God of War (2018)

Giving this another go before Ragnarok comes out but man am I remembering how backwards the controls feel. Maybe I just don't play enough games like this but X to dodge and O to interact/action does not compute in my brain (at least on a PlayStation). But I hear there's some great story in here so let's see if I make it past the second objective this time 🤞

I'm not one to play the latest AAA wonder as soon as it releases because of... reasons. So here i am playing god of war for the first time in 2022. I'm like 8 hours into the game and i have to say it sure is an experience worth playing, not because i think it's the greatest game of all time or anything near that, but because it's a really interesting specimen in the sense that it's a marvelously crafted world delivered through very safe but competently put together and polished gameplay, i can see how this combination landed it as one of the top scoring games of all time in reviews. I haven't played the previous games but i am familiar with them and i have to say this feels more like a spinoff than a reboot. There's a lot more to say but i'll save it for the full review once i've finished playing it.

An exhilarating experience, production values are off the charts but oh boy (pun intended) isn't the gameplay the perfect collection of the most hideous tropes in AAA gaming? unskippable cut-scenes with QTE, cut scenes in boss fights subverting the player's actions (I swear Baldur never got even close to touching me and suddenly he was kicking my ass), endless waves of uninspired and copy-pasted enemies. I really hoped the elevator fights were left to the times of Double Dragon and the likes. I was very close to quitting at the boat fight. ugh. Nevertheless, a joy to watch where the story goes, the locations are incredible.

Got this one while I was halfway through final fantasy 7. It made me forget that final fantasy 7 was even in my hard disk , the intro itself prepares us for the action packed journey that awaits us. The graphics is on par with the gameplay as we'll take some time to take in the beautiful environment this game throws at us at each level. The gameplay mechanics feels smooth and the animations are really well done.

I've played a looooong session of GOW after the PC announcement today. I'm far in at chapter 13 out of 17 and I do not like this game. Playing it is so blah to me. I'm so uninterested in the game's bloated systems and the game barely incentivizes me to use the different moves. I just use shock arrows, summon wolves, and keep pressing R1 + R2. It steamrolls thrpugh a lot of fights and the game doesn't punish me for using one tactic for 20 hours. So it feels so stale after a while. Why should I care to take as little damage as possible if I get healing stones after battle? Why would I be careful with my magic if it recharges on cooldown? Why would I change my stances if just pressing R1 and R2 is effctive enough? Why bother with anything else if this one tactic is so powerful? On top of it being drawn out and getting stale, the enemy variety and compositions are so uninteresting which adds on to said staleness. I never feel like "Oh, wow those guys really worked well with each other to catch me off guard." Puzzles feel so similar to one another that they all just blend in with them being "shoot your bow" or "throw your axe". I prepurchased the game on PC and I feel like cancelling that preorder now that I have kept playing it on PS Now with more impressions.

Apparently, this game is super long which sucks cause I was ready for it to be over. That boss fight at the beginning was awesome and nothing compares. This game is just so ok that I can't be bothered to finish. Another example of a game that can be ok but so polished at being ok that people are convinced it's good (cough Ghost of Tsushima cough).