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It’s like God of War, but on the PSP. No, seriously, it’s the same game.

God of War 2 garnered a lot of critical praise, but personally, I loathed it. God of War was an amazing game that revived and reshaped the brawler genre and brought a second wind to the then-dwindling PlayStation 2 with surprising graphics, cinematics, and overall production quality. The gameplay was addictive, the controls intuitive, the combat sickeningly satisfying.

God of War 2, released just a few months ago, was quite literally the same game. Sure, it was a sequel in the traditional sense: it takes place after the first game, it has a new story, and there’s a 2 after the title. Besides that, though, there was nothing new. It was like deja vu, a tired re-tread. Same controls, same style of puzzles, same enemies, same cobat, same interface, same everything.

From my experience with God of War: Chains of Olympus, I feel the same way. It’s an all new story and it’s ported beautifully onto the PSP with practically identical controls to its PS2 counterparts; but it’s still the same game.

The big problem with bringing a 3D game to the PSP is the infamously absent second analog nub. Some games put camera controls on the two shoulder buttons, others put control onto the D-pad. God of War: Chains of Olympus does neither. There are no camera controls, in fact. The game has a smart camera that locks the perspective where it need to be and follows you around as you move throughout the environment; similar, if not identical, to the PS2 games.

As soon as I picked the game up I was performing the combos now-ingrained in my mind. Identical to the PS2 games.

In short, if you want to play God of War on your PSP, this is your game. If there was something about God of War that you didn’t like or wish was added, no dice here. I would hate to see God of War become another one of those series that churns out inevitable sequels year after year with little to no innovation.