Despite how recently it was released, God of War has not only been considered by many as one of the PlayStation 4's best exclusives, but also one of the best video game rebootquels in recent memory and even one of the best games of the 2010s. Since it beat Red Dead Redemption II for Game of the Year back in 2018, I was curious to see what apparently made this game better than one of my very favorite games of all time, and after beating the game, I'm still wondering that, because God of War felt like a complete chore to play. This game did get one thing right, though, and I'll go over it quickly before getting into why I found the overall experience to be so unfun and derivative. Although practically every new AAA release tries to look and feel "cinematic", God of War did just enough in that aspect for it to feel at least a little fresh, as the use of one continuous take meshed really well with the game's lifelike visuals, rugged art direction, and ancient Scandinavian setting.
For every step that the game's atmosphere takes, the writing, gameplay, and heavy dependence on tired mechanics and systems make the game take a thousand steps back before ensuring that it steps on a giant bear trap. Now, I've only been able to play God of War III due to the unavailability of the first two games on eighth generation consoles, but I still thought that this game's combat was a huge step down from the original trilogy, as Kratos felt clunky to control with how slow his attacks, dodges, and parries were to execute. Fighting several enemies at once made me feel like I was about to have an aneurysm, as the issues of attacks from both you and your spongy enemies suddenly deciding when to land and when to miss are suddenly quadrupled when you have to deal with all of these other similarly annoying enemies, along with how the camera is so close to Kratos at all times that you can't even see more than one enemy on screen. What I especially disliked about the game's enemy encounters was how almost every single boss in God of War was a troll with a giant rock, complete with the exact same attacks and death animations that you have to see over and over again.
The unintuitive and awkward combat of God of War ties in with another one of its bigger issues, as this game felt like a mishmash of every single unoriginal trend that is present in so many modern AAA releases, and the use of those tropes is worsened by how halfhearted their executions were. In addition to the repetitive combat, God of War is plagued with a skill tree and a crafting/upgrade system that we've seen a thousand times before, and the former system doesn't work because almost none of the abilities you unlock for your weapons are nearly as effective as just pressing R1 or R2, while the latter system doesn't work because everyone is going to play this game in the exact same way, which makes the idea of locking the resources needed to craft high-level armor pieces behind a treasure trove of predictable and boring side quests even more puzzling than it already is. Speaking of which, God of War can't decide whether it wants to be an open world game or something more linear, so it decides to combine worse versions of each by filling the game with asinine collectibles and tasks that you literally have no reason to go for, with the only ones that were of any real use being Iðunn's Apples and Horns of Blood Mead.
Pretty much all of the clichés that I had just mentioned were entirely related to the gameplay, but they unfortunately made their way to the story. Not only is God of War yet another story about a grizzled old man and a bratty younger sidekick going on a journey together, but it also features the video game storytelling equivalent to bureaucracy in the form of having the plot constantly grind itself to a halt so that you have to grab some item or talk to some person before having to do those exact things again. As bad and uninspired as all of those aspects of this game were, nothing about God of War got on my nerves nearly as much as its aggravating dialogue and unbearable inclusions of humor, and that especially goes for literally everything that came out of Atreus' mouth. Throughout all 20+ hours of this game, this useless little kid never stops running his mouth, which also means that he tells you the answer to every puzzle before you even get the chance to think, comments on every single thing that happens in the game with some variation of "Well, that happened!", and constantly screams phrases like "FIRE, INCOMING!" and "WATCH OUT!" over and over again in his infuriatingly screechy voice during every single enemy encounter. Atreus is definitely the worst offender when it came to keeping me infuriated throughout the game, but he wasn't the only one to do so, as Mímir did the exact same things while also constantly spouting exposition during boat trips, and Sindri's running gag about his aversion to anything gross or dirty started out annoying before getting more and more anger-inducing as the game went on. Pretty much everything about God of War felt so market-tested, risk-free, tedious, and dull that I wondered what it was that so many people even saw in this game, and since God of War Ragnarök looks like more of the same, I really don't want to play that game at all.
For every step that the game's atmosphere takes, the writing, gameplay, and heavy dependence on tired mechanics and systems make the game take a thousand steps back before ensuring that it steps on a giant bear trap. Now, I've only been able to play God of War III due to the unavailability of the first two games on eighth generation consoles, but I still thought that this game's combat was a huge step down from the original trilogy, as Kratos felt clunky to control with how slow his attacks, dodges, and parries were to execute. Fighting several enemies at once made me feel like I was about to have an aneurysm, as the issues of attacks from both you and your spongy enemies suddenly deciding when to land and when to miss are suddenly quadrupled when you have to deal with all of these other similarly annoying enemies, along with how the camera is so close to Kratos at all times that you can't even see more than one enemy on screen. What I especially disliked about the game's enemy encounters was how almost every single boss in God of War was a troll with a giant rock, complete with the exact same attacks and death animations that you have to see over and over again.
The unintuitive and awkward combat of God of War ties in with another one of its bigger issues, as this game felt like a mishmash of every single unoriginal trend that is present in so many modern AAA releases, and the use of those tropes is worsened by how halfhearted their executions were. In addition to the repetitive combat, God of War is plagued with a skill tree and a crafting/upgrade system that we've seen a thousand times before, and the former system doesn't work because almost none of the abilities you unlock for your weapons are nearly as effective as just pressing R1 or R2, while the latter system doesn't work because everyone is going to play this game in the exact same way, which makes the idea of locking the resources needed to craft high-level armor pieces behind a treasure trove of predictable and boring side quests even more puzzling than it already is. Speaking of which, God of War can't decide whether it wants to be an open world game or something more linear, so it decides to combine worse versions of each by filling the game with asinine collectibles and tasks that you literally have no reason to go for, with the only ones that were of any real use being Iðunn's Apples and Horns of Blood Mead.
Pretty much all of the clichés that I had just mentioned were entirely related to the gameplay, but they unfortunately made their way to the story. Not only is God of War yet another story about a grizzled old man and a bratty younger sidekick going on a journey together, but it also features the video game storytelling equivalent to bureaucracy in the form of having the plot constantly grind itself to a halt so that you have to grab some item or talk to some person before having to do those exact things again. As bad and uninspired as all of those aspects of this game were, nothing about God of War got on my nerves nearly as much as its aggravating dialogue and unbearable inclusions of humor, and that especially goes for literally everything that came out of Atreus' mouth. Throughout all 20+ hours of this game, this useless little kid never stops running his mouth, which also means that he tells you the answer to every puzzle before you even get the chance to think, comments on every single thing that happens in the game with some variation of "Well, that happened!", and constantly screams phrases like "FIRE, INCOMING!" and "WATCH OUT!" over and over again in his infuriatingly screechy voice during every single enemy encounter. Atreus is definitely the worst offender when it came to keeping me infuriated throughout the game, but he wasn't the only one to do so, as Mímir did the exact same things while also constantly spouting exposition during boat trips, and Sindri's running gag about his aversion to anything gross or dirty started out annoying before getting more and more anger-inducing as the game went on. Pretty much everything about God of War felt so market-tested, risk-free, tedious, and dull that I wondered what it was that so many people even saw in this game, and since God of War Ragnarök looks like more of the same, I really don't want to play that game at all.