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GameCritics Reviews God of War: "Promising, But Aimless"

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The idea of a small-scale, character-centric spin on the God of War franchise should sound just a bit silly to anyone familiar with its main character. Kratos has thus far only manifested as a scowling, bellowing whirlwind of stabs and death. His rage brought about the death of his family, and let's not forget that he responded to this news by, uh, not changing in the slightest. He's not exactly the prime subject for an intimate character study.

As it turns out, Kratos feels similarly about his former self. Having taken up a life of exile in the forests of Midgard – Greek and Norse mythologies are like neighboring countries in this universe, I guess – this new bearded and funereal Kratos is keenly aware of what a maniac he was back in Sparta. When his son goofs up during a hunting trip early in the campaign, Kratos very nearly loses his temper before stopping himself mid-sentence and uttering his remaining words in a calm, measured tone. This Kratos is determined not to repeat his past mistakes.
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There's also a newfound heaviness to God of War's combat. Kratos has taken to fighting with a battle axe, and while it's a fine weapon – one that returns to his hand after he throws it – this is far less power and range than we're used to. By default, attacks are mapped to the shoulder buttons so players can better manage the camera, a handicap they've not had to deal with in this series before. Enemies are meticulously picked off one at a time, rather than chopped down by the handful.

There's still no shortage of gooey finishers, but Santa Monica Studio finds power in restraint – they're more rewarding because they don't trigger when every draugr hits low health. In particular, Kratos has one spectacular move wherein holding R2 launches a downward swing that bifurcates anyone who's on their last breath. It's brilliant to watch, and all the more invigorating due to the precise timing required to land the blow uninterrupted. We're actually working for it this time around.
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It probably goes without saying that God of War is gorgeous. It seems like every year Sony is putting out the new Prettiest Console Game Ever, and while Santa Monica Studio too-frequently clings to quick-time events and on-rails climbing sections for the sake of showing it all off, I'll be damned if it isn't stunning to look at. Also, since the game is presented as a single, unbroken take with no visible loading, setpieces can erupt at any time. One of the best examples is the World Serpent from the game's early marketing, and while his towering majesty is captured in screenshots, I can't overstate how awe-inspiring it is for him to just appear and fill the screen with the game never missing a step. However, for the first time in the series, eye-opening moments like that take second fiddle to character development.

God of War is at its best when it explores the father-son relationship at its core. As someone who generally dislikes children, it's a credit to the writers that I never once found Atreus annoying, especially given the fact that he's constantly talking. He's as overconfident as someone would be when they're too young to understand how dangerous a world like this is. We, like Kratos, worry about how maturely Atreus will treat the inevitable revelation that he is half-god.
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For example, at one point, players go on an hours-long fetch quest to recover an item that will open a portal, only for said portal to be destroyed mere seconds after they finally activate it. No matter how solid God of War's core mechanics are, it's hard to see something like that and not feel like one's time is being wasted.

It's not even until the end of the game that we're told why this task was so important to Kratos's wife. Even disregarding the fact that the eventual answers are unsatisfying sequel hooks, it's bad story structure to yank us around for so long without communicating what it's all for. If we're going to screw around on all of these arbitrary errands, we at least deserve to know why. All we have to go on is the dying wish of a character we've never met.
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Thanks to these detours from the objective, God of War is just too damn long. It outlives its visual splendor, its enemy variety, and the time it takes for players to fall into a comfortable groove with the combat. Worse yet, it lays the groundwork for fascinating character arcs only to settle for a single, underwhelming twist and the promise of a new trilogy. I enjoyed the game, but there's nothing so groundbreaking about it as to justify all of the wheel-spinning it does.

It's ironic that a story about the value of discipline and restraint would feel like it needs more time in the editing room, but that's the new God of War – promising but aimless. I like the new Kratos, but I hope his next adventure is more focused than this, and I pray that it actually gives him something interesting to do.
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Now, I haven't finished God of War yet, so I don't know if the game does outstay its welcome, but so far, it has been a marvelous exercise in restraint and pacing, and I can't necessarily see that changing. A lot of Game Critics' problems seem to be contingent on one singular complaint, that the game doesn't actually contextualize itself well enough (which I also feel is incorrect). I argue that it contextualizes itself incredibly well, and even doing inane and trite things in the Lake of the Nine feels fantastic thanks to the Norse mythology flavor it is infused with.

Needless to say, I disagree with this review in large part.

A request: Please be civil, especially about the score. The previous God of War review threads got too unnecessarily heated.
 
Sir Guts

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Read it earlier today and I disagree with their review. Well, they're entitled to their opinion, won't change the fact that it's a masterpiece.
 

Dark Cloud

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Interesting. I saw this review earlier and I was wondering who was going to post it here since the review thread was closed
 
Kalentan

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Just an aside in the end it wasn't Edge that dropped the MC, it was GameCritics, which some expected. You could see the review a mile away with neon lights.
 
Hoo-doo

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This thread was made for one reason and that's to get people riled up. It's 100% unnecessary. There's plenty of discussion to be had in the OT if you were actualy interested in people's opinions.
 
Rahxephon91

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Thanks to these detours from the objective, God of War is just too damn long. It outlives its visual splendor, its enemy variety, and the time it takes for players to fall into a comfortable groove with the combat. Worse yet, it lays the groundwork for fascinating character arcs only to settle for a single, underwhelming twist and the promise of a new trilogy. I enjoyed the game, but there's nothing so groundbrea
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100% true.

My opinions.

Just finished it. It was ok. I'd give it a 8 out of 10. Mostly because of the pacing, it being a little too long, and the combat wearing thin.

It's a good game, but I don't think it's the 2nd coming at all. They made a decent action game which is what GoW has always been.

I think the story for all intents and purposes was pretty good. Well, not the story really. The story is rather boring. The plot is anyway.

Nothing really happens, which is fine because this is a personal story. It's character driven and more about Kratos dealing with how to connect with his son. That stuff is great. It's well written and well I'm not going to say subtle because it often hits you over the head with how hard it is for the man to connect with his son, I will say it's interwoven well with their dialogue and interactions. But I wouldn't say subtle, because this distance is pretty much all their dialogue is about. You get some dialogue on the boat that plays on the humor of Kratos' straight and narrow attitude, but most of the important dialogue is constantly hitting you over the head with the themes of the narrative, which means you get the point of it from hour one. Meaning it gets a little annoying. It's well written for a game, but I'm not in love with it. Still there are some amazing moments between the characters.

But the actual plot is of little interests to me and kind of at odds with the framing of the story. GoW is not a minimalist journey, it is an epic journey through the world and the characters are extremely important and effecting the world. So you have kind of a boring villain with uninteresting motivations and the rest of the game is kind of vaguely hearing about him and the greater background of the world while the two main characters have their growth. But nothing really happens beyond that. Someone said this is a prologue to a bigger story and yeah that's what it feels like. A really long prologue to a better story. I felt bored as Kratos and son traveled in between realms. I was invested in their characters, but you also let me know there's this exciting story going on in the background and then the game doesn't really care to let me in on it. I'm going to these amazing places, but the story is staying small scale. Even though you are letting me know there's amazing things actually going on. Since honestly the father and son themes of the story can only stretch so far and for so long, I kind of got bored as hour 20 went on.

There's really no tension or intersting turns beyond Kratos which I guess is the point of the personal focus. But then there's certain contrived things such as Atures' godhood and his lame sickness. Kratos didn't know he was a good all the time and he had no sickness. Certainly you could have made him reveal to him this is in a less forced way.

Most of the intersting story revelations of plot importance happen in the begining and ending of the game with little in between.

And this is just a personal opinion, but Kratos here is a cheat. They cheated. They didn't do any leg work. They made a new character, but gave him a familiar past we can reference. I fail to see how the same pos Kratos could turn into someone fearful of his own anger, trying to keep in control, and scared of passing it on. You don't really show me how got to this point. You just said the character is like this for reasons. You skipped a step and while Kratos here is a good character, I can't help but remember the pos Kratos that was in the other games. The one that killed innocents to solve a puzzle. That is not the same Kratos that would spare a defeated son of Thor who attacked him. So since I couldn't completely forget, there was some disconnect. Especially since the game wants me to remember that character and references the past. it just doesn't resolve it.

But as far as gameplay. The axe was great and the game felt very tactical.

But in the end I didn't feel like there was plenty of moves. The move set felt limited. While the combat kept me moving and involved and always thinking about how to attack enemies. In the end I never felt like I had a huge tool set to go about it. Throw axe for nightmares or to stun enmies for a shield run then combo with axe if needed. People compared this to RE4, but there I constantly switched weapons and changed how I was playing. Not so much here and it's not like the combos had a lot of variety.

The enemies sure didn't. Halfway through I felt like you've seen the enemies. Nightmares, grunt, tougher grunt, lots of trolls, and then some tough things like valkyires and knights. But few of them require a unique approach and in the end the game seems to lack imagination in it's combat scenario. Throwing the same set ups and kind of wearing thin.

Then the game introduces the blades of chaos and falls apart. I guess the blades offer a different utility and toolset then the axe, but then in the end it just feels like you're mashing R1, like the old games. Crowd control, being this games thing and the blades offering mindless crowd control. The boat section in Hel was mindnumingly boring as I felt like all I had to do was mash R1 and move a bit as that seemed to destroy enemies and keep that at a distance. That section went on too long.

Which is actually how I would describe this game. It goes unto long with constant go get this other mucmuffin which is never good. Since there's not enough enemy variety and combat seems to wear then this becomes highlighted. How many times does the game need to throw another troll? It seems the combat and scenario lost their imagination halfway through the game.

And the side quests sure did. While the drawfs had decent side quests, the ghosts offered side quests that could be in any game. The stories for them were whatever. While Kratos and son has some good dialogue with them, in the end they felt pretty mediocre.
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OP
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Hoo-doo said:
This thread was made for one reason and that's to get people riled up. It's 100% unnecessary. There's plenty of discussion to be had in the OT if you were actualy interested in people's opinions.
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Thank you for telling me the reason I do things, I think you're far more acquainted with what goes on inside my head than I do.
Also, thank you for the, really, relentless thread whining.
 
Raijinto

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Hoo-doo said:
This thread was made for one reason and that's to get people riled up. It's 100% unnecessary. There's plenty of discussion to be had in the OT if you were actualy interested in people's opinions.
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There's no review thread anymore tho...

You're thread whinging really hard right now.

I hadn't seen this review before, thanks for posting OP :)
 
OP
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Paradox House said:
Seems ridiculous. Ok fair does. I havent played GoW but review mirrors my feelings going in. Will still play down the road and hopefully my initial hesitation is wrong.
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I can assure you the game does a marvelous job of selling the changes that may cause you to take pause. It's a really well done exercise in contextualization.
 
OP
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Kalentan said:
Fair enough. But to one thing, no the game doesn't outstay it's welcome. If fact I'd argue that It could have easily gone on for much longer.
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Yes, everything I have seen of the game is an exercise in restrained pacing, I have no complaints with it so far. Plus, you're always free to blaze through all the content and just focus on the story instead.
 
Cranston

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Well, I don't disagree. I'm about ten hours in and am getting that nagging feeling that I can no longer be bothered. I also hate the camera angle.

Damn good looking though.
 
SonovaBeach

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Only like 7 hours in but I can relate to most of this. Although I don't get why they are so pissed about the fact that the answers of the stories' questions are at the end. It feels pretty logical.
The fact that there aren't world-size problematics in the story makes the exploration and side quests more acceptable (instead of a lot of RPGs that let you play on a casino while the end of the world is near).

But I agree with most of this review otherwise.
 
DecoReturns

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Hoo-doo said:
This thread was made for one reason and that's to get people riled up. It's 100% unnecessary. There's plenty of discussion to be had in the OT if you were actualy interested in people's opinions.
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I've seen plenty of Phantom Thief's thread. He/She does not do that. They just want to have a discussion, and an interesting one at that. It's not PT fault of the repiles ruins this discussion
 
Rahxephon91

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The twists and general plot of the game is underwhelming and plays 2nd fiddle to the character driven story. But that character driven story, no matter how good the actual dialogue is is actually a little contrived and over written.
 

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This is not going to end well and we dont need a thread like this, saying: "Be civil" won't help.

I dont care about reviews, i played and liked the game and i move on.
 
Black_Red

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I actually agree with some points, Tha game would be better if you didnt need to search for chests/"puzzles"/bells/relics after every figth, it would have improved the pacing.

And while those were optional, the game economy is balanced around having those resources.
 

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ZeroX

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I agree that the game is a little long in the tooth, they could've cut backtracking in a few areas, especially the mountain. The one shot and how fast/realm travel work also drags things down a bit. And yes the quest does seem a little flimsy, I'm not quite sure why Kratos is so committed to the relatively big undertaking, even though the ending tells us why it was important.

It's certainly not horribly paced or anything. Just maybe an hour or two of main path could've been cut, plenty of side content to make up for it.

Sir Guts said:
Read it earlier today and I disagree with their review. Well, they're entitled to their opinion, won't change the fact that it's a masterpiece.
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Hmmm
 
Dick Justice

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Hoo-doo said:
But there's an OT that is plenty active. It's completely transparent why this thread was made. It's one critical review in a sea of glowing ones and it's an invitation for a shouting match. The OP knew exactly what he was doing.
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Says a lot more about the overly-defensive fanboys coming in here to thread-whine than anything else.
 
enkaisu

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I'm probably only a little over halfway through the game and I'm not feeling like it's outlived anything. Everywhere I go I'm excited for and anticipating the next fight, the next side quest, the next story beat, the next location. I can't believe the game is still introducing brand new enemies so far into the game.

I guess it really depends on what your expectations for the game were. I was expecting a short 10 hour story and I'm ecstatic it's proving to be quite a big game and a long journey.
 
OP
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Hoo-doo said:
But there's an OT that is plenty active. It's completely transparent why this thread was made. It's one critical review in a sea of glowing ones and it's an invitation for a shouting match. The OP knew exactly what he was doing.
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Let's see.
  • I made a thread on a new review (all new God of War reviews have gotten new threads)
  • I hid the score
  • I didn't bring up Metascores at all
  • I specifically put more positive quotes in the OP
  • I didn't link to the review in question
  • I requested civility
What exactly is your problem?
 
DionardoLicaprio

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Hoo-doo said:
But there's an OT that is plenty active. It's completely transparent why this thread was made. It's one critical review in a sea of glowing ones and it's an invitation for a shouting match. The OP knew exactly what he was doing.
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I agree, why does this review deserve it's own thread?
Why doesn't other reviews have their own threads?

This thread has one purpose and one purpose only, to create conflict.
 
Heckler456

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Rahxephon91 said:
100% true.

My opinions.
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Not really. There's a critical path for people to follow, if you're that type of person. Just because it's there, that doesn't mean you have to do all that side stuff. Taking marks off the game because they're providing a deeper experience for the people who ARE interested in it is intellectually lazy, and at best a straw they pulled to give some criticism for criticism's sake.

I enjoyed the combat, enemy variety, and all the side stories and content. It gave me a bang for my buck.
 
Kalentan

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Phantom Thief said:
Yes, everything I have seen of the game is an exercise in restrained pacing, I have no complaints with it so far. Plus, you're always free to blaze through all the content and just focus on the story instead.
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Which to me is sort of the biggest thing. Cause the main story actually moves at a very quick pace if you just focus on it. I was actually shocked how far as I was into the game despite feeling like I had done mostly side quests.
 
Launchpad

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Hoo-doo said:
This thread was made for one reason and that's to get people riled up. It's 100% unnecessary. There's plenty of discussion to be had in the OT if you were actualy interested in people's opinions.
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Maybe people shouldn't get riled up over a review they disagree with? I'm a few hours in now and think the game is great but not the masterpiece everyone else seems to. Hopefully I get to see what the fuss is about.
 
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