I went out of my way to 100% and platinum God of War Ragnarök, so I have a lot to say about this game. I am a massive God of War fan. I got the collector's edition of Ragnarök and God of War III is my second favorite game of all time. I'm extremely happy that God of War has become so popular once again, even if it isn't the incredible testosterone induced bloodbath that I originally loved it for. God of war 4 (I refuse to call it "God of War 2018") was a near perfect game that phenomenally reflected on the God of War series as a whole in a beautiful and powerful way. I was almost positive that a sequel could never live up to, or exceed it. And to some extent, I think I was right.

To start off, the combat of Ragnarök is amazing. It's still just as satisfying to rip a dude into pieces as it's ever been. The boss fights in particular are an immense highlight here, especially towards the end of the game. I loved fighting every giant monster and god that the game threw at me, it was a rush every single time. My only complaints are that some encounters feel a little too annoying. Like whenever the game throws several large enemies at you, on harder difficulties it's hard to remain on the offensive. The same goes for some of the berserker fights, some of which are just completely unfun to fight, like the one that just does bifrost damage to you if you're near her, or the one that has two companions that constantly attack you with elemental powers (these were particularly annoying since the game expects you to throw your axe at their giant floating death balls, but the screen would just lock on to one of the people throwing the death balls, resulting in you taking unnecessary damage). But overall, the combat was just as good as 4's, which is both a good thing and a bad thing (I'll get more into that in a bit).

The narrative however, is basically perfect. The character arcs of all the characters are phenomenal, especially Kratos and Atreus'. Every character felt perfected by the end of the game, and while there were some moments and character decisions that frustrated and confused me at first, they all ended up having perfect payoffs, completely obliterating any complaints I had. If I were just judging this game's writing, it would be an instant 10/10.
Though there are a few minor issues. Like how there are a few elements and even characters that are introduced that basically just end up being situation solvers later in the game, but that didn't bother me too much. What did bother me a bit more was some of the dialogue. It can be...kind of cringeworthy at times. Most of the time it's great! But every once in a while it feels like a writer from The Big Bang Theory came in and wrote a line out of nowhere. There's a particular line that Angrboda says to Atreus that's just so horrible it made me groan out loud and completely took me out of the game for a few minutes.
However, while I have a few gripes with the writing here and there, it's basically flawless otherwise, so they don't bother me too much.

Now that I've gone over the stuff I love, it's time to get into my criticisms. If it wasn't for these two problems, the game would easily be a perfect ten for me.

First, I can't help but feel that Ragnarök is constantly existing within God of War 4's shadow. When I went into this game, I was expecting God of War 5, but I ended up getting God of War 4: Part 2. Admittedly, that's mostly my fault for having those expectations, as Santa Monica Studios clearly intended this, but it still just feels odd to me.
I mentioned before how the combat feels just as good as the previous game, and this is where the problem comes in. It feels just as good because it's basically identical to the previous game. Sure, it gives you a new weapon and some new abilities here and there, but in the end, I just felt like I was playing the same game again, just with a fresher coat of paint. Again, this was clearly what the creators were intending, so I can't be too upset by it, I was just hoping for a little bit more.
But what really confuses me, and what really set up these grandiose expectations in the first place, was the choice to have this game be directed by somebody else. Cory Barlog, the director of God of War 4, did multiple interviews with multiple sites and magazines, stating the reasons for this change. He stated that this was done as a way to motivate employees by making them feel as though any of them could achieve the role of director in the future, and to carry on the series tradition of having a new director each game.
For the first point, ignoring the current status of the triple A video game industry and how few games Santa Monica makes, resulting in there being few director positions in the first place; this is admirable. It's nice to give your employees something to work forward to. But as for the second point, I like it in theory, but in practice, it means very little. In the old God of War games, you could really tell each game was directed by a different person. The games all looked and felt different, like they were a product of a specific director's vision that didn't carry over between games. Some people might not like this, but I believe this is part of the charm of the older games. I particularly love how The Realm of Hades is depicted drastically differently in each game. As for Ragnarök however, if it wasn't told to me over and over again in multiple interviews, I wouldn't have even noticed there was a new director. It functions and looks exactly the same as 4, they even go out of their way to do the whole "done in one shot" thing that the last game did (it ends up being way more obvious and obnoxious here than it did in 4). Again, it's clear this was the intent, but god, I just wanted it to be a little bit more. As it is, I don't think people will really remember Ragnarök in the future, they'll just remember God of War 4: Part 2, which is a real shame.

Now, onto my biggest problem with the game, the thing that might completely break the game for some people. And that is: the pacing. Not narratively, of course, but gameplay wise. The first half of the game, roughly twenty or so hours, are completely bottlenecked with overly long, gratuitous cutscenes and painful hand-holding linear segments where you do almost nothing but walk forward in a near straight line. If you see people online arguing that this game is "just a cinematic game" or "has more cutscenes then gameplay", that just means they only played for the first twenty or so hours and gave up with it. And sadly, I can't fault them for that. Everything after the halfway point is fantastic, especially the massive open world are you get to explore later on, but you have to put up with the restrictive first hours to get there, and I completely understand if people don't want to put up with that.
Don't get me wrong, there are some explorative open-world moments during the first half of the game, but none of them hit the same way as God of War 4. This is largely in part to how the open world feels. Instead of having the hub world like The Lake of Nine to slowly explore as the game goes on, there's just segments smaller worlds to explore by themselves. It makes the world feel separated, instead of a whole cohesive experience like the previous game. Without Tyr's Temple to travel around the nine realms, it just doesn't work the same, at least not until the later half of the game anyway.
Where this restrictive nature is at its absolute worst is during the frustrating, and borderline awful Atreus segments. Of all the segments, most of them are way too long and offer such little exploration that it feels as though the whole story comes to a halt. During some of the segments, Atreus is given an item that points to where he and the other character are meant to go next, but since his levels are just a straight line, it's effectively nothing more than an awkward mechanic you're forced to used when the game feels like it. At best, it made me laugh, at worst it frustrated me.
But nothing was worth than the second Atreus segment. That segment was roughly two hours of just walking forward, slowly, while another character just explained stuff to Atreus. After the first hour, I felt annoyed and done. By the second hour, I didn't want to play the game at all anymore. While I do love everything else in the game, this segment was so horrendously terrible that I sadly have no intention of ever playing Ragnarök ever again. Which is partly why I'm glad I platinumed it.

Overall, I clearly have plenty of complaints towards this game, but the parts of the game that work are phenomenal. The writing in particular is stellar, and managed to bring me to tears multiple times, especially towards the end. However, while this game is astounding, some of the design philosophies, as well as the way the game industry functions nowadays, prevent this game from being as great as it could be. If you go into this game expecting God of War 5 like I did, you might be disappointed. But if you go in expecting the end of the Norse duology, you'll probably end up loving it to death, as long as you can handle the early game cutscenes and rough pacing.