Undoubtedly one of the best games ever made, with a perfect balance of story and gameplay, some of the most meaty and engaging character work in the medium, a combat system thats a fresh take on its character action past that feels familiar yet is utterly unique, with new ways to combine and use moves, combos, specials, tunics, Atreus, Atreus specials, the different weapons, dodging, blocking and parrying as well as parry attacks and dodge attacks seemingly crawling out of the woodwork, feeling like I'm discovering it all for the first time even on my fifth playthrough, with the highest tier of art design and music you can find in a video game. It is, quite simply, a monumental achievement of this hobby we all love so much and it never seems to get old. It even retains the classic DMC-like level structure that character action games use as a Bible and adds more puzzles and a small open world element that is totally optional and fits wonderfully in with the main story.

But I'm always praising this game, what about things it does wrong? It's not perfect, Alfheim is a pretty frustrating level which is wierd because it's basically the first level, but there are more pressing issues with the game which I've been able to really pinpoint starting from a fresh, clean save. Firstly the big issue that everyone brings up, the camera, whilst for the most part it works really well, and helps make Kratos feel more lumbering in his age, there are times where it feels like just having it be more dynamic camera that pulls out to accommodate enemies would work better, especially once acquiring the Blades of Chaos a little under halfway through the game. The little arrow they give you to try and compensate simply doesn't do the job, and it's a shame because it leads to occasions where it really feels like I'm not at fault, the game is, which should never happen. Also, whilst the rate at which you unlock new moves and abilities feels great past a point, the segment of time before you first meet Brock feels like it's really holding back on letting you play with all the toys it has for you. I'm already wowed by the way everything feels by the time the Balfour fight happens, why do I have to wait all the way until Brock (about 1:45-2:00h into the game) to start unlocking better abilities. And speaking of Brock, another issue that is always raised is the upgrades and gear system, it feels half-assed and not fleshed out. I don't care about all these vague stats my armour can give me that have no meaningful and immediate gameplay impact, the things I can put on my weapons that offer different abilities, those are good, they make me really think about my loadout, but having to upgrade and craft and buy things with no satisfying outcome is tedious.

But at the end of the day the camera being bad only interrupts gameplay once in a blue moon, the holding back from giving you moves barely affects the first two hours of the game (in a 20 hour game), and you could play the entire game ignoring the armour, crafting and upgrades systems and not feel like you're missing out on anything integral, they're very minor qualms, surprisingly.

So there, whilst I still think this is a masterpiece and I very much worry that Ragnarok couldn't possibly hold a candle to it, I've now replayed it, from a clean save, in preparation for its release, and boy is the hype train chugging along!