Sony fans with a shadow drop of a brand-new game: Sons of Sparta. Far from a AAA production, the $30 PS5-exclusive Sons of Sparta swaps Kratos’ familiar tools for a spear-and-shield setup, and uses the prequel framing to show a less hardened side of him. The title also goes through a major genre shift, shifting from the series’ traditional third-person action-adventure format to a retro-inspired 2D action platformer with focus on exploration.
As its title might imply, Sons of Sparta revolves around both Kratos and his lesser-known brother Deimos. Set during Kratos’ brutal Spartan training years, the setting unfolds long before the series’ main events. Kratos and Deimos are young soldiers in Sparta, and have only recently gotten the freedom to travel beyond the city-state’s walls on various missions.
Right off the bat, it’s important to talk about how visually distinct and brilliant Sons of Sparta looks. The title makes use of a pixel-art style that combines a lo-fi look with incredible detail, especially in its environments. Character sprites are equally strong and enemy silhouettes communicate threat at a glance. The audio is fantastic as well, with attacks sounding chunky, parries culminating in a satisfying sound effect, and the general background score doing a great job of setting the right tone for the setting.
“The sheer variety of boss encounters in Sons of Sparta is quite impressive.”
The story starts off quite simple; Kratos and Deimos have been tasked with retrieving specific tools. However, the actual plot starts shortly after the two set out on this mission, when they learn that one of their fellow cadets hasn’t returned from a field exercise. While Kratos has considered this friend dead thanks to the general deadliness of the wider world, Deimos is more optimistic, and persuades his brother to help find him.
It’s difficult to convey the novelty of getting to see a young Kratos, since we’ve only ever seen the man either entirely consumed by rage, or quiet and somber. Here, however, we see a Kratos that has a sense of humor, as often showcased with the banter he often engages in with Deimos. It’s also interesting to see the level of duty he feels towards Sparta and its traditions, especially in light of how things would eventually turn out. The presence of Deimos and the brotherly love the two share is also wonderful dramatic irony.
Throughout the journey, you get to face several enemies based on different myths. Along with standard foes like armed skeletons and wild animals, we also get more interesting enemies, like Centaurs, Cyclopses, and birds. The latter tend to show up in the form of boss fights, with their very first appearance being a great example of what to expect from the future.
The sheer variety of boss encounters in Sons of Sparta is quite impressive, ranging from fights against particularly strong soldiers using their own unique weapons, to beasts. My personal favorite boss fight from my time with the game was one of the birds: Apate. While it used many of the same moves as its brethren, it also offered an added level of threat thanks to its use of aerial bombardment and poison.
“The skill tree tends to offer improvements to your base offensive and defensive abilities, along with some new ones that don’t feel entirely necessary.”
Combat in Sons of Sparta starts off simple, then steadily grows in depth as you unlock new abilities either through your own skill tree or through new gear. Taking a cue from Ragnaork, your spear’s various parts can give you different abilities. While the tip of the spear largely focuses on offering passive bonuses, the handle offers changes to your main combo. The pommel, on the other hand, gives you active abilities, like a vertical slam, or a combination of powerful thrusts. These pair up quite nicely with the otherwise-standard system that largely has Kratos attacking, dodging, blocking and parrying enemies.
While largely fine as a system, it never quite feels like it goes far enough in offering loot as a reward for exploration. Big, glowing chests will often only give you crafting materials, and new pieces of equipment that might offer fun abilities feel, unfortunately, far too rare. On the other hand, the main exploration centric progression system offers a fantastic excuse to explore every nook and cranny of the game’s large map since they give tangible boosts to your damage and defenses.
The skill tree tends to offer improvements to your base offensive and defensive abilities, along with some new ones that don’t feel entirely necessary. One, for example, allows you to pull off a downward spear slam, with further nodes on the tree making it more efficient in terms of Spirit requirements and the damage it deals. The enhancements to defensive abilities like dodging and parrying are more fun, since they give you new ways to counter-attack.
The combat is often a balancing act where you’re managing your Health, Spirit, and Magic. While the latter is largely used for the various tools you’ll find during your travels, your Health and Spirit have a fun tug of war going on with each other. Regular attacks on enemies give you more Spirit, which you can use up by holding R1 alongside your attacks to deal less health damage to your enemies but more stun damage. Spirit-enhanced attacks also have the added benefit of causing enemies to generate healing orbs. Stun an enemy and you can pull off a brutal instant kill that gives you plenty of Health, Spirit and Magic in the process.
“Sons of Sparta is a fantastic platformer, and a true breath of fresh air for the genre. The fact that it’s on the shorter side for the genre, coming in at around 10 hours, also helps.”
The only real complaint I had with the combat and traversal in Sons of Sparta largely came down to its controls feeling awkward at first. Since fast-paced combat-centric side-scrollers are often best-played with the D-pad, the fact that Sons of Sparta only uses the analog stick for movement feels like a strange decision. Aside from that, having a special button for climbing a ladder also feels unnecessary, since many platformers let you climb simply by holding up or down. These are minor quibbles, and they largely disappeared once I got used to the control scheme.
Owing to its lo-fi look, Sons of Sparta is generally quite light on the PS5’s hardware. There were never any frame rate drops regardless of how many enemies or visual effects were happening on the screen. Load times were also snappy, which is a great thing since, on the higher difficulties, you might find yourself dying quite often on some bosses. Speaking of which, newcomers to the genre will also find the three distinct difficulty options tailored to your experience with platformers and sidescrollers to be quite welcoming.
Sons of Sparta is a fantastic platformer, and a true breath of fresh air for the genre. The fact that it’s on the shorter side for the genre, coming in at around 10 hours, also helps. There is a certain lightheartedness that comes with the story despite its brutal and violent combat. Both Kratos and Deimos’ conversations often go on for slightly too long, but it’s still quite fun to hear their banter every now and then. Combine that with excellent combat that peaks during its epic boss battles, and you’ve got a thrilling new way to take in this Spartan tale.
This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.
