God of War Sons of Sparta Review: A Slow Burn Worth the Patience

God of War: Sons of Sparta shadow-dropped during Sony’s February State of Play, and the internet immediately had opinions. Critics scored it in the mid-60s on Metacritic. Players gave it an 8.2 user score. The original God of War creator called it offensive. And somehow, all of those reactions make sense once you’ve actually played it.

This God of War Sons of Sparta review comes after a full playthrough on Cadet difficulty, the middle setting that the game clearly expects most people to pick. I finished the main story in about 14 hours and spent another few cleaning up side content. Here’s the honest take.

What Is Sons of Sparta?

Sons of Sparta is a 2D Metroidvania set during Kratos’ youth at the Spartan Agoge, the brutal military academy where boys became soldiers. Young Kratos and his brother Deimos discover a missing classmate, Vasilis, and venture beyond Sparta into the mythological region of Laconia to find him. The whole thing is framed as a story adult Kratos is telling to his daughter Calliope, with T.C. Carson narrating for the first time since 2013’s Ascension.

It’s developed by Mega Cat Studios, a team that specializes in retro-style games, with Santa Monica Studio handling the story and writing. It launched as a PS5 exclusive at $29.99, digital only. No physical edition exists.

Combat and Gameplay

You fight with a spear (Dory) and shield (Aspis), each with their own upgrade paths and attachments. The combat system is built around a color-coded attack system: red attacks are unblockable (dodge them), blue attacks must be blocked, and yellow attacks require a perfectly timed parry with L1. Nail the parry and time slows briefly, giving you a window to punish.

One thing I wish the game told me earlier: dodge INTO enemy attacks, not away from them. The invincibility frames are surprisingly generous when you roll forward, and it positions you perfectly for a counter. Spirit attacks generate health orbs and build the stun meter, which triggers finisher animations when full. Combat is deliberately paced. If you button-mash, you’ll get punished. Even on Cadet difficulty, basic enemies can kill you if you get careless.

As you explore, you earn Gifts of Olympus, divine tools that serve double duty as combat abilities and traversal options. Nike’s Sandals give you speed and diving attacks. You’ll get bombs, energy projectiles, a boomerang, and eventually the Blade of Olympus. These are the Metroidvania keys that unlock gated areas across the map, and they’re also what transforms the combat from basic to genuinely fun.

The Metroidvania structure covers a large interconnected map of Laconia. Fast travel between temples is available from the start via Adrasteia, a talking griffin. Campfire-based fast travel that lets you warp between save points unlocks much later, and the game suffers for it. Backtracking without campfire warps is tedious, and a few areas block you from returning at all, which is an odd choice for a genre built around revisiting old areas.

Boss fights are the highlight. Multi-stage encounters against Cyclops variants, Stymphalian Birds, a pack of Sirens, and the final boss Koteros all demand pattern recognition and smart positioning. One early boss gets recycled later specifically to show how much stronger you’ve become, and it works. These fights carry the God of War identity better than anything else in the game.

Story and Characters

The Kratos-Deimos brotherly dynamic is the emotional core, and it’s the strongest part of the writing. Kratos is the business-first kid who follows Spartan ideals without question. Deimos is the charismatic younger brother who pushes back against authority and just wants to impress a girl named Amara. Their contrasting personalities create real tension that pays off in the second half.

T.C. Carson’s narration is incredible. His delivery is tempered compared to the rage we’re used to. This is a father telling his daughter a story, and Carson walks that line between warmth and weight perfectly. It’s his first time voicing Kratos since 2013, and he clearly cared about getting it right.

The problem is the first half. The quest to find Vasilis doesn’t justify the scale of the adventure for several hours. You’re running fetch quests, talking to NPCs, returning to Sparta, and repeating. The story takes every excuse to stretch itself out. When it finally shifts into its emotional second act and starts exploring duty, desire, and what brotherhood actually means under pressure, it’s genuinely affecting. But it takes too long to get there.

Presentation

The pixel art is hand-drawn HD, depicting Laconia across varied environments: mountain passes, a cursed vineyard, a peaceful seaport, temples, caves, and granaries. The variety keeps things visually interesting even when the gameplay loop gets repetitive. Some critics called the color palette muddy, and I get that. It’s muted compared to something like Blasphemous 2. But the environmental detail is strong and each area feels distinct.

Bear McCreary’s soundtrack is the one thing nobody disputes. 26 tracks that blend Greek-era God of War orchestral sound with retro game aesthetics. McCreary called it a love letter to the game music he grew up with, and you can hear it. The score elevates every boss fight and emotional beat. If the game itself matched the quality of its music, this would be a 9.

The animations are the weak link visually. Character movement looks clunky at times, and finisher animations lack the brutal weight that God of War is known for. Young Kratos doesn’t rip a Cyclops eye out with the same ferocity as his adult self, and that absence of signature brutality is noticeable.

The Slow Start Problem

This needs its own section because it’s the single biggest issue with the game. The first 2-3 hours are rough. You start with a basic three-hit combo, a block, and a dodge. That’s it. No Gifts of Olympus. No interesting abilities. Just the fundamentals against enemies that don’t demand much strategy. Multiple review outlets used the word “boring” to describe this stretch, and they’re not wrong.

The game opens up dramatically once you start getting abilities. By the midpoint, combat has genuine depth. You’re juggling parry timing, spirit attacks, Gift cooldowns, and positioning. But the game never communicates this transformation well. It doesn’t hint that things are about to get much better. Some players will bounce off before it clicks, and I can’t blame them.

There’s also a hidden second skill set that unlocks after you complete the main skill trees, giving you passive buffs like increased health and spirit. The game never tells you this exists. The upgrade system as a whole is poorly explained, and the lack of onboarding is a consistent frustration.

⚡ Worth noting: The co-op advertised on the PS Store listing is post-game only. You can’t play the campaign with a friend. The Pit of Agonies challenge mode unlocks after you finish the story, and it’s local couch co-op only, no online play. Many players felt misled by this.

Is God of War Sons of Sparta Worth $30?

The main story runs 9-13 hours depending on difficulty and exploration. A thorough playthrough with side content hits 15-18 hours. Full completion is around 20 hours. For $30, that’s a reasonable amount of content.

The uncomfortable comparisons are unavoidable though. Hollow Knight offers 40+ hours for $15. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown delivers more polish at the same $30. Ori and the Will of the Wisps is tighter and more refined. Sons of Sparta doesn’t match any of those games in terms of Metroidvania design or value per dollar.

What it does offer that those games don’t is the God of War wrapper. If you care about Kratos’ backstory, T.C. Carson’s return, and seeing this franchise experiment with a different genre, the $30 feels fair. If you’re a Metroidvania veteran looking for the next Hollow Knight, this isn’t it. The community consensus leans toward “wait for a sale or PS Plus” unless you’re a die-hard God of War fan.

Pros and Cons

Gear Up for Sparta

Sons of Sparta is a PS5 exclusive with DualSense haptic feedback that was improved in the 1.004 patch. Here’s the gear that makes the experience better.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Verdict

God of War: Sons of Sparta is a 7/10 game that feels like a 5 for the first three hours and an 8 for the rest. That uneven experience is its defining characteristic. If you can push through a dull opening with limited tools and repetitive fetch quests, you’ll find satisfying boss fights, a soundtrack that has no business being this good in a $30 Metroidvania, and a genuinely moving story about two brothers before everything went wrong.

It’s not the best Metroidvania on PlayStation. It’s not the best God of War game. But it’s a respectable mid-tier exclusive that proves Sony can ship something smaller without it needing a $200 million budget and a 6-year development cycle. For fans who care about Kratos’ origins, T.C. Carson’s return alone makes it worth experiencing. For everyone else, a sale or PS Plus inclusion would be the sweet spot.

Related reading: If you’re into challenging 2D action games, check out our Hades 2 guide for another excellent take on Greek mythology, or our Ninja Gaiden Ragebound review for a comparable retro-style action game.