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It's been really interesting to play this game and have my thoughts on it change as I played. Started off not liking it too much, but by the end I was really enjoying it. I've still got a couple of problems with it, but overall it's a great experience that was very satisfying, and actually told a decent story too.
The combat in this game is something of a strange beast. I feel like it works in spite of itself, like it was trying hard to overcome inherent problems with the core design structure, instead of it being a natural fit from the ground up. Despite that, it still manages to be an enjoyable system. Attacks feel really impactful and satisfying, and once things finally flesh out later in the game, it feels like there's enough variety of abilities to have a decent number of ways to affect combat in a meaningful way. But I have to say, it took far too long to reach that point. I only really started properly enjoying the combat around the halfway point when you get that other weapon that gives you far better crowd control ability. Once I was at that point, I rarely used the Leviathan Axe. There were a few situations where it was useful, but in general, the later one is better in almost every way. Even though a lot of my problems with the combat were solved by that, I still never really totally got over the feeling of it being somewhat sluggish and unwieldy. That started as a major problem, but then became a marginal one by the end. Overall it's good, but it never feels like it fully manages to free itself from the problems inherent to the kind of camera and control system they went for. Enemy design in general was really great though. Everything was fantastically animated with good tells, and there were lots of enemies with interesting behaviour. The Valkyries in particular were excellent. I found the final one was beyond my abilities, but I thoroughly enjoyed fighting all the others up until then. Those fights really are where the combat shines best. That is, aside from one attack a couple of them have which is similar to my most disliked enemies; the Dark Elves. Given the sluggish feel to Kratos, enemies that jump up in the air and fly away out of view are not a fun time, especially if they come in groups like the Elves do. But a one-on-one fight against an enemy that has a bunch of interesting and well-telegraphed attacks makes for a very satisfying encounter.
I think the world structure really needs praise in this game too. These days it seems like most big budget games go for one of two extremes. Either they're incredibly linear, which can make for a tight and well paced experience, but feel constrictive as a result, or they go for the massive open world sandbox, which can provide a sense of scale and freedom, but at the cost of pacing and individual level/encounter design. But God of War has a semi-open world system where narrow, tightly designed paths spread out from a single hub area in the form of a lake, that has its own small points of interest dotted around it too. It makes for an experience that has the same kind of feeling of freedom and player-led discovery as a sandbox game, but with individual areas feeling like they're very tightly constructed and feel just like you're playing a linear game that knows exactly how to give you a great ride. And because of this, the world gets away with being rather small, meaning it can be intricately detailed and unique in every corner. Every inch feels like its had the same attention as every other. I really wish more big games would do something like this. It proves there's no need to slavishly adhere to "bigger is better", or to railroad the player so much that they feel like they have no agency.
The RPG systems though, I'm not sure I was quite as much a fan of. Despite being somewhat connected to the world design, they didn't really feel quite right in a game like this. It meant that a decent amount of my attempts at exploring off on my own were a frustrating experience, as I was wandering in to areas that I wasn't a high enough level to deal with yet. I'm not sure that really has a place in an action game that's trying to focus on player skill with mechanics. That also impeded my progress with the Valkyries too in a way that was less than enjoyable.
But as for the story, I was pretty impressed overall. They dealt with Kratos in a brilliant way. With how at first he comes across as being aware of his past, but not wanting to fully come to terms with it, through gradually dealing with it as his relationship with Atreus evolves. Atreus too was very well handled. Seeing him learn more about the world and who he is, and how he deals with it was great. They weaved each character's arc and growth in to the other's really well. A lot of the side characters were really good too. Full of lots of personality and charm. Both the dwarves and Mimir were very enjoyable. Mimir interacting with Kratos and Atreus as he tells his stories was good too, with how they often related to the relationship of those two characters. Lots of interesting little tid-bits about Norse mythology as well. I'm pretty excited to see where they go from here, judging by all the teases late in the game.
Another thing that I think it worth mentioning is how well this game deals with scale. The big stuff in this game feels big in a really impressive way. That may seem kind of unimportant, but it really made a lot of the events in the game stand out, like something truly monumental was going on in front of your eyes. Really sells the believability of the world too. The God of War games have always been good at this, but this time they stepped it up a notch to something I haven't seen any other game rival.
And a minor point on performance. Despite appreciating how good the game looks, I did find the frame rate kind of distracting. I was playing on a Pro in the high frame rate mode, but it still didn't exactly feel great in a lot of situations. While it wasn't game-breaking, with the slower pace of the game probably helping a lot, often it did feel pretty choppy and lacking fluidity that could be distracting at times. It felt like the console was being pushed just a bit beyond its limits. So I guess we'll have to wait for a PS5 remaster to get 60fps, like with the older games.
Overall though I did thoroughly enjoy the game. I don't think it's the most amazing thing ever like a lot of people seem to, and when it comes to combat, it feels like it's fighting against itself somewhat, albeit mostly coming out as a positive experience. But aside from that, a great story, excellent world design, and brilliant presentation too. It took me a while to get sold on this game, but I'm very glad I stuck with it in the end. I look forward to what comes next, although I really hope they make some changes to iron some issues out.
Small side note; playing this game actually made me miss the old games somewhat. So I recently picked up Ascension, since that's the only one I haven't played so far. I'll probably be diving in to that soon. I got the digital version, and wow, that was a new low for how awful the PS3 PSN store is. 35GB for a PS3 game!! How? Why?? Took 6 hours to download, and an hour and a half to install. I am so glad the 360 was my main system last generation.