DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to say that my opinion is fact... I don't even know why I have to say this, but it seems that I have to these days.
To me, God of War 2018 is basically 80% of AAA-singleplayer games rolled up into one. It's got the following. Grindy sidequests, crafting, RPG elements, loot, open/semi-open world, over-the-shoulder camera, combat vaguely inspired by Souls (Without understanding what makes that game good), story about some parent and their kid/kid surrogate... This is what we call a "box-checker". The only thing that it needs now is crouched stealth based around throwing distraction objects. It's such a safe game in every sense of the word.
But I'm wasting time by complaining about modern trends over here. Let's get straight to my complaints.
The camera is a total mess. I have to ask: Why did we have to use an Over-the-shoulder camera in combat? In a primarily melee-focused action game? Couldn't we have just zoomed the camera the fuck out like in Ninja Gaiden: Razor's Edge, or Arkham, and then run with over-the-shoulder when out of combat? I genuinely can't think of any gameplay-related benefits with this perspective beyond just "iMmErSiOn". Now before you talk about the indicators, and Atreus/Mimir calling out to you, that just further proves my point. The fact that those are there just shows how fucked the camera is. And besides, those indicators are completely antithetical for learning enemy patterns, because now, most of the time I can just rely on the indicator to tell me if I'm going to get hit or not, since they're a universal tell. Yeah, maybe the camera in the Ascension got totally out of hand at times, but this just seems like a total overcorrection.
There's a serious lack of variety in the enemies. Variants of the standard enemy are fine, but when they all look so fucking similar, that just makes what I"m doing feel so much more repetitive. Fighting the same Draugr and Nightmares over, and over, and over again, is annoying as hell. Before you bring up Ninja Gaiden, or Devil May Cry, those games don't have 25 hour long campaigns. And sadly, this lack of variety extends to the boss fights too. We fight the same goddamn troll, and rock monster over, and over, and over again. We had all of Norse mythology at our fingertips! Why the hell did they just recycle the same fight constantly? Here are some ideas: Surtr could've been the Muspelheim boss instead of the Valkyrie! Or remember that big bird in the background of Helheim, Hraesvelgr? Couldn't THAT have been a cool setpiece fight? Or maybe to get the Bifrost, we have to fight Heimdall. There was so much wasted potential here. And let me just say that before you bring up DMC4, Dark Souls, or Ninja Gaiden's repeated bosses, I'd just like to say that those sucked ass too. Especially DMC4's.
The RPG elements are tacked on as hell. Not much to say about these aside from the fact that they're unnecessarily tedious. Seeing Kratos with new armour is cool and all, but couldn't those just be cosmetic? The RPG elements aren't simple enough that they can be ignored, but they're also not complex enough that they'll change how you play, unlike... Well, Dark Souls, where your strength and dex would determine what weapons could be used. This weird in-between just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm pretty sure that these were put in to service the focus on exploration... But I think that could've been better handled. I think exploration should've just given you new skills, money for new attacks, and secret bosses instead of armour and materials.
So many of your tools are restricted. Oh boy, this is probably my biggest complaint. In God of War 3: You could launch most enemies, minotaurs and gorgons included. You could parry most enemies, like the statues. You could use grabs on at least the standard enemy all the time. And of course, any weapon could be used without restriction on any enemy. Meanwhile, in new God of War, all the cool shit like freezing, tripping, kicking, launching all mainly work on Human-sized enemies, Nightmares, and Tatzelwurm. You're not using most of that shit on Heavy Draugr, Viken, Revenants, and Wulvers. And then in Give me God of War, enemies can activate elite mode, and now none of that shit's gonna fly even with the normal enemies. And even on normal difficulty, these cool things aren't allowed on enemies of a higher level than you. God of War also has DmC: Devil may Cry style colour-coded enemies. Yeah, of all the things we could've taken from DmC, we decide to take the worst part of it from that game. At least in DmC, the colour-coded enemies aren't overly common, and are rarely applied to bosses sans Bob Barbas. Whereas in God of War... That's literally the final boss.
As for the story... Not really much to say about it. It was pretty good, but not amazing. Nothing I hadn't seen before, and done better. Yeah, Old God of War didn't have a great story either, but I wouldn't say it was really worth it, considering the gameplay.
Some other small complaints:
- Way too many walking sections
- Recalling the axe locks you into place
- The lock-on loses focus way too easily
- Kratos, I know you can dodge faster and farther than that.
- Cooldown timers. What happened to having to regain mana from fights to use magic?
- Text is too small
Ultimately, I think God of War's system still has potential, even after my rant. The animations are crunchy, there's a decent variety of attacks to pick from, and there's a nice amount of tech, even with those restrictions I mentioned. As it is though, it needs a lot of refinement. So I hope that the inevitable sequel will build on what we already have, let us go all in with the mechanics, and bring it up to par with its contemporaries.
To me, God of War 2018 is basically 80% of AAA-singleplayer games rolled up into one. It's got the following. Grindy sidequests, crafting, RPG elements, loot, open/semi-open world, over-the-shoulder camera, combat vaguely inspired by Souls (Without understanding what makes that game good), story about some parent and their kid/kid surrogate... This is what we call a "box-checker". The only thing that it needs now is crouched stealth based around throwing distraction objects. It's such a safe game in every sense of the word.
But I'm wasting time by complaining about modern trends over here. Let's get straight to my complaints.
The camera is a total mess. I have to ask: Why did we have to use an Over-the-shoulder camera in combat? In a primarily melee-focused action game? Couldn't we have just zoomed the camera the fuck out like in Ninja Gaiden: Razor's Edge, or Arkham, and then run with over-the-shoulder when out of combat? I genuinely can't think of any gameplay-related benefits with this perspective beyond just "iMmErSiOn". Now before you talk about the indicators, and Atreus/Mimir calling out to you, that just further proves my point. The fact that those are there just shows how fucked the camera is. And besides, those indicators are completely antithetical for learning enemy patterns, because now, most of the time I can just rely on the indicator to tell me if I'm going to get hit or not, since they're a universal tell. Yeah, maybe the camera in the Ascension got totally out of hand at times, but this just seems like a total overcorrection.
There's a serious lack of variety in the enemies. Variants of the standard enemy are fine, but when they all look so fucking similar, that just makes what I"m doing feel so much more repetitive. Fighting the same Draugr and Nightmares over, and over, and over again, is annoying as hell. Before you bring up Ninja Gaiden, or Devil May Cry, those games don't have 25 hour long campaigns. And sadly, this lack of variety extends to the boss fights too. We fight the same goddamn troll, and rock monster over, and over, and over again. We had all of Norse mythology at our fingertips! Why the hell did they just recycle the same fight constantly? Here are some ideas: Surtr could've been the Muspelheim boss instead of the Valkyrie! Or remember that big bird in the background of Helheim, Hraesvelgr? Couldn't THAT have been a cool setpiece fight? Or maybe to get the Bifrost, we have to fight Heimdall. There was so much wasted potential here. And let me just say that before you bring up DMC4, Dark Souls, or Ninja Gaiden's repeated bosses, I'd just like to say that those sucked ass too. Especially DMC4's.
The RPG elements are tacked on as hell. Not much to say about these aside from the fact that they're unnecessarily tedious. Seeing Kratos with new armour is cool and all, but couldn't those just be cosmetic? The RPG elements aren't simple enough that they can be ignored, but they're also not complex enough that they'll change how you play, unlike... Well, Dark Souls, where your strength and dex would determine what weapons could be used. This weird in-between just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm pretty sure that these were put in to service the focus on exploration... But I think that could've been better handled. I think exploration should've just given you new skills, money for new attacks, and secret bosses instead of armour and materials.
So many of your tools are restricted. Oh boy, this is probably my biggest complaint. In God of War 3: You could launch most enemies, minotaurs and gorgons included. You could parry most enemies, like the statues. You could use grabs on at least the standard enemy all the time. And of course, any weapon could be used without restriction on any enemy. Meanwhile, in new God of War, all the cool shit like freezing, tripping, kicking, launching all mainly work on Human-sized enemies, Nightmares, and Tatzelwurm. You're not using most of that shit on Heavy Draugr, Viken, Revenants, and Wulvers. And then in Give me God of War, enemies can activate elite mode, and now none of that shit's gonna fly even with the normal enemies. And even on normal difficulty, these cool things aren't allowed on enemies of a higher level than you. God of War also has DmC: Devil may Cry style colour-coded enemies. Yeah, of all the things we could've taken from DmC, we decide to take the worst part of it from that game. At least in DmC, the colour-coded enemies aren't overly common, and are rarely applied to bosses sans Bob Barbas. Whereas in God of War... That's literally the final boss.
As for the story... Not really much to say about it. It was pretty good, but not amazing. Nothing I hadn't seen before, and done better. Yeah, Old God of War didn't have a great story either, but I wouldn't say it was really worth it, considering the gameplay.
Some other small complaints:
- Way too many walking sections
- Recalling the axe locks you into place
- The lock-on loses focus way too easily
- Kratos, I know you can dodge faster and farther than that.
- Cooldown timers. What happened to having to regain mana from fights to use magic?
- Text is too small
Ultimately, I think God of War's system still has potential, even after my rant. The animations are crunchy, there's a decent variety of attacks to pick from, and there's a nice amount of tech, even with those restrictions I mentioned. As it is though, it needs a lot of refinement. So I hope that the inevitable sequel will build on what we already have, let us go all in with the mechanics, and bring it up to par with its contemporaries.
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