God of War (PS4): Kratos and the Dad-feels

Urgg. I've been away from the game for 2 months and am so lost. I don't recall the controls or what the heck I'm doing. I was exploring the many island area, but just decided to head up the mountain with the light and hope things start making sense.

The powers will tell you the button combinations to activate them. If you go to the goals section you can activate the quest you want and it will give you a icon to follow. The quest description will give you info on what it is about.

Thanks. Some of it is coming back to me.

I've made some good progress over the last couple of days. Looking at a walkthrough quest list I'm around 2/3rds of the way done. My takeaways so far.

1) For me, the story and relationship between Dad and Boy is the part that keeps me most interested. I wish I could pull of grumbles as well as Dad.

2) I like the basic strike, block, dodge of combat - mixing in some ranged strikes. But, the enemy variety is lacking and I can play most fights in a similar way. I still have the difficulty on 'normal' after playing on hard for a while because I didn't like how long combat took.

3) I love the outdoor environments, but some indoor ones and places like Helheim are rather dull.

4) I enjoy those rune puzzles that make me pay attention to the environments.

Done (with the main story at least)!

By the end of the game it was the characters and story that kept me in it. I grew tired of the combat. Luckily on normal difficulty it generally wasn’t difficult. There were a couple battles where I died. It looks like a couple more worlds unlock at the end. If I’m tired of the combat, is there much reason to continue?

Glad I played it. It didn’t suck me in as much as something like The Last of Us or The Walking Dead Telltale games, but it was still worth playing.

It depends. If you want enemies or encounters that actually cause you to test your ability in combat, then the Valkyries and ...Muspelheim? are wonderful. Or is it... One is a big volcano with combat scenarios with a gimmick. The other is a world filled with poison fog that's basically a sort of arcade mode where you get ingredients for armor that helps you survive the toxic mist longer and longer so you can get more and more items and build better and better armor.

For me, those two zones and the Valkyries were the best parts of the game mechanics-wise, and they were purely option. So naturally all the games press wanks themselves over the final boss fight, which is just quicktime events, with headlines identifying it as the best part of the game.

But it sounds like you might not be interested in fighting more challenging foes to get a better sense of combat possibilities, so probably not anything worth doing.

The endgame is going after Valkyries. Most of them are straightforward to get to, but two require going through those new worlds and basically grinding loot so you can survive long enough to kill them. After that there's the Valkyrie queen.

I think I stopped with one regular Valkyrie left because I didn't want to deal with the randomly generated maze area.

ccesarano wrote:

It depends. If you want enemies or encounters that actually cause you to test your ability in combat, then the Valkyries and ...Muspelheim? are wonderful. Or is it... One is a big volcano with combat scenarios with a gimmick. The other is a world filled with poison fog that's basically a sort of arcade mode where you get ingredients for armor that helps you survive the toxic mist longer and longer so you can get more and more items and build better and better armor.

I also loved those zones and the Valkyrie encounters, but I loved the combat. Robc clearly didn't, so it's probably an easy pass for him.

OK, thanks for the input. It's not that I thought the combat was bad, I just didn't find it varied very much. I liked the basics of the striking, dodging, blocking - I just had enough of it by the end. Sounds like I don't need to make it a priority to get into those optional areas though. I have Monster Hunter to try. I am worried that Monster Hunter will require me to try and remember too many combos. My brain isn't good at remembering those.

robc wrote:

OK, thanks for the input. It's not that I thought the combat was bad, I just didn't find it varied very much. I liked the basics of the striking, dodging, blocking - I just had enough of it by the end. Sounds like I don't need to make it a priority to get into those optional areas though. I have Monster Hunter to try. I am worried that Monster Hunter will require me to try and remember too many combos. My brain isn't good at remembering those.

There's not much to worry about on the low-skill ceiling weapons that I use (hammer, longsword, sword and shield, and bow).

Anybody else playing this right now? I tried it last year, but the game didn't click with me. Then, about two weeks ago, I started it up, while home sick from work one day, and I'm enjoying it much more this time. I just recently took down Hraelzyr, met Mimir, and had the water level go down in the Lake of Nine.

I still play it off and on. I'll probably still be playing it a year from now at the rate I'm going. My main problem being trying to beat after game content before finishing the main game. I almost forgot what the main story. I know if I just moved on and came back later the battles would be one hundred times easier.

Some of the things you may be trying are next-to-impossible. I went back after beating the game on Hard and I still couldn’t beat much of what I was trying to.

I had intended to finish this during the holiday break and failed miserably. The game is gorgeous and I loved the opening hour or so. But I never liked their combat system that much and less tangibly, the design of the levels has never compulsively pulled me forward to completion.

I have snapped some nice vistas with Kratos in photo mode! Like I said it’s rather gorgeous.

This morning, I finally completed the area around Thamuir's Corpse. The boss fight against Modi and Magni was phenomenal -- great build-up to the fight, excellent foreshadowing, and I loved how the fight itself contained plenty of action and yet communicated so much about the personalities of the antagonists, along with Kratos and Atreus. I also loved seeing the reaction of other characters, Atreus especially, after the fight.

Spoiler:

"How did you kill a god?!"

Then after getting the macguffin in this area, I found the first Valkyrie -- and failed miserably in each of several attempts at beating her. I'm pretty good at several aspects of combat in this game, but not parrying, and if you're leveled enough the main game certainly doesn't seem to demand parrying skills. I booted up a YouTube video, and watched a guy with a level 3 Kratos dispatch her with ease (I'm at 5). Might take a bit of practice, but I can do this!

The valkyries are really tough.

This is a fantastic interview with Cory. In it he talks about Faye and how he'd like to tell the story of How she and Kratos met. I really hope we get to play as her at some stage.

I just made it back from my first trip to Helheim!

Spoiler:

With the Blades of Chaos and the ability to capture the Winds of Hel.

Should I expect any more abilities that let me unlock parts of the map? Or, with these, do I have the ability to get past any barrier? I think the abilities I have cover every barrier I’ve seen so far, but I don’t want to go around exploring unless I know I can get past everything.

I don’t really remember to be honest. I know you keep getting abilities as you go and there always seemed to be stuff I couldn’t get to without some unknown ability.

I think I have it all, now. I know I’m getting close to the end, and the story definitely feels like it has momentum building toward the conclusion:

Spoiler:

I just finished the escape from Helheim, and saw Brok and Sindri reunite. I also have the Muspelheim and Niflheim cyphers, so I know I can access those bonus areas. And, fast travel is finally fully unlocked!

There is something you should do before rolling credits. Once you’re done with the main story you should:

Spoiler:

Go back home

Thanks for letting me know!

Now that I have full fast travel, and access to the bonus realms, I think I'm going to do some side questing. I jumped into Muspelheim (right? the fire one) and cleared the first two challenges -- normal and hard.

Just started playing last night. Not a tonne of thoughts yet but I like it so far.

Don't post a lot of impressions....because then I will have to play it again....damm now I am thinking about it and might have to play it again!

This is why I always have a backlog.

This game is just Darksiders isn't it?

It's a video gamey video game, that's for sure.

Vector wrote:

This game is just Darksiders isn't it?

Said it before and I'll keep saying it, it's an unofficial Darksiders game, yeah.

Really enjoying it. The combat is clicking now and I really like the customization options. Story is fun and appropriately modern God of War. Kratos being a single Dad in a foreign country constantly confronted by his absolute mistrust for gods is really entertaining.

Just met Mimir and I like him a lot. Brok and Sindri are great too. Just good goofy realizations of the legends.

I really like the usage of colour. Just an incredibly colourful game with inventive set pieces. Even the insides of the mountains are mines are splashed with colour.

Didn't think this game would grab me the way it has but it's hitting just right. I'm at 93% Midgard map complete, mostly have end-game hunting, and a few story quests left. Definitely going to 100% this.

Per my backlog notes, I had finished 87% of Midgard when I beat the game. I set it aside for a while but this is definitely one I planned to come back to, and see through to 100%. Maybe next month?

Got the platinum last night. Only thing I didn't do was fully upgrade the Mist chest armour. Didn't feel like it was worthwhile to grind out the material.

Quick tip for anyone who wants to quickly get to Niflheim's realm tears: you can break down the Niflheim's materials for more mist echoes.

Minor optional boss fight spoiler:

Spoiler:

I did not enjoy the Sigrun fight. I turned the difficulty down to easy and still found it excruciating.

End game spoilers:

Spoiler:

Were we not supposed to know Faye was a giant until the end? I thought that was revealed at the beginning of the game. I also thought Brok and Sindri mentioned it as well as Mimir. Kratos and Atreus seemed shocked at the reveal but I thought everyone knew her origin. For a game that had a surprisingly solid story, this felt really out of place.

Silly plot spoiler discussion:

Spoiler:

I loved that, apart from what we are told about Faye, Kratos ends up being the best parent in the game. There are some legitimate touching moments. That they managed to do it with Kratos is very surprising.

Overall loved it. Was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Mimir is a fantastic edition and I really enjoyed the story, action, and puzzles.