So the day has finally come… God of War is in most of our hands and from what I can tell, people are absolutely blown away. I would like to start this piece by mentioning that I was not very excited for this game; personally, I think God of War 3 ended the series on an extremely satisfying note that didn’t need the reboot/sequel treatment that this game essentially is. I was also dreading to see what reviewer-bait game design choices and story decisions they would throw at us; I just simply never saw Kratos as a sympathetic character really as I think he’s done so much horrible stuff that making him “Big Daddy Kratos” was pretty laughable, and not to mention kind of a safe and boring move. The choice of it being a third person game instead of having a freer camera was also extremely odd to me as it just made it look like so many other games…
So now that I’ve actually played the game for a fair amount of time, I would like to say this – The game is great. It is polished to a mirror sheen and is pretty much flawless on a technical level; it feels of a high quality and that is to be expected, as this game is probably going to define this generation for most PlayStation users much like the originals.
There are things in this game I am still struggling with such as the combat, however – It is both satisfying as all hell and annoying since most of your moves are locked behind skill trees and armor and weapon upgrades; I have not gotten to a point where I have gotten a new weapon (Which I’m at least expecting) but I feel that for how big this game is, the combat needs to seriously open up more before it starts getting stale… But then again this game is absolutely massive by the looks of it, so I think we’ll see some rad characters and eventually unlock Kratos’ full arsenal – And hey they might even stick around now since Kratos is cool with the whole idea of not killing everything in sight now.
So I can safely say I really do like everything that the game has to offer except for the stupid RPG mechanics which I will never understand. They feel like such a “boardroom decision” and the game could’ve really done without it, without losing much or anything at all.
The story so far has been certainly interesting; I’m more invested in the absolutely gorgeous world and Norse mythology than I am invested in Kratos and his son’s relationship, but there are some interesting elements in there as well such as how Kratos tries to get closer to him, but can’t seem to for various reasons, and the fact that Arteus has Kratos-crazy anger issues and Kratos of all people is teaching him how to control it. I’m waiting for some interesting new characters to show up as I feel like the small characters here and there don’t really have any staying power.
Let’s now talk about how gorgeous this game looks. The God of War series is pretty much known for having amazing set pieces and scenery, and each game so far has taken it’s setting and mythology all the way and beyond in every game. The fixed camera angles of the previous games are gone so those amazing, grand shots that you would see are unfortunately gone, but are replaced with a neat dynamic camera that literally never cuts out. Seriously this game pulled a Birdman and decided to not have any cuts or loading screens.
The game does run at 30 FPS on a standard PS4 and 60 on a Pro. I was really worried about the frame rate but I’m pretty pleased that the frame rate is pretty much locked and hasn’t dipped once for me, and doesn’t seem to affect combat that much… Even on my PS4 that is louder than a goddamn jet engine.
So yeah, those are my thoughts on God of War so far. It’s not really a 10/10 masterpiece for me right now, but I’m eagerly wait for it to prove me wrong. Right now it’s sitting at a neat 8 for me due to the tacked on RPG mechanics, slight pacing issues and kind of annoying side quests that kind of break the flow of the story.
Stay on the look out for my full in-depth review when I have properly played through the game completely and settled my thoughts on it!