I'm kind of just ready for the game to end. I think I'm nearly there. I honestly don't care about a big optional area that just opened up. Huge disappointment of a game, especially since I liked the first Dad of War.
I'm going to post everything behind a spoiler. Major spoilers here
Combat gets tedious but my main issue is the story stuff.
Lots of new characters are introduced at a high rate.
"Tyr" I mean Odin pretending to be Tyr, Freyr, new dwarf guy with a yarmulke, Thor, Odin, Blonde kid friend, Giant girl, Thor's daughter, wife, Heimdall, and really none of them get any time to shine.
Thor feels useless, more or less. And is basically a slave to Odin. He dies by Odin.
The only big "Death" in this game is Brok and oh fudging boy did it feel cheap as hell. As it turns out, "Tyr" was really just Odin in disguise and once he finds out all the info he needs, he says Brok needs to "shut up" or some effect and kills him. It happened so quickly that I had to look up whether it was really Tyr or not. Cheap as hell. I know there is post-game content where you can find the real Tyr but I really don't feel like doing it right now. Sindri basically blames Kratos/Atreus for his death and hates you for it. There is a post-game funeral that I'll get to at some point with this, and this whole time after his death he's finally over his germaphobia and takes his gloves off.
Freya gets over wanting to kill you pretty quickly just because Odin is a bigger threat. You get her as a companion. The power of teamwork and all that.
But the game's main focus is the prophecy of Kratos dying, and that's where my main issue lies. The whole game they want to change this prophecy and they more or less do it simply because they are determined to avoid fate. Yep, that's fudging it. Just like in JRPGs where you win through the power of friendship, in this, you win through the power of teaming up with all your new allies and killing Odin. Literally, nothing clever happens.
Something to say in regard to the next part: Fenrir dies in the beginning and Atreus puts his soul in a Knife unknowingly. Later in the game, you fight Garmr who has no soul and Atreus puts Fenrir's soul in Garmr's body.
I'm a big fan of time-travel media and was expecting something cool or clever like: Kratos dies but they find some way to bring him back maybe via the giant magic trick and puts his soul in an animal and he's still alive or something. Or they trick Odin into thinking Kratos is dead somehow and they find some hidden prophecy page after this that shows Loki's cool treachery or something.
Nope, nothing as cool or clever.
You just win through the power of teamwork and determination.
The overall theme/reused phrase of "We must be better." Got a bit annoying as well.
I beat it at 21.5 Hours with no side content on story mode.
On all technical levels, it's a great game. Just the bad/not-so-great story drags it down so much.
The story feels a bit rushed just to get it out for Q4
I don't disagree with many of the complaints, especially Kommie's list. But I very much enjoyed my time with the game and for the 40h or so I spent with it, it was well worth the money.
I didn't bother to go for 100% but I did do nearly all side missions and that last post-game activity of finding 10 or so pieces of a thing. That required visiting some areas I didn't even see or notice, so I enjoyed that exploring a bit as it also resulted in new areas, many chests, and new fast travel points.
But I had no interest in trying to find all of the crows even though I was at like 38 or so.
Oh, nobody has complained about the wishing well yet. That was dumb.
Once you find this place you will start receiving crystals instead of dwarven steel and those other armor-upgrade components that are hard to get. You then throw the crystals into the wishing well and get loads of money and other things. It's certainly worth the effort but there was a specific point in the game where all of a sudden I stopped getting certain materials and instead got crystals.
It was pretty clumsy and at that point I was so powerful that none of it really made any difference. The first time I visited I had a ton of crystals though so I left with like 100k gold and enough materials to upgrade all of my current gear by 1-2 levels. But after that I never really needed the new things.
> I cranked up the difficulty and I’m loving the combat now. Too many shoot a target
> puzzles.
I started the game on Give Me No Mercy, kinda wish I woulda went all the way up to Give Me God of War, but heard it was pretty brutal. Don't have time lately to sit here and be pissed off at dying constantly.
No Mercy is pretty spot on. Some fights I'm totally fine, others take me a few runs. Yet, it's all timing and patterns, like most games. Overall I feel it's a solid balance with a challenge.
I did the first in hardest difficulty. Upped it on the sequel and that is my happy place. Very good, strategic combat system at higher difficulty. Reminds me of HZD, the Witcher 3 and other games where the hardest difficulty literally makes the game great.
Gdamn this game is surprisingly big. 40 hours in, still feel like I have a bunch to do.
Just did the running scene with Freyr, that was quite cool, wish it woulda been longer.
Had to skip a Beserker fight. Was getting my ass handed to me and gave up for now. First time in the game so far that I've struggled. He was a level above me and has a bullcrap AoE stomp that I can't seem to get away from.
Purple health bar berserkers aren't worth fighting. Better to come back after you level up. There was one fight against two at a time and just sucked. Kratos moves too sluggishly (especially if you have to quickly move backward) to have to fight perfectly against two aggressive enemies at once. Even the ones I beat I wouldn't consider fun fights. Mostly just dodge and chip damage fights. You can do all the Muspelheim trials in the mean time, though. Those are all pretty easy clears.
The camera is tough. Locks on and won’t let you easily untarget so you can do the necessary run and kite required for difficult fights. Some of the runes are decent but I feel like with the rage I must use the healing to survive. Often feels like getting gud just means cheesing.
Ok, these late game Berserkers are getting annoying ... Assuming I need some better gear and higher levels. These rounds with 2-3 bosses in them are just annoying. The amount of effort to travel is also a pain. Wish you could fast travel without having to be at a gateway. Been doing a bunch of backtracking and feels like I should just keep going through the story and come back to this crap later.
I didn't bother with the Berserkers, I wasn't having any fun.
Once you beat the game you can continue playing and they add 1 more set of new collectibles. I found that going for that final set of items (they show on the maps) helped me find all kinds of new places that included other collectibles and chests. It was also then that I realized that I had collected some eggs or something that allowed me to activate a few portals that I hadn't been to yet. They helped me get to new places much faster.
This Svipdagar the Cold fight is driving me nuts. Died like 10x already ... I can take down the main guy, but then the two sisters go ape crap. I've gotten them down to like 10%, but just can't seem to finish them off.
OK ... gonna get Plat, new combo of gear, I'm unstoppable.
The Steinbjorn chest combined with Raven wrist/waist + Niflheim/Svartlfheim sets and Stunning Fang, Seal of RUnic Storm, and Stone Idol of Souls ... add in the Squirrel Summon, makes you pretty much a beast.
Might be the alcohol though, but I just rolled the last 3 Beserkers that were giving me a challenge.
Wel, that's super disappointing. Just maxed out all my skills (the labors to level them up) and that wasn't a trophy? Christ, that took awhile ... all 3 weps, fully maxed. Still have to craft skills for the spear, perhaps that'll be a trophy. Either way, that was too much work for nothin.
Damn, a fair amount of post game content! The challenging bosses are much more difficult without the Atreus squirrel summon ... abused the hell out of that and now I'm paying for it.
Also, the last two story battles, gdamn those were fantastic!
I did a lot of side missions early and really enjoyed many of them. I like that if people skipped them they can still give them a try after they beat the game.
> I did a lot of side missions early and really enjoyed many of them. I like that
> if people skipped them they can still give them a try after they beat the game.
Same, I did every single thing possible prior to end game. Now in retro, regret some of it, because I'm back tracking through the same stuff for like the 4th time! Still, good fun.
Kinda disappointed that the Remnants post game quest is kinda ... lame. I'm hoping the last one spawns some big boss or something because these are a snore fest. Was expecting a challenge at each.
Question: is it still not sexual like the previous Dad of War? That was my biggest culture shock was going from the old GoW games to Dad of War and being pleasantly surprised. My 11 year old son most likely isn't interested, but I didn't want to pick it up eventually and find out that you had sex games in it...hahaha.
When my son was very young, he really liked stealth games and we got the lately "Thief" title because it's been dirt cheap 1000 times. All was good until you are sneaking through a brothel :D
Just 100% it. This is another game that I feel like hunting trophies enhances it to its max. I felt like it was a solid 7/10 after story- but I think the post game stuff bumps it up to a 9 for me. Gloves come off on those last two fights. Overall I liked it better than 2018 but would say the camera and clunky way you drop targets to kite them really makes harder fights harder than they need to be. And there are some cheaply large AoE moves that you need a crystal ball to dodge.
Good stuff. I prefer ER and HFW pretty heavily but Ragnarok is a good one to experience.
I'd largely agree @Feeb. The post game was a bit too short and overall the back tracking was more annoying than fun. Should have had a better fast travel in post game to speed it up.
Really wanted more of the prison reveal, feels like that should have had more dialogue (assumed there would be more at Sindris, nope).
Also the crucible was way too easy which was unfortunate. The last two fights were great though.
It is hard to go too much into story detail without spoiling, so I won’t. Though it starts with Kratos and Mimir, other characters from Ragnarok with return along with other characters…not from Ragnarok. This is a dive into Kratos’ Spartan past in a way that is mostly buried deep within the new Norse games, like the Blades of Chaos under the floorboards. And when it rears its head, you will understand why this is essentially a must-play for any fan of the series, new era or old.
