God of War (2018)

2026-03-29

A lot of people are critical of God of War 2018 for being emblematic of the thematically homogenous sad-dad swill that PlayStation churned out for a hot minute there. Especially when you look at it from the perspective of being Yet Another story-driven third-person game. But what actually sucks about GOW2018 is the combat.

Talk about Kratos getting older, he’s this slow-moving, geriatric, boring ass lump like they roused him from a nap in his rocking chair watching reruns of Price Is Right. The first encounter you have in the game is with some no-name, regular enemy and it takes hit after hit after hit from Kratos to kill them. And as if in direct contradiction, each of those hits is a splendor to behold, with weighty, beautiful animations and crunchy sound work to go with. There’s a lot of oomph to each hit. And yet each one does almost no damage and you’re just wailing on this nameless fucking enemy waiting for their health bar to go down.

Lest we forget, Kratos is a god. He’s a fucking god who has killed gods and is one of the most powerful entities on the planet. And he struggles to kill a fucking trash mob. That’s terrible. That’s genuinely some awful fucking shit. In any game. But especially in the fourth game in a series that was entirely defined by how ferocious and brutal it was. To go to just being an old man--an old man god--who can’t even fucking kill a regular enemy.

Ah but don't worry he can level up. Yes, the god who viciously annihilated the entire Greek pantheon is weak but gets stronger by leveling up his gear. Listen, I crank my shit to RPG mechanics but this flavor is rancid. Grinding hordes of mobs with this slow, floaty, terrible no-i-frame combat to get my Axe+2 or a new bedazzled shirt so I can have my god powered up enough to take on the next Norse zombie or Norse dark elf is carnival levels of clowndom.

And amazingly, despite the gameplay being the equivalent of chewing on a mouthful of gravel, the story, the world, the characters are a rejuvenating jug of ambrosia to wash it all down with. I love my Norse-Dwarf comic relief duo in Brok and Sindri. I love looking at a snake the size of a mountain. I love Baldur showing up and sitting back on my couch to watch an animated fight scene that would shit on half the fight scenes in the last decade of billion-dollar Marvel movies. Atreus is a bit of a cunt at times, sure, but I was locked in emotionally because while we might tire of the sad dad swill, it do be hitting.

I had the thought the other day: are there any Western-made single-player 3D games with good melee combat systems? Capcom's had that shit on lock since they invented it with Devil May Cry and FromSoftware has since taken the crown. But the West has got almost no representation. We have Sloclap with Absolver and Sifu and...that's it? We stink! Wait there was one other one, a hyper-violent, machismo-apotheosis brand of DMC. What was it called, again? God of War? No that can't be it. That's that game where I can't even see if someone's attacking me from behind because of the stupid fucking camera. What the fuck happened.

2026-03-25
god of war 2018
I think a lot of people are critical of God of war 2018 for being emblematic of the thematically homogenous sad dad swill that PlayStation was churning out. Especially when you look at it from the perspective of being yet another story driven third person game. But what I actually really disliked about it was the combat. Talk about Kratos getting older, he’s this geriatric slow moving boring ass lump like they roused him from a nap in his rocking chair in front of the tv playing reruns of Price Is Right. The first encounter you have in the game is with some no name, regular enemy, and it takes hit after hit after hit from Kratos to kill them. And each of those hits is wonderfully animated they have a lot of power behind them. There’s a lot of oomph to each hit. And yet each one does almost no damage and you’re just whale and whale on this nameless fucking enemy. And Kratos is a god. He’s a fucking god who has killed gods and is one of the most powerful entities on the planet. And he struggles to kill a fucking trash mob. That’s terrible. That’s genuinely some awful fucking shit. In any game. But especially in the fourth game in a series that was entirely defined by how bombastic and ferocious it was. To go to just being an old man– an old man God – who can’t even fucking kill a regular enemy.

and I think you could put some of that on the fact that they introduced rpg mechanics into the game. And those feel kind of clunky and tacked on. They’re OK but it fundamentally doesn’t make sense when you’re playing a__GOD__.

2021-04-01 (?)
This is an interesting one. It came almost universally lauded. And yet I found myself pretty frustrating with pretty much the entirety of the gameplay experience. I found the combat to be slow and "off", I found the puzzles bleh (I hate puzzles anyway), navigation and traveling really slow, and the added RPG and loot mechanics ham-fisted and distracting. Despite all my criticisms for the actual gameplay I found the plot, the characters, the writing, the action scenes, and the set pieces to be wonderful. It's such a delightful world to explore...but it's such a bore to actually play the game you're forced to explore it in.

Let's get the stuff that grinded on me out of the way. First the combat. Instead of going for something light and fast-paced like the original God of Wars or something like Devil May Cry, they went for a slow and weighty system with parrying and dodging, vaguely in the vein of Dark Souls. The problem is everything feels a bit off. I found myself expecting to be able to dodge or expecting to hit something and not being able to because I wasn't given invincibility frames or the enemy was. It all just felt wrong. I will say that the audio and visuals of the combat are fantastic. It really felt incredibly crunchy.

Pair the lackluster combat with the RPG mechanics and loot gathering they added to the game and it makes it even worse. Due to the RPG mechanics there's now a sense of "this enemy is too high level for you". And of course in this game, like many others, this translates to "the enemy is a damage sponge". You're supposed to be playing a literal god. There's multiple scenes where he topples massive dragons and lifts like 50 foot statues...and yet you fight a basic enemy on hard difficulty and it takes like 10-20 hits to down them. Awful, awful design. They really should have just went with flat health like a Dark Souls or like a Devil May Cry.

The loot in and of itself was kind of annoying as well. To get the best gear you basically need to grind either A) combat challenges where you fight waves of enemies or B) enter a randomized dungeon type there where you...fight waves of enemies. There was just too much loot in my opinion. I kept picking up moves and I had no interest in trying them. Especially because you'd have to level them up to make them good or they'd all be really similar to each other.

So those are the bad parts. What are the good parts? Well, first of all I mentioned earlier the visceral quality of the combat, and this carries on to the far more bombastic action cutscenes. When Kratos goes toe to toe with the big baddies in cutscenes it is epic as hell. Like it's some top tier anime shit when he fights Baldur for the first time. And it's not just the combat cutscenes that are great because I really enjoyed the story and characters. With the exception of Atreus during the parts where he becomes a moody little cunt the dialogue is fantastic. Kratos is such a great stoic badass. Brok and Sindri are absolutely hilarious comic relief. Sindri's germaphobia is particularly great in a world where everything is dead and a monster.

Oh and of course the game is gorgeous. I'm actually a bit peeved I didn't play it on a PS5 or a PS4 Pro because at 30 fps 1080p you're really missing out. When you're climbing up in the mountains or when you see the giant serpent in all his glory-- truly some tremendous sights.

I've already typed a lot of words. To summarize while I sometimes enjoyed the gameplay I also was generally frustrated by it. But I stuck around because I loved the story, the characters, and wanted to see what other areas there were to explore in the game. I'm happy I stuck around for this, in my opinion, 7/10 game.

But at the end of the day it's a really fun challenge and I'm happy I finished it.