All things God of War

[iHateNumbers23]

Some games are defined by a single moment. God of War is one of those. Your son has fallen ill, your past cannot stay buried. Your boat guides you home, you fight off enemies on your way to the house, you grab something wrapped in cloth, something that had only appeared for a split second early on. Bear McReary’s masterful “Echoes of an Old Life” sells the payoff longtime fans were waiting for - the Blades of Chaos carry a weight they could never possess in the franchise’s angsty past. Every frame, every animation, every texture, they all blend together into this singular moment. God of War 2018 has its flaws, but few gaming scenes can rival this one.

[Pconpi]

I became a first-time father to a boy in 2019 and aptly played God of War on my paternity leave during his (brief) naptimes. As I advanced in the game I focused heavily on Atreus’ skill tree and came to rely on his skillset more and more as the game progressed. I would avoid engaging enemies if low on health and would have Atreus pick them off as I kited them around. The narration he provided by his questioning Kratos, being curious about the lore of the world, and having a general optimism in its inhabitants all set a tone during my adventure and I grew to appreciate him as a son.

All of this was sharply brought into focus as I had to travel to Helheim for the first time without him. This cold, depressing place was even lonelier without the ubiquitous banter Atreus provided and my battles became harder without the Square button to mash. It echoed the game design of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons as a physical gaming action that I had come to rely on was removed and the narrative emotional loss I felt was greater.

The theme was explored further as Atreus’ character arc swung to an arrogant teen with a lack of empathy upon discovering his identity as a deity. As we traversed through the heart of the mountain for a second time I slowly noticed that Atreus was failing to respond to my Square button command. Then as his wolf summon joined a fight without my button hold I realized he was acting on his own and to my astonishment he was more effective than when I was commanding him. My gaming and parenting ego was bruised as I realized I wasn’t as effective as I thought and Atreus could perform better without me. This commentary on parenting, of limiting your child’s potential through too much hand holding, shone through brilliantly for me.

As we finished our climb up the mountain in silence I missed the old Atreus and despised who he was becoming. He was impulsive, violent, and indifferent, fully inhabiting the worst traits of his father. As my own son slept beside me I reflected on my fears of passing on traits within myself (addiction, vanity, guilt) and empathized with father Kratos’ misguided attempt at protection. I’m just starting my journey of parenting and have many years ahead of trying to navigate my protection impulses. As such, I appreciated God of War for presenting some ideas on parenting for me to think critically about. Now, where did I bury my Blades of Chaos?

[Scrustle]

I was very sceptical of this game to begin with, being a moderate fan of the previous games. Although it was clear that the series needed a massive shaking up to continue existing, the direction they chose at first didn’t inspire much confidence in me. But then when it came out and I finally played it, I ended up being really impressed with it, although not without caveats.

The biggest issue was the change to the combat style. While the combat in general ends up being pretty good in the end, it doesn’t feel particularly elegant. It feels like it’s bending over backwards trying to make a control scheme that isn’t suited to this style of gameplay work. It’s like the game was built to play like a third-person shooter, despite being a hack-and-slash. It ends up making movement feel somewhat stodgy in the middle of a fight, and that everything has to be narrowed down and made less kinetic in a lot of ways, so that fights stay manageable with what you can reasonably keep on screen. And when it comes to enemies attacking you from behind, the game has to resort to non-diegetic UI elements to warn you, rather than you just being able to see them yourself. I suppose all of this is done in service to the Leviathan Axe and its long-range throwing attacks, but it feels like it went unnecessarily far. While the axe throw abilities are fun and useful, they’re only one tool in your wider range of abilities. It doesn’t make sense to have everything else suffer just for that, especially when they could have limited the use of this camera style to just when you are holding the axe in the throwing stance.

Despite all this though, combat is still very meaty and solid. Enemy design is really well done, where almost everything is a fun challenge to go up against, all animated really well that gives you very good tells for attacks that makes pulling off a parry extremely satisfying. Although your gear level affecting what attacks you are able to block or parry at any time does interfere with that somewhat, again leading to artificial UI elements having to make up for it. But even so, the flow of combat where you’re juggling parries, rune attacks, and Atreus helping with his abilities, all works together to make something that ends up being more than the sum of its parts. The optional Valkyrie bosses in particular are a big highlight that shows the combat at its best, when things are pushed to the extreme. And there’s also one neat little trick this game does to sell the weight of attacks that I think is worth shining a light on. The way it does hit-pauses is quite clever. Maybe even a bit overcomplicated. While most games with this feature will simply pause your character’s attack animation for a moment when it hits an enemy, here what they do is hook your weapon in to them, but using inverse kinematics, continue to play the attack animation. So it results in this natural looking tugging motion that really sells that Kratos is using his strength to heave his weapon through an enemy. It’s a completely unscripted effect, but it works so well at adding a subtle but chunky heft to swings that gives a real satisfying feedback.

The story is also really impressive too. Or rather, the characterisation of Kratos and Atreus throughout. When it came to carrying on this series with the same protagonist, they did an excellent job of taking a situation which felt like they had written themselves in to a corner, and had played out everything they could have done, and turned it around in to an elegant and almost effortless maturation of the character, that did a fantastic job of evolving and progressing him in to something more nuanced, but in a way that still very much does not shy away from his past. Turning him in to a stoic figure, but who still struggles with his anger bubbling under the surface, trying to connect with his son to teach him not to be like himself, but who is afraid to open up to him in case he shows him exactly what it is he’s trying to protect him from. Seeing Kratos working through that and learning to open up, while also coming to terms with his past and how he can’t hide from it for Atreus’ sake was really deftly handled, and the perfect way to explore this character. The sequence when he goes back home to dig out the Blades of Chaos in particular was a great moment, caught between the guilt of digging up the past, but accepting he has to embrace who he was to grow and save his son.

Atreus too is really well written. Children in games are so often poorly written and grating characters, but Atreus is very entertaining to be around, and his dynamic with Kratos works really well. He’s a smart kid who isn’t afraid to say what’s on his mind, and has an uncanny ability to be able to cut through the tension of a serious discussion between adults, disarming Kratos and forcing him to let his guard down more. They play off each other so well. Not to mention all the other secondary characters like Mimir and the dwarves when they all interact. The banter in the game is great, and a big part of it is always how Atreus is able to coax Kratos in to reluctantly engaging and to come out of his shell.

There’s more I could mention but those are the biggest things that I wanted to dig in to. But there are a couple of other parts that I was impressed by. The world design is very cool. I liked how it had a partially non-linear layout to it. How each location still felt like a very tight level that was well paced and always unique, but was all part of a larger interconnected world that you could explore mostly as you liked, giving events a sense of place. The way the game sells scale is breathtaking too. Interacting with the World Serpent was always a great set piece. Visually it’s extremely impressive, and the performances are top notch. And the boss fights against Baldur were excellent, especially the first, when it’s a genuine surprise when you first see what he’s capable of.

Overall this game was a great soft reboot, and exactly what the franchise needed. It’s a very impressive achievement that takes things in a fresh direction, but which is still very thoughtful and respectful about where it came from. While I think there’s still a lot of kinks to iron out with the combat, the quality of this game gives me confidence that they will be able to fix things going forward, and the series has a bright future from this point on.

[Stanshall]

To me, God of War is the 'Oscar fodder' of the medium, a ponderous, overly earnest drudge. Repetitive dialogue, inane incongruous puzzles and constant 'walk and talk' sections while the next corridor or combat arena loads. There are some astonishing set pieces from a graphical point of view and the deliberate combat does have a powerful sense of weight to it but so much of the moment-to-moment gameplay saps my enthusiasm to continue. It feels to me like an attempt to ape the narrative dynamic and pacing of The Last Of Us but it is far too slow and far too reverent of its browbeating protagonist to capture my imagination.

[RetroClarence]

As somebody who spends a lot of time playing classic video games, the first thing to him me about God of War was the incredible production values. The game looks and sounds beautiful. The voice acting is Hollywood quality and it has convinced me that the medium can and does rival movies in terms of the quality of acting and production.

Overall, I enjoyed the game, I enjoyed the moment to moment combat and the world traversing. However, the relationship between Kratos and Atreus didn't entirely land for me. I struggled to divorce the Kratos from the earlier games from the 2018 vintage. In the earlier games, I just accepted that he was an every day mindless idiot who smashed things and treated women like objects. In a gamey kind of way, it was fine, I didn't think about it. This game asked me to think about Kratos as a father and human and I think they would have been better creating an entirely new character.

That said, some of the quieter moments in the game were genuinely touching, it would just jar when Kratos goes back to screaming "Boy!" at Atreus during the next exploration piece.

Although the game is incredibly shot in one take, it tells me that games still haven't completely managed to interweave story telling and game play, but it's getting there.