I think the first God of War is a perfect game, much thanks to excellent direction and cinematography. Every scene is well thought out and the whole journey is a cohesive experience. The latter games improved many things gameplay-wise, but I still regard the first one as the most coherent package. Still play through it every now and then.
People often give credit to Uncharted 2 as the beginning of Sonys first party era. While I can somewhat agree, to me, playing the first God of War back then realising it was actually developed by a Sony studio was crazy to me. They weren't really known for developing games like that back then, only other I can think of is Syphon Filter and while I enjoyed that series, it wasn't really masterpiece territory. It changed my perception of Sony for sure.
I love all the old God of War games and while it's a bit sad the series changed direction, I can see why they did it and many people even prefer the new games. Santa Monica will never make a oldschool God of War again and that is ok, even though I would've loved a new game in the same vein as DMC5. But smaller studios are getting there and they will fill the void eventually. Stuff like Soulstice gives me hope that we are getting to a point where a smaller studio could put out something like the first God of War. And I also feel like action games like that are somewhat back on the menu after a long Souls-induced drought, looking at recent releases. With that said, I still think we've yet to see a game that combines the gameplay with a tale and vision as strong as the old God of War games. It'll come though, I'm sure of it!