REVIEW: God of War: Sons of Sparta Lacks The Spectacle The Series Is Known For

God of War: Sons of Sparta, the new metroidvania from Mega Cat Studios, was stealth dropped during Sony’s recent State of Play. A one-more-thing reveal that launched right after the show, it seemed like a match made in heaven. A story focused on a young Kratos developed by the folks who made the great Rogue Prince of Persia? Sign me up! Unfortunately, God of War: Sons of Sparta fails to live up to those lofty expectations.

While it’s a fine adventure, it lacks the grandiose action the series is known for, while also falling short as a metroidvania, not really being anything more than a by-the-book experience. It can be fun, but it takes hours to really get going, ultimately forgettable more than anything else.

God of War: Sons of Sparta stars the god-killing machine Kratos, but much younger here, set years before the original trilogy. The story focuses on Kratos and his brother Deimos as they set out to find a lost Spartan trainee, with more unraveling as you go. It’s a fine story that’s decently voice-acted, but it doesn’t really do anything exciting. It’s made worse by the fact that it’s just really hard to care about Kratos, Deimos, or any of the characters they meet, with neither of the main characters being all that likable. 

God of War: Sons of Sparta makes a Metroidvania out of the popular IP.

Kratos is serious and one-note, a far cry from the depth we’ve seen from him in recent years. Deimos is headstrong and less serious, meant to be the more likable foil to Kratos, but he just comes off as grating. It also does this weird thing where they’re on a journey together, but Deimos almost always only shows up after things have already happened, making him feel disconnected from the journey. He has his moments, sure, but it was hard to care at that point. 

Sons of Sparta is a Metroidvania filled with plenty of platforming, light puzzle-solving, combat, and running back and forth to new areas made accessible by a recent upgrade. Even as a metroidvania, Sons of Sparta doesn’t really do anything new or particularly well. Nothing is inherently bad, but it just feels like you’re going through the motions than anything else. There are plenty of areas to explore, with lots to find and collect along the journey. New upgrades make old areas more explorable, accessing new spaces previously locked out. 

The upgrades all feel like exactly what you’d expect, from a projectile to running faster to a double jump. It’s like it took a Metroidvania puzzle, painted on the God of War IP, and mixed it up, slotting in each piece exactly where you’d expect it to fit. It’s not that going through the motions is bad, but it’s just not particularly memorable. There are moments where it shines, as you finally get a crucial piece of the puzzle you were missing, but these moments are few and far between. 

God of War: Sons of Sparta is combat-heavy, but the design feels uninspired and rote.

God of War: Sons of Sparta is combat-heavy as well, and if the combat was something great, it could have elevated the entire package. God of War is known for its huge, boisterous combat, each new encounter a spectacle, but that doesn’t translate here at all. Most of the encounters boil down to hitting enemies with a spear, rolling behind them to dodge an attack, hit them again, before rolling back the other way.

It rarely gets any more involved than that. It does get better as it goes, building in new special attacks to round out Kratos’s combat kit, but it takes hours to see any sort of meaningful growth. The road to get there is long and slow, making each fight come down to the same flow rather than playing with a combat sandbox that pushes you to learn it. 

This is true for both normal enemies, mini bosses, and big bosses. It does change it up here and there, where one boss might add in an attack you need to jump over, but largely, the design feels uninspired and rote. It feels strange saying that about a God of War game, but it just feels so one-note compared to the series highs. 

The art design in Sons of Sparta comes up short.

God of War: Sons of Sparta also does one of the most grating Metroidvania staples, where you take damage by even touching an enemy. This isn’t unique; plenty of games use the same system, but it genuinely gets in the way here. It’s most egregious during platforming, as enemies like to camp corners, and there’s no good way to get past them. It ends up creating a frustrating loop of jumping to try and attack the enemy, falling, jumping back to the platform, and repeating the process until you eventually get on.

The same thing happens in corners, where if you roll past an enemy to dodge an attack but get too close to a wall or corner, you can get stuck in a damage loop and die. These moments are genuinely frustrating, where the loss feels like the game’s fault rather than the player’s. 

It doesn’t help that the graphics in Son of Sparta just don’t look great. The backgrounds can look gorgeous, and biomes do differ in style greatly, but the character design looks off. It looks like a mix of HD-2D and mobile games from 10 years ago, resulting in an ugly, blurred character design. It looks no better in motion and can genuinely affect the readability of enemy attacks, as the reads can get lost in the mass of pixels. 

God of War: Sons of Sparta can be enjoyable, but in a sea of steep competition, it ends up being just fine.

God of War: Sons of Sparta does get better as it goes, to its credit. Once you make it past the first 5 hours or so, it does slowly get more engaging. As Kratos levels up and the story deepens, it starts to feel more satisfying. The climb to get there is steep, though, and even then, whether the journey is worth it will ultimately be a personal decision. It can be enjoyable, but in a sea of steep competition, it ends up being just fine, which can be hard to recommend. 

Ultimately, God of War: Sons of Sparta is a forgettable, just fine Metroidvania that fails to live up to the IP it wears. While the world design has plenty to explore, and combat can be fun, it takes way too long to really get going. While the art style is subpar, it doesn’t really do anything else particularly wrong; its biggest sin is being forgettable. With a sea of new, genre-defining games constantly coming in, God of War: Sons of Sparta gets lost in the tide.

God of War: Sons of Sparta is available now on PlayStation 5.