Santa Monica not wanting to make the Norse saga a trilogy is definitely felt in this game. It suffers from some pretty glaring pacing issues story wise, and your companion refusing to shut the fuck up when doing a puzzle are probably the only two issues I had with this game.

I prefer 2018 over this due to the tightness and clear end goal set up right from the beginning of that game but this is still a great sequel to a nearly perfect game. The added enemy types greatly improve upon the combat and I do love Kratos redemption arc started in the previous game coming full circle. The environments and openness to combat arenas are great and Kratos becoming more of an outspoken Hero feels like one of the most well written character arcs in gaming. I love this game so much and the Valhalla DLC (which i'll probably review separately) takes all of the great parts of Ragnarok and trims out the fat. Santa Monica has a fan in me for life.

Graphics - 10/10
The graphics have once again gotten better from GOW 2018 thanks to the added power of the PS5. The insane level of detail immerses me so much.

Performance - 10/10
Game ran at a steady 60fps the entire time on PS5 as far as I could tell.

Story - 10/10
Once again the story had me hooked from start to finish.

Gameplay - 8/10
Gameplay suffers from the same problems that plagued GOW 2018 with some slow areas that seem to go on for too long that I just get fed up with after a while.

I know this won't mean much since almost noone reads my reviews, but I really enjoy writing them and thinking about what I like and what I don't like in the games I play, so I put quite some effort in it. God of war ragnarok was the first game in a while that made me completely forget about reviews, and I think this means something.

Despite being a cross gen title I was pretty surprised about how well it runs on old hardwares, but it has some problems with textures taking a while to load, and the game starting brief loading screens a bit randomly (also the teleport takes 5 years each time you use it). Aside from technical problems which comes from the platform it plays on being a bit old nowdays, I think GowR is what a modern AAA game should be. There is so much care put in everything, starting from ambient sounds, environmental details and character design. Usually after a while of playing a game I'd just start to listen to other stuff while playing, but here I never got tired of the sounds of nature, machines and people. The music is once again beautiful, with a couple of tracks that really stand out, even if it's very similar to its predecessor's. Despite it being a revamped 8th generation game, on a graphical standpoint I think it's still incredible, expanding on what Gow 2018 did, and giving its best in larger and fuller environments, like some parts of Svartalfheim or Vanheim.

I really, really liked the gameplay of Gow 2018, and I'm really glad there was an effort to expand it further. The biggest crime of the game is probably not having a combo meter or something like that, because the combat system is so weighty and satisfying that it never gets boring, even though it shows its weaker side when there are a lot of enemies. The rpg elements are still boring but fortunately very limited, the crafting is just ok but the skill trees were a lot of fun to complete and really do improve your enjoyment of the game. Even though Atreus' parts of the game may not be the best in term of gameplay, i think it's a nice addition for variety and differentiating it from its predecessor, as is the new weapon for Kratos, that doesn't break the game in any way but it makes it more diverse and let's you be more creative with combos. GoWR fixes a lot of the main issues I had with the previous game: it has a lot more enemy variety, it has a lot more minibosses and boss battles without exchanging them for quality and epicness (some of these are just fantastic and almost each one has something unique), and it has a lot more subquests, with a lot of these being really fun and interesting side content that adds a lot to the main game, but also a lot of fetch quests and generic stuff. I started playing in hard but after a while I switched back to normal, not because I'm a little bitch, but because while the main game isn't really hard, the side stuff is soo much harder in comparison that it doesn't make any sense (not that I don't like a challenge but jesus it's like a complete 180°).

Now me along with a lot of other people have gotten a bit tired of the Sony AAA formula, with the over the shoulder camera and a high emphasis on story and graphics, but when it works it works. It doesn't mean that the story here is the best thing ever nor some gamechanging stuff, but it's still a solid story that mainly plays on a very interesting and well constructed cast of characters who interact in a very natural and fun way between them. Almost every single one has a defined personality which is still dynamic throughout the events and this makes them feel like human beings; the development of a couple of characters expecially really got me (starting with Kratos himself, and also unexpectedly Sindri). Admittedly some of the dialogues have a bit of a dumb aura around them which doesn't always fit the game, but I didn't mind them too much. I loved listening to all the interactions on the boats or the dialogues between fights. They make you feel like part of the group and often do really expand on each character's intentions, histories or beliefs. The game has a bit of a pacing problem, and I felt it since this is a big ass game, but I think that the biggest problem on a narrative point of view is the ending. I still haven't played Valhalla, so I don't know if I'll be satisfied with that as a new finale, but the last battle is soo hyped that it falls short almost right away. It's underwhealming in the last assault and even the last bossfights, which aren't bad perse but they pale in comparison with Baldur's last fight. Seeing how strongly the game started, with the encounter with Thor and Odin in Kratos' house, it's a bit of a pity how it ends. Aside from the final battles there are also some story points that don't work at all, like Ragnarok himself, some secondary characters behaviour and some other plot armor, which is fine I guess, but not what I expect from a game of this caliber.

In the end Gow Ragnarock is a massive game, big enough to be split in two, and it's easy to tell when you look at its shortcomings. It's everything the previous game was but bigger, Which is great in some aspects, but not as good in others (the story is more complex, but it has a lot more problems). I truly believe this is one of the best games released in the last generation of consoles (since it's hard to consider it as a pure 9th gen game), but I also believe that it could have been some of the best ever, given some more attention in certain aspects.

Well, I don’t know, I want to joke about the dlc, but this game should have been instead of the first part, but the god of war franchise was blown away by this game, it simply can’t produce something epic after all the parts it had. The God of War is dead and this is his personal choice.

Ну не знаю, хочу пошутить про dlc, но такой игра и должна была быть вместо первой части, но франшиза god of war сдулась на этой игре, ей просто уже не выдать что-то эпичное после всех частей которые у нее были. Бог войны мертв и это его личный выбор.

Story, characters and dialogue were a noticeable step down from the first game. But the improvements in combat, variety, side content, exploration, and level design were enough to offset the story downgrade (which for the record, is still quite good, just not nearly as tight or consistent as the writing of the first game, which I consider one of the better stories in AAA gaming). The new Valhalla DLC (which is completely free) really tied this game up nicely for me, offering a more satisfying ending than the somewhat flabby and rushed final act of the base game, and managed to adapt the game's excellent combat framework into a genuinely fun and replayable roguelite mode that can easily last you 10+ hours.

Overall, if you ask me if 2018 or Ragnarok was better? I don't know, 2018's excellent storytelling and direction probably made it more memorable, and it probably would have been my answer if you asked me a year ago. But after playing the DLC I'm basically split 50/50 now.