The ending of a story can color everything that came before, for better or worse. This is something I have to keep reminding myself as I have tried to think about how I would review God of War Ragnarok, because I felt, as many have, that the game felt more and more rushed as the titular finale came closer and closer. But ultimately, thinking back on the moments of the journey, I can't let my judgement be too clouded, because there was so much I loved (and honestly, the ending wasn't even bad, it just didn't live up to what came before).

In many ways, the simplest way to assess Ragnarok is that it is the inverse of its predecessor– while God of War had a great story and lacking mechanics, Ragnarok has great mechanics and a lacking story– but that is a little too reductive of both games.

It is true that most of my gripes from the last game have been addressed, mechanically speaking. The UX is way better, the enemey variety and complexity is there and the worlds are bigger.

Unfortunately, for me, some of that expansion is where things start to suffer. I think there's a pretty solid analogue in the new DOOM games- after the success of the reboot, the studios went hogwild in enhancing the sequel, resulting in some amazing mechanics, but also in the loss of the special, understated, 'will-this-even-work' barebones storytelling that made them hits.

There's an argument that we need more characters than the few we had in 2018– heck, the whole world may be ending, so we need to see who else is affected by it, right? Kratos and Atreus fixed their relationship, so we need to see them go beyond that towards their friends and community, right?

It all makes sense on paper, and the performances and writing are solid, but often I missed the quiet journey from before.

I still think the game is amazing, and I wish I could articulate what I would even want specifically, but there's just something here that isn't leaving me feeling whole. Maybe in the postgame, or when I eventually replay it down the road, I will figure it out. In the meantime, I still highly recommend it.

I always wanted to replay this, and with Ragnarok coming out, I figured I would be a patient gamer and do a replay to tide me over, including all of the valkyries and things I never bothered with when I played it at launch.

But it turned out that the pull of Ragnarok was too strong, and I picked that up without having had a chance to write a review for this one. Now I need to review both, and I feel like I have to make a concerted effort to not muddle the two. Suffice it to say that they're both good games with flaws, for very different reasons.

When I first played God of War, I don't think I noticed the lack of enemy variety, but then again, I don't think I did any side quests. This time, I did almost everything, and it was very apparent that the devs probably could have used more time.

In 2018 I also had barely played any Souls games, other than a little of Bloodborne. I'm still not the biggest Souls guy, but having played more of the clear inspirations for this (and Star Wars Fallen Order, similarly) it's a lot more obvious when a game tries to incorporate those award-winning systems, but only to a partial measure.

It's also been said plenty of times, but the menus are pretty awful to navigate and it feels like there are a few upgrade systems too many.

All of that being said, God of War is still amazing, especially as someone who grew up as an angsty teen playing the Greek games who now is a father with a little boy of his own. The story is quiet and the writing trusts your intelligence, and apart from a pretty rapid Atreus-is-now-a-jerk segement, all of the pacing and character development flows in the right ways.