I've never been a fan of God of War. The old action games were always somewhere between not having enough meaningful narrative and not really being gripping enough on a gameplay level (as well as just being genuinely nauseatingly gruesome at times). When I started hearing about the new God of War though, which I will call from here on Dad of War as to avoid confusion with the PS2 game of the same title, I was increasingly interested all the time. A shift away from the old character-action games and into something more somber and reflective on a story level and something between a Soulsborne and a Zelda game mechanically, my interest was definitely piqued. Now that it is the second PS4 game I've ever platinum'd, I can safely say that it didn't just not disappoint, it absolutely blew me away.
Dad of War, as the fan-given title implies, frames Kratos not as some power-driven killing machine, but as a settled down with a family. Not in Greece either, as he's run all the way up to Midgard, a land of Norse gods, to try and begin this new life. His wife has just passed, and he and his son Atreus venture off on a quest to fulfill her final wish: to have her ashes spread from the highest peak in the realms. What follows is a slow story commenting not just on how Kratos' has mellowed, but how he struggles to bond with his son and teach him how to be a good person. It's a story of them slowly learning to respect and understand one another through shared adversity and communication borne from that adversity, and it's a slow burn but brilliantly done. This isn't relegated to the core story moments either. Where a game like Spider-Man struggles to keep up the pace of the main narrative while it throws so many fun, optional side missions at you, the narrative premise of Dad of War really helps it out in overcoming that stumbling block. Because the narrative is driven from a place of personal motivation, it allows the story to take weaves and turns for sidequests without significantly affecting the pace of the narrative. The real point of the plot is Kratos and Atreus learning to understand each other, not them saving the world or something like that. The implementation of this blend of gameplay with narrative is of a quality I haven't seen in any AAA game in recent memory. The combat starts off a bit hard, even for the first real fight in the game (also quite like Spider-Man), but the combat is just so fast, visceral and fun that it just fit perfectly for my tastes. Kratos' Leviathan Ax is so great to chuck around or slam into enemies, and Atreus' magical moves and bow attacks add in just one more thing to think about, and that's before things like Kratos' runic specials and ALL the special moves you can unlock as you level up. You don't really level up hard with power, rather your gear adds to a general relative power level for your character. What you actually spend XP on is new moves, so you're just constantly upgrading and enhancing your move-set of how you deal with encounters. Normal enemy encounters are something closer to a Soulsborne game, while bosses are more like a Zelda game, but the boss encounters were still some of my top-favorite parts of the playing parts of the game. It's some of the most fun combat has been in a modern game for me recently, and that's saying something with how much I loved Spider-Man's combat. The world it takes place in is just so beautiful as well. Playing this on a standard PS4 Slim, not even on a Pro, the game still looks amazing. There are a couple framerate stutters in some cutscenes, but the game never suffered during gameplay because of it, and the textures manage to look fantastic the whole time to boot. The fans on my PS4 were going nuts the whole time I played the game, so I could visibly hear just how much strain this game was flexing out of the PS4 to get it looking this good, and it paid off in a great way. Exploring every little nook and cranny for more gear and story stuff is that much more fun when the areas are both designed so well and look as good as they do. Verdict: Highly Recommended. Santa Monica Studios has given themselves one hell of an act to follow. I don't think I've ever played a Zelda-style game this good, and I'm not sure I ever will again. Dad of War takes the mantle that Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom held for me of best non-Zelda Zelda game, and if you like Zelda games, this is absolutely a can't-miss game, even if you don't know or don't like anything about the previous God of War games.
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AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
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