should be retitled God of War: Putting the 'Mid' in Midgard.

"can video games be art?" is a question that never needed challenging because the answer has always been yes, and now writers are so insecure and seemingly embarrassed of their medium that we're at the stage where these games don't even feel like games anymore because the devs are, in this case, too preoccupied with making it look like one unbroken shot and calling constant attention to it even though the vast majority of players won't give a shit and will inevitably pause, die, or just shut the console off at some point anyway. no one worth taking seriously goes into a video game anticipating a stupid visual gimmick that, if anything, detracts from the experience more than it hypothetically adds to it. gonna be so funny when none of these massive-budget titles hold up in a few decades while stuff like Silent Hill 2 still does purely because the people involved in the creation of it were confident in the fact that they were, ultimately, making a video game. you push the boundaries of a medium by acknowledging it and working outwards, not by trivializing an art form in an attempt to "elevate" it.

anyway credit where credit is due some of the big moments (emphasis on SOME) did land for me but only because of prior connection to these characters from the previous game and the moments themselves don't amount to much in the end anyway because the narrative is a complete loose cannon. loses gas after the first hour and spends the next twenty spinning its wheels through a plot so disjointed, nonsensical, and safe it's almost impressive. how can something be so agonizingly desperate to prove its maturity yet every character still talks like they're in a Rick and Morty episode? there's some enjoyment to be had in the combat and exploration but it all feels in spite of the game, never because it's doing something right. also dumb as hell to gate players out of specific areas in the realms until they progress through the turgid story and get certain items, evidence of the game just taking itself way too seriously. would be fine if it was just a few areas but when an entire half of the map is inaccessible unless you have a specific weapon and a specific companion who carries a specific type of arrow...i mean, grow up lmfao

this game genuinely made me angry at how flaccid it was. traditionally i'm all for respecting subjectivity but glancing at only a handful of reviews of this has convinced me we need to put a moratorium on the word "masterpiece" until people can remember what it actually stands for.