God of War: Ghost of Sparta is a PSP action-adventure in which Kratos pursues a lost brother, a search that takes him across the underworld and up to the throne of the god of death. The campaign was completed through its credits and post-credits scene in roughly four hours and ten minutes.
The brother subplot is the compelling heart of the story, giving the prequel a personal stake the series rarely reaches. The ending leads directly into God of War II, with the final confrontation against the god of death one hell of a boss fight.
The Arms of Sparta spear adds a cool new move, with the triangle attack looking very stylish. The game looks significantly better with the texture pack, and even without it, the PSP original is impressive for the hardware.
The elemental magic is the weakest part, since the electrical arc, void orbs and freeze conch mostly underwhelm compared to Chains of Olympus. The magic mapped to the D-pad is an odd choice, and the horn spell goes entirely unused.
The mother as the opening boss makes a striking first impression, and the siren enemies are far less annoying than in previous games. The PSP proves a very capable console, delivering something close to a portable PS2.
The campaign is on the short side, and the brother character has very little screen time once he appears. One crash occurred, but that was an emulation issue rather than the game’s fault, and the red orbs fall short of maxing everything.
Overall, the story, the spear mechanic and the texture-pack presentation make Ghost of Sparta a very good PSP game. The underwhelming magic and the D-pad mapping are the caveats.