God of War Ragnarok

[NecroMorrius]

I’m currently in the mines and Atreus is telling me how to solve problems I haven’t even noticed yet. It’s really, really bad. I hope you’re right because it’s driving me nuts!

[df0]

Mines is extended tutorial, the helpful lines get less and less.

[NecroMorrius]

Ok brilliant. The narrative has gotten more interesting with the resolution of this section. All signs pointing up. 

[TommyG]

Enjoying this so far (10% in) but I’m such a graphic whore I thought I’d be running it on favour quality (which looks amazing). However, I don’t know what witchcraft they’ve used but performance mode with high frame rate on is so god dam buttery smooth it’s incredible. 

[Kromeo]

3 hours ago, df0 said:

Mines is extended tutorial, the helpful lines get less and less.

Sorry, but that really ain't the case: I've just played through Vanaheim, and

Spoiler

 Atreus has been replaced by Freya, who is, quite possibly, even more intrusive than Atreus.

"Maybe you can get a better angle from that little island over there?" Oh, shut the fuck up; you were telling me how badly you wanted to kill me a mere three minutes ago!

 

That said, after the utter shite that was the

Spoiler

Atreus & Angrboda level, playing as Kratos again was a massive relief. Night and day, his segment in Vanaheim was. There was still a lot of useless banter happening as I kept walking down an almost entirely lineair path, but the fights were awesome and the four boss fights were all well ace, especially the massive one against Nidhogg. More of that, please. Much more of that.

 

And: I've forgotten its name, but there's a pretty hard, optional boss that shows up in every realm —  The Forgotten? The Hateful? Something like that. Either way, he's a recurring foe — and it's a hyper aggressive Draugr-type enemy that can summon regular enemies, has a ton of unblockable moves, and can give himself explosive properties (requiring you to hit him from afar with an axe throw). I've fought him four times now, and it's been my favourite encounter in every realm so far. He's pretty darn tough, too: you don't really get to make any mistakes while fighting him (at least not on No Mercy) and you really need to use most of your kit to emerge victorious.

 

It's that kind of stuff that I wanted more of in this game.

But it feels like the game is more proud of the moments where it forces you to ride a yak for two hours, so it can dump a bunch of exposition and 'character development' on you.

 

Spoiler

There was this one moment where Freya got angry with Kratos and was like "just shut up and kill what I tell you to kill", and I couldn't agree more. Just let me play, for fuck's sake.

 

[CrichStand]

I’m now finally past the Yak attack! Tried my best to dislike that whole section, to pick it apart and analyse all the reasons why it’s shallow, anti-game, zero gameplay horseshit but.........it ended up sucking me in and I was totally spellbound. The end of that whole part of the game was just magical, packed with emotion and reminded me of being a kid and seeing stuff like Ghostbusters, The NeverEnding Story, The Wizard of Oz etc. Then how it spits you back out into the action. Felt like being on a rollercoaster ride. 
 

Starting to think this is a bit of a masterpiece and a landmark game. It feels like it’s bridging games and movies in such a masterful way, well beyond anything I’ve ever played before. 

[Stanley]

The game opens up massively with side quests etc. a bit later on and the combat just keeps on getting added to and improved, it really is some of the best I’ve ever played. The skills and upgrades system is superb. 
 

A sign of a good game is how late it keeps you up at night, and I’ve been knackered since this was released. It has that ‘let’s just see what is around the corner’ thing in abundance and sometimes it’s hard to find a natural break and stop playing 😬

 

GOTY for me at the moment, up there with Elden Ring and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. 

[CrichStand]

Totally agree! .I’ve pulled another all nighter! 😂 But man, what a game! So much awesome in one session and a huge range of emotions. It’s  just getting better and better in every single way. Couldn’t turn it off......I’ll just do the next bit, ok just the next bit then, one more little bit, fuck it I’m carrying on! 🤣 It’s like a can of Pringles - once ya pop ya just can’t stop! I’m 26hrs in, story has really got hold of me, combat is pure quality, just done a fuck off boss battle that was epic, and loving the sprawling nature of it all. It’s just so good. 10/10 good. Think it’s my GOTY with only Tunic giving it a run for it’s money.

 

Also, just discovered the immersive HUD setting. All PS5 games need to have this from now on. Little swipe on the touchpad brings up the HUD. Swipe again and it gets rid of it. It looks so much nicer without the compass and overlays on the screen whilst wandering around. Quality little touch, that makes a big difference.

[Stanley]

Ooh I’ll have to try that, the suite of accessibility options is really good, only really missing the option of turning off, or at reducing, hints. 

[Thor]

Yeah, you'd have thought the devs would have learned from the response to the issue in Horizon Forbidden West. That said, I had no problem with Aloy in that game, nor the companions in this game. 

[NecroMorrius]

30 minutes ago, Thor said:

Yeah, you'd have thought the devs would have learned from the response to the issue in Horizon Forbidden West. That s----------------

 

HAVE YE TRIED FREEZIN' THE WATER BROTHA?

[Flanders]

4 hours ago, Stanley said:

The game opens up massively with side quests etc. a bit later on and the combat just keeps on getting added to and improved, it really is some of the best I’ve ever played. The skills and upgrades system is superb. 
 

A sign of a good game is how late it keeps you up at night, and I’ve been knackered since this was released. It has that ‘let’s just see what is around the corner’ thing in abundance and sometimes it’s hard to find a natural break and stop playing 😬

 

GOTY for me at the moment, up there with Elden Ring and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. 

I had that last night, couldn’t put it down. I think the combat in this is miles better than the first one, so much more variety and encouragement to experiment. 

[thesnwmn]

2 hours ago, Thor said:

Yeah, you'd have thought the devs would have learned from the response to the issue in Horizon Forbidden West. That said, I had no problem with Aloy in that game, nor the companions in this game. 

 

Even assuming they agree with the criticism (or at least think that they'll get a better reaction to their game if they change it) and then wanted to react I suspect the releases are too close together to do too much about it.

 

You've 9 months between them. Less when you consider time for the thoughts on HFW to crystalise and a point, probably months ago if not even last year some time, that the structure of GoWR being locked.

 

But I suspect this is exactly the way they like it. I think Sony and their developers see these as movies more than games in at least primary story path. And sometime wandering around solving puzzles without their friend chirping in to keep nudging you along the story corridor can clash with that.

[macosx]

I’m loving the story and bits of the combat but I’m finding the level traversal a bit tedious; every corner you run around there’s 4 enemies to kill, then pick up a rock or slide through a gap to meet another set of four or five enemies.

[thesnwmn]

1 minute ago, macosx said:

I’m loving the story and bits of the combat but I’m finding the level traversal a bit tedious; every corner you run around there’s 4 enemies to kill, then pick up a rock or slide through a gap to meet another set of four or five enemies.

 

From watching it looks like thinly veiled room to room traversal with all the transition mechanics.

[Stanley]

1 hour ago, Flanders said:

I had that last night, couldn’t put it down. I think the combat in this is miles better than the first one, so much more variety and encouragement to experiment. 

Absolutely, I love all the buffs and runic attacks. Long range combat is so good now. 

[stir fry]

One thing I find tricky is the 'press triangle after an attack to instantly activate the power boost'.

 

It's easy with the axe, as Kratos already changes his posture for the delay offset combos. But with the blades triangle move it's really tricky, especially as each attack has different recovery and therefore timing. But what I found out is the game tries to tell you the timing, there is a very faint rumble after an attack which tells you when it is time to press triangle. Probably very hard to pick up on in actual fights, but useful to at least see what the intended timing is. 

[Stanley]

Which is the permafrost meter btw? I’ve unlocked a skills move which is activated when the permafrost meter is full by pressing L1 and triangle together, but I can’t seem to do it. I thought that’s when you hold triangle to charge up the frost on your axe? 

[stir fry]

Permafrost is on the weapon icon, it fills up and you can see L1 triangle show up.

 

 

It needs maybe a better cue tho, it has an audio cue but I miss it a lot, have to look at the hud to realise. Anyway it just makes regular attacks a bit faster, do more frost/burn and have larger range hitboxes.

 

Frost awaken is the hold triangle/press triangle at correct time after an attack move

[Stanley]

Right ok thank you, I’ll have a dabble with it later. I’m hoping to box off work by 2pm to get a couple of hours in 😬

[NecroMorrius]

1 hour ago, thesnwmn said:

 

From watching it looks like thinly veiled room to room traversal with all the transition mechanics.

 

I don't really mind this, it's a weird mix of Metroidvania/character action and open world. It works for me, but some of the environments are annoyingly dense.

[Hexx]

Dropped the difficulty for some of the clean up. Some of the later optional boss fights are a bit bullshit with a few hits being easily game over.

The combat system really doesn't work well when it's you versus 2-4 bosses at the same time. At least not at my average level of competency.

[Stanley]

4 hours ago, stir fry said:

Permafrost is on the weapon icon, it fills up and you can see L1 triangle show up.

 

 

It needs maybe a better cue tho, it has an audio cue but I miss it a lot, have to look at the hud to realise. Anyway it just makes regular attacks a bit faster, do more frost/burn and have larger range hitboxes.

 

Frost awaken is the hold triangle/press triangle at correct time after an attack move

I still really understand this, L1+triangle doesn’t show up for me, and I don’t know how to fill the permafrost meter. I have a meter for my shield which runs half way around the weapon icon. 

[stir fry]

It should only fill up when the weapon icon is 'full', it fills up when you hit stuff. 

 

You can see how it's all red there, that's only how it looks when it's full.

 

It's basically devil trigger, but it depletes when you get hit or take too long to do stuff. It also is hard to fill until you get a few skills up to 'gold' and give them some mods I find

[Number 28]

This just went up...might be interesting.

 

[df0]

Was about to post the same. It never bothered me but apparently it’s an issue.

[Stanley]

What’s an issue? 

[Majora]

About 8 hours in and, based on all the comments, I thought the companions spelling out puzzle solutions would be more annoying than it has been. It's certainly there, and I dislike when you're exploring an optional fork in the road and get immediately nagged to go back to the main objective, but it's not quite as overbearing as I imagined. There have definitely been times that they've let me just get on with it or prodded me rather than just outright spoiled it.

 

All the constant squeezing through gaps and crawling under floors has made me laugh though. It almost feels like a parody of AAA games at times. Between this and A Plague Tale I've squeezed through enough tiny gaps over the course of the past month to last me a lifetime.

[NecroMorrius]

2 hours ago, df0 said:

Was about to post the same. It never bot--------------

 

I BET THERE'S A WAY TO MOVE THAT CRANE, FATHER!

 

(Sorry, I'll stop now!)

[Hexx]

Platiniumed get.

Not too bad to get - although the 2 final optional bosses are bonkers hard. The crucible challenges are a timesink, not difficult.