Virtually every aspect of the game centers on honoring the four gods and earning their favor. Dialogue choices range between four styles that will score points with associated deities. Ares, the god of war, favors force and intimidation. Hermes appreciates cunning, Apollo rewards emotion, and Athena leans towards wise and judicious responses. Completed quests and achievements like defeating a certain number of enemies can be dedicated to the gods to earn points, which can be exchanged for special combat attributes and abilities called Aspects. Some gods appreciate certain deeds more than others. For example, killing enemies using a spear (Athena's favored weapon) and often using her style during conversations will earn big points with the goddess. Players will need to be certain early on which gods they want to honor, since points cannot be refunded and Aspect selections are permanent.

The story of Rise of the Argonauts is pretty linear and straightforward, with few to no surprises. Although players have some control in how they respond different characters during dialogue sequences, decisions are often meant to appease certain gods instead of leading the game in different directions. No matter what dialogue choices the player makes, things will resolve in the same ways, so there's not much incentive to replay the game. Side quests are practically non-existent, meaning that there's almost nothing that Jason doesn't have to do in pursuing the Golden Fleece, and the few side stories that do exist are generally shallow and unfulfilling. However, even relatively minor tasks will be added to the player's list of deeds, which keeps them from being a complete waste of time.

Combat is bloody and graphic. Maces break heads open and swords slice enemies in half. Even ramming enemies with the shield has its benefits. Fights are later supplemented by God Powers, which build up charge through combat and can be unleashed for a short period of time. Unfortunately, the game doesn't have much of a combo system. Although players have the option to do a weapon switch move, which will finish foes off in gruesome ways, and there are a handful of special moves, everything eventually degrades to constantly mashing on the heavy attack button. Players are advised to pick up an Xbox 360 controller for this game and save the mouse and keyboard from taking a pounding. The system is so simple that God Powers are almost pointless except during some of the boss battles.

Fighting gets stale pretty quickly, even though most confrontations are relatively short. There's no way to lock on to specific targets, so throwing a spear at a foe standing too close to another has a 50/50 chance of hitting correctly. However, most players will probably be content with swinging a mace and hitting anything that happens to be in the way. The combat system uses an innovative technology, where Jason's arms and torso are independent of each other instead of relying on canned animations. That means if something attacks from his shield side, it will automatically be blocked. Creatures standing behind Jason will be hit by the mace's back swing as he goes in for the heavy bash. The main downside to this system comes when Jason gets knocked down and falls into strange contortions that look like his arms will snap off. Allied Argonauts will use special abilities to help with battles. For example, Hercules will bear hug enemies, allowing Jason a chance to get in some free hits. Yet, allies will sometimes get in the way. One example comes from an area where foes will come back to life unless they're defeated within certain areas, but your allies won't take this into consideration. Argonauts also end up being pretty useless during boss battles, but that's not too terrible, since most bosses can be beaten fairly easily.

While Rise of the Argonauts is far from being a bad game, it's not a great game either. The combat is too simple and the story isn't strong or deep enough to keep players fully engaged. Bosses generally come off being annoying at first, but turn out to be easy once their pattern is figured out. Even the final boss confrontation is a generally short-lived one. At the end of it all, we were left feeling indifferent toward the whole adventure. It's a decent way to pass the time, but we wouldn't have regretted walking away from the game at any point.

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