My feelings regarding this game are complicated. On one hand, it is a masterpiece that innovates in storytelling, takes a violent character and turns the emotional vulnerability to an extreme, and adds a shocking amount of depth to the core cast of characters, to an extent that I had not expected going in. On the other hand, I see a story with contrived events, characters saved by plot armor and things happening just for the sake of it. The spectacle of said events is grand, yes, but they are mainly style-focused, lacking the substance that so many other parts of the game contain. Furthermore, nine times out of ten the combat system is boring, repetitive, and needlessly flashy. Having played on PC with keyboard and mouse controls (which worked surprisingly well), I was able to near-effortlessly left click my way through most encounters, putting little thought into my combos besides what they could kill faster. Combos felt nice to execute, but felt like something I was doing to make fights go by a little faster, rather than out of necessity. The enemies feel kind of spongy, so I'd recommend turning the difficulty down for most encounters, and then cranking it back up for boss fights.

While I have more nitpicks than you'd expect for a 4.5/5 star review, the one thing that keeps it so high is the story. It's so refreshing. While by now, we've all kind of soured on Sony's cinematic gameplay, there's something so special about taking a seemingly one-dimensional character like Kratos, and flipping everything on its head. It's masterfully written, with some truly engaging dynamics between Atreus and Mimir, and some geniunely hilarious banter with the side characters. Each character acts with reason and the vast lore of the world is explained to a point where no mythology knowledge is needed. While not sure if I will immediately, I can definitely see myself returning to the Nine Realms to pick up any achievements I missed while waiting for an all but inevitable Ragnarok PC Port.