I've played a little of God of War 1 and 2 but none of the others in the series, it was normally friends who owned a copy, at the time I was more focused on the Prince of Persia series. In honesty, the two series are not a million miles apart, with Prince of Persia I just really liked the crazy parkour and deadly traps. All that being said I was really excited to play the new God of War, it seemed really different to the other games, visually stunning, heavily focused on story and the combat looked intense yet smooth. I was lucky enough recently that my buddy D to the G loaned me his copy so I could give it a go.
I like Indian food, I wouldn't want it every week or anything but I do like the intensity of it. One of my preferred dishes is a Chicken Vindaloo, the meat is generally marinated the day before in ginger, garlic and spices, the next even more spices are added and ends up creating a more dry finish compared to a lot of other curries. The issue is that depending on where you buy it they can taste remarkably different, some you can taste heat but none of the other ingredients, others are so mild they are almost like a Korma. In a nutshell, it can be a gamble, no matter how good it may look the proof is always in the pudding, or curry as the case may be. Playing God of War I found myself asking was this the intense tasty burn I was looking for or was it all flash and no substance?
Story
Part of the genius of the story is its simplicity, a husband and son go on a pilgrimage to spread the ashes of their recently departed wife and mother. The story is a lot more than that, it's sombre and it is clear early on that Kratos A.K.A Husband, Father and God of War has not been around much for his son Atreus A.K.A. BOY! I genuinely cared about the two characters and wanted their relationship to improve while on their pilgrimage. I liked that this relationship was almost mirrored by two feuding blacksmith brothers Brok and Sindri, who you will get to know quite well throughout the game.
There were some interesting characters I met along the way, some of them were larger than life. While I had no real issues with the main story I wasn't really a fan of the sidequests, some seemed a little too long and the pay off given was too small, others just seemed like a distraction. Atreus will encourage you to go exploring but for the most part, I just didn't have the desire. Overall a great story with interesting characters, unfortunately, the side quests were underwhelming.
Visuals
God of War is a visual spectacle, it is genuinely difficult for me to pick out the best parts as there were simply too many. The landscape is awe-inspiring, beautiful mountains, woods, and so much snow. If I had to pick my two favourite visual delights it would have to be the Tree Turtle, which is exactly what it sounds like and the World Serpent (see above).
Overall a visually stunning game, an organic world with a variety of landscapes and many fantastic creatures.
Music
The soundtrack has deep and sombre tones, this is achieved using a classical style of music and choirs. The soundtrack itself was composed by American composer Bear McCreary, some of his previous work includes; The Walking Dead, Battlestar Galactica and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV Series along with doing the music for Assassins Creed Syndicate: Jack The Ripper.
The soundtrack runs at just over an hour and features some great tracks including; 'God of War',
'Ashes', 'Deliverance', 'A Giant's Prayer' and 'The Ninth Realm'. Overall it was good soundtrack but I felt like during combat sequences it was missing something, perhaps some battle music?
Gameplay
The game has you control Kratos in a third person perspective, for the most part, you will be walking, running and battling enemies but on occasion, you will have to solve a puzzle. There are two key weapons that Kratos has in his arsenal, which is an axe with the same returning property as Thor's Hammer, and a Shield Bracer. Both items can be upgraded by collecting money, materials and experience points. BOY! I mean Atreus provides secondary support in the form of shooting arrows, you can get him to select targets and even specify points on their bodies to attack. The only annoying thing is that he can have a tendency to do nothing at all if you don't direct him, during busy fights it is easy to forget him. There are lots of types of armour to collect and craft, some of them are simple to attain, others will require you to do significant scavenging. Armour can be upgraded and even have runes put in them should space allow. Outside of this, you have many abilities to unlock, this can easily be done by playing through the main storyline and side quests. Even though I barely scratched the surface with side quests I managed to unlock more than 95% of all abilities.
The combat is fantastic, fast and smooth, along with all the standard fights there is a slew of bosses and sub-bosses. I found the end fight to be particularly entertaining.
The side quests are numerous but often don't involve anything more than running to an area killing enemies and collecting an item. In some side quests there will be multiple parts to them and for the few I played, I honestly felt they were not worth the effort. It won't be uncommon for you to spend time in a boat paddling from one place to another. What I enjoyed about that is Kratos and Atreus will tell stories, jokes and generally bond.
Later in the game, you will find doors you need to open, to do this you will use a chisel and use the thumbstick to scan for the sweet spots and then press the required button. In honesty, it seemed unnecessary and was not entertaining in the slightest.
Overall God of War offered fantastic gameplay with very little to complain about, perhaps in the future, I might even attempt it on a hard difficulty.
Final Thoughts
So after just over thirty hours how did I feel? Pretty damn good, it was entertaining, the story kept me intrigued up to and during the end credits. The game fell short when it came to side quests but in earnest, this is not that unusual these days. It was visually stunning with some great music and some very entertaining gameplay. This was fairly easy to score, this one gets a 4 out of 5
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