Early on in God of War: Chains of Olympus, Kratos, the Spartan warrior you play, goes to open a giant gate. You strain to lift it, only to have a huge troll crash through and send you reeling. The troll swings his mammoth club at your head, but you catch it, pounding the circle button frantically to keep it from crushing you. Just as your adrenaline starts pumping for battle, a screen-filling basilisk bursts in and devours the troll; he’s the one you have to worry about.

Just because the screen is small, doesn’t mean the action is small, developer Ready at Dawn practically shouts at you. The God of War games were stunning on PS2, defying the aging hardware and delivering graphics nearly on par with early Xbox 360 games, so it’s shocking to see how well the game has translated to PSP.

Chains of War feels like a God of War game, and considering the string of watered-down ports that have afflicted the handheld with bad graphics and even worse controls, that’s quite an accomplishment in itself. But it doesn’t just feel like a GoW game, it feels like a good one. The controls are tight, the pacing quick; it’s easy to get in a few good battles on the metro, put it to sleep, and then think of a good reason to shut your office door and hop right back in.

God of War shows off the PSP’s strengths in ways that few other titles can: It’s gorgeous, sounds great, plays well in small bursts and with its wealth of unlockable challenges, keeps you coming back for more. Even on a small scale, it’s absolutely epic.