God of War: Ragnarök

This is truly part 2 to 2018's game, so in many ways my previous review holds, with both positives and negatives, though this title is just a bit better in most ways.

Worlds are still often rather small areas, hardly whole "worlds", and are generally devoid of people to meet and are surrounded by invisible walls. And yet here there are numerous expansive "regions" and more exploration opportunities than before, and they are more diverse, which I enjoyed a lot. Also nice is that the awful arena-style world of the 2018 title is gone. There is still an arena-style world, but it's so much less annoying. The loot balance is again not so great, though it is improved. However, still, if you pursue side quests then around 2/3rds into the game you have enough money for anything. The differences in loot again seem unimportant, unless you are really aiming for specific character builds to strategically defeat the (again) very challenging optional late-game bosses, or are playing on above-normal difficulty. But for the average player it's just a bunch of ... stuff, which I mostly did not care about. Combat is also generally the same, with all the previous pros and cons, though there is a surprise addition in the late game that is terrific. A lot of care went into combat and loot, very obviously, but different kinds of players may appreciate it differently. There are also more playable characters here, and more companions to Kratos. Unfortunately, these additional companions just highlight and exacerbate the awkwardness from 2018: your companions never die and can sometimes get in your way rather than assist you. You can't control them nor coordinate with them. It's unrealistic, annoying, and the weakest subsystem in the game.

So, let's talk about story and characters, which were the wonderfully awesome surprise of 2018. And, wow. Everybody involved in writing, acting, portraying, directing, choreography, and design deserves an award. Rather than going bigger, which was what the God of War franchise had been known for, they took a risk and went inward. This is as far away from God of War 3 as I could imagine, and though I loved that game, the rewards here are plentiful. Though this game can't replicate that very special moment of reconnection with the past in 2018, everything else here flourishes with authentic, heartfelt detail. The father-son relationship—rather, relationships this time—evolve beautifully, but really the center stage is occupied by two secondary characters, brothers, who, I have to admit, I did not much like in the 2018 game. All in all there are just many more characters here and they are all so delightful in their own way. God of War is now about characters.

Is this a next-gen game? Eh. I played on PS5 with a 4K HDR TV, but it was designed to be cross-gen and also runs OK on a PS4. I got 60 FPS out of it (in performance mode), which I really appreciate, but honestly even God of War: Ascension for the PS3 looked amazing, though it had very serious performance problems. My point is that visually we are in familiar territory, but performance has finally become a non-issue with the latest tech.

So, where are we now? The God of War franchise has abandoned its past and jumped entirely into the new commitment of the 2018 semi-reboot. The grandiosity of old is gone. We are now telling stories, and though there are a lot of action sequences, and even very hard challenges for hardcore completionists, this is new territory. I'm excited to see what the team comes up with next.