Not really sure what to rate this one. Playing on hard mode on a first playthrough made it hard to tell what was bullshit and what was just a fair challenge. There are definitely some parts that are questionable either way though (some of the puzzles in particular), and I think the pacing is all sorts of wack. HLTB has this at about 9 hours, but on hard it was more like 14+. There's very little cutscenes throughout and what's kind of surprising is that this is an origin story that slowly reveals Kratos' backstory, despite it being such a famous part of his character. It definitely makes the game more interesting to see the parts slowly unravel, but if 2018 is a game with too many interruptions, than 2005 is a game that doesn't have enough of them.
However what kind of saves it for me is that ultimately it has more positive things that I'll remember than pure negatives. This game lowkey feels like one of the most inspired triple A video games of all time. The vistas and locations you get to see are phenomenal. The level design is often immaculate. The puzzles are no slouch and a lot of them are nearly Zelda-tier, which is kind of crazy for a game like this. In general, the fact that the God of War games are some of the only "action-adventure" games that triple A publishers put out is part of what I love about them, this game takes just as much from Zelda and Prince of Persia as it does DMC. There is a decent amount of story through gameplay and a lot of it is pretty subtle - Verdes dungeon basically being an extension of Kratos' character arc is fantastic, and for fans of story through gameplay, the last part of the game is quite literally jaw-dropping.
It's too bad its combat can be super repetitive and its difficulty and puzzles aren't as fine-tuned as I'd like, but ultimately what I get out of this is that I wish more triple A games were like this. And that's a good thing.
However what kind of saves it for me is that ultimately it has more positive things that I'll remember than pure negatives. This game lowkey feels like one of the most inspired triple A video games of all time. The vistas and locations you get to see are phenomenal. The level design is often immaculate. The puzzles are no slouch and a lot of them are nearly Zelda-tier, which is kind of crazy for a game like this. In general, the fact that the God of War games are some of the only "action-adventure" games that triple A publishers put out is part of what I love about them, this game takes just as much from Zelda and Prince of Persia as it does DMC. There is a decent amount of story through gameplay and a lot of it is pretty subtle - Verdes dungeon basically being an extension of Kratos' character arc is fantastic, and for fans of story through gameplay, the last part of the game is quite literally jaw-dropping.
It's too bad its combat can be super repetitive and its difficulty and puzzles aren't as fine-tuned as I'd like, but ultimately what I get out of this is that I wish more triple A games were like this. And that's a good thing.