GOD OF WAR

Update: I've all but given up on this. Life's too short. What eventually made me rage-quit was actually a story/pacing problem where an event in the story harked back to a piece of seemingly idle expository conversation that apparently I'd been having while negotiating a tricky bit of parkour about ten hours previously.

One of the problems with this game is that the characters insist on chattering away while I'm concentrating on steering a boat the right direction, or working out where to climb next. And it's not like this is taxing stuff, but these conversations go on a fair while and it's hard to know exactly how important they are: i.e. whether they're important to the story, or if it's just a bit of background flavour dialogue to pass the time. In this case, a major plotpoint just went totally over my head because I'd mentally skipped a conversation between two characters about another character during a mission about a fourth character.

My friend, who was playing at the same time as me, ended up putting it into story mode to get the endless ambushes out the way. That's the other issue: The fights and ambushes happen on the beat. You know exactly when to expect them, and they all turn out more or less the same. Thye end up bcoming a hindrance. You know like random encounters in old turn-based JRPGs - you're trying to get somewhere but everything stops to have a battle. And usually that's fine, because you know that fighting baddies is part of it, and there's usually a tangible reward at the end (like levelling up).

With Kratos, even though there are loads of different weapon and ability upgrades, I don't feel like they're exciting enough. A new axe rond? Why would I swap it for the one I've spent hours upgrading? It makes little difference - I'm still invariably hammering R1 with the odd shield block or dodge to spice things up. In short, I don't really feel the difference when I upgrade - it's the same thing.

Not too far into it but I'm provisionally enjoying Ragnarok more than the first game. I think it helps that it starts in a relatively less toxic place, while having more lols at the same time.

I'm playing a hell of a lot of Ragnarok now and I'm enjoying it way more than 2018 -- for instance, I didn't care enough about 2018 to fight more than a couple of the Valkyries, but I've beaten two of Ragnarok's version and am doing what I can to progress/level up enough to take on more.

That said, I have zero sense of space for any given level (I've definitely been using the accessibility option that points you towards your goal a lot, probably as a crutch), and I'm actually having difficulty catching the finer details of the story. For the latter, I think the gameplay narration is what trips me up -- when I'm moving my character around, I seem to have a pretty limited amount of mental bandwidth and that's largely devoted to where I'm going next and how I'm getting there and probably most crucially are there ravens to kill (i.e. collectibles), and so attention to dialogue gets very tenuous for me.

Been saving this one for a sale, since I know it'll be great and loved the last one. Just a lot on my game plate right now.

Just (barely) started "Ragnarok," and tying into our general PS5/console discussion, I can't imagine any game looking better than this one. Though it's kinda like the reverse of the uncanny valley, where the closer and closer it gets to looking "real," the less it really matters.

I'm actually having trouble getting my brain into gear for this one. I am still very, very very early, so I'm sure I will get used to it, but I feel like I am rustier than I should be, enough so that once or twice already I have appreciated some character going "you might want to hit that thing over there" or whatever.

You can change how quickly the hints come in the game settings, IIRC.

I think it feels balanced right now. I don't care too much about hints, because so many of the puzzles are less about real challenge and more about just finding the stupid thing to hit wit your axe. I do know the part I am at now just dumped a ton of favors and tasks to take care of.

I know this game is supposed to be long, so I think I'm still pretty early game, but I'm enjoying how funny the writing is, and starting to feel the stakes developing into something more compelling than this tentative start.

I've only been playing in fits and starts, so part of it is on me, but I just played a leisurely sequence involving riding a dream yak that made me think, nope, this game and its story still haven't kicked in yet.

I played a significant chunk of it and it felt that way for most of it.

The characters seemed to be ambling around doing "stuff" but the prime objective wasn't especially clear; it wasn't like they had to climb a mountain to bury Loki's mum, they were just sort of bimbling around, completing various tasks, arguing with each other and mostly doing stuff based on hunches.

But maybe that was down to me and my comprehension.

I got EXTREMELY hacked off when a major turning point was only explicable if one were to remember a piece of expository dialogue spoken hours before during one of those conversations they have while you're busy concentrating on climbing up a mountain.

To balance that, I will say its bloody gorgeous and the acting is fantastic and yeah maybe I'll just finish it, possibly on story mode so I can play it like a nice movie

I just hate that thing in games, and I guess movies and books too but it seems to be endemic in games (it happened a LOT in Baldur's Gate 3 too) where they're trying to solve a mysterious problem that no one can understand, and one character just goes:
"Hey, I have no idea why but it just came to me that we should ask the Great Wise Wizard about this, because he knows things. The problem is he's been missing ever since he went walking in the Shaded Woods twenty years ago. The path is long and treacherous, and he's probably dead by now, but if we could just find him I'm sure he'll give us some other quest to do until we figure out what this game is all about...."

I mean, I know that's how plots work to some extent, a sequence of problems and solutions, but this approach feels very tedious and gamey, with characters just working off hunches a lot of the time

This game is so pretty and full of wonders, but so far it's also very wheel-spinny and portentous without being particularly dramatic. That's why I keep assuming I am still pretty close to the start, relatively speaking. There's been so much talk of war, and choices, and prophecies, and there have been heavy moments and characters weighty with death and conflict, but so far just not much of anything moving forward at any particularly urgent pace. There's also a lot of that very YA gimmick of everyone full of secrets, creating problems that could be solved with just a conversation. But then there wouldn't be a story.

And yet, it is nice to look at and the acting is great, so I suppose I have no issues with the time I've been spending with it.

Yup

Checked in on a walkthrough, not for help but just to see what chapter I am on and confirm I have a ways to go. So far this game is pretty easy, but I just hit the first (fakeout) Valkyrie and thought, hmm, if the difficulty level spikes like this, maybe I should keep the settings where they are.

There was one optional area that involved having to fight a valkyrie in order to leave and she was so ridiculously fast and one-shot that after about 20 goes, I went back to an old save before I even went there

Don't really know what's going on, plot-wise, but the game does seem to be picking up. Or did, maybe, because now I'm hanging with Freya again, and they've thrown a ton of side quests at me that seem to be hindering the momentum. Which is not unique to this game, of course. "We have to get the magic amulet from Amfir before he destroys the world tonight! But first, can you help me find some lost chickens?"

OK, still puttering along, but I've got to concede, I just met the Norn, and the story remains intriguing, and the set pieces still surprising and compelling. So ... good things.