So,
God of War: Ragnarok...72 hours and I have 100%-ed the game. It was quite the ride; I enjoyed it a lot despite its frustrations, which were big ones. TLDR for below, I would give it a good 8/10 if asked to score.
So, first, the obvious: the game is gorgeous. I'm a console peasant, so this is, so far, the prettiest game I've ever played. AND it ran smoothly on top too! It's like my eyes were doing it inside my skull. Pure eye-candy, this game. As a technical achievement, they really outdid themselves here. There were, however, some hiccups along the way: the occasional frame-drop, for example. Some facial animations were a bit stiff too, unless we're supposed to be dealing with folks who've had their facial muscles frozen by Fimbulwinter. But overall, the game is outstanding.
Gameplay is largely the same as the 2018 predecessor, with some improvements and tweaks here and there. It's the same mix of combat, boating (and sledding), exploration, and the occasional puzzle.
Speaking of puzzles first, this game treats you like you're an absolute moron, by the way. No sooner than you're into a puzzle area than one of the NPCs starts blabbering about the solution. Their "hints", which are simply spoilers at times, just render the puzzle aspect of the game pointless. The puzzles themselves weren't anything special anyway. We're at a far cry from the challenging (iirc) puzzles of the original trilogy.
As for combat, well it's really, really good. The options you have, from weapons to combos to runic-attacks, just make it one of the most entertaining and intense action games out there. GoW has always delivered on this front, so this comes as little surprise. I'm not a particularly gifted player when it comes to creating combos, so I usually don't bother doing so in most games, but I found myself doing that here. The drawback, though, is how disruptive the game's design is. I mean the constant interruptions from the various enemies that makes it near impossible to perform a fully satisfying combo at times. The number of times a companion shouted "Kratos, behind you!" is probably equal to the game's sales. Your companions also shout brain-dead things such as "You're on fire!" while your entire body is engulfed in flames. Like, no shit, game! I totally couldn't tell I'm burning to death, especially in a game with such detail you'd probably see your nipple-hairs burning too. See above, where I said the game treats you like you're an idiot. The companions, by the way, are about as useful to you as a hairdryer would be to Kratos. Sometimes those dickheads just stand there and watch as you're getting the absolute shit blasted out of you from all holes. Sometimes they even get you killed.
The other problem with the combat is the cheap difficulty. Now, go ahead and make a game as difficult as you want, but it shouldn't be to the point that defies believability. I mean, you're supposed to be the fucking
GOD of
WAR, and yet almost anything can easily kill you in this game. I'm not kidding, even lizards have a decent shot of downing you. I've seen more resilience in a Toyota Prius. It breaks immersion. Playing GoW: R made me wonder how this bearded pussy ever killed
anything, let alone the entire Greek Pantheon in the original trilogy. Your armor and defense stats amount to nothing most of the time. Your offensive abilities fare better, though sometimes I do wonder why Kratos is taking so long to kill a bunch of shit-faced human berserkers when, again, he's a "War God". To be fair, I played on the second hardest difficulty, but it's still a bad design for difficulty anyway, which was popularized by the Witcher 3 I believe (there, you are killed by a fisherman who is a higher level than you, even though you're a legendary monster-hunting Witcher). Difficulty shouldn't amount to a difference in "level" or to the enemies simply hitting harder and withstanding more damage, especially if it makes no sense in-universe.
I didn't mind the exploration, though it can be frustrating for others. Some sections are painfully linear, and you HAVE to go through them to get to other parts of the map. Every single time. It's very restrictive. Then there are the open world-ish areas that are filled with stuff to do. I enjoyed those segments a lot. The game takes you to a number of spectacular locations, which are made better by the visual fidelity. My favorite realm of them all was Vanaheim, with Svartalfheim being a close second. Asgard was jaw-droppingly gorgeous; I had to stop and just observe when I first got there. Midgard was okay; it's basically the first game but covered in snow. The other realms ranged from lame to really good, but the ones I just named are where the game shines best, in my opinion.
The story was alright, I suppose. The title gives it away. It's about Ragnarok, and the events leading to it. It's also mostly a continuation of the first game's themes, with the struggle of parenting and watching your kids grow into rebellious teenagers and eventually striking out on their own paths in life. I swear, it was like watching a lame Netflix high-school drama at times, instead of participating in ancient conflicts of gods and heroes near the end of their world. Speaking of Ragnarok itself, the event, while cool, didn't live up to the apocalyptic event it was supposed to be. On the other hand, I enjoyed Kratos' character development. He's almost unrecognizable from how he was in the original trilogy. He's wiser, kinder, and more open to advice and criticism. He truly came a long way. And I really appreciated how he was in the game's final segments. I left
God of War III with a dislike for him, as he was as his most awful in that game, and left GoW: R with a genuine love for his character. I want to see more of this Kratos in the future. I appreciate the overall message of the game (and its predecessor), which simply boils down to "we must be better".
The Norse gods in this game were a mixed bag, to be honest. I mean, as complex and cool characters, they were good. But they weren't...godly. They were just like regular people that all of us can meet in our lives. Painfully so. Odin is basically like a Jerry the Head of the Software Development Department who personally gives you a tour of his company's building while low-key hating his job. I met one of those. Thor is every drunk uncle who's kind of scary when he's angry but a big baby on the inside. I have one of those. Freyr was a moron of the kind you meet many times. Thrudd argued with her mom like my sister argued with mine when she was a teenager. And so on. In the original trilogy, when a god showed up, it was a big deal. When Hades appears before you in the dark, you shat your pants. When Zeus showed up, shit hit the fan. And so on. Now, I get it, ancient myths typically portrayed gods as humans on a grander scale. My problem isn't that the gods here behave like people. My problem is that they're too much like
regular people. Take their dialogue and show it to someone who hasn't played the game, and they wouldn't guess they were gods. Sure, they're like humans, but they should be like larger-than-life people!
So, overall, despite the frustrations, I enjoyed this game a lot, and was sad to see it finished. I'm usually a lenient critic, so I gave it the 8/10 you see above. As was the case with GoW 2018, this game is solid but not quite the masterpiece everyone is saying it is. As far as I'm concerned,
Elden Ring is Game of the Year, though I have little doubt
Ragnarok is gonna, well, Ragna
rock (
) those Game Awards shows and bag all of the awards anyway.
I do see myself replaying Ragnarok again, though I am discouraged by the fact
you get to play as Atreus for a significant portion of the game, and he ain't as fun as his dad. I'm looking forward to seeing where they take
God of War next. An Egyptian mythology setting would be fucking awesome.
Get to it, Santa Monica Studio!
I kid, I kid, it's good! I finished it a while ago and almost immediately lost interest after upgrading some armor with that sweet post-game cash. Uhh, Lawliet pretty much covered everything I would have in a review. It was a nice enhancement over the original, though like he said it could be painfully linear and the puzzles were more just obstacles to slow you down so you don't finish it too quickly, plus yeah, it's always changing perspective and making you look forward to the next thing instead of what you're doing. I'm glad it had more going on and didn't try to stretch it into a trilogy, but it was also a bit incongruous with the more micro-focused slow burn of the first one where we spend a lot of time with Odin's more obscure family members before getting everyone else in this one. The production values were top notch but after a strong opening the plot is just 'aight. I basically guessed the biggest twist or turn, or I guess expected it because they had to do something interesting with that character (and frankly it could have been better). By the end all the motivations and stuff got kind of ragged and vague and people's agendas seemed to have unnaturally shifted for the sake of wrapping it up. But anyway, it was fun and more importantly it had enough gamey-ness in the upgrades etc to make that a bit satisfying as well so it's not purely a beat 'em up.
