God of War Ragnarok reviews in!

[Shinobi-san]

DonFerrari said:

Shinobi-san said:

Anyone else feeling a bit let down by the game? Especially after exceptional reviews.

While I am not complete, I do feel like I am in far enough to give comment on the experience. A few complaints in comparison to the first:

1. Standard difficulty mode is a lot harder than before - making you feel very underpowered especially as Kratos. Personally I feel at the start of the game enemies should have had less health. I understand that enemies are weak to certain weapons and strategies but it shouldn't be that fixed.

2. Constant chatting between characters - not a fan. I prefer some more impactful cutscenes and then a bit of a break from the story and chit chat. Sometimes it does work - but other times its too much.

3. PS5 controls woefully underused. Certain scenes when you push R2 to swing the axe down, could have made a huge difference if they synced the pressure of the button with the swing down of the axe.

4. In hindsight i know this is basically a continuation of the story but almost 5 years have passed since the original game. For me GOW 2018 was a fresh, visceral and exciting experience that truly ushered in the PS4. Ragnarok feels solidly like a PS4 game, 2 years after the PS5 has released. I get that some new mechanics are introduced with the weapons but i feel like something a bit more drastic needed to be done. Those that played the game will know that there are other additions to Ragnarok ( I will not spoil here) but even that felt underwhelming and personally I think they picked the wrong direction in regards to that. Santa Monica studio is probably holding back all the crazy ideas for there first true PS5 game...which at this rate will release when the PS6 comes out.

1 - That is the new standard for GoW. In Give me God of War you seem like a mortal fighting gods, you die taking 3 hits (sometimes a single one) and need at least 12 to kill enemies. Some arrangements are quite hard with enemies that fight close, others with projectibles and some that close the gap instantly and laser aimed. Since the number of enemies wouldn't change on easier difficult if the enemies died to fast you wouldn't have much combat at all.

2 - I love the talking, a lot of people talk when they are walking and traveling, they don't chit chat during combat.

3 - I don't see that as a problem even more as the game is a PS4 one and the added aspects for PS5 can't break the gameplay between versions.

4 -There was basically no need to have major changes as the game was basically on very high level on almost all aspects so improvements and increments were the way to go, even more considering this is on the same storyline and pantheon so changing to much would make less sense. If they do a new storyline then bigger changes could be expected.

Either way im not impressed after 4-5 years. Ragnarok will sell well...but if Sony thinks another GOW with the same mechanics will do well they are wrong.

The same issue with Horizon Forbidden West - barely any changes to the core mechanics so many years later and on new hardware. I guess all the points of continuity apply here as well, but I have a sneaky feeling that if Sony releases a 3rd entry in the Horizon series with relatively unchanged mechanics the game will fall way off in terms of popularity. I actually think the second entry has already fallen off in popularity despite being better in all areas than the original.

I hope we don't see the same trend with Spiderman 2.