Ragnarok wasn't averted.
The good news? The combat is slightly more fun. While it's pretty much identical to the previous game, the juggling is more generous, so you can do more fun stuff. Unarmed combat was stripped bare, so you don't get much more than just punches and kicks, however, this time around you start the game armed with both the Leviathan Ax and the Blades of Chaos. For the most part, the function pretty much identically to how they did before, but the 'hold down button' attacks were changed completely, and the 'stance switch' was removed from the Blades. It's alright, the stance switch moves were always rather unwieldy. And, midway through, you get a new weapon, a lance-type weapon, and I was surprised at just how much I liked it considering I don't like lances. So yeah, while it's still a bit basic, the combat feels weighty and I liked the new juggling. The new weapon is a blast, and this game didn't have as many enemies that broke your lock on them, so me using Rage by mistake was a thing of the past. Speaking of Rage, now you can pick between three different types: GoW style, Valor, for Healing, and another type for dealing a ton of damage in one blow.
Repeatedly using most moves eventually lets you spend XP to enhance them, by adding more Stun, Damage, Elemental Damage or super armor, which is a neat idea. Defensively, now shields come in two different types, favoring blocking or parrying, which was also a neat idea. Certain armor pieces now change as they rank up, which is pretty cool already, but you can alter the look of any armor so as to look as the armor that you like!! Atreus and Freya get alternate costumes too.
But more interesting than anything... now Atreus gets his own playable segments. He only gets his bow, but he has his own unique moveset, based on speedy bow whacks and ranged bow sniping. He is definitely not as fun as Kratos, and during his most extensive chapter he becomes a bit boring, since his moveset is limited, but I enjoyed the variety. He is just an extra, however, so you can only play as him when the game demands it, and during the post game you can only use Kratos. Speaking of Atreus, now both Atreus and Kratos get different companions, and while they are very basic(Tap square to have them shoot, hold square to have them use their special move), it's still pretty interesting, plus, of course they have the now mandatory Uncharted banter between them.
As for the plot... It's alright. I found it more interesting than the previous game, for sure, but all the emotional stuff they went for... it just didn't do it for me. They tried, they tried so hard to pull at your heartstrings, but barring a few moments... It didn't do it for me. And that's the thing, they went for this type of character moments to score high with critics, because if you remove every emotional bit... the overall story is nothing special. Sindri's development was very well done, and I love what, and how, they did with him. There's a plot twist near the end, and I've seen people call it brilliant, heck, Gamesrank called it one of the best plot twists in recent games and.... seriously? It's not that shocking, it isn't even a smart 'everything changes now' plot twist, it was more like a simple plot development than anything else. The foreshadowing was neat, but nah, it's not that amazing.
What probably pushed me away from the overall narrative is how... Marvel the dialogue feels. Ratatosk gets reintroduced as a cute Rocket Raccoon type of furry NPC, and I couldn't help but wonder just what the hell was the plushy doing in God of War. The first playable Atreus segment was absolutely dreadful, as the whole pre-pubescent romance tease with Angrborda felt very, very forced and cringe, like something out of a cheesy Marvel movie. It's also a huge exposition dump interspersed with moments of slowly riding a cow-thing while collecting fruit, it's a huge pace-killer. Speaking of pacing... the walking-simulator bits felt more intrusive than they did in the first game, and more frequent too. Thankfully, as the game pushes forward the combat, exploration and story telling balance themselves out a bit better.
The exploration... is nigh identical to the original game, but now instead of just rowing a boat you also get to drive wolf-sleds. Every side activity from the original game returns, finding lore markers, opening a ridiculous amount of worthless chests, Rune Chests(Which didn't feel as annoying this time), killing Odin's Ravens... pretty much everything is back. Instead of Valkyrie super bosses there are now fallen soldier super bosses. You also revisit every realm you did back then, although, thankfully, most places are completely different, only reusing small bits to show you that it's the same realm. It's a much larger game, frequently the game will just drop you into a new section and a ton of sidequests will pop up, and the post-game seems pretty meaty too.... if only I could've finished.
For you see, this is one of the buggiest games I've played recently. By far. It's absolutely shameful how Sony released the game in this state. And sure, I could've patched the game, but I always play games unpatched, because that's what's in the disc, so that's what I'll always have access to. Here's a small list of just a handful of things I experienced, and I took videos of most of them:
- One time, when collecting am Yggdrassil Tear from the boat, it didn't count as collected even though Atreus animation grabbing it played out. When I landed on a beach, Kratos was sitting on air, NEXT to the boat, instead of getting off. Had to restart the checkpoint.
- Minor, but at least twice I got off the boat on a coast but the angle didn't let me walk into the land, had to get back on the boat and land again.
- When reaching the Gram boss fight, the camera went crazy and afterwards Atreus was invisible. Had to restart the checkpoint.
- Both Freya and Atreus, as companions, sometimes showed ineptitude when following me, and I had to exit and re-enter the room to fix their AI
- In Alfheim there are puzzles involving bouncing your ax on crystals. Sometimes, the trail that showed how your ax would bounce disappeared just because.
- In the first Atreus sequence, there's a blue pick up, if you pick it up, you won't collect it and it will float on thin air.
- This is a common one, there are threads on reddit about it, sometimes, certain audio sounds, such as breaking walls or the such, will just stop playing, and this even happens with VOICES. What's even better, not even the subtitles will appear!!! The only solution is to exit the game entirely, not just 'quit to main menu', but quit to the dashboard. This fixes it. This one is vexingly common.
- After fighting a Valkyrie I had to reload checkpoint because I couldn't trigger the mystic Gate.
- I went to grab a flower, a collectible, but it's your companion that has to grab it. Well... the AI got stuck running towards it. Not fun. Speaking of this, during Alfheim, Tyr LOVED running against walls. Not game-breaking, but immersion breaking.
- In the Dwarven realm, upon revisiting it, you can clearly see a traincar flying over thing air. Looks dumb.
- In Muspelheim, after doing the big main challenge, trying to trigger the smaller challenges will fail and you have to reload checkpoint. This one is ridiculous.
- Evasive Storm move, with the Leviathan Ax, is bugged, sometimes Kratos throws the ax towards the ground or above the targeted enemy.
- The worst one, by far.... I was doing the side content, reached Vanaheim and... I couldn't exit. Every attempt to open the door back to Freyr's camp would fail because Freya wouldn't follow me, locking Kratos in place as he waits for Freya before starting the animation. This one was heart breaking, as I planned on finishing the post-game.
Yeah... God of War Ragnarok wasn't all that spectacular. Don't get me wrong, the game is fun to play, but the story is nothing to write home about, and the enormous amounts of bugs really made my time with the game less than enjoyable. Plenty of times I was wondering if something was actually supposed to be happening or if it was bugging out again.
6.5
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