God of War: Ragnarok (Nov 9th)

[JBURGE]

13 hours ago, iknowcool said:

Minor side mission spoiler 

  Reveal hidden contents

Kratos retrieving the orb that he was concerned about for Brok's lady and it turning out to just be her pet's toy to chew on had me dying.  The "what" from Kratos at the end was perfect. The humor in this game is great

 

Agreed the humor is great in this game. 

I am about 20 hours in, not sure how long the game is, but I haven enjoyed it, but am definitely not as hooked on it as I was expecting. 

[Shockwave]

Man that mission with Atreus and Angrboda was brutally boring. I see what you guys mean. I really hope it opens up soon. 12+ hours in and I'm still on rails. I get building the story but man.. I just want to explore realms and do some leveling up. 

[Squanchy]

I just can’t anymore.  I’m tapping out after about 15 hours.  I just don’t care and the “gameplay” is piss poor.  
 

It’s like they tried to copy what last of us and Spider-Man did with some of its decision while trying to emulate marvel with some CW sprinkled in. 
 

This is extremely disappointing and boring.  I’m going to finish plagues tale innocence.  At least that’s an interesting walking simulator. 

[Apparition]

idk what y'all are talking about? If anything, this game has entirely too much "open world" content to it, which hurts the pacing. I'd have preferred a more linear game with less repeated content (people who bitched about the redundant boss fights in Elden Ring will find plenty to also complain about here).

It's still a very good game - I liked the narrative, I love the themes that it covers, and the combat is very tight and intense - but I'm really tired of this attitude that AAA games all have to be as big as possible. I'd much rather play a more constrained game that keeps surprising me and finishes in under 30 hours than grind through a bunch of redundant content to get to the best optional boss fights of a 60-hour game. 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Apparition

[Shockwave]

^ Maybe for me it's just because I'm playing on the harder level and it's just taking much longer to get through the opening missions. I've died an awful lot. But I seem to be rounding the corner now and it's opening up. I'm so grateful for the side (favor) quests I now have available. Can finally break free of the monotony. Looking forward to doing some puzzles, exploring and leveling up.

 

[iknowcool]

22 hours ago, Apparition said:

idk what y'all are talking about? If anything, this game has entirely too much "open world" content to it, which hurts the pacing. I'd have preferred a more linear game with less repeated content (people who bitched about the redundant boss fights in Elden Ring will find plenty to also complain about here).

It's still a very good game - I liked the narrative, I love the themes that it covers, and the combat is very tight and intense - but I'm really tired of this attitude that AAA games all have to be as big as possible. I'd much rather play a more constrained game that keeps surprising me and finishes in under 30 hours than grind through a bunch of redundant content to get to the best optional boss fights of a 60-hour game. 

Yep, this is by far my biggest issue with the game.  The flow gets broken up so much.  I'm so interested in the story, but to continue it, you have to get through so much... I don't want to call it junk, but just almost like filler sometimes.  It legit makes it hard to play the game for a long time, even though I love it, because I don't feel like doing all of the stuff asked of you.

Still a very good game like you said and one of my favorites.  But yeah I really wish it was more linear.  

[MikeT14]

On 11/17/2022 at 10:13 AM, JBURGE said:

Agreed the humor is great in this game. 

I am about 20 hours in, not sure how long the game is, but I haven enjoyed it, but am definitely not as hooked on it as I was expecting. 

I was laughing at the exchange between Atreyus and

Spoiler

Tyr

when you would wander off to find treasure chests.

[titansNvolsR#1]

Loving the game to this point. Just finished the second Atreus quest and that wasn't that fun. He's also so obscenely overpowered when on his own compared to when he's your sidekick.

[showtime]

On 11/19/2022 at 6:22 PM, Squanchy said:

I just can’t anymore.  I’m tapping out after about 15 hours.  I just don’t care and the “gameplay” is piss poor.  
 

It’s like they tried to copy what last of us and Spider-Man did with some of its decision while trying to emulate marvel with some CW sprinkled in. 
 

This is extremely disappointing and boring.  I’m going to finish plagues tale innocence.  At least that’s an interesting walking simulator. 

what in the hell is this? Lol

[Squanchy]

1 hour ago, showtime said:

what in the hell is this? Lol

So I can't dislike the game/pacing of the game?

[Shockwave]

On 11/23/2022 at 10:40 PM, Squanchy said:

So I can't dislike the game/pacing of the game?

It gets better. I'm now well into the open world and cleaning up a bunch of the side missions. So much more enjoyable now. I really like playing as Atreus. The mission early on with Angrboda was brutal but I just did a mission with Thor as my companion that was fun as hell. Kratos and Freya is a really fun duo as well. Once you get through that opening 15 hours or so the game regains the magic the first game had.

We can stop with the spoilers now? I feel like enough time has gone by. Can we all agree that we visit this thread at our own risk?

[Squanchy]

5 hours ago, Shockwave said:

It gets better. I'm now well into the open world and cleaning up a bunch of the side missions. So much more enjoyable now. I really like playing as Atreus. The mission early on with Angrboda was brutal but I just did a mission with Thor as my companion that was fun as hell. Kratos and Freya is a really fun duo as well. Once you get through that opening 15 hours or so the game regains the magic the first game had.

We can stop with the spoilers now? I feel like enough time has gone by. Can we all agree that we visit this thread at our own risk?

I think I was closing in on 14 hours before I stopped.  I loved 2018 the first play through.  I tried again on pc earlier this year and while I enjoyed it I couldn’t stop saying shut the **** up to all the characters.  So I think I managed about 8ish hours of a second play through.   I think I’m just over how formulaic everything has become and this game I wanted to love is the straw that broke the camels back. 

[Jakuvious]

Just got done playing this. I enjoyed it overall, though it definitely dragged at times. They've done a fantastic job of storytelling with these two games, and this and the 2018 one have to be maybe the two most polished games I've ever played. I almost feel like it's hurt by how insanely good the first one was, though. One reviewer I follow commented that this is better off viewed as a continuation of the first game, rather than a sequel, and I have to agree with that. It doesn't feel nearly as fresh compared to 2018 which completely revamped the series, and that's felt especially early in the game when it spends honestly a lot of time with not a whole lot of new stuff. They did ramp up the side content from the first game, and I kind of couldn't be bothered half the time. NPCs kept saying hey, we can take our time, and it was weird considering the events going on in the main plot most of the time. I was iffy on how many times they changed the duo you control, as well. I get it, but I don't think any of the combos ever felt as good as the proper one, both personally and gameplay wise. Though half the time all that really changed is something slightly different happening when pressing square, I suppose.

In the end, good game, not an all-time great for me like the last one was, though.

[iknowcool]

(Some spoilers will be included in this post)

I just finished the main story.  I'm happy because I was ready to focus on exploring and a lot of content left for me to do.  Not much needs to be said about the gameplay.  Absolutely fantastic, as expected.  This game and the 2018 one might be my favorite two games when it comes to combat.  It is so smooth and makes you feel powerful.  

My main issue with this game is the story.

It feels like the game went completely off the rails after the twist with Tyr.  It felt like I was watching the last season of Game of Thrones.  Things just started happening so fast in the main story.  Like... a LOT happened after that moment.  Maybe I'm being nit-picky but it all happening so close together made it really difficult to care about certain things that happen.  Especially because you spend so much time before that switching characters and whatnot.  The game took its time in the first half and then just rushed so much in the second half.  I understand the rationale for not wanting to make a 3rd game and for most games this would be valid... but this story needed it.  Especially considering they added so many characters and we were never given a chance to get all that familiar with them.  How many times did we see Freyr before his death?  Maybe 5 times?  

And what really made me think of Game of Thrones was how somehow, someway, they are able to gather all these armies within like 1 day.  We spend both games learning how Dark Elves and Light Elves hate each other.  And Freyr is able to unite them just like that?  And then, like 30 seconds into the Ragnarok mission... "we are running out of armies."  What?  And what was the point of Surtr/Ragnarok? 

Atreus just puts Odin's soul into a ball.  That's it?  That is the end of Odin?  It feels unearned considering how Odin was built up.  

Sif hates Atreus the entire game.  And then, completely out of nowhere, she comes around the corner with Atreus friend to tell Thurd to take his side against Odin.  Again... what?  The whole Thor/Thurd/Sif story was weird too and a victim of how rushed the story was.  Someone on Reddit mentioned the second Thor fight should have happened way earlier and I agree.  

When we start the game, Freya HATES Kratos and wants to murder him.  And then they complete a mission and Freya quickly becomes sympathetic and forgiving of Kratos.  Come on now.  This was probably the first moment in the story where I was like... okay, this might not go well.

Why were we asked to waste so much time on the mask when it didn't make a difference in the end?  

Also some of the dialogue was... eh.  Mimir was great in the first game, but I didn't care for him in this one, he was more obnoxious than anything else.  Freya's was horrendous too.  In general the dialogue for every character was so much weaker, except maybe Kratos and Brok.  The chemistry between the characters of Kratos and Atreus were the only times I was like damn this is a great scene.

And once you realize that Mimir says "brother" or "little brother" every other line, man you will grow sick of him fast.

The Kratos death prophecy.  I didn't expect him to die... but they didn't even tease it as a possibility.  He never came close to dying.  

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed this game and I absolutely 100% would still recommend this game to anyone.  And I'm going to put more hours in with the post-game stuff and side missions I didn't complete.  But man the story had me rolling my eyes by the end of it.  Probably why I rushed through it.  I just wanted to get it over with.  Such a shame because GOW (2018) had a great story that they took their time with, some of the best dialogue, and moments that felt earned.  This game had very little of that and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  A damn shame.

Edited December 4, 2022 by iknowcool

[Jakuvious]

12 hours ago, iknowcool said:

And what really made me think of Game of Thrones was how somehow, someway, they are able to gather all these armies within like 1 day.  We spend both games learning how Dark Elves and Light Elves hate each other.  And Freyr is able to unite them just like that?  And then, like 30 seconds into the Ragnarok mission... "we are running out of armies."  What?  And what was the point of Surtr/Ragnarok? 

 

This gets even more fun in the post game, when you go back to Alfheim, Freya makes a comment about how it will be nice to not have the elves all hating and attacking them, and then Mimir says well.....no, and that's it.