I LOVED the story here, even if the dialogue is stiff it still manages to be compelling and the gameplay really works with the character of kratos to the point that I was consistently invested.

But, that investment was more in spite of this games mechanics. The combat at it's core is great but the enemy and encounter design is laughably bad sometimes. I will admit that I played on hard so these issues may be less severe on normal but the ridiculous amount of enemy health combined with their quick ability to counter you and the intentional shortage of crowd control makes a lot of this game funnel you into using the same OP combo while skirting around enemy groups. The rare fights that do give the player the chance to parry (seriously, why bother with a parry when 80% of encounters have enemies that can attack before you land a counter attack) and use their combos felt amazing, but were so few and far between that my overall thoughts on the fights are colored by a general frustration on par with kratos himself.

This game is still saved by some great world and puzzle design, even if I dislike the game's combat, the way they paced fights in-between platforming segments and puzzles is great and the puzzles, while erring on the easy side, felt sufficiently intuitive and creative. It's great to NOT have to google anything to beat a game for once.

Overall, a decent romp, probably worth it to play on normal though.

Love the world, love the quests, story was good enough. The combat is.... contentious. Real time with pause works in a lot of fights around the mid-game where it helps you quickly get through and feels a lot cooler than normal RPG combat. But maaaaaan the late game slows to a crawl and feels cheap because of it, when you have to manage spells and counter a barrage of enemy cc's where positioning matters A LOT, the amount of micro makes it into a turn-based game with the added annoyances of fighting against bad AI pathfinding and hoping you don't accidentally miss an attack in the midst of a flurry. This combat design flaw is made especially apparent by the game's final boss, who attacks so fast I had to cheese it to gain an even tactical footing. If I was to just review the late-game I'd probably give it a 4/10 but the early to mid game is just the spirit of fun in an RPG so I'd still recommend it overall.

OK, going into this game absolutely everything was extremely vibeworthy. I'm a sucker for space games and a sucker for games that provide a sense of discovery and going through and peeling over every planet and finding out the weird little details of this world felt amazing.

But about 8 hours in, everything felt like it clicked for me, I knew how I was going to go about beating the game, which trees to shake down to get the secrets needed to complete everything. What followed was perhaps the most dull 3 hour stretch I've played in a while, so much of the late game is just composed of waiting for things to happen that you know are going to happen, the time loop mechanic that gave everything a sense of urgency just becomes a big 'ol time gate to block actually progressing the events of the game.

So while I'm not exactly head-over-heels for this like everyone else I will say that that first bit of the game is some truly mind-blowing exploration so give it a shot, then maybe check the wiki (very carefully, there's still some revelations in that last bit you don't wanna get spoiled) if you get inevitably stuck poking at leads.

Absolutely insane effort from such a microscopic dev team, this is a phenomenal case of worldbuilding and strategic combat that builds out everything I wanted from an isometric fallout successor, while also having the longest playtime of any CRPG I've played (1.8% of players have actually even beat the game according to steam achievements).

But be warned, this game is brutal, certainly the hardest game I've ever played, making something out of yourself in this bleak setting is going to require you to fight for it and choose those fights carefully.

Also, too much of a wiki game in some places, it has that open-ended quest design that relies on picking up very small hints that make you feel like a genius when it does work out, but result in you spending 2+ hours walking around trying everything and ultimately capitulating when the hints don't click. Just go on the wiki if you don't get something, they try to hide spoilers, but make sure to at least give the hard quests a shot on your own, because some of them easily beat classic fallout's best.