Maybe one of the most uneven video gaming experiences I've ever had the fortune/misfortune of, uhh... experiencing! No joke, about halfway through Ragnarok, I was dead set on dropping it completely. I had even put my copy up for sale on eBay. I was finding the game a slog to get through in general, but I hit a particularly rough patch at the point in the story when Atreus first meets Angrboda. Playing as Atreus was greatly inferior to playing as Kratos for starters, but this boring ass segment of the game dragged on for sooooooo long, culminating in a terrible boss fight against a giant old lady with dementia. Little advancement in the narrative, an annoyingly quirky companion to put up with, endless 'quippy' dialogue, shallow gameplay and worst of all... yodelling. It was awful and almost single-handedly undid all of the good work that Cory Barlog and his team had achieved with GoW 2018.
Needless to say, God of War: Ragnarok's pacing in the first half is dreadful. DREADFUL. This game could quite easily have sliced off a good 5-10 hours from its main campaign, and it would've benefitted from it. 'More' does not automatically equal better.
Anyway, after mulling it over for a couple of days, I decided to return to the game and give it a second chance. And I'm really glad I did, because Ragnarok royally unfucks itself in its second half. That's where all the gold is. Meaningful story beats, snappier pacing, a focus on far more interesting characters (Odin, Thor, Heimdall, Freya, Brok) and some pretty stunning set-pieces/boss fights to behold. Even the segments where you play as Atreus are a lot more enjoyable because the plot finally kicks into gear, and you're a lot more invested in what's going on, even if it does mean having to play as a more shallow version of Kratos.
There are definitely parallels with TLoU Pt2 to draw here; a Sony sequel that likewise pushed for a grander scope and longer running time and suffered for it in the process. Ragnarok undeniably improves on its predecessor in key areas, but its shortcomings shine a spotlight on the importance of pacing, and how much the artificial lengthening of a game's campaign can really drag down the whole experience. As I write this now, I find it borderline miraculous that I'm giving the game a score of 4 out of 5, given how low I was feeling on it at one point. If you're maybe someone who ditched the game within the first 20 hours and you're reading this, my advice to you is - stick with it. It does get really good eventually. It's just a shame you have to suffer before it does.
Needless to say, God of War: Ragnarok's pacing in the first half is dreadful. DREADFUL. This game could quite easily have sliced off a good 5-10 hours from its main campaign, and it would've benefitted from it. 'More' does not automatically equal better.
Anyway, after mulling it over for a couple of days, I decided to return to the game and give it a second chance. And I'm really glad I did, because Ragnarok royally unfucks itself in its second half. That's where all the gold is. Meaningful story beats, snappier pacing, a focus on far more interesting characters (Odin, Thor, Heimdall, Freya, Brok) and some pretty stunning set-pieces/boss fights to behold. Even the segments where you play as Atreus are a lot more enjoyable because the plot finally kicks into gear, and you're a lot more invested in what's going on, even if it does mean having to play as a more shallow version of Kratos.
There are definitely parallels with TLoU Pt2 to draw here; a Sony sequel that likewise pushed for a grander scope and longer running time and suffered for it in the process. Ragnarok undeniably improves on its predecessor in key areas, but its shortcomings shine a spotlight on the importance of pacing, and how much the artificial lengthening of a game's campaign can really drag down the whole experience. As I write this now, I find it borderline miraculous that I'm giving the game a score of 4 out of 5, given how low I was feeling on it at one point. If you're maybe someone who ditched the game within the first 20 hours and you're reading this, my advice to you is - stick with it. It does get really good eventually. It's just a shame you have to suffer before it does.