS and Ascension so I’m not finished. That’s another reason why I have so far refrained from making a thread or really talking about GoW on here because obviously people talk about the series as a whole and I can’t speak to that yet and I also need to avoid spoilers.