God of War - Almost a Masterpiece

god of war is greater than the sum of its parts it doesn't have the best combat in the game nor does it have the best exploration or story it might have the best visuals and overall quality in its presentation but that also comes at the cost of some performance problems essentially i'm saying that i can think of games that individually do every part of god of war better than it does but i can't think of another game that is this good in almost every area most games that have great stories have horrible gameplay the opposite is usually true as well many games that put so much effort into looking this good have nothing else going for them god of war on the other hand is at least good in every way that counts and may even be great in more categories than it isn't that's a pretty big achievement and it makes the game easy to recommend but there is a big caveat that i want to lay down before i can spoiler warning the rest of the video the amount of attention that both gameplay and story received during god of war's development may end up being a huge negative for some players in this way it's lesser than the sum of its parts if you don't like third person action games with enclosed melee combat it's unlikely god of war will change your mind likewise if you don't enjoy stories in video games and prefer mostly gameplay there are long stretches of walking and climbing sections in god of war that have you doing nothing scenes that require only minor input from you when prompts appear on the screen and many unskippable cutscenes a cardinal sin and video games as far as i'm concerned i thoroughly enjoyed both of these sides of god of war but i know some of you watching may only be interested in one of them this game may not be for you because of that if you've played the previous three main entries in the god of war series i think this one is worth going through for the story alone even if the gameplay is something you merely tolerate so there's my usual bare bones review as an introduction spoiler warning is on the screen god of war is best played without knowing its big moments if you are stopping the video to play it yourself my parting words of advice are to not play it on give me god of war mode the game is best played on hard or normal i can enhance her for you right now if it so pleases you son of a [ __ ] god of war joins the ranks of other games like tomb raider prey prince of persia and doom games that require you to include the year they were released with the title so everyone knows which game you're talking about are they reboots or sequels there's also a tendency for games to drop the numbering after the third one and go for subtitles instead in god of war's case it should be obvious and yet there were many debates leading up to the game's release about continuity from the previous games this culminated personally for me when i went to buy the game at the store the guy at the register asked have you played the other games i answered yes well just forget about all of that this game is completely separate it's norse mythology now instead of greek there are no connections turns out this clerk was wrong seeing as the game has been out for several months you'd think that this sort of thing would have stopped happening but yet the words of this guy live on in some online posts the streams i did of the first three games and this latest one have attracted comments about how the early games are no longer canon that this is clearly a reboot and that the events of the prior games should no longer enter your mind this is in my opinion far from correct in fact i'd say this latest god of war is significantly enhanced by playing the older games or at least god of war 3. this is the same kratos we've been with all along the continuity is here and that's a good thing the first three games are spectacle fighters that belong together with devil may cry now before big fans of that series start stabbing their thumbs into the keyboard i know they have severe differences i played the first four devil may cry games as they were released and the first one is one of my favorite games of all time god of war 1 and 2 are much lighter versions of that combat system and it's not until the third game that more direct comparisons to devil may cry become truly fair yet the games are firmly in the same genre courtyard even if god of war values spectacle and scale above all else god of war 2018 is different it's the same character but the story has gone through evolution the gameplay has definitely mutated but whether that means it's evolved is up for discussion i wouldn't call it a regression it's certainly above the first two games but compared to how well the third game refined that combat system i'd say this new one is best described as a side grade we'll get to that the story's evolution is easier to see although it may not be an improvement for everyone the discussion around kratos supposedly new maturity has been difficult to avoid same for the counter argument saying that that commentary is unfair to the original games well that clerk that sold me the game was right about one thing we have gone from greek mythology over to norse the first three god of wars were like a greatest hits tour of its setting did it ever make sense to run into these mythical characters who are for some inexplicable reason no longer contain to their own stories but mixed together in some kind of mythological stew i read quite a bit of greek mythology when i was a kid because i was just that damned cool and i could appreciate how equally loose and nonsensical the first three god of wars were in terms of story it's not so much about structured plot these stories were originally told orally and thus have no recorded origin they were told and then retold and naturally changed along the way arguably that's part of their charm and made them inevitable victims or beneficiaries of alterations in both style and content i'd guess embellishments and one-upmanship of previous stories also ran rampant greek mythology is like a big album of songs made to fit one theme but with a different artist guest starring on each track it was more about contained scenarios and the epic emotional payoff at the end of them rather than a sweeping continuous tale kratos embodies that in his simplicity in the first three games but that does not mean he is a character without any depth or meaning it just means he suits the setting he was placed into he isn't just a bloodthirsty monster that kills indiscriminately he cares deeply about his family to the point that in terms of plot he is controlled by guilt more than rage but that doesn't sweep away the fact that for the majority of the game anger is what powers the kratos engine the more complex side of him is rarely shown and when it is it feels more out of place due to how much time we spend in kill kill kill blood blood blood mode you could argue that the setting is more the story than this character in the first three games it's not until a few scenes at the end of each game and the last quarter of the third game that kratos is shown as more than just our anchor being dragged through this mythological ocean i should note here that i haven't played ascension or the psp game so it may be different in those ones and i can only judge the first three numbered games god of war 2018 is mostly the opposite the norse mythology setting is important but compared to the original trilogy it's like a backdrop to serve as a stage for a story about kratos kratos greatest greatest is the greatest [Laughter] it's like a backdrop to serve as a stage for a story about kratos and his son atreus there are fewer appearances from mythical characters in this one possibly to the game's detriment but it feels far more cohesive than the boiling pot approach of the earlier games norse mythology was originally told orally it was told and retold and therefore carries with the same qualities as greek mythology variations were encouraged and sadly not much of it was written down and is really lost forever okay there are a few gaps in my knowledge however it has something that the majority of mythologies do not an ending to its own world now before you start quoting the book of revelation at me remember that ragnarok is quite different first the word is quite possibly one of the coolest ever created ragnarok you can just taste it as you say it second it's a final world altering battle where every character shows up and slaughters each other rivalries are partnered off and permanently resolved almost everyone dies this may not seem like a big deal especially since the rest of the norse stories follow a similar contained scenario with contained payoff as greek mythology but along with loki being a regular catalyst that sets off the conflict in many of the tales ragnarok is always there it's looming it's coming a small detail here or part of the ending there or rolled up into that boogie man monster that's waiting at the end of the imaginary book that will never hold all of these stories there's a little more glue that binds norse mythology together you can add this to how the norse gods are far more grounded than the greek a large part of the appeal of both families of gods is that they're fallible they're not calm all-powerful and all-knowing deities they reflect some of the worst qualities of mankind and can be just as selfish and capricious yet the norse gods have always struck me as the more human of the two or if human isn't the right word more mortal there's brutality in how the gods are treated in both norse and greek mythology but it's the north side that always struck me as having the deeper more lasting ramifications on the gods for that brutality outside of the games that is the game's versions of the gods are about even in this respect are these the only reasons that kratos is different in this game absolutely not but it's clear that there was a deliberate change going from one setting to the other for all the environments the gods the monsters and kratos himself it's more likely that these changes were thought at first with the last of us being such a clear source of inspiration that i won't bring it up again for the rest of this video and then the setting was settled on around the same time as an appropriate migration everything has been shifted from the extravagant exaggerated greek myths to the still mystical but while not humble but humble lure norse ones kratos is slower more limited and is now capable of fatigue this could be explained by him getting older the game even takes at least one crack at him about that did you i did not hurt my back but that doesn't make much sense for a greek god when you think back to zeus and his siblings in the previous game i think it's more likely and better suited if this new realm is dampening him in some way the rules are different here sometimes that can make him powerful if he can defy them other times it makes him weaker when he can't mostly it's like gravity is stronger in the norse realm compared to what he's used to before we continue though here's a quick summary of the original trilogy so we can get everyone up to speed demi-god kratos makes a deal with ares the god of war to save him from defeat by becoming his servant while in this servitude kratos is tricked into killing his own wife and daughter and is permanently marked white by their ashes from there he goes on a quest for revenge opening pandora's box to unleash the power to kill ares after that the gods refuse or are unable to purge kratos of his torment over killing his wife and daughter kratos attempts suicide but the gods also refuse to allow him that peace and instead raise him to full godhood as the new god of war now that ares is dead kratos becomes too much of a threat to the rest of the gods in his new position and is subsequently cast down back to roughly demigod status zeus lays a trap which kratos stupidly falls for when he channels the remainder of his powers into the blade of olympus zeus who is kratos father by the way the guy had a real bad problem of keeping his lightning bolts in his pants then kills him and after being saved by the titan gaia begins a new rampage throughout all of greek mythology over two games killing titans and gods alike at some point it becomes hard to tell whether he still wants vengeance because the gods won't rid him of his nightmares or because of the more recent betrayals knowing kratos it's probably both mixed in with five other things that only he knows about some other god cut in front of him in line when he was trying to you know raid a city somewhere oh he also gets his godhood back at some point but it's not clear when that happens or at least i can't pinpoint it but maybe i missed it somewhere ultimately kratos destroys the world and i'm not exaggerating the oceans flood after the death of poseidon the spirits of the damned are let loose from hell after kratos kills hades a plague is unleashed the sun goes out pretty much all life dies after zeus is killed in the end this is the state of the world athena who died at the end of god of war 2 was previously one of kratos's only allies she explains that she has ascended to a higher existence since that death and continues to help kratos in god of war 3. at the conclusion she demands the hope that kratos absorbed from pandora's box as her payment for this refusing kratos instead chooses to kill himself with the blade of olympus whether he does this out of a final act of defiance for the gods or due to regret after realizing his revenge did not grant him peace isn't clear again it's probably both and some other things too athena's personality changes after this she rips the sword out of him tells him she's disappointed in him and then leaves him for dead a post-credit scene shows that kratos somehow survived and crawled off a cliff so you may be rightfully wondering how there's another game in this series well i am happy to report that god of war 2018 provides several satisfying answers to how we went from this to this look yeah it doesn't it's never explained of course it's [ __ ] not now instead of griping about this for 30 minutes and let's all acknowledge that i could i'm going to let it go because this new god of war is the first of a new series probably a new trilogy i was hoping for the game to be more contained than that but i can't ignore the reality of this being the flagship of a new set of stories i think and hope that the answers to the ending of god of war 3 will be relevant to some other twists involving a larger story that includes athena and this higher existence that she speaks about this first game was sharply focused on kratos and atreus the next game will pan back and increase the scope of the story however i want to make it clear that the games absolutely do have to provide answers for these questions too much of the foundation from the original trilogy is used and called back for only some parts of it to be connected that's not allowed you can't just take some of it it all has to come back the story is not playing fair and is a cheap mess if these questions are not answered number one how did kratos survive being impaled through the torso with the blade of olympus the power of hope was released from this wound heavily implying that kratos was killed the blade of olympus in almost the exact same way killed him before and he didn't survive not to mention the size of it the blood loss and the huge scar left on him in the most recent game did the blade of olympus simultaneously kill him and give him back his godhood since it was still stored in the sword causing him to regenerate that would be kind of cool question number two how did kratos get to the norse mythology lands was he taken there or did he fall into the ocean at the end of the third game and was carried there by chance if so then that brings us to question number three why are the norse mythology lands unaffected by the damage caused to the planet during the third game the oceans flood the sun is extinguished plague and the souls of the dead are everywhere if the norse lands are in a different realm physically separated from the greek lands then that should be explained as it is a good answer but then it ties back to the second question if that's the case how did kratos get there something like this is sort of hinted at in the game itself but it needs to be more clear this doesn't have to be done purely for the sake of answering questions but also because it can make things more interesting other lands with other gods are shown in god of war how are they linked are wars waged across realms are there a set of even mightier gods that reign at a higher level than these gods limited to each realm is that where athena went and is projecting herself from answering questions is good please do it don't make me have to rant for 30 minutes in the next god of war video i'll do it goddammit but please don't make me returning to kratos after this recap shows us how much this character now makes sense this isn't a new version of him he has changed but it's a reasonable progression on this same character his most important line that shows this is about halfway through the game after atreus kills modi kratos forcefully says there are consequences to killing a god kratos is no more deep of a character in this new game in fact he's still on the simple side he has no plans no ambition no grand desires or thoughts or conflict waging within him this is now a character that has accepted a new place with what appears to be a great amount of serenity he only has one goal race's son to be better than he is unless the game is being misleading by not showing us some other secret life kratos had away from the cabin in the woods this is all there is to kratos in this game he must still live with the guilt he has from killing his wife and daughter but now he really is living with it instead of being tormented by it and spurred to vengeance he understands that anger is a weapon he can wield but has now tempered that with patience to serve as an example to his son even if that patience does slip sometimes what are you doing now his guard is up only fire holy fire when i tell you to fire he's the same kratos as before with a new chance at a family and the realization that revenge reclaimed nothing for him obviously he must have achieved some measure of peace to have loved atreus mother fae and to have another child at all but we don't get to see that his life with her is only teased at likely to be brought back briefly in a later game but unnecessary for now when it's all about this journey with atreus however that's only the character one character one part of this story how much of the rest is different from the previous games well absolutely everything like kratos himself being a foreigner to this land someone who played the first games will have to adjust and maybe reject all of these changes well except for maybe one thing which is a good place to push story aside for a bit and dive into gameplay this is going to be complicated because many of my gameplay comments are also relevant to the story since gameplay and narrative are well mixed in many sections of god of war for better and for worse as you can tell from the footage playing the new god of war has made some drastic changes from the previous games the camera is now close behind kratos the right analog stick controls both your view and turns kratos around there's little focus on chaining combos and your mobility is much lower i want to state something plainly right now different does not mean bad in almost every case the issue gets murky when speaking about sequels you can experience it for yourself right now by imagining your favorite series think of all the unique things about it that you love now imagine the next one is announced at e3 or whatever and it's a racing game it isn't a spin-off this is the next mainline entry and all of the developers time has been poured into it and hey it even looks pretty good but that's not what you expected out of that series and that unique experience which you consider only that developer capable of making is gone and just in case you're some psycho and your favorite series is a racing game imagine it turned into a jrpg instead about cars actually you might think that's awesome never mind about that spectacle fighters aren't exactly raining from the sky and god of war being changed from that to something else no matter how good it is will understandably put some fans off there's also the fear that success of this game may lead to other spectacle fighters making similar changes series fans have every right to be disappointed just as much as people who greatly prefer this new combat system have every right to be pleasantly surprised personally i think the new game has much better combat than god of war 1 and 2 and i only slightly prefer god of war 3s overall combat in the older games was about juggling a few things at once responding to the hordes of enemies around you your position within each fighting arena and trying to play as actively with your moveset as possible this last one adds a skill cap higher than most will reach in the game and that's half the point of it for me i'm more of a reactive player than a proactive one at least until i get comfortable with the game god of war 3 provided the most amount of tools to use within these three categories and also made weapon switching and ranged attacks much better integrated than before the key things to take away from this limited summary are outside of scripted events you usually have many options to deal with each situation you found yourself in and a wide view of the fighting arena at all times the new god of war has many options during combat as well it's a very good system it's almost great but the main difference outside of the obvious change of perspective is that it's mostly a reactive system at first this made it better for me since that's what i'm drawn toward i think many others are also the same but there's little room for experimentation once you get comfortable you cannot express yourself through these combat mechanics and the flashiest moves of all are scripted runic attacks that activate with one button press instead of capping off a combo the older games can also be played just fine in a reactive way you can dodge block and parry enemy moves and then counter-attack as much as you like however you can also venture into trying to string together new moves when you're ready between those moments the option to find more fun is always there the option to find more depth is always there the new game doesn't really have that let me explain a bit since i think i'm coming across as too negative right now god of war 2018 gives you several offensive and defensive options at any given time this is all fantastic light attacks heavy attacks dodges and blocks there are also modifiers within those types hold down the attack buttons for different attacks a quick step dodge and a slower roll if you dodge again quickly and timing your block in order to parry an attack you can also modify your attack buttons to either use runic attacks or enter aiming mode and throw your axe surprisingly aiming actually matters in this mode and you can hit vulnerable parts of enemies to activate a higher damage throw or you can freeze them in place when the axe is gone you can use your fists to fight which has their own moveset as well as another weapon to switch to later you can kick frozen enemies into walls to shatter them or into other enemies around you there's also a stacking buff on your weapon as a reward for landing many hits in a short time frame without receiving damage yourself and you can also get atreus to fire arrows and use his special ability there are some combos and you can even keep some enemies airborne for a while and make them question their life choices but after a short while it feels like you're using the same few attacks in the same few ways over and over on the same few enemies there is a spike in potential after you get the second weapon set but i know the game's perspective and mobility are limiting what the player can do here kratos moves too much like a guy with a turret for her head to feel flexible during fights against large groups of enemies it's not that those fights are ever bad it's just that they have problems and are never as good as the smaller fights especially when compared against the game's best bosses the game is at its peak when you have to use as many of your moves as possible in a way that begins to feel like a seamless dance and there are even moments during some of the best fights that reward experimentation like throwing your accent modi when he slung into the air or knocking a valkyrie out of a charged attack learning when to charge up a heavy attack of your own to break through a guard and being ready to chain a dodge out of an attack and into an immediate axe throw the game definitely does reach into greatness when you can get into this dance mode with all of its options comparatively when there's a horde around you it can be awkward to keep them all in your view you're heavily incentivized into using a runic attack that blasts a bunch of them away or often killing them outright and then fighting the smaller group the fire and forget nature of those runic attacks and how their cooldowns aren't all that long means that combat can often become the same routine at the start of every fight at a certain level against most enemies cycling through all four of your specials is enough to end battles before they begin this section i'm writing would read much differently if the game had better enemy variety but i also hope i wouldn't have been completely swayed by that ah it's the other kind more creative enemies would have gone a long way to keep things fresh especially if they required usage of more of kratos his abilities i think the challenges in moosefulheim go a long way to prove that having enemies that can only be killed with finishing moves or knocking them off ledges or can only be damaged when certain other enemies can be killed first these are simple ideas but they're enough to be a temporary fresh twist it's a shame that they couldn't be sprinkled throughout the whole game actually it's a double shame that the challenges have to all be gated off in another realm with all the loading time to get there a doom style altar system with the rooms being spread throughout the game here and there would have been much more fun with this realm being a place to visit if you want to try them again later nightmares also show a glimmer of creativity by possessing other enemies and powering them up something that i was expecting to see developed on as the game progressed but it sadly never happened the one thing that give me god of war mode does well is similar to this it makes enemies capable of leveling up in the middle of fights unless you stop them with a hit or an arrow from atreus it's a quick demand on your reactions in the middle of an otherwise normal fight and demonstrates how mundane the same enemies get over the course of the game as always more on that later like i said i hope i wouldn't have been entirely swayed by improvements in that department if i had played that version of the game because the combat system on kratos's end alone needs more it has the same problem that exploration does in this game it's so restrictive it's never so bad that you feel like you're wrestling with the camera or the movement system but it never feels like your friend either unless it's one of the dance tier duels i always wished i could move a bit freer see a bit more around me and [ __ ] jump in the air alright so i said that sooner than i expected because we haven't even spoken about moving around the game outside of combat yet but here we go there's a list of things i hope to see in god of war 2 2 and a jump button is at the top of it underneath that is some sort of air dash and in third places the camera panned out about 50 more than it is currently i don't want god of war 3's combat back i want this new system to get the improvements that it deserves a jump button adds everything this game needs it's a modifier on every other option that kratos has attacks become air attacks one can be a ground slam dash can move you farther in the air than on the ground and you could even land into a roll for even more movement on demand the aiming and throwing function could be different in the air maybe it could even default to being chains only so you could fling yourself while airborne and it can also open up the possibility for attacks that can only be avoided by jumping it adds something to all three of the most important areas offense defense and mobility as an added bonus that we will go into too much detail on later it's a great step toward fixing the game's exploration as well moving the camera back shouldn't be an issue for aiming throws because the game already zooms in sudden and tight on kratos head when that's activated it also works just fine in metal gear rising plus i'm 95 certain that the game sets enemies to a lower aggression mode when they're not in your field of view this was difficult to test by notice enemies would attack more often if they were in front of me and if they were behind me some of their time was spent shifting around trying to get into my view between their attacks while i do think the red circle warnings for attacks coming off camera work well and even make sense as kratos having a heightened awareness of the fight around him i would much rather be able to keep track of this myself and also not have enemies hold themselves back to cater to a limited camera i have many more criticisms but i want to be positive for a while so let me end this section of negativity with this i really enjoyed this game's combat system but there's no way in hell i'm going to enjoy the next game half as much if it only receives minimal changes unfortunately i'll be saying this a few times later on too because i really want to hammer this point home even with enemy variety double the combat system on kratos's side needs to be developed significantly a jump button isn't the only way an optional proactive system could also work different modes on weapons could be another answer but it has to be smoother to activate than the awkward pauses that are currently in the game forcing yourself to stop attacking until kratos switches stances may look cool but it's the game feel equivalent of waiting for everyone to get off the subway before you can get on in comparison to all that there are many things that are so well done that they deserve some gushing the leviathan axe is one of the coolest weapons i've had the joy of using in a game it's a simple concept executed extremely well from how quick the game is to respond to throws and how it comes rushing back to your hand it's a superpower that isn't absurdly strong but carries enough fantasy weight to it that it's immediately understood the details here are wonderful how the axe wiggles a bit before returning to you when it gets stuck into something how it turns back in an arc in the air if you call it back early instead of simply reversing direction the game also cheats in your favor by finding a return path through any nearby enemies for a little bit of cheeky damage this can lead to some really entertaining moments where you think oh [ __ ] i missed or did i and you get to feel like a badass that pulled off something clever even though the game was just doing it for you god of war is brimming with moments like these in its gameplay toying with an enemy by repeatedly juggling their face with the floor seeing and feeling the axe bounce off an enemy's head with an impact that staggers them then following that up with an attack that catches the axe and then slams it into the ground there are also quick animations that trigger when you land a charged heavy attack or a sprint into a rage kill when you exhaust an enemy stagger bar i can see these being a source of annoyance for some people but i enjoyed both watching these and using the short period of invincibility as a way to push damage during fights here are some more throwing your axe at trolls to interrupt their attacks harpooning nightmares and flinging them at other enemies 300 style punting draugrs off ledges pulling off a string of perfect parries weaving between both magne and modi to dominate both as they focus attacks on you seeing atreus combine his attacks with yours by jumping off your back and shooting his bow and the brutal slaying animations on the bigger enemies that never quite reach the ridiculous heights of the previous games but still act as a bloody exclamation point at the end of a fight my favorite was the first time i saw kratos rip off the wings of a valkyrie that one never got old although the same one with the trolls over and over did the visuals often work together with much of what the game excels at i think that something being visually interesting in a game is rarely as good as mechanically interesting but that doesn't mean those moments can't shine through contrast or being accepted for what they are once you understand that the dragon fight is the best example at first i didn't like this fight at all i played the game all the way through three times first on hard then normal and then on give me god of war and i enjoyed this boss much more on the later runs i do wish that the game had more bosses so something that's pure spectacle doesn't take up such a large portion of boss content but even acknowledging that the scale and visual feast of this encounter are enjoyable i wish i could say the same thing for the final fight in the game this is when the new god of war brushes closest with the old one and has an enormous titan-like entity involved in a sweeping battle that part of it is fine but i think this goes to show you how the mechanics still matter the dragon fight while basic was still something new whereas this last fight on the gameplay side is a rematch with the first boss he has a few new moves and demands that you switch weapons when he switches forms but it's mostly the same and a disappointing conclusion a source of that disappointment may also come from how good the first encounter is with balder and how excellent the opening of the game is overall it's one of a handful of parts that deserves a close inspection this video has a spoiler warning early on and i have mentioned some details already but i do like to give a second warning later maybe you've been convinced to play the game yourself so this is your second chance to stop it's also the reason why i delayed showing the other weapon set for as long as possible i have no idea how well this opening functions if you haven't played the first games i suppose even passing knowledge of the series how kratos is a bloodthirsty monster is enough to add context to how unexpected this opening really is but i'm curious to know how people who truly knew nothing about this character reacted to this somber opening maybe it's something that works on two levels surprise and intrigue if you do and viewing kratos through the same lens as atreus if you don't i like that actually there's a part in the opening that also reinforces this you stay with kratos at first you see how strong he is and how he channels a bit of rage to chop down this tree you're shown the axe that this character is stronger than your average bear and learn that this father and son are in mourning if you're like me you'll also wonder why they chopped down this specific tree instead of one that was much closer to their home which comes back later and actually has an answer see how good it is when games do that at the cabin we get one of the few moments in the entire game where the cameraman breaks away from kratos and follows another character this is something that everyone playing god of war will notice as they go through it even if it's only subconsciously apart from opening the menu restarting after death and a rare few teleport transitions the entire game is one long continuous shot from start to finish there's also a camera bob like there's a third perhaps lack a t-shaped being filming it all that no one else can see this choice brings with it some positives and negatives for now in this scene it's mostly positive atreus says a prayer over the corpse of his mother and we get to the part that i was speaking about when we see kratos the same way that atreus does a dark imposing unfathomable figure there's not much of a bond here and i wonder if this image is enough to communicate to newcomers that atreus father isn't just really strong but also carries darkness with him after this is the introduction to gameplay which we will mostly skip over for now basic mechanics are introduced there are some messages that teach you how to fight you learn how to move around the world and there's a boss battle with a troll the whole section is a test for the boy to see if he's ready to carry his mother's ashes to the highest peak in the realms which was her dying wish there are some important story details here however that kratos is stern with his commands seemingly unreasonably so i'm sorry do not be sorry be better that atreus is capable but lacks discipline and that kratos wants to have a better connection with his son but is unable to for some reason that we don't know at the moment i will say that i find it unbelievable that kratos has been so absent from matress's life it's clear that faye raised him practically on her own and that kratos was often away hunting there are reasons that make sense and also come up later for kratos to want to stay away but these two feel like downright strangers at the beginning of this game and i think that's too extreme they must have interacted more regularly before this than the game suggests anyway after returning home kratos demonstrates a second time that atreus is not ready for the journey ahead and needs more training his plot cough is also introduced as an undefined illness that hasn't presented itself in years the two are then interrupted by the arrival of the stranger and so begins one of the best scenes i've played in a game in quite some time amazingly there's an even better one in this game later what makes this scene special is that it works on many different levels depending on how much information you have if you know nothing about the games then you're likely going to go through a series of surprises as things escalate and escalate that troll earlier that was a fake out this is the real first boss and holy [ __ ] does it ramp up quickly if you've played the first games and you will have a tense giddiness as you wonder how long it'll be before the stranger realizes what a horrible mistake he's made by picking on big daddy kratos the stranger's words also make sense to you and here i thought your kind was supposed to be so enlightened so much better than us so much smarter he is of course talking about a fancy greek god with a reputation for slaughter then you also get a surprise when it turns out the stranger is a god as well and can put up a fight against our kratos then there's the third layer when you replay the game after beating it or you just remember after progressing enough for the big reveals near the end the stranger isn't talking about kratos his origins or his past murders he's actually mistaken kratos for a giant since that's what fey was and her ashes are what's brought him here for a confrontation the tree we chopped down earlier was the last of a set that had a shielding effect on the forest the norse gods can now sense the giant's presence and this guy balder is the one that's come first to get any important information they can out of him he thinks kratos is a giant because he's carrying shay's ashes and has no idea who he's really dealing with there's also another cool detail in the scene that is easier to miss your second time through kratos takes quite the beating in this fight the two gods have a princess bride style back and forth as they take turns revealing power levels as they smash each other through trees rocks and even an entire mountainside in my opinion this fight is stronger than the one at the end of the game because it's visually impressive while also being somewhat mechanically engaging early on it's not stellar in that regard but the game is just starting so i think it's enough but that's not the cool detail i want to speak about kratos hides atreus in a compartment underneath the house before this fight begins later on you learn this is the same place he stashed his old weapons he may still bear the bloodied scarred marks of wielding them and the wound seems supernatural to continue bleeding forever but at the onset of the game the blades are nowhere to be seen and yet they were right here the whole time as kratos is getting beaten and blasted around he still thinks he doesn't need them there was always at least one level of powering up that he was holding back throughout this whole encounter a fact that carries weight when the game slows you down and makes you feel how exhausted he is when this battle is finally over kratos knew his life was in danger but it's not until atreus is close to dying much later that he resorts to using the blades this scene is engaging on multiple levels and continues to entertain with deeper meanings on second play theories without feeling contrived it deserves every bit of praise it has received and i applaud everything about it prove me wrong yes sir it's a shame they couldn't stick the ending though after this is another section of exploring fighting and the occasional conversation with atreus you leave the area by climbing through the rift that was opened during the fight with balder remember this it's very important and we'll come back to it later how did this happen aside from broken mechanics the only thing i can call bad in this game is its pacing in both story and gameplay and one awful section about two-thirds of the way through the game right now that's not a problem as new things are being introduced at a good rate new enemies new moves new characters and development with atreus but that doesn't mean other lesser problems aren't already rearing their serpenty heads moving through the levels in god of war is one of the most disappointing things about it this can be taken in many ways and we'll likely get to all of them in this video what i want to speak about specifically right now is how you have little freedom in getting around i hope the reason this was chosen was a mix of the more restricted combat and to improve performance for the game's impressive visuals i hope the reason wasn't so they could have these find the urn puzzles scattered around since they knew the line of sight of players was limited to certain areas that would be a terrible reason i wouldn't think it was a possibility at all if it weren't for blizzard taking away flight for a whole world of warcraft expansion just to put their stupid jumping puzzles all over the world sometimes developers can make strange decisions like this some games can get away with limiting player freedom but they usually have to put in more effort into making it tolerable than god of war does the game is like a stone of integrity that earns a new crack every time it looks like i should be able to climb something but i can't or that i should be able to make a jump but there's no prompt or that it refuses to let me fall off an opening when the stone breaks you stop viewing the environments as actual places that you're moving through and instead see them for what they really are a bunch of shaped floors and corridors linked together in simple ways that are disguised as much as possible by the visuals this may seem nitpicky but it really isn't in fact most of my nitpicks for this game will come much later it's a major issue when you no longer feel like you're exploring and are instead just trudging forward to the next fight the next boss or the next story moment it's like the layer of hit detection is beginning to take on visible lines that you can't ignore all over the environment around you take this example from early on in the game you're crossing this bridge and notice a chest down below how do you get to it there seems to be some potential openings but they don't let you pass if kratos could move in a reasonable way like he could jump or vault over obstacles he could get down to this no problem but instead you quickly learn that you have to figure out what the game wants from you instead of rationally deciding on a path like a normal person what makes this instance worse is that you have to make a leap of faith and continue on hoping the game will allow you to get there later and that you can't find the opening yet this is doubly bad because sometimes you can pass over points of no return and lose your chance to explore something until you come back later which is a whole other chore of an issue considering how tedious it is to get around god of war's world this lack of freedom in movement leads to players searching visually around instead of trying to move around you explore with your eyes not your feet this is fundamentally less interesting in my opinion there's also so much goddamn padding that's added by not allowing you more free or movement you can only hop down some ledges by walking off them others you need to get close hit a button and then watch an animation that takes away your control there are paths and jumps you should be able to make but instead of trying something out you're walking through the area looking for the button prompt and why the [ __ ] is kicking down a chain as a shortcut to an earlier part of the level always always make kratos start to climb down it and force you to hold up to climb off again if you didn't want to go down right now these shortcuts are meant to be unlocked to connect areas and it makes perfect sense to use them right away even if you don't want to go back to the previous area right now i try not to say this sort of thing often because it usually comes across as disrespectful but how on earth did this make it into the release version of the game kratos is capable of jumping he's also quite the accomplished climber and i don't mean this from the previous games i mean in this one look at the advanced level [ __ ] he is doing on screen right now and then explain to me why he can't climb up this wall of boards to the top instead you have to send atreus up there then move the platform then go all the way back down and then jump across a gap to kick down a chain that atreus could have already done for you if he wasn't occasionally demoted to a brain dead zombie child when the exploration demands it i understand that a deep exploration system wasn't a priority for this game i also understand that the freedom found in something like breath of the wild isn't a reasonable expectation but games like uncharted and the new tomb raider titles do a better job at catering to exploring allowing players to experiment with different moves while still restricting them within the boundaries of their levels like god of war does it could be acceptable if the game decided to go below that standard and focus on visuals and combat instead but forcing you to solve problems because of arbitrary limitations like kratos refuses to jump over a pit for absolutely no reason other than it wasn't scripted so go figure out what the game wants is never going to be a positive this even negatively impacts combat when there's a short jump in an arena that could be interesting to incorporate into fighting but kratos refuses to jump over it or that you can't roll through gaps like this or that you can't quickly move between high ground and low ground for some advantages against certain enemies i think it says a lot that the sequence at the end of this early area right before you meet the witch in the woods has you trailing atreus as he chases a boar through a tight chasm and it doesn't feel much different in terms of how funneled or restricted you are than most of the game it's in this section that we are introduced to a central character and a central problem in its story or rather how the story is presented you follow some simple instructions in the form of button prompts on the screen as the witch attempts to heal the boar you cannot proceed until you do this but hilariously you also can't fail no matter how many times you mess it up the boar continues to live and the witch repeats her orders please keep a steady grip grab and hold the left end of the tideway father please i have no idea who this type of thing is for especially considering what the rest of the game demands on you in terms of combat i don't feel more connected to what's happening if anything i wish i could just put the controller down if there isn't going to be any meaningful interaction same goes for what happens next and it's this that is the much larger issue for all intents and purposes this is now a movie you hold forward to follow the witch and atreus you have some dialogue to listen to and some great visuals you can't go anywhere else you must follow and this would be acceptable to me except that you can't skip it because it's not a cinematic you can't pause and skip ahead but even when the game is in more traditional movie mode you still can't skip and because of the game's commitment to having one continuous shot with the camera throughout the whole game it can't cut away and have the scene jump forward past the boring stuff either this happens many times throughout god of war 2018. now i'm sure there must be some way for games to recognize when they're in these scenes and still allow a skip function to exist in fact i'm near certain i've played a game with that ability but i sadly can't remember it and just to prove i'm not picking on just god of war here it also drives me bananas when i go back and replay half-life 2. as much as i admire the commitment to do something interesting with the game's camera it wasn't worth having to sit through all these moments and as beautiful as the game is on later playthroughs i will always want to skip to the more interesting story parts and the next gameplay section instead of just watching this play out again dear all the developers who will never watch this video because who the [ __ ] am i really please do not put unskippable cinematics in your game i am very sad this is still happening as i was making this video a patch was announced that is adding a skip feature i have no idea how robust that option will be or if it will include some of the walking and climbing moments but any step toward fixing this problem is welcome and i thought it was important to add this to the video and acknowledge that the patch is coming that's going to add that functionality as for the story this scene with the witch isn't bad again i wish i could experience this game knowing nothing about the others since i'm guessing her reveal that kratos is a god could spike people's interest if they didn't already know that i know you're a god there's a little bit of bonding with atreus here and a bunch of setup for more story later but the most memorable thing about this part for me is the frankly jarring introduction to the waypoint system and how the witch shouts her explanation through the door after you leave it's so out of place and weird just just listen to it this underground passage should put you back on your path to the mountain just use the boat wait and take this you can use it to orient yourself and navigate the world after this you go through a cave system underneath the witch's home and take a boat out to the lake of the nine you meet the world serpent who is surprisingly friendly and are left floating in the main hub of the game after the serpent shifts enough of its body to lower the water level in the area so let's return to exploration for a bit and maybe this new part of the game will better illustrate why it's so disappointing it takes so damn long just to get around in this game row row row your boat dock the boat get out of the boat hit the elevator switch ride the elevator walk around go back on the elevator go back in the boat you always feel like you're stuck to the surface of every plane like you're magnetically attached to it however this whole area is so [ __ ] cool i love the setting the giant temple the sunken sections of islands that have to be revealed and how later on in the game the water level lowers a second time to reveal even more of it it must have taken a lot of work to match all of this up just right and have parts that you saw earlier take on a new meaning the second time now that more water has lowered it's a shame that it takes so long to get around because it means that it's way more efficient to wait for that second lowering of the water before exploring but the change is also so significant and interesting and how things all fit together that i wasn't annoyed when i had to do it all again if odyssey's worlds went through big changes like this i would have been positive about returning to them for more moons later yet this has the same issues as every other area you can't jump or climb unless the game lets you there are all of these tiny slowdowns all over the place like the game is a buffering video as you try to play it the level design on display here especially considering that most of it is optional is impressive on many levels and it deserves a much better movement system than the game got also i am aware that the game builds many of its areas around this limited movement system and that more would have to change if kratos could move around more freely the issue isn't a simple one to solve but that doesn't negate that the game is worse off with its current system unfortunately i'm not done because this is where the game opens up enough that a whole other problem is unveiled like it was also lurking in the water with the world serpent exploration is also tied to rewards most of them are stat increases in the form of crafting materials that can be turned into new equipment or more straightforward upgrades when you find whole pieces of gear or enchantments this is also a good time to point out that the game has an experience system but this is not used to level up kratos instead the points are spent on unlocking new abilities and enhancing old moves both for kratos and atreus i am neutral about this unlock system on the one hand i think the game could have been better paced by having many of these available right from the beginning and more creative options that come later but on the other hand i enjoy that many of these aren't just stat increases you're getting new tools to play with as the game goes on even if many of them aren't that interesting i'd like to quickly go back to my list of hopes for the sequel and say that it will be beyond disappointing if all of these moves are taken away at the beginning of the next installment and have to be earned again please use this full tree as the baseline and build on it with new stuff or even better revamp the system to have many more options and justify a new tree from scratch please don't have thor show up break the leviathan axe leave kratos half dead and make the player regain all of this power you have struck gold with this combat system and there is platinum only a little deeper down if you keep digging keep your expectations low boy and you will never be disappointed that's only on the experience side of things the equipment on the other hand is a lot more complicated and is even more confusing because kratos's level is tied to that equipment yeah it's not tied to experience points it's tied to gear and not the stat points on gear either those don't matter the level of the gear itself is what decides it all leveling systems are not inherently bad neither are increases in power i can point to three in this game that i enjoyed very much the i done apples or yethun apples i'm not sure exactly how they're pronounced horns of blood mead and the drops of the world tree these lead to increases that are permanent immediately understandable and are not ever required for progressing through the game it's also one of the rare times that a lack of a decision can be a positive there's no slowing down to consider how to spend your resources or fretting over what's the most efficient use of materials it's just boom pick it up you got an upgrade meanwhile any stat system requires time to learn and is going to get in the way of playing the game unless you're the type of person that considers it playing the game i've said this before and i'll unfortunately have to say it again many many times after this names for stats don't always mean the same things across games within the same genre health can be called just that or hp or vigor or even stamina in some games there's no standard and it will always slow you down i don't like it in god of war i don't like it in dark dar neo i am far more accepting of it in a pure rpg that has character building but god of war is an action game even then i would tolerate it as long as it doesn't get in the way of the player progressing unfortunately here's where things get specific if you explore enough of the lake of the 9 on your first visit you will find one of many rift tares in the game these are more difficult fights that would have been perfect places to put the fun moosefulheim challenges but never mind about that my first time here i opened a rift and was immediately rumbled by enemies much higher in level than me this can be signaled to you by both the level number the color of their health bar and a skull next to their names these enemies were so much higher in level than i was that they would kill me in one hit naturally this made me curious to find out how damage is calculated if you've watched all of my videos you are now thinking oh no please don't say it's like breath of the wild again it's like breath of the wild again sort of it's not as bad though my test subjects this time were two revenants that spawn from a rift near the central temple i experimented on them on all of the difficulty settings crafted many sets of armor with different stats and came to a few disheartening conclusions in the interest of fairness i want to state up front that stat numbers were difficult to control in a precise way gear with specific stats isn't easy to get and therefore i'm going to go into rougher numbers than i'd like it doesn't influence the results too much though first off the threshold for being one shot by an enemy seems to be four levels below it even on the easiest setting no matter how much health and defense i could get at that level it would kill me in one hit it may be possible that an extremely high defense rating could tank it but you run into an issue since higher stats come on gear with higher level tags this will increase the average of your gear and will push you over another level which prevents the enemy from one shotting you i'm gonna take a guess that when you're below four levels from the enemy it just doubles the damage it deals so theoretically you should be able to survive if you could get high enough stats but that's probably not possible this confused me at first since i would barely increase my defense and try to take a hit survive with a lot of health now and then i finally realized it was because my level was higher and i was no longer so low the enemy would instantly kill me the defense rating was secondary to that i proved this by having the exact same health and defense rating at level 3 and level 4. at level 3 i died at level 4 after adding gear that had stats that had nothing to do with health and defense i lived once you're within that goldilocks zone defense is then used through a rough subtraction system to reduce incoming damage i say rough because it must be affected by difficulty modifiers or fractions somewhere going from 138 defense to 142 reduced the attack by 3 damage when i increased it again by another 4 to 146 it reduced it by 4 damage but a second hit at the same stats showed a 5 damage reduction from 4 defense so i'm guessing there's a break point or a fraction being carried over somewhere in these calculations between hits the way this system works means that stats can largely be ignored throughout the game level rating is all that matters so if you have something that's a higher level even if has lower stats you should put it on you want to put on the highest level gear and enchantments as possible because the reverse is also true for enemies in these clips i'm now level seven and these enemies are level three i'm the one that has the four level advantage and look they can barely hurt me same for this dragon's breath being irrelevant with enough gear when you start getting close to max level stats can matter a bit more but that's at the end of the game when you'll be able to comfortably stay in a good level range with all enemies or completely dominate them through level and stats alone the worst thing about this is that you will be unable to realistically get through some encounters without the right gear you can still skill your way through these fights but one mistake means you're dead and you'll be hacking away at them for a long time since each hit does so little damage however i do want to be fair and point out that because numbers are kept in a tight range and that low level enemies stop spawning later on in the game this subtraction system is functional it's not ideal but it's not game-breaking in the same way that it was in dragon's dogma and breath of the wild that does not excuse how dependent the game is on kratos level though this is flirting dangerously close to give me god of war criticisms and i'm not ready to get into that yet instead let's look at another problem with this system and another reason to favor higher levels over stats attack signals i think the way this works is mostly great a red circle means an attack cannot be blocked or parried and must be dodged a yellow circle means an attack can be parried and that if you simply block you'll be staggered and no prompt at all means that you can block parry or dodge and that there will be no stagger if you use your shield without parrying on the surface this may seem like a new version of a quicktime event but these prompts do not require the same timings across all enemies so there's still something to learn from the attacks on every enemy type they only exist to provide you with information on what your options are which is something i've previously found frustrating in other games sometimes the only way to find out if an attack can be parried or not is to die to it a bunch of times while having to guess if you're getting the timing right or if there is no timing to get right at all since it can't be parried and you're wasting your time so what's the problem then well even if you played the game you may not have noticed that these warnings are determined by your level even the valkyrie fights are affected by this if your level is high enough a red attack can become yellow and yellow attacks can become blank if you reach an enemy at a high enough level and then put on some lower gear because there's better stats or something then of course the opposite is also true and you could see yellow attacks become unparriable red ones this is how much gear matters in this game i don't like that i want to be the one who gets better and masters the game's combat not the character i am controlling by putting on better gear via crafting or grinding i understand if you disagree with me but i think this is the type of thing that could be solved quite easily with the difficulty option that removes these equipment dependencies not just in god of war but also many games like it as with most things there is a balance to making this work and it wasn't found here in my opinion continuing the game we begin to climb the mountain where faye wished her ashes to be scattered along the way we meet a dwarf named syndry who is the brother of another dwarf we met earlier named brock the blue one is your brother i didn't bring him up until now so i could introduce them together these two have disowned each other and provide much of the game's humor with their attitudes and the dueling blacksmith routine more on them later because like much of the game their story feeds into the main narrative after killing an ogre we reached the mountain proper and come to an impasse although i am certain there must be some other way up the mountain somewhere especially remembering those climbing skills that kratos has the game instead makes the witch appear and have her tell us we need to go back to the temple in the lake of the nine and use the power of the bifrost to travel to another realm retrieve the light of alpheim and use that to blast the black smoke away so we can move forward all that to cross a bridge this begins the trend of relatively simple problems having grandiose solutions it's also the beginning of the game's pacing problems we just came from the lake now we're immediately going back there after that errand we'll have to go back to the mountain sadly like i said this is just the beginning and it gets worse than this alpheim is overall a decent part of the game but it's also a section that i initially forget about whenever i think through my time with god of war that's probably because it has no true connection with the rest of the story and will likely become relevant in one of the following games i will say that it continues the trend that the game has had so far of introducing new enemy types and keeping that side of the experience fresh it's only after this that things begin to slow down and become stale likewise it also serves as a sharp change in visuals and setting and is quite beautiful it continues the development of both kratos and atreus while they're visiting but the place in the elves themselves don't really matter that much after a boss battle you return to midgard through the bifrost and travel all the way back to the mountain and very tediously clear the corruption blocking your path two separate times i don't know why they did this again who is this for i'm tempted to let this play in silence for the whole duration to make this point but i won't along with the protracted climbing sections i don't understand the goal here aside from padding i can see that maybe some of the climbing could look a bit interesting or provide an easier way to link some sections of levels together but much of it goes on for way too long this section here like many others in this game makes me wonder if the developers were afraid of having too short of a runtime which is ironic considering that if anything the game is too long i should note that there are some story beats that i'm skipping over for now to speak about later during this mountain climb you fight that dragon we spoke about earlier get gifted some fancy mistletoe arrows and a source of lightning magic from syndry and then reach the mountain's peak holding down the aiming button and getting atreus to fire arrows at things is now a common occurrence for some of the more puzzle-like parts of the game sometimes you'll need the elven magic sometimes you'll need the lightning i'm neutral about these and i don't think there's anything really interesting to say about them so i won't waste your time trying at the top of the mountain both the plot and world of god of war expands you find out that the stranger from the beginning of the game is the god balder and that he is hunting you with thor's sons magni and modi you also find out that he's still alive after you broke his neck earlier also that someone is imprisoned on the top of the mountain the self-proclaimed smartest man alive mimir he tells you that you've come to the wrong place if phay's ashes are meant to be scattered on the highest peak in all the realms because that's not in midgard but in jotunheim luckily there's a portal nearby that can take you there unluckily the rune to activate it is no longer able to be carved giant's fingers scraping the sky that's the highest peak in all the realms as an aside here i really enjoyed kratos's reaction to this that could not be what she meant and then his acceptance with the new goal in the face of his pleading son it's a great dad moment when he has no choice but to concede and say very well i will go along with this mimir is trapped on the mountain summit because of odin who has visited daily to torture him for 109 years mamir would prefer death than to continue going through it but settles for something in between when he makes a deal to help kratos anatreus they chop off his head and then you take it to the witch in the woods who freaks out when she sees the mistletoe arrows that treyas got from syndry earlier she calls them wicked in the traditional sense of the word not the 90s way burns them and then replaces them with her own an apology mimir's head is brought back to life and the final reveal of this section is brought to light the witch is also a god freyja odin's ex-wife hello friend been a long time you look well there are some comments here that i would like to make most of them are good but let's start with the bad the game is gracious enough to let you leave the mountain via the warp doors that are powered by the world tree unfortunately this is one of the worst fast travel systems i've seen in a game as much as i appreciate it when games contextualize game systems within the world whether that's how characters survive damage or even the incorporation of a death cycle within the story it can only stretch so far before it becomes a hindrance this is another issue made worse by the game's decision to have one continuous camera shot you can't have kratos plucked away and dumped somewhere through a load screen without breaking that so instead the game has you open a magical door wait for it to load sometimes so awkwardly that the game feels like it breaks and then enter another area as you move to an exit door i think most players will walk along these branches as if they're traveling faster between these doors but you don't have to move at all for this to work the exit door will appear right in front of you if you just stand still and wait it's just loading that's been disguised with visuals although if you try hard enough you can trigger loading that just shows up and pauses the game if you go in the wrong place at the wrong time the game has the characters speak during these scenes and we'll talk about that in just a second but as good as those conversations can be this is a terrible system it seems undeniable to me that a simple teleport and load screen would be faster than this since the game has to first load this limbo area and then the final destination instead of just moving you from one place to another moving between realms is even worse and takes so much time teleporting from wherever you are to the temple going through that waiting time then going to the bifrost terminal activating that and waiting then finally traveling within the realm to where you want to go i'm sorry to harp on about this but the game is teeming with time wasters and i think it's important to address them all so they're hopefully not in the next game now what the [ __ ] else you want huh now for some positive stuff we've seen enough of the characters to finally speak in depth about the story's main theme family almost everything in this game is about that which surprised me i was expecting this to be a tale of redemption for kratos and while that might work in some parts i don't see it overall while i do see remorse in kratos i do not see someone who is actively working to make amends and make the world around him better to undo the destruction he caused earlier in his life god of war is about family an important realization that most will make early on is that kratos is not disappointed that his son is nothing like him initially this seems clear the boy is a bit of a screw-up he isn't as fast or strong or disciplined as kratos would like atreus even has a line that says this outright i know i'm not what you wanted this is what i meant when i said earlier that the story provides reasons for why kratos has tried to keep his distance from atreus even though the scene in alfheim shows how dear fae was to his heart he doesn't see much of himself in his son you think i'm weak because i'm not like you but this couldn't be further from the truth kratos is afraid that atreus is too much like him not too little his lessons of discipline are not to teach him to be more like himself in the previous games kratos lacks much of what he preaches in this new one his lessons are to make atreus better than him not the same as him and you must be better than me atreus has the blood of a god within him every god seems to have their own special superpowers and kratos incredible strength regeneration and weaponized rage atreus is shown a few times in this game to have inherited that same power along with a few that haven't presented themselves yet and no small amount of the arrogance that kratos has extinguished within himself we'll soon see how deeply atreus really is riddled with that my guess is that kratos did not want to have more children that fey was a surprise that charmed him out of his life of exile and that atreus was born without much still liberation the ending supports this at least atreus is not kratos's grand plan to make amends for his past actions he was content to stay mostly away and let faye be the greatest influence on him and now he's been forced to take over because she's dead you have to remember and if you forgot the game will remind you that kratos killed his own father there's actually a really awkward curb your enthusiasm to your moment in a side quest when this is brought up he killed his own father [Music] kratos does not want to repeat that ultimate failure and make an enemy out of his own child but he also doesn't want to unleash another monster like himself on the world once you realize this and also accept that his methodology may sometimes be too blunt and flawed every interaction they have makes sense his reluctance to get too close his insistence on being practical and in line with his spartan upbringing instead of more compassionate and his really stupid stories had even taught discipline instead he might have lived longer kratos has devoted himself entirely to this goal as i said earlier unless the game is being dishonest and keeping some great secret there is literally nothing else that kratos has to the point that he would rather die than reveal his monstrous past out of fear of what example that would set for atreus this is why i said kratos is still a bit on the simple side but that his character also shows more depth because it's interesting that while many of his actions make sense he also confronts during this journey that he might be wrong he has to tell his son the truth he has to be more compassionate and open and it's still debatable and remains to be seen in the next games if this was the right decision i also think we will be seeing kratos learn that his single-minded devotion is also a flaw and that there is more he could be doing for his son himself and the world he now inhabits there is a dead part of him that begins to squirm back to life throughout the course of this game and i think that's going to be explored in the next ones this is not the best main story in a game it gives you some things to observe and then chew on but it's still mostly straightforward the presentation and setting and the history of the series contributes much to how successful it is but what i liked by far the most was how it's reinforced through the side content and supporting characters there's the rift between freya and her son balder the resentment separating syndry and brock the rivalry of magni and modi for the approval of their father thor mamir tells so many stories about the family that is the gods and their squabbles the side quests also either involve a dispute within a family or offer an opportunity for kratos and atreus to speak to each other usually it's atreus that learns something but sometimes it's kratos god of war is in a world of broken families where kratos is desperately trying to keep petraeus with him in the wake of his mother's death and this should all end up being really cheesy like the thief who stabbed his father in the back or the ghost that wants you to pull down a statue of thor to avenge his family or another ghost that wants you to gather the corpse of someone and promises you a chance to speak to faith spirit at the end but what sets it apart is the quality of the writing the conversations kratos and trace have during these side quests is never like a formal sit down with a warm script to follow and all smiles like you know i think i learned something today instead they're the moments when atreus shows some maturity and preemptively tells his father that he understands something and that he should know because he gets mad at him sometimes too which triggers kratos into a surprising moment of insecurity and has him demanding what times atreus gets frustrated with him and the roles of father and son are momentarily reversed just imagine the kratos from the first three god of war is getting insecure about anything when are you angry what with me when or when the two put the souls of a group of soldiers to rest and kratos shows compassion to the spirit of their leader revealing some of his past to atreus and demonstrating that leadership is far more complex and difficult than it may first appear these side quests may not be that rewarding in terms of gameplay but i was shocked by how naturally they feed into the main story and support that narrative it feels more like they're optional parts or optional extensions of the main plot instead of being filler stuff to do it makes so much sense for games to do this sort of thing with side content but they so rarely do that's not to say that all of the side content is at this level but i say most of it is just like not all of kratos and mimir's tales feed into the story but most of them do mimir is my favorite character in the game and i hope that he survives to continue waffling on in the next one and the one after that it's another example of how strong the writing is in god of war and that i didn't mind some of the slow traveling parts my first time through since i could listen to them talk there were a surprisingly high amount of these conversations and more that can be unlocked by finding lore objects in the world look it's the world serpent these conversations can also be paused when you reach the dock and resumed later when you get back to the boat but i preferred to listen to them from start to finish mimir stories can help show how different this version of norse mythology is from say neil gaiman's book which i read after finishing the game but i also recommend boating around the lake early on before you get mimir so you can hear kratos's terrible stories that are thinly veiled life lessons for the boy they end with either blunt disaster or an explanation at how easily it could have been avoided or an even more blunt ending with characters making the strong practical choice at the cost of the story being boring they show just how much some of his parenting choices are flawed and it's also really great because it works on both levels these are entertaining and funny and they're showing some bits about this character and the interaction between him and atreus it was deep and once inside they would not be able to escape if the water dried up again wisely they moved on that's it yes hearing these also gives a bit at the end when kratos finally tells a good story a bit more of a punch kratos is angry when he learns that freya is a god for reasons that should be understandable if you played the first games i'm surprised he doesn't wipe away the protective mark that she gave him on their last visit after this reveal but maybe he figures it's caused no harm so far or maybe he's just forgotten about it as you've seen from the footage playing mimir becomes a dangling head companion and serves really well as a commentator for the rest of the game it feels much more fresh and immediate than a radio buddy calling in all the time to chat your first stop with him is to see the world serpent which plays out like that scene in finding nemo when dory tries to talk to wales i thought this was pretty funny yorman gander continues being a bro and gives you the necessary information required to proceed he also eats a nearby statue of thor because he hates the guy so much come ragnarok these two are destined to fight and kill each other maybe the next section begins an increase in quality and marks the beginning of my favorite part of the game which culminates in the best scene in god of war and one of the best scenes in any game i've ever played it's unfortunately followed by a sharp drop in quality that's made all the worse by how good the game is right before that we'll get to both of those parts shortly but now is a good time to do the opposite of nitpicking there are a bunch of cool small details in this game that deserve some attention and credit so crit picking a critics picked out good moments the reason why this is a good place to start this list is that effort went into timing mimir's introductory speech here so it lines up with the giant's corpse appearing on the horizon just as he begins speaking about it and what happened next you'll see this may have been a happy accident and you can ruin it if you decide to pause on the boat but i think this was intentional for how well it lines up that corpse also reacts to the axe in a couple of neat ways the first is that the developers took the time to make the skin have a soft squish and gentler impact when the axe is thrown at it and for the eyes to have a noisier crunchier impact because they're frozen solid someone cared enough to do this and i care enough to point it out because i thought it was really cool earlier in the game in alpheim there's a part where dark elf will burst from the wall and grab atreus this interrupts a conversation he was having with kratos if you know this is coming your second time through you can stop and let them finish and it actually has an ending meaning this dark elf really does interrupt the conversation they were having similarly i love how much is shown about kratos feelings when he doesn't hesitate to lodge his whole arm in the ogre's mouth to save atreus from being mauled back on the mountain there's quite a bit of this stuff in the game that's really impressive if you do things out of order the game often has an alternative line that acknowledges it later on there's a clue and a temple that you can read to help solve a puzzle if you miss it solve the puzzle first and then read the clue mimir quips that you didn't need the help a timely hint for something we figured out yourselves if you don't open lore objects before getting mimir you can take him to them and he'll have extra lines and insight there's an upgrade you can find that helps when fighting valkyries if you find it after defeating them all a line plays saying that it's too bad that you didn't have it before i knew the game was going to be something special when it came to details right from the beginning when kratos carries face corpse out of the house he turns so the body is passed through the door at an angle without colliding with the frame in most other games that would have clipped right through not in god of war your weapons become slightly more ornate and fancy as they are upgraded throughout the game the difference between the first and final versions is quite dramatic but each step up is subtle enough that you might not notice until later my favorite detail like this was when you return to the mountain later with mimir and he warns you about signs of a dragon in the area not knowing that you've already killed it in most games the writers wouldn't even think of that the dragon is dead therefore no more reason to think about it or bring it up it shows how much thought went into viewing each scene from the perspective of each character and thinking how they would react not only that but it creates a funny moment out of something that makes sense that god of war is exceptional among games for doing this not only shows how much praise it deserves but also how bad the writing is in most other games it's not perfect when it comes to these things and we'll have a counter nitpick section later that will prove that but there were many times the game shocked me by being prepared for something i did out of order or in an unconventional way i as an augur she was unsurpassed i enjoyed this section with the giant because it was visually captivating while also introducing new enemy types an interesting if underexplored set piece with time manipulation on a platform and concludes with the second best boss fight in the game the execution is true to the concept a giant died and crushed a settlement when it fell creating a winding trail that you follow between both the corpse and the ruins of the village this place does have perhaps the worst defender in the game for are you seriously telling me kratos can't climb that but the rest of it is more reasonable while being cool to watch the traveler enemy type is also one of the best in the game and feels closer to a mini boss than the ogres you fight they immediately demand your attention and can cut you down quickly if you don't respect their attacks they require more reactive play but we already spoke about that in detail earlier they are still a good example of that though the fight against magni and modi is the opposite it's a mix of reactive and proactive combat that shows you just how good god of war currently is and how good it could be if it took this encounter as a foundation to build on i want to be clear when i say this because sometimes people think i have a giant bias for difficulty i'm not talking about challenge this fight is one of the more difficult ones and while i enjoyed that it isn't what i mean here especially since the majority of it can turn into a two on one thor's sons can and will attack you relentlessly but there are also plenty of opportunities to break them out of their combos and switch from defense to offense i said it earlier in the video and it's worth repeating learning that there are moments where a well-timed runic move or an axe throw can interrupt the big attack in a battle is wonderful and if the series is going to remain mostly in a reactive system in the sequels i hope they embrace this type of thing and try to do it more there is something satisfying about getting in the zone with a long reactive battle though fending off this assault by both of these gods hits it really well seagroon the game's best boss is more committed to that idea especially on give me god of war mode there is definitely value in having a challenging series of tests to respond to attacks in the correct way over a long battle going from failure to complete domination by the end however what magni modi proves for me is that there is room to deepen this system even if it stays mostly reactive having to think more about what series of attacks you do in the short time you have after countering a boss is something worth thinking about there are many possibilities please explore them for the next game i know that so many reviewers raved about everything but please do not take that as a reason to not develop what you have here i'm sorry to keep going on about it the jump between god of war one and two wasn't enough a similar baby step in the next game won't be sufficient here either i think there is something so special here please don't miss it to show how dull this could end up being you need look no further than the worst part of this fight we're currently on while cooling concept these breaks in the fight when you have to block the right place are glorified quick time events and feel only one step above that part we had earlier when you held down buttons to help freya heal the boar which makes sense because they're both boring even viewed as a breather or as a way to raise the tension by having the gods taunt you this doesn't quite succeed they go on for too long battles need options this fight ends with kratos killing magni modi seems shaken that this could be possible and then flees atreus in response to how much the gods taunted him during the battle becomes unraged and then stricken with his plot cough kratos is of course troubled but the sickness passes quickly next you get part of the dead giant's chisel which can act as a key to open many sealed doors throughout the world as long as you know the room to open them you may have already encountered a few of these while exploring one nearby leads to an optional boss fight against the valkyrie and having such a good boss fight so quickly after magni and modi is one of the reasons that this section sticks out so well in my memory however it may not be really fair to weigh that so heavily since you can skip this you're probably meant to as well unless you've been fanatical about keeping your gear updated the main path takes you back to tyr's temple in the lake of the nine you know i think at best we just end it there actually i think i've made it clear how much i enjoyed the previous section of god of war so you should understand that i am not exaggerating when i say this next part is now among my favorite moments in any game because it's that much better the first half of this game is like a slowest scent that's been building to this moment there's a churning jar of tension or lightning in a bottle that's about to burst kratos and atreus are fugitives in the norse realm so far they've managed to stay relatively low key and have only private personal business to attend to that norse god should have no quarrel with yet we know the reputation of the gods freya's story mimir story and the other tales he will recite about odin's meddling and thor's wrath kratos just killed one of thor's sons mimir says this in warning this will not go over well in asgard i defended us nothing more i fear no judgment judgment no that a vengeance is any concern modi comes back for revenge after we arrive at tyra's temple note that tying into the theme of dysfunctional families he's more upset that his reputation will take a hit than he is about his brother being dead this is shown even more clearly when thor thrashes him when he reports the news atreus disappoints his father by succumbing to anger instead of remaining disciplined he even attempts his own version of baby's first spartan rage here and then big daddy kratos shows him how it's really done and sends modi scrambling back home to asgard kratos allows this and doesn't push the fight because atreus looks to be near death on the floor his plot cough has come back with a vengeance what follows is the unraveling of kratos's life and the world seemingly reveling in that he has no choice but to take atreus to freyja for help a storm is beginning to rage while you row the boat and my second favorite scene in the game happens right here not in some epic battle not with some beautiful mythical backdrop but in a dark grimy elevator while kratos is breathing deeply in anxiety close to hyperventilating and then begins to pace look everyone that's playing at this point knows that atreus won't die here there's too much that's been set up and hasn't been explored yet however this tension that you feel along with kratos during the scene is still real because there is so much else going on it's perfectly punctuated by someone blowing the horn and calling the world serpent as you ascend the world is waking up around you you are not the only active agents in this realm anymore forces are gathering you have attracted attention there are going to be consequences and so a scene that is normally terrible where a character is close to dead but everyone knows won't actually die manages to still have power and a lot of power at that kratos for the first time in presumably decades just killed a god his son is now dying in his arms his past is swirling back to the present and who knows what kind of response is being mustered as he's stuck on this elevator waiting for it to rise and what's waiting at the top another god something he has the deepest reasons to never go to for help but he has no choice faye just died her ashes are still warm and here's kratos already back in a new version of his torment with atreyus's illness being his fault the desperation in his voice is perfect in this scene and this isn't even the best part despite the rough goodbye they had last time freyja is eager to help petraeus she explains that to bring him back from the brink of death she will need something from helheim she warns that kratos cannot survive the trip and that he will need something to fight the cold if he is to have any chance that his acts will be useless in response kratos says this then i must return home many different things come together in the next scene of course if you don't care about the story it will be boring no matter what for me even acknowledging the problems the game has within active downtime this was the only part in the game that a drawn out travel section worked because you steep in thought along with kratos he is reflecting on everything that has just happened digesting that he's choosing to do what he's about to do the state of the world continues to deepen towards stormy chaos whether this is brought about by the gods reacting to magni's death or the realm responding to atreus being near death isn't clear it could also be caused by athena perfectly personifying kratos's past returning when she appears on the boat get out of my head i think that athena really is here or at least even if kratos is the only one that can see her that it isn't just a figment of his torment some projection or malady of athena is presenting itself this isn't a delusion like everything about this part it works on multiple levels freya's mother's promise will be relevant later because in the game we don't know that she's the mother of balder yet this boat ride not only provides time for reflection but also shows how close the gods have been this whole time while kratos has been with fey and atreus one was always a short trip upstream they have docks linked on the same river and athena's appearance will mean different things for those who have played the older games and those who have not my favorite part of all is that this huge narrative moment is also reinforced through gameplay that may be a poor choice of words though because it implies the gameplay is secondary to serving the narrative more accurately both are feeding into each other and it's for that reason that this gets pushed up to one of my favorite moments in all of gaming it starts when you get off the boat and are attacked by hellwalkers at first this may seem out of place almost like a bit of forced combat to appease people who may need some fighting after the boat ride but the intent becomes clear after you enter the house we'll get to the story side of this in just a second for now recall how the game has played for many hours until this point the axe is a fun weapon but is limited in a specific way it is primarily for single targets there are some skills that increase its ability to hit more than one enemy but its potential for sweeping and cleaving over a wide area is limited it also isn't effective against hell walkers with some of them being outright immune to the cold damage it inflicts you're put into a restricted position and you have to use your fists just like this moment before you get into the house now suddenly you have the blades if you've played the older games then despite the change in perspective you will feel immediately comfortable with them many of the combos are gone but the same rhythm to how the blades swipe swipe and then whip into a crash in front of you is here they also swing with a much larger area of effect you are no longer limited like you were with the axe kratos has returned to his old power and you feel it right away with him instead of being shown it whether you're a series fan and returning to that with him or experiencing it as a whole new set of options with a dramatically different feel of this new weapon this may sound trite but it took a lot of courage to put this in the game in the current way that it works the blades come so late that many fans will have become upset by now why has kratos changed so much where are his signature chains why am i being stuck with only one real weapon why am i babysitting this kid it lit this moment that is made all the stronger for how deep you're into the game when it happens i am stunned that a triple a game took a risk like this as for the reveal scene itself there's the obvious imagery of kratos putting the chains of his past willingly onto himself he was never able to dispose of the blades he always kept them close to him and here he is shackling himself once again enslaving the monster for his own purposes now not the will of any other god there's also the implication that we spoke about earlier that it took until atreus was in danger for kratos to take this step his own life wasn't important enough but the boys is athena's speech is the most important part of her presence in this scene but i think her placement in the doorway was also chosen carefully she's in the exact same position that kratos was earlier when we were seeing things from atreus's perspective we saw the darkness kratos carries when with the boy now we see perhaps what that darkness really is now as athena stands in judgment of kratos life pretend to be everything you are not teacher husband father her words are simple and cut deep into kratos but this is also his first step out of hiding he has accepted his actions and has not kept himself away from them but from this point on he will begin to be honest with his son albeit in stages i know but i am your monster no longer it's also the first time the game pledges fealty to the previous games without any ambiguity until this moment it could be a rebooted version of kratos based on some ancient myth that the old games have been demoted to this scene proves otherwise the blades are back athena is in spirit form the previous games were real it wasn't just thrilling to have that answered but also to know that so much of that history was dragged along into this new series there are still consequences to come for what kratos did as mimir says i'm dangling from the hip of the bloody ghost of sparta that was a lot of praise the game deserves it but it's probably making you all uncomfortable that's not what you come to this channel for right so let's snuggle back to the warm safe cradle of criticism by following that up with this the game [ __ ] plummets in quality after this and while there are some great moments here and there god of war misses nailing a great ending don't misunderstand me the game rarely comes close to terrible throughout this last stretch it's just that it fails to come anywhere close to the standard set by its best moments before this that's a compliment and a pity rolled into one gameplay and story are well integrated in god of war but i think it's a coincidence that both hit a sharp decline at the same time after this or it could be that the game just like this video ended up being too long and is stretched a bit thin story but we'll get to it it could also be due to the only chunk of bad writing in the story and that the fun of trying out a new weapon was overestimated although it's great to have the reactive system still doesn't allow for much creativity when you get to attack let's talk specifics instead after acquiring the chains you enter helheim via the bifrost bridge aside from the small optional realms helheim is the last unique location that you will visit in god of war the subsections in tears temple may count for some but they're an extension of this place you've been visiting the whole game even if they do count you visit them more than once the game is quite ridiculous when mapped out like that from your first departure from home you progress in the order of stumble upon freyja's house go to the lake of the nine climb the mountain go back to the lake of the nine go to alpheim climb the mountain a second time go to freya's home again visit the giant's frozen corpse go back to the lake of the nine go to freya's home a third time now go back to your home journey through helheim go to freya's home a fourth time explore the sub-levels of tyr's temple climb the mountain a third time go through helheim a second time explore a different sub-level of tyr's temple a short detour with the world serpent then face the conclusion at the giant's frozen corpse which is then followed by going home again the two that really bring this down are the three mountain visits and the second trek through helheim please do not get the wrong impression here you are never doing the same content over and over again save for some of the connecting paths between areas the mountain climbs use different routes you're in a different part of helheim both times and the trips to freyja's house aren't that bad but nevertheless there's quite a bit of repetition it's unfortunate that encounter variety also peters out when you get the blades the valkyrie fights are a lot of fun the last boss has a cool visual twist but the rest of the game becomes samey again let's be specific helheim is a very cool setting and battling your way through there gives you the satisfying sense that you're breaking the rules of this world in a big way by even surviving there never mind killing things it justifies why kratos had to resort to digging up the blades then you get to the bridge keeper that freya sent you to kill and it's just another [ __ ] troll this is bar none the biggest letdown in the entire game the second biggest comes at the end but let's not get ahead of ourselves the recycling of trolls deserves its own section but this isolated case even if it wasn't a troll and was some other mythical creature that had the same low level of complexity would have caused me to be just as disappointed the fact that it's another troll is just the shitty frozen cherry on top kratos clearly broke some vow for this he has returned to a tormented part of his past atreus is close to dead he is literally in hell there should have been a boss that blew it out of the water in every area brutality complexity spectacle story and gameplay this should have been where the old god of war comes back for just a minute and some huge over-the-top monster like maybe the one sitting in the background this whole time rears its ugly heads and kratos rips it apart with his chains as it is now the only thing this part brings back is the gore and this isn't enough there is no greater misstep that this game makes than this one right here and it's so frustrating because it ruins the setup of what just came before it the scene that comes after this is really good too so it spoils the killing spree the game could have been on for a few hours of its run time should we talk about the trolls now that we brought them up this is probably the best place this issue isn't quite as clear-cut as many have stated it to be in my opinion the most common complaint i read about the game's use of trolls is that there are too many of them this isn't true i think this is a case of people not explaining their issue as clearly as they could be which is a problem if that's the feedback that the developers take at face value consider that if anything there aren't enough trolls in the game they're a fun large enemy that fills the same mini boss role as the ogres ancient soul eaters travelers and the big dark elf guys yet they don't appear like those enemies do in the optional realms the problem with trolls is not their frequency but where they're placed and we can draw a good comparison to the valkyries to prove this point after killing one valkyrie you are given a quest to go conquer seven more plus one secret one for a total of nine you know what you're getting into it may be a mild disappointment that their attacks aren't more varied but it's a hunt for valkyries meanwhile the roughly same amount of trolls you fight throughout the game is a huge letdown not because of the fights themselves but because you wish there was something else there instead this is a little difficult to wrap your head around at first because the difference is so subtle it may sound identical the feeling when a troll shows up at the end of an area is not oh damn it i have to fight another troll it's oh damn it i wish there was a different boss here the issue is not recycling it's the opportunity that has been lost for an area to be capped with a unique epic fight this is where god of war veers right into the same territory as hollow knight as a product god of war has enough content in some ways it may even have too much there is a long main story a surprising amount of side content and overall it's above average quality and yet moments like the hellheim fight the double trolls at the end of the first visit to tears temple and a few others here and there show that there's a huge potential for improvement when judging the game as art unfortunately games of course do not have unlimited budgets and so such criticism is always going to be a bit unfair but with the amount of side content in this game and the whole realm of nifelheim which while enjoyable feels tacked on i have to wonder if resources could have been better used there are places that i would have rather not received development time and instead had a few more bosses in the main story in the interest of fairness i should point out that these troll fights do have alterations over the basic version the hellheim troll especially but it's not enough sadly smaller enemies suffer from the same issue too many of them are re-skinned humanoids with slight tweaks the only ones that really stand out are the hell walkers that summon walls of ice that you can break with your axe the rest are just fodder even some of the heftier enemies get demoted to that level once you have a full array of runic attacks and the gear advantage to dominate them the real problem here is that the fights become defined by whatever mini boss is present so each room is either an ogre fight a soul eater fight a traveler fight or a flying dark elf fight occasionally you can run into a bit of a struggle with wolver's revenants and tatsu worms oh my but many of these can be blown up with runic attacks just like the fodder humanoids revenants in particular are so annoying with how they zip around that they will always be your first targets which leads into why the low encounter variety feels bad revenants need to be rushed down ogres end up helping you more than hurting since you can burst them with runic attacks and then clear runes by driving them like rogue jackhammers soul eaters can also be dropped quickly with some throws and then melt to runic attacks while they're vulnerable which leaves the traveler and dark elf boss as the only fights that you can dig into and have to avoid the harassing while contending with more fodder monsters everything else is by the numbers and it's the same fight again and again there's nothing wrong with fodder in fact i think the next game may want to include an even more fragile horde-like enemy for some encounters but it has to be complemented by more substantial threats norse mythology has quite a few ones that could make for interesting fights but there's also the option to make new ones the more monsters there are obviously the less likely it is for the player to get bored since there will be more to cycle through before they repeat a few more flying enemies that require weapon throws would be good too sort of like a flying revenant as would be holding some of those enemies into the last quarter of the game the dream here is having enemies interact with each other like the nightmares do if a system like that can be pulled off then each new enemy type enriches the amount of scrambling that can be done with each battle however if we return briefly to the idea of the game's reactive system versus a proactive one there is another option that the game briefly explores and also explored far more in god of war 3. the next game does need more enemy variety regardless but this direction could suit the game if it's going to keep with its reactive system there's a section near the end of god of war 1 that has you fighting in a room with a moving floor god of war 2 has a moment that's similar and both games have a basic commitment to this idea god of war 3 goes further with it and shows how much potential it has the idea here is that if you're going to have players react to things as the core way that they are interacting with the combat system then you should give them more things to react to that's why the system shines when the attacks come in a tight sequence god of war 2018 has some trap rooms rarely there will be enemies nearby and i can only think of one time that i was ever encouraged to use the environment to my advantage and it was right at the beginning of the game even the may sections in nephilheim which have huge saw blades and crushing walls don't involve combat you have to awkwardly try really hard to use them during battles and when i did i found it very satisfying even in this simple form just like the previous games the idea shows how much promise it has not every room has to have a layer of traps either some types of enemies could spawn hazards that patrol the arena like buzzsaw versions of these light bombs and can be used to damage both you and other enemies if you play well enough there are many possibilities i don't know i could be reaching here i only know that i was disappointed that the concept wasn't developed on after seeing it in god of war 1 and how fun it was in god of war 3 even though more could still be done with it i also know that i'm fed up of saying this game needs more enemy variety in so many videos since it's so easy to fire off even with examples supporting it the idea of using parts of fighting arenas also appeals to me in other ways as well the best boston god of war 2 has hooks to swing your chains on as another lair to use throughout the fight and it adds quite a bit to it it seems to me that most games don't view this as a possibility and only see complexity that can be added on the player's end or the enemies there's a third that can lead to some really interesting scenarios the environment the way god of war uses this currently is with light puzzle elements you use your axe to freeze a gear after manipulating something or you use your blades to store a source of power and then take it somewhere else with a time limit some of these are boring and bad because there's not much to them you just throw your weapon and run a few are okay but i'm mostly neutral on them they felt like filler which is understandable since every room can't be brimming with monsters to fight especially with the game's level of variety i feel bad for games that are stuck in this position because you can clearly see how with enough development an entire portal style puzzle chamber room game could be built using these simple mechanics as a base more could be added things could get tricky and demand a lot of thought but god of war can't do that without becoming two games in one and they're not even genres that go well together players will likely hate one of the two sides so we're stuck with these light puzzle elements that are rarely offensive but are never good either oh and real quick while we're here i think it's funny how the game allows atreus to use tunnels to avoid these i think the devs realized with the first trap room that the boy can't be a part of the scenario if you call him at the wrong time as the ceiling is falling or the right time if you're trying to be an [ __ ] and break it it will actually artificially slow so it doesn't slam down and kill him after this he takes a different path and can no longer interfere this is explained as the dwarves leaving tunnels behind after creating these traps so they could avoid them but it's a bit crap especially since it looks like kratos could fit through at least a couple of them anyway let's get back to the story you take the heart of the uh troll back to freya i think it'll be revealed in the next game that she didn't really need the heart to bring atreus back she still uses it in her magical pot of soup here but her knowing that she immediately needs the heart of the bridge keeper in helheim is suspicious freya already knows what kratos is when they first meet i think she may even say his name before she should know it and i get the impression she knew that he had a set of weapons that would be effective in helheim ii or else why would she even suggest it so my guess is that the heart is used to cleanse herself of the curse in the next game along with a few other things and she's manipulating kratos a bit here in a nice way though she does care about atreus but obviously she has her own goals and she needs to find a way to meet them also if freya and kratos are going to fight in the next game this will make it easier to justify and it would be a fun twist no you were right to distrust the word of a god so she revives the boy and warns that he won't be completely cured until kratos is honest about what he is there's a conflict in the boy believing himself to be mortal when he's in fact a god this scene is alright but it's the next one that i really liked initially i was annoyed because this should have been the moment that kratos opens up to his son and lays some cards on the table then the issue is pushed aside and i thought [ __ ] they're gonna wait for some big dramatic moment later for this to be resolved and they're gonna put it off even longer and they're gonna fight for no reason i was wrong because in the same unimportant elevator area we were in earlier kratos finally starts being honest i'm a god boy from another land far from here it feels so much more genuine this way it wasn't triggered by the next near-death experience with big sweeping music and kratos holding his son close to him it was the boy's insecurity breaking through kratos's resolve and his love for his son making him confess on the spot the kid has such a wholesome reaction to it all too can i turn into an animal can you turn into an animal this is also a nod to norse mythology since loki can shapeshift it's a kind reaction and one that clearly catches kratos off guard initially he seems reassured by it it's a shame that it doesn't last i mean that both for the sake of these characters and the story what follows this section is atreus's descent into godly corruption and it is awful i don't mean awful in terms of how atreus is somehow evil or immoral i mean it's awful because it's too abrupt poorly written and largely makes little sense welcome to the worst part of the game conversely tears temple has very pretty visuals the murals artifacts and central spinning ring things looks really good i understand that you can't tell a child that he's a god and expect things to go without any problems particularly a child like atreus that knows many stories about the gods and now sees himself as one of them but the switch that goes off in his head is taken to a ludicrous extreme considering kratos and mimir are both stressing temperance the entire time i wouldn't have felt so bad about killing somebody else look at first this is okay atreus shoots off some troubling comments kratos is set grumbling there's some disagreement and then two strong scenes of bonding atreyus saves kratos by breaking his mother's knife kratos gifts him a new one and then they share a drink as they ride the elevator back to the surface it's no accident that this is a drink from kratos homeland while they are bonding over their newfound openness with each other his past is part of that openness and then the kid becomes a spiteful monster for no [ __ ] reason quiet head we are we know better ah sounding more like your da by the moment i will provide two pieces of defense for the game before proceeding with condemning it the first is that you must view everything that has happened so far through the perspective of atreus before you judge him kratos has been called and disinterested with everyone they have met throughout the game so far he dislikes the dwarves he begrudgingly speaks to freyja he is always telling atreus to mind his own business and not to concern himself with the plight of others the standout example here is an alphine with the warring elves they do not stop us so they do not concern us they do not concern us we know that this is because kratos is devoted to only his son and does not want any distractions on their journey and more importantly he does not want to inadvertently get themselves tangled in a conflict that could get the boy hurt atreus doesn't know this so he retroactively understands his father's actions as a god just as arrogant as the others who thinks himself high and mighty and so far above the petty squabbles of the little people we do what we please boy no excuses it is nature to do hard oh that's just what mom used to say about the gods the lives of men mean nothing to the gods i know father i was born a god and so were you secondly kratos is still not being entirely honest with atreus and the boy senses that like shrek kratos is layered and hasn't peeled everything back just yet atreus like all children wants to know everything how and why and when and what he is frustrated that his father is still holding back and is now acting out because of that now having provided that defense let me smash it to bits kratos hasn't shut down the conversation completely atreya should understand that this is like his training and that kratos and amir will help him along the way the boy even says he doesn't feel like a god yet and they discuss that his powers will present themselves in time kratos is also admonishing the boy every time he acts out when he insults syndry when he disrespects faye when he [ __ ] murders modi in cold blood do you see how absurd this gets from the old atreus to the new atreus if kratos is being used as atreus's role model for this behavior then he should also be listening to his father when it's clear he has it all wrong him shouting the question how do you know when kratos says there are consequences to killing a god also doesn't make sense seeing as atreus was just with him when they killed magni who's a god remember what happened right after they did that the only good part about all of this is when atreus stops responding to your commands you can order him to shoot something during a fight and he won't do it he ignores you attacks on his own and none of your inputs work this is brilliantly done without any announcement so you may initially think something has bugged out then you realize along with kratos that atreus is no longer listening to you you experience that confusion and possibly anger at the same time that kratos does it's one of many ways that gameplay and story work together in this game it's too bad the game couldn't better justify things getting to that stage the only possible thing that could save it happens a little later in helheim which we'll speak about when we get there for now while the game's pacing takes a hit since we're once again climbing this mountain we also have some more bad writing to criticize although syndry's dialogue in response to atreus is well done wow at the top of the mountain god of war enters this bizarre section where it forgets all about rules and consistency nothing makes sense in this part and i believe it was done just to make one moment happen without it being forced which fails because it's still forced and by extension everything around it feels forced with it the only thing that does make sense is that balder is able to track them down because freya's protective ward was removed by a trap kratos was caught in back in tears temple let's go through it first off atreus cuts open his hand and draws this rune in his own blood for kratos to follow this receives no comment or response this is the same kid that burned his hand on a knife in the opening and kratos tenderly wrapped it in a bandage with some snow he slices his hand he draws a rune in blood his father says nothing the portal opens and mimir comments on how it's beautiful when he's facing away and can't see it it's not like he's using magic to project his vision either because he notices balder sneaking up behind them the second most stupid thing in the game happens in this fight when balder impales kratos through the hip and pins him to the gate and the game never addresses it kratos has some healing powers but as we know from god of war 3 and his reaction to damage in this game a wound of this severity should be crippling for at least a little while the game doesn't even have the decency to shrug this off with some shitty explanation either it's just never brought up again ever kratos has a chunk of stone embedded in his side for the rest of the game for all we know remember this is damage done in a cutscene and is therefore canon it can't be ignored like other damage the most stupid thing that is even worse than this in case you're curious is also tied to baldur remember when they had their big dragon ball z fight at the beginning of the game and kratos punched through a huge rock and then caused a mini earthquake to split open the land and then they did their arm wrestle thing and push each other away and make the crack go even wider and then kratos gets flung up in the air and falls down and has to catch like a root and he scrapes all the way down that's how big the crack is and then you go climbing through it later where the tree is like the thing is huge this damage has somehow magically repaired itself when you go back to your house later what the [ __ ] this is why no one likes you back on the mountain kratos and balder fight some more i believe the whole reason balder wants a giant so badly is to get to yotenheim it's white here and the giants hid the bifrost tower that links it to the other realms odin desperately wants to get there and balder is doing his father's bidding a portal to that realm is now open right next to them and instead of going through or calling his father who if we recall from amir's words earlier visits the spot daily balder spends his time punching kratos in the head kratos responds by ramming balder through the pillar and destroying it because of course he does why wouldn't he admittedly kratos does enrage when he fights so this part is less bad but still bad atreus channeling his inner modi cares more about the gate being destroyed than his father being crushed or you know recovering from being impaled then the whole point of this awful scene is reached when atreus attacks kratos instead of balder because kratos needed to have that moment where things come full circle he's now zeus his own son is attacking him it might have been powerful if it wasn't forced as [ __ ] and makes so little sense that i don't understand how it got past the first draft also there's a detail here that drives me nuts when atreus was firing at balder earlier he was using normal arrows now against his father for no goddamn reason he fires a special lightning charged arrow that does way more damage and incapacitates him just to twist the knife have it make even less sense and so balder can talk for a bit and then kidnap petraeus while kratos is stunned next up was the dragon just chilling down there the whole time the thing is huge how did we not hear it until now balder has been tracking us and either guessed our destination got here before us and swore the dragon to silence or he got here a little after we did and flew the dragon in super stealth mode the jump and fall do look good though and show how kratos doesn't even think about his own well-being before lunging after them he lucks out the dragon decided to fly down the mountain instead of away from it next up is the worst movie scene with forced interactive moments in the game you can see how awkwardly it pauses when it switches over from movie mode to basic input time it's not fun it doesn't create any meaningful interaction it slows the scene down and feels exactly like what it is an interruption to the movie that this should have been it's also something that you can't fail the scene will loop and wait until you start pressing buttons other moments like this through the game are harder to criticize but they can show some deep flaws if you're unlucky enough there are transitions that trigger between gameplay and the scripted movies you can see it here during the first fight with balder when kratos picks him up and flings him to the edge of the nearby chasm that miraculously heals itself a few hours later if you happen to be in a good area when this triggers everything looks fine even great if you're not then it looks way less impressive on my second playthrough i just so happened to be close to the chasm and this is what it looked like on my third playthrough i deliberately tried to break it to see how bad it can be and i think the results speak for themselves there's another moment like this early in the game when you're ambushed by some bandits there's a clever perspective trick with the archers on the upper level that you can only kill with an axe throw since you're zoomed in and can only see them from a certain angle usually the bandit that teleports into the room isn't seen and everything seems fine even though the game is cheating by making this guy appear from nowhere however if you're not in a good place it's as awkward as this look how bad this teleport is this part goes on for a few minutes with the game putting prompts on the screen telling you what to do a sure sign of success in the interactive medium then kratos somehow cripples the dragon by slicing deeply into just one part of its wing apparently all this damage before wasn't enough but this one part was really special so the dragon falls to midgard and dies of sadness kratos now even luckier than before falls right in front of tyr's temple this next part i like because the music really kicks up as he runs with urgency into the bifrost room but then the game once again breaks its own rules by making the tree roots bridge appear in the middle of being activated and turning and the reason why you'll notice this is because you have to sit around and wait for it to appear every single time you use the bifrost room i don't even understand why this inconsistency was necessary when they could have had kratos jump over the gap and have it look even more badass but oh well just a reminder that kratos is doing this with a huge hole in his hip by the way just you know just just sending that out to sale just just sending it out there that's still a thing that happened this is why no one likes you kratos interrupts the bifrost sequence and sends them hurtling into helheim which would make a great band name i have no idea if this makes sense but let's give the game the benefit of the doubt and say it does it looks cool at least what i don't like is how the game can't decide who is stronger balder or kratos sometimes kratos effortlessly overpowers him and flings him around like a ragdoll other times balder gets the upper hand and kratos can barely do anything then there are times like this when kratos pounds his face like he's making mincemeat into a burger finally the terribleness comes to an end but not without getting in one final dig kratos stands up and after all of that all the running and fighting and struggling delivers the most monotone emotionless boy of the whole game boy this sent me into a fit of laughter when i first played this is meant to be a serious scene this is not a good thing so we're back in helheim the worst part of the game is over but you've got another thing coming if you think the game returns to its former glory after this in fact what follows serves as some prime examples of the problems we've gone over so far the way you move around the level feels forced along a path instead of actually exploring even though the game throws this type of climbing at you at the same time there's a long section where you do nothing but wait while balder talks to a ghost and you have to listen it even stops you at certain points along the way and you can't progress this is where you learn that freya is balder's mother and there's a good detail here that freya is lying to him she could remove the invincibility curse she placed on him at any moment but instead keeps him in the dark because she thinks she knows what's best just like kratos was with atreus fights have nothing new to introduce and are becoming repetitive also the game majorly messes up by allowing the axe to now deal damage in helheim nullifying the whole reason kratos had to get the blades earlier and weakening that moment i excused this as an oversight but i think that might be charitable the long section on the flying boat is the same concept as the rising platform we saw earlier but on a larger scale you also have more control by keeping the flames alight this part is okay it goes on for a bit too long but shows the flaws of the game's limited movement system again this could have been a ship you run and jump and swing with your chains all over in defense of it instead it's a flat plane and even when a chunk of the deck is torn away there's no jump button to interact with details in the train like this it's really disappointing another problem similar to this that i haven't brought up yet is that you cannot interact with most things while enemies are around so any chests doors or in this case the harpoons that are pulling on the ship even if you do get enough time away from enemies to free the boat the game won't let you until all the enemies are dead this isn't a big problem but it's frustrating when you may want to quickly loot something in combat or think the situation you're in has some urgency and requires quick attention turns out you should kill all the baddies first instead no matter what's going on or how desperate things get one curious detail in the second trip to helheim is how the conflict between kratos and atreus is resolved at first the game suggests quite heavily that atreus wasn't really himself before he's shown a vision and responds startled saying that wasn't me i couldn't have done that this led me to think that they were setting up some sort of new sickness in atreus that was controlling him in some way or the old one has mutated into this new thing that makes him kind of evil or kind of like the old kratos that would be a poor excuse for the previous section but it would explain why it was so sudden but then this exchange happens less than a minute later i'm not going to let it bother me like you said it was just an illusion that wasn't me no but it is who you have become of late look i know i got us into this but i'll get us out whoever i am i will get us out you will follow orders but maybe that's not who i am this implies instead that one atreya said that wasn't me that he's simply and stupidly pointing out that there's a double of him in front of him but that also doesn't explain the i couldn't have done that but he also clearly has the memories of killing modi and how they arrived at helheim so why i don't understand what's happening here does the game understand at least i hope so i'm serious i don't i don't know what the game is trying to communicate with these two scenes i'm still confused anyway before leaving helheim's memory magic recreates the scene where kratos kills his father zeus they then crash into one of odin's secret rooms and using mimir's special eye that was gifted from the giants uncover a way to reconnect the bifrost bridge to juttenheim etraeus then pretends that he didn't see anything back in helheim and that he has no idea about kratos killing zeus which is the beginning of the two repairing their relationship just as suddenly and awkwardly as it fell apart there's some attempt to justify it in the next section but atreus is already back to his old self before then tyr left behind messages and tests he says that gods must become good everyone has to work together the power of friendship and so on and on atreus buys into this kratos and amir are happy the game goes full comic book with superpowers and shows they're willing to make kratos however strong as they need by having him flip the temple over but yet he can't jump in the air or climb this wall of wooden planks and then the yottenheim tower is recovered through a quick suicide mission with the help of something called the unity stone which i don't think was ever mentioned before now like i said a ghostful comic book by the way there's a line here from amir that says this stone is how tyr was able to travel to other realms and lands those lands shown in the temple earlier with other cultures and gods including greece so again just you know slipping it back in there real quick how did kratos get to midgard from greece he didn't have a unity stone at least i don't think so please answer it please please after this there's a final princesses in another castle moment since the bifrost has to be channeled through another stone to activate the path to juttenheim when the world tree bifrost magic is activating in the big chamber as it circles around apparently the unity stone can't be used to go directly to ottenheim itself even though it could take tear to grease also never mind that this other stone didn't need to be there when kratos interrupted the sequence last time at helheim and it still worked just fine albeit violently mimir can use his giant gifted eyes as a replacement but shoot he only has one eye and needs both of them and that eye is in another castle luckily brock and syndry know where it is there's a good callback to earlier when the world serpent munched thor statue since that's where odin hid mimir's other eye you speak to yorman gander row into his belly for a very brief section and proceed to the end of the game you find the eye balder then attacks jormungander you're spat out next to the giant corpse and then freya and balder have their reunion there's an awesome moment that is totally spoiled if you know norse mythology when balder punches atreus and cuts himself on a mistletoe arrowhead thus breaking his invulnerability curse i knew this story from playing hellblade but i had forgotten it already so at the time it was a really cool moment and i think it works really well that's why freya called the arrows wicked earlier when she destroyed them it's just by chance that kratos used one of the arrows to fix atreyu's quiver strap on the mountain and while i usually hate coincidences i think this one is just fine because it doesn't feel forced and it's set up a long time before it's paid off in a kind of subtle way too with the curse broken balder can now feel again that was part of it he can taste food that he couldn't before feel warmth and the touch of another person his life has been returned to him naturally instead of [ __ ] off and enjoying the pleasures of the world that have been denied to him and thanking kratos and atreus he goes full gray fox hurt me more and tries to kill them meanwhile i'm wondering how the [ __ ] he got out of helheim when we had to fly a magical makeshift airship to get out in norse mythology there's a big ordeal in trying to get balder out of hell but in this game he just i actually have no idea how he got out i don't think it's ever explained or mentioned at all i spoke about this final battle in detail earlier it looks great it reminds me of the titan fights in the previous games it's a shame that baldr doesn't get many more new moves but that wouldn't be that big of an issue if this wasn't the final fight so let's finally talk about the ending and what's wrong with it first let me acknowledge that the conclusion to balder's story is good kratos allows him to live which is something he would have never done before then balder forces his hand and kratos has to choose between killing him or letting freya die he chooses to break balder's neck and freya takes it really well i will parade your cold body from every corner of every realm and feed your soul to the vilest filth in hell kratos sees this as breaking the cycle of gods killing their parents of gods killing their own family kratos comes from the outside and interferes with that and sees it as a choice of letting the better god live on to hopefully do some good freyja then demands that kratos be honest about the monster that he is to his son which kratos finally does he explains that he has done horrible things and that a trace and he must break that dark legacy they will be different they must be different who i was is not who you be there's an odd line here that i hope gains some new meaning in the next game kratos says they should finish the journey while he still has strength i don't have anything else to say about it i just think it's a bit weird and i wanted to point it out also for any of you wondering why freya doesn't revive baldur the same way she revived mimir it's explained if you go to the cave below her house after beating the game mimir says that he may be technically alive but it's not the same as really living while i am happy the game addresses it i don't buy this explanation she cursed him into a life of feeling nothing just to keep him from death mimir even as a severed head seems to be happier than that and he's still himself he can still talk and enjoy some amount of life but then maybe he's just ecstatic to be off the damn tree still i think freyja would risk bringing baldr back to life with the same spell arriving at jotunheim is a beautiful sequence there are a few final revelations here that can cause some earlier details to take on new meanings and lay the groundwork for the next game faye was a giant and this journey was foretold from the beginning and also somewhat orchestrated from the start it's the rare prophecy story that works because the prophecy was never brought up until after the story ran its course meaning that the prophecy itself was never used as a lazy excuse to move the story along kratos is shown to die soon which is something atreus doesn't see and we also find out that atreus isn't really atreus he's loki that's the name faye originally wanted to call him and kratos changed her mind which makes me wonder how set in stone that prophecy really is if something that big was changed fey has been a guiding hand this whole time which makes her a more active agent than you originally thought her ashes are scattered we see how the bond between these two has deepened since kratos calls atreya's son for the first time instead of boy and he finally tells a good story as they walk back the story of atreus the spartan which is where kratos got his son's name then the game ends what a load of [ __ ] i'm kidding while i'm half kidding the problem i have isn't with this scene in fact i think it's a wonderful ending to this contained personal story of kratos and atreus it's what happens afterward that's upsetting if you return to your cabin kratos dumps my mirror's head on the floor and then goes to sleep years later shows up which doesn't make sense at first since the trace is still the same size but it turns out this is a dream vision that atreus is having thor has come to town and is ready to rumble just like balder before him you see him flash molnier and then the game ends for real what a load of [ __ ] the game hyped up odin and thor the whole time after you acquire mimir even earlier than that if you do some side quests mimir describes them both as petty meddlers that thor will show up at the slightest provocation and wreck your day while i understand kratos can't go through an entire roster of gods in one game and i understand that far more now that i've accepted this as the first of a new trilogy i cannot forgive how much they teased thor and odin and then never delivered there was that amazing scene of building dread earlier after magni was killed and modi is sent scampering you kill his children you also killed odin's child as well and yet it's years later before they come knocking for revenge apparently there are so many warnings about them coming for you sooner than this in this game immediately after you cause some change odin's eye is on you brother especially now that you've taken to killing his kin when word gets out that my mirror is free the wrath of odin won't be far behind odin's ravens will tell him of the tower's restoration this will not go over well in asgard i don't like cliffhangers but if you're going to have your game end with one you can at least make it satisfying in some ways have some huge surprise fight that you almost win but then thor pulls his belt of double strength out snaps it on and kicks kratos so hard that he's left for dead and atreus is in danger then roll credits i'm sorry i really am sorry because like i said before the game has enough content but i can't believe they hyped thor and odin up so much only to end with another fight with balder and a [ __ ] dream sequence the pacing is all wrong with going up and down the mountain back to tears temple fight balder again god damn it this could have been so good if they had thorsha up and teased what asgard looks like instead of another vacation in the full helheim of ascot will come crashing down on you this still should be considered a success because i am thirsty for the next game but god of war dammit do i wish i had known going in that this was the first of a new trilogy and set my expectations accordingly i'm also really curious to see how the next games handle the mythology this game already proves that there are going to be grand changes but mistletoe being the downfall of baldur is accurate to the mythology in a twisted way atreus being loki also fits that story since loki is who orchestrates the use of mistletoe to trick another god into killing balder in those stories loki acts as an outsider in the mythology which again also fits with what we have in the game since he technically isn't a norse god he's a greek god through kratos but the timeline for events is already twisted far from the myths an example being maulnier itself loki has a hand in its creation by setting up a contest between two groups of magical smiths the sons of vivaldi versus brock and e tree or syndry the hammer can also alter its size depending on what thor wants to do with it although it has the flaw of a short handle since loki tried to interfere with the hammer's creation so they would lose the contest ultimately it doesn't matter since the hammer is still the most powerful of all the gifts the magical smiths make and allows them to win the contest since that's already happened atreus or loki cannot be part of that tale in the games just like he cannot be a part of many others further there are going to have to be some major changes going forward unless there's a jump in time in the mythology loki is the father of the world serpent among other things in the game mimir mentions that the world serpent senses something familiar about the boy which is concluded to be impossible mimir then goes on to explain that legend has it that during ragnarok the clash between yorman gander and thor breaks part of the world tree and sends the world serpent back in time to before it was ever born so the game is setting up some possible time travel shenanigans but the most curious part to me is that ragnarok is coming at the end of this game fimble winter has begun and way ahead of schedule does this mean kratos has interfered in some way if so does the world serpent come from a different timeline where kratos wasn't present if that's the case is loki actually the father it would seem unlikely especially since this means it wouldn't be the same loki if faye had chosen a different god when she left to fulfill the prophecy because kratos wouldn't be there does jorman gander grow bigger each time it's sent back to the past during ragnarok i also worry about what will ultimately happen to atreus in the games loki does not have a pleasant end in the mythology at least not in neil gaiman's version which i'm told is quite faithful to be clear i'm not expecting the games to follow the myths in fact i hope they take as many liberties with them as they possibly can while remaining internally consistent with their own alterations a big change that's happened already is that magni and modi are dead in the myths they're two of the rare few that survive ragnarok it's clear that kratos is not the only source of the deviations from the mythology since loki should have already been born and present for much of what's already transpired even so i expect some sort of separation to be inflicted on kratos and atreus in the next game and for kratos to miss many years of his son's life what i hope is that this isn't used to cause a new rift between the two of them so that they will bicker and fight more and more with this same plot being reused over another game or even two this first game was enough and they ended a point of great understanding with each other i am certain there will be more disagreements and things they can learn from each other but i hope the big kratos has to raise atreus in a way that doesn't result in atreus killing him is resolved permanently or maybe kratos will die and atreus will be the new player character that would be a permanent resolution who knows maybe they can do a good job with it maybe it's already planned out at the very least i hope the writers aren't in meetings right now talking okay guys so what happens next because i have no idea this ties into something else i wonder about this game whether it was made primarily for fans returning to the series or for newcomers the answer to that is clearly both since quite expertly many scenes have different meanings depending on your familiarity with kratos but i suspect that one of them has to be more dominant and that can have some interesting implications for example if the game is meant to be primarily aimed at newcomers which the lack of a number in the title suggests then i think it's more likely we'll be seeing more of athena in the next games without knowing her ahead of time you see her as this strange ominous entity that is lurking within kratos and surely that has to be resolved at some point whereas if the game is primarily for returning fans this could be just a callback that strengthens the return to the rusty blades kratos has been hiding although i hope not what a good scene though damn it still gets me no matter what this new series is still continuing from what came before but the audience that the writers want to hit will determine how heavy it leans into which side i think we'll be delving more into kratos's past and exploring that in new ways if this series is meant to be more new than a continuation and it's more likely that the past will only be hinted at a bit more with a few scenes like the drinking one if it's more a continuation than a new series and the events will be built on that past instead of returning to it preferably i'm completely wrong and the next game is full of surprises his stories were brief and purposeful sounds fun so we're done right there's nothing else to talk about we did the full story we went over gameplay why is there so much time left on the video oh right i left this section for last because i doubt many of you are going to care much about it i know that's a thrilling introduction to what should be the video's grand finale but what follows is a ton of technical gameplay [ __ ] that i don't think counts as real criticism against the game for 90 percent of the people who will play it don't take that the wrong way these are serious problems that definitely need to be looked at but unless you play on give me god of war mode i doubt you'd ever notice them we also still have to go through a bunch of the game's bugs and there are more of those than you might expect in my experience the more difficulty options a game has the more likely it is that the top one is going to be a waste of time usually it indicates that damage and health numbers have been buffed to a few different levels and that's the only way the game will be changed on the hardest setting enemies will be damage sponges and your character will be more fragile than a mario fan in youtube's comment section there is however some really interesting information you can glean from playing a game on these extreme modes it's the same as taking a magnifying glass to a painting and seeing imperfections you can't notice at a normal view a game like the dar dark neo can also get to this point by playing without leveling up your character or their gear you get to see how combat breaks give me god of war mode is not solely like this it adds one new mechanic that we mentioned earlier enemies can level up during a fight if you don't interrupt them or kill them quickly enough they regain all of their missing life become immune to certain crowd control tactics and their eyes begin to glow i wish this mechanic had been added to both normal and hard mode and was introduced in the last half of the game for a bit of variety maybe when you get to helheim aside from this give me god of war mode cranks the health of enemies up and increases their level for most fights however the game is still subject to the same rules as before so this new difficulty can be overcome through gear upgrades this means that the game gets easier as it goes on instead of harder indeed the most difficult encounters i had were at the beginning which seems backwards to me the bloated health bars also unfortunately led me to spamming executioner's cleave on every enemy since it did high damage which is why you've seen me using it so much through this video it also provided temporary invulnerability and could be set up in conjunction with atreus's arrows holding enemies in place this could be seen as a good use of tactics and options but this was really the only option while aside from kicking enemies off ledges which admittedly felt good to do in response to the large health increases when the game let me do it that is strangely bosses did not feel that much more difficult even the valkyries felt about the same except for seagrain at the end revenants felt like they were given the biggest increase in power and were often capable of killing me with one spell if i wasn't careful but all of this doesn't really matter it's not that interesting and wouldn't be worth a section in this video hard mode increases health and damage holy [ __ ] call the papers give me god of war accidentally reveals that the game's combat isn't put together very well this is separate from inputs and options we already went into too much detail on that what i'm talking about here is on the technical side attacks don't always work enemies don't always obey the rules and many hitboxes are tied to the wrong area code the reason that this setting makes this apparent is that when numbers are tuned this tightly you really notice when something is a mistake on your part or not for example if something weird happens in combat that results in you taking a bit of damage or the enemy getting away from you it doesn't matter much if you carry on and win a few seconds later but if that weirdness results in you dying and having to restart or the enemy glitching out of damage and prolonging the fight for another minute then it's impossible to ignore this is what i meant a moment ago when i said most people won't care these problems are present in the lower difficulties but you probably won't notice them enough for it to get your gears turning at least that's how it worked for me you may think that this is a waste of time since it doesn't apply to much of the game's audience but i don't think that's true if these problems are not addressed going forward a change in balancing or major updates to how combat works in the next game may bring them to the forefront of the experience also once these cracks begin to be visible you can't help but notice a buildup of other issues as well it's why i always ramble on about how just little problems shouldn't receive just little attention once the standard has been set that many things were missed you begin to question more and more an example that i found of this while making this video is that some animations don't really hold up that well when you look at them frame by frame there's some weirdness going on with them but let's begin with the biggest problem how the game often ignores staggers and stuns this is also a good one to start with because it supports the idea that lower difficulties won't have a chance to see this issue since enemies die so quickly that it isn't relevant a valkyrie is the best example to demonstrate this any valkyrie at the beginning of the fight it makes sense to dump all of your runic attacks in a row so that you slam the boss with a lot of damage and have all runic abilities on cooldown together so that you can use them again as soon as possible same for firing all of atreus arrows and his magic spell you will likely notice when doing this that sometimes the valkyrie is locked down for the duration of all of your abilities and cannot attack you until you're done then on the next attempt the valkyrie will somehow break out of your combo and attack you while you're in the middle of your next runic attack even if your next attack lands the valkyrie will not be stunned and complete her attack against you why is this happening why does it only work sometimes even though you're doing the same thing some of you watching may be saying hyper armor when an enemy goes immune to being staggered for the duration of an attack animation but that doesn't make sense for two reasons either hyper armor would trigger during certain attacks that have the hyper armor buff or they gain hyper armor after receiving a certain amount of damage if it was the latter then the valkyrie should gain it at the same point during this runic attack onslaught at the beginning of the fight every single time this isn't the case and if it was the former we should see the same attacks being the ones that caused the combo to be interrupted but this isn't the case either in fact i'm showing footage right now of myself using the same runic ability against the same attack that this valkyrie is doing sometimes it interrupts her sometimes it doesn't oddly it seems to have more success if it's in the middle of her attack animation instead of at the beginning but even that's not consistent others among you may be saying that it's a random chance for the valkyrie to gain hyper armor i would respond by saying that this is an indefensible design decision since it means combat is no longer consistent staggers are a tool you're meant to use and having a dice roll determine whether or not it acts normally is a huge flaw imagine if damage was the same way however i don't think it is random because staggering works properly far more often than it doesn't my rough estimate which is admittedly flawed is that the success rate is above 90 for attacks with staggers except for the valkyrie fights which have a much lower rate this could still be random chance of course but that doesn't seem right especially when you consider the following examples when an enemy is powering up an arrow from atreus can interrupt them and cancel that transformation it's the same as the technique i explained earlier about setting the enemy up for an executioner's cleave i believe the game even has a hint about using atreus's arrows in this way to prevent the transformation but i couldn't find it in my footage so i might be wrong you might want to disregard that sometimes this doesn't work but it never fails just once if the arrow isn't staggering the next one won't either and the next one after that this can also be seen on enemies that are doing normal attacks and aren't ready to power up yet usually they get staggered sometimes they just shrug it off and ignore it kratos attacks can be ignored in the same way for normal attacks this makes sense if every normal attack could keep an enemy staggered then they'd never be able to fight back but runic attacks are the smoking gun here i went to the trouble of gathering as many examples as i could because i anticipate some people will need this proven without any doubt in order to accept it so i was very happy when this happened to me these enemies are doing the same attack they are all hit by my runic attack at the same time as you can see by their health bars and yet one of them is not knocked into a stagger state and he finishes his attack hitting me before i can recover from the runic animation this is likely why runic abilities have staggers tied to them because you cannot cancel them once started in fact it's incredibly [ __ ] frustrating to have an enemy go immune to stagger when you trigger one of these since they get to soak you with unavoidable damage also the one that wasn't staggered in this example was earlier in his attack animation than the other just in case any of you think this was a one-off i managed to see this exact same thing happen a second time later i've seen draugrs do this dark elves wolvers the other valkyries seaground even balder and the conclusion i've come to is this sometimes god of war has enemies q actions to do back to back and then sets them in stone as unchangeable unless they die so an enemy's tasks are queued transformation level up and then immediately run at the player or do a dashing charge attack or valkyrie is queued up to do a wing slash combo and then immediately jump into the air afterwards you can see that this happens sometimes when some attacks have pauses between them and other times they don't this queuing definitely does happen and when it does i suspect the enemies can no longer be staggered because it would break that queue this wouldn't be a problem if the player could figure out when that's happened but you sadly cannot so sometimes you won't bother finishing a far off enemy because you saved an arrow for atreus to interrupt the transformation and you will be punished for it when it doesn't work and sometimes you will use a runic attack during a valkyrie fight and literally [ __ ] die because you can no longer dodge block or parry when they aren't staggered i mean this with no exaggeration either while fighting see groon i changed all of my runic abilities to those with the quickest animations and only used them when i was certain she was staggered from an attack already like knocking her out of the air when she's charging a blast because if i didn't do that using a runic attack on give me god of war mode meant i would die this can also happen in response to axe throws and most infuriating of all happened a few times when i parried the enemy decided to ignore the stagger and i didn't get my special parry counter attack in the same vein as this i've seen enemies block attacks when i was hitting their backs attacks from kratos passing through enemy models and dealing no damage fireballs leaping from enemy hands in the opposite direction that they were aimed at enemies spawning outside of the combat arena so you can't progress and have to reload or hope you can clip attacks through the terrain to hit them this enemy braces to attack and then slides forward a bit like they have invisible wheels in their shoes which sounds awesome but is mechanically disappointing for a game that's often about positioning the burrowing lizards can transform power up wall underground when you have no chance to interrupt them wolves can also transform power up instantly with no warning or chance to stop them at all if enemies are too high above your level you can't fling them off cliffs the game pretends there's an imaginary wall there instead it looks terrible i don't know why they did this projectiles have passed through me without dealing damage likewise this attack on the ogre moveset doesn't deal damage for some reason you can also start attacking and get attacked before loading is fully finished and the screen is still dark this nightmare spawns next to me in immediate bomb mode and explodes this draugr switches directions so abruptly mid swing that you can see the near 90 degree angle change between frames this troll shock wave attack travels through rubble without any problems the game stuns me at the end of this phase transition and doesn't give me control back until it's too late i had a no man's sky flashback here this once happened when i chain slammed a white walker in helheim clearly he's an expert at 4d chess good for him speaking of chess balder checkmates me here by blasting me back and following up with another attack so quickly that i don't have enough time to get away before he lands this draugr doesn't take damage nor is stunned from this runic attack even though he's closer to me than the other draugr that does this ogre activates a short-range teleporter he then drops it when he dies and this wolf picks it up later to also use dark elves often enter evasive maneuvers when they take enough hits snapping awkwardly away from you or outright becoming immune to damage even if your axe hits them it's difficult to determine whether wolverhitboxes are accurate or not they deal damage early in some animations and also push you back so while i do think there's something off about these slashes it's difficult to definitively prove one thing i do know for sure about these guys is that they have an attack that can't be parried no matter what the color alert says if you get enough gear to push this attack down from red to yellow you still can't parry it i tried for 30 minutes first with the base kratos and then with the perry amulet which increases the window for parries it never worked i have a few more of these but let's move on to axe throws and how hit detection often fails i think there's also a maximum amount of range that this can work within but that doesn't really make sense so maybe it was some other bug i was running into at the same time i do know the game sometimes requires you to hit something from a specific side or a specific direction for hit detection to work for puzzle reasons even if you can hit it from somewhere you're not supposed to the axe will visually hit the object but the impact won't register my favorite of these was when the axe hit a crow in the air and showed the visual of it connecting and still didn't kill it the axe also likes to snap from the air into enemies nightmares especially as you can see here but then again sometimes the axe bounces off of them like they're made of stone instead while we're on the axe my favorite glitch in the game and i mean this sincerely is when you switch from the blades to the axe and dodge at the same time this can reliably cause the axe to fall from your back and land on the floor instead of being equipped this was frustrating as [ __ ] at first because i kept trying to activate a runic attack after switching to the axe and was left wondering why i was in fist mode instead and the runic attack wasn't working but now that i know what's happening it never fails to make me laugh it's like the axe says screw this i'm out and just [ __ ] off to the floor sadly this should still be fixed but yeah good times for some other things like this we have to go through another long list sounds fun my second playthrough was far more buggy than my first lines of dialogue were broken animations like this would glitch out to prove i'm not exaggerating things got so bad that mimir started telling stories as a decomposing head before i got him to freyja that's talking about odin he's known by many names there's some weirdness with dialogue in other ways too there are some lines i only got on some playthroughs and this was after i had exhausted all of them and the characters stopped talking during transition traveling on one playthrough i was told by mimir that freyja was now searching for her old valkyrie wings and a way to break the curse placed on her by odin that prevents her from harming any other being on another playthrough this line never happened which is a shame because it sounds important right hopefully kratos also gets a pair of those wings in the next game and can start jumping all over the place in niflheim the rotator rune totems would often bug out sometimes they would show the same rune twice before fully rotating even after doing a full cycle they would remain bugged making things worse this meant the chest wouldn't open even if you got the right runes on each totem probably because the game is still rotating the cymbals it's just not displaying them properly loot that drops on the floor can sometimes become possessed and start spinning around bashing into things around it also you get put back to full health when you kill a valkyrie so why do they spawn a bunch of these health globes they just get in the way i don't get this the first time you finish this area the game lets you jump down the wall despite the brambles being in the way but if you come back here later it won't let you do that again and you have to walk all the way around and burn the brambles first while we're here it's worth it to return to the earthquake magically repairing itself which still makes absolutely no goddamn sense this isn't the only thing wrong with this scene the supply of chopped logs also miraculously replenishes itself while you were gone and then depletes itself again for the next time when you return atreus says our father in the scene instead of my father yeah my father doesn't like people either the axe looks so much bigger in this scene than any other for some reason i don't know why it's so [ __ ] weird also atreus killing all of these dark elves on his own is flat out unbelievable i don't think he could even lift the axe well enough to use it so that wouldn't be a good explanation these corpses are all piled up by him while you're gone they're not from the previous battle so we're meant to believe that he did this while kratos was in the pillar of light using triangle both as the dialog option and the ax return button leads to awkwardness throughout the game kratos signals he's ready to talk by holding up his axe i guess not that it always matters because sometimes npcs simply won't talk to you this happened most reliably with sindri and alpheim i had to leave this area and then come back for his dialogue prompt to show up this is pretty bad considering at this point you should be wondering how the [ __ ] he got to this realm and the game won't let you speak to him and it's even worse since you could run into this bug on your first playthrough and not realize it you'd think npcs just don't have anything to say for a few things that aren't bugs but are still questionable enough to nitpick we have kratos is constantly picking up heavy things and risking atreus's head by having him walk under it why not just hop over it they're not tall there's no need for this why does he set them down in the same toppled position when he's done which means he has to pick it up again if he comes through this area the worst time this happens is in the scene when they're trailing the boar they're meant to be quiet yet he picks up this pillar and slams it down only to move forward and then begin whispering directly afterward if you watch the streams you must have been expecting these two points in the mountain they follow a trail of corpses that kratos explains are victims of many traps in the area then when they reach the end of the bodies instead of being careful since this should be where the still armed traps are because there are no more bodies that set them off he punches his way through some planks of wood without any caution whatsoever having to use elven bow magic to get across this pit is insane freya even says she has limited charges of it and she can't even get to that realm anymore we could have easily swam across this or carried the boat to get to the other side or jump down the ledge from above atreus even goes on the barrier and sits on it so he could have shimmied across just like kratos could have on the same thing after the water is lowered again it makes even less sense because the pit is so low that kratos could easily hop down and climb back up again but the game still makes you shoot the crystal on the other side brock shows up after you kill the troll in helheim and takes the blades from you to do some quick tinkering with them he and syndry can hop through space which is how they get around so fast so why doesn't kratos who thinks atreus is close to death and that the medicine is time sensitive give the heart to brock to take to freya ahead of him sindry would have been the better choice for this because he's a germaphobe and he wouldn't be willing to touch the blood and it could have been explained away with a funny line already it's odd to me that kratos visibly regenerates during the fight with balder and then never does it again i think it would have been cool if he had had a slow regeneration effect that activates between fights especially since if you die and restart you get put to full health regardless this could be explained as kratos healing himself slowly so atreus doesn't start to ask questions about his father having special powers because he's still hiding his godhood from him then after kratos admits what he is he could regenerate the quick way after every fight from then on a little bit of gameplay and story mixing there kratos refuses to blow the world serpent's horn when you first find it and tells the boy it's because they can't predict what will happen he should be more cautious meanwhile just a moment ago he threw his dead wife's precious heirloom axe into the lake on a [ __ ] whim and almost lost it finally and perhaps most hilariously are the oddities with the button prompt moments in some scenes sometimes these kill you if you don't react in time but most of the time they don't the game just waits so balder will hang out here forever while you do nothing so will the dark elves worst of all is in the final fight when kratos and atreus keep getting pummeled by balder if you don't hit the quicktime event prompts it just loops forever and ever at every stage of the prompt atreus just keeps getting pelted away over and over and over again i'm laughing a lot in this video what the hell which means that we're finally done right again this is the video that never ends sorry seagroon is a really cool boss with lots to think about she is challenging and engaging to fight yet stands as the epitome of the reactive combat system you respond to her telegraphs sometimes a few in a row and then get a chance to unload damage with the simple inputs that you have then you react to the next telegraph and do it again the fun is in making sure you're prepared to respond to each attack she cycles through for me and many others this really is fun it's a test to recognize the telegraph and input the correct counter but it also shows that the well has run dry unless many different types of responses are added in the next game i don't see another fight ever being better than this without coming dangerously close to tedious with dozens of different telegraphs matched to only a handful of your responses block dodge parry axe throw at the point that so many different actions have been added to build the system it makes far more sense to use these to go more in depth on the player's options for controlling more of the fight in an active way instead essentially i'm saying that sea grunt is both the peak of god of war's combat system and the final nail in the coffin without an increase in mobility options every boss fight can only be a re-skin remix of sea groom from here on out you can already see this happening with similarities within this game see grooms jump into the air baldr does it too an attack that causes an enemy to go airborne and requires a dodge or an axe throw magney and modi do that too a channeled beam attack that you need to block fast dashes that you need to dodge i think you get it it's easy to arrive at this conclusion because see groon is a boss you fight nine times her moveset has been shattered with a hammer and placed in pieces throughout the game each valkyrie while being their own entity in terms of story and lore is a facet of sigrune in terms of gameplay aside from one or two abilities sigrun has every attack that every other valkyrie has rolled into one every fight against the valkyrie so far has been training you to fight her i don't say this often but i think sea grunt is probably too hard because of how many attacks she has at her disposal i didn't fight her on normal so maybe she's more balanced there but unless normal mode provides more health crystals during the fight i have my doubts every other boss in this game has generous checkpoints this was something that bothered me initially but then i accepted that it allowed each phase to be longer maybe some sort of fury style life system could have worked to balance this but the current way it works is also acceptable segrene and the other valkyries do not have this safety net the lower tier valkyries don't have that much health so as long as you are appropriately geared which is like it are not a core part of the game then they shouldn't take too many hits to kill sea ground on the other hand has a ton of health on give me god of war it felt like i was fighting the combined health pulls of every other valkyrie as well as their attacks hard wasn't too different from this so i have to assume that normal mode is also a demanding fight you must learn all of her moves and execute them near flawlessly this is likely too much for many players when compared to the rest of the game however i really appreciate that there was no compromise here players can't fight her without getting through all of those other valkyries first so not only are they being trained by those fights they're also proving their commitment to get through it the challenge of the segrun boss fight itself is the reward for that more so than the fun axe upgrade that she drops after you beat her making boss fights this much of an ordeal is something that i really enjoy but of course not every fight can have eight levels of training spread throughout the whole game for you to find it's a shame that give me god of war mode couldn't have added more mechanics and brought fights closer to this instead of just adding more health and damage the power up change was a first good step it's a shame that that was the only one that was taken however the valkyries are also unfortunately another source to show how refinement is missing from god of war's combat system hitbox errors inconsistencies and more than one design decision that can only be described as dumb i'm sorry that's so blunt but i can't think of a better way to say it the valkyrie all run has a move that causes her to surge forward to your position and then execute an attack this can either be a quick stab or a wing slash the former requires you to dodge quickly or step aside if you are far enough from her when she starts the other requires a block but the important thing to realize is that if you do the wrong reaction you will get hit the wing slash is large enough to clip you during a dodge the wing stab is a red attack that breaks through shields there is no difference between the dashes she does leading up to these attacks so you have to guess which one and hope you get it right except there is a tell before she does the forward dash she will dart to the side if she darts to the left she will do the wing slash if she darts to the right she will do the winged stab not only do i think this is a ridiculous way to telegraph what attack a boss is about to do it's also inconsistent another way attacks are linked this way is with the wing shield ability sigrun will follow this up with the same quick forward red stab that happens so quickly you have to anticipate it coming by remembering that she does it after shielding herself however sea groom like the queen that she is will do whatever she wants about a quarter of the time she will dart in the wrong direction for the follow-up attack she will also bug out and nothing personal kid teleport behind you with a stab sometimes there won't be any warning at all and you have to somehow react to her moving in under 10 frames and hope that your guess of a dodge or a block is correct this can be combated by keeping your distance from her so you have more time to react when she channels her inner rapper dash but that's a poor solution you are sacrificing uptime on dealing damage to the boss to do this and she will still sometimes glitch out so hard that you won't be able to react even if you are far away the other stupid mechanic is on the valkyrie geardropfull i'm probably saying that wrong and it's also one that see groon inherits this also links to my final give me god of war criticism that they removed an option from these fights on hard mode you could throw your axe to interrupt the valkyries whenever they went into the air no matter what attack they were doing you could be rewarded for quick reflexes and throwing the axe aside from one ability the valkyries are immune to this and give me god of war mode and the only reason there's an exception is because it causes a huge explosion that kills you no matter where you are so you have to throw the axe to interrupt it i understand that throwing the axe could be seen as too easy a solution for many fights but this unquestionably makes the bosses less interesting because you have fewer responses i think a better solution here would have been requiring a much faster axe throw if you miss that timing then they go immune it makes the fights harder without further restricting you anyway this ability that geardropfull has makes her fly into the air segrun has this one too since you can't knock them down with the axe anymore you have to react to it in another way they charge a big blast of light that blinds you when it pops after quite a while i finally realized that you respond to this by turning away from them when they're doing it so covering your eyes in a way so the blindness doesn't hit you right now that may sound reasonable first up this isn't the only attack in the game that inflicts blindness there are at least two others and many more that have the same explosion of light visual this is the only one that can be nullified by looking away so it's not consistent secondly if turning away solves it then hiding kratos face behind a shield should also work but of course it doesn't thirdly it's not actually kratos that has to look away from this it's the camera so you can have kratos's face staring into the valkyrie sun all you want but if you turn the camera away you won't be blinded the inverse is also true kratos can be looking away but if you turn the camera back he will still be blinded lastly you cannot use the quick 180 turn ability when recalling the axe so if you throw the axe thinking segren use the ability that requires an axe throw good luck turning kratos around in time without the 180 turn unless you know about the camera trick just for the sake of being thorough here are all the moves secret can do after flying up in the air i think you'll agree that some are easily mistaken for others that's a good part of the challenge but making it so you can't turn around while the axe is flying back isn't good for a more general problem that also happens to be my biggest personal gripe in the whole game we have to look at unlockable skills being big mistakes while the catch the axe into an attack abilities are cool to look at they also change how quickly you can throw the axe when it's not currently equipped you have to have it in kratos hand first not on his back this is the minor one though while we're on it i do wish you could more naturally run and catch the axe at the same time instead kratos always pauses when you recall the axe no matter what you're doing except for rolling i think it's a bump in how smooth chaining moves together usually is the big problem is the projectile parry parrying grants you a period of invulnerability it also usually stuns whoever you parried even better you can cancel the counter-attack of a parry if you decide another option is superior projectile parries are different they also grant a moment of invulnerability but the parry animation is a lot longer and also can cannot be cancelled this means you can successfully parry a projectile and then be exposed to massive damage while kratos is locked into completing it because the moment of invulnerability wasn't increased along with the animation time so these channeled beam attacks that some bosses do you raise your shield too late and perry which should be encouraged and rewarded instead you could die same for baldur's ranged attacks the volley from this valkyrie pretty much any ranged attack in the game really because arranged parry doesn't stun the enemy until it's completed so they are free to do a follow-up that is faster than the parry animation if that's just what is randomly selected as their next move to use this is bad because you cannot turn this skill off after taking it it's even worse because now you have to have even better reflexes on some attacks in order to block so early that there's no chance of accidentally parrying and killing yourself it also means the parry amulet which increases the window that a parry can trigger in is a liability instead of a buff it can and will get you killed i died to this more times than i can count sigrun also has some hitbox issues both in your favor and in hers and can break the timings on some of her attacks for some frustrating inconsistencies this one here when she landed from her air stabbing ambush early for no discernible reason was particularly bad i could go into great detail on these with a ton of examples since it took me a couple of hours to kill segrun on give me god of war mode largely because of these issues but i think that would be too indulgent on my part he says at the end of his three hour video i think i've already made my point on these problems oh am i going too fast i think it would also risk souring the tone of the video at the end when i am overwhelmingly positive on this game the biggest reason why i went so hard on it and that this video became so long is that i consider it to be the most important game that will release this year it isn't my favorite of 2018 so far that goes to celeste but god of war feels like the first triple a game that i've played in a long time that had the attention to detail and passion of an indie game swirling inside of it i said at the beginning that god of war is greater than the sum of its parts i do not think that showing how some of those parts are flawed diminishes the overall achievement of the game as a whole things can always be done better and it's more important than ever to point that out when something is receiving universal praise even if that praise is from yourself loving something means that you will want it to succeed more and more and to improve and grow more and more that will be true until the day comes that a perfect game is released if that ever happens i'll close down the channel from story to gameplay to visuals and almost everything in between god of war is a triumph it strikes me as the first major budgeted game in a long time perhaps ever that flirts with pushing forward with all of the strengths of the medium the next game in this series is now among my most anticipated releases i hope that the developers behind this game receive the support and freedom to build on everything they've done here i hope that in the next video i will be able to drop the almost from the title thank you so we're done for real um so i'm doing this part um unscripted as you can probably tell because the the announcer voice is gone and i'm pausing a lot so yeah it's been a while huh um yeah sorry about that uh so lily and i bought a house we moved we um we're we're we no longer live in toronto um thanks to support from from from you guys the viewers and um the channel and uh especially the patrons that are scrolling on the screen right now um so yeah that's that's what's been going on that's where we've been um i realized that this is probably a little uh a little uh jarring to hear me speak in such a different way that's what people say all the time when they come on the streams like oh wow you sound so different you know then when you're narrating yeah it's it's my reading voice is a lot different than this one so yeah so thank you so much um i'm sorry that there was such a big gap um i still think for the amount of effort that went into this video i got it done fairly quickly um but yeah uh moving across the country over a few provinces is definitely very very difficult we couldn't afford to buy a house in toronto so uh we we we moved uh to somewhere else in canada and uh so far it's worked out really really well so so thank you again things should become more stable from here on out um there should be uh more regular videos uh there's gonna be a new feature that we're gonna be putting on the channel uh as well as um some more quicker lighter videos uh that will still probably be fairly in-depth and a bit on the long side compared to many other video game channels but um they won't be three-hour monsters like this one um the big thing i want to announce right now is that the next big project uh will be the witcher um i know that i've spoken about doing a video on the automata i want to do something on neo and and horizon zero dawn and probably the hollow knight dlc at some point um please do not take those as promises to do those at some point but i'm just i'm just saying that's those are on my list but um the witcher has to be done and uh there's there it's time um i i've allowed too many other projects to get in the way and i think it's time to to to do the witcher now and i'm very excited to play the witcher 3 especially because um when i first started making the videos the computer i built that was capable of rendering them was so i could play the witcher 3 finally i wanted to play it really really badly but then you know the channel took off and that's obviously the better outcome of those two but yeah that's that's what uh that's what happened so um so yeah not only do i want to make the video i also really want to play the game myself as as a gamer you know what i mean um so yeah so that's it that's that's that's gonna be the the next thing it's probably gonna take a long time um it's gonna be all three games the dlc and the books and uh it's been teased enough as it is and uh yeah so all other big projects have been permanently um suspended uh and witcher is gonna be next uh i expect that it's probably gonna be six hours long the video which means that it's going to be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of work considering that i'm always wrong with my estimate six hours is probably gonna turn into eight but i hope that maybe i'll be wrong this time and maybe it'll be shorter than six hours then i think who knows yeah hopefully anyway so yeah thank you for watching uh there are a couple things i wanted to say about the game that i couldn't fit into the rest of the script i didn't mention spartan rage at all throughout the whole video uh and that's because it's pretty much worthless and it's not really interesting to talk about so it was kind of an intentional omission um yeah spartan rage is basically just an oh [ __ ] button that causes you to regenerate some health and get some free hits in damage that you sustain while in spartan rage mode just takes away your rage meter instead of taking away your health so it's just kind of an oh [ __ ] button i don't really think it's a good part of the game i think they could expand on it and it could be a lot more fun uh it takes a while to build up the rage too it i don't know in in stuff something like double may cry i feel like i'm using that mode a lot more actively and it's something that i'm always keeping track of whereas whereas in this game uh it was really inconsequential and i just kind of used it whenever i thought oh yeah i haven't used that in a while or i was almost dead and i thought oh okay i might as well use it and see if i can get away with it so yeah um not a good part of the game at all the treasure maps are really cool and much like a lot of the lore stuff in the books are are really well put together i like that the lore entries are written from a trace's perspective instead of being this kind of bland all-knowing narrator that's just adding to this book as you go along i really liked the the flavor of that um the treasure maps are also part of that but like i said in the video probably too many times it's so hard to get around that i wish that maybe you found these in a central location and then could recognize where they are as you play the game instead of finding one in one part of the lake of nine and then go all over the place trying to get to the other area that you recognize in the map it just i don't know it's it links back to that problem with that it just takes so long to get around that while cool they weren't really that good of a feature that i enjoyed that much i should also say because i didn't mention it anywhere in the video that the voice acting is fantastic and there was nobody in this game that i thought did a bad job including atreus which is quite surprising all in all i think he was a very good character and i i'm curious to see where the game goes from here with him um yeah really really good job in in that and music really added to a lot of the scenes especially that really good one halfway through the game also i tend not to focus on these sort of things but it does bear repeating the game looks incredible um especially some of the the forest areas look really crisp um i think my favorite shot in the game is uh even though it's a bad part is when kratos is tearing open the chest of that troll in helheim and you know the color in the background as as he's as he's kneeling exhausted over it and you see the big bird that you should have fought in the background you know it's it's just a really cool shot and overall the game just looks incredible it's it's it's really really impressive and i think that's it i don't think there are any other points that i wanted to make oh oh there is um i wanted to make i cut this line up because i didn't want to risk the video getting a copyright strike from nintendo so i'll just say it here because i can get away with not having a visual on the screen when i say it because we're in the credits um the way that kratos moves around and has kind of like some weird puzzles in the game you know instead of combat exploration like the limited movement system is geared far more toward the weird puzzles rather rather than combat and exploration and it reminds me of the the captain toad levels in mario 3d world you know what i mean like he can't jump so he has to you know awkwardly waddle around on the platforms and hope that he finds a ramp and an elevator to take him up you know what i mean it's it's kind it's kind of like that and i think that really shines a light on how limited and frustrating the movement system in this game can be but now i'm ending the video on a negative and i want to bring it back to a positive um that axe man the axe was really good i hope i hope that you know the axe survives in the next game it's strange that the axes has the same kind of power as malnour huh that the throw and bring it back maybe maybe it's going to be replaced somehow in the next game maybe we'll see anyway thank you so much for watching um sorry this took so long this is probably the first time ever in the history of the channel that people can go down to the comments section and say welcome back joe and it's right on thank you very much we are very very happy in the house thank you so much for that i'll see you next time

Channel: Joseph Anderson

Views: 5,847,945

Keywords: god of war, God of War, GoW, ps4, exclusive, review, critique, criticism, analysis, video game, video games, 2018, old god of war, god of war 1, god of war 2, god of war 3, comparison, funny, masterpiece, goty, ps3, ps2, playstation, sony, movie, combat, story, explanation, explained, in-depth

Id: pJPOvLvdugw

Length: 180min 9sec (10809 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 30 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/InfinityGems]

Jesus Christ. Forewarning everyone, its a 3 hour video.

[u/RTCanada]

Many shy away because of the length of his videos but even if you do sound only when you're cooking or something, he's one of the very best in critiquing games.

[u/Schwarzengerman]

Love Joseph's stuff, cant wait to sit and watch this. I find his stuff is good for background listening personally. Especially at a 3hr mark.

[u/ImADickAndILoveIt]

Just watched the whole thing, he made some good points (as usual). I personally didn't feel the same about the last chunk of the game but he did point out a good amount of inconsistent parts of it but I still love the game anyways. CANNOT wait for the second one

[u/GoatGod997]

I’ve been a fan of this guy for a while, taking part in the discord, watching streams, getting to know the core crowd and talking to Joe and his wife occasionally; I’m glad someone posted this video and I hope it gets more recognition. Joe makes long videos, they’re fun, they have a lot of personality, so if that’s your thing, then you’ll love this. If not, move along.

[u/[deleted]]

God bless that monotone motherlover but there is no way in hell I'm watching a YouTube video as long as a Lord of the Rings movie.

[u/TheLastOfKratos]

I'll watch 30 mins everyday

[u/bonzaisushi]

Almost? Pffff, felt like a masterpiece to me.