God of War Sons of Sparta review – Myth-busters

It’s been a good while since we last saw Kratos, God of War’s gruff axe-swinging protagonist, in action, but at long last, he’s back. Be careful what you wish for, though, because with the release of God of War Sons of Sparta, a finger on the monkey’s paw has curled inward. That might sound harsh, but at its very best, Sons of Sparta is a dead-average Metroidvania that doesn’t have much going for it.

Set during Kratos’s formative years as a Spartan trainee, and before his pledge to Ares would drive him to commit unspeakable atrocities, Sons of Sparta joins a growing number of games that are experimenting with retro-inspired pixel-art spin-offs. Last year gave us fresh Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden games, while March will see the launch of a brand-new Legacy of Kain for the first time in over two decades.

Sons of Sparta doesn’t exactly reach the same bar of excellence that you’d expect from modern-day Metroidvanias. Combat, the bread-and-butter of the genre, as well as this specific franchise, lacks the savagery that has been honed to a razor’s edge in previous God of War games, along with the satisfaction of ripping through enemies. Instead, you’ve got a spear and a shield that can be button-mashed to throw a series of deadly pokes at foes, alternating between standard attacks and weaker spirit attacks that have almost no impact behind them as you stun enemies.

Different spear shafts confer various bonuses, while color-coded attack patterns test your skills with Kratos’s moveset, as the young Spartan can dodge and parry blows before following up with a brutal kill. Not a bad idea on paper, but the execution of this system feels more like a checklist of actions that must be performed before you apply a finisher, rather than an organic combat flow to savour.

Boss fights also suffer from a sense of malaise, and you can’t even point a finger at Metroidvanias for not living up to the benchmark set by 3D God of War games. When other titles in the genre, like the superb Rogue Prince of Persia or Hollow Knight: Silksong, can deliver armpit-moistening boss battles in 2D, then it becomes even more evident how much of a letdown Sons of Sparta is in comparison.

The same goes for the story, because while Sons of Sparta does make an effort to inject some humanity into Kratos – something the 2018 God of War and its sequel Ragnarok did magnificently – it comes off feeling hollow. Divorced from the character development of the modern-day games, Kratos still comes off as a glum killing machine, while his flippant brother Deimos’s attempts to inject some levity in the adventure feel grating at best.

On the plus side, Bear McCreary turns in another stellar soundtrack, but visually, Sons of Sparta’s retro-inspired aesthetic leaves a lot to be desired. Player models stand out from beautifully detailed vistas with their plain design, while the actual animation is a mess of blurred pixels and muddy movement. Pixel-art animations, when done properly, can look like a million bucks – look at Blasphemous for a prime example – but in Sons of Sparta, the overall art direction feels as lifeless as the game.

From Mega Cat Studios and God of War brand custodians Santa Monica Studio, God of War Sons of Sparta released on 12 February as a PS5 exclusive.