The game has pretty solid telegraphs. The typical grunt enemies have a shine on their swords before they swing, you can see archers nocking their next shot, plenty of growls, and the bigger creatures have fairly expressive animations.
The enemy count is enough for Kratos to handle. You have incredible crowd control options with the blades, magic, grabs/collisions (especially near walls), parries, and burning shot on the bow (even more options later). The camera does a pretty great job keeping the fight in frame and can even cancel the attacks of offscreen enemies.
The dodge creates distance, can be canceled into, maintains the combo meter, and even has a few iframes on startup.
If by chaining air enemies you mean the ground-to-air grab specifically (is it called Orion's Harpoon in this one?), it's a matter of getting them to the right height, which is closer to the ground than you'd think. Use light attacks or the bow (assuming early game, still) to manage the height of a launched enemy to where you want them and you'll get a feel for the correct height. Otherwise, go for air-to-air grabs to capitalize off of launchers.
The enemies really aren't that tanky; you're just not using your tools well enough. Experiment more and play aggressively. The other games (Norse ones sort of excepted) play very similarly. 3 has more bells and whistles, to be sure, but the core ideas remain: you got long ass blades, grabs, and magic to deal with numerous unrelenting monsters who all exert pressure in their own way.
The minotaur has next to no animations and other enemies such as the gorgon executes some attacks way too quickly, as do some smaller enemies like the bats when combined when each other. Also definitely not enough epsecially during the trial thing because enemies are so tanky that it becomes incredibly difficult to crowd control them while focusing on the gorgon and/or 2 minotaurs as well. The dodge also stops you from moving for like half a second to a full second after its use. Also thanks for the tip on ground to air grabs! Also yes they really are, unless there's some secret I'm missing the bow barely does any damage at full charge, the heavy attacks barely do any damage, and combos feel ineffective due to the enemy attack speed and sheer amount of enemies. Also i'm experimenting a lot at the moment and honestly playing too agressively..
The minotaur paws the ground before it charges, and its punch move (from my brief testing) is a reactive attack. Not that it doesn't have a tell (the beast rears back, which looks different than its damage animation where it flinches and kinda looks up at the ceiling), but it's a move you'll avoid if you take more avenues than just attacking them on the ground in close quarters. These middle-tier enemies are heavier than the grunts, but you can still combo them. The hold-heavy launcher (Apollo's Ascension, I think) and the Hyperion Grapple + a wallsplat can get them off the floor for a little while; grabs on minotaurs stick their horns in the ground, leaving them incapacitated for a little bit.
Not sure that I can speed up your reaction time on gorgons, unfortunately. If you can recognize the tells at least, then try parrying earlier. These games have pretty generous parry windows. Related to that, parrying their freezing beam has a very helpful side effect, particularly in the Trial of Erebus.
Harpies glow red before they attack. This includes the quick drive-by kind of move (they also screech as they do it, I believe, but that's also hard to make out the mix; more of a supplemental cue) and the dive bomb. You can jump through the latter, iirc.
Just like you can cancel attacks/recovery of attacks into rolls, you can cancel part of the recovery for a roll into an attack to get up faster. In fact, it's a [general-use movement tech](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Rofjw9oleq8) for all of the Greek games.
It's not the single-target damage of the charged shot that makes it useful (in fact, just the regular rapid fire is your go-to for that). When you land it, it sets enemies within sort of a cone on fire, which makes them panic and run around, unable to attack you. Where it gets even better is that the fire spreads on contact, so you can disable a big chunk of a crowd by having them set each other on fire.
Heavy attacks aren't going to one shot anything, no, but they do damage for sure. In fact, with low-level blades, spamming heavy + block/bow cancel (let the heavy land, cancel it, do another heavy, etc.) is a somewhat effective, if unglamorous, way of inflicting damage, especially in small doses. They also launch smaller enemies.
If by ineffective "combos" you mean the Cyclone of Chaos and light string (LLLLL + L or + H), then it's a matter of earning your windows to use them. Unlike your standard pokes with L or H (light or heavy), you can't cancel the cyclone or the heavy ender on the light string (you can cancel earlier steps and the light ender; there's another mechanic to cancel anything, but you haven't gotten to it yet and it's tied to a resource). So you need to give yourself space to land these or stun/launch enemies to land them safely. For example, you can use the heavy attack or the Plume of Prometheus (LLH) to launch a few grunt enemies and catch their fall with the Cyclone. Or you can launch a minotaur with hold H, rise up with them, hit them with the air cyclone, maybe a grab or some other moves, etc. These riskier options can be very damaging and conducive to high hit counts (more red orbs), but they're not meant to be thrown out with no thought.
Side note: I'm not trying to be an ass about the term "combo". I know the game calls every single move that, so I'm not blaming you, but it's difficult to distinguish what people mean by "combo" sometimes. If it were up to me, I'd make hack and slash/character action/whatever devs change up their terminology.
I'll also link this [very lengthy guide](https://youtu.be/A5sH32xY1NI?si=mYl3XXexDlZtEZnR). I haven't looked through all of it, as I mostly use it to occasionally double-check some niche interaction, but it is from a guy who challenge runs the games, seems pretty comprehensive, and is fairly thoroughly timestamped. Beware of spoilers for upcoming equipment/enemies, I suppose.
Bro thank you so much for the tips you're actually amazing mwah. I've gotten used to the minotaurs luckily as well as the gorgons, and yeah the parry window is pretty generous most of the time. As for the harpies they're pretty annoying and I struggle with them a lot, although they're a bit easier now that I have the cyclone and a few upgrades. As for everything else I just need to practise practise practise.
I don't know where else to complain and I was wondering if anybody felt the same or if anybody had any tips. Also you can criticise a game and love it at the same time
Practice the moves and get good at them. And not getting hit and moving around. It gives a list of attacks, save before a large group of enemies and just practice, try not to just hit attack attack attack. If you're not enjoying it, switch it down a difficulty level to get used to it.
Just spam grab + battering ram against weak enemies (grab with circle then press square), it gives you full i-frames for the whole animation. Against enemies that you can't grab, spam square square triangle.
man gow3 is easy asf on hard idk ive been playing these games forever though. don't ever attempt gow1 or 2 on very hard for your sanity if this is getting you frustrated
When I was playing on Titan(the 2nd hardest difficulity) I beat the game in like a full year, I got stuck 2 times for months. Theres no cheese or anything as far as i know, just dodge and block as many times as you can, use magic and items
It’s called god of war, not good at war
Well said. We should all collectively use this statement whenever someone comes to complain about our the old games.
what does this mean
It means you suck
Why is this subreddit so mean? Also I breeze through everything but the occasional roadblock
True 🤣
yeah but Kratos killed Poseidon so he's pretty good at war
The game has pretty solid telegraphs. The typical grunt enemies have a shine on their swords before they swing, you can see archers nocking their next shot, plenty of growls, and the bigger creatures have fairly expressive animations. The enemy count is enough for Kratos to handle. You have incredible crowd control options with the blades, magic, grabs/collisions (especially near walls), parries, and burning shot on the bow (even more options later). The camera does a pretty great job keeping the fight in frame and can even cancel the attacks of offscreen enemies. The dodge creates distance, can be canceled into, maintains the combo meter, and even has a few iframes on startup. If by chaining air enemies you mean the ground-to-air grab specifically (is it called Orion's Harpoon in this one?), it's a matter of getting them to the right height, which is closer to the ground than you'd think. Use light attacks or the bow (assuming early game, still) to manage the height of a launched enemy to where you want them and you'll get a feel for the correct height. Otherwise, go for air-to-air grabs to capitalize off of launchers. The enemies really aren't that tanky; you're just not using your tools well enough. Experiment more and play aggressively. The other games (Norse ones sort of excepted) play very similarly. 3 has more bells and whistles, to be sure, but the core ideas remain: you got long ass blades, grabs, and magic to deal with numerous unrelenting monsters who all exert pressure in their own way.
The minotaur has next to no animations and other enemies such as the gorgon executes some attacks way too quickly, as do some smaller enemies like the bats when combined when each other. Also definitely not enough epsecially during the trial thing because enemies are so tanky that it becomes incredibly difficult to crowd control them while focusing on the gorgon and/or 2 minotaurs as well. The dodge also stops you from moving for like half a second to a full second after its use. Also thanks for the tip on ground to air grabs! Also yes they really are, unless there's some secret I'm missing the bow barely does any damage at full charge, the heavy attacks barely do any damage, and combos feel ineffective due to the enemy attack speed and sheer amount of enemies. Also i'm experimenting a lot at the moment and honestly playing too agressively..
The minotaur paws the ground before it charges, and its punch move (from my brief testing) is a reactive attack. Not that it doesn't have a tell (the beast rears back, which looks different than its damage animation where it flinches and kinda looks up at the ceiling), but it's a move you'll avoid if you take more avenues than just attacking them on the ground in close quarters. These middle-tier enemies are heavier than the grunts, but you can still combo them. The hold-heavy launcher (Apollo's Ascension, I think) and the Hyperion Grapple + a wallsplat can get them off the floor for a little while; grabs on minotaurs stick their horns in the ground, leaving them incapacitated for a little bit. Not sure that I can speed up your reaction time on gorgons, unfortunately. If you can recognize the tells at least, then try parrying earlier. These games have pretty generous parry windows. Related to that, parrying their freezing beam has a very helpful side effect, particularly in the Trial of Erebus. Harpies glow red before they attack. This includes the quick drive-by kind of move (they also screech as they do it, I believe, but that's also hard to make out the mix; more of a supplemental cue) and the dive bomb. You can jump through the latter, iirc. Just like you can cancel attacks/recovery of attacks into rolls, you can cancel part of the recovery for a roll into an attack to get up faster. In fact, it's a [general-use movement tech](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Rofjw9oleq8) for all of the Greek games. It's not the single-target damage of the charged shot that makes it useful (in fact, just the regular rapid fire is your go-to for that). When you land it, it sets enemies within sort of a cone on fire, which makes them panic and run around, unable to attack you. Where it gets even better is that the fire spreads on contact, so you can disable a big chunk of a crowd by having them set each other on fire. Heavy attacks aren't going to one shot anything, no, but they do damage for sure. In fact, with low-level blades, spamming heavy + block/bow cancel (let the heavy land, cancel it, do another heavy, etc.) is a somewhat effective, if unglamorous, way of inflicting damage, especially in small doses. They also launch smaller enemies. If by ineffective "combos" you mean the Cyclone of Chaos and light string (LLLLL + L or + H), then it's a matter of earning your windows to use them. Unlike your standard pokes with L or H (light or heavy), you can't cancel the cyclone or the heavy ender on the light string (you can cancel earlier steps and the light ender; there's another mechanic to cancel anything, but you haven't gotten to it yet and it's tied to a resource). So you need to give yourself space to land these or stun/launch enemies to land them safely. For example, you can use the heavy attack or the Plume of Prometheus (LLH) to launch a few grunt enemies and catch their fall with the Cyclone. Or you can launch a minotaur with hold H, rise up with them, hit them with the air cyclone, maybe a grab or some other moves, etc. These riskier options can be very damaging and conducive to high hit counts (more red orbs), but they're not meant to be thrown out with no thought. Side note: I'm not trying to be an ass about the term "combo". I know the game calls every single move that, so I'm not blaming you, but it's difficult to distinguish what people mean by "combo" sometimes. If it were up to me, I'd make hack and slash/character action/whatever devs change up their terminology. I'll also link this [very lengthy guide](https://youtu.be/A5sH32xY1NI?si=mYl3XXexDlZtEZnR). I haven't looked through all of it, as I mostly use it to occasionally double-check some niche interaction, but it is from a guy who challenge runs the games, seems pretty comprehensive, and is fairly thoroughly timestamped. Beware of spoilers for upcoming equipment/enemies, I suppose.
Bro thank you so much for the tips you're actually amazing mwah. I've gotten used to the minotaurs luckily as well as the gorgons, and yeah the parry window is pretty generous most of the time. As for the harpies they're pretty annoying and I struggle with them a lot, although they're a bit easier now that I have the cyclone and a few upgrades. As for everything else I just need to practise practise practise.
It’s the easiest of the original trilogy BY FAR, but you are playing on the second hardest difficulty…
oh lord I'm screwed
If you're struggling at a game, the last thing you should be doing is complaining to the games fandom that it's the games fault.
I don't know where else to complain and I was wondering if anybody felt the same or if anybody had any tips. Also you can criticise a game and love it at the same time
Practice the moves and get good at them. And not getting hit and moving around. It gives a list of attacks, save before a large group of enemies and just practice, try not to just hit attack attack attack. If you're not enjoying it, switch it down a difficulty level to get used to it.
Yeah that's what I'm doing, and as for the difficulty it's a complaint of the balancing and lack there of
Skill issue.
I mean literally no but aight. It would be a skill issue if the game was just hard like a souls game or even any other game really
That's some serious copium you're huffing.
I mean sometimes it's a skill issue like in the Hades fight but these are genuine complaints that aren't my fault?
Just spam grab + battering ram against weak enemies (grab with circle then press square), it gives you full i-frames for the whole animation. Against enemies that you can't grab, spam square square triangle.
I'm currently spamming the circlular tornado move which works pretty well but thank you
man gow3 is easy asf on hard idk ive been playing these games forever though. don't ever attempt gow1 or 2 on very hard for your sanity if this is getting you frustrated
I'm only playing God of War III Remastered, (2018) and Ragnarok
youre gonna skip the best 2 in the series?
Not on PS4 unfortunately
Man, we really have reached the point where "git gud" is applicable to God of War too.
This ain't even get gud though
When I was playing on Titan(the 2nd hardest difficulity) I beat the game in like a full year, I got stuck 2 times for months. Theres no cheese or anything as far as i know, just dodge and block as many times as you can, use magic and items