God of War does almost everything almost perfectly. A strong story, with strong gameplay, within an especially strong world, with the only glaring issue being the way certain level design strategies would break my immersion. The game has undeniable flaws, yet they are sparse, and so heavily outweighed by what it gets right, that there’s no reason not to play it.
Story1: 9.5
Story execution2: 8.5
Immersion through gameplay3: 5
Satisfaction through gameplay4: 8.5
World5: 10
Spoilers
1A thematically rich journey with protagonist development providing emotional notes, and a supporting cast who interlace that emotion with humour and new ideas. Contradictory characters Kratos and Atreus are bound together by a shared loss, and mould each other – as Atreus learns to kill, to be brave, and to be disciplined, Kratos learns to empathise, to be a father, and to laugh (a little). The supportive cast add new flavours to the primary arcs seen in the protagonists, with smaller arcs exploring interesting concepts, such as Mimir, a character damned for allowing his morality to interfere with his career.
2Kratos is the strongest character here (literally), and the supportive cast are phenomenally executed too. Atreus was the weak point – he feels too generic, with his defining characteristics not spanning far beyond the fact that he is a child in a harsh world, and his development suffers from disjointedness and pacing issues. For example, having Atreus going through an egotistical phase post-learning he was a god took so little time from outburst to resolution, without either transitions actually being perceivable to the player, that they never got to breathe, and never felt natural to me.
I was growing a tad bored of Kratos and Atreus before ‘head’ injected an influx of backstory and humour to the dialogue. This established a far better system where the duo’s interactions were spaced around Mimir’s well written humour, and story enriching tales, sparing the backbone of the story from otherwise feeling overused – this shows that the duo are not as strong as their obvious inspiration (Joel and Ellie, LoU), yet despite not drawing the same absurdly powerful emotional responses, they do have various strong moments, and are far beyond average. My last gripe here is the facial expressions, they simply didn’t seem human enough to me at certain key story beats, most notably Freya’s during the Baldur fight: The scene was such that her face had to convey a torrent of despair, and I didn’t really feel it.
3The way the gameplay broke immersion is where the game failed for me. Firstly, the positives. Game language did well to emphasise Kratos’ strength, for example, where most games emphasise the physical strain of climbing and the likes, Kratos effortlessly mantles walls one handed. The ease with which he performs these difficult feats throughout moment to moment gameplay fantastically articulates his power. The control scheme, whilst unconventional, worked well – the abrupt R1 bumper fits the sharp strikes far better than the conventional softer square button. Furthermore, I actually felt the vibrations through the controller fit very well in this game, which is a minor plus. So, what’s my big gripe? There is a sort of ‘plot hole’ in the level design which regularly rears its head: Kratos is constantly established as absurdly strong and durable, shown as able to jump down ten meters without flinching, for example, but then other ten meter drops are supposed to be read as ‘out of bounds’ by the player whilst exploring. Another example is the flying boat in Helheim: the bow is supposed to be out of bounds to the player, yet the only obstacle enforcing this is a small ledge – because so many boundaries wouldn’t be obstacles for Kratos, they feel more like invisible walls than natural barriers, breaking the immersion as instead of thinking ‘no, Kratos couldn’t possibly go this way’, I thought ‘the developers put an invisible wall here, to direct me the other way’. It is perhaps notable that someone not applying an intentionally critical eye to this will likely notice it far less.
4Gameplay is absolutely satisfying. You will feel your skill develop as you play, with boss fights being the pinnacle of this. The lack of foe diversity has been a problem for some players, though I found purposefully experimenting with the three combat styles (Leviathan Axe, Shield, Blades of Chaos) and special attack types to entirely alleviate this – the tools available can keep things fresh, if you force yourself to use them, so whilst it’s not perfect that the player has to act to solve the problem, it’s good that the solution is present. Camera boundaries were frustrating to me also – not the biggest issue, but one that showed up throughout, and is therefore noteworthy nonetheless.
5The Norse world is a brilliant one, providing both spectacle and story bolstering. A contained example I will use is the fallen giant – it commands an awe inspiring sense of scale, whilst also being a representation of a strand of the story. I may be biased here, as this was all novel to me, since I am not well versed in Norse mythology, regardless I found it fantastic, especially for its ability to resonate with the lore and story at almost every instance.
Gamedy 