To call God of War Ragnarok a flawless masterpiece is overselling things a touch. Hell, I'd even say it falls short of it's predecessor. It does little to shake up the formula established by God of War 2018, at times feeling like Santa Monica is too afraid of failure to mess with their award-winning success. The story is also far more grand and expansive than the previous game's, but at the same time loses that simple character-driven excellence and perfectly paced storyline that made 2018's the best in gaming.

However, if you can look past these flaws (and make it through a horrifically slow first third), you'll find that Ragnarok is a truly excellent game, one well worth your time. The excellent combat from the first game returns, this time with a much richer enemy variety for you to sink your blades into. Plus, although there are plenty of issues with the story, the epic finale to the Norse tale that began four years ago is ultimately very satisfying, bolstered by an incredibly stellar voice cast and giving many moments that will give fans plenty to laugh and cry over. In the end, I think this is a game that will only improve when revisited, as the things that shine brightest will continue to be loved, while the game's problems may fade into the background.

I'm gonna preface this by saying I've played every God of war game, from ps2 to ps5. I'll always prefer the raw combat of classic God of war, but that being said, Ragnarok is an improvement on 2018.

If you liked that, it's basically just more of what you'd come to expect. There's some changes to the upgrades and skill tree, more side quests and more exploration, too.

The performances by the cast are great, and this is still my favorite version of Kratos, as well. Exploring and hearing dialogue was probably the highlight for me again, as it was with 2018. I guess to sum up my thoughts, there's a lot to love in the current iteration,

what the team gave us with Ragnarok is still a well-crafted adventure, but to me personally misses a lot of elements of what made the series special. I'd say wait for a price drop if you want to experience it, personally.

I still enjoyed my time with it, and there's a lot to love, but it felt like I was moving from point A to B for story. I'm passionate about God of war, a lifelong fan and am happy the current series continues to exist and thrive, but I'll always want to see it improve, be better.

Side note, you can really notice a lot of whats holding the game back being cross-gen, a lot of tight wall squeezes and "can you give me a boost" areas to mask loading. I imagine there would be quite less of that if the game was being made as a current gen only title.

This game is worth playing if you are into platformers. It is definitely one that is easy enough for a newcomer to video games to pick up too. It's definitely a better game than Kirby Star Allies, as you can actually enjoy it playing solo and it won't feel so empty like the other game without friends. As with about every Kirby game ever created it has him fighting some super strong enemy that can either destroy a planet/universe/manipulate dimensions as the final boss (It really is just a running gag of having this cute puff ball fight these serious strong characters at the end). There isn't much story in this game, but that isn't a detractor as that of course is not what the game is meant to be played for, same as Super Mario Bros. games.

Pros:
1. Cute, beautiful looking game.
2. Solid soundtrack.
3. Enjoyable platformer overall that has a bit of a challenge for those who seek it (This is pretty much how all Kirby games are. Easy overall for the newcomer, but can be challenging also for video game veterans with the optional stuff).
4. The post game content is surprisingly good, but still quite short.
5. The copy abilities all feel powerful. They did a really good job of making them all feel unique and strong in their own right. Upgrading them all feels really good to do too and worth it.
6. The time trial challenges in the game are quite fun, and honestly I wish more were added through DLC or even just as a separate Kirby game like Toad Treasure Tracker from Mario 3D World.

Cons:
1. Game is too easy, even with its challenging segments. The dodge mechanic if used makes the game laughably easy.
2. Restrictions are put on Kirby's flying ability where he can't fly forever (Never tried the easy mode, so not sure if it's different there), and he can't go as high as he wants. It's not really a con, but for me I view it as so because it just feels off not letting Kirby fly as he pleases just to make it feel more like a Super Mario Bros. game. The game punishes you for flying anyways by making your travel speed really slow which is fine, it just irked me from playing past Kirby games (I am being extremely nitpicky on this point. They restricted Kirby's flying ability in this game, so the platforming wouldn't be broken in the game, it was done for the sake of the game, which is fine).
3. The figure collecting was not for me, and I also did not like how the game would stop me in my tracks for a few seconds every time I collected a random collectible in a stage. I'm just not a huge fan of virtual collectibles in games anymore.

Elden Ring is the culmination of the amazing systems- and leveldesign that From Software has made their fame with. Elden Ring is not a game that I believe pays back the amount of time and frustration it asks of me.

Now before you accuse me of being a contrarian for the sake of it, let me explain. I am not saying Elden Ring is a bad game, far from it. It is an amazing experiment and truly a work of great skill and design. I just think the game wants to do too many things at once, and, as someone not entirely familiar with Souls-games, that confusion had an effect on me as the player.

Elden Ring wants to be an open-world with free-form exploration of both your environment and your favorite way to dispatch the enemies ahead of you. Elden Ring also wants to be a punishing game that demands precision and determination. On top of that, it wands to build a new universe divergent from the now-familiar setting type of the Dark Souls trilogy. In attempting to be all of these, I believe it succeeds only in the exploration pillar - and by that I mean only the exploring of the world.

Why is that? Well, to put it simply - Elden Ring makes me feel like I play the game wrong. Whenever I engage in the exploration side of the game, I let myself wander and stumble into new wondrous places that I want to see every nook and cranny of - only to be met with a boss or enemy that I either have no trouble with at all, or I am underleveled for. Whenever I engage with the pleasure-through-overcoming side of the game, I buckle down for a hard fight, but have to grapple with janky lock-on systems or cheesy boss designs with input tracking and long combos. When I want to engage with Elden Ring's story or setting, I am left wondering why I do not care for the stories behind the large ruins that litter the games' landscapes. Don't get me wrong - I am fully aware that I have only played 20 hours of this game and that this game has much more world and gameplay to offer beyond this point. I just feel like 20 hours is plenty of time for a game to prove itself, and Elden Ring didn't.

Elden Ring is a grand experiment that ends in confusion for me, personally. I am happy that everyone derived so much enjoyment from this game, and that the game's open world design will inspire many other in the future. But when a game expects you to look up in wonder at your surroundings, yet makes you feel like you want to look up a guide online, I believe that sense of wonder is lost. At least for me, anyway.

As I found myself circling a zombified grunt at the tutorial area of Elden Ring in order to perform the classic Souls backstab, I subconsciously knew right then and there what game I would be playing for the next 100+ hours, and not even that first sight of the ethereal Erdtree and its expansive surrounding landscape managed to swat away that sinking feeling.

"Dark Souls but open world" is a fairly justifiable tag line that Elden Ring earns with distinction for many, but it's one I interpret in a less charitable way. Considering how cruficied Bloodborne was over its optional chalice dungeon content, it's a bit surprising now to see a map filled with it deal with such little critical scrutiny by its fanbase, having an overreliance in copy pasted settings, bosses and mysteries that ends up homogenizing the experience of discovery and reward.

These issues are par for the course when dealing with the open world genre, and they would be acceptable had the space inbetween them provided any semblance of evolution on the Souls formula to acommodate the shift in scope. Double jumping horse aside, the unaltered Dark Souls moveset doesn't really offer compelling exploration outside of the small pockets of dungeon content, and when most of the interesting and unique content is relegated to the main story dungeons of the game, it's hard not to question if Elden Ring really needed to be open world in the first place.

The obssession with Dark Souls 3 boss design places you into a strict familiar pattern where stat and weapon experimentation are heavily punished, as most bosses have at least one "fuck you" move that one hit kills you for no reason, and weapon crafting insists on being a time consuming and expensive endeavor that forces you to hold onto the same high damage boring greatsword. It's telling that in a roster of 100+ bosses, Renalla, Radahn and Rykard are the only bosses I fondly remember, as they provide a challenge that goes beyond constant I-frame dodge rolling and memorizing fake out attacks.

And make no mistake, Elden Ring is Dark Souls 4, not just in the way it plays but also in the way it tells its story. Despite taking place in a different universe with new gods and lore to learn of and decipher, it has become evidently clear by now that Miyazaki and his team really have only one story to tell. Sure, it is still a fascinating story, but when I'm once again learning about secret crystal magic, beasts and dragons preceeding humanity, golden orders that are built upon lies, or chaotic forbidden flames that threathen the status quo, through the same obtuse and obfuscated dialogue and storytelling that defines these games, I struggle to find reason to engage with it with the same enthusiasm I once had for it.

Concepts like the Scarlet Rot or Destined Death are interesting enough to have had been the sole creative well to take from, but are forced to share the spotlight with the ever increasing and convoluted list of ideas Elden Ring has to offer that unnecessarily overcomplicate its world with a vast number of uninteresting factions, outer gods and characters that dont have the space to develop and enrich the universe of the game, robbing Elden Ring of the opportunity to create a laser focused experience like Bloodborne. Is Rykard's house of horrors that much different from every other castle you end up in Elden Ring? Or can we agree that the Dark Souls 3 formula has sanitized the world design of theses games to a point that they no longer have the capability to put you inside a world in the same manner Demon's Souls once could?

It's an odd thing to be this critical of Elden Ring, considering it still manages to be one of the most compelling triple A titles of recent years, with amazing creative art direction, original storytelling and engaging challenges to overcome, maintaining the strengths of the series that makes it stand out from everything else in the market, then and now. Conveying how threathening Caelid is by the mere act of the player walking into it represents some of the best environmental storytelling you will see, and the confidence to make so much of Elden Ring's content optional and secret turns the nonchalant reveal of a whole hidden area to explore beneath the overworld map one of the highlights of the series. It contains some of the best tragedy filled NPC questlines that characterizes the franchise, with Ranni's being a standout in the way it presents the most tradicional story arc in a Souls game and Diallos' being a noted highlight that feels like it could have come straight out of a GRRM book.

But at this point in time, 10+ year of Souls games, Elden Ring ironically and unintendely further reinforces metatextually the themes of stagnation and extending the life of something that has long gone past its prime. In his pursuit to perfect the Souls formula into his idealized game, Miyazaki has instead dilluted the small quirks, nuances and idiosyncrasies that made the series so groundbreaking and revolutionary all those years ago, and has fallen into a cycle of redundancy and iteration that has quickly trapped the series into a niche of comfort food. Sadly, Elden Ring is not the game we have all been waiting for that dispels the notion that open world is an inevitable flawed genre with diminishing returns, and it is also not the promise of the evolution the franchise has been desperately in need of. Maybe it is time to extinguish this flame and usher in a new age once and for all.