This review contains spoilers
I don't want to come across as too critical of this game because I did enjoy my time with it, but I was majorly disappointed in a lot of elements of the story and pacing for this game. The combat was mostly the same as the previous installment with some additions/improvements, overall solid gameplay. There are lots of areas to explore, bosses to fight, and loot to collect which is perfectly fine, but some of the places just felt like extra content with no real purpose other than a time sink. Some people will look at that as a positive but for me a narrative driven game having multiple areas that are literally about 3-5 hours of pure filler content throws off the pacing of the story. And the berserkers just weren't nearly as interesting as the Valkyries from the first game.
Now on to my main complaint. The story was riddled with problems in my opinion. Here is a list of a few of them:
some decisions from Atreus and Odin just didn't make any sense if you give it some thought. Why would Atreus go to Odin knowing he is a master manipulator thinking he can be some kind of spy? Odin knows why Atreus is there, he even tells Atreus, so why would Atreus think any information Odin gives him is not just an elaborate trick or manipulation? Also knowing how the story unfolds, why would Odin bring in Atreus to asgard and recruit him knowing he's trying to spy on him and actually give him all the information he needs? somehow both Odin and Atreus come off as gullible and not that smart. They also spend so much time having Mimir and Freya tell us how bad Odin was to them, countless lines about him being an abusive husband, or a ruthless tyrant only to try and make us feel some kind of empathy towards him by humanizing him and making him seem somewhat decent in the middle section of the game.
The Ironwood section was a slog. The writers seemingly couldn't figure out a way to weave the Agrboda part of the story into the game in an interesting way so they just dump a couple of hours worth of dialogue at you while you pick up apples on a yak or something. Just seemed lazy to me.
The part where you go to Helheim to find the mask was essentially pointless and made no sense. Why is the mask guiding you towards the dog if it doesn't have the other mask piece? It is never explained, was the mask drunk or something? And the big climax is that you did all that for nothing and you screwed up by releasing a big ass dog that can open rifts to other worlds. fast forward like 30 minutes and Atreus and Kratos go and fix the problem. The whole series of events served no purpose except to get Atreus to go back to Kratos, and to show that we saved a doggo instead of killing it.
This type of stuff seems to happen all throughout the story honestly. Some big event happens only for everything to be wrapped up neatly a few scenes later. For example Freya wants to kill Kratos for killing her son, then a few lines of dialogue later she doesn't. Ragnarok starts, then you kill like 50 people then it's over. The only real lasting impacts of the whole game are that Brok died. Besides that everything is as it was before the game started.
I also feel like they are pulling a Last of Us 2 by trying to replace the namesake of the game (The God of War Kratos) with Atreus and Agrboda. This somewhat makes sense because part of the father/son story is the son leaving the nest and becoming his own man, but I'm not really interested in the God of Mischief and don't think Atreus can carry a game by himself. Kratos was the character that people bought the game for, I honestly found Atreus to be quite annoying in both games.
I also feel like the last act of the story was extremely rushed. It gave me game of thrones season 8 vibes. I assumed that Ragnarok starting would be the big climax of the game, and then there would be a third game where Kratos and Atreus try to resolve Ragnarok. But instead they crammed what probably could have been a whole game into about an hour or two of gameplay. There was a lot of meat left on the bone here and I honestly don't know why they decided not to make it a trilogy.
Also, the decision to have your sidekick constantly blurting out how to solve a puzzle so obvious an autistic monkey could figure it out was absurd. Maybe average out how long the puzzle takes to solve and after that amount of time squawk out commands. Most puzzles I approach, immediately see what needs to be done, and before I can even start the procedure to complete "brutha, maybe you should freeze that thing" or some crap. Simply infuriating, and somehow when Atreus partakes in this action it makes it all the more annoying because he is a child and it just comes off condescending to me... Kept waiting for a "shut up boy" that sadly never came.
With all these critiques of the story I would still like to say again, I enjoyed the game quite a bit. It is one of the better triple A games to come out this year for sure, but I am just disappointed as I don't think it lived up to what it potentially could have been.
Now on to my main complaint. The story was riddled with problems in my opinion. Here is a list of a few of them:
some decisions from Atreus and Odin just didn't make any sense if you give it some thought. Why would Atreus go to Odin knowing he is a master manipulator thinking he can be some kind of spy? Odin knows why Atreus is there, he even tells Atreus, so why would Atreus think any information Odin gives him is not just an elaborate trick or manipulation? Also knowing how the story unfolds, why would Odin bring in Atreus to asgard and recruit him knowing he's trying to spy on him and actually give him all the information he needs? somehow both Odin and Atreus come off as gullible and not that smart. They also spend so much time having Mimir and Freya tell us how bad Odin was to them, countless lines about him being an abusive husband, or a ruthless tyrant only to try and make us feel some kind of empathy towards him by humanizing him and making him seem somewhat decent in the middle section of the game.
The Ironwood section was a slog. The writers seemingly couldn't figure out a way to weave the Agrboda part of the story into the game in an interesting way so they just dump a couple of hours worth of dialogue at you while you pick up apples on a yak or something. Just seemed lazy to me.
The part where you go to Helheim to find the mask was essentially pointless and made no sense. Why is the mask guiding you towards the dog if it doesn't have the other mask piece? It is never explained, was the mask drunk or something? And the big climax is that you did all that for nothing and you screwed up by releasing a big ass dog that can open rifts to other worlds. fast forward like 30 minutes and Atreus and Kratos go and fix the problem. The whole series of events served no purpose except to get Atreus to go back to Kratos, and to show that we saved a doggo instead of killing it.
This type of stuff seems to happen all throughout the story honestly. Some big event happens only for everything to be wrapped up neatly a few scenes later. For example Freya wants to kill Kratos for killing her son, then a few lines of dialogue later she doesn't. Ragnarok starts, then you kill like 50 people then it's over. The only real lasting impacts of the whole game are that Brok died. Besides that everything is as it was before the game started.
I also feel like they are pulling a Last of Us 2 by trying to replace the namesake of the game (The God of War Kratos) with Atreus and Agrboda. This somewhat makes sense because part of the father/son story is the son leaving the nest and becoming his own man, but I'm not really interested in the God of Mischief and don't think Atreus can carry a game by himself. Kratos was the character that people bought the game for, I honestly found Atreus to be quite annoying in both games.
I also feel like the last act of the story was extremely rushed. It gave me game of thrones season 8 vibes. I assumed that Ragnarok starting would be the big climax of the game, and then there would be a third game where Kratos and Atreus try to resolve Ragnarok. But instead they crammed what probably could have been a whole game into about an hour or two of gameplay. There was a lot of meat left on the bone here and I honestly don't know why they decided not to make it a trilogy.
Also, the decision to have your sidekick constantly blurting out how to solve a puzzle so obvious an autistic monkey could figure it out was absurd. Maybe average out how long the puzzle takes to solve and after that amount of time squawk out commands. Most puzzles I approach, immediately see what needs to be done, and before I can even start the procedure to complete "brutha, maybe you should freeze that thing" or some crap. Simply infuriating, and somehow when Atreus partakes in this action it makes it all the more annoying because he is a child and it just comes off condescending to me... Kept waiting for a "shut up boy" that sadly never came.
With all these critiques of the story I would still like to say again, I enjoyed the game quite a bit. It is one of the better triple A games to come out this year for sure, but I am just disappointed as I don't think it lived up to what it potentially could have been.