God of War Ragnarok

[Alan Stock]

Yeah just got there tonight as well. Pretty amazing. My mind boggles at the amount of art work that has to go into all that!

 

The patch just fixes a few crashes, I think its just the area we reached is a big step up in the visuals.

[Kromeo]

9 hours ago, CrichStand said:

How good are the graphics and the 3d Audio on.......

 

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Atreus’ dream section. Those paint clouds attacks that the lass uses in the bit after too. 😲 They’re just showing off now! 

 

I'm glad you're enjoying the graphical fidelity, but I really couldn't get over the fact that

Spoiler

it's apparently fine to now put gameplay in a God of War game that consists of slowly riding a yak for 15 minutes.

 

[elmo]

10 hours ago, Alan Stock said:

Yeah just got there tonight as well. Pretty amazing. My mind boggles at the amount of art work that has to go into all that!

 

The patch just fixes a few crashes, I think its just the area we reached is a big step up in the visuals.

 

Honestly, I thought the game only looked OK until that bit then as you say Jaw dropping, especially during the combat.

[Flub]

What language are you playing in @Thor The two dwarves in English are Brok and Sindri

[Thor]

4 minutes ago, Flub said:

What language are you playing in @Thor The two dwarves in English are Brok and Sindri

Ah, I suppose I should have provided context for that spoiler, but it's a very minor one:

Spoiler

Lunda joins them both as another smith, and appears with either of them at all their workshops, you just haven't got to that bit yet.

 

 

[Flub]

19 minutes ago, Thor said:

Ah, I suppose I should have provided context for that spoiler, but it's a very minor one:

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Lunda joins them both as another smith, and appears with either of them at all their workshops, you just haven't got to that bit yet.

 

 

 

Aha! I'm currently sorting out the aquisition of

Spoiler

The third weapon

 

[Thor]

14 minutes ago, Flub said:

 

Aha! I'm currently sorting out the aquisition of

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The third weapon

 

In which case....

Spoiler

... you should have met Lunda (at Freyr's camp in Vanaheim), and she should have popped up at the workshops with either Brok or Sindri (depending on where). 
 

edit: Perhaps she hasn't starting popping up at the other workshops quite yet, but you should have met her.

 

edit: I've edited my spoiler!

 

Side note: I struggled with all the actors' pronunciations of Freya and Freyr, they just sounded the fucking same to my ears! 

[Flub]

4 minutes ago, Thor said:

In which case....

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... you should have met Lunda (at Freyr's camp in Vanaheim), and she should have popped up at the workshops with either Brok or Sindri (depending on where). 
 

edit: Perhaps she hasn't starting popping up at the other workshops quite yet, but you should have met her.

 

edit: I've edited my spoiler!

 

Side note: I struggled with all the actors' pronunciations of Freya and Freyr, they just sounded the fucking same to my ears! 

 

Spoiler

I've met her in Vanaheim but she hasn't started showing up elsewhere yet. Probably just a plot point I'm about to run into. Couldn't remember her name

 

[CrichStand]

2 hours ago, Kromeo said:

 

I'm glad you're enjoying the graphical fidelity, but I really couldn't get over the fact that

  Reveal hidden contents

it's apparently fine to now put gameplay in a God of War game that consists of slowly riding a yak for 15 minutes.

 

It’s weird, I usually can’t stand this kind of stuff in games. A good example being Shadow of the Tomb Raider. That section you mention takes it to crazy levels of corridor walking, with very little real “gameplay” but the stunning graphics, incredible audio, interesting storyline, sense of being in a Hollywood Blockbuster style film.........I’ve been transfixed by it. A repeat playthrough would definitely be a different story though. The game as a whole feels really sprawling and in a way sort of overindulgent.

 

11 hours ago, Alan Stock said:

Yeah just got there tonight as well. Pretty amazing. My mind boggles at the amount of art work that has to go into all that!

 

The patch just fixes a few crashes, I think its just the area we reached is a big step up in the visuals.

Got to that bit and it suddenly felt like I was playing on PS6! 😂 How long have you got on the clock now? Think I’m towards the end of the area and I’ve just hit 22hrs.

[stir fry]

I beat this. Will try and not get too in depth, but there's lots of things I like and dislike about it. Doesn't really have the same impact for me as 2018 did, which was a singularly superb AAA title that I think will remain unmatched for me for an extremely long time. 

 

What worked, I think are some of the boss fights and the layering of the different mechanics and buffs/debuffs for each of the weapons. Even the RPG loot stuff eventually justified itself and I am looking forward to finding out some equipment configurations that lead to a preffered fighting style (even if I imagine the combat ends up being pretty linear at high levels anyway). I think the boss fights along the way employ really good design heuristic for knowing when it's safe and unsafe to attack, or parry or block. It reminds me of the kind of flow Sekiro has, which is a best in class in that kind of gameplay

 

What did not work as much for me is the more scattershot encounter design for basic mobs, which I feel the fov is too tight to accommodate. Some fights are very hard to read and very messy as a result. It's very frustrating on a difficulty where one off mistakes can really cost you, and stunlock you into more mistakes. The combat is very focused on space management, and spacing in general, but doesn't give you the visual space for your eyeballs to find the safe space for Kratos in a lot of situations

 

Other than that, the story was quite good and the ending as well. But its delivery had more of an MCU style this time, with a lot of the cast channeling a kind of sarcastic energy in a lot of their interactions. It's not quite Avengers Endgame level as such but there was more of it in this than 2018, I felt like. It also feels like too much character development is signposted ahead of time by the tons of incidental dialogue, but a lot of these are purely subjective things you like or dislike. At the same time there's big emotional catharsis in its resolution, and it does well by the story it sets up in 2018 and even in the original games. So even tho the whole thing is a lot more uneven and has a much lesser impact for me personally than 2018 it's still a very successful follow up, where they get more things right than wrong.

 

Its biggest flaw remains imo that it takes way too long to get to the place it needs to be. I think a good compromise would have been if you have a 2018 save to give you two flames for your starter weapons, and give you a more advanced kit earlier on. Something to make the gameplay get interesting at a faster pace than it does here

[shirubagan]

[Stanley]

Spoiler for name and location of some mid boss thing a bit later on. 
 

Spoiler

The Hateful, Abandoned Village 

Fuck me it’s well named. I can’t beat the bastard! 

[Stanley]

Beaten the bastard now, it went a bit From that fight, and I can’t back away from a challenge even though it is optional. Definitely getting harder now, but the systems are all great and the combat really flows. 

[Kevvy Metal]

Don’t agree that there’s an issue with the FOV at all. It’s all the same as the prior game and all about getting out of the way and defending when surrounded and it’s all communicated via the indicators around Kratos, designed deliberately to keep your eyes focussed on him. 
 

It even tightens when you’re attacking an enemy, deliberately! And if the indicator gets too big you flee. It reminds me of God Hand in that way. 

[CrichStand]

Yeah, I don’t think there’s an issue with the FOV either or with the busier battles. I can see where people are coming from though, in that at times, if you haven’t positioned yourself well and you take a hit, you’re then leaving yourself open to taking other hits. But then that’s why you need to position yourself well in the first place, use crowd control, the enemy attack markers and all the tools you have at your disposal, at least on the harder difficulties. 
 

I think the combat is fucking brilliant. When I get killed I usually have a big smile on my face, give a quick nod, “ok, ya got me this time”, and then I’m straight back into it. That’s the sign of some seriously good shit. Even when you’re getting your arse handed to you it’s still incredibly fun and never feels unfair.

[Kromeo]

8 hours ago, CrichStand said:

It’s weird, I usually can’t stand this kind of stuff in games. A good example being Shadow of the Tomb Raider. That section you mention takes it to crazy levels of corridor walking, with very little real “gameplay” but the stunning graphics, incredible audio, interesting storyline, sense of being in a Hollywood Blockbuster style film.........I’ve been transfixed by it.

 

More power to you. Personally, I had to quit the game in frustration when I finally

Spoiler

got off the yak, and Angrboda told me we were about to embark on round two to pick up some fruit or some shit.

I don't mind character development in my games at all, but this is a God of War game. What's next, knitting in DOOM? Fishing in Mortal Kombat? (That last one could potentially be rather fun, actually. But you get me point.)

I wasn't too enamoured with God of War '18 for similar reasons, but Ragnarok is really testing my patience with this kind of self-indulgent, painfully superficial BS. Like, I get it: The Last of Us is getting a Netflix series so all of your big IPs now need to show that they can undergo a similar 'evolution'. But, shit, I have about 90 minutes of uninterrupted gaming time a day these days; I can't be spending it on some badly written fluff. In the old games, 90 minutes would've been enough to dismantle half a pantheon!

[CrichStand]

10 minutes ago, Kromeo said:

 

More power to you. Personally, I had to quit the game in frustration when I finally

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got off the yak and Angrboda told me we were about to embark on round two to pick up some fruit or some shit.

I don't mind character development in my games at all, but this is a God of War game.

I wasn't too enamoured with God of War '18 for similar reasons, but Ragnarok is really testing my patience with this kind of self-indulgent, painfully superficial BS. I have about 90 minutes of uninterrupted gaming times a day these days, FFS; I can't be spending it on some badly written fluff like that. In the old games, 90 minutes would've been enough to dismantle half a pantheon!

Hate to break it to you dude but it goes on way past that bit. You’re at best probably about half way through the section. In fact I’ve not even finished yet, and not sure how much longer they can possibly string it on for. It feels a bit like some kind of extended Krautrock/Prog jam. Just riffing on one chord for like 30mins before the song gets going. 😂 I agree, it’s totally insane, but that’s sort of why I quite like it. Wonder if you can skip these bits when replaying? 

[Kromeo]

4 minutes ago, CrichStand said:

Hate to break it to you dude but it goes on way past that bit.

 

'cking hell.

I hope Odin wins.

[CrichStand]

23 minutes ago, Kromeo said:

 

'cking hell.

I hope Odin wins.

😂🤣😂🤣

[Thor]

@Kromeo If you weren't too keen on the '18 game, then why did you get this knowing it was more of the same and you have limited time to play? Attacking the writing is a cheap shot here, the writing is very good in this game, especially where Angrboda is concerned. You should play something else. 

 

[Stanley]

That whole section was immense and pretty psychedelic at times, the ending to it was awesome, and quite terrifying too. 
 

Game keeps on delivering getting better and better the further you get. 

[Number 28]

Freeze -> stunlocked -> death 😩

 

Getting a crazy amount of rumble in this game on PS4 btw, I'm surprised the battery is holding out. It's going off during dialogue for some reason. Not sure if bug.

[Kromeo]

6 hours ago, Thor said:

@Kromeo If you weren't too keen on the '18 game, then why did you get this knowing it was more of the same and you have limited time to play?

 

Because I like the combat, so more of that "but better" was an exciting prospect for me. I basically hoped the game would turn out to be be more gameplay-focused than its predecessor.

 

6 hours ago, Thor said:

Attacking the writing is a cheap shot here, the writing is very good in this game, especially where Angrboda is concerned.

 

I've seen enough crappy MCU films to know what Ragnarok's writing is trying to do. It is not good.

 

A shame, really, because I love the design of the characters.  Thor, especially, looks fantastic. Most people have no idea what a strongman actually looks like, but this game nailed it.

 

6 hours ago, Thor said:

You should play something else. 

 

Agreed.

Unfortunately, I'm a stubborn man.

[Thor]

5 minutes ago, Kromeo said:

I've seen enough crappy MCU films to know what Ragnarok's writing is trying to do. It is not good.

Some of it isn't good, but the majority of it is, for me, very very good. There is of course the element subjectivity here.

[Majora]

Only a few hours in but I'm not really detecting much stylistic difference in the writing from the first game. The dialogue between Atreus and Kratos is played pretty straight while Mimir and the dwarves are the quippy comic relief. That's how the original was, no? I haven't played the first game since it came out so maybe there are some nuances I'm missing though.

[stir fry]

It's moreso the later parts of the game, when they introduce new characters. Some of the group in Vanaheim in particular. Lots of other new characters lean into more modern, casual kinda quippy dialogue. Even (late game)

Spoiler

Surtr

 

They don't really change the writing style of the pre-existing ones (unless story dictates it of course)

[Thor]

There's definitely some more playful father and son dialogue between Kratos and Atreus later in the game. 

[NecroMorrius]

Probably been asked 100 times, is there any way to stop the game from giving me the answer to every puzzle before I’ve even spotted the puzzle? It’s insane. Mimir is telling me to hit various buttons or try things from a different angle before I’ve even finished opening the door between me and the puzzle. It’s got to be a mistake surely? Have they said anything about fixing it?

 

Incidentally the writing is the same as the first so far, I’m switching between playing them both depending on whether my wife is using the TV or working at my desk. It’s a bit jarring going from ultrawide to widescreen, the FOV and situational awareness is very tight in the latter. That extra screen at the edges makes a big difference. 
 

Anyway I’m only a few hours in and it’s really quite dull so far, like cut content from GOW. But I know it’s a longish game and it gets more interesting before too long. 
 

Unbelievably it has exactly the same problem as the first game, where normal is MUCH too easy and unsatisfying, and hard is a bit too annoying with a basic moveset and gear. 

[Stanley]

2 hours ago, Thor said:

Some of it isn't good, but the majority of it is, for me, very very good. There is of course the element subjectivity here.

It’s fantastic yeah. I find the story pretty gripping and the banter between your troupe is great too. 
 

Also, and I remember saying this too many during 2018, but the feeling of your axe returning to your hand never, ever, ever becomes tiring, and now it feels even better with the PS5 pad imo. 

[CrichStand]

@Moz There’s no way to turn it off. Sounds like you’re in the tutorial stage of the game, which is pretty much the first 3-4hrs. It gets better as it goes on. Characters still comment on stuff later in the game, occasionally a bit too much but, it starts to make sense. That’s what they would do in real life and to a certain extent that’s what they’ve gone for here. It’s partly an attempt to build up the characters relationships and bring them to life.

 

Its a sprawling and possibly at times over indulgent game. It feels like, based on GOW 2018’s success, the devs have been given total freedom to create whatever they want and that’s exactly what they’ve done. One minute you can be corridor walking for ages with little to no gameplay. The next you can be in frenetic and action packed combat. One minute it’s totally linear, the next it’s giving you freedom to explore and choose what you want to do.