@VoidofLight We all have limits bud, it’s good! I honestly can’t play a horror game for he life of me no matter how cheesy it is, difference with me is that It doesn’t stop me per say.
Oh I re played 2nd son, my god is that game underrated, you hear no one bring it up anymore, but I love it so much, I need another one!
Nintendo are like woman, You love them for whats on the inside, not the outside…you know what I mean! Luzlane best girl!
(My friend code is SW-7322-1645-6323, please ask me before you use it)
Two things I totally forgot to mention in my above post:
1) the boss checkpointing feature you can enable is a quality of life game changer. So much frustration and tedium is circumvented by enabling this. I know some love it, so you don't need to use it, but i hate succumbing to attrition and having to do a boss all over again from the start. My efforts not being wasted here just makes things a joy.
2) the general tone and chemistry between the cast somehow feels even better than the first game. It manages to be somehow funnier, yet a grander, darker, story too. The more mellow Kratos, creates an excellent straightman for a lot of genuine laugh out loud moments.
@Pizzamorg I take it boy and head are still an amazing duo
No spoilers of course, but the first realm you visit outside of the one you start in has a bunch of side quests which deliver some incredible stuff for Mimir, and some really incredible interactions between the three of them. Some of the most heartfelt, and also funniest, stuff yet. Which is almost impressive, as this game has made me laugh out loud more in 4ish hours than the entire first game did, and it has brought me closer to tears than the first one ever did too (outside of that ending).
And older Atreus is really excellent. Such an odd sense of pride just seeing him out doing his own thing, he is less of a brat than before and I dunno, something about a more independent Atreus and a more mellow Kratos creates such a rewarding dynamic for those who experienced their adventures in the first game.
Just little moments like Kratos bringing Atreus in for a hug, or giving him compliments, or just smiling to himself as a proud Dad at something his Son has accomplished - like all of these moments mean nothing I don't think without the context of the first game, but they feel so powerful when you have the context. And likewise, Atreus responses don't truly mean anything without the context of the first game, either, as he is no longer a frail little boy chasing his Dad's approval. He gets compliments he would have once grovelled for and now bounces them off with a wink and sarcasm. I just love it.
@Pizzamorg sounds amazing the scene in the first game where kratos Doesn’t put his hand on arteu’s shoulder kills me. The banter between Boy, Head and the twins much to Krato’s annoyance was one of my favorite parts of the 1st game. I’m glad he’s joining in on it this time
Yeah exactly, it is contrasts of moments like that! Kratos openly embracing his son probably seems normal to anyone on the outside, but anyone who has played the first game has seen how far we have come to get to those otherwise seemingly throwaway moments.
Also the reintroduction to Brok and Sindri, honestly especially Sindri, is really great and very funny. I honestly always liked Sindri more, I dunno why, that germaphobe joke is kinda one note but it just always gets me for some reason.
Oh and both Mimir and Atreus shoutout when you are getting attacked now, I don't remember Mimir doing that before? But it is very helpful. I also have a new type of shield that doesn't require you to nail parries, just requires you to block and allows you to block extra things the parry shield can't, and when it is charged it lets out like a shockwave that stuns everything (and can do quite a lot of damage if overcharged). Just makes the shield feel more core to my gameplay than the shield did in the first game.
Massive spoilers ahead (cause I can't get the tags to work) I'm amazed I didn't have the multiple player character thing spoiled for me before. Holy crap! And if Kratos combat is actually fun now, wait until you try out the other person. It's amazing how the combat is so fundamentally similar to 2018 yet better in every way.
@Eagly If you liked the first one, you'll like this one. It's a straight up sequel, the game quickly gets your going and you pretty much start with both the leviathan axe and chaos blades. The story seems to be bigger and bolder than in the first one. I'm not too far in, but I can tell crazy stuff is about to happen. Characters are interesting and complex, and not as one-dimensional as you may expect. The world also seems bigger than before.
I am now about 12 hours in, some thoughts: I do think now I have spent more time with it, some familiar issues have crept in. The puzzles are often very boring to me and having Atreus or Mimir shoutout answers to really obvious solutions, but then say nothing during more complex solutions is really frustrating.
Also, ***** Dark Elves man. Fighting those ***** and everything I hated about God of War 2018 combat came flooding back. I also remember people talking about lots of enemy variety, and I guess compared to 2018 that is true, but I have already had more than enough of Nightmares and Wretches.
I also think that while it is cool we are seeing a far larger set of locations, every realm I have visited so far feels like a themepark ride, and I never get any sense of these spaces being real places with function outside of being a videogame level. It feels like very dated videogame design to me.
This also might be like an ADHD thing, but the smoke and mirrors they use to make you think there are multiple paths through a location just overwhelm and annoy me to be honest. I'm sweating thinking I am going to miss something, but I explore six routes that all lead back to the same place within a few feet. Just stop.
While I know that all sounds very negative, I am still enjoying the title plenty. I feel like so much of 2018 was just walking about (or climbing, shimmying) and long puzzle rooms. All of that has been condensed down, and the amount of combat, boss encounters and set pieces has been significantly ramped up. It makes the game hard to put down, because you are always barrelling headfirst into new exciting moments. They do all of this without needing to hold back on story or character, either. Lots of ancillary characters in the original are turned from being effectively just gameplay mechanics into actual characters, and god is the whole game just better off for it. The humour and emotional moments barely miss, because I am caring about characters properly really for the first time.
Likewise, the act of making Atreus fully playable, with their own progression, loot etc and mixing up the formula of going out on long stretches where you play as him without Kratos, or Kratos without Atreus, like it is smoke and mirrors to an extent maybe, but it does really freshen things up. It is also a crazy testament that Kratos is so fun to play as, yet by comparison he seems so boring next to Atreus. If Kratos really does die at the end of this and Atreus takes over as the protagonist, I think we are in good hands - at least from a combat perspective.
I am about 20ish hours in at this point, still very much enjoying it, but the difficulty is starting to become very uneven. Even with boss checkpointing, after about 15ish hours maybe? A lot of the out in the world mini bosses suddenly became brutally hard. Spamming you with chains of attacks and mixing in blockables and unblockables at immense and overwhelming speed that avoiding damage seems near impossible, save for those with those Dark Souls trained dexterous fingers.
This is also the double-edged sword of many battles in Ragnarok taking place in small spaces. When it comes to regular enemies it is a blessing, but against bosses, as I eventually give up on trying to predict and memorise the patters of chains of blockables and unblockables, I resort to just furiously dodging in a big circle and seem to always inevitably hit a wall, not go far enough and take massive damage and fail.
You may think I am perhaps just under levelled, as your level is once again linked directly to your gear, but moment to moment and story bosses actually feel a little on the easy side. I have fought identical bosses in the story, to stuff I have faced in the world, and there is a tangible difference between their difficulty level (I think one of them in the story even had a lower health pool and less phases), so I guess they decided to just make the side content way harder some reason. Like I say, failing to a boss over and over again isn't a reward for me, so I've had to result to just turning the difficulty down to defeat these bosses and then turn up back up again afterwards.
You may think it is cheap and ask why I don't just come back later, but a lot of the side missions require you to overcome a lot of tedious, convoluted, busy work to reach the boss and I really don't want to test how progression on these things works, so I don't want to leave and find I have to come back and do it all over again.
I also think while there has been some streamlining done, I'm still not really a fan of the gear game and the way it is directly tied to your progression. It is so tedious seeking out chests for slivers of hacksilver, but upgrades get expensive, fast, so you really need to horde every coin you can find.
I will often end up pooling the other materials which you usually only need one or two of, but lacking the hacksilver needed to upgrade. And you kinda have to upgrade your stuff evenly, as while you will get bonus stats for upgrading individual pieces, it seems like overall level is weighted downwards (so one level 7 piece can't drag your overall level up, if one of the other pieces is level 3) and while I have no way of providing evidence of this, it feels like that overall level defines everything, as I face enemies one level above me and every hit is practically a one shot.
Luckily the story, and set piece moments, are remaining really excellent - moments that make you cry, moments where you can't help but just woop woop out loud even though no one is in the room with you. It does what the best sequels should do, in that it takes 2018's foundation and sticks a rocket on it to take it to the moon. Not only did 2018 not affect me in this way, but media in general doesn't usually.
But I have to be honest the exploration and side content is really dragging the whole game down for me, but I feel compelled to do it as I don't want to miss loot and there is a LOT of story and character progression hidden away in this side content, to the point where it feels like left over parts of the main story slapped onto some busywork crap to give it some gameplay.
I'd say right now, I am at a 6 out of 10 for 2018 and an 8 out of 10 for Ragnarok.
So far I have collected 42 PS4 games, but I separated my PS4 games collection into two groups.
Group 1 = My Top 60 that will be played on my PS4 Slim.
Group 2 = Top 61 - 100 / 120 that will be played on either PS5 machine or second PS4 machine.
There are some PS4 games that I consider as PS5 games since the games will get 60 fps support, so far only Ratchet & Clank PS4 that I consider as "PS5" game.
From my PS4 games collection, 39 games are on my PS4 Slim, 3 PS4 games I moved to Top 61 - 100 or I consider them as PS5 games.
The reason I separated into two groups since PS4 games taking a lot GB so I have to limit the quantity for one machine that can play until 60 PS4 games and still have at least 30 GB left, just in case to anticipate the machine or games updates.
In my purchase list, I have written the PS4 games that I will pick as my Top 60, the other are for Top 61 - 100, so if I purchase PS4 games not from my Top 60 list, they will not be played on my PS4 Slim until I have PS5 machine or another PS4 machine with 1 TB size to play them.
Glad to hear Ragnarok is good! I'll definitely get to it eventually, but I'm currently working on Star Ocean: the Divine Force. Most recently cleared a dungeon that finished with a boss fight against a giant blue bird, and have now arrived in the capital.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Yeah, God of War 2018 is really weird in that regard, as the title would suggest reboot, and everything about the game feels like a reboot as well, but then the games will make references to the original trilogy all the time, making it very clear it is a direct sequel to games I have not played in years, so I dunno how many references just absolutely fly over my head.
@EaglyTheKawaiiShika I'll be honest, that one looks unnerving, but there's something so funny about it.
Truly I am mankind's natural foe! Evil Incarnate! A walking cataclysm! A shapeless insanity! GUNDHAM TANAKA!
Kelpies. Be they hound or horse?
Currently Playing on Switch: Chaos:Child, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-
Ragnarok does have gyro aiming for the axe, maybe the first one did too I never checked, but it is in the accessibility options for the sequel for sure.
In terms of the games, yeah, I didn't like 2018 either, but I am now around 30ish hours into Ragnarok and it is probably my GOTY. I feel like I have less criticisms/frustrations with my previous GOTY Live a Live, but the ceiling on Ragnarok feels higher, with it making me cry and laugh out loud multiple times.
When you get to my age, and consume as much media as I do, things that make me feel anything are few and far between. Things that make me feel truly strongly to have physical reactions are even rarer, which is why I would probably rank Ragnarok higher.
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