#Take Mirmir's Head to the Witch

[acsuttles]

4K – God of War – A New Destination – Take Mirmir’s Head to the Witch

#Kratos #Atreus #GodofWar #ANewDestination #TakeMirmirsHeadtotheWitch #Sony #SonyInteractiveEntertainment #April2018 #BloodandGore #IntenseViolence #StrongLanguage #RatedMforMature

[turtleshores]

The Things We Used To Share

She knocks on the door, hoping Kiwi will answer. It’s been a few days since the incident in the Queen of Chaos dying, but she knows how they’ve been feeling since Calliope telling them Eya doesn’t see them as someone important. She gives it a few seconds, taking a step back as the door opens slightly, revealing the musician. “Kiwi? Can… Can you tell me about what happened now?” She didn’t want to make them relive what happened if they weren’t ready. “Or at least tell me who this ‘Hero’ was?” She puts air quotes around the word hero, since no hero would actively kill the Overseers.

“Her name was Audrey Redheart, okay? Now I’m going to go back to sleep. It’s late and I don’t feel the best.” They force a small smile and close the door, leaving Miriam to her thoughts. She couldn’t process this at all. Audrey was the hero? Audrey was the one killing the Overseers? There’s no way that could be right, right? How is she going to explain to Kiwi that she was friends with the hero? She makes her way down to the couch, laying down on it and staring at the ceiling, letting herself remember how things used to be.

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“Miriam! Come on! Let’s go catch some frogs by the pond!” A young girl’s voice calls out to her, and she giggles, running to catch up to her friend.

“I’m coming Audrey! Wait up!” She pulls her dress up slightly, hoping to stop herself from tripping.

“No way slowpoke!” Audrey grins at her before taking off, forcing her to run even faster to catch up. After a few minutes, they reach the pond and take off their socks and shoes, ready to find these frogs in the water. “First one to find five different frogs wins!”

“You’re on Audrey!”

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“Audrey! Audrey!” Miriam runs up to the older girl, pulling her into a hug. “I missed you! How was your trip to the kingdom of Ruelle?” Audrey smiles at her, giving her a quick squeeze before ruffling her cyan locks.

“It was fun! And I bought you something!” Miriam gasps, stepping back and giving a small, excited jump. Audrey kneels down, rummaging in her bag before pulling out a baby blue jacket. “What do you think? It’s supposed to match my red one!” She points to the new jacket she’s wearing, and Miriam grins, taking the jacket and throwing it over her purple dress.

“I love it Drey! Thank you so much!”

Audrey lets out a small laugh, her cheeks turning the lightest shade of pink. “It’s no problem Mirmir.”

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“Hey Drey?” She’s staring at the sky, leaning back against the grass on the hill, waiting for the sun to set.

“Yeah Mirmir?” The raven haired girl looks at her, an eyebrow raised. Miriam looks at her, taking in how beautiful the other girl looks at the moment. She pushes down a blush.

“You know that what’s mine is yours right? Like, you can borrow my stuff whenever?”

“Of course! And the same goes for you!” She smiles at that, and grabs Audrey’s hand, staring back up at the sky.

“Alright, I just wanted you to know.”

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“Psst, Mirmir.” She turns over so she’s facing Audrey, the singular blanket covering them.

“Yeah Drey?” She yawns, rubbing one of her eyes, her cyan locks even messier than usual.

“Thanks for being my friend. And for letting me stay over so often.” Audrey gives her a soft smile, purple eyes staring into onyx ones.

“You’re welcome Audrey. I’m happy to be your friend.”

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“What do you mean you’re moving?!” This feels like a split second decision. Audrey had never expressed wanting to leave Delphi before.

“I just don’t want to stay here anymore, you know? I don’t want to live one place my whole life.” Audrey leans back against the couch, and Miriam can’t help but be angry with how lax the other is about all of this.

Miriam runs a hand through her hair, taking a deep breath. Then, she heads upstairs to her room. Audrey follows, watching as the witch rummages through her things. Miriam picks up a photo, staring at the smiling faces of herself and Audrey as children, her heart aching at the thought of Audrey leaving. She stands up, makes her way over to Audrey, and hands her the picture.

“What’s with the picture?”

“I want you to keep it. Now, can you just leave for the rest of the day? I need to process that you’re leaving. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Audrey nods, giving Miriam a quick hug before leaving, picture in hand.

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Audrey didn’t come over the next day. Or the day after that. Or any other day. She didn’t come to say goodbye. She just left. Miriam didn’t know where she went, but the witch didn’t want to know anyways. She felt more alone than ever. It was as if Audrey ripped out her heart and stomped on it when she left. Why did she have to fall for her best friend? She should have known Audrey wouldn’t feel the same. She stares at her wall, remembering how her and Audrey used to cuddle when the girl came over. She can almost feel the lack of warmth next to her. All her thoughts keep bringing her back to Audrey, as if the girl is the only thing to ever exist in Miriam’s world.

She pushes herself up and off her bed, throwing a blast of magic at the wall. It doesn’t make her feel better, and she kicks her bed frame away from her, tears pooling up in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks as she sinks down to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. “Audrey, why did you leave me behind? I’m lost without you and I don’t know what to do…”

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She closes her eyes, wiping away her tears. She’s past all of this. She’s over what Audrey did, and she won’t let her past affect the future of the world. Still, she has a couple of questions. Like, where did Audrey go? Why did Audrey agree to kill the Overseers? Why did she have to fall in love with Audrey? And most importantly, what did Audrey do with her heart?

[breakingarrows]

God of War (2018) Thoughts so far (spoilers)

For reference I just cut of Mirmir’s head at the top of the mountain.

So far the things that are keeping me playing the game are: mystery around why Odin’s sons are looking for me. Spreading ashes from tallest peak in all the realms (more on this later). Wanting to see more boss fights like the electric dragon.

Kratos and Atreus’ relationship is fine, he is the rough father who must teach his son to be rough to survive and the son likewise teaches the father to be softer sometimes (though we haven’t really had these moments yet I can feel them coming). It isn’t particularly well done, as Kratos hesitates to place his hand on his son during the quieter moments because he isn’t used to being vulnerable. Atreus constantly seeks his fathers approval after combat and he only gets things like adequate or improved. Atreus is inquisitive, always asking questions and always commenting on things that are happening or translating Norse lore, which he loves, for Kratos. If the entire game is just Kratos learning to be more vulnerable with his son and more willing to show him love openly then I’ll be very disappointed.

This relationship between father and son is the core of the entire game, but as you can tell it isn’t what’s keeping me around. Instead I’m more interested in what Odin is up to, why inter-realm travel has been impeded for so long, and how the hell everyone who isn’t Atreus knows automatically that Kratos is a god from another land. The witch, Mirmir, and the tattoo man all knew right away that Kratos wasn’t from around here and the former two imply that Kratos not telling Arteus his true nature is wrong and harmful to his son. I want to spread Faye’s ashes from the peak but only because I liked the small journey that was going to be, a simple, get to the top of this mountain, encounter some larger picture things, spread the ashes, and then move forward with the other plot threads. Instead what happens is goalpost moving where Mirmir reveals this is not the highest peak, the highest is in the Jötunheimr realm which requires a special key which the world serpent knows about but first you have to cut off Mirmir’s head and bring it to the witch to reanimate so he can talk to the serpent. It reminded me of Prey (not a great game) which did some very blatant filler goalpost moving at the end whenever you thought you were getting somewhat close to the conclusion. This sort of undermining is frustrating and I really don’t enjoy it happening, especially when they lay out what is probably going to be a few hours of content in order to actually begin another mountain journey. I really hope they don’t make you climb the mountain or make it longer than the climb we already did in Midgard.

There are quite a few things I don’t like about the game so far. Kratos is responsible for the death of all of Greece due to his actions in God of War III. This entry, a continuation of the same character, seems to not care about confronting the fact that Kratos is not a good person. The things he did throughout the six previous games were immoral. I’m hoping the reason the Norse gods want him gone is because of his history killing gods and the resulting chaos that ensues, though I’m sure the game won’t acknowledge the consequences of the latter part. A small issue is that Kratos willingly loots corpses and burials, justifying it by saying it won’t help the dead person anymore. How many tales of history do we have that exist purely to explain, “Don’t fuck with dead people”??? Were Faye to have been entombed instead of burned to ashes I don’t think Kratos would have taken kindly to her things being looted by anyone or listened to their explanation that it would help them more than it will help the dead. It’s hypocritical and frustrating that the game makes no efforts to call Kratos out on it.

I don’t like that Faye died so that Kratos and Atreus could have a shared man-pain bonding experience. Her death serves as the catalyst for the adventure unfolding the (slowly) developing relationship between the two, and we never see her. We hear about her in some dialogue with two dwarves who created the Levaithan Axe for her, which was given to Kratos upon her death. This sort of characterization is weak though. Sure Faye was a great warrior and smarter than Kratos, but that doesn’t change the fact she is used as an emotional narrative tool to further the father/son relationship.

I don’t like how long it took for the combat to introduce combo mechanics and allow my heavy attack to be interlinked with others instead of just acting as a begin-juggle with the axe or kicking away when unarmed. I bumped the difficulty down to easy because, 1. at the beginning, on normal and hard you just wail away at the enemies with the limited set of moves which isn’t fun or challenging and 2. I felt like it really shouldn’t take me three combos to take down a draugr, no matter its “power level.” So I’m on the easiest difficulty and enjoying it much more since I can now play around with the more complex button presses and at the same time not have to worry about enemies ganging up on me. Seriously fighting Dark Elves was the main reason I bumped it down, dying over and over because I couldn’t land more than two hits was NOT FUN.

I’ll keep playing, obviously, but really hoping things start happening to elevate it above another standard AAA experience. At least I’m not playing Far Cry 5 anymore, thank God.