They've done it, they transformed God of War into yet another one of Sony's movie games (spoilers)

Spoilers ahead, so please close the thread if you don't want them.

Some might argue they were already heading there with GOW 2018 or even already there but Ragnarok takes this to a whole new level. There are MANY walking sections typical of story-driven games where nothing happens but climbing and talking to give time for story exposition.

The pacing is beyond bad with a myriad of characters just thrown in at once and the talking that you cannot skip just doesn't stop. Furthermore, they had the bright idea of having you play as Atreus, and his parts are by far the worst in the game. I just got out of a 2-hour section where among other things you: Pick up fucking fruits for animals, clear out fucking wretch nests in a cave, and just walk around with Atreus's girlfriend while they exchange words and friendly banter. It just goes on and on and when you think it's over, they add some more. NONE of that is skippable either and it's beyond boring.

Things just drag on and on and on. Damn near every two seconds where you're actually exploring, you're met with a puzzle. They're even more frequent than in the 2018 game.

They had found an alright balance with the previous game but this one just goes into Naughty Dog territory with the talking and walking. Absolutely insane. Add this to the pile of TLOU, Uncharted, etc. This is no longer God of War and is even further from its roots than the 2018 game was and it was already pretty damn far.

Is the game bad? Not at all but I just can't stand playing through this anymore.

Didn't read shit, cuz, well, spoilers, but i am PLAYING IT, and it offers a shitload of gameplay, so i ain't too sure what you're on about.

Ragnarok is a perfect example why Sony is constantly winning all the awards the gaming industry has to offer. Every single aspect of the game is top notch and nothing is skipped or lazily implemented.

When I read the story about the voice actors going hoarse from reading their lines, I knew it meant there was a lot of dialogue. Which means a lot of cinematics, idle time, and de-immersion.

Anyway, reserving judgement until I play...in three or four years when it comes to PC. Maybe. Still haven't bought the first one.

Cinematic walking sucks. The whole lets pick fruits/flowers/whateverthefuck always sucks, really don't understand why devs do that one.

Yeah this kind of shit has invaded even the great action games, and it's like... why? You can definitely add variety and pace things out without pulling us away from the mechanics we're enjoying.

Makes the initial run annoying and deters you from wanting to replay.

Not even playing the game, definitely not laying down judgement here, but on paper yeah I can't stand that shit.

Some games are made for people with an attention span longer than that of a goldfish.

Bayonetta 3 game of the year

@palasta: And those games have the player do things that require actual attention, not watching mind-numbing cutscenes.

This was meant to be DLC for god of war,they just added hours of cinematics and put a 70 dollar price tag on it.

It's a Netflix game

I'm actually concerned about this game. It gets 9's and 10's across the board, releases and then not a word from anyone.

Is it truly a great game? Have people already forgotten it and moved on?

Yeah, the more I play these Sony exclusives, the more I get bored of these games. Spiderman had great traversal and combat, but the world is just dead after the story. GOW 2018's pacing and story was forgettable and insanely bad too. Uncharted 4 had these fake tension and boring traversing that takes away from the somewhat serviceable combat.

All these games have is its high production value. Gameplay-wise? They're barren. Returnal maybe the only one that's actually looking solid in the gameplay department.

This makes complete sense, a natural evolution.

Sony gamers were always just closet pc gamers who couldn't put a graphics card in.

Now they can just look at the game.

Game journos will also be able to play it (thus raising the score).

It's just more of the same game as last time. THey added more enemy types, more bosses (so thats nice) gave some moves a bit more flexibility, and nerfed the shit out of agile strike as far as being a dash cancelling tool for doing any sort of sauce. Not that the way Santa Monica designs enemies lends itself to anything all that interesting or deep.

The story is a bit better than last time I guess, but yeah if the pacing was a problem last time because of all the not interesting brainless interactions you would be doing for minutes to hours at a time, that hasn't really changed here. The exploration still leaves something to be desired with how they rail road you with where you can't go at a time. Pretty good, has some really doofy ass lighting with how when you go from a dark area to a light area, they basically put the fucking Sun in your eye, a bit extra for a visual trick they only really needed to do once.

Seems like each realm is gonna be larger and more fleshed out with side content as well. Idk feel like of all the complaints bringing to this game as "movie game" is shitty and lazy, and ignores criticism that should be the go to the gameplay itself. The pacing certainly kills any replay opportunity, but uh yeah there is more than enough gameplay than some tell tale/life is strange type game, or what until dawn was or what have you. The game is pretty dense with a lot of optional encounters as well.

I can also certainly think of more lame gameplay systems in an overly story driven experience from the likes of Rockstar or a more gamey game, but pretty shit like Persona 5. Or fucking jrpgs in general tbh. Or all you Witcher 3 shills.

Also since I'm playing the game on Give me God of War, they doubled down on that whole move assist thing the game had last time, where sort of like batman (tho not as egregious), if you or an enemy swing within a decent radius of an enemy, the game will assist you or the enemy by sliding you that distance to hit the enemy. That seems exaggerated now with the way people be sliding off from off screen. I wasn't bothered by the camera as much in the previous game (tho not a good action game camera frankly), but I definitely am bothered by it here at times. Doesn't help that somehow the lock on got worse?

DMC4 solved lock ons. Can we pls, stop fucking up the lock on. We solved this shit in 2008, pls stop unsolving it video game devs. Thank you

TC is one of the biggest Sony haters. Not surprised and will not be reading 🙂

@Juub1990: how surprising /s. This is just typical Sony; they are a movie company first and a gaming company second. When they make games, they hire actual movie directors. Unskippable walking sections seems terrible. Honestly uncharted 4 isnt that bad at all with the cinematic, they’re not too long, and you can easily skip them like I do. It’s the same with tlou, uc, Spider-Man. These games are more bearable. Some of the wall climbing in uc is a bit tedious, but again it’s a bit challenging too because you need to figure out the direction to go and this might take you a little while. I didn’t like how they abused the wall climbing in uc4 though, it’s literally everywhere.

I enjoy more chill sections. They can be hit and miss but conceptually that's not something that bothers be. Playing for 40 hours repeating similar combat loops is something that I little patience nowadays.

Though Sony games usually have pretty terrible exploration and non-existent player agency, which can be a problem if the player feels he's not actually doing anything in that time.

For subsequent playthroughs there should definitely be a more action oriented cut, since Sony doesn't know how to work with narrative beaches.

Well, I certainly ain't playing that shit. Would piss me off.

It’s an ok game so far. Some of the humor is good.

@jg4xchamp: The pacing is a lot worse this time around. There is 10x the amount of characters as the 2018 game. The 2018 game had a handful of characters with Kratos not talking that much and there were seldom drawn-out dialogues that went on and on.

There weren’t 1-3 hours sections where you do almost nothing but walk around listening to story exposition. It’s like they crammed 90% of the story and dialogue into the sequel instead of doing a better split.

That it’s more of the same is true but this also means the bad parts are much more frequent than before. Some parts are just too damn long with nothing to do.

I’d criticize the overly linear levels and the fact that 80% of the visible areas are inaccessible but the first game was like that as well. At least they added a few wider levels like the desert in Alfheim.

I never use the lock-on and neither should you. The boss battles are still too little too few. They learned almost nothing from the 2018 game.

Also, the single-camera shot is incredibly dumb this time around.

GoW (2018) was already Sony's movie game. Did you expect it to be different?

It's more egregious this time. The 2018 game has about 3 characters that are a mainstay. This one has more than 10. Means a lot more talking and cinematics.

GOW 2018 is one of the worst game I have ever played. and even if its come to PC next year I aint touching it.

Another Sony game best played on youtube

Not surprised. Sony fans and the game critics love their movie games.

The salt is real!!!

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

No amount of hate is going to stop the success of Ragnarok, and the ps5 this holiday season.

✌️

@ermacness: I bought the game full price. It’s disappointment, not salt.

I havent played Ragnarok yet but Bayonetta 3 has been suffering on the lack of gameplay segments also. I swear I've been running around more on the empty huge a** levels with barely anything to do than fighting.

Anyway, games with slow starts are the norm nowadays in order to build up momentum. Usually these games open up later on

Nah. Its the worst in the trilogy.

Disappointment from what, more of the same??!!?

Isn’t that’s the whole entire meaning of the word “sequel“?!!?!

It is a funny event seeing hermits, lems and sheep assemble, and try their hardest to find something to bitch about a Sony exclusive that has gathered a lot of attention from reviewers and gamers. Every single time its the same. If Sony has created a banger that is simply impossible to be made by the other three, they have to unite their forces to shit on the game or one faction bitchin' is simply not enough. I bet you some of you are waiting for a brainless criritisim youtube video to come out, just so you could post it and feel validated.😎😎😎

Real something😁

@ermacness: Nah, the mind-numbing walking/climbing sections that I can’t skip. The incessant wrestling control of the players to watch more cutscenes. It’s fine when delivered in small or sporadic quantities but this game is an avalanche after the other.

Lmao... No surprises here. Just another Sony game you watch instead of play.

GOW2018 was the same exact way. I really fault the buyer (which is YOU) in this particular scenario because SM never portrayed Ragnarok to be anything different than what they delivered. It’s completely foolish to buy a sequel of a cinematic driven game, only to complain that the sequel is too cinematic driven ??!!?

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

@ermacness: There wasn’t a single section of GOW 2018 that was 2 hours long where all you did was ride an animal and pick up fruits lol.

You Sony imbeciles are really something else.

Sadly, I would have to agree. I couldn't care less about "system wars", seeing how most modern games suck to me, and this is no exception.

For the most part, I hate the idea of game streaming, or watching someone else play a game. But after about 4 hours of watching this movie on YouTube, I feel like I saw less than an hour of combat, or anything entertaining. The Atreus part you are referring to was absolutely disgusting. The combat is probably refined, but still not fun. The puzzles seem a little better, which is nice. The menus still look terrible. And the armor system still looks like a false sense of choice.

If you care, just watch it on YouTube and save your money.

Just like you Sony haters…🤣🤣🤣🤣

Who told you to buy a sequel to a cinematic driven game in hopes that the sequel isn’t cinematic driven??!!!

Help it make sense.

🤣🤣🤣

@ermacness: Because "haters" buy the game on release and platinum the first one. You guys need to put more effort in your brain-dead posts.

Not that any of you even play those games to begin with.

Not buying it tbh. Didn't care for the opening stretch of Dad of War, don't really think it was better or worse here with Ragnarok. Once it was go find Atreus time it was a lot of go forward, fight some dudes, fight a bear. Then we had the walk back, and the talk with odin and thor, and it was a thor fight, and then it was back to a cutscene thing, and some walking and back to fighting in that that one ass temple.

The dwarf realm was a lot of just immediately getting into a fight soon, and just rowing a boat to place to place and fighting stuff or doing some "hit the button" to progress the quest ting. All of this could certainly be sped up, but I think its hyperbole to say its any worse than God of War 4, much less that the game is lacking on the actually letting you play stretches.

Admittedly I....keep getting bored and haven't only gotten to the 2nd real area now, because playing this game is like "I could just be playing Bayonetta 3 and be playing a better game".

I mean the lock on is a basic qol tool for managing the camera, while you deal with a singular target at a time, but the one in this game is cheeks yeah.

Difference being that Bayo is shorter, and those wide areas are still for like a lot of the collecting shit stuff more than anything, otherwise on replay its a lot of skip cutscene and zoom fight to fight. And unlike Kratos who is slower, more plodding, and the game has more direct slow you to a crawl segments, Bayonetta can straight up zoom through levels.

@jg4xchamp: Wait until you get to Ironwood, then Asgard. The former especially is arguably the worst section in the whole series and just keeps going when you think it’s over. Asgard at least has some cool lore bits even if it’s boring.

You might be waiting if its reasonably far in the game. Like I said I get pretty bored after a bit with the game and just go play something/do something else lol.

@pclover1980: "Returnal maybe the only one that's actually looking solid in the gameplay department."

Returnal you actually play the game instead of watching. UC4 is the worse Sony game in the PS4/PS5 era. What a snoozefest.

@Juub1990: "I bought the game full price."

I buy these games when there $20-30.

The handholding and padding in this game is atrocious.

@jg4xchamp: It’s not that far. Maybe about ~12 hours into the game or so. I bought Nioh 2 on sale, so I’ll just play that instead.

Should I start with 1 or not bother and jump straight into 2?

That too. I've barely started the puzzle that Atreus or Mimir already give away the solution. "Hey, maybe you should freeze this thing?"

"How about turning this crane?"

STFU, I'm still looking.

*shrugs* either or is fine by me. People bitch that 2 is too samey to 1, just with more stuff (but then you know other games thats apparently life changing event), those games are lengthy as **** and have a lot of content. (maybe too much content). So its fine to just skip to Nioh 2 and just play betterer Nioh with a lot of the same level of difficulty and even slightly better combat stuff.

The DLC also adds a lot of sick fights to the game, which I think the PC version is the complete edition anyway. Godlike games either way tho.

Then I'll start with 1. I wish games like that could get the same production values as GOW but alas. Still, they play well which is what matters the most.

They turned GoW into another Horizon, Last of Us, Uncharted walking simulator. Sony can’t create anything original.

I think the only reason those games can do the stuff they do, is because they don't got the production value like that. More modest budget. Gotta make good on the gameplay, use a lot of content, and maximize what you got. So optional side content is more willing to go wild and just have you fight two of the hardest bosses in the game. Sick fight, optional so isn't mandatory to beat the game, but there for people who want to get beastly at the game.

Tbh From Software figured that out relatively quickly too. It's not like their production quality has kept up with how much more popular they are, they are still on the modest side and let their art team flex. But the trade off is they can actually make an open world game, with a variety of interesting zones and meaningful high quality dungeon designs that highlight the strengths of their simple but solid combat system.

I think the biggest difference between Bayonetta 3 and DMC5 from a purely content standpoint where Bayonetta 3 has more costumes, unlockables, more enemies, more wild witch trials compared to bloody palace, is that Bayonetta gets to benefit from having less time n resources dedicated to trying to make it look pretty. Flip side DMC5 is pretty top of the line, not exactly a slouch to any game when it comes to character models, and unlike most top end visually impressive games, DMC5 is in a class of its own animation wise in game versus those other games (where the animations are more canned). Trade off is dante n Nero have like one alternative suit each.

Give n take just a natural part of making a game. It's not a shocker that the more expensive video games got to make them look cutting edge pretty, that the gameplay became safer and more mundane.

Oh dear another butthurt thread