God of War Ragnarök is a follow up to God of War 2018. Framework and all. It has no jump button, a claustrophobic camera, and the one shot camera. It is a cinematic, market tested, mostly risk averse game made to appeal to the masses. Just feels less like award bait compared to its predecessor. To me, Ragnarök never reaches the heights of excellence in all but a few aspects (Heimdall fight, I hate you, but you’re awesome at the same time). Just good or even great at the very most.

With God of War 2018, Sony Santa Monica took a lot of inspiration from The Last of Us in aspects of its framework. What I saw of the result was an award bait game following The Last of Us just so that it could cop itself some praise. With Ragnarök, I'm less annoyed at this game's up-its-own-assence because, yeah, I felt like it was less up its own ass this time around, but it feels a lot more like a Marvel movie. There are a lot more quips here. There was a lot more smarmy modern quippy dialogue and I'll admit that I was annoyed at this. I rolled my eyes whenever Atreus was talking to himself.

While I detest the camera in both of these games, the way 2018 used this framework to frame some shots during cutscenes and the way you are introduced to environment pieces is something to commend. Ragnarök doesn't really do anything cool with it. The way shots are framed is uninteresting compared to 2018. There is also a lack of staging in Ragnarök compared to 2018. Nothing in Ragnarök, nor does the actual Ragnarök in the game, compares to Kratos and Atreus charging through the many Dark Elves latching on the walls like cicadas in Alfheim. No cool shots once you enter a new area for the first time. Spoilers for the post game, but the way freeing the real Tyr was handled was so lame. He's treated as a character in a side quest. No cutscene cinematography, just flat standing and talking. Even the start of some of GoW2018's side quests had cinematography. Remember how the Valkyries stood there, waiting for your attack? Well in Ragnarök, you just put a hilt in the Berserker gravestones and they pop out. Despite working with 2018's framework, Ragnarök lacks that cinematic edge that 2018 had in spades. One risk Santa Monica took was transitioning between scenes. How characters are transported to places such as Atreus ending up in Jotunheim, Kratos ending up in memories with Faye. All of this while still maintaining that one shot camera that persists throughout the entire game. At first, the first few transitions were really cool, but as the game goes on, characters are just forced into situations that aren't addressed just so we could move on to new scenes. An example would be the part where Kratos punches a stone wall that is blocking his way in Sindri's house in order for it to transition into Atreus punching the stone wall. Why did the stonewall have to happen on Kratos' end? Well it is never addressed why. And not only does the one shot camera make even less sense here, hurting the pacing, and playing the game, it made the story feel rushed in parts such as gathering everyone up for Ragnarök.

Although Ragnarök is a more detailed game, it does look fantastic most of the time. I have come across more technical issues than I ever did in 2018. The frequent type of bugs I have ever encountered was pop-in. I came across a few glitches here and there. It's not as bad as something like Sonic Frontiers (a game that I admittedly like more than God of War Ragnarök), but given the much larger AAA budget, so-called "prestige" and how technically polished 2018 was, makes Ragnarök even more disappointing. Vanaheim during was my least favorite looking area in the game. With obnoxious lighting and scattered shadows from the leaves of the trees, it felt like an eyesore. Switching between the new weapon and bare-hands is super clunky. Either switching is delayed or you don't switch at all. Once these problems were shown, the illusions of technical prestige were gone for me.

At first, I liked the story in Ragnarök more than 2018. Aside from some road bumps like Ironwood, I liked moving through the plot here better as there were less contrived roadblocks here to pad out the game. As much as I'm not a fan of 2018's story for how crafted it is to a science of checkboxes to tick for an award winning game, at least it's not as undercooked as Ragnarök's. There is so much build up to Ragnarök, but a lot of the set ups don't pay off. Kratos is the biggest example of this. We get teases of Kratos falling back to his ways in Greece, but nothing. (Kratos threatening Odin that he'll go back to his old ways, Kratos killing Heimdall) None of this ever pays off. What Freya thinks about what she would do with Kratos may be nuanced, like she says she can't forgive him, but her actions mean nothing. They're hollow. She acts like Kratos's friend for the rest of the game, she acts like there are no flames on the bridge. I wanted more interactions of Kratos with Thor, but we only got two fights, one good fight and one mediocre fight. Also I have to mention this, but who the fuck cares about Birger? Really, he dies in a dramatic fashion, his fall is meant to be some dramatic emotional moment, but he's still alive. No one goes after him as an excuse to make a sidequest for Kratos.

Last year, there was a funny contrast between two of the biggest games of the year, Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarök. The contrast between these two games I'd like to talk about is how these games treat the player, how they give the player through their massive worlds. In the case of Elden Ring, the game doesn't really hold you by the hand all too much, it's very subtle in how it guides the player. Its compass doesn't tell you the path to go. There are no quest markers. No other person by your side to spout out how to go through. Elden Ring leaves it up to the player to discover The Lands Between and the stories that they hold within them. God of War Ragnarök is the exact opposite. Ragnarök really loves to hold your hand. During my sessions when I picked this game back up, every time I reach a nothing burger of a "puzzle", I'm given the answer spouted by a character. This game LOVES to give out expository dialogue. This game is the definition of "I know writers who use subtext and they're cowards". Everyone explains how they feel out front. I feel like a kid being spoon fed meals of exposition for 50 hours. I know I can deal with this in Persona 5, but somehow, Ragnarök feels even more obnoxious in its expository dialogue. Sometimes, the writing is subtle like with the foreshadowing of Tyr being Odin, there is some subtext in Sindri's remorse after Brok dies, but I feel like I'm in a Dora the Explorer episode but with violence. Freya talks like she's a mother reading a bedtime story to children whenever she backseats. There is no excuse that there is no updste that adds the option to turn off NPC hints.

If there was a huge improvement Ragnarök has over 2018, it is the boss fights. They aren't the best the medium has to offer, but I think they're really cool. Everyone and their mother has mentioned how the amount of bosses is so varied compared to 2018. But that's not the main big improvement to me. The biggest improvement is that stun and status effects can be applied to bosses. 2018 didn't have this and it made bosses feel like punching bags. No thought, just dodge and attack. In Ragnarök, I was more compelled to try to poison enemies and bosses in order to temporarily lower their level. I tried to raise up their stun. And with the third person shooter camera, the camera was at its best against 1 vs. 1 boss fights (and Atreus sections). I could have asked for more bosses and enemies with weak points on their body, but with what we have here in terms of combat, good stuff.

So yeah, I guess this is leading me into combat, which I like more here. It still has 2018's problems, the camera for one, the arenas not having clear rules, the obnoxious amount of attack magnetism from both you and the enemies, dying respawns you with dl health and runic attacks, but I was much more compelled to git gud at the game. Ragnarök starts off strong, like it is the best part of the campaign. You have a much wider moveset at the start compared to 2018. I'll admit that I miss the shield skill tree as it has an easy way of knocking down enemies from a close range. There's a much greater emphasis on applying status effects. Applying frost makes fire attacks stronger and vice versa. Hex arrows strongly impact elemental attacks. Sonic arrows are the most effective when enemies are in air. On Give Me No Mercy, enemies aren't stunlocked so easily. It's not like in 2018 where enemies are stuck until they die just by holding R1. Ragnarök is a more balanced game than 2018. Not every encounter lands, I hate wretches, but I mostly had a good time in spite of the camera.

My feelings towards this game are complicated. I hated God of War 2018, but I find this one to be okay. Why is that when aspects of it are even worse here? With a wonkier pace, less focused story, more hand holding, I just like going through the motions more. It is still a sequel to 2018, but I have become more tolerant of that stuff here. I did do most of the stuff the open worlds have to offer. Exploration's ok. The map when fast traveling is terrible. Unlike 2018, I liked Ragnarök fine. It won't stay with me for a long time, but I'm at least mildly glad that I finished Ragnarök.

I was a big fan of God of War... I'm really referring to the 2018 game, but I guess really, I've played all of the major releases in this series, some of them quite a bit (I have platinum trophies for 1-3, and the 2 reboots). However while I'm in retrospect ambivalent about the earlier games, this reboot I feel has done such an interesting thing for the series and despite risking pretension, I actually think the parallel metanarrative of gaming confronting its past toxic masculinity problem, rampant in the early games, but not uncommon in games at large even to date, was actually very cool to see addressed in the medium. In part, I'm a bit of a sucker for stories about people owning up to their past mistakes, big or small, and actually doing the work to do better and make the world better to make up for those harms, even when it's hard, and that's ultimately what this reboot is all about. That said, without really grasping this nuance at first, I definitely found it straight-up hilarious when I heard there was going to a be a dramatic story-driven dad game starring Kratos of all people when the 2018 game was first announced. However I, like many, was pretty pleasantly surprised with the end product. With this lengthy preface, I had really high hopes for God of War: Ragnarok and was really looking forward to it pretty much the moment I finished God of War (2018).

The above paragraph made me realize I also really hate the necessity of having to type out "God of War (2018)" and "the first game" is confusing since this is a reboot so pardon the numerous references to "the previous game" below, all of which will refer to God of War (2018).

Now, with the above in mind, I found myself somewhat disappointed with Ragnarok. As I write this introduction to what will likely be a somewhat lengthy review, I'm not totally sure how to pin down my ultimate feelings on it as while there are definitely some issues I had with the narrative that I'll get into, I don't know that that was the reason, but I'm hoping writing this review will help me pin it down.

Note: I do not plan to spoiler tag anything from the previous game so if you don't want those spoilers, please don't read on and do go play it, it's awesome!

If you liked the previous game, you will get a lot of the same good stuff with Ragnarok, perhaps even to a fault. But for the most part, it does feel like it took the fun and varied gameplay of the previous entry and only improved on it, adding more options, and more enemy types, new battlegrounds, and just a lot that makes combat even more fluid. My biggest issue is that despite this, it feels a bit too much like a rehashing of the previous game. I say they mostly only added and that's true, but it just still felt slightly stale. Perhaps this is because, for an intense action game like this, the previous game was quite long when you think about it. Games with such fast-paced combat like this aren't usually quite so expansive or require so much repetition. You play with that system for all that time and it may be good, but without a significant change, that novelty will fade. I'm not totally down on this feature given that, as indicated by my rating, I still had a good deal of fun with it and there are definitely exceptions to change things up. Playing as Atreus at numerous points in the game is a ton of fun and Kratos does acquire a new primary weapon that significantly expands your arsenal and attack style . At the end of the day, I'm not sure they could've done it much better as I'm not suggesting they should've gone in a totally different direction and the additions are rather significant in some ways, but it still interfered with my enjoyment a bit. Most tellingly, despite being the try-hard that I am, I didn't play on the super hard difficulty not because I didn't think I could handle it, but because I just didn't feel like struggling and mastering this combat style all over again.

The story is one of the biggest hits and biggest misses of the game for me. The narrative of the previous game is unsurprisingly continued where it left off. Stakes are often ratcheted up with the great war of the gods on the horizon, set in motion by the events of the previous game. There are some fantastic moments in this story that have awesome payoff for the character arcs setup by the first game. Much of it's rather expected and predictable, but there are still great moments of tangible triumph, tragedy, and emotional connection that really reach into those upper echelons of what's been achieved in video game narrative. I loved some of the moments between Atreus and Kratos and seeing the conclusion to this arc and the way they battle through it all together really stirred my heart, to be a cheeseball for a moment.

But the story is not without significant flaws in my eyes. Apart from the above-mentioned moments, the plot is extremely meandering and often feels like it has very little direction. It noticeably feels like the writers knew this game would have some big showdowns with the big Thor cliffhanger at the end of the previous game and the implications of impending Ragnarok and they knew what it needed to get to, but beyond that, had no idea how to carry this plot for a lengthy narrative. There are a few immediate hooks as, at the start, Atreus hopes to track down Tyr, hoping against hope he's out there and could turn the tide in their favor. But after a few initial track-down-this-lead quests, the characters end up at a loss for what to do. They feel like they're in a reactive state and yet there's nothing to react to. This is generally solved by having someone (usually Atreus) do something that's just kind of stupid, if not a little out of character, to create drama and a new conflict to resolve. This may be more forgivable once, but this kind of thing is the impetus for what feels like most of the game's actual events leading up the final showdowns. There's also a ton of thematic emphasis on "is prophecy really set in stone or can it be avoided?" The characters bring up this question a ton to mostly just shrug and keep going. Then it's never really given much of a satisfying conclusion. I find prophecy plots can be very interesting but despite the emphasis in this game, a lot of it felt very much like they didn't feel up to engaging with it to a significant degree and that was disappointing.

The story issues of the game were probably my biggest gripes about Ragnarok. I wondered if I was just being harsh but honestly, I really found myself just not overly compelled to play more of the game. I didn't hate it by any means and did enjoy my time with it, but pretty much only after making myself sit down with it for a bit. Some parts were in fact kind of dull, like the extremely (and unnecessarily) long Angrboda chapter. I mentioned it in my way-too-long review of that game, but I found I was way more engaged and compelled by Forspoken which I played immediately after Ragnarok, which probably sounds a little crazy given the vast disparity in the two games' reception, but it is what it is.

Ragnarok also just feels very "safe." Aside from perhaps the main twist, nothing in the game is really overly surprising or feels like it's taking a risk for an interesting narrative. That's not all bad. Again, selling us on the previous game given the history of the God of War series was already a significant risk that they pulled off with aplomb, at least going by general consensus. But this safe approach still leaves me feeling a bit less enthusiastic about a lot of the game than I might've otherwise been. On the flipside though, I suppose taking more risks might mean botching it, but I'd still have appreciated the attempt. That is after all one of the things that was so impressive about its predecessor.

To conclude on a positive note, there's plenty of things I haven't touched on that the game does great. It looks amazing, with some of the best graphics to date. The character design and art direction is fantastic with old and new characters looking and feeling great. The music isn't quite memorable but works well as a backdrop to the action and exploration. The idle dialogue between the characters, especially Mimir, is amusing as always. Environments, while a little derivative in some ways from the previous game, have a lot to explore. There's a wide range of challenge and a good variety of enemies and encounter types. Aside from perhaps my qualms with the story, none of the game's overall design feels lazy or half-assed. It's clearly a game about love, made with love.

Despite what might otherwise be some significant hang-ups for me, Ragnarok is still a great game and I think it's plenty worth playing if you were even somewhat of a fan of the previous game. I have waffled back and forth in my mind between 4 and 5 stars since finishing it as I do want to recognize the many very good things the game achieves and how it pushes itself beyond just the standards of the previous game. But I think I'd prefer to let my rating indicate that ambivalence some and after writing out the above, I understand a lot more what it was that I took issue with and why it's felt more like 4 stars for me, so yay for achieving goals!

5/5

What an ending to the story started in the 2018 reboot.

Great satisfying combat with real oomph and crunch to it. Very much an iteration on what was before with some lovely left field surprises thrown in. The character progression systems were fun to work through - particularly unlocking new equipment. I think the skills may have been a bit bloated but almost all of them were useful in combat situations. The end-game battles and crucible trials really pushed me to the limit, even on normal difficulty. Just like the first, the camera being so close to Kratos really hurts in fights with multiple enemies. Some of the hardest bosses were ones that could summon trash mobs and it felt like unfair difficulty at times. More variety in bosses was also a big plus.

I love the way they do level design. Similar to the first its largely linear with off shoots and sometimes looping paths. Pretty decent amount of metroidvania elements built in as well, and intuitive backtracking navigation. I like the pacing, where after each main mission you have a big open area to explore. Most importantly, thorough exploration is rewarding, with great equipment and other assets available for you.

While I personally prefer the tight, less ambitious story of the 2018 game, there is no arguing that the story of Ragnarok is nailed here. It felt suitably epic, with huge setpiece moments, but also brilliant dramatic moments of character introspection and subtlety. Key to this are the performances - Kratos, Atreus, Freya, Thor, Odin and basically everyone else absolutely destroyed this. Animation and presentation was perfect as well. I loved the ending, massively impactful and gave me then 'sad its over' feeling that great games do. I do think that the pacing of the story, and its urgency, was harmed a little by the abundance of side quests and huge open areas to explore in between missions. Overall, I clocked 45 hours for a mostly completionist run, and I think some of the content could've been trimmed for a tighter game? Very personal preference though.

These two games taken together are extremely special. They tell a story about characters that you can't help but get attached to, admire, loathe, be annoyed at, respect, and love. Special.

Great story, really keeps you churning along, but there are some strange things going on here (in the grand scheme of things, very minor):

1. The puzzle design is often a stretch: e.g. blow up a rock, to climb up a wall, that you could obviously just climb up anyway.

2. The health not coming back is really strange. Basically: you start a fight 2hp and die to restart at full. So there is a false economy of health stones that don't mean anything.

3. The pathed climbing and press X to go through a crack are just mind numbingly bad in 2024.

4. No valkyries, I didn't realise, but 66% of my enjoyment in the first game was the optional fights. The one's here are really out of your way and require reaching the end game to complete.

5. Furthermore, in this game are some of the worst boss fights I have ever experienced. The gna is a particularly aweful RNG fight. The last sword hilt fight is honestly just frustrating; the boss spams attacks on his last health bar. There are two notable fights in which you have more than one opponent.

Podcasts:

I normally listen to podcasts when I'm playing the gameplay of a game. This game does not allow that, so it's a little frustrating. The characters constantly talk which is amazing. But it's made the game take a lot longer then would have normally occured.

Critical success:

Industry leading integration of combat and narrative so you really feel like the gameplay matters. Everything else falls away to this. No ludonarrative dissonance here. Characters talking about needing to go out and gather materials, commenting on collecting really makes the experience feel coherent and meaningful.

1. They can expand into a true open world experience, and double down on the mechanics of the franchise.

2. Or they can lean into the interwove narrative combat experience.

I personally would love if they cut away the fat and focused on making a more engaging boss focused story experience. One that focused on generating a tempo to the gameplay and story beats. At the moment these two experience are at odds somewhat.

Personal rating 86, Objective rating 92

This is going to be controversial, I know. But this game has been quite disappointing to me.

The God of war (2018) was exceptional even the change in the gameplay from the classic ones. The plot was good (except for the father-son drama that it is extremely boring and repetitive) and the gameplay was awesome. Also the change to northern countries, graphics and music were incredible.

After this you think that this 'Ragnarok' will be as good as the previous one but then you find this game.

PLOT (*SPOILERS - Please go to next section if you do not want spoilers)

Plot is confusing, not well explained and you do not understand why things happen. I think that they wanted to fill and visit all the 'worlds' so they just invent things to happen and it feels really confusing. Also, repeating again and again the same drama between a father and his son... Ok. I understand one time. But please, move on. Both games are repeating again and again the same things. At least, we could forgive this if the game was epic, good and spectacular combats but.. Only 2 combats in the game are good. The rest is just.. meh And the ending.. I do not remember a game with an ending so... ¿'not-ending'? You just thing: 'And that's it?? I am the f*** God of war and the game ends like this?? Come on! I want to kill Gods and big things! Give me some action!'. Disappointing ending.

GAMEPLAY

They have tried to be continous with the previous game but unfortunately, the ruined it. The gameplay feels good but everything is really scripted. They desperately try to make you feel that the combat is epic so depends on the situation it feels that unfair things happen. For example, If you have a plenty health, the enemies are suspiciously aggresive and a lot of attacks hurt you even you are avoiding them. The enemy targets you and start attacking you in some direction, you change your position but then the enemy just rotates in the middle of the animation to attack in the direction you moved !!!

Also, there are three types of attacks: red attacks are not blockable, you need to avoid. Yellow attacks are blockable but break your guard. Normal attacks are blockable perfectly. I found that sometimes, yellow attacks are just not blockable. I don't know if it is a bug but again: unfair. Btw, there are a lot of attacks in the game that are not blockable or avoidable so you just need to have enough health to survive to them.

But then, if you are running out of health, everything seems less aggresive and **** Suspiciously, you usually end your combats with really low health. (I played on hard)

PERFORMANCE

The game looks great, the music is great but it is totally broken (at least on PS5). 2 years from release and I found a lot of bugs that made me restart the game because some quest did not run. Also, I have some quests completed but they appear as not completed in the task list. Finally, achievements in PS5 were not being fired and then they just appeared some days later.

CONCLUSION

It was really though for me to end this game. The plot is boring, disappointing and I left the game for months because all of I mentioned before. I do not know why people was so hyped and was so rewarded. To me, is the worst God of war I played ever. If this is what we can expect from now... please, just don't make more God of wars...