Man, this game rocks! It takes the groundwork the first game layed, and amps everything up tenfold. More fluid combat, bigger and more impressive scenery, bigger bossbattles, better and more interesting puzzles, more varied locals - the list goes on. I'm honestly baffled at how much this sequel improves upon its predecessor.
The only blemish i can really find is that the jumping segments are sometimes clunky as all hell. But, to be honest, that was pretty much the norm for most games of the PS2 era, so I can't really fault GOW2 for it too much.

All in all, a super-enjoyable experience from start to finish and a milestone in character-action games.

After playing GOW 2018 and Ragnarok/Valhalla last year, I decided to play/replay the original GOW series, starting, of course, where it all began (yeah I'm going by release order rather than story, try to stop me).

What's positive right out of the gate looking back at my playthrough is the fact that this game embodies something you rarely see in todays AAA space anymore, not even in the new GOW games: Conciseness. Yeah the story playthrough clocks in at around "only" 9-10 hours, but none of that time feels wasted. You're either fighting, puzzling or wandering towards the next setpiece, which are presented jaw-droppingly well for PS2 standards, both graphically and cinematically. This makes it so that you feel like you have been on this long, huge adventure with so many things happening, although you, in essence, only went from Athens to the desert, get Pandora's box and back (small trip to the underworld not withstanding).

There are problems, though. The combat is schizophrenic in the sense that on one hand, it can feel very clunky and annoying, and on the other can be broken over your knee with laughable ease once you invest into some of the magic abilities. Pair this with one of the worst-designed final boss encounters in video game history, and you have a great game with some major problems that hold it back from true greatness.

The definition of a 2,5/5 game for me. The story is average, profiting from its pure campiness to get at least some chuckles at the ludicrous moments it holds. The combat is visceral but clunky and sometimes unresponsive. The level design is varied and doesn't repeat much, which in turn results in the game being quite short.

I powered through to the End Credits, but it always felt like the game made one step forward two steps back, leaving it perfectly average in my eyes. It knows what it wants to be and is that and not much else- and I can respect that. However, after this playthrough, it will leave my mind and probably never enter it again.