I have been a God of War fan since the PS2 and have played every single game that has been released for this franchise. Some of them have ben awesome and some of them have just been utter trash, but this God of War, this one I was super excited for since it was first shown off at E3 a little while back. It looked like a whole new reboot to a franchise, and there’s nothing that I love more than a good reboot of a franchise that deserves it. After playing for five whole months, I finally got the platinum trophy so that means it’s time for a review.
In this version of God of War you play again as Kratos. He’s not the same Kratos you know though. He’s different. He has a son now, Artreus, and a wife, Faye, who has just died. Taking place many many years after the last God of War, Kratos finds himself in ancient Scandinavia. This is a complete 180 from the ancient Greece setting and mythology as you’ll now be following along with the Norse mythology in the Midgard realm. Trying to hide his true nature, Kratos will try and fulfil Faye’s last dying wish and by doing that he’ll also be hiding his son’s true nature. The journey to the highest peak of the nine realms to spread Faye’s ashes is no easy task as both Kratos and Arterus will be tested along the way. This will bring the father and now son duo closer together, but it will also reveal a twist that history shall eventually repeat itself, leaving this game open for many sequels.
I was blown away by this game. It was simply amazing and I loved not only the change in scenery, but the change in mythology, and the change in Kratos. Kratos, while still the same Kratos that everyone knows from the previous games, has changed and has tried to hide his past. He wants to forget about everything that happened in Greece and start a new, but it seems like that won’t happen. The addition of Artreus was an interesting one. I enjoyed watching the father and son interact with one another and how Kratos not only changed from the man you knew him as, but changes again by the end of the game. This game had a bunch of twists and turns and I enjoyed every single one of them. I thought that this was probably the most plot heavy God of War games to date and it really showed how the game has changed over the years from the original game in 2005 to this game released 13 years later. I give the team that worked on this game a lot of credit as a lot of effort went into this game and it wasn’t a half-assed attempt to revitalize an old franchise. This was a proper re-boot and I look forward to the many sequels to come.
The playability of this game is just phenomenal. While at first you have only your Leviathan axe that was made specially for Faye, Kratos wields it well and it’s a handy tool. Don’t think that this game forgot about Krato’s Blades of Chaos, because they didn’t and you’ll get them much later on in the game. Thinking that once I got the blades back, I would immediately go back to them, I actually didn’t as I preferred the axe and the versatility of the axe a lot better than the blades. Either weapon worked well as did the arrows that Arterus could use to aide Kratos in battle when needed. Like any God of War game, it wasn’t all fighting, returning are the many different types of puzzles to solve along with some epic side battles. This is also the first open world God of War game and that was just something else. The other God of War games have kind of been linear in where and when you’ll arrive at places, but this time the choice is all yours. I liked this as it not only made the game last longer, but made it more interesting in the process. Throughout my playthrough there were no bugs or glitches within the game itself, but there was something notable in the trophy department and I’ll get to that in a little bit. The only real gripe I had about this game was all of the rowing that had to be done via this little row boat that fit Kratos and Arterus. There was the option to fast travel, but until it was unlocked, it was the little boat that was slow as hell. I know it couldn’t have possibly been as fast as say a car, but it could have been just a little faster as sometimes the rowing to different areas broke the immersion of the game when it took so long.
What can I say about the graphics of this game besides the fact that they were just phenomenal. Remastered Kratos looked amazing and still felt like Kratos at the same time. Sometimes when remastering games or porting over characters from older consoles, their design changes and they look different. This disappoints people since it really doesn’t feel like the same character, but this didn’t happen with this game and I was truly impressed with that. Kratos still looks like Kratos, just bigger and badder than ever. The attention payed to detail of the surrounds was just amazing and mind blowing as everything looked absolutely real in this game. All of the areas in this game were beautifully crafted, nothing was repeated, and it just looked amazing. I can’t say enough good things about the graphics for this game because they were that good and the hype was real.
Now onto the trophies for this game. There are a total of 37 trophies for this game making it by far the easiest God of War game to platinum ever. Unlike the other God of War games, there are no trophies for difficulty levels as this game basically just wants you to play and do everything this game has to possibly offer. This means that there are places to explore, collectibles to get, Valkyries to defeat, and the game itself to complete. While I don’t mind collectibles, they’re pretty much spelled out in each area what you need to get and you’ll have to search the area in order to find them, or use a guide, I do mind when the game isn’t accurate with the collectibles counting. This is most apparent with the ravens that you have to find for the Allfather Blinded trophy. There are a total of 51 raven’s in the game and while in different realms, the count of ravens is spot on, in Midguard the count is off. This is probably because the game doesn’t count a few areas that there are ravens in and you’re overall summary will show that you’re missing some ravens by the end of the game. I let this game sit for months because I was missing one raven. One raven. It wasn’t the only trophy preventing me from getting the platinum, but it was a trophy that for a long time I considered glitched and didn’t even bother to try and get the rest. Turns out one of the areas that isn’t marked properly on the map had a raven that I missed and once I got that raven, I got the trophy. This is something that to this day isn’t fixed, so I’m going to say that if you’re going into this game, beware of the ravens that don’t show in certain areas so that you’re not pulling your hair out trying to find that last raven or think that the game is glitched.
Learning from past mistakes, this God of War is multiplayer free. This is strictly a single player game and really there is no other way to play this game. This experience is for one person alone and I think it’s better this way. I applaud the team that worked on this game for not adding in some kind of tacked on multiplayer that could be played in like a death match or something like that because it would have taken away from the masterpiece that this game is.
Overall I give this game a 4.5 out of 5.
What’s Great:
+ A complete reboot to the God of War franchise as it takes a step away from ancient Greece and it’s mythology to go to ancient Scandinavia and the Norse mythology.
+ The best plot in any of the God of War games that not only leaves this reboot open for sequels, but also has enough twists and turns that it will keep you extremely interested and make you want to play until the closing credits.
+ The new open world God of War is just beautiful and remastered Kratos looks better than ever, but still looks like Kratos.
+ No game breaking bugs or glitches and the playability of this game is just flawless.
What’s Not So Great:
– My only gripe with this game is that the Midguard map is so huge that it isn’t marked properly making collectibles, like the ravens, extremely hard to find and can make you lose track of them since all areas will say that you’ve collected all raven’s, but there will always be one or two missing from the main summary preventing you from getting the trophy until you find the last raven.
I really loved this game and hated that it took me so long to finish it because I was really into it. Things like mapping out collectibles for a trophy that don’t work properly is something that just turned me off from this game, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t play the game. Knowing what a games flaw is from the beginning helps since you know what to expect going in. That being said, until the Allfather blinded trophy, I had a wonderful experience playing and I have to say that this is my favorite God of War game since the beginning of the franchise. It gives the whole game a reboot and still feels like the same game. It’s truly an amazing game and if you’re a fan of the franchise it’s a game that just can’t be missed. If you’re new to the franchise and want to check this game out, I would say to do so because while it does have some lore from previous games in it, it doesn’t have enough that you’ll be lost by not playing the previous games. This game is definitely worth it and one of those game that should be in every gamers collection.
1 Broke Gamer Girl 