[SPOILERS BELOW]
- (P) Positives
- (N) Negatives
- (?) Other points/Neither positive or negative
- (P) Highly compelling/emotional narrative; sort of a combination of a coming of age story and a toned down, less high stakes version of Lord of the Rings (In that, instead of destroying a dangerous magical ring in the fires of Mt. Doom, it's the ashes of Krato's wife and Atreus' mother, Faye, being scattered atop the highest peak in "all of the nine Realms"). The story's success is largely thanks to the performances of all the cast members, which are excellent, and are brought to life with great motion capture work (Look up "god of war 2018 motion capture" in your search engine of choice if you want to see just how much effort went into capturing these performances, as well seeing the actors themselves performing live in their mocap suits. Hell, look up any behind-the-scenes footage for any production of any kind, and you might just appreciate even more how much effort goes into works like this. But I digress). The game is also enjoyable for those that have never played a God of War game in their life as, arguably, the story is set up to be viewed from two perspectives: Kratos' viewpoint (if you've played previous entries in the series) and Atreus' viewpoint (if you've never played any of the games before and are going in completely blind).
- (P) Solid gameplay that rewards exploration with much coveted loot, such as more materials to make better weaponry, armour etc. or whole new side-quests that lead to extra STUFF and side-stories (These, what I like to call, side-stories, are my favourite kind of side-quest. I couldn't care less about some fetch quest with no sort of narrative to go along with it, but if the fetch quest has some sort of story or tale, like a long-dead captain whose dead crew members still restlessly walk the land? Well, sign me up!). Combat is simple enough to pick up and play, but has a great level of depth to it - with a multi-layered moveset for both Kratos and your AI son,Boy Atreus (who is controlled contextually through a single button - sometimes it'll be firing arrows at enemies or obstacles or sometimes it will be asking him to examine a mural on the wall). This allows for multiple playstyles as well as strategies for different enemies --> if you pay attention, you can dispatch enemies easily and dodge out of their attacks just as efficiently, but you can't just press buttons and hope to win (which is good - if it was mindless button mashing, then the game would rapidly become repetitive and mindless). In addition, there's a ton of post-game/endgame content if you're into that sort of thing and/or you're a completionist. This side content is extremely fun to find hidden away in the corners of the Realms --> they really make you feel like you're discovering something, rather than feeling like they were just placed there and signposted by a game designer.
- (P) Relatively small but 'dense' open-world (to be fair, the game is less open-world, and more like a series of 'hub worlds' that you can travel between with plenty of linear paths and adventures to go on, but it might as well be considered open-world...I guess).
- (P) Gorgeous visuals, that are absolutely teeming with environmental detail, particle effects (like the leaves floating around the realm travel room, the way the oar glides through the water while you're traveling in the boat etc.) as well as high quality texture and model work in every location, every piece of armour, as well as (obviously) Kratos' glorious beard. I mean, I'm no expert, but this game can look close to "photorealistic" at times.
- (?) While some songs were memorable, there's not a lot of songs or compositions in the game's score that I would say was particularly memorable, or got stuck in my head - but it's still very competently made and serves it's purpose well enough (although, the song Ashes was extremely good, and probably my favourite song on the whole soundtrack for how emotionally epic it is).
- (?) The story as a whole is pretty strong, but there are a few moments or arcs that seemed a bit "familiar", so to speak, like they've been done in other narratives multiple times before (Most notably, Atreus' short period of arrogance, disinterest in heeding his father's words and disgust for "anything beneath him" after he finds out that he and his father are gods - but luckily, he gets over this pretty quickly and the game's plot doesn't spend too much time on it).
- (N) While game performance was impressive and ran at a high frame rate most of the time, there were a few moments where the game slowed down for a few seconds and stuttered (Note that I did play this on PS4 Pro and was still experiencing these performance issues). Also, the audio had a habit of freezing or stuttering every so often as well - but these performance problems are more nitpicks than anything else.
Overall: 9 or 10/10 (Look, don't give my numerical score much attention as I don't particularly like reviewing things and giving them a hard-and-fast number to signify their quality or worth. Just know that this game is bloody excellent, and I think would actually be enjoyed by a good majority of people - as the game offers gameplay options for those that just want to play through the story, those who want to explore, those who want to see and do absolutely everything, etc.)
- (P) Highly compelling/emotional narrative; sort of a combination of a coming of age story and a toned down, less high stakes version of Lord of the Rings (In that, instead of destroying a dangerous magical ring in the fires of Mt. Doom, it's the ashes of Krato's wife and Atreus' mother, Faye, being scattered atop the highest peak in "all of the nine Realms"). The story's success is largely thanks to the performances of all the cast members, which are excellent, and are brought to life with great motion capture work (Look up "god of war 2018 motion capture" in your search engine of choice if you want to see just how much effort went into capturing these performances, as well seeing the actors themselves performing live in their mocap suits. Hell, look up any behind-the-scenes footage for any production of any kind, and you might just appreciate even more how much effort goes into works like this. But I digress). The game is also enjoyable for those that have never played a God of War game in their life as, arguably, the story is set up to be viewed from two perspectives: Kratos' viewpoint (if you've played previous entries in the series) and Atreus' viewpoint (if you've never played any of the games before and are going in completely blind).
- (P) Solid gameplay that rewards exploration with much coveted loot, such as more materials to make better weaponry, armour etc. or whole new side-quests that lead to extra STUFF and side-stories (These, what I like to call, side-stories, are my favourite kind of side-quest. I couldn't care less about some fetch quest with no sort of narrative to go along with it, but if the fetch quest has some sort of story or tale, like a long-dead captain whose dead crew members still restlessly walk the land? Well, sign me up!). Combat is simple enough to pick up and play, but has a great level of depth to it - with a multi-layered moveset for both Kratos and your AI son,
- (P) Relatively small but 'dense' open-world (to be fair, the game is less open-world, and more like a series of 'hub worlds' that you can travel between with plenty of linear paths and adventures to go on, but it might as well be considered open-world...I guess).
- (P) Gorgeous visuals, that are absolutely teeming with environmental detail, particle effects (like the leaves floating around the realm travel room, the way the oar glides through the water while you're traveling in the boat etc.) as well as high quality texture and model work in every location, every piece of armour, as well as (obviously) Kratos' glorious beard. I mean, I'm no expert, but this game can look close to "photorealistic" at times.
- (?) While some songs were memorable, there's not a lot of songs or compositions in the game's score that I would say was particularly memorable, or got stuck in my head - but it's still very competently made and serves it's purpose well enough (although, the song Ashes was extremely good, and probably my favourite song on the whole soundtrack for how emotionally epic it is).
- (?) The story as a whole is pretty strong, but there are a few moments or arcs that seemed a bit "familiar", so to speak, like they've been done in other narratives multiple times before (Most notably, Atreus' short period of arrogance, disinterest in heeding his father's words and disgust for "anything beneath him" after he finds out that he and his father are gods - but luckily, he gets over this pretty quickly and the game's plot doesn't spend too much time on it).
- (N) While game performance was impressive and ran at a high frame rate most of the time, there were a few moments where the game slowed down for a few seconds and stuttered (Note that I did play this on PS4 Pro and was still experiencing these performance issues). Also, the audio had a habit of freezing or stuttering every so often as well - but these performance problems are more nitpicks than anything else.
Overall: 9 or 10/10 (Look, don't give my numerical score much attention as I don't particularly like reviewing things and giving them a hard-and-fast number to signify their quality or worth. Just know that this game is bloody excellent, and I think would actually be enjoyed by a good majority of people - as the game offers gameplay options for those that just want to play through the story, those who want to explore, those who want to see and do absolutely everything, etc.)
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