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LTTP: God Of War

So, I wrote a thread the other day discussing on how I just got a PS4 Pro. The first game I had to try was The Last Of Us Part 2, and I gotta say that game left me loving for more. I thought no other game in my library would be able to surpass it, because of how amazing that game was. After that I had to try Ghost of Tsushima and, even though I was loving my experience with it, I had to stop. Too much shit on the map to do left me bored and I have zero patience nowadays for most open world games. Mostly because they feel like a chore to explore, not interesting enough. So yeah, I stopped. The only other game I was left with was God of War. I was a pretty big fan of the PS2 and PS3 games, but this new direction for the franchise was not something that interested me that much. I was thinking to myself "This is just another cinematic experience wannabe that I'm pretty sure I will be bored by.". I do like cinematic games, but I thought this game was cinematic just for the sake of it, following the same formulas that we've seen from ND games. Basically a copycat but with a God of war coat of paint on top of it... but I started the game anyway.


Oh boy, I was so fucking wrong. Santa Monica did what I thought was impossible. They grabbed a dying franchise and revitalized it, making it even better than it was before. The story, the graphics, the gameplay, even the world... everything is so damn good!!!! In the past few years, never a game grabbed me as much as God Of War did. The other day I played for 5 hours straight and I had to force myself to stop. It's just that good!
Christopher Judge's performance is simply astounding. You can see that Kratos has been through a lot, all that killing, all that god's nonsense has taken a toll on him. He tries to bury it deep down, start anew, leave his past life behind him... but he can't run away from it. Atreus is also an amazing character, and seeing his actions change throughout the game is simply amazing. You love the kid, then you hate the kid, and then you go back to loving him. Kratos has the patience of a god, as Atreus lets his godhood go through his head. In this moment I was hating Atreus so damn much, but made me think that, as a father, you need to discipline and tell your kid that every action has a consequence. Atreus slowly starts realizing this, becoming more and more human (that is also a god and a giant).

The combat is so satisfying. I would love less RPG elements in it, I have to be honest, but being able to customize Kratos (and Atreus) skillset and armor was a nice touch. The map, despite being a semi-open world game, was super interesting. I actually took my time to do some side-quests and all of them felt rewarding. No random bs on the map, no simple fetch quests. All side quests have meaning and, thanks to the combat, are a joy to play.

The graphics, simply amazing. The side characters like the dwarves, Mimir, Freya, are funny as well as interesting.

In the end, when Kratos and Atreus are at the top of the highest mountain of all the realms, letting Faye ashes fly with the wind... the moment Atreus says "I love you mom"... I felt that. As someone who is living far far away from my parents (actually on the other side of the world), that simple sentence make my hearth miss my mom even more. If I was back in Portugal, I would hug my mom and say those exact same words. I know it's a game, but the journey, all of this, just to scatter the ashes of his dead mom, shows that family, dead or alive, will always be important and should take the top spot in our lives. No matter what you do, always make time for them. Through our life journey, we often forget who put us here, who took care of us, who loves us more than anything (Freya shows exactly this when Baldur dies). I think I'm straying far from the main topic, but this game man... the damn feelings.

I won't expand more regarding this game as a a lot of people already played it (these were just some random thoughts) but God Of War is one of the best games I've ever played. The Last of Us Part 2 is nothing compared to it, and I can't wait to see where Ragnarok leads us.

PS: I also love that I will be able to play the new game on the PS4 Pro. Fuck y'all haters.
 

kingpotato

Ask me about my Stream Deck
God Of War Kratos Nod GIF by PlayStation
 

Hoddi

Member
Just wait until you try Bloodborne!

I know most people love GoW but I absolutely hated it myself. I'll still have to give it a second chance at some point but I always found it fairly middling.

I don't mean this to bash your opinion or anything. But if you liked GoW then you can have some very good games to look forward to.
 

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
Loved the game for what it is but it is the only GoW I have never replayed and also do not ever see myself doing. It's just too long with loads of pandering in between that is fun the first time but will most certainly bore me to death in a 2nd playthrough. Kinda like watching DBZ.

Take that as you will. Replayed all the other God of Wars multiple tims and come to think of it, I kinda could again. Not the new one though. 🤷‍♂️
 

Ulysses 31

Member
Loved the game for what it is but it is the only GoW I have never replayed and also do not ever see myself doing. It's just too long with loads of pandering in between that is fun the first time but will most certainly bore me to death in a 2nd playthrough.
Same here, tried to replay for the new armors but all the drawn out story sections just sap out too much motivation to continue playing.

Also having to cheese so much with long range axe attacks at the beginning makes for boring combat.
 
1. Your first mistake was to play GoT after TLOU2. I did the same and felt suuuuuuper underwhelmed at first until I forced play myself to wash away TLOU2 impressive graphics and animations and accept GoT's....aesthetic.

2. It is absolutely amazing how they revitalized the series, and anyone who claims otherwise is a bit of a man child. I do wish, however, they bring back some of the gory executions though. That was the only thing missing from an otherwise excellent new take on the series.

I'm glad you've been enjoying playing some games you missed out!
 

azertydu91

Hard to Kill
1. Your first mistake was to play GoT after TLOU2. I did the same and felt suuuuuuper underwhelmed at first until I forced play myself to wash away TLOU2 impressive graphics and animations and accept GoT's....aesthetic.

2. It is absolutely amazing how they revitalized the series, and anyone who claims otherwise is a bit of a man child. I do wish, however, they bring back some of the gory executions though. That was the only thing missing from an otherwise excellent new take on the series.

I'm glad you've been enjoying playing some games you missed out!
Yeah more executions would be great like depending on which weapon you have equipped and also the charged heavy attack that is like a mini finish move like in the first.
I would love to throw mjolnir behing the ennemy and falcon punch him toward the hammer while recalling it and to have his head/body crushed between Kratos's hand and the hammer for example.
There could also be executions related to if you have your weapon thrown and it comes back during the execution that would be great.
 

Mjordan23

Neo Member
1. Your first mistake was to play GoT after TLOU2. I did the same and felt suuuuuuper underwhelmed at first until I forced play myself to wash away TLOU2 impressive graphics and animations and accept GoT's....aesthetic.

Well, TLOU2 is a hard act to follow. I found that GoT is a better experience on the PS5 (improved pfx, sound, dualsense) than on Ps4 pro, stopped playing it for a while but it`s a great title on the Ps5 to burn through.
 

Tschumi

Member
"I have zero patience for most open world games these days" I'm not sure if that's the exact quote but holy shiiit are you my clone?

---

I actually had no patience for God of War either lol, my patience for games is so damn low that the most fun I can have these days is in games where I can just log on and get to work - Cyberpunk, 100 hours in a 2 weeks or something rofl...
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
It's a special game yeah, i wan never a huge fan of past gow games but this one hooked me up good.

Also lol, if you play this after tlou2 you only cleanse your palate from shitty story and unlikeable characters, nothing wrong with that.
 
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Yoboman

Member
Im the same I have no patience for open world games littered with nothing to do but checklist missions. I found exploring the hub of GOW and the changing environments hundred times more interesting than any open world in the past few years
 

Certinty

Member
I enjoyed the game a lot, enough to platinum it but boy is it so overrated.

The story outright sucks it's just good the dialogue and interactions between characters is great because the rest is not. The RPG like elements are just outright stupid and add nothing to the game. The enemy and boss variety is so incredibly poor, how did we go from God of War III to this?

Hopefully the sequel fixes all these issues.
 

TLZ

Banned
Just wait until you try Bloodborne!

I know most people love GoW but I absolutely hated it myself. I'll still have to give it a second chance at some point but I always found it fairly middling.

I don't mean this to bash your opinion or anything. But if you liked GoW then you can have some very good games to look forward to.
I really enjoyed GoW but couldn't do Bloodborne. They're too different.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
Having never played ANY of the games before, (apart from a passing interest to see how the games pushed the playstations to their limits) and after seeing the trailer of the upcoming game, I decided to jump in and buy a copy for my Pro too...haven't played it yet, getting into Miles Morales, and the (just as epic as God of War) Mass Effect 2 re-master...
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
One thing that I like is that you can actually feel the impact when you hit the enemies with your weapon.

Imagine dualsense utilize the features in Ragnarok.

Anthony Anderson Abc GIF by HULU
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
It's really an incredible game, that hits very high notes and combines different art forms to really use the medium of videogames to offer a memorable experience.

A landmark game really.
 
The thing that annoyed me the most about GoW was how weak Kratos felt. If it takes me two hits to kill a random hollow in Dark Souls as a shambling corpse why does it take Kratos like eight to kill a yard trash draugr
 
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Reactions: KO7
I found the combat to be sluggish and not very fun. Definitely not as good as GoTs
This is so strange, I'd buy you neogaf gold to make you happier in life if I wasn't so cheap.
Just wait until you try Bloodborne!

I know most people love GoW but I absolutely hated it myself. I'll still have to give it a second chance at some point but I always found it fairly middling.

I don't mean this to bash your opinion or anything. But if you liked GoW then you can have some very good games to look forward to.
I don't think they are similar, I loved all God of War games and could never get into a Souls type game... but who knows, I may be an alien.

These games are for a special kind of gamers, you need patience and skills to get good, etc.
 
This is so strange, I'd buy you neogaf gold to make you happier in life if I wasn't so cheap.

I don't think they are similar, I loved all God of War games and could never get into a Souls type game... but who knows, I may be an alien.

These games are for a special kind of gamers, you need patience and skills to get good, etc.
God of War's combat is objectively worse than Souls combat.
 

Roberts

Member
Great game and by far the best Sony exclusive last gen.

There was some stuff that didn’t work that well for me. The world is kind of barren, attempts at humour were very much hit and miss and Atreus really got on my nerves at certain points, but the combat was amazing and it was great to play through such a intimate story. Never got bored despite the length. The game was one of the very few reasons I didn’t regret buying PS4 pro.
 

Gamerguy84

Member
When a game comes along and makes you think about our own personal relationships with our family it's special.

God of War seemed to have that effect it's players. It seems to be the one thing I've read more often than not.

I would have never thought that would happen in a GoW game especially. Personally before it's release I believed SSM were messing up big time by adding Atreus and going this direction. It turned out to be it's strength.

Perfect game.
 

Boneless

Member
Only singleplayer game in about 10 years that I finished and did all the side bosses and gear quests, gameplay and becoming a beast is so much fun. And then you get the
blades of chaos
and the combat gets EVEN better. Oh my... The game just oozes quality.
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
I loved the game!
I just really dislike Freya. She looks like a suburban housewife and she is annoying af... But all else is good
 

GametimeUK

Member
Glad you enjoyed the game. It's great to hear people playing games they almost missed out on or were late to the party and ended up enjoying it. The fact your expectations were low going in means it was a pleasant surprise.

Unfortunately I don't have the same feelings towards the game. I much prefer the older games. I found the new God of War good, but not great. The older games combat resonated with me more.

I thought I was tired of the old formula and I missed out on GoW Ascension. I played it AFTER the new God of War and had so much more fun and like you I wasn't expecting to enjoy it to that extent. Turns out it wasn't that I didn't enjoy the old style games, I just needed a break from them.

Great post OP.
 

Oberstein

Member
Very well said, OP.
God of War (2018) has resurrected a brain-dead franchise and in a beautiful way. The old episodes had their charms, but this is really taken to another level: especially in terms of acting, and story (which is really good). Finally the mythology is well used and in an interesting way (Baldur).

To get a better idea, this video summarizes the essential:

 
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Muchacho

Member
I loved the first GOW the most from the old series. It was just perfect from the amount of cut scenes to the different environments and scale of things like the temple on top of the titan. Also loved the way Aries looked and sounded. Very menacing. The story was just told brilliantly. But from there the story just became worse with every entry with GOW 3 just being Kratos going off to kill all the gods.

Playing GOW 2018 though, I got goosebumps from the start and it just got better with time as I got used to the combat. I was playing on Hard(Give Me A Challenge) and loved each and every challenge like beating the Valkyrie in Niflheim before the time ran out and also the Queen of the Valkyries was an awesome challenge which easily topped the Baldur fights for me personally. Baldur woulda been a cool sub boss but I was expecting a better boss fight at the end. Also I agree fully with what most have said about the reskinned trolls and the lack of variety in enemy especially bosses. Aside from that and the fact you can't throw down a rope without climping it I have no gripes and this game stands tall as one of the best ps4 titles to me alongside RDR2. I have not played GOT nor LOU2. Most excited for Ragnarok though so I think I'll give GOW (2018) another play through.
 
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