God of War: Ragnarok

[Tobal]

Played about 2 hours on my Ps5 occasionally switching between performance and graphics, and while graphics mode looks great the frame-rate isn't good enough for an action game like this, so it be performance mode for the rest of the game for me. And the opening 2 hours.. quite dull gameplay wise, nothing new, just one tutorial after another, after another with a sprinkling of cutscenes to remind players what happened last time and what Kratos and boy need to be doing in the immediate future.

Just got up to where different shields becomes a thing you can level and have different gameplay effects (similar to loading runes on the weapon handles), still feel i'm in for hours of hand holding yet before they unleash you. Aside from that, it always great to juggle and parry enemies, then slice them in half mid combo or set them up for finishers.

Does suffer from its Ps4 heritage, plenty of clear loading screens the PS5 just doesn't need so expect to be lifting alot of logs for the boy, shuffling down many, many cracks in the wall and running inside the warp door for no good reason. Also wish it had Spidermans 'no button QTE's' in the menu, real stick an tired of that, best you get is switching tap to hold.

[fishbowlhead]

Only got 50’mins in to a good checkpoint and the other half got too tired to keep awake, we always go through story games together so thats me for tonight.

So far so good though.

[Atticus]

I also barely had an hour with it last night, which is not really long enough to form much of an opinion. The AAA gloss shines straight away though. It is a beautiful game. But as has been stated the tutorials hold things back a little, and tbh I felt like I'd pretty much trudged through the opening of the first game all over again. But I know the good stuff is coming. The training wheels will come off and the beefy combat will kick in proper.

[Neon Ignition]

The words 'training', 'trudged' etc should never even enter the lexicon for a God of War title. I haven't even started this yet as I'm still knee deep in too many other uncompleted games, just got it installed, but you've got to miss games just throwing you in to a massive set piece boss battle.

I know games want to be player friendly but frankly control schemes are so largely universal these days the training wheel approach to opening hours game design really needs to loosen up in many titles.

[fishbowlhead]

Year i mean the first games was what? 40 hours long, think i spent 50 hoovering everything up, so its not like this is a 2 hour game with 1 hour of tutorials.

[Lebowski]

I enjoyed the first two big fights they are still really viscreal and get your heart pumpimg, the weight of combat and how Kratos cleaves through enemys with the axe is unrivaled, (You can feel the weight of the character and the hits). The opening yeah its a little bit hand holdy but that's their here as a soft introduction to the game and its mechanics again. as someone who did everything in the first game its a little redundant but I'm really keen to get stuck back into the story again. One things is for sure though the characters are spot on and their not holding back on the big players

->Open Spoiler<-

Thor is brilliant i really like his arrogance and his attitude here and he really starts things off with a bang

[BaronSqwelch]

Only played the first 2 big fights and left the house for the start of the journey...but seems more of the same so far. Seems very clunky combat wise so far but I'm sure a few skill points will sort that out.
Already pleased I chose the hold button, rather than tap option though.

[Tobal]

Not long after my last post the game opens up bit with travel to elsewhere and upgrades to the weapons to open up the abilities to be bought, i was enjoying going through new areas, doing slightly different variations on puzzles from the first game, but then... Ironwood happens, slow, boring and the most cringe inducing crap they could have put in.

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I was fine with having the odd 30mins of play controlling Atreus the first time and his interactions with Sindri are interesting, but he isn't much fun to play as compared to Kratos, he has a limited move set already but then they force you into 2 hours of him and angrboda, trading a boat for a slow cow and the worst hollywood teen talk and flirting shoe horned in, took me out of the game, it wasn't until i finished of the crappy grandma fight i felt engaged again as it was clear it would soon be Kratos time. I really hope we are done with Angrboda, clearly worthless character unwilling to break her programming of destiny, every time Atreus pushed, she refused. They should have mercy killed the mental case grandma for the death and pain she caused the wildlife.

[Tobal]

Got into myself first smashing my head against a brick wall moment with an optional boss fight on the frozen lake, those that did the all Valkyries previously would know what i mean(it's probably the Valkyrie replacement fights). The usual story, you do chip damage to them, they can kill you in 3 hits, last 2 HP bars they remove any start up from the moveset, got him down to less that an half centimetre of HP multiple times to get shafted by him pulling out new combinations of moves still. Managed to beat him

->Open Spoiler<-

with a combo of quick punching which built up poison then switching to axe for increased damage when enemies are inflicted, it also built up his stagger bar quickly, though at best when filled only gave me 1 segment of HP loss on the boss... at least i got all his parry timing down for the yellow moves, it was the quick fire red combo moves that regularly did me in, when trying to close the distance.

One thing i did learn, there is no way to turn haptics/rumble off in the game, yet another sony game i've come across that does this, i shouldn't need to go into the system menu to switch it off and on. And why do i turn it off, it massively gets in the way of tough fights you'll be trying over and over again if you take on the open world of hell spawns, those black clouds and optional bosses.

Also add on that the games backseating goes into overdrive even for the simplest of puzzles/adventuring and into every single story boss fight to the point of ruining the experience when you get

->Open Spoiler<-

Freya

as a second, i wasn't even 20 seconds into looking at some puzzle with swinging crane to advance to the story with a couple of torches i could also light up for a bonus chest and got told exactly what to do, and other puzzles where i hit a switch with my axe and was immediately told 'it won't turn that way, you have to do it from the other side', or 'i think we climb that xxx now' after doing part of another puzzle. On boss fights they they just straight up tell you what to do, block a yellow attack, prep for hearing the same dialogue over and over of 'you need to parry, you need to dodge that' or if the boss goes into some sort mode, as soon as you miss the first opening they tell you exactly what you should be doing.

[fishbowlhead]

I don't think i killed any of the Valkyries in the first game until i finished the game and went back to them fully powered up, even then they were absolutely nails.

[Tobal]

Doesn't seem to be much talk going on this landed, outside of the core story which is the pull for me, there is very little changed from 2018 for the adventuring, puzzles and combat, that the only talk can be about the story which needs heavy spoilers.

about 35 hours in, doing most of the side content if it's a fight i can reasonably take, it sure would be nice if they threw up a monster level on this named monsters and side bosses, having to go into fight often with half my HP is just an reload exercise, which thankfully short on a PS5.

Reached the crater which large area for pure side content, getting alot of worthless armour and upgrade items i don't need outside a few key items like upgrades to the 3 weapon levels. It's also the area i've been hit with 7 game breaking bugs which have required save reloads or using the warp gate to 'reset' things, twice i've had quest ghost cutscenes break, a side boss sink into floor and Atreus just stopped working or moving 4 times.

After i find this last "dragon" in the crater i think im done for side content till endgame, the endless sidegrades offer nothing but very niche playing styles that shoehorn you into playing a certain way, and are now entirely useless when they mix up enemy types and shield changers in the mid to late game.

[Tobal]

'finished' at 45 hours in, before taking on Odin i decided clean up all the berserkers i could reach, the ravens, nornir chests and about 11/15 of the muspelheim challenges before the unlock requirement to repeat basic fights over and over in a certain order so you could unlock new one. Then went to take on Odin, loved the story build up for it, a few little stupid things here and there but overall pretty good.

->Open Spoiler<-

Though the final fight was quite rubbish, nothing epic to it as far as the fight goes, Thor's was better. I 100% knew Sindri would run up to twist the knife at the end, and then it just ends without feeling like a ending, dumped back into the world... so i assume there has to be more to it to see a proper fade to black ending credits if this is suppose to be end of Norse pantheon.

as one final bug, had to redo the ending credits getting stuck in the holding out Mimir animation with him still strapped to my arsecheeks, could open any doors...

Solid 8/10 game, let down by a lack good surprises outside of the story, to many annoying side boss fights where they decide to throw multiple bosses at the same time at you, so enjoy trying dodge Red and Blue attacks happening off the screen or trying to aim at some archer back liner only to have the auto aim pull you off target cos some enemy ran into view.

[Tobal]

Poked around looking for the endgame and nothing of substance outside the fade to black credits from a brief talky quest. Why they just don't go straight into as it a key part of the ending... i don't know.

They give you unlocks for places you can't visit during the game, then lock them to a small room either to talk for some little decent epilogue stuff or fight last berserker and optional 2 last bosses, looked up online if it was worth beating them for how painful the last berserker is and how much of a **** fight the Gna one is, and the answer is no.

Disappointed the niflheim rogue like battle arena never returned from 2018, was hoping it would unlock after beating the story.

Also got one little line from Mimir asking about Kratos past exploits which mentions a past game which got a chuckle out of me,

->Open Spoiler<-

which would be Playstation All-Stars, "You fought a knight, a princess and world renowned musician" "I'd rather not talk about it"

[Neon Ignition]

I'm around 8hrs in and its refreshing that there's a game where the projected play hours is accurate. Still very early without taking my time of padding the experience at all. I'm enjoying it even if there's still nothing new about the gameplay and the action and scale of the game remains much smaller so far than the PS2/PS3 era titles were.

[fishbowlhead]

15hrs in and loving it, the world building here is amazing and all the characters are so well acted and animated. It is a typical sequel to the last one, but then it had to be.

Looking forward to getting stuck in again to it this week after been sick for the past 3 weeks and not being able to concentrate on games at all.