#and I kept preparing myself for kratos’ death

[renegadeem]

I just finished God of war ragnarök.

Fantastic game, loved it a great deal!

One thing that kind of stuck with me is how it included prophecy and still managed to twist it and keep you guessing.

*** spoilers***

Like, the Giant shines showed Tyr leading the armies at Ragnarök, so once you free Tyr, you expect he’ll end up changing his mind somewhere along the way and do the thing. It was foretold after all, and most of the events the giants showed end up coming true.

Except the person they showed wasn’t really Tyr at all, in the end. We never even met Tyr. It was the God of War the shrines were showing, our own Kratos blowing the horn and fulfilling the prophecy. We just didn’t realize it at the time.

Same for the part where they show Atreus holding his Father as he dies in his arms. He goes to great lengths to try and avoid this, fulfilling a lot of the prophecies as he did so.

And still, Atreus does end up holding on to someone as they die, but it’s not HIS father, it’s the All-Father, Odin, getting soul sucked into the soul- pokeball.

There are often prophecies that are so vague and poorly worded it could mean anything, so it’s refreshing to see these plausible misinterpretations of very correct and accurate ones.

[still-breathing-and-full-of-life]

Times My Heart Snapped In Video Games

Spoilers ahead for several games mentioned in the tags.

I don’t think I have to explain this one. I have to put down my controller for a bit and pause the game every single time no matter how much I try to prepare myself for it.

Snapped my heartstrings even when I was a small child who could barely read playing this game for the first time. Poor baby Rosalina…

If you have ever lost a pet, this hits so much deeper. His doggo was in deep pain and he had to say goodbye in order to end his suffering.

It’s taking all of Kratos strength to abandon his daughter after he had just reunited with her and promised he’ll never leave her again. Her pleading makes it’s all that more difficult.

Through this DLC my heart kept breaking more and more as I came to realize that the board game was part of Tina’s coping mechanism after Roland’s death. She’s so upbeat and energetic all the time so seeing her breakdown into tears made my eyes swell.

[existentialsurvivalist-blog]

God of War review

God of War has grown up and in a really good way. At first, I was a little bit scared and worried about the game (before its launch) since it was heavily marketed and this usually is not a good thing but all my worries were put to rest once I got the game. In the first hour, I was hooked. It looked amazing. I do have some minor troupes with the game that I want to address but first, let's start with the good. Full disclosure, this was my first God of War game so my opinions about the previous titles are based on seeing my friends play for a bit and Youtube videos.

As I already said, God of War has grown up and matured and in such a fine way. From the story to the gameplay, God of War should become an example of how you make sequels or reboots. It kept the core of the previous titles and improved upon every aspect as far as I can see. This time the story of God of War is not revolved around revenge and just killing everything that stands in front of Kratos' vengeance but its a heartfelt story of a troubled individual trying to cope with loss and trying to teach his son about the world and how he sees it. Be warned. Some spoilers coming up about the game. 

The story starts with Kratos' wife's death and him and his son preparing to fulfill her last wish - to spread her ashes upon the highest peak in the nine realms. Before they set out on their journey they are confronted by a strange man, who claims to know who Kratos is. After Kratos beats the mysterious man, he gathers his things and son and starts their journey. During this journey they encounter multiple Norse mythology characters that help them or driven by their own agenda, are trying to kill them. It's not revenge but something a lot more meaningful that is driving the story. 

Kratos is trying to teach his son how to survive and the ways of life that he knows. He is teaching him to hate gods and not help anyone and this makes perfect sense in the game. You see, Kratos has been betrayed by gods, tricked into doing a lot of bad things, killed a lot of gods and this is the only way he knows how to survive. But he is not the only teacher in this story. He is also the student. His son has learned a lot from Feya and is teaching compassion and understanding to Kratos as well. This dynamic between the characters creates a natural interaction and back and forth with both characters. They both learn, they both grow and they become better. 

The cast of supporting characters is amazing. The talking head is telling the player lore of the world in the downtime and sometimes I was stopping before docking with the boat just to hear the end of the story. These stories keep the travel time interesting and it does not feel like filler. It gives actual context about the world and how it got to the stage it is right now. And then there are the dwarfs. I loved these characters. A germophobe master blacksmith and a foul mouth, no fucks given master smiths that have created some of the most powerful weapons in the world. And they provide a great comic relief. 

To be honest, I did not expect this kind of deep storytelling in a God of War game. My impression of the God of War games was that they are mostly about fighting gods in an action game. And I have heard that the story of previous games is good and understandable but not very deep. So I was not expecting this kind of writing. And the story should be experienced by everyone. I did not notice any glaring issues in the story or something that makes no sense. It is entirely possible that I have missed something or have overlooked some story issues but nothing really stuck out to be out of character or immersion breaking. But how is the gameplay?

As far as I can tell and gather from what some of my friends have said, God of War has always had good gameplay and I was expecting the same here and oh did the game deliver. Kratos' new primary weapon is an axe this time and the chaos blades have been buried and my first impression was that this will be the only weapon that will be used in the game. I prefer to have weapon variety in games but I was open minded with this. And to be honest, there was not a single moment in the game where I wanted to have another weapon. The combat just works so well with the axe. Skills keep the combat interesting and when you pull off a parry and a combo right after that, it feels really satisfying. When you do get the chaos blades, I found myself returning to the axe when I did not have to use the blades. 

The puzzles were interesting to some degree. They incorporated axe skills in a way that felt natural and for the most part, did not feel like a gimmick. I really hate when games make puzzle sections into gimmick's and tend to do something illogical with them. But here they felt somewhat natural. Some of them still felt a little out of place but it was nothing major and they were spread out well enough that they did not overwhelm me. Some of the puzzles involved using the axes skills and some involved Artreyas' bow skills. And this is another aspect of the game, that was great. Artreyas in the combat.

At first, I was a little worried about this, since I did not want to have another Resident Evil 4 situation with babysitting but this was not the case. Artreyas gets more and more confident in combat as the game progresses in a natural way, he does not need any babysitting and you get control over some of his skills and can incorporate them into your own combat rotation. It felt like a natural extension of combat. This is how you do multiple characters. This. RE4, look here. 

But how is the world? Well, this time around the world is somewhat open with multiple realms to explore. Some are larger than others but they are not overwhelming. As with every open world game, this one has side quests and activities as well but in this case, they will not hinder your progression and are totally optional. If you do decide to do them, you can get upgrades and some shiny new armor. For the completionist's out there, there are collectibles as well for you to collect. 

So what did I not like about the game? So far everything I have written has been praising the game for every aspect from story to world building. Well, I had some things that stuck out not as a negative but more of a design preference. I would have loved if there were more finisher animations. When you do finally get a finisher, it feels amazing. You truly feel like you take down this colossal being. But once you have done that five or six times, it can get a little old. Varied animations would be amazing but this is not my biggest gripe about the game. It's the menus. 

This was the only thing I really did not like about the game. The crafting and store menus did not feel right for me for some reason. I found myself leaving the dwarfs because of misclicks and this would be fine if this did not happen almost every time when opened the shop or upgrade menus. Also, the inventory and upgrade menus had the same issue. I kept switching between tabs on accident and socketing armor was confusing. I can't really put a finger on why this was happening, maybe because I am so used to PC menu management, but yeah. This was my biggest issue with the game. 

All in all, I absolutely loved the game. The small (and I mean very small) issues I had with the game had absolutely no impact on my opinion. Its an amazing experience with great gameplay and a rich story that will not leave you indifferent. The cast of characters are great and they all have a personality. They are all memorable and interesting and I did not feel any need to try to skip dialog or just rush ahead. I got immersed in the world and just wanted to know more about it. 

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