Ya I think weapon and skill upgrades through flames were mostly if not always through story, since you're always running into the shops afterwards where you can use those items to have the blacksmiths oh so elegantly craft your upgrades.

The skills allow for different play styles. It changes or enhances the combat. If you think the combat is boring, acquiring skills will help with that. The more skills you acquire the deadlier you and the boy become and the more options you have. Don't forget about the boy. Making sure he has more better skills and that his armor and weapons are upgraded is more important than you might think. He can be much more helpful, but then again, that may not be your style and may not fit your combat tastes.

I tried to keep it balanced when I played. Some purple enemies are really tough fights but doable, but some like the one or two shots just aren't worth it so it's best to leave them be and move on to something more reasonable or advance through the story some more. Dragon saving is interesting, but there's one who's a unique encounter and I really enjoyed that portion.

Ya like with DonF mentioning 40%, I'd say your 40% at the most. I was figuring around 25% at the least, so say 30% to 40%, somewhere in there.

Had a fun session last time I played. Did a couple of side quests, including saving another dragon.

Then continued the story. Encountered a giant with a huge hammer that I was supposed to bring down to smash a block of ice.

It was a cool sequence climbing the hammer and bringing it down. The only weird thing is... I never saw the hammer smash the ice. Did it happen off screen? Cause I was looking forward to seeing it, so that was a bit of a letdown. Even afterwards I was unsure if I actually finished the hammer sequence, but I got the chisel, so I guess?

The boss fight against the two brothers was pretty fun. My only issue was that when I was supposed to watch the arrows for incoming attacks, I could barely ever  make out whether the arrow is pointing up, down, left or right

Now that I'm looking at it I think it's pointing southwest, but it threw me off all the time while I was in the heat of the moment. Maybe the direction it's pointing in is always a bit thicker, but I didn't notice while playing.

Then I encountered and beat the first Valkyrie.

This fight was really cool. I enjoyed it a lot because of the design of the enemy.

She gave me a helmet. I'm guessing I'll be able to make Valkyrie gear later?

I also got the Blades of Chaos. I had seen that scene before on youtube, so I was expecting it. But I also expected the reason for it to be something more than "your axe conveniently won't work on the enemies you're about to encounter"
The scene leading up to it was really well made though. Seeing Kratos anxiously pacing around while carrying Atreus, and hearing someone use the horn to call the World Serpent in the background was a nice touch. But the scene where he got his weapons back seemed like a a missed opportunity. It's not like what he was doing with his axe up until this point was much different than what he had used his blades for in the previous games. And when I had previously seen that scene without context, I imagined Athena said "you will always be a monster" not only because of what he has done before, but because of something he had done recently as well. That wasn't really the case, so yeah. I do appreciate that this game focuses more on the narrative, but it seems like they could still improve the writing a lot, without even expecting something like The Last of Us.

The Blades of Chaos are fun to use though. I think I'll enjoy fighting regular enemies more form now on.
I'm on my way to Helheim now. Not sure how far into the game I am, but based on previous comments, I guess 40-50%?

1.) Actually I've focused on upgrading the boy much more than I have Kratos. Partially because I felt like that will be more useful to me, but also because I know I'll get the Blades of Chaos so I'm thinking saving some points for that might be good.
And now I did get the blades, but haven't looked into upgrading them yet as I stopped playing right after. But so far they feel more fun to me than the axe.

2.) Yeah I tried doing those purple enemies anyway at first, just for the reward. All except a pair of witches that were too difficult, so I decided to leave them for later. If I encounter more that I can't defeat within the first few turns then I'lll just do the same there and save them for later.

3.) I may have been misleading in where I was in the game last time, because I said I'm on my way to Jotenheim, but turns out I didn't go there, as the story now takes me to Helheim instead. I'm guessing I'm 40-50% into the game now or something?

Well I beat her on the first try, but it was close because I didn't know when to parry at first.

I may try adjusting the difficulty next time, since you can do it any time from a checkpoint. Is there any way to re-fight them after being them?
I hope the rest of them are as cool as this one.

Sounds like your having a better time. I didn't want to spoil anything for you, as I find that experiencing as you go tends to be more fun, aside from not completely understanding the mechanics and being held back by that lack of knowledge.

1. The blades are more fun but the axe is very useful, you just need to learn how to use it strategically. Going back and forth between them quickly makes combat way more efficient and you can just slaughter groups of enemies.

2. The two witches are tough. I saved them for later on in the game. There were two or three frost reavers near a dragon that I also left until later. Some of the purples are doable so I did them when I could as well. A really tough fight now and again keeps it interesting.

3. I had a good idea of where you were, and that you wouldn't be going to Jotenheim next, but I wasn't going to spoil that. You're somewhere around 50% give or take.

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Well if you are masochist the purple enemies that one shot you are the way to go =p

The Valkyrie Queen on GmGoW is the perfect excuse for someone to hate himself to self-punish =p

I'm playing on "Give Me A Balanced Experience", and I encountered and beat my first Valkyrie last time I played.
She gave me a helmet.

Nope, you can't fight them again after beating them.... don't worry though, they get harder. And there are a couple of other optional bosses to fight, like the travelers and the elemental golems.

If you beat her on your first attempt, then I strongly recommend you using the difficulty, you a too good for the current difficulty setting you are at. That also probably explains why you aren't a fan of the ax. You need to play on give me a challenge at least.... that will force you to learn and use all the nuances of the combat system. And oh my will you come to love the Axe throw. Especially the precision ax throw,