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God of War is probably the boldest, most radical reimagining of an established series ever
- Thread starter Master Chuuster
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It has nowhere near the speed, polish or depth of those games in my opinion. Playing the new God of War is just making me want to boot up God Hand again instead.
Nothing about Planet Smasher said was wrong (and I usually disagree with him massively on gaming tastes!). The game is basically every Western AAA cliche thrown into a game with obscene amounts of polish and graphical fidelity.
Nah, RE4 is the standard here.
I'd place GoW on the same level as BotW in terms of franchise reinvention. And to those saying BotW is just a throwback to the first NES game....that's only true in the sense that both games focus heavily on exploration. Beyond that, they're very different games.
Actually, this is probably the winner.
I'd place GoW on the same level as BotW in terms of franchise reinvention. And to those saying BotW is just a throwback to the first NES game....that's only true in the sense that both games focus heavily on exploration. Beyond that, they're very different games.
Actually, this is probably the winner.
I feel like Super Mario 64 is an even better example of a bold departure that worked.
It's easy to forget because of how successful the game was, but Mario 64 had almost nothing to do with the previous games, in gameplay or structure or progression. Only the surface details are similar.
It's easy to forget because of how successful the game was, but Mario 64 had almost nothing to do with the previous games, in gameplay or structure or progression. Only the surface details are similar.
That's a lot of hands on analysis for a game you haven't, well, played at all. I don't think judging a very tactile and interactive game by footage is a good idea. It's not The Witness, where the gameplay can be seen and experienced. I say this as someone who agrees with you somewhat and loves loves loves character action (more than Sony adventure games like God of War is) too.
Resident Evil 4. God of War, while good (i'm still pretty early in it, but I can tell it's well made) is not exactly original. It borrows very heavily from The Last of Us, that's the game's biggest departure from 'regular' God of War thus far.
The Last of Us is the finest game of last generation. Modeling your reimagining around that game is risky, yeah - if you screw up, your player base will just long for the much better game they played a few years ago - so it's ambitious in that way, but real ambition requires a complete original thought in my eyes.
Not that it's unacceptable to borrow. But borrowing in a real, deep way doesn't result in RE4 or GTA 3.
The Last of Us is the finest game of last generation. Modeling your reimagining around that game is risky, yeah - if you screw up, your player base will just long for the much better game they played a few years ago - so it's ambitious in that way, but real ambition requires a complete original thought in my eyes.
Not that it's unacceptable to borrow. But borrowing in a real, deep way doesn't result in RE4 or GTA 3.
Hm, how about Super Mario World/Super Mario Land 2 -> Super Mario 64? Not just the shift to 3D (though obviously that's big), but the level design changes focused around exploring and collecting with much less platforming and a massive structural change with needing to get X number of stars to move on instead of beating every level. Should be up there at least.
I think Zelda is a bigger departure to the formula. Just because GoW has less games that does not make it bigger IMO.
GoW was the same thing for 4 games and now has changed or more like evolved into it's next form.
Zelda had 2 initial "different" games and then about 8+ games with the same exact style then BOTW changed it all and at the same time perfected what was not possible in Zelda 1 and 2.
Though I am getting the exact same WTF feelings of new perfection from both. I think GoW may be more noticeable because it is also the best looking game ever.
I do wanna say I am like 90% sure the real answer is something totally unexpected. Like Star Fox Adventures is a bigger departure of an established series than GoW and BOTW but I guess a recent release feeds the hyperbole.
GoW was the same thing for 4 games and now has changed or more like evolved into it's next form.
Zelda had 2 initial "different" games and then about 8+ games with the same exact style then BOTW changed it all and at the same time perfected what was not possible in Zelda 1 and 2.
Though I am getting the exact same WTF feelings of new perfection from both. I think GoW may be more noticeable because it is also the best looking game ever.
I do wanna say I am like 90% sure the real answer is something totally unexpected. Like Star Fox Adventures is a bigger departure of an established series than GoW and BOTW but I guess a recent release feeds the hyperbole.
Bold is the wrong word. It wasn't bold to change up a tired formula that even the most devoted (hi) were done with. Was it radical? Very. Is it THE MOST radical? I don't think so. It plays with a lot of pretty well worn tropes, both thematically and mechanical. It sounds reductive (I don't mean it to be) but it really is Souls meets Naughty Dog in a lot of ways. It's very different for GoW, but it doesn't feel like something entirely NEW. Kratos is still melee fighting monsters, solving light puzzles and doing some traversal in a fairly straightforward manner.
I think for BOLD, it's absolutely BotW. We're talking storied, legendary franchise, decades of precedence, hardcore fan base. It is absolutely a bold move to shake that up to such a huge degree.
In terms of radical departure, I think it's gotta be RE4. They change their game so much it basically invented a new genre of shooter. It doesn't get more radical than that.
I think for BOLD, it's absolutely BotW. We're talking storied, legendary franchise, decades of precedence, hardcore fan base. It is absolutely a bold move to shake that up to such a huge degree.
In terms of radical departure, I think it's gotta be RE4. They change their game so much it basically invented a new genre of shooter. It doesn't get more radical than that.
Not everyone feels that way. I still like the Classic GOW formula a lot. :/
I'm sorry, I'm about 7 or 8 hours in and I'm still not understanding the point of keeping Kratos around.
This entire story didn't need him or his backstory. You could of easily made the same game with Thor and Magni or Two origin characters.
You could of even kept it as God of war game, hell you could kept Kratos in as subboss or even an advisor/Rodin shopkeeper type.
This game feels like a projection of another person's narrative journey grafted on the character of Kratos. It's not just that he was never like This, the character development doesn't follow a logical pathway if you have played any previous title.
At best you have Kratos from a alternative world and his norse child. This does not feel like the evolution of the character of the past 7 games. This feels like someone who looks like him, has similar traits and has got older.
This entire story didn't need him or his backstory. You could of easily made the same game with Thor and Magni or Two origin characters.
You could of even kept it as God of war game, hell you could kept Kratos in as subboss or even an advisor/Rodin shopkeeper type.
This game feels like a projection of another person's narrative journey grafted on the character of Kratos. It's not just that he was never like This, the character development doesn't follow a logical pathway if you have played any previous title.
At best you have Kratos from a alternative world and his norse child. This does not feel like the evolution of the character of the past 7 games. This feels like someone who looks like him, has similar traits and has got older.
This is probably the right answer. I'm playing God of War right now and it's phenomenal (I was just german suplexed through a rock so it's going pretty well) but, really, I don't think it's the boldest thing ever... I mean, tonally, they've matched the modern, cinematic, emotive thing that features in a lot of Sony first party games. They've basically modernised the game from a very PS2 era hack and slash to a moody, caring, emotional story game with Dark Souls-like combat. Again, the game is excellent and it seems like they've absolutely nailed that thing and games like Super Mario 64 flipped the genre on it's head and did things that other games, never mind the previous games in the series, had never done. God of War is a fascinating, massively successful reimagining. But I think it's a bit hyperbolic to call it 'the boldest most radical ever'. Just my two cents.
It's not particularly bold or radical. It's merely following the cues of every other big AAA game of the last five years or so.
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It was very different, yeah, but it shared the main aspects of its predecessors (open world mayhem, cop chases and stuff). God of War has almost nothing in common with its predecessors.
OP when we think we've got him:
GoW is a result of Sony not greenlighting a GoW sequel though, really. You can thank the abomination that was Ascension.
Yeah, this is what I was thinking really. It's a great game (that much is obvious to anyone) but bold and radical? No.
I do, too, but if Sony had come out and went "here's another GoW, also it's just like all the others" a lot of people would have yawned. People already backed away with Ascension. That formula was tapped out.
Yup. It doesn't have to be a huge bold shift to be a great game. We're still in hyperbole phase though, so I expect this kind of thing to continue for awhile.
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Never thought I'd say this, but I'm grateful Ascension happened.
Clearly an OP who hasn't played this:
Guilty Gear. Fairly niche but still beloved fighting game series. What do the devs do for their first 7th gen game? Another fighting game? FUCK THAT!
Now it's a weird Musuo-MOBA hybrid! All of the beloved characters from the past games? They're gone except for Sol and Ky.
It was so radical and bold that basically everyone said "This really blows please go back to making fighting games" and that's exactly what they did.
Guilty Gear. Fairly niche but still beloved fighting game series. What do the devs do for their first 7th gen game? Another fighting game? FUCK THAT!
Now it's a weird Musuo-MOBA hybrid! All of the beloved characters from the past games? They're gone except for Sol and Ky.
It was so radical and bold that basically everyone said "This really blows please go back to making fighting games" and that's exactly what they did.
I am loving the game but it has a lot in common with the other games in the Sony Cinemtatic Universe. The camera, pace, puzzles and how often the same mechanics get repeated (Pallets in Last of Us, crates in Uncharted 4, bridge/chains in GoW) just takes away from some of the impact of the reimagining.
Still love it though.
Still love it though.
But it's not the only one doing this, BOTW and RE4 don't feel at all similar to the previous entries in their series, the latter specifically during development changed so radically that they literally made a new IP from that idea. You literally couldn't even manually jump in past Zelda games, let alone explore true open worlds in the 3D games. in fact, literally some of the design decisions in God of War can be traced back to RE4. Hell go back further and you have some titles transitioning to 3D and massively changing as a result, like Mario 64 or OoT, the latter again, is still an influential title.
It's a solid game, bold for the reinvention but a lot of the rpg systems feel a bit derivative and unnecessary. I really respect what they did with the series but they kind of abandoned the original design goal of the first to compete with Japan in the character action genre and show they could do it just as well or even better.
I echo the sentiment that it would have been extremely bold to go even further and evolve the combat to compete and surpass the best in the genre. What they still came up with is pretty cool too.
I echo the sentiment that it would have been extremely bold to go even further and evolve the combat to compete and surpass the best in the genre. What they still came up with is pretty cool too.
It's essentially taking Dark Souls combat to an accessible place + expanding on the world design and structure of Tomb Raider 2013. So, I kind of agree.
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Okay, I'm having a hard time refuting this one, but I guess I can say this- at least the surface details were similar? I don't know, I guess I'm saying Super Mario 64 expanded the core idea of Mario games to almost unimaginable levels, but there was still plenty it had in common with its predecessor, even if most of that was, as you said, surface details. At the risk of repeating myself (again), God of War doesn't even have that much in terms of similarities with its predecessors. It's a completely new genre for the series.
I'm not sure what there is to be "experienced" that can't be extrapolated from watching footage, though. In every bit of footage I've seen, it looks like your utterly standard Sony cinematic action game - and it seems to have polished that formula to a damn near mirror shine.
In full playable form it might be well different from that, but I'm not putting $60 down on a "maybe it'll surprise me" to find out if it does. The only time in the past decade I have been surprised for the better by a game is the Witcher 3 - my instincts are pretty damn sharp at this point about whether a game will appeal to me or not. The only way they're getting my money is if they put out a free demo that lets me confirm or deny what I've seen in gameplay footage for myself - I'm just done gambling.
It's nice the tone and writing grew up at least.
Otherwise doesn't seem that bold to me. They changed the camera angle, removed the jump button, and added a dash of RPG stats/menus.
Still a 3rd person action game with heavy focus on melee. Still the same protag. Still the same production values. (Don't try and downplay previous GoW technical achievements now.) Etc...
RE4, NieR Automata, FFX to FFXI. Those are big changes for fans following certain series.
Otherwise doesn't seem that bold to me. They changed the camera angle, removed the jump button, and added a dash of RPG stats/menus.
Still a 3rd person action game with heavy focus on melee. Still the same protag. Still the same production values. (Don't try and downplay previous GoW technical achievements now.) Etc...
RE4, NieR Automata, FFX to FFXI. Those are big changes for fans following certain series.
It's the honeymoon period of a new release. I await the inevitable "God of War was actually just ok" threads.
Oh, I see. That I do agree with, yeah. There's just a lot of peeps coming out of the woodwork and saying stuff like "the old games were never good to begin with", and stuff like that with the new GOW out there. I love the older games and feel the need to defend their honor, lol. But yes, there really was nothing else to do with the OG formula, and it was clear they'd run out of ideas by Ascension.
It's definitely in that category. I think Super Mario 64 and Resident Evil 4 probably pip it, but it's right up there with them.
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Not a single person in the entire universe would do such a thing.
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