Ragnarök: The End of a Good Series

[Burley]

I've been playing God of War: Ragnarök and I'm extremely disappointed. I'm going to complain about it as a stand-alone game and as a sequel:

On its own, it's buggy. When you do a Stun Finisher, you can see when the enemy's model is swapped for one that's made of two-pieces. Sometimes they pop-in at different times or maybe the legs just don't appear. I've had to reload areas because the little red dangle I'm supposed to grab and swing around won't become an interactable. Every enemy hit stuns you out of animations, but every enemy tanks your hits.

As a sequel, it's a huge disappointment. It's predecessor was an ambitious story about a father and son bonding over a journey to spread the ashes of a loved one. This game has no goal other than "Do something about Ragnarök." They promised us all nine realms, and they delivered on 9 hallways. Midgard is just their house and Niflheim only has rewards for a certain collectable. The "new" realms are hallways with the occasional alcove to pick up some Animal Scraps and Dimbldorf Ore.
The first game had an emotional through-line and took itself seriously, but this one is just dumb jokes and 4th wall breaking. There's a boss fight very early on where I felt like I was getting hit with some cheap shots that should have missed but killed me. Then, it does this little meta-joke where you are scripted to die and it shows you the Continue? screen, but it was all a joke! Several hours later, after listening to Atreus's whinging about not having answers, Atreus finds himself with the one person who could give him all the answers. But, instead of giving us the pivotal narrative, we get awkward flirting while gathering fruit. (And, as if the scene weren't twee enough, they have to bring in a fennec fox.)
They've added more equipment slots and slots within your equipment, but you only find equipment and accessories in chests or quest rewards (not dropped from enemies). So, while there are twice as many things to manage, there are half the available options. Equipment incentivizes wearing armor sets and requires the same (limited) materials to upgrade them. I'm finding level 5 gear now, when I'm only barely able to upgrade my preferred gear to 4. So, to stay with the level curve, I'd need to equip new stuff as I find it, making the upgrade system pointless until, I assume, late-game.


It's not a bad game, necessarily. It's too close to Guardians of the Galaxy, though, for me to enjoy. It's serviceable, but more than half of the game is long halls with exactly enough space between salon encounters to listen to the characters have their funny little conversations. That was fine in Guardians of the Galaxy, because spaceships are finite spaces with hallways and the Guardians are funny goofs. But, God of War shouldn't be a bunch of funny goofs. It's the lack of scope and focus that highlights the lack of ambition.