Santa Monica Studios dropped a masterpiece in 2018. God of War somehow serves as a continuation of Kratos' story while also being a reboot of the series. You can definitely play the game without any prior knowledge of the previous ones, it only enhances the experience.

On the surface, God of War tells a basic story of trying to climb a mountain to spread Kratos' late wife's ashes. Of course, there are many challenges that stop them along the way and prolong the journey. However, the true story is told through the character development of Atreus and Kratos. It is a touching story about family and Kratos being scared that his son will grow up to be like him. It's beautiful to see Kratos struggling with whether or not he can be a good father after everything he has done. The theme of family is even portrayed through all of the side plots within the game such as Brock and Sindri, and Baldur and his mother. It is very rare to see a game that has a narrative theme rooted so deeply within itself and it is one of the strongest aspects of GoW.

The gameplay is not overly complex but very fun. The combat has enough variety to not feel overly boring, and it even gets added depth after Kratos gains his second weapon. Valkyrie fights are where the combat system shines the brightest. They feel fast paced and give a good challenge in order to keep players engaged. Some low points of the combat are the low diversity of enemies. Fighting so many of the same minibosses and enemies starts to weigh on the player, especially near the end of the game. When not in combat, the game has simplistic puzzles or climbing sections that keep the player slightly engaged while characters talk to each other and reveal more of the story. I think that this was a great design and works very well in place of cutscenes for dialogue. These sections get slightly obnoxious near the end of the game due to the heavy amount of backtracking.

The designs and animations of the characters in the game are very high quality. Whenever Kratos lands a killing blow you are in for a treat. Even when you watch the same one on a troll for the 15th time. The score is also very well designed in the game, but, none of the tracks really jump out and stick with you after completion.

The side quests in GoW are extremely well designed. Almost all of them are in line with the games themes and add extra content to the game. There is a good amount of postgame content for players such as the Valkyrie fights or finding collectibles throughout the realms. The game has replayability options in the form of changing stats for different builds, and difficulty options. The only issue with replaying the game is that the dialogue and walking sections are far more annoying once you've already completed the game once.

All things considered, GoW 2018 is an amazing continuation of the story and could also serve as a good introduction to new players. With fun reactive combat, beautiful animations, a solid OST, and one of the most well written narratives in a while, it is easily one of the best games I have played in recent times.
( 92/100 )

A saga toda tem uma importância especial para mim, mas esse me marcou muito pois na época que lançou eu não tinha grana pra comprar e meus amigos fizeram uma vaquinha e me deram de presente, fiquei tão alucinado que joguei por dias sem parar, foi uma experiência muito marcante!

Eu não preciso ficar mencionando os aspectos técnicos pois quem jogou já sabe, mas é inegável todo o carinho que a literalmente "Santa" Mônica colocou aqui, a beleza desse universo é fabulosa e mascarar o load foi um capricho muito legal.

Esse foi o primeiro e provavelmente o único jogo que eu platinei, é uma platina fácil porém cansativa pelos colecionáveis, eu entendo a galera que desistiu.

E sobre o GOTY, mesmo amando a franquia e sendo fã eu também concordo que deveria ter sido RDR2, eu vi o vídeo do reboot e o PDM deu um argumento muito bacana sobre ter mudado quase que 100% a franquia, eu também concordo com aquilo mas ainda permaneço com a opinião inicial, mas poxa galera não precisa dizer que foi EXTREMAMENTE ROUBADO também né? Vamos aceitar a grandiosidade dessa obra. (não to falando do Reboot não, relaxa)

E eu não poderia deixar de mencionar a parte mais emblemática pra mim que é quando ele pega as Blades que estavam escondidas, MEU DEUS DO CÉU COMO EU CHOREI (carai viado até arrepiei aqui digitando), a aparição daquela vagabunda da Atena foi bem nostálgica "Eu não sou mais o SEU monstro"

E por fim, eu deixei pra matar a Sigrun depois de pegar todos os outros troféus, quando iniciei a batalha eu deixei meu celular me filmando junto com a tela, quando ela finalmente morreu e veio a sequência de "Deus vs Rainha" e depois "Pai e Filho" aí que eu chorei que nem criança, mandei o vídeo pra eles e riram da minha cara falando que eu era doente mental kkkkkkkkkkkkkk (detalhe, esse amigos não jogam nada), e eu completamente em êxtase, foi surreal.

Enfim, obrigado e parabéns se você chegou até aqui, é um jogo que me marcou muito e acho difícil algum passar dele, agora com licença que eu vou tomar um banho e lavar o meu "GA-RO-TO"

Graphics - 10/10
The graphics in this game take a realistic but stylised approach as is common with most PlayStation exclusive games. It is impressive how good they got this game to look on the PS4 and it looks even better on PS5.

Performance - 9/10
Never had a single performance issue with this game on PS5 with the game running at a steady 60 fps. However, the game does stutter quite a lot on my PC even with it installed on an SSD, although I haven't tried it in at least a year so it may have improved.

Story - 10/10
The story in this game had me hooked the entire time and I didn't want to put it down after I started.

Gameplay - 8/10
Combat can be difficult at times and the animations make it satisfying to play. There are large parts of the game that are just walking and either looking at the pretty scenery or listening to a character talk which can get boring at times. However, most of these sections are broken up by exciting combat before they start to get boring. There are a few of these sections that do go on for too long though.

Completionism and Endgame - 7/10
You will get the majority of the achievements for this game for just going through the story and there are a couple of achievements linked to the collectibles and beating postgame bosses which I won't mention for spoiler reasons. The collectibles can get tedious to collect though and I personally do not like doing them.