I'll start by saying that this is my first review, and I’m only writing it because I love this franchise so much. Most people will probably disagree with my opinion and instead love this game, so keep that in mind if you’re looking to play this game.

I have been a big God of War fan for ages and in preparation for this game I played through every god of war game. I even got the platinum trophy on GOW (2018) and then bought it again on Steam because I loved it so much. So I went into Ragnarok expecting to love it too, but honestly, I disliked parts of it so much that I’ll probably never play it again. For me, the story ends with the 2018 game.

The Positives:

The combat was really enjoyable just as it was in the 2018 game, but this game even improved on the combat and it felt more fluid and satisfying to land combos.

A big quality of life change is the movement. Thegame feels a lot more vertically maneuverable, for example in GOD 2018, I often got frustrated by how long it takes to climb up and down walls. But that has been improved a lot by being able to grapple onto edges.

Another huge positive for me is the visuals and sounds. The scenery, characters and music/sounds where all beautifully made, at the start of the game I had to stop a few times and look at things because it looks too good. You could almost use every frame as a wallpaper.

And the last main positive for me is the voice acting. Every character had amazing voice acting and if I could leave a positive review for the voice actors alone then I totally would.

Negatives:

For me, all the problems with this game lie in the story and the dialogue. The story was what made the 2018 game a masterpiece, so I played this Ragnarok for it's story and not so much the gameplay elements. Which is why I leave an overall negative review.

The writing in this game felt so random and all over the place, some of it was really good and landed well. But other parts felt very frustrating to sit through. I hate to use this comparason but it reminds me a lot of the Marvel or recent Hollywood style of writing which flattened a lot of the characters. This style of writing made each character very predictable, and made what was suppose to be emotional moments, weightless.

Another frustrating pattern that was unbearable to go through once you noticed, is each and every character had to have some kind of character arc. No character could just be content with themselves, they had to go through a kind of redemption arc. The writers clearly wanted to get their messages across, but it felt out of place and forced to have characters play therapists that where in absolutely no position to.

A more specific example that contains spoilers of GOD 2018 and some spoilers for this game.
The 2018 game set Thor up perfectly, all the stories made him out of be this emotionless ruthless god. I was legit scared for Kratos in the 2018 game and was eager to see Thor in Ragnarok. But in this game they straight up ruined that image by portraying Thor as drunk useless dad. That would be fine if that was it, but then the writers have Atreus, the kid who literally killed his sons in the previous game, lecture him about his life choices. Why is a 14 year old boy lecturing a 1000+ year old god about his life? And why does Thor just take it? Well it's because the writers needed him to go through to go through a character arc.. This patronising writing towards characters is a common theme in this game, seriously, Atreus lectures everyone into some kind of character progression.

Another big negative I have about the story is how how pointless much of it feels after you have played through it. I was often anxious in anticipation to see consequences for actions, only to find it disappointing that nothing ever came from it. This lack of consequences made many plot points fall flat, leaving me to wonder why they even happened in the first place. Now that I finished the game I think a lot of plot points happened just to force a character arc.

Then the choice of dialogue that where chosen for these characters. Kratos had some badass lines don't get me wrong, but I do not know why some characters are written to sound more like modern teens. That isn't a huge complaint since it isn't done a lot, but conversations lose weight and breaks immersion when something like a primordial being uses chill/ laid back language. This is not any voice actors fault, but the script that was written for them.

Then lastly I had several crashes happen consistently at important plot points, leaving me to find work arounds just to continue the game.

Conclusion:

The voice acting, gameplay, visuals, music, and sound design are amazing. But the writing left me really disappointed. About halfway through I was over it and just I lowered the difficulty just so that I could speedrun through the rest of the story.

Story isn't as good as Gow 2018 but is has better gameplay. Still screw you PSN requirements

Generational masterpiece... Egyptian mythology next!