Having played God of War Ragnarök left me with complicated feelings that I find difficult to sort out. I was not familiar with the series before playing God of War (2018), but I loved the reboot and was seriously impressed by it; story, direction, gameplay, soundtrack etc. all felt being coherent to one 'vision'. In my mind it’s comparable to a statue, where the artist has this single piece of marble and they need as definitive of a vision as possible of the end product beforehand because there is no room for mistakes. Well, in game development there is certainly room for mistakes, but as the God of War Making-of shows, the team learned from them and that vision - coming mainly from game director Cory Barlog - was the groundwork everything could thrive on.
It seems to me that Ragnarök lacks a vision - which doesn’t mean that a lot of care, planning and designing wasn’t put into it, because that is definitely the case. And there are things I seriously enjoyed about Ragnarök that ultimately aren’t overturned by the things I didn’t enjoy, but gravely soured by them. Ragnarök’s 'statue' isn’t made from one block; head, torso, arms and legs are glued together from different materials.
So what did I enjoy? I liked many individual character moments and some character arcs. The acting was strong and I loved seeing Kratos at his probably most emotionally vulnerable. I liked Kratos‘ and Atreus‘ relationship which felt like a natural growth from 2018, although it was at times inconsistent - but this is more of a 'plot problem' and I’ll get to that later. Overall the story had several emotional moments that hit me; without these I would be even more critical of it, I think.
I also liked the depiction of the Æsir gods, mainly Thor and Odin, and how the theme of fatherhood, redemption and personal growth was carried over from 2018. The soundtrack, too, carried over with nice new arrangements of known themes as well as memorable new ones.
The visuals were beautiful. I was originally wondering if there would not be enough variety with Fimbulwinter, but aside from Midgar and the inherently snowy worlds there was no 'winter' elsewhere. There was also more enemy variety and more fun - and unexpected - mini-bosses throughout the world. Lastly, I very much appreciated seeing more creatures and events of the mythology in action that were only hinted at in God of War (2018).
For the things I didn’t enjoy, I’ll start with which is probably a 'me' problem: the combat. I was struggling with enemies attacking from all sides which wasn’t pleasant to deal with considering Kratos’ comparably slow movement and the camera which is too close. I don’t remember having this problem with the reboot, although the combat is practically the same. The user reviews I’ve read either say that Ragnarök’s combat is better or that it didn’t do enough to fix the mistakes of its predecessor, so it being worse is maybe just my take.
Though what I am sure about is that Ragnarök‘s upgrade system is worse than 2018’s. It is too bloated, too RPG-like. There is too much to collect and upgrade, coupled with unintuitive UI/menus. I much prefer the simpler and less tedious approach in the reboot. I love RPGs, but when I play an Action-Adventure I don’t want to go into the menu and manage my loot and craft upgrades all the time. There are other ways to make the player feel progression.
Lastly, but most importantly, the story. I’m usually not someone to wonder how things could have been, but Ragnarök has at least two instances where it is so aggressively not following through with the plot that I can’t help but wonder. The first instance is that the game did not elaborate on things set up by God of War (2018). Even as someone who rather casually follows the lore I did expect these things to at least get mentioned, but ideally being a core part of the story in either a straightforward or twisted manner. The second instance is when the game treats or reveals plot points to be important and then they lead to nothing. This happening more than once, and considering pacing isn’t Ragnarök’s strongest suit anyway, leaves me not understanding why the developers would make these choices.
Coming back to the topic of lack of 'vision', for me it’s most noticeable by the lack of motivations or intentions the characters have. For the first half of the game I struggled to identify any defined goal for Kratos or Atreus. It feels more like the plot needs them to work things off a checklist. It is also not until later in the story where we get a more interesting take on the whole concept of 'fate'. Besides, there is still like one fundamental question that I think got never asked in the first place (but also doesn’t seem relevant to the story at all so idk how important that really is). Overall the story seems to not really know where it is going and how it is getting there. That doesn’t mean there aren’t good things happening along the way, but it‘s heavily inconsistent.
To be fair, wrapping the saga up in this game had to be difficult because God of War’s focus on a personal story forced Ragnarök to introduce the Æsir and set up and resolve the 'twilight of the gods' which it couldn’t really live up to - the finale was especially disappointing. On the other hand it weirdly doesn’t even feel like it necessarily wants to be a sequel - in some ways narratively, but more importantly spiritually - and just ends up feeling like a 'franchise entry'. For me, the spark that made the reboot special sadly didn’t carry over to Ragnarök.
PS: This got longer than expected, though I feel that I narrowed down my main concerns as much as possible. I’m not sure about the star rating, 3 or 2,5 stars? It might change.
It seems to me that Ragnarök lacks a vision - which doesn’t mean that a lot of care, planning and designing wasn’t put into it, because that is definitely the case. And there are things I seriously enjoyed about Ragnarök that ultimately aren’t overturned by the things I didn’t enjoy, but gravely soured by them. Ragnarök’s 'statue' isn’t made from one block; head, torso, arms and legs are glued together from different materials.
So what did I enjoy? I liked many individual character moments and some character arcs. The acting was strong and I loved seeing Kratos at his probably most emotionally vulnerable. I liked Kratos‘ and Atreus‘ relationship which felt like a natural growth from 2018, although it was at times inconsistent - but this is more of a 'plot problem' and I’ll get to that later. Overall the story had several emotional moments that hit me; without these I would be even more critical of it, I think.
I also liked the depiction of the Æsir gods, mainly Thor and Odin, and how the theme of fatherhood, redemption and personal growth was carried over from 2018. The soundtrack, too, carried over with nice new arrangements of known themes as well as memorable new ones.
The visuals were beautiful. I was originally wondering if there would not be enough variety with Fimbulwinter, but aside from Midgar and the inherently snowy worlds there was no 'winter' elsewhere. There was also more enemy variety and more fun - and unexpected - mini-bosses throughout the world. Lastly, I very much appreciated seeing more creatures and events of the mythology in action that were only hinted at in God of War (2018).
For the things I didn’t enjoy, I’ll start with which is probably a 'me' problem: the combat. I was struggling with enemies attacking from all sides which wasn’t pleasant to deal with considering Kratos’ comparably slow movement and the camera which is too close. I don’t remember having this problem with the reboot, although the combat is practically the same. The user reviews I’ve read either say that Ragnarök’s combat is better or that it didn’t do enough to fix the mistakes of its predecessor, so it being worse is maybe just my take.
Though what I am sure about is that Ragnarök‘s upgrade system is worse than 2018’s. It is too bloated, too RPG-like. There is too much to collect and upgrade, coupled with unintuitive UI/menus. I much prefer the simpler and less tedious approach in the reboot. I love RPGs, but when I play an Action-Adventure I don’t want to go into the menu and manage my loot and craft upgrades all the time. There are other ways to make the player feel progression.
Lastly, but most importantly, the story. I’m usually not someone to wonder how things could have been, but Ragnarök has at least two instances where it is so aggressively not following through with the plot that I can’t help but wonder. The first instance is that the game did not elaborate on things set up by God of War (2018). Even as someone who rather casually follows the lore I did expect these things to at least get mentioned, but ideally being a core part of the story in either a straightforward or twisted manner. The second instance is when the game treats or reveals plot points to be important and then they lead to nothing. This happening more than once, and considering pacing isn’t Ragnarök’s strongest suit anyway, leaves me not understanding why the developers would make these choices.
Coming back to the topic of lack of 'vision', for me it’s most noticeable by the lack of motivations or intentions the characters have. For the first half of the game I struggled to identify any defined goal for Kratos or Atreus. It feels more like the plot needs them to work things off a checklist. It is also not until later in the story where we get a more interesting take on the whole concept of 'fate'. Besides, there is still like one fundamental question that I think got never asked in the first place (but also doesn’t seem relevant to the story at all so idk how important that really is). Overall the story seems to not really know where it is going and how it is getting there. That doesn’t mean there aren’t good things happening along the way, but it‘s heavily inconsistent.
To be fair, wrapping the saga up in this game had to be difficult because God of War’s focus on a personal story forced Ragnarök to introduce the Æsir and set up and resolve the 'twilight of the gods' which it couldn’t really live up to - the finale was especially disappointing. On the other hand it weirdly doesn’t even feel like it necessarily wants to be a sequel - in some ways narratively, but more importantly spiritually - and just ends up feeling like a 'franchise entry'. For me, the spark that made the reboot special sadly didn’t carry over to Ragnarök.
PS: This got longer than expected, though I feel that I narrowed down my main concerns as much as possible. I’m not sure about the star rating, 3 or 2,5 stars? It might change.