Seems this years god of war ragnarok is Spider-Man 2. Chatty NPCs that you have to listen to all the time alongside gameplay that is excellent, the improvements are great such as the web lines which you can shoot almost anywhere. Like many open world games, SPM2 does overdo it with the amount of side missions and activities however paced it with the story, won’t open up some of them until you make enough campaign progress - which is the point after all. However will you make as much straightforward progress without leveling up with rewards you get from these side missions? Likely not. It’s a great game in short bursts.

But overall, take your time - maybe pick it up when you’ve got like 30 minutes. Why? Because that’s how it’s built. It’s not trying to be entertaining enough to sit there for 3-4 hours straight playing this.

This game does have a lot going for it, the survival mechanics that exist in this game which i think was a nice touch, the need to fix things that break, etc. help separate it from most other open sandbox games out there (and scenery is lovely blah blah).

What I can’t stand is that you get radio calls (that you can ignore by pressing a button) of usually a politically charged nature that you can never stop from happening. This is a small thing, but even when the protagonist complains about the calls when they come in, it feels like you should have been able to turn off the radio completely. The lack of such a simple feature makes me feel like there was intent here.

Otherwise, a pretty nice looking and feeling game if you can look beyond the rough spots plot-wise as well.

The combat and gameplay are excellently evolved from the first (fourth mainline) installment from 2018, however there is a lot of the exposition getting in its own way. Where 2018 God of War was tied back and tried to do more with less, Ragnarok tries to add more meat (which was needed) but gets excited and goes down a lot more roads on the main journey than it should. Seeing your enemy’s POV is one thing, but when you’re on the doorstop of the end of days, you mainly want to kick that door open and start taking people down. Some of the legacy GOW feeling comes back which is excellent and much needed, but there’s a fair amount of moments that feel melodramatic, when the point has already been made but the story beats continue like it hasn’t.

Worth the play though it almost wasn’t.

Worth your time and consideration - BUT really depends on how you feel after 6 hours of playing or so. As you connect bases, the passive asynchronous help you get from other people playing the game (bridges they built or started) is something truly cool.

Kojima’s personality cult aside, this studio added lots of very interesting aspects to this game that really gave life to it so it didn’t feel like you were just pissing your life away hoofing it from one base to the next (though to be honest, this is what the first 6 hrs feel like).

This game is unfortunately a disappointment though it is also quite amazing and I'm glad that Oddworld is still around in the year 2021. There are still moments that this game is a bit glitchy in problematic ways even over a month since release (which I try to forgive but affects the way the game plays). Can be pretty unforgiving in an unfun way, mudokons will die thanks to random chance at times, and you will run into pretty steep inclines of difficulty just to get a passing rating on a level. These level ratings determine the ending of the game so they are important. There are innovations like counters for how many mudokons you've found and a crafting system that forces abe to fight rather than possess to fight, but it can get old. I like it but it needs more polish and different decisions.

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After shelving I finished this. The ending cutscene didn’t play which sucked (this was after the patch), and there’s not a place for you to rewatch them (they are really beautiful movies) like in the good old oddworld games. I really hope that the patching continues because what’s there could be better. Maybe it’s my fault for buying it too early.