God of War Ragnarok reviews in!

[DonFerrari]

Hiku said:

While my overall enjoyment level for the 2018 version of God of War was arround 4 or 5 (out of 10), for Ragnarok it's arround 8 or 9.

The major drawback for me is still the combat (outside of boss battles), because I don't find most Kratos attacks interesting, and in a lot of instances I heavily dislike the combat design where they constantly and intentionally spawn enemies behind you, no matter how many times you kill them to get them off your back.
I want to make use of some of the moves and combinations you can do, but it's not really possible when in the middle of it, a red arrow appears behind you and Mimir screams "Behind you. brother!". It happens so often, and it is definitely intentional, as I tested it in the training grounds.

Luckily even though I don't care about most of Kratos moves, there are other characters who have more fun playstyles that I do care about in this game, unlike 2018.

I found myself sitting on 47 000 EXP points for Kratos, because I'm just not excitred about upgrading his skill tree further.
The only exp number I'm interested in is my partner's, as I do want to grow their skill tree for now.

I'm referring to

Spoiler!

Freya

They did make Kratos, and combat overall, a bit more fun than in 2018.
I like his Glacial Permafrost skill for example (which causes beams to shoot out of your attacks), and they made parrying more interesting in this game.
Shield Striking blue-circle attacks also add a nice flow to combat.

In 2018 I felt like the game ended right as the story was getting really interesting.
In this game, I feel like they are continuing that story from the beginning, which has made the whole journey very interesting to me, story wise.

And side quests are a night-and-day improvement over 2018.
They have worthwhile stories and rewards in this game. In the previous game it was usually just a random fetch quest for a spirit, and then you got a little conversation.

Mini-bosses are also heavily improved in this game as they don't just cycle through the same trolls/golems for the 1000th time like in 2018.

I'm currently 25 hours in, and just finished the side quests in Vanaheim.

Yes the enemies in the back is something I don't like as well. Seems to serve two purposes the break of you combo and making you need to turn around a lot (for me mapping the 180 turn is pointless, but that is their expectation), also they want you to be moving around and changing enemies instead of focusing it seems.

Another thing I don't like is how pointless the target lock is on bosses and sub-bosses. They have a lot of moves that are teletransportation that make they go away of your screen (besides the challenges with 2 or 3 of thoses special bosses where if you are locked to one invariably the other one will come at you and your counters will de dampened due to the lock).

I have upgraded and mastered all trees for all chars and also several of the rune attacks even if I use very few of them =p

On your other points I mostly agree with you as well. But I would say I have liked the game more than you.