God of War Ragnarok: A Disaster Disguised as a Masterpiece - Critique & Analysis

foreign I said after I made my Odyssey video that I wasn't going to use the broke me title again because it wouldn't have the same impact if it were merely a reoccurring title I used for clicks when something mildly bad happens in my life this game had some flaws I didn't like bro McDonald's got my order wrong for the 12th time this week I broke my wife took the kids and left broke me um no that one did that one did that one hurt um and I'm still not going to use that title I did consider it though and this video was made with that title in mind because this game did break me but for different reasons than the Odyssey video and hopefully that will become clear by the end of the video if you make it to the end of the video good luck timestamps are in the description by the way you can use them to navigate past this introductory segment to the actual start of the critique at the risk of completely misunderstanding where I'm coming from but I guess this is my hottest take maybe ever when I first finished this game I came out feeling like yeah there was plenty to like I feel a bit odd and I have some issues but like it was a good game right and then as I began to dwell on it analyze it and really process how I felt the scale slowly but surely tipped and God damn it why don't I just like this game everything would have been so much easier if I'd simply enjoyed it I could praise it as a masterpiece and then nobody would be mad at me I wouldn't have to fight for my opinion too hard and things would just be easier I wanted to like this game so [ __ ] badly I desperately wanted to like this even when I knew in my gut something fell off I stuck to no but it's like a game and the truth is I don't like God of War Ragnarok I don't think it's good I think it's honestly sort of a complete disaster and I'm going to try to explain why now odds up some of you are already in the comments absolutely seething I'm obviously over analyzing so I'm sorry for doing my job too well but this is what I do I love to delve into media as deeply as I can pick it apart my bread and butter and well if it were my over analysis that were the issue you'd also have a problem with my positive videos where I over analyze media but it's not that is it anyone mad at this video is mad that I dislike the thing they like not mad that I'm over analyzing it too much not mad that the video is long not mad that I care so much they're mad because they don't agree I know a lot of people will jump to the response of you're just doing this to get clicks you're just doing this to get views by posting something provocative and genuinely no I'm not doing that I don't do that if you think that you've probably never seen a video of mine before or you've wildly misinterpreted the way that I present myself I create videos for my channel to explore my opinions on media so that I can convert they hopefully an understanding of my position whether you agree or disagree isn't the valuable part it's the information gained and the perspective learned that I think is important because no matter what I say in this video you don't have to leave it with the same conclusion that's the great thing about all this it's called having an opinion yours can differ and that's the point of what I do I explore mine as in depth as I can to try and make actual arguments rather than just ranting about benignal things see I've said it right that time so you can say yeah I get where you're coming from maybe you don't agree with my conclusion but you can at least understand why I would feel the way that I do it's the reason I watch long form critiques I like seeing that alternate perspective articulated in a way that makes me nod along even if I find myself ultimately disagreeing with the conclusion of the piece making videos like this becomes harder with each passing year as more and more people make film television and video games their entire personality and really push back against any form of criticism you see it mainly with Star Wars Marvel it seems even Avatar stands have popped up out of nowhere 15 years later to defend their franchise but I would hope that despite disagreement being something that will happen this video can still act as something insightful that can give you a new perspective on a popular piece of art who am I kidding I can make the nicest critique on Earth and people would still wish that my mother gets cancer so [ __ ] all of you [ __ ] everyone who doesn't agree I hope this video upsets you to your core and gives you chronic back pain all right because this thing absolutely [ __ ] broke me what up so um look disclaimer part two I guess I wanted to add some context before we really get into the meat of this there's a lot to talk about so I'm not really in a rush at all to be honest we have all day in fact should I put the kettle on [Music] how many sugars I'm sorry did you say did you just say six no I'm no I'm sorry that's absolutely ridiculous that is this video is about to become why that's the wrong amount of sugars to have I mean ever actually that's not no we're talking about this part of the video is really just because I got a comment on my Horizon video that said I don't want to hear things about your life I don't care and I'm I'm bitter I'm Petty and I'm a bit of a dick I just wanted to say that this was like a joke like the the guy was not being mean at all I'm not actually mad I even explained why my videos are the way that they are and why I create them in the style that I do and they were really understanding and said have a good Christmas or something so I'm not actually like mad or anything I just thought it was funny for the bit anyway foreign ly I wasn't even sure I was going to make this video at all the reason being the more I reflected and the more I scrutinize the game the more I just started to dislike the whole thing I worry that not conforming to the mainstream opinion will lead people to say my validity as a Critic is diminished I know logically that's not true Odyssey broke me was going against the mainstream opinion and plenty of others do it regularly I just felt greatly uncertain I find critiquing a fun exercise I don't try to like things the same way as I just don't try to dislike things I just feel a certain way and then I delve into why I feel that way based on evidence that I can find in the thing I think some people assume that deep analysis will always devolve into nitpicking and finding bad things but that's not true my God of War 2018 video is deep and heavily critical but 99 of it leans positively analysis finds the best and worst parts of a thing and whether you give a [ __ ] depends on you and I guess the audience that I want most are the people who think similarly to what I do not in terms of their opinion but in terms of wanting to be critical so I should be authentic to myself right whether you enjoy a thing or not is based purely on your own standards you're always going to find it nitpicking if it was an aspect that you personally overlooked and had no issues with you're going to think the person who's saying that it's a problem is nitpicking they're finding something to be mad about whereas the reality is they just didn't like it and you didn't think it was that big of a problem I feel like to keep my videos genuinely interesting and full of substance I have to keep my standards high and I can't simply choose to overlook things I'd otherwise critique just because it's a Sony first party game in a beloved franchise these videos are always Trojan horses sometimes for Assassin's Creed other times for in-depth discussions about the state of my mental health due to reading too many YouTube comments it's probably important to establish where this review critique analysis ego Flex is coming from ecoflex is that oh no that's that's not what I meant at all I don't think Ragnarok is necessarily a badly made game or at least it wasn't made by incompetent people it's just that video games are some of their parts not the parts as individual things so where Ragnarok does often create systems that on their own are well polished and fun the way they're combine the contextualized and interweave often leaves a lot to be desired and hinders the overall experience in ways that were absolutely not the case in God of War 2018 so it means that even when I did like things they often went ahead and ruined them by integrating them poorly or contextualizing them sloppily sloppily is that a word I I need to stop second guessing myself after that whole ego Flex thing and what it makes for is a disjointed dysfunctional and lackluster experience in almost every Avenue I said almost you hear me I I said almost yes there are of course things I like in this game and I often find replays necessary to solidify these things because sometimes a first-time buyers can make Grand moments seem incredible but on a second run or closer inspection you realize oh no [ __ ] I didn't like it the way I thought I did because you don't have the initial shock and the in the moment emotions you can take a step back and see it for what it is and there are some things that I think stand up to that test one of which is the gorgeous soundtrack it's something that honestly elevates even some poorly scripted moments the track a Sun's path is maybe my favorite God of War Track full stop it's perfect they use it at all the right times it perfectly encapsulates this journey for atreus Loki and it just sounds really really good that mercury did a standout job it's just absolutely stunning it's pretty great wait no sorry in my notes I wrote here it's pretty graphic I think I think I meant it's got pretty Graphics which reading that aloud sounds really dumb anyway but the game does Look Marvelous it's not a huge upgrade from 2018 in terms of its visuals but the little things are so much nicer from the way that snow tessellates to particle effects draw distances the way the faces animating cutscenes and textures on armor and weapons the game looks tremendous and it running on performance mode gives you a solid 60 FPS while retaining a crisp resolution which was honestly really impressive the Realms feel truly realized visually and they're distinctive from one another which helps to ground you in the space you're moving through which is important for a game like this to do there are a few scenes that are really nice they play into the strengths of God of War 2018 in character and the subtlety that made that game shine and really allow things to feel meaningful that's enhanced by the actors giving it their absolute all in these scenes Chris judge and sunny soljic are killing it I'm talking moments like Kratos telling the story of The Woodcutter atreus consoling his father in hellheim the more slow and subtle moments towards the start of the game there are points when they get it so right I just feel these moments are held together by sticks and mud so while they're good they're not as cohesive with the entire experience the way they would have been in 2018. I think the ending is good maybe not the whole entire execution of the ending but where the game ends for Kratos and atreus is I I'd say pretty perfect I think that's the thing I'm most happy with that at least the game didn't go in a direction I felt was wrong which is something I want to get straight I don't think God of War Ragnarok is wrong for doing anything it did on a conceptual level where it takes its characters or story isn't wrong on a very base fundamental level I'm not criticizing the idea of the game's Direction I'm criticizing the execution of it which is an important distinction to make because I've had a lot of people over the last couple months say that you just had your expectations wrong I don't know why did that voice that's what I imagine you sound like in the comments I'm sorry and that's that's not true I've never been someone to dismiss something on a conceptual level I never dislike something based on what it was trying to do or the direction it was taking its story and that I just had a different idea for what where the narrative should have gone I dislike things when they're done badly and I genuinely do think for the most part God of War Ragnarok is executed poorly I'm sorry a two-for-one deal sounds great you'll get it all the time at a Domino's Pizza this video does not endorse Domino's Pizza for free think about sponsoring me and I'll think about your pizzas more often you get two pizzas for the price of one which is really good when it's two whole pizzas that you you're getting however God of War Ragnarok is more like if you paid for one pizza and then you still got one pizza but another pizza was also mushed onto the first pizza foreign are you gonna eat that I mean maybe someone might say yes but um I think one of the most crucial aspects that even people who like the game have found an issue with is the pacing of the story Ragnarok is very clearly two games in one game I think that's abundantly clear by the fact most people expected that this was a Trilogy and into ragnarok's development but Corey basically decided that yeah they could do it all in one game rather than two which suggests that it was originally too well it originally through [ __ ] Corey decided that yeah they could do the rest of the story in in one game rather than two which suggests that it was originally three games in total why did you think it was a better idea to end the the Norse series with two games you know why what do you think it was a more efficient I got this one unlocked ask that other guy astronaut okay oh no wait that was your idea yeah yeah oh well Corey take it away man you know can you all right uh so there are several reasons I think one of the most important reasons is um the first game took five years the second game I don't know how long it's gonna take but I'm just gonna throw out that it's gonna take a a close to similar time right to do this and then if you think wow a third one in that same we're talking like a span of close to 15 years of a single story right uh and I feel like that's just too stretched out like I feel like we're asking too much to say the actual completion of that story taking that long just feels too long uh and given sort of where the team is at and where Eric was at with what he wanted to do I was like look I think we can actually do this in the second story now I've stated before that if it could be condensed well then always do less games because too many stories stretch themselves across multiple entries and it's exhausting Ragnarok is honestly a rare case where it actually needed more time we needed two games this isn't a well condensed story it's crammed to the point that the game feels like a rush to the end Ragnarok isn't one game because it serves the story better it's one game because they didn't want to be trapped working on a third for another five years which while fair enough they're human beings it doesn't make the outcome good does it which speaks to the fact that this wasn't done for Artistic integrity reasons it was done for personal reasons which like I said is completely fine but it harms the art doesn't it and that's that's what we're talking about in this video I'd also suggest that if you're going to start something like this you really should have the foresight to know how long three games is going to take you I don't like the idea that you could just make a masterpiece first entry into a Trilogy and then decide after you realize how tough it was have the creative director move to a different project have the team say well we can just phone it in as the second one wraps it all up and calls it a day Corey made the first part of an idea that in his head spanned three or more entries but instead he stepped down passed on the mantle and the team something else to push the two games together and got a story concluded but it hurts the experience even more because 2018 was clearly made as the first entry into a Trilogy and I'm not saying that Sony should have forced Corey to make the trilogy that's ridiculous what I'm actually saying is that if Corey's vision for that trilogy could not be realized no sequel should have been made the game should have stood on its own as a singular entry and that's because it's not three games condensed into two games which would have been easier had they known from day one it needed to be two games instead of three it's one game into one game and then two games into one game and what this does is breed further disparity between 2018 and God of War Ragnarok in its tone pacing structuring and overall design philosophy it also really hurts hearing gory talk about his plans that we never got to see if we do a second game or a third game you're gonna go back to the first one and you'll be like oh my God that was there I have so many things in there they're just setups for much later and much much later and really far later so I'm a lunatic in God of War 2018 we have room for everything the story wants to do a meaningful relationship form between a father and son who have been mourning the loss of their wife and mother respectively there's an arc of self-discovery in Kratos which plays on the themes and events of the original trilogy to bring him closure on the things he did an ark which plays into the core themes of family there's a traitor's Arc of discovering who he is to his father and without his mother gaining a sense of individuality and that Arkham forms kratos's Arc which informs the relationship between them which is the foundation of the story being told it has a focus and it has a goal all of these aspects of the narrative play together in a way which is cohesive meaningful and well paced we also have a lot of additional narrative aspects in that of rock and syndrome Freya and Boulder as well as Thor magni and Modi all of which tell their own smaller scale stories that again reinforce the narrative we're exploring with our main characters it's cohesive it's interweaving it's bloody marvelous all of this is achieved because it's one game telling one story it has one purpose it has many aspects of One Singular focus and that bleeds into every aspect of the game aspects we will inspect more closely later but for now consider how the focus being so well focused allows for the side content the open world the exploration combat evens will feel like a part of a singular whole the sum of its parts it's strong it's firm it's me when I play the game and this doesn't even touch upon the actual quality of the writing itself the intricacies with which the sentences are constructed and the dialogue is thought out in God of War Ragnarok we do not have room for everything it wants to do which includes but is not limited to a journey of self-discovery for atreus again an exploration of significance or lack thereof of Prophecy the exploration of who Fey was revoking her Mystique so that we can have a famous actor in mocap a reversal of freya's position from the last game within a matter of only a few hours exploration of every realm in the Norse world explaining where jormunganda came from an allegory for kratos's relationship with atreus using thought and through and drinking addiction a mystery established about a champion of the Yota tier who was meant to be dead is back the civil war between the elves freya's rebellion and Anaheim Rock died and syndru found his soul pieces and literally resurrected him dropped on us randomly during exploration dialogue Odin's deep manipulation of our main cast but also of his own family a McGuffin mask that is linked to a realm tear that is interesting but also pointless outside of getting characters to do things because plot a journey in which Kratos comes to terms with his past and becomes a better person again and somehow they still decided not to tell us who blew the [ __ ] horn and none of these things by themselves are bad ideas they're just not they're all pretty good ideas it's just the game itself doesn't have enough time to explore them or interweave them in a way that makes the experience feel cohesive in 2018 something as small as going off and exploring an island played into every Focus atreus's self-discovery kratos's Redemption through atreus and their relationship everything into weaves in Ragnarok it just doesn't the themes the focus the gameplay it's all disconnected in Ragnarok which isn't always a problem not every story needs to have every aspect into weave and like I said most of the systems and narrative ideas are fine on their own as isolated pieces but a game is the sum of those individual parts and when you establish what the Saga is based on from a design and narrative perspective in 2018 a deep cohesion and then you mimic that with the sequel you'd think it should follow suit and not be a watered-down and disconnected version of that it feels like a direct step back from what 2018 was doing and you see the thing is the first two hours of the game got this it understands this so if you think I'm wrong about this and my standards are just too high the developers clearly agreed with me at one point because they made the game the way I'm saying they should have made it so eat dirt haters I'm sorry I didn't mean that I don't know why I said that but the point is when working on a smaller scale with a lot more focus without these intrusive plot elements they didn't [ __ ] it up they actually did a really great job look you can see my initial reactions to Ragnarok on Twitter after I played only the first two hours and I loved it because it's really good it's a prime example that they were trying to do the things I'm saying they needed to do it just went awry because of all the additional things they had to squeeze in as the game went along one game was not enough time for all of these things to happen let me explain what I mean about the first two hours if you'll indulge me I think it's necessary to understand where they succeed to understand where the game falls apart and having both examples come from not just the same Studio or franchise but the same game is a treat I don't often have in videos like this so please allow me to elaborate the opening of Ragnarok does two things it establishes a status quo for our characters and the plot as well as give us a direction for this story to unfold in a way that makes you want to follow them on this journey and in a way that makes sense based on their previous arcs and the status quo established by this game all these things work in tandem at the start of Ragnarok Kratos is clearly the same man of few words but now his grunts are not dismissive grunts they are loving grunts little subtleties like this fueled the writing in 2018 as they do to begin Ragnarok similarly we get to see atreyas having more initiative he went out and did the hunting on his own something that he was incapable of in 2018 showing he's grown into a young man as well as the fact that he also gawks at this conquer I marble I will find out what it is later on but for now he's got a nice shiny conquer and he started up his own collection presumably so that's admirable what it does is establish atreus as having a life outside of his father's Shadow and that's important for what the game attempts to do down the line we also get to see Freya now continues to hunt them something lingering from 2018 harranka remains even three years later which is important to characterize her without needing to stay too much openly and the death of fenrir allows us to see atreus's compassion is still present he never let it go an important trait which comes into play at the end of the storyline on top of all of these things running parallel and playing into one other to feel discontent in character drama it allows us to organically explore atreus's power and use the motif of the bear in the beginning to start to build more of a conflict between atreus and Kratos which is important in tearing them apart later on Odin and Thor also get sent to Stage we get a marvelous set-piece battle with the God of Thunder which allows us to indulge in kratos's core gameplay without losing the narrative tension in doing so the combat and aggression fuels the story beats during the fight and it all works together to deliver something impressive Odin's manipulation is also in play allowing for subtle characterization of who he is while at the same time pushing our characters to discover what atreus might have been doing on his own turns out his conquer collection spans farther than we could have realized and after reluctance from Kratos it leads our Squad out of their home once again to see what atreus has found all of these elements together all of them are fantastic when dealing with less plot less characters less complicating factors the story shines The Narrative shines and the writing shines this is good this is brilliant and this is exactly why the story loses control of itself to towards the end of the second hour once you pile on sindri and Brock tear being alive the conflict with Freya needing to be resolved playable atreus Ironwood the alphheim conflict at races distrust leading her way to Asgard the vanheim Rebellion the parallel to Thor with his drinking problem and the relationship with his daughter the mass plot line freya's odd and quick Redemption self-discovery and forgiving of Kratos and so many other things you very very quickly lose sight of the smaller things the subtleties the character depth and the significance to the plot that tears away a decently good game from a masterpiece because you are struggling to keep so many plates spinning two games worth of plates spinning on just one single game that some of them have to be dropped I don't know what that was I don't know what that metaphor was some plot points have to be rushed and the game suffers for it it feels like every few hours the focus of the game shifts to be something else entirely almost as if God award 2018 was a tight feature film and Ragnarok is a TV show maybe a TV show premiering specifically on Disney plus I mean I'm not saying anything maybe maybe that's maybe that's a similarity it's trying to hold your attention from episode to episode while vaguely carrying a through line that is sort of prevalent but not really until the end of the final episode and I did just steal that idea from one of my mods on my girlfriend's Discord server so thanks flash by doing this everything just starts to feel wrong it's a story not at all built for the framework of 2018 but it's trying to tell its story that way anyway it's a story that spans tons of Realms tons of focuses and tons of characters but also is forced to retain a single camera shot and so has to spend a while Meandering from thing to thing and then rush through each thing once you're there a story of this nature needed to be built with inside an entirely different framework than the one they were working with or you needed to build a story suited to the framework you were stuck with using instead they didn't and it results in incongruity and of course why does it have so many focuses well it brings us back around to the the original point of this whole part of the video because this is two games in one game they had to cram everything in they had to make it work but they were trying to make it work within the framework of what 2018 established as the core principles of this era's storytelling and it just ends up feeling wrong and out of place they take stuff from the middle entry and the stuff from the final entry and try to make it all make sense and get through it in time they needed all of the main characters in certain positions by the start of Ragnarok the event not the game but where with two more games they could have had a whole middle entry geared towards character development and a third entry to establish build and execute Ragnarok they have to do both in one single game and so you have arcs rushed and characters inexplicably do things because they have to be in a certain position by the start of Ragnarok otherwise the ending doesn't work which is why the ending works because our characters are rushed into positions they need to be in it's also why the opening two hours work because it's building from 2018. it's everything after the first two hours up up to probably the final two hours that feels like a disjointed mess I don't envy this position imagine being given a new hope and being told right cram Empire and Jedi into one film it would be a disaster because key to a Trilogy is the opening story establishing World character and taking our heroes on a journey the middle part is usually all character focused studying who our characters are after their initial Arc how they deal with particular hardships and how that forms them into the people they will be to confront the final challenge in the third entry which has them face off against the biggest threat less character drama more story Stakes which works to conclude all of the narrative work done thus far I use the example of Star Wars because it's universally well known but you can apply this formula to almost all successful trilogies and you can really start to see where I'm coming from the story of God of War was not conceived as a duology it was conceived as a Trilogy and that immediately puts the game on the back foot for its entirety but what that then means goes deeper because you're now building a story not suited to the framework it's being built within which causes many more problems than you'd think Ragnarok tries to mimic 2018 in its gameplay level design even camera work but fails to recognize those elements were in 2018 because they all work together to tell that story The gameplay the level design the camera work everything was the way that it was in God of War 2018 because it helped to convey tone and narrative in interactive ways in Ragnarok the single camera shot doesn't even make sense for the story being told it's simply there because it was in 2018. Exploration was included in the first game because it acted as an interactive way to simulate the experience of atreus pulling Kratos from the beaten path to develop a bond and grow character it's in Ragnarok because well we have to have side quests in our game now don't we the only way I can see Ragnarok using design to convey narrative is through atreus's gameplay it creates a unique Fish Out of Water experience for the player something that deeply connects to the story being told with atreus and it's no surprise these sections have the most narrative cohesion because they aren't hampered by needing to push you off to do side quests or explore a large Open Space full of items and boss fights masquerading as God of War 2018 2.0 the gameplay structuring and level design all work together during the atreus portions to build a sense of narrative cohesion and while this is their biggest strength when it comes to pairing design philosophy to the story being told it comes at a cost forcing the player to play as atreus the game attempting to remedy needing to cram two games into one is maybe its biggest downfall and not in the way you'd probably think this game is split into halves well not halves I guess it's more like this on a pie chart 70 30 70 being Kratos 30 being atreus it does this to try and compartmentalize the development and let me explain what I'm saying by having two stories playing out essentially simultaneously you're basically getting your two games at once it allows for Kratos to story to take place in one instance and atreus is in another two characters having two arcs at once separately the issue is you don't have the length of a game for each one and you end up with half the time and so so many additional Characters themes and focuses start to get lost let's look at atreus who I believe is the main character of this game or at least the main character in the eyes of the writing team and if you think I'm wrong just consider that you spend more of this time riding a yak than you do fighting in Ragnarok that's not a joke you you do actually do that this game should be called the God of War yagnarok I'm sorry now is it wrong for atreus to be the main character of a god of war game no I don't think it is however this game does not commit to it it feels afraid to do what it actually wants to do which is sideline Kratos and so what it actually does is sideline atreus but also give him all of the core story beats to work through and so the game ultimately Sidelines the main [ __ ] story atreus is the one meeting with Odin atres as the one interacting with the Norse pantheon with characters like through Thor Sith Heimdall and this guy I atreus is the one learning of Prophecy atreus is the one making the key decisions that affect the Norse mythology atreus is the character moving the story along he's proactive like a protagonist should be that's just the way that he's written but he's relegated to linear sections that take up 30 of the game now like I said I'm not someone who hates on Concepts sure sidelining Kratos sounds pretty dumb but either you commit to it and tell that story the way that it deserves to be told or you don't and you do a different story this game is trying to have its cake and eat it too and as much as I love cake this is bad I don't know what I was trying to say there about cake the point that I'm trying to make is that atreus gets the spotlight frequently and for long stretches the writers clearly see him as the primary character with the way that he's utilized by the story itself as the most proactive character now while I was working on this video I actually got proof of this concept which I'm just sort of squashing and inserting into this part of the videos which I think just adds a little bit more context to the concept that I'm talking about recently min max interviewed two of the writers on God of War Ragnarok Matt sofos and Richard Gilbert in this interview they talk about one of the very first and original drafts of this game's script the earliest earliest draft of an outline that we had come up with that we took to Eric um we had Kratos died in the Thor fight at the very beginning of the game oh wow uh and so you know you know he was gonna die and then it wasn't a permanent death what was gonna happen and I don't care we can tell this because it's never it doesn't happen anymore so this is all fan fiction at this point now uh he would get pulled out of of Hell essentially by atreus but it's now been like 20 years have passed oh my God a big time Jump type thing so uh that was that was a version of it and um it just it didn't ultimately feel right Eric was like I don't want to do that now granted they didn't Linger on this idea for long but I do believe that the remnants of this idea and the story they wanted to tell with atreus which was very clearly something they wanted to touch upon by killing off Kratos in this original script still shows in the final script of the game because they didn't want to scrap the story they wanted to tell with atreus but in order to bring back in Kratos you kind of had to but they don't do that they keep both and so you end up with this mixture this mess that we have in God of War Ragnarok I think it's really interesting because it shows that there is clearly a story they wanted to tell and people above them higher up writers and higher up people on the game said no we can't really do that what that did was mean that the story had to be changed to accommodate the fact that no we can't kill Kratos but the script then still includes the storyline that they wanted to tell with the trace which was one of the main driving forces of the game and that leaves us with this disparity with this lopsided nature and with this game that just feels really off and not like the story they absolutely wanted to tell at all but it's still only 30 of the overall game and so for the majority of the game we're playing as Kratos a character who feels a bit lost in this new story his Arc in 2018 concluded wonderfully but then what do you do with that character now he feels stationary he's reactive more than proactive the opposite of what a protagonist should be and yet we're playing as him for a majority of the game at points he's retreading his original Arc and has the most sections of filler just for an excuse at gameplay one section in particular is the search for the norns the game has you go to two empty caves before you find them and then you have a conversation that really does nothing other than to tell Kratos heimdar might kill atreus and for someone who doesn't believe in Prophecy he sure as hell has to for the plot to go anywhere at this point and to give this character something to actually do besides sitting around and waiting for the actual main character to show up again I know how about we have him go with Brock to make a new speed he can fight loads of enemies and get to the top of a mountain that'll be a good hour or so I reckon and then we could shoehorn in a weird plot about Brock having died before that's in the game for some reason Kratos is going on this journey of learning not to regress into his old ways but he's doing it with characters that he doesn't yet have a deep connection to like Freya mamir and Brock you might say he does have a connection to those characters and I would say [ __ ] you no he doesn't okay no I didn't mean to lash out again I'm going to therapy I'm really trying here for the both of us I promise I can make this work just give me one more chance please he has a connection to those characters for sure but they aren't friends this may be a mutual respect but not the bondias with atreus or had with Faye it's not even close and we needed a whole game for his bond with atreyas to Bear any fruit have him go on one Mission with freyja and have entire outlooks changed is ludicrous but that's for later a lot of kratos's Arc feels Meandering unlike an afterthought the game they wanted to do is the one with the trace as the lead but they knew sidelining Kratos would be frowned upon so they made his story seventy percent the game and this is how the pacing begins to feel skewed atreyus is rushing through his Arc while Kratos is taking too long we end up with a lopsided narrative that doesn't ever seem to land on a purpose because the foundation it was built upon the relationship between Kratos and atreus is never truly present nor do we have a true middle entry in which Kratos can grow an attachment to other supporting characters we have to work with the pieces we've got and they don't seem to join together all too well this is why I think the first two hours and last two hours probably work as well as they do they are the parts that are using 2018 as a foundation providing already ample depth and building from it in a meaningful way the middle is just Kratos notreus tapping in and tapping out as we explore their disconnected Arc sat at a surface level to get them to the place they need to be for the ending to make sense which it does but the journey to get there is a winding muddy path that you accidentally took thinking it was the hype Trail but it wasn't and you didn't realize until the sun was setting and you were lost I didn't do that I remember remember being 25 hours into the game and not really knowing what the point was yet where the thing was even going in 2018 it's established pretty early on we know the goal to the top of the highest peak to spread some ashes and we know the focus is the relationship between a father and a son and their own introspection Ragnarok even 25 hours in still feels like a collection of things happening I wasn't sure what the game was trying to say to me I wasn't sure the message it was trying to convey there were so many moving parts that had nothing to do with each other so many different places we were exploring so many more focuses and with that split of our main characters having two entirely different stories happening concurrently the whole thing felt like it was never really moving in any direction until Kratos and atreyus were back together again and even then it just amounted to we're going with the flow because when atreus was with Kratos He Slipped back into being reactive to things happening around him the only time we get a proactive protagonist is when atreus goes off to actually actively do things that push the plot forward with Kratos events passed by him and he reacts character moments just seem to happen and even his own arc isn't something he actively seems to participate in none of it is down to his own actions it's all because of extrinsic factors which is the issue with telling a story where the entire premise is prophecy especially video game writing this is not going to be easy and I'm going to need you to follow me closely here because the way prophecy is handled in Ragnarok is just look I don't I don't know anymore I want to do my best to not make this a law issue I feel like that's a cheap way of criticizing a thing I want to criticize the quality of execution not the consistency of the fictional world's rules don't get me wrong that's important I should know but in my old age I want to focus on the actual issues of writing but with a topic like this it really can't be helped we're gonna have to first of all Ragnarok establishes its idea of Prophecy by outright saying all the law we learned in 2018 all those stories told by mimir and little tidbits explained by atreus yeah that's all fake that's all wrong that was dumb misinformation spread on Reddit by the Giants before they went in Hidden [ __ ] Marbles and left fake corpses in jotenheim to trick Odin who the [ __ ] wrote and so that's my first problem the World building of 2018 is entirely inconsequential to Ragnarok to get their story to work they actively had to say that 2018's were building was not real but okay look let's look past that maybe they did it for a good reason maybe they actually tell a really good story that justifies them rewriting every piece of law that 2018 established so the reason they did this is so they can set up very specific events which Kratos and atreus have to take part in as the game progresses we learn very early on that very specific things will happen they basically lay out the story beats for us and say yeah so skull and Hearty will catch the Sun and Moon the horn will be blown as God will fall we also see an Ironwood the full mural from the end of 2018 showing us that atreus will meet Odin Kratos will die and grabody and atreus will make your maganda etc etc this is so that they can establish events have those events play out in game and then have prophecy gain weight as a thing that exists prophecy keeps happening the way it was prophesized to happen to build tension for kratos's impending death the thing is 2018 already did that the mural we find at the end of the game gives weight to prophecy Fayed predicted everything that would happen the way that it happened long before it happened that gives prophecy weight and then we see a half destroyed panel showing the death of Kratos impact from the weight that was just established in 2018 it felt like they wrote a story and then have the meal will reflect that story with some ominous foreshadowing for good measure in Ragnarok it feels like they made the murals and then they tried desperately to mold the story around those preset prophecy beats for example atreyus who desperately wants to defy fate sees that he's going to meet with Odin and freaks out now what does he do a tell his father tried the fire B forget about it and simply never go to Odin meeting the prophecy can't happen or the really dumb and stupid option C go to Odin anyway in the hopes of averting a prophecy where he meets with ODC he he does the the dumb the stupid option they do all of this so that eventually when they defy prophecy at the end you go aha they did it but the actions they're taking that lead them to do what the prophecy says are usually so contrived and out of character that it makes the whole thing lack believability add on the fact that it's all grounded in a fundamental tearing down of important 2018 lore points and rules of foretelling that have no consistency and he left with a central narrative pillar that does nothing but detract characters fail to have real meaningful drama in a story where their every action is laid out before you from the start for no other reason than for you to notice at the end oh well one time the thing in the painting didn't happen cool but why didn't it happen okay so that was all the basic [ __ ] that was the easy stuff all right we have got so much more to talk about in this video it should be called God of Wars batshit crazy prophecy law broke me because I've been sweating over this for months I have not been sleeping the game doesn't want you to notice it wants you to focus on the great acting the camera angles and the pretty graphics and not to notice the fact that none of its core storytelling foundations make any [ __ ] sense [Music] foreign this this is the problem okay so I'm aware that you have no context what any of this means so allow me to walk you through it as well as I possibly can part one Giants uh not part one we're already on part three um part three I the little Roman numerals part three I Giants prophecy giants like we established in God of War 2018 have all of these lore panels the yotna shrines where they detail events that happened are happening and will happen in the north World representing the idea that everything is basically all planned out it's a huge part of Norse culture if you watch any Viking film or experience anything in this mythology it always comes up and that of course comes from details gleaned from the editors now like we already established 2018 maintained the idea that the Giants knew everything and detailed them on these lore panels Ragnarok retcons this and says but actually they secretly lied about every piece of law and the real prophecy is inside now wind back a [ __ ] moment fate and prophecy are not the same thing at all fate is something that will inevitably happen prophecy is a prediction of something that might happen so we go from a concept that in 2018 was the Giants had these tablets to write out the past and future of the Norse world because that's how the world World operates and then Ragnarok says well it's also just a prophecy these prophecies also get pretty specific compared to the more General and attached Norse myths of 2018's world which starts to make things more messy because of course if we're getting directly involved in events which we already know the details of it makes for pretty boring storytelling especially when the entire plot revolves around having fate play out to give it weight so that you can subvert it all at the end but we already talked about this from what we know of the Giants their prophecy or their foretelling is 100 accurate that's the point of it in 2018 the lore panels literally used to document their own history and future the same way you'd go to a library to look up the history of the Middle Ages to get real facts except they also document future events too they also give this Credence when you get to jotenheim and all the events so far have clearly been documented and that's actually more important than you might think but just keep that in a part of your brain we'll come back to that we also experience atreus or Loki doing a bit of foretelling at the end of 2018 he literally has a dream about things that will happen Thor coming to their home in Ragnarok now this isn't played as a vague thing that might happen this is something that will and literally does happen so far this is all fine there's no major issues right now other than the idea of Prophecy getting tangled up in the documentation of Norse events from the Giants as if there's an air of uncertainty where there shouldn't be now there is of course the idea that maybe all along it was just vague prophecy and because everybody believes it it always comes true but then what's the point in any of it especially if the 2018 lore panels are now fake does that mean that none of them came true ever did nobody notice all of the important lore panels documenting the history of the Norse World never came true and were always wrong because the foretelling was inside the panel all along and only Giants could see it which is pointless anyway because they all immediately hid themselves inside of marbles and somehow got to [ __ ] [ __ ] Jerusalem so that atreus can go meet Jesus Christ in the next game the only person who could have conceivably gone inside would have been atreus and the Giants would have known this but based on the mural in yotenheim that we see in full in Ironwood that was destroyed by Faye they also knew that atreus would have sided with Odin anyway so who did they hide them for what was the plan none of this makes any sense of going insane okay let's just let's just reel it reel it back in a bit here um part three I I the norns the norns honestly I think the most egregious part of this whole prophecy thing is the inclusion of the norns they're the fates of the Norse World in Norse mythology they spin the threads of Fate keeping in line what happened is happening and will happen in God of War they purely exist to give Kratos something to do while atreus is often Asgard giving Exposition on what will happen in a few more hours Playtime so stick around don't leave don't go play something better please but in terms of Fate this is where things get so messy they say fate is not real that it's based purely on the predictability of a person as to where they will end up and because Kratos is just so predictable which the plot needs him to be to even work and after 2018 he should be anything but they are able to predict his future okay so first of all hang on wait hang on so does this mean this method of foretelling applies to all prophecy or just the norns and if it is just the norns why do they even have the job they have if they're the ones that can't do prophecy but the Giants can so it has to apply to everything right suggesting that all prophecy that exists in the Norse world isn't real second of all they literally repeat back to our main characters what they're saying as they're saying it and that's not magic or prophecy or foresight that's just predictability these characters seem to exist push the plot forward when the game hits a standstill act as Norse cameos to things you might recognize and to plant the idea that fate and prophecy doesn't even exist anyway and are just things that might happen if you keep acting the way you've always acted before but okay so this brings us back to what I mentioned in the giant section their knowledge of the events of 2018 gives Credence to the idea that their prophecy is 100 accurate because how did the Giants manage to predict everything that happened in God of War 2018 if prophecy is just based on being predictable the entire premise of 2018 is Kratos not being predictable he literally goes on that character Arc if prophecy is based solely on someone conforming to the traits they have always conformed to they simply shouldn't have been able to predict any of the events of the first game should they Kratos acts so differently in 2018 to how he's always acted so much so that a lot of fans of the original trilogy didn't even like 2018. that's about as far from predictable as you can get and now you're saying that the Norms knew he'd kill him down because Kratos is super predictable and actually his Arc in 2018 doesn't matter at all in the moment where he confronted the manifestation of his inner anxiety as Athena means nothing because in actuality the norns can just predict Kratos do Kratos thing and so he will because plot the norns throw a spanner in the works of all the exploration the game has done so far on the concept of fate and even more so to 2018's exploration of that concept which while simpler is so much more efficient now let's not let any of this distract us from what might be the most important part of the entire puzzle what the [ __ ] does Faye want but more importantly what the [ __ ] does Deborah Ann Wall want now that's not really important I just think it's funny that not only did they take away an integrally mysterious character's Mystique by having them appear to guide the plot three times but they decided to cast a prevalent actor that tears down any remaining Mystique of the character might have had because now you point and open your mouth wide because it's the person that you notice from the other things that they were in okay look Faye is a strange character in Ragnarok I could sit here all day explaining why I feel she's misused but honestly I don't really care anymore I think I already explained it as much as I really want to but how she plays into this concept of fate and prophecy is even more perplexing completely baffling very puzzling on a very basic level Faye destroyed the final wall of the mural in 2018 not very well because she believed they needed to walk their own path right and so the game touts Faye's involvement as the Catalyst for fate changing right she erased the path they'd walk so they had to decide for themselves and although some things lined up in the end it worked out for the best right however they didn't destroy it all Kratos saw probably the most important bit and the only bit that involves him directly and atreya sees the whole thing in Ironwood anyway so both characters see their respective Futures that would have been on the wall regardless the choices she made Alters nothing about how the events play out so the game being all wow they knew and she trusted us and she's the reason we succeeded is really stupid the characters still knew the things they would have known Fey destroying the yotenheim mural means absolutely nothing at all what actually altered things in the end were Faye's really weird well-timed dream Vision things at the start of the game Kratos has his first Dream a memory of being with Faye now this is just a normal memory until the end where she breaks out of the memory and speaks directly to Kratos telling him time is running out and there is much to do and then wakes him up Kratos mentions this later to mamir saying I dream of the past night ah the bad old days in Greece no it feels like phase trying to tell me something you don't mean to say you're talking to ghosts again brother no no but it is something more than memory which implies Fey is directly contacting him ow we'll get to that this means every time a dream involving Fey happens it's induced by Faye herself which means okay bear with me here she even knows that destroying the mural in yotenheim was pointless because if that was enough to shift them onto a successful path she wouldn't need to keep Skype calling Kratos at poignant character moments to make him learn the thing he needs to learn the reason in the end that Kratos changes his mind with atreus during Ragnarok isn't because of an introspective and insightful character Arc it's because about 15 minutes earlier Fey sent him a zip file with the memory that would remind him to not die it's a laughably stupid solution to a plot which renders the events prior absolutely pointless in the grand scheme of the ending other than to do small pieces of character work set up the post game do some exploration of Odin and have us ride a yak for three hours everything is fixed because Faye once said open your heart and then texted Kratos remember when I said open your heart just at a crucial moment where you need to remember that piece of information so how is she even contacting Kratos well my theory and I think a better reason than the real reason would be that during his time in the light of alfheim in 2018 a part of Faye's Soul latched on to him which is why when they return in Ragnarok Kratos can hear her and nobody else can which I think actually would have been really nice because I like that alfheim scene a lot however that's not why when a Philip Chu Joy visited the studio in 2018 Corey revealed a little factoid that said the leviathanax contains a spirit of someone from the past which is why it always returns to his hand now sure this could be anyone right but it's not anyone is it it's obviously Faye reasonable deduction would imply nobody else Kratos doesn't even like anybody other than atreus and he's not dead it's not going to be Athena or Zeus or anyone from Greece because the ax was made in midgard and Kraus also [ __ ] hates everybody in Greece Kratos wasn't just carrying a soul around with him waiting to put it into an ax and the only reasonable person to have an effect on returning the weapon to his hand is Faye which means the soul must be communicating with him via the ax it doesn't matter don't ask [ __ ] three IV they changed the mural why well we can only speculate but I think it's pretty clear that this decision is due to the ongoing fact that this game is not what was originally planned when 2018 was made the original seemed like a large snake coming out of atreus's mouth right with the death of an obscured man in his arms runes written down saying words like death father mourned and most importantly betrayal this was changed in Ragnarok it's not an opinion or reading they simply changed it it's not there anymore because they needed to tell a different story to the one that was obviously planned but they couldn't deviate much so we're left with a mural that looks similar but is different now the runes most importantly the one saying betrayal is gone the man is very clearly Kratos with his tattoos which makes no sense because they're not on that side of his face and the thing that was designed to look like a snake is apparently just a soul which in the game looks like this there's no reality where the mural we see in 2018 was supposed to depict the events we see in Ragnarok something changed behind the scenes and the story suffers for it another victim of the retcons you'd have thought that even if they were retconning it they'd have found a way to tie into the story like maybe the Ironwood mural and the owner High mural were different for a reason but no they're just they just hope nobody would notice and it never comes up or matters this just isn't the sort of lazy choice that would have been a part of 2018. sure it's pretty dumb on its own merits but when comparing it directly to 2018 it's even worse because of how meticulous that game was in its design and approach to writing and World building that it works to harm the overall experience more okay so this brings us to the conclusion of this part 3v did they change fate or not did they change fate or not that's really the Crux of this issue here fate is the central pillar of the game's storytelling and it enables The Core theme of the game to happen but what I actually think has happened is that with all of these moving parts and retcons all it does is work to dampen the core themes of the story and create a messy concept that never explains itself never gets explored and leaves the core message as one that ultimately doesn't have anything to say other than what you personally decide that it means you might think that's a good thing no themes and meanings are left up to interpretation all the time and while yes true that is the case Ragnarok wasn't trying to leave it up to interpretation it was treading the same path as 2018 conceptually it had a message and wanted to convey that message it just fails to do so to explore this I've asked tons of people what they think it means and read plenty of replies on other videos of Ragnarok of people saying what they think the game means and the response is very wildly some people people think it's a story of not being told what to do by your parents and searching for your own independence some people think it's to do with your parents finally coming together to help their child grow up some people think it's a story about defying Destiny and absolutely nothing else no subtext at all which now I guess is kind of based and I've seen some people say the game is vapid on purpose because it's trying to be a commentary on not reading too heavily into things that's a real take I've seen someone say and you know who you [ __ ] are you dumbass the idea that 2018 was so meticulous and Ragnarok was not is to show you that where you think there is depth there isn't is maybe simultaneously the most creative and most stupid idea I've ever heard but this is my point this game doesn't convey what it's trying to say anywhere near as well as 2018 did 2018 had Focus purpose and it wanted you to consider very specific things upon completion Ragnarok doesn't do this it very clearly tries to but the concept of Prophecy and faith is so convoluted and contradictory and it makes the world the story is being told in make no sense it causes characters to just do things for no other reason than plot and it muddies the core themes to the point nobody has a clear answer for what the game wants them to think anymore so did they change fate it entirely depends on the angle you view the game from which explanation of Fate you decide to subscribe to whether you believe the original mural was just a misreading and this was always the case whether you believe Fey purposefully removed all agency from Kratos to all to the events or whether you believe this was down to our characters choices across the game But whichever way you toss it up the central pillar of this game's story doesn't actually make sense it's contradictory and lacks actual cohesion with the character journey of the game and really acts as a means to get us through the story as quickly as possible with as few questions asked as humanly possible why did atreus go to see Odin it fills out a character well fate said so so he sort of has to why did Kratos listen to anything the norm said well the story needs to happen just go with it why did Kratos change his mind at the end of the game well Faye just told him to moments prior fate is important in 2018 on Ragnarok until we're told that actually it isn't at all and anything can happen and then with supposed to perceive Kratos surviving as a magnificent feat but all he did was decide not to die because fate isn't real and you can just do that apparently just that simple this bit is so [ __ ] itchy now I assume you guys love watching movies right TV shows you enjoy that yeah spend a lot of time browsing your Netflix not knowing quite what to watch well I'd say that using Netflix without expressvpn is like going to a buffet and three quarters of it uh just you're not allowed especially the the shrimp every country has a Netflix catalog and some are vastly different to others if you're in the UK like I am for example you can't access the US Netflix which has a lot of things that you might want to watch expressvpn allows you to change your location so that you can view the catalog of that country's Netflix which is bloody useful if you wanted to re-watch Matt Reeves the Batman well if you change your location to Australia you can or if you just live there obviously that's not a problem for you but I don't I don't think anyone really lives out I think it's probably a real play all I did was open the app select the country name tap one button to connect and then when it refreshed there you go it's super easy you think you're in another country which you nah actually it's also super fast which means no buffering it's compatible with all of your devices your phones your laptops your microwave maybe not that one unless you got super Advanced microwave then maybe it is I don't know I can't endorse that bit and it works with other streaming services too not just Netflix your BBC iPlayer YouTubes if you want to watch one of the YouTube shows you can be smart get access to more Netflix more bang for your bloody Buck download expressvpn using the link in the description expressvpn.com forward slash lasers and you get three extra months free so what a bloody deal and a half check it out okay so look we've established that Not only was this game two games in a one game but they also didn't have enough time to tell the story and so alter the story and pacing suffers for it leaving us with a game that feels rushed and messy but this has sadly another knock-on effect it means the writing has to suffer now that's not principally the case if you had really clever writers maybe they could have made it work but they the main way we see this is in details not seeming to matter too much in God of War 2018 the writing was so meticulous so well crafted written in such subtle and beautiful ways that you could convey so much through such few words or sometimes none at all of course feels different everything is different boy try not to dwell on it yes sir my son sharpened his dagger on it right before stabbing me in the back what little bastard thought it was his turn to lead my crew I was hard on him sure guess I shouldn't be surprised I did the same thing to my dad when I was his age killed his own father where is he now he may be a bastard but he's my bastard [Music] [Music] in Ragnarok however or the simple thrill of Kratos eating a sausage I'm I'm glad to see the journalists are really looking into the important aspects of the game but in all seriousness this game with its limited time to do so much has to make sacrifices dialogue can no longer be as nuanced and subtle in its approach you have to say a lot up front and obviously in order to convey what's necessary in a shorter span and get to the end on time it harms the entire journey of the game from exploration to core story moments and it's not all writing there's plenty that is good great even but it's a large amount that it became tiresome and irritating the more that it happened especially contrasted with 2018 the kid so much about all of the smaller details meaning something there was an actual clip from that IGN review that I just used that I wanted to highlight though it may not be as tightly a told story as 2018 but Ragnarok has much grander designs now they tout this as a good thing well maybe not a good thing but as a thing that doesn't really matter because result is worth it but I would beg to differ I don't think grander designs at the expense of a deep focus is ever in any scenario a better thing especially when like we established before this game is trying very hard to create something within the same framework as 2018 a game with a tight narrative Focus that's what 2018 was built to facilitate so if you're using that same framework to build something that is not a tight focused narrative things start to feel off now if you wanted to reboot the series again and do something different within a different framework and your focus was on bombastic grandiosity rather than a tight Focus story I will go ahead but that's not what Ragnarok needs to be or is even trying to be it's trying to be a follow-up to 2018 a direct sequel which established a focus and design Philosophy for its writing and Ragnarok actively ignores that in favor of the opposite in order to swiftly reach the conclusion in one game rather than allowing the entire story to breathe but we've talked about this let's touch upon how this component of the game harms the actual writing quality in terms of details I think a key example I'd sight is the moment when atreus notices that Freya is at the house hold on I was free at the house did she move in with us you know what Focus Loki why doesn't it matter atreyas I feel like that that's something deeply in need of unpacking right away do you not it's not that I think the entire thing should be resolved right there as he Ponders on the reason that she might have been at the house but I do think that it should sway his actions somewhat he should maybe consider the fact that his father managed to befriend freyja how did he do that why did that happen why has she changed her mind maybe Odin really is that bad that she's willing to change her Focus think about things a little bit atreyas you're incredibly smart character why are you being dumb right now just so that you can sweep something under the rug to focus on the next plot point that we have to get to incredibly quickly it reads as the writers Sweeping in under the rug but still checking it off their list see atreus did consider it so we didn't leave it up in the air that's not like a plot thread we forgot about or or character moment that we didn't touch upon but it is incredibly vapid and it might as well not be there in the first place so while yes you did address it it is in the script it doesn't do anything for anything the characters it doesn't actually alter what a trace is doing he just says it out loud so that we know that he's noticed it which we know you did we were there we were just there a minute ago it's little things like this that start to show the disparity between Ragnarok and 2018's writing quality where 2018 was focused on giving everything meaning delving into aspects of character you might not even have considered Ragnarok ignores even the things on a surface level because it doesn't have the time for them Ragnarok doesn't have time to explore what atreus thinks about Freya being at the house or for them to have a conversation it's forced to brush it under the rug otherwise the game will become too long and this continues into so many aspects of the story The Yeoman Gander cycle is the most basic way they could have taken it atreus puts the soul of a random giant into a random snake and then it slithers away and leaves that's the extent of their relationship so what was the point in the snake mentioning that he knew atreus it meant more without Ragnarok because at least then knowing atreyus is Loki we can speculate they clearly have some sort of deeper Connection in your manganda's past and atreus's future enough that he'd recognize a younger version of the boy thousands of years later for him from his perspective or no maybe he just put a random Soul into a random snake and then never [ __ ] saw it again until the end when it was fighting Thor and it got zapped back in time how you ask I don't know nobody knows they don't explain any of it I know I sound like a broken clock but in 2018 clock in 2018 all the details mattered the dialogue is written in such a way that everything is explored everything is explained there is nothing not fleshed out and if it is it's done so on purpose with a clear indication to be followed up on because why would you ever have someone blow the Serpent's horn and have mamir pointed out if you weren't going to follow it up that's literally chekhov's gun it's a simple storytelling rule to follow how did it end up like this okay I just I don't really care about the horn that much but it's interesting insight into how the game both didn't have time to explore setups from 2018 but also how it differs from a Clear Vision Corey had with things set up in 2018 which is a thing that Finds Its way into all of the aspects of the game the champion of the yotna for example you remember that plot device the champion I think it's supposed to be me champion I guess you know about the whole champion of the yeah do you call you that instead no Loki's good it's not his fault atreus ran off you know or are you just being Brock's Champion I am not the champion we're each entitled to our opinion okay whoever that is doesn't matter yeah so that was a thing that came up at the start it's referenced a few times Odin as tear calls at Reyes Champion which irks Kratos and plays atreus into Odin's hand which is interesting on a side note I genuinely do think the tier twist is good you learn so much about tyr in 2018 and then you discover he's alive in Ragnarok upon finding him he's nothing like we learned he's cowardly he's stupid he's pathetic really and over the course of the game more noticeably on a replay he is literally grooming atreus creating a tension between him and his father and it's really subtle like I said subtlety is always better when you find out tear was actually owed in the whole time it just brings so much together with Odin's plans goals his manipulation of betrayus which is masterful and makes your skin crawl but not just that you realize that no tear was dead killed by Odin he was just wearing his skin to push his own agenda and muddy His Image as a god it's [ __ ] tragic it's gut-wrenching it actually made me tear up probably more than Brock's death because that's a man without empathy destroying the legacy of one of the only good Gods there may ever have been someone that atrey has deeply looked up to and he cannot defend himself it's absolutely perfect oh he's just hanging around doing yoga I don't even know how to explain why this sucks it feels pretty obvious how it just undercuts the entire point of it happening to begin with OR meaning I felt I received is now gone because actually tear is alive he can defend himself he can tell everyone the truth nothing Odin did is permanent it's too happy it adds nothing more of substance to the game okay so sorry we were talking about the champion that was a detour um tyr uses it to bring a trace closer to him being obviously Odin angriboda says it to atreyas clearly thinking it's him Kratos is also called it by both Freya and mamir in svato farm but then it's just dropped people stop saying it it never comes up in another prophecy it just doesn't come up again in the whole story I've seen people say that well it was just supposed to be left up to interpretation which okay fine but you do have to follow that up if you leave something there to be interpreted you're meant to imply that you can't just bring up a thing and then stop talking about the thing and then say oh yeah you were meant to interpret that no no that's not good writing if it was something you were supposed to be constantly thinking about if it was an important motif of the story that is important up until the very end and you're supposed to be considering that plot point and That Was Then meant to be interpreted then it should have come up again by the end but without a conclusion or the conclusion should have been drawn that it doesn't matter but if you say that it was something to be left up to interpretation you have to reinforce that across your narrative using its characters Until the End otherwise it's just a plot point that was never concluded and while sure regardless of that you could still interpret it it's not very deep is it it's either atreus or Kratos and it doesn't mean anything either way so what interpretation is there to be gleaned that makes it even worth interpreting in the first place it's just a thing that they talk about to create division between Kratos and atreus it's a plot device and then they stop talking about it when the plot no longer needs that division like so many things in this game it is just a plot device to make things happen rather than something that means anything at all in isolation and that doesn't mean you can't interpret it obviously you you can I'm just saying the game doesn't really try to make you interpret it or at least doesn't make it a cool part of the storytelling it exists as a plot device not as something the game is actively saying you should be thinking about this it's important it's not really important because what does it have to say about our characters other than one of them might be vaguely a champion that's it I that doesn't mean anything else in another Avenue something I find to be far more frustrating and harmful to the plot and character journey is how overt the dialogue is we talked about subtlety regarding 2018's dialogue before the game really takes care with how characters emote open up to each other and just generally speak when navigating a space there's a certain control the writers clearly have over dialogue to make it as natural as possible and that all conclusions we gleam from dialogue is implication we infer from what is said what it means and that adds a deeper value to the message if I simply tell you I think war is bad that doesn't mean nearly as much to you as if I explained my perspective on war using my own experiences with war from that and the way that I've spoken you can understand my thoughts feelings and empathize with me on the topic this is why subtlety is always better not only do you have characters talk like normal people or at least in a lot more of a natural way you also get the audience's brain working to figure out why someone said something in a certain way why is that a piece of information they decide to divulge now what does it mean for the characters the reason for this is because of a writing tool known as subtext and I'm sure plenty of people watching this video know exactly what that is I'm not going to treat you like a [ __ ] idiot but for those that maybe want me to explain in real conversations between real people the meaning of your words are layered beneath what you're saying on the surface human beings do not speak directly it's just not what we do and so neither should characters unless the scene specifically calls for that to be the case and then even despite them overtly discussing their feelings there should again be an added layer of subtext to that as well characters should never openly simply State their motivations their feelings or their arcs and if on the off chance a scene does call for them to explicitly State those things there should be a reason for that and subtext to that otherwise you are not writing a character with an arc you're writing a mouthpiece that explains what you wanted the arc to be but failed to actually execute or write naturally take this scene from 2018 for example but there is the unavoidable truth you will never Escape cannot change you will always be a monster I know but I am your monster no longer and then contrast it with this scene from Ragnarok but we're going to fear but it will always be chained you know that as well as I both of these scenes have the same sentiment that your chains can never truly be released you can be free but never truly free however the scene in 2018 implies it through meaningful and introspective dialogue where we can infer the meaning behind it Ragnarok scene just has Kratos State the thing you're supposed to be understanding about the scene directly so the audience can hear it it makes it feel hollow meaningless vapid and just I don't know outright wrong and I didn't know what it was like to be chained in one place for years at a time but nothing to occupy your mind but pain I I don't know how to say this but I I I don't know what that's like either but but I also know that that that's bad and wrong and you shouldn't do I don't I don't understand what this is trying to say he needed to be tied to a tree for a long time to realize that imprisoning somebody with chains so they can't move is wrong what what but it's not just this one scene it happens all the time you know maybe maybe it'll need you for something that's not what it looks like maybe I'm tricking Odin oh it's trickery something you're good at is that true lucky you're a little trickster oh he's a trickster is he you know from Norse mythology this is that this is based on I know how it feels to be wronged and how it feels to achieve Vengeance oh you know what it's like do you craters I didn't know that thank you so much for saying it out loud for me now I see the parallel that you're showing here very clearly between mami's random contrived quest for revenge and kratos's original trilogy story I'm an idiot I needed that they're still the part of me that is so angry I'm sure a lot of people love this performance and she has absolutely giving it a role I will commend her for that but she is literally just stating her emotions allowed for us just imply this [ __ ] imagine if at the end of 2018 after Kratos kills Boulder Freya simply said to Kratos Universe this River often one day you will learn to navigate its Waters do you get it because Atrius does that too are you parking yet she rev we know she referenced that we know that happens wow now you see this is a nice subtle moment this is a call back to the first game and they didn't point oh yeah thanks game no I didn't get that yet and yeah look that's not every piece of dialogue that's over and leaves the love to your imagination but we we would be here all day Ragnarok doesn't often use subtext it will just outright State the things you're supposed to understand from a scene as if we're stupid and need that the greatest writers employ subtext in every scene they write because that's what dialogue should be it allows the audience to remain engaged we can put things together ourselves we do it in everyday life because it's just how people communicate with each other the same should apply to video games films television books all forms of media subtlety is always better because you can get across the same conclusive message but without the need for spelling it aloud to us and look if I'm going to discuss this we have to delve into the biggest Defender the first visit you have to vanaheim freyja is done so dirty in this game that it upsets me she was such a nuanced and interesting character in God of War 2018 and somehow they do away with all of that in Ragnarok to give us a one note character with little contribution and even less to say with her story beats now bear bear in mind here Corey said during a spoiler cast in April 2018 when referring to freyja and it's a very Kratos thing that his example for his child is to not let his child see a another child kill their parent right that he intercedes not because freyon is protecting but because his son needs protecting because he's he's not doing it for free he's doing it for his son right and he knows he's going to make an enemy of somebody who is awesome right that they had a good beginning to their relationship but I think for me it's this is the this really great origin story of Freya that her origin is a lot like Kratos it's very tragic and bad decisions were made and those bad decisions snowballed into something that just kind of got away from everybody and where she's gonna go next is so awesome I wonder if that will become true or not for the entire game off the back of 2018 Freya is hunting Kratos and atreus because Kratos killed her son it's very nuanced and complex situation with lots of moving parts that this game neglects to explore and boils down to her son dead she angry Kratos not so angry because Boulder was bad 2018 set her up in an interesting position how would this get resolved would we end up killing her would we find some sort of Common Ground again freya's Ark isn't something I have issues with conceptually I think her eventually finding peace and coming around to Kratos and atreus is something that could have happened and there is so much room to play with the nuances of that rather than having them simply just be friendly again let's see some conflict it's not black and white enemies or Allies it's a bit of both it's the execution I think that is pretty damn poor the execution of her character that means two things um does it I don't know why I wrote that in the script upon confronting them again with her Valkyrie gear which is actually a really cool reveal and fight it just worked marvelously atreus goes bare mode and Kratos stops the fight to calm him down and stop him from ripping Freya limp from limb it was at this moment where Freya turns to the camera and you can see this look of reconsideration that I knew exactly where this was going this was about to lack any sort of depth any sort of real conflict and we were simply going to have her be on our team again the game telegraphed so obviously where they were taking this that the only good way to resolve this in the end would actually have been to subvert that anyway but I'll get to what I would have done a little bit later while in vanderheim right away Freya starts telling Kratos about the market she used to visit here I recognize this Market villages with meat and trade here sorry I um didn't realize when I was playing through the game for the first time and capturing my footage that I would need that piece of dialogue without the sound of me smashing something with my ax um playing over the top of it just take my word for it I she does say what I said she says um I'm not lying to you I promise I thought we were still enemies at this point why are you explaining the history of your culture could this be exposition to re-establish Rapport seemingly out of nowhere because you didn't have the time to make it natural and needed to get from A to B as quickly as possible maybe I mean who am I to make that judgment the biggest kicker for me here though is how they get from A to B or the illusion of the arc that's happening vanheim in itself is a twisty Maze of trees and fights and as you navigate this area Freya and Kratos will talk and there are two points where Kratos slips entirely out of character in 2018 any reference to the original trilogy era of God of War was merely implied it was all stuff you could read into but wasn't often explicitly stated especially by Kratos himself sure Athena shows up and so does Zeus the blades of chaos Etc but those things are directly meaningful to the narrative and they are things being seen rather than being told to you by a character they have consequences to the story that are being told and we see them right before us in Ragnarok Kratos will fight a group of enemies and then casually start talking about the family that he killed after being tricked by Aries we need to get to that Watchtower we'll have to go through the valley this way I know your son's story you should know my daughters I was tricked into destroying a village not knowing my own wife and child were there until their blood stained by hands sorry just editing this I forgot all [ __ ] funny that was Kratos who the [ __ ] asked pretty much completely unprovoked and out of nowhere because the plot needs desperately to have Kratos and Freya find common ground and the only way of doing that is to have Kratos just decide to start spouting Exposition so Freya can see the parallels between them that were already clear to us in 2018 it feels almost as though it breaks the fourth wall with the intent of fast forwarding character development the structure of Anaheim is as follows fight some enemies Freya mentions she's sad or angry Kratos says I know how that feels Freya says no you don't you don't know how it feels you liar and then we complete a puzzle where Freya tells you exactly what to do and won't shut the [ __ ] up you can probably use those islands okay yes yes oh that's nice we can head then Kratos goes on to explain why actually he does know how it feels and divulges very private information that he hasn't even told to atreus this happens three times before we reach our conclusion and they try to pass it off like a meaningful character Arc it's literally filler dialogue it's padding it's Exposition it's Dreadful writing it's completely the antithesis of 2018 all depth meaning and subtlety is Stripped Away to force our characters into an unnatural progression of their character for the finale of the game not to mention how unceremonious it is to just have the characters talking about these deeply personal things as background dialogue while we're exploring a [ __ ] jungle it's like they're trying to kill two birds with one stone let's progress the plot progress where the characters are in the world get them to their destination while also doing the dialogue at the same time but one takes away from the other and it makes it feel kind of ridiculous and I think this still could have worked even with all of these flaws I think it could have been a lot better with a simple change not perfect but better at this moment here I suppose that's just the point where I forgive you I kill you she attacks we've spent this whole journey learning about each other and each other's families we think it's obvious that Freya will simply join our team again that's got to be what they're setting up right but no she fights she desperately tries to kill Kratos because she cannot imagine a life where she is forced to come to terms with anything that has happened to her face her past and continue to walk forward and in the end Kratos kills her because it was her choice in the end she didn't want to kill Kratos she was seeking death herself this would play Into The Core theme of choice and Kratos having taken hers away prior with Boulder is now no longer depriving her of that and giving her the death that she seeks it would also play into the idea that Kratos is seeking death himself it's brought up several times being the one to provide that for someone else could be a turning point in his character and on top of all that it could replace the Heimdall moment where Kratos is forced to reconsider his actions and mamir speaks aloud that we're supposed to feel bad about what Kratos just did it would simply be implied we would know that it's bad with we would feel sad because he killed Freya a character that we liked but what else was there to do she gave him no choice or did she and in that act there we would have depth Nuance complex character relationships and something to push our protagonist forward as well as subverting something that felt so obvious so set in stone and so Bland and boring instead she does the most obvious and predictable thing I don't think I can do either you are not the one who needs to die and the thing is she does forgive him they are friends again the game says one thing but does another Freya claims she can never forgive him and she claims that it's nuanced but it's never talked about again they are simply best friends from here on out and that's it it's so so shallow and gives us absolutely nothing to think about I will say however freya's sidequest in vanderheim is brilliant maybe not on the level of majority of 2018's writing but leagues above most of the writing and Ragnarok which is another example showing that sometimes they got it right they do get it and I genuinely believe that the fact they had to cram so much into one game is why a lot of the writing gets away from them it's not that they're incompetent and don't understand is that they were forced into a corner and this is just the result of that you enter freya's old home in vanaheim and explore you find different relics that are personal to her and her marriage to Odin she destroys each one in the hopes that it will allow her to move on yet every time she does the pain never leaves it remains a part of her the final Relic is a sword a sword given to her by Odin as a sign of their bond this sword cannot be destroyed she cannot get rid of it and she breaks down realizing she will never be free the trauma and the scars he left her with will never be gone but she can heal that trauma can be taken and used as a tool for personal growth and so that's exactly what she does she takes the sword and uses it for good and moves forward with who she is being free of her grief but never without its impact this is a direct parallel to kratos's Arc everything we've seen his deal with Ares the blades of chaos being bound to him the ash of his family on his skin the entire Arc of 2018 of no longer running from your past trauma but embracing it in the hopes of being free from the prison of your own anxiety but the game never points this out openly everything is just completely implied it never overtly States anything this illustrates subtlety is always better because more than a lot of the more bombastic moments in this game this is the one moment that stands out to me because it has something to say it makes your brain think and it does fray adjust this it's [ __ ] marvelous the craziest part is that again this game doesn't always get it wrong there are moments where it gets it right like I said with freya's side quest but they do things right in the main story too visiting hellheim with atreus after he returns from Asgard is a segment littered with subtext the writing allows room to breathe and for the audience to infer everything meant by the word said it's marvelous and in the final moment there between these two they have a heart to heart but not in a way where they're just telling each other their feelings up front in a stunted way to convey to the audience what to think in a way where it shows their love for one another it allows us to see they're comfortable with talking openly to one another but that act still has subtext there's something more layered beneath the surface level words being spoken and that does wonders for storytelling and character arcs it also has one of the best callbacks in the game I am sorry don't be sorry Father be better this is a clear callback to the start of God of War 2018 but flipped on its head but the game doesn't point that out it lets it play as a genuine character moment between them if you've got the reference then that moment means a little bit more if you didn't the game doesn't force you to understand it just plays the moment as the moment in its own right this is something the game refuses to do very often it's usually insistent on the player understanding every little detail and therefore has to point it all out in excruciating blatancy this moment though just lets itself be a character moment which makes it far more believable meaningful and satisfying to the audience okay the final major way that I feel writing feels not bad just I guess off is in tone the game feels far more concerned with being self-aware funny and all around jovial than it does with making sure the characters are well written and the world feels immersive or maybe it's using it as a crutch I I really don't know I don't really think this world feels anywhere near the same as the one we were exploring in 2 2018 it feels like a totally different place in 2018 the only funny character was mamir and he was made funnier by the fact that he was the only funny character sure sometimes Brock and syndrome were funny too but it wasn't in the same way and it wasn't a constant that followed you around in Ragnarok it seems every single character other than probably Kratos just quips now atreus has become awkward MCU Tom Holland Peter Parker where have you been peeing Friar is dumbed down for some reason so that she can come across as a funny fish out of water type character I told you that he would get him home because you tapped it with a hammer Dwarven magic makes no sense anger Boda is awkward and doesn't understand social cues you look weirder than I imagined sorry um mean Odin is a mob boss or CEO archetype of a character and that's supposed to be a funny subversion of what we actually expected to get oh yeah will you just relax were you intending on killing me first thing see what that's not good enough for you prayer is literally just a walking funny machine I overturned offheim to unite the elves just like that unite the elves after centuries of War wow they really like me and all the time just like a really quick side note too that is the only explanation we get for why freyr is able to unite the elves they just like him and that's it centuries of conflict and well I mean they like me over there really that's the whole that's the only reason you get even heindel who's supposed to be a cold and spiteful character like a really dumbed down and shallow version of Boulder with a single character trait says funny things sometimes School topper who loves me the most who loves me the most I think that's my least favorite one I think that one is like why'd they make him why'd they make him do that there is that what does that I just why why'd they write that the way this world is constructed feels a million times less believable than it did in 2018 it just feels inconsistent with the way it was established why is everyone quipping it's just not necessary that's not the only way to create compelling characters 2018 proved this why is this game seemingly regressed into the crutch of making every character MCU Thor or Tony Stark it's trying to create this sense of a funny dysfunctional family Dynamic look at them all sitting around at a table eating how funny and quirky and amusing to watch because God of War is normally about killing cards but we watch kratosita's sausage the simple thrill of Kratos eating a sausage think about this for a moment from what we saw in 2018 of Freya of mamir balder magni and Modi could anyone truly have predicted the Norse pantheon that we see in Ragnarok where they all just act like regular modern families is this really the Odin we pictured the Thor fruit is a regular teenager except they replace usual teenage problems with Norse things like being mad at your mum because she doesn't let you become a valkyrie instead of being like going out to a party you can't tell me these things are not supposed to be funny what else are they supposed to be for when we first reach Asgard it's meant to be a total subversion of our expectations it's why they introduce us first to heimville because he's the only one that is slightly similar to the way 2018 characterized it and so we expect for things to be the way we thought they would play out and then we meet Odin and it's like oh and rather than that subversion being interesting it's the most basic and boring way you could have approached it what if the Norse gods were just various mirrors of things we know from modern society it feels like what Disney would do if they were to make a Pixar movie set in Norse mythology you cannot tell me I'm wrong that's exactly what this feels like Odin is the evil corporate head Sif is the mother trying to hold the family together Thor is the dad with a midlife crisis through it is the rebellious teenager heimdell is the big bully character but where would Boulder magni and Modi fit into this nowhere because they were conceived in an entirely different plan of creative thinking to the gods that we see in this game which is where the core disconnect comes from there is no reality where I can imagine Boulder in this version of Asgard or where Thor beats his son bloody because he didn't save his brother's life it trades those things for a much more lighthearted approach and wouldn't it have been interesting if Thor was redeemed from being an abusive father rather than just a drunk who is sometimes a bit mean the game seems to completely ignore how he treated his sons almost pretend ending that that didn't happen because how do you confront that with depth how do you keep this basic and simple approach and also deal with serious themes like child abuse you don't and what you end up with is OneNote archetypal characters that have been done to death with a tone that mimics the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe you lose identity and water down to your Brand's integrity and it seems to hit all aspects of the game and I know I keep saying that exact thing and then I'm like the script this script is going into all aspects of the so you'll see that for yourself I don't know why I keep saying it out I'm going to stop you every time that comes up in the script not gonna say it anymore okay I'm done let's move on when the writing isn't brushing important things under the rug it's busy trying to rush through character arcs with the most unnatural and avert dialogue they can think of to Simply State what's happening and what you should be feeling and when it's not doing that it's filling the time with jokes and fourth wall breaks like Kratos referencing the original trilogy to make you POG and [ __ ] PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale being Canon rather I've heard my share of stories about your Homeland but I'd also heard that you once fought in a tournament I fought in many contests but this particular one I heard you did battle with beasts Scoundrels princesses the undead automatons and History's Greatest musicians it's not that's not true is it I would not speak of this fair enough brother why is this in the game I'm losing my mind why did you stop caring about World building and immersion is this really what you people want well that's enough of me blabbering on about the story and the writing and the unimportant parts of the game World exploration is a key component of God of War now why well because it was in 2018 so it's a thing these games do now you might think that's a harsh assessment but I mean is it really wrong A World to explore has to be justified it can't just be tacked on look at some of the worst games for General exploration one I would always point to is shadow of the Tomb Raider it's built to be an explorable metroidvania type game because that's what the previous two games did and even rise of the Tomb Raider struggled to justify itself in a meaningful way now I have my thoughts on the Tomb Raider reboot I even have a video planned somewhere in my brain on the rise and fall of the Tomb Raider franchise maybe I'll get around to it one day maybe this year but the one thing the 2013 reboot did perfectly was justify its explorable world and everything you were doing in it rise and Shadow merely attempted to replicate that meaning on a surface level and so lost all depth in the process and while rise is certainly better than Shadow neither are as good as 2013 for this very reason the same line of thought has to apply to every game with exploration it doesn't just exist because it's a video game it exists for a reason the reason of course in Tomb Raider 2013 is that Lara is a pre-tom raider Lara we need her out of her comfort zone what better way to do that than to drop you in a large open space that is traversable at your will and explorable when you gain better equipment later down the line your exploration of this space your equipment your progression everything moves with the narrative and so as you get better at playing the game Lara becomes a better Tomb Raider and the open space that you can explore facilitates this progression and narrative purpose it's really really good considering I don't really think the reboot is that great for Tomb Raider but the way that they justify the explorability of it is very very good and a great example for this video in Sonic the levels are vast stretches because Sonic is fast and the core character trait is his love of fast-paced exploration it's why Sonic Frontiers actually had an easy way to justify its open world but managed to somehow [ __ ] it up in favor of being the cheap he's just trapped on an island Trope in Uncharted the exploration is more linear than something like the last of us because in Uncharted it's a faster paced action franchise with a focus on clue to clue Expedition storytelling with smaller areas for off the Beaten Track exploration but not a lot because why would you focus on that The Last of Us however has larger emphasis on exploration of levels because how do you best survive you hide you scavenge you explore games vary from title to title on how well they manage to justify their mechanics and exploration and what it means for character and narrative but they always have to try because otherwise things start to feel totally pointless the systems and story don't gel together as well and you end up lost in a sea of disconnected mechanics in God of War 2018 the exploration is Justified via atreus Kratos simply wouldn't choose to explore alone he wouldn't atreus is guiding him it allows for atreus to grow as a person discover who he is internally it allows for a bond to grow between Father and Son and it forces Kratos to learn a better way of being that is all done through exploration and Justified because of its narrative it's a self-perpetuating cycle and it's glorious how does Ragnarok justify its world well it it doesn't what I said earlier was true there is an explorable open space in Ragnarok because there was one in 2018 but it fails to recognize that the world in 2018 existed as a gameplay mechanic because it informed major story beats and also was informed by Major story beats Ragnarok has no reason to have these large explorable spaces they simply aren't justified in a believable way ask yourself this if 2018 didn't exist if we had no precedent for this era of God of War or if 2018 just didn't have explorable environments and was entirely linear would this story the story of Ragnarok need to have these explorable areas would they still have put them in the game or would the make of the game look entirely different I think that it would I think a lot of the reason this game is the way that it is is because 2018 did it the open areas the progression system the One-Shot camera the companion system the puzzle solving all of these things of course were in 2018 for deeply integral reasons they all informed each other they informed the plot and vice versa Ragnarok is just following suits and failing to integrate them in a natural and cohesive way the closest we get to the game trying to justify its exploration is when mamir explains to atreus that his father just wants to spend time with him before he's gone thanks for bringing us out here but you don't have to do this kind of stuff just to keep my mind off Ragnarok you know this was not a distraction no then why are we really out here have you ever considered he just wants to spend time with your lad while he still can really we do not know what lies ahead but if Ragnarok approaches I wish to enjoy the time we have left and sure that's fine but it's less of a deep meaning and more of an excuse and even then a majority of the time exploring is spent with Freya anyway I don't feel Kratos has changed enough as a person to deeply want to go out and help people especially because time and time again he continues to characterize himself as someone who doesn't want to help people you've done a great kindness a temporary one the garden will die again all things do that is no reason not to try thank you for taking the time to help my people I help no one they were already dead I feel lifted enjoy it it will not last you would cure the dead I promised I would take care of my people you do not even remember her and this right out of the gate harms the exploration because at no point truly did I feel like it made sense to go off exploring especially with the main story so chock full of stuff to get through with a huge threat on the horizon this is exemplified by the fact that when the game focuses down on story it becomes totally linear every time we take control of atreyas the world exploration is locked the levels are linear the focus is a million times better and the game just tells the story it actually wants to tell but then when we revert to Kratos the character we want to play as we're told by Side characters to probably go off and explore a bit because if we don't it'll make us players atreus again because the story needs to happen in 2018 you'd find these moments of levity where exploring just made sense because our only goal was reaching the top of a mountain peak there was no urgency anything urgent was put in our paths blocking us and once dealt with it left us Meandering again slowly towards our goal however Ragnarok has this very fast paced very main story heavy Folk Focus which feels like it's derailing every time you go after do Mindless side content the only time I honestly feel like it makes any sense is after the main story but then you're stuck with this hollow version of Freya quipping all the time rather than the actually interesting companion in atreus and and I get that the pacing of Ragnarok is different therefore I shouldn't expect the same sort of utilization of exploration that we had in 2018 it's a vastly different game doing a vastly different thing but that's my problem exploration should have been a method because in a game of this nature it should be structured differently we shouldn't be exploring the game shouldn't be wanting us to go off the beat in track and explore it to be a linear experience that's a lot more fast-paced in line with the story that they're telling as well they should have omitted the one camera shot it just doesn't have a purpose in this game whereas it very much did in 2018 but okay fine how does it actually function well that's a tricky one I think they really wanted to have their cake and eat it with this one too 2018 is Titan pretty focused there are areas to go off and explore but like each area is a well-designed puzzle or area to navigate which grants rewards sometimes minor character moments and then you move on it's a great gameplay Loop that just keeps on looping to keep you engaged you have the large open space which was the lake to allow you then to access smaller Islands shorelines and catacombs where you could explore and eventually reconvene back on the water again the world was designed in such a way that you could explore without markers everywhere was distinct very clearly coded it was excellent this next section has taken me a while to write up an explanation for why I feel the way that I feel about ragnarok's exploration and I'm just gonna say right off the bat you might not even get what I'm trying to say here but hopefully I articulated it properly Ragnarok seems to think that bigger is better but working within the same framework as 2018 it fails to understand why 2018's exploration functioned well you have a similar layout to take somewhere like alfheim for instance a large space you navigate that large space disembark your vehicle to explore a smaller area complete a puzzle get some Loot and then you head back to the large space to do it again but there's a clear difference in how this operates changing a lake for a desert means you can actively run across the entire open space something impossible in 2018 while 2018 allowed for was smaller little levels all interconnected by a lake there was a sense of navigating to an Out Of Reach area exiting the boat and having an explore in Ragnarok everything is in One Singular plane of existence the vehicle isn't needed to reach the location it's just for getting to the location quicker and the distinction between dead space and level is made a lot less clear or I guess a lot more clear given they exist within the same terrain once you're at the location sure it all functions pretty similarly sometimes you'll get character moments a bit of loot something to engage with and you'll move on but I feel it's lacking in those two major areas of contextualization of the world space and the presentation of your movement through it that makes it far less engaging immersive and over overall enjoyable to do midgard is definitely still the best open explorable space But even that suffers from the design approach of it being a sled rather than a boat the world becomes too open and too directly connected within the same framework as 2018's World design that it begins to feel disconnected and empty and what then happens is simple box checking you zip from thing to thing checking it off of a list minor boss fights puzzles small story details and sweet sweet Bandit camps now become just numbers to you you're doing it to raise your level to take a thing off of a list rather than out of a desire to see what is on an Uncharted Island just Out Of Reach at the other side of a lake you can't navigate without a boat when you can simply disembark anywhere in the open space rather than only at the areas worth exploring things start to feel a bit video gamey the way that it's built falls apart because in 2018 the idea that there's only some places worth visiting and the rest is just dead space is easily masked by the lake being the Dead Space you understand subconsciously that the lake is for traversal the islands are four exploring but when the Dead Space is the same terrain as the actual engaging content you notice the negative space a lot more and it starts to feel odd that there's only some areas with important landmarks and nothing really between them the exploration in 2018 works because it's a lake and the philosophy of that exploration was designed around that very concept it's a simple change but if you remove the Lake swap it for a desert or a large plane of ice but change nothing else it becomes so clear how the game was built and designed it takes you out of it completely and it makes the act of exploring a chore to complete rather than something to indulge in in 2018 there would be Pathways which were streams and rivers flowing from the main lake with points of interest along them which makes sense that feels immersive riding a sled down a pathway with walls of ice and snow either side because they have to mimic the design of 2018 is a lot less so but what about about if they removed these restrictions because they could just do that right stop funneling you down paths and just give you a large space to actually roam wouldn't that help well they did do that and no it didn't help the crater is an area in vanaheim which you discover toward the latter part of the game it's a huge area that has hours of content tons of stories things defiant puzzles to solve it sounds ideal right I thought so too after my first hour in this area I put out a tweet see but I slowly came to realize that actually this was significantly worse and this might upset a lot of people because I've seen nothing but praise for this region but I'm sorry I don't think the bigger and more open is always inherently better especially not in the framework of God of War the core area of the crater is this part called The Plains it's a large dried up desert area which you navigate solely on foot yep the whole thing I don't know how to say this but I don't think that's particularly good this area deeply solidified what I suspected for the whole game the framework that 2018 was built within does not facilitate larger spaces this is why a lot of the Open Spaces in Ragnarok feel lesser and more bland it's why the crater begins to feel more and more tedious the more you play of it you find yourself just back and forth in across this huge open space with random parts that are blocked off to you because well it's built within the same framework as 2018 where you'd have to come back later after completing other areas but it's designed in a way that doesn't facilitate that method of play 2018 had vines that could be burned off with the blades of chaos or puzzles that were only solvable by using particular arrows they wouldn't often stop progression they'd Simply Be bonus areas off the main track that you would head to after you've gained the particular skill all of the environmental roadblocks were lifted by the main story being progressed ragnarok's crater decided to mix the two and that makes it a disaster you'll come to these areas that have these blockades and so it's like okay first of all who put that there second of all this means that I can get there I just have to go a different way so while it is a huge open space it still has to abide by the structure of linearity and it makes trekking across it back and forth ever so tedious not to mention the general design of levels in how it speaks to the player is very messy vanheim is the biggest offender of this the amount of times I wasn't entirely sure where I was supposed to be going when two parts would Fork off and I have to make mental note after mental note to eventually turn around to make sure I wasn't missing a crucial Pathway to something I needed later on it was a winding Maze of confusion wherever you went and I can only imagine the developers were tripping on something [ __ ] strong when they made this also while I'm here [ __ ] the sigilaro puzzles these are dumb 70 of the time they're [ __ ] dumb and I never felt like I solved it the way I was supposed to solve it I always felt like I glitched it or cheated the game it never felt right it always felt completely wrong let's get one there let's get another one here where I'm able to connect it I guess okay in the middle I suppose oh [ __ ] that's not that's not linked to the top is it let's just what about no okay that's not linked up the first one's yeah the first one's running okay let's do this maybe this will work if we just okay oh then that one's from there okay here we go this should do it this sort of do it there we go let's see it [ __ ] let's go that was dumbest [ __ ] on top of this too they somehow made muswellheim worse sure the realm becomes an actual space to travel through in the main story and that's really cool I like that they did that but as far as the side content goes we get we get the trials again and look I was way too lenient on the original trials in my God of War retrospective I got a few comments saying I really brushed over it too much and didn't give it enough [ __ ] and I agree it's one of the things that I would probably change about that video If I ever to make it again but now I get to make up for that because Ragnarok is [ __ ] worse in 2018 the context for it was immediately better it wasn't great but it was better you're climbing to the top of a mountain you're learning more about trace's abilities and hearing voices you're gaining loot in the process feels like you're making progress in Ragnarok it's just arenas for Arena's sake and because you can take both atreus and Freya here they couldn't put in any dialogue or character moments that are super important because well you could miss out and so it's empty of any really meaningful context the challenge themselves are just I don't know the challenges themselves are just fine some more irritating than others with the unreliable mob design which we'll talk about a little bit later but they're not like really egregious I guess I'm also being lenient here but it's just so Bland that I honestly don't care enough to even criticize it like let them have their boring little fight Arena I guess there's got to be someone who thinks it's fun it's not offensively badly designed it's just kind of [ __ ] boring although I will say the way they have you unlock the final challenge by replaying ones that you've already completed but in different orders is terrible and whoever decided that needs to be lined up and shut and even after all this criticism that I've levied against the game the word exploration isn't even that bad well the crater is but in any other game I think it would be pretty serviceable maybe a bit monotonous at times but the reason it sucks so much here is because this is God of War a game that nailed its execution of exploration in 2018. it feels so disappointing to be greeted with such a shallow version of that same system it all comes back to the idea that the game they were trying to make and the framework within which they were making it didn't seem to cooperate and so you're left with something lacking and empty compared to what came before when all the systems worked in tandem God of War's original trilogy cemented the way you play the game as the most important aspect that's not me putting down the story I love the original stories but it's the perspective of the fans of those games there's obviously a large selection of people who feel 2018's approach to being story heavy harms the identity of God of War and I guess it does right in my 2018 retrospective I talked about how the reinvention of the franchise was well executed and seemed to contain all the necessary ingredients just with the scales of which were prioritized adjusted for a tone and atmosphere that conveyed this new narrative and while I still of course agree with that line of thinking I also feel it was a bit reductive to the crowd of people who feel gameplay was lost in 2018 in favor of A Narrative Approach gameplay focused replayability is sort of shot down because it doesn't allow for cutscene skipping although the combat and the actual gameplay Loop is fun and Polished there's not a whole lot of room for player agency and creative play Given how strict the game is you'd be surprised how much the jump button allowed for interesting gameplay in the original trilogy some of the world's most interesting speedruns wouldn't be possible without the jump button and So based on this I understand why some fans are so Furious about 2018's approach and what that game seems to prioritize and it seems Santa Monica also understood that because it translates into how the gameplay of Ragnarok was designed and I don't think it had the effect they were entirely hoping for on a base level combat and Ragnarok feels good I think once I was in the end game facing off against a lot of the secret bosses it all really clicked for me and I was having a great time but it wasn't a gradual progression of enjoyment like it was in 2018 it took a while to click in 2018 the handling of progression from the base attacks and your acts to how you play by the end is staggering powerful engaging and perfected to a tear Ragnarok starts you out in the same position weak and with the ax which they explain by saying it's thimble winter which is fine but the much ballsy or interesting thing to have done would have been to Stark Kratos where we left him and then build from that I feel we're past the need of games giving excuses for our protagonists to start week just let them start off where we left off and then simply make them stronger as we go it's the same power creep but then just from a different starting position Ragnarok just retreads the same path 2018 did and I don't find that the slightest bit interesting especially for a game that set the precedent of everything having meaning in 2018 even the progression of our main protagonists instead of coming up with a meaning here we just we just do the same thing again there is a progression though and it's as functional as it was in the original game I just have nothing extra to say they just did the same thing and it still works cool but it's not Innovative and it's not interesting it's a fine method of play I just wish it had enough depth that I could pick it apart and tell you something new about it because there's nothing here to say it's just fun and that's fine but it pales in comparison to how the power creep and character progression weaved its way into the actual character beats of God of War 2018. the closest thing we get to that in Ragnarok is the forging of the dropness spear which I will say is handled pretty nicely both character wise for Brock and Kratos gameplay wise for how it operates in terms of combat and navigation and how it functions as part of the story this is the only time we get something as genuinely meaningful as this where story motivation the quest to save atreus and defeat Heimdall the character beats Brock having lost a part of his soul and Kratos giving him meaning again and the gameplay itself interweave in a way that gives depth to a moment this is the sort of stuff that should have been the entire game moments that use all the elements of the game's actual framework to craft something that feels impactful the way that 2018 did other than the spear progression and the acquiring of gear and items is handled kind of strangely in 2018 team you'd gain things like a compass the realm travelstone even the mistletoe Arrow were things that naturally wove themselves into the story being told and the journey that you were on in Ragnarok these things just sort of pop up very very obviously when they need to be introduced the compass just happens because Century pops up and goes oh you might you might need a gun because there's a compass or when atreus is visiting Asgard again and syndra just pops up and he's like so if you get in trouble you might need the special magic rock that teleports your way to safety oh really I wonder if that'll be used in the upcoming segment eh stuff like this should have been woven into the journey in a way that doesn't feel forced and unnatural let that teleport Stone be something you discover way earlier in the game and it just doesn't come in handy until we need it later on when maybe you've forgotten about it find a way to make the introduction of the compass more organic or better yet just don't introduce it because we literally already have one from 2018 that didn't need to happen again and here is probably the worst offender of all it's something that is so obviously trying to mimic the mistletoe Arrow from 2018 when freyja just like randomly stumbles across this news that Odin used to hang himself just like laying around in midgard on a tree they just happened to walk past and then they just start reaming off Exposition about it that's the Noose brother the one Odin hanged himself with as part of his endless mad quest for secrets of life and death and what have you what are you doing it's a charged object significant to Odin perhaps I'll find a use for it oh I wonder if that'll come up later okay back to what I was actually trying to talk about here this game follows the same you guessed it the same framework as 2018 for its combat which means that Kratos is not doing the same things he was doing in the original trilogy this isn't an issue it makes sense Kratos should be the same as he was in 2018. however this ties back around to what I said before Santa Monica clearly noticed people missed particular elements of the original games and tried their best to work this back in by including far more brutal finisher moves which can be executed with each weapon boss fights with far more varied bosses thank God thank [ __ ] god making for some insanely dramatic and large-scale fights with gruesome animations to go along with them and overall they managed to make Kratos feel more lethal than he did in 2018. now on a gameplay front this is a good thing however 2018 used its gameplay and more specifically its combat to characterize Kratos and give the game a particular tone same as it does with all the elements of its gameplay and mechanics that we've discussed a million times and so the way Kratos fights in 2018 plays into the narrative because that is the primary focus of 2018. Ragnarok operates within the same infrastructure see I changed the wording there I hope you appreciate it and say framework again [ __ ] but there's a disconnect between the gameplay and narrative here the gameplay is Gory it's flashy it's brutal it's incredible it feels great The Narrative however does everything to condemn this it's constantly reinforcing this idea that Kratos doesn't want to be a god killer anymore he doesn't want to be this brutal murderous God of War he wants to leave that life behind he's struggling with falling back into that way of living and it's bad but then you slice off a Troll's head or split one of these frog things in two and that's epic and badass but then in a cutscene we get a mopey Kratos being sad because war is bad and the thing is this could have been genuinely interesting if you glorify the combat and then at a point make us reconsider our actions if this is genuinely the story you wanted to tell you need to have us think have Kratos think if this is really right I'm not saying that's something I'd have wanted to play but it sure as hell would have fit the story better than what they decided to do the biggest moment this stands out for me is when Kratos kills heimdar this moment is funny in two ways one because they felt they needed Vermeer to point out that a bad thing was happening like we couldn't read the scene for ourselves but second of all because mamir is shocked and taken aback but like this is not the most brutal thing Kratos has ever done in the last five minutes he spent the whole game cutting off heads splitting people in two he just blew heimdall's [ __ ] arm off the game is at odds with itself and it seems to break the whole experience now don't get me wrong this isn't always an issue I'm sure someone has left a comment already about ludor narrative dissonance in games Uncharted as a prime example we're supposed to care for Nathan Drake sympathize with him but he's killed thousands of people he's a mass murderer in reality but we Overlook that because it's like not real it's gameplay stuff it's not part of the story it doesn't bake its way into the narrative itself and that's fine that's a fine way to handle a game but that's not what God of War does even the very first God of War Games everything Kratos kills everyone he kills is part of the story it's part of the journey Kratos murders so many people innocent and otherwise to get to Aries to get to Zeus and that's part of the story it's part of his character Journey that bloodlust that anger that rage it's important that everything you kill has real weight because otherwise Kratos would simply be a hero not a destructive God of War that's not ludo-narrative dissonance at all the original trilogy do what 2018 did just in a different framework I said it again they use the gameplay to inform narrative and tone and vice versa it's why those games stand the test of time 2018 also does this uses combat and gameplay Focus to inform character and story and tone Ragnarok simply doesn't it treats its combat and story as separate entities that rarely touch its story caters more to what 2018 was going for and its combat caters more to the original trilogy and that's an incredibly shallow understanding of what God of War means the place where it does in fact allow narrative and gameplay to touch is once again in the atreus portions of the game it's crazy how well executed so much of the atreya segments are despite also being the segments that most people don't actually want to play it's like the story they were telling and how they were telling it was well executed on a theoretical level it's just not the story anyone really wanted to explore from God of War almost like if you played the new Grand Theft Auto but the story was for some reason like beat for beat Pan's Labyrinth or something like it's a brilliant story but I I don't want to experience Pan's Labyrinth in Grand Theft Auto yeah Schmucks why the [ __ ] did I just say Schmucks I don't think I've ever said that in my life betrayus's gameplay I really do Vibe with I love the way that it feels unique it builds over the course of the game with different tools bows armor and abilities it feels inventive it feels like something that could be taken even further but it's still shallow you don't have many alternative moves you can pretty much spam the Rope pull thing to tear through enemies and despite its good aspects the game doesn't allow enough time for it to feel like anything more than a gimmick and that sucks because I suspect that's also the reason for the lack of innovation on kratos's combat system like I said before it fully retreads the same path as 2018 other than the inclusion of the spear and essentially shuffles around a few mechanics like buttons do slightly different things now but on the the whole it's the same thing by the end of the game it doesn't feel new it just feels ever so slightly different like using an iPad instead of an iPhone like it's the same thing it just works slightly differently and there was no need to alter something that was already bloody brilliant to feign the idea of reinvention you're not fooling me guys it's the same combat system you just remap some buttons and swapped around some runics I somehow thought it just felt worse than 2018 in such minor ways that I don't think I would have even felt upon an entire revamp of the combat system and I think this is partly due to mob design there's something fundamental about the way mobs are designed in Ragnarok that just doesn't feel fun to fight against I think it's because some are more spongy they seem to have more gimmicks to overcome more often than they did in 2018 and the combat you're using just doesn't seem to work with the enemies you're fighting it almost feels like a lot of these enemies I need the moveset Kratos have from the original games to properly feel on top of it I always felt swamped I felt like I was struggling to keep up in large spaces and constantly wailing on enemies felt like a better grind this is probably why I only really clicked with the combat by the end because I was only fighting the one-on-one enemies because this is where the combat shines almost all of the Berserkers the king gennar they were bangers of fights and I loved working my way through them these fights feel like the game systems were built for them and it's where you can really sit back get stuck in and have satisfying fights the choreography of these fights especially Gano is really a test of the combat system's mechanics you feel in control you feel powerful and it's still a challenge having to micromanage your arrow types of particular moves or the way you string together different weapon combos to deal the most damage possible feels like a dance you're learning and they've really took a page out of sigrum's book for this one I think sigrant is probably still a better overall fight but Gunner is a really strong runner-up and is probably the most fun I had fighting a boss in Ragnarok you'll notice I said a minute ago almost all of the Berserkers because Ragnarok has this issue with getting too big for its [ __ ] boots you have not designed the the game well enough to allow a fight like this to happen I'm sorry but you haven't the way you tackle multiple enemies at once is simply not reliable enough to be able to do something like this and not have to tank hits of everyone I've spoken to even those who adore Ragnarok they've agreed that this fight is [ __ ] awful the design behind this is baffling I genuinely cannot understand how this made it through game testing maybe it didn't and they didn't have the time to fix it who really knows all I know is it's awful I know even the souls games get [ __ ] for throwing multiple bosses at you at the same time but at least in those games there's sort of a push and pull nature of the fight one will duck in the other will duck out sometimes you'll deal with multiple at once but the nature of being able to stagger bosses with a hitbox based system means you can often crowd control duck out and then hop back into The Fray God of War isn't like that though staggering isn't anywhere near as frequent or reliable and when you're hitting one guy odds are you aren't hitting anyone else especially when these [ __ ] are in the guy shooting [ __ ] at you it's Relentless and borderline silly and this ends up being the nature of most of the mob fights too the game just feels like it fundamentally misunderstands its own systems and what they're capable of and designed for 2018 was handcrafted to make certain mobs paired with each other to give the player a challenging yet fair chance to manage the situation Ragnarok just throws [ __ ] at you and tells you to kick rocks if you struggle I dislike that I think what I've said about the combat here talks to what I mentioned at the top of the video if you can even remember that far back I can't remember what I said five minutes ago the systems in Ragnarok are fine systems they're good even but they do not work together in a cohesive way and that's important for any game but doubly so for a god of war game and that's my ultimate criticism of the combat not that it's bad or doesn't work but that the system is mostly really good but the way it weaves itself alongside the rest of the systems leaves a lot to be desired there are a lot more things I could discuss about this game both good and bad I could really go insane and write a script longer than The Hobbit but that's crazy and nobody would ever do that but I wanted to go over my main issues the things that I think stand out to me I wanted to criticize not every video like this has to delve into every single tiny detail and whether I thought it was bad or good because that's not how forming a critical opinion even works I don't want to dissect the side quest you get from the dead ghost in svatovheim who tells you to go off and find his son because they both went off to find the treasure alone and if they just worked together they would have actually succeeded instead of both dying wait no no wait yes I do this Quest is introduced when Kratos speaks to this ghostly fellow he says him and his son came in search of a treasure his son wanted to leave in search for it as did the father but the father lied and said they would go in the morning the son agreed and then during the night both the father and the son crept off separately to go in search of the treasure both of them died they never found the treasure and it's tragic they could very well have succeeded if they both just worked together cohesively as they had done all the other times they worked together I think you can tell the pretty obvious parallel I'm drawing here but in case there are some Ragnarok fans still watching let me point it out to you since you love that stuff you [ __ ] [ __ ] I'm sorry I don't know why I said that this Quest works as a good lesson for what went wrong with Ragnarok trust the formula and framework that you're working with use those systems in tandem with one another to create a cohesive success because despite the fact that the systems are usually capable in their own right unless they work together to strive for Success the whole thing falls apart and the individual systems mean little and wither into failure the great part about this side quest is also that not only does it work as a parallel to the game we got it's also an example of the game doing the good writing thing I keep talking about it's a direct parallel to Kratos and atreus but without spelling out in Big Bright glowing letters in case the stupid idiots playing the game didn't notice the meaningful commentary it was making on the story we're literally experiencing right now God of War Ragnarok broke me not because I hate it but because it disappointed me and Confused I expected a game that would deliver on the promise of something set up and established by God of War 2018 and instead what I got was a pretty average third person action adventure game with some basic themes on a budget that makes it look incredible and when you have actors this good and Technology this expensive backing up systems that don't work together and writing that is amateur at best it's not difficult to fool people into thinking it's actually really really good and that's not supposed to be an insult if you found that the impressive visuals and quality acting conveyed a message that resonates with you then that's your valid experience of a piece of art and at the end of the day no matter what I say or anyone else says that experience cannot be taken away from you it means something because it touched you just right and that's art despite failing at common conventions despite not managing cohesion or fluent pacing something that failed for me could mean everything to you and that's kind of beautiful [Music] but objectively I really need to know who blew the [ __ ] horn somebody just called the serpent thank you all so much for joining me for this video I really appreciate your attention span stretching so far um I've been working on this video for months now at this point since I finished Ragnarok it's taken me a while to get around to getting it finished there were things that interrupted like I got sick I had to plan on like relaunching the channel do all of that stuff podcasts patreon extra content access more and more things if you like supporting these large videos I make I'd really know why I'm whispering anyway I really enjoyed putting this together like I said I think videos like this is the exercise of it all that makes it fun for me I don't really I'm not trying to make you agree I don't care if you do or don't agree I just hope that you've got some insight and thought it was interesting um if you love Ragnarok good on you if you don't even better you're [ __ ] correct but I'm looking forward to doing a video next on something that I really do love because it's nice to sometimes criticize and then do one where you're like I really love this thing because he likes to go back and forth and do a bit of both so my ac1 retrospective is coming out eventually like I said these videos are taking me longer and longer to make I'm trying to make them better and better than before every single time I put one out if you want to support me you can do over on patreon that's really the best place to do it it means that I really can take more time with these videos and put my all into them and when they come out they should be damn worth it as well as get access to other content as well so that's there speaking of which I have to do a verbal shout out to my patrons that are pledging 15 or more my producers and my master assassins I don't know why people even went for that tier but you're welcome I guess thank you to Cabbage Viridian arenathon connoisseur Sam is paying James's water bill Damien The Not So orange gnome flash Paradox and and TJ thank you so very much and thank you to all my other patrons too you are keeping the lights on literally literally with your thumb on the switch thank you all very much and I'll see you in the next one bye-bye I um I've I forgot what I was doing and I I did actually just make two cups of tea I got the mugs out like it was it was for the joke but I um I mean you do you want one now I've got I mean I've done it now I I'm gonna drop these one a two uh three four five six oh my God are you happy are you happy now that's your cup and I want to see you drink it all you [ __ ] monster [ __ ] [Music]

Channel: LazerzZ

Views: 367,784

Keywords: video essays, LazerzZ, gaming, god of war, god of war ragnarok, god of war ragnarok critique, ragnarok critique, god of war ragnarok analysis, god of war ragnarok gameplay, god of war 5, atreus, loki, kratos, god of war ragnarok ending, god of war ragnarok review, god of war ragnarok critical analysis, video game, santa monica, ragnarok, review, gow, criticism, discussion, story, combat, side quest, asgard

Id: IsmTHnCbTuk

Length: 135min 7sec (8107 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 26 2023