As a God of War fan, I really wish I could recommend the latest incarnation of Kratos' epic PS2 adventures. Alas, God of War Collection for the Vita is a weak port of the 2009 PS3 HD remastering, with muddled graphics, flawed audio, and less than fluid gameplay, all of which renders it the least flattering way to embody Sparta's angriest warrior.

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This displeases me...

Straight out of the gate, I was disappointed by the noticeable downgrade in visuals. While it would be silly and naive to expect the Vita to reproduce the exact same high resolution and 60 frames-per-second framerate touted by its PS3 predecessor, I figured the Vita could still do a decent job of showing just how pretty God of War can be.Yet, God of War Collection just doesn’t look all that impressive on the Vita. Environments appear less detailed and a bit bland, and everything from character models to objects look slightly out of focus, as if the camera lens needs to be adjusted in order to see Kratos' grumpy face more clearly. There's no option to adjust the screen size either, so everything is stretched out, an effect I found rather unflattering.Even more disappointing than the visuals is the audio. In cutscenes, Kratos’ anger and gravitas come through clear enough, but in-game he sounds muffled, as if he and other character are communicating on walkie-talkies ("This is Ghost of Sparta. Over!"). It’s a side effect of audio compression that can’t be corrected by adjusting the volume of the sound effects or music, and it greatly detracted from my overall enjoyment of the solid voice acting.Even the gameplay isn’t quite as fun as it should be. Don’t get me wrong: it’s still a blast unleashing a chain of crazy cool combos and smiting enemies with godlike powers (and better yet being rewarded for it with PlayStation trophies), but I was sad to see some of the fluidity of Kratos’ movements has disappeared -- an unfortunate consequence of a lower framerate which causes both God of War 1 and 2 to chug when there’s a lot of activity on screen.While platforming is still somewhat enjoyable, interacting with the environment is a bit more arduous this time around, due to developer Sanzaru (the party responsible for this port) feeling obliged to shoehorn the Vita’s back touchscreen controls into the gameplay. Instead of simply holding or tapping the circle button to open chests and lift heavy doors, I was now forced to do so while pressing the back touchscreen, which felt rather awkward. It’s a superfluous addition that, at times, interfered with the general flow of exploration, especially when it caused me to accidentally activate levers at inopportune moments.