God Of War 4 Completed

 I had to go back and check this, did I post about this game's experience when I started?  Not in and individual post, but I did start in my yearly gaming post.

So, now that it's done, what's the final verdict?

A resounding "meh, it was all right."

It's a weird one this one.  It feels like the game starts, like, at least 4 times or so...?  You start the game, and that's a start. The you get to the lake on nine, and that's a start... Then you get the knives from the original games, and that's a start.  Then you finish the game, and that's a start.

The combat didn't gel well with me at all, it isn't terrible, but it didn't flow too well and the camera being right up Kratos' colon never made me feel comfortable.  It definitely did get more enjoyable when I could stop using his axe and use the slappy blades, and to be honest the feeling when you managed to get a good combo going and slap a bunch of bad guys into oblivion is great. 

However

Those times were too few and far.  Much walking and talking was taken during this game and a weird levelling system too.  None of it seemed to blend in all that well.

The plot was simple and characterisations were generally ok.  It was nice to see the characters grow throughout the story, but there was one bit that didn't work so well:

Things are plonking along kinda OK and Kratos and Boy are kinda getting along.  Boy has just recently learnt he's a god and has been a bit curious about what kind of stuff he can do.

THEN

You open a door (literally in game) and all of a sudden Boy is a serious arsehole to all and sundry.  Specifically the two dwarf chaps that give your weapons their boosts.  It's jarring as this comes out of nowhere.  It just happens because of plot.  Out of all this classy writing going on, they drop the ball somewhat majorly. Oh well.

Graphically it looks nice the whole way, but considering how tightly the world is kept in neat little corridors, you would expect it to be.  Exploration is pretty much non-existent.  You can't miss much in this game.

You'll notice that all the screenshots are from trophy getting, there is a photo mode, but I never felt the need to use it.  The one time I wanted to (it was during one of big K's gory enemy kill animations), I couldn't adjust the camera.  So that was a bit shit.

That white arrow tells me there is a baddy in that direction, COZ I CAN'T SEE!

Gameplay wise it was walky, talky, bashy.  When I finally got up to the end of game boss guy, it was quite a lot of fun and rather spectacular, however, as we wailed on each other, never did I feel like I was in any way going to lose.  I found some of the fights with the "extra off-course" generic bad guys more of a challenge than the god Baldur.  It was fun though.

The pacing was a bit off as well.  There is a fast travel system, but it takes FARRR TOOO LONG before it is useful. You get the access early on in the game, but it only works one way.  Eventually you get the freedom to travel any which way you like, but by then I had done the leg work and didn't really need to anymore.  Meanwhile, some of the extra tasks have you zipping all over the place for bits and pieces of crap, which would've made life a bit easier if the fast travel worked properly in the first place.  Stupid decision.

Anyhoo, when you finish the game, you get a nice enough ending and the option to continue on getting stuff for things, but uh, why?

I have absolutely no inclination to carry on anymore.  There is no reason.  I don't need to get the best armour, because I don't want to free the Valkyries (which I think is the end-game content essentially) because they just give you stuff.

I also don't feel any particular need to play the sequel either.  I feel like I have experienced all that God Of War has to offer gameplay wise.

I believe Ragnarok got even more 10/10 wanky bullshit scores than the first one.

So that's the end.  It was very much like Uncharted, but with Kratos and axes.  I enjoyed my time with it enough and that's fine for me.  If I was going to score it, I'd give it a 7/10.  Decent enough, does nothing terribly bad, but isn't top tier gaming.