very cute! nice lil walking sim that i thematically adore but have some definite problems with

the first 2 or 3 chapters of this are actually pretty perfect. i really love delilah and henry's budding friendship which is the real focal point here; everything else that's brought up really grips you and it sets up a story that leaves you questioning so much and incredibly interested in finding out about henry's life before his new job and what's been happening while he's there. exploring is super fun and contains a lot of secrets and optional dialogue that, if you like henry and delilah as much as i do, makes this exploration outside of where you need to go super compelling and something you actually want to do

unfortunately the story doesn't really stick the landing nearly as well as it could have and it makes for an ending that finishes the game considerably weaker than how it started; certain aspects of the story (julia, the two girls at the lake) either end up not really being integral to the story or just end up being wrapped up in a way that makes its inclusion seemingly unnecessary. why was there so much talk about the two girls being missing if you learn in some offhandedly-said line that they just end up being found and none of their threats really ended up mattering? it almost feels like ironic foreshadowing that henry mentions feeling like everything feels like it should be connected somehow when that just simply doesn't happen. the stuff that is given a proper conclusion (basically anything introduced from chapter 3 onward) is also not too satisfying since you uncover a lot so slowly and then just stumble into the magic "this area contains the story" area (ned's bunker and the moments preceding it). it really feels lazy to end the story that has been building up with so much anticipation in a way that feels so cheap. it feels like they were given 2 weeks to end the game out of nowhere and they had to work with what they had and tie up loose ends that should have been fleshed out in another chapter or two.

aside from having a weak ending though this game was a very fun, cute experience that i'd recommend anyone play (it took me about 4-5 hours so why not) and i crave more content with these two characters carnally

this game is pretty good but has some major flaws that prevent me from truly loving it

the more i reflect on it the gameplay here isn't really strong outside of axe combat. there are enough options there in your skill tree, especially with stance-switching and axe-throwing upgrades, that don't simply make axe combat "press R1". same with puzzles requiring the axe; while they're never necessarily hard, puzzles involving the axe were always pretty fun and interesting and at least make you think
this can't be said for the rest of the gameplay. combat takes a massive downturn after receiving the blades of chaos since this really does devolve combat to "press R1" in order to mass attack waves of enemies, and as a result i never felt incentivized to aim it and attack a particular enemy (aside from the nightmares and actually fuck those guys). atreus is fine in battle and i like how much his arrows and bow capabilities can be improved but holy shit do the puzzles with him suck. i say "puzzles" very lightly as they mostly consist of "atreus shoots the shiny thing", however controlling where he shoots actually feels like pulling teeth. if atreus is in a different location than where you need him to be, good luck walking around until he goes by the thing he needs to shoot, and good luck aiming where he shoots so it actually hits what you want it to.
bosses also suck in this game aside from magni & modi and the first baldur fight; i've played the first 2 ragnarok bosses (the bear and thor) and THOSE are fun and give me high hopes for the rest of that game but honestly fighting ancient after giant as the only real boss-type challenges aside from both baldur fights and magni & modi makes the impact of a boss meter showing up and fighting what's supposed to be this big enemy feel much less important, a feeling that isn't helped by many of these bosses either not being too interesting or just outright annoying
i also feel like this game wasn't meant for hard mode; there would often be swarms of enemies that would give 200xp and would be grating to actually beat because if they had less health i know i would be mowing through them on normal difficulty. i don't feel like they adjusted for these moments between difficulties well at all and as a result some of the aforementioned bosses would be relatively easy and would give 4000xp but i would die 10 times to a swarm of draugr or some dark elves that would give barely any.

i feel like i tolerated all of that though because of how strong this story is. kratos and atreus' journey and especially their flawed, unique father/son relationship has been talked about countless times but it really is the glue that holds this all together. i felt like i was just getting through non-axe related gameplay just to get to the next part of the story but god was it worth it. different realms, environments, and side content flesh out this game so well and i'm gonna have to go back and do everything i haven't yet at some point because as much as those aforementioned complaints are present this game truly creates a world that is expansive, beautiful, and that you care about what's happening to our characters (especially mimir thats my boy right there)