God of War is a technically stunning game, rivaling the generations best in terms of graphic fidelity and presentation. But after that initial "wow" factor passed, I was left a little underwhelmed by the rest of the package in comparison.

Gameplay wise, you will see 90% of the combat the game has to offer within the first 5ish hours. Sure you can unlock some new moves, but the basic combos you'll be using are the same combos you have access to in the beginning. You'll also be facing a lot of the same enemies, right down to the same exact same troll mini-boss you have in the opening of the game.

I was having the most fun in God of War when I was figuring out a new enemy or when I was in a brutal boss fight putting everything Kratos has into a fight. Sadly there are only 4 "real" boss fights in the game that pull out all the stops, and one of them is a rematch. The opening fight against Baldur in the beginning of the game was probably my favorite out of them all, which is a shame. If there were more boss fights on the same scale as the one used to open the game with, I would have no problem counting this game as one of the generations best.

I also dislike when games don't show a cohesive focus or vision. In God of War's case, it loves to hide little collectibles around and promote exploration, but the exploration is so much worse than the story. Clearly God of War was developed with its story beats in mind, which has lead to the exploration aspect of the game feeling like it was added "just because that's what games do". I felt it was distracting more than engaging. That goes for the loot system as well.

The biggest "dropped ball" so to speak was the fact that some of the game's most interesting fights are found in the side content. There are hidden valkyries around the world map you can fight, but they are totally skippable. My question is why though? The same troll boss was used so many times, why not use the valkyries as some of those fights to freshen things up? It doesn't make sense. And as I said, exploration is just not that fun in this game. Breath of the Wild it is not. Hiding some of the best content behind the worst part of your game is baffling.

Purely from a technical perspective God of War is masterful. But it needed a bit more gameplay showcases to really make it stand out, so as it stands it's a great but not perfect game.

If you've ever played a Zelda game, you're probably familiar with the narrative setup of having to find a few mcguffins to be able to progress before having to find a second and final set. God of War 2018's setup is like this but instead of a set, you're constantly looking for a singular item, making some progress, then needing to backtrack to find another item to make more progress. This isn't the only comparison one can make to the Zelda series as Atreus and Kratos get new abilities and i tems that help solve puzzles. These are never particularly difficult to solve but are better than the constant block pushing of prior games. In fact the whole world feels somewhat built like one giant Zelda dungeon. Unlocking new abilities and areas as you progress with the main story, and returning to a hub area to make use of these.
This setup is mechanically satisfying as many years of Zelda has proven, but it goes against the narrative of the title. A father and son journeying to the highest peak in all the realms is a narrative built on forward momentum. The story ends up feeling meandering as there's always a new roadblock that forces them all the way back to the lake of nine.
This frequent back and forth would be better if the game didn't have dozens upon dozens of hidden loading screens that are more blatantly loading screens than not. My computer is powerful enough to load these areas much quicker than a PS4 could, but this design forces me to slowly crawl through crevices or listen to Mimir's entire tale before leaving the fast travel zone. Admittedly, I enjoyed the dialogue in the game. The banter between characters and how they acted towards eachother was decent fun, but as you backtrack for hidden goodies with your new tools the characters stay eerily quiet in spite of the wealth of dialogue to listen to during boat rides.

I'm not as negative about the combat as other people are, but its problems and flaws are apparent. Mouse and Keyboard controls help mitigate the issues with the camera to an extent, but you're still going to get backed into corners with awkward viewing angles at points. The entire RPG system feels like an afterthought. You always want to go for the higher levels because stats don't matter. If an enemy is too high a level they will shrug off attacks and their attacks will become unblockable. This ends up feeling inconsistent because the same exact enemy can either be juggled by Kratos or stand rock solid on the ground, instakilling the greek god.
When you get into the zone and properly use both Kratos and Atreus the combat is a lot of fun, but some annoying enemies get in the way regardless of their level. Variety is low, and several frequent ones have annoying status effects or gimmicks to deal with whenever you face them.
It never reaches the lows of the first two God of War titles but fails to reach their highs either. Spectacle is present, but it never feels spectacular to me. The consistently close in camera fails to convey the sense of scale of things like the classic camera from the trilogy could with its multiple angles.

God of War 2018 is a solid action adventure romp but it never resonated with me quite as strongly as it does for others. It's superior to the first two titles in the series, but I found myself more consistently engaged in the furious antics of Kratos' finale on Olympus than I did in this somewhat scatterbrained adventure.

This was my first full playthrough of a God of War game and it was a great time. A Greek god building a life in Norse realm just sounds real cool. Through out the adventure I stopped many times just to look around and enjoy the masterfully crafted scenery this game offers. From frozen mountain tops to scorched earth mountains it was real easy to just indulge in the visuals. The music didn’t show too often for me but when it did, it was a pleasant sound, i just hoped for more of it. Action! This games combat is great! A lot of great combinations to tie together that feel so satisfying to land. Even when you don’t quite land your combo you can recover and back into the actions seamlessly. When the fights got more difficult I found myself customizing my abilities and enhancements to suite that specific encounter, so there is plenty of customization you can do on your stats. Finally the story of this game is original, almost seems to blend with the classic epics of the ancient world like if we were discovering new story’s from Norse mythology.

For me, this is a next-gen game. From the start of the first cutscene to the last one, it truly felt like a cinematic experience with gameplay involved. This game suffers from RPG trope of "OH I CAN GET +3% POISON RESISTANCE IF I SWITCH THIS GEAR" and repeated enemies but it's all relatively minor compared to what the game sets out to do. From boss battles to execution animations to ordering your son around, this game achieves everything it sets out to do and lets future generations know "this is what a goddamn action adventure game should look like, start to finish."

boy, what a experince.

the thing with games like this is that i love them for being great story games from the opening sequence to the endgame. i sat and just played this game's story for an entire day, and was glad i wasnt done with it there and then.

my favorite part of games like this is always going for the open world stuff post story as i just love exploring the worlds that the games have to offer.