4.5/5 ★ – ThePigeon's review of God of War: Ragnarök.

GoW Rangarok and Valhalla are a very frustrating to look back upon. Not because the game is bad, by no means. But, because I don’t truly know where to rate/scale this game. What I mean is I while I know Ragnarok is better than the original three Greece games (at least I prefer it over them), I don’t know how I feel about it compared to 2018. Theoretically, there is categorically more Ragnarok has improved than 2018. Theoretically exploration and traversal for one is better. With the addition of all 9 realms being traversal, Santa Monica thought is what the best possible idea to make climbing and general movement around the map as fluid as possible, and it makes for going back to these areas so much easier than in 2018. The side content and quest, also much better. The actual story and motivations of these quests had a lot more weight, and the story of said side quests is presented much better. So many side quests kept me invested, despite them being glorified fetch quest. The addition and expansions of shields makes for them game to have a cool new element of combat that incentivizes different approaches to a defensive playstyle. I ran a the dauntless shield for the entire game, a high-risk high-reward shield that promoted parrying above all else. However there is shields that reward more defensive blocking, or even use the shield in unique ways like a charge shield. The new weapon, the spear is at least for me, an amazing weapon. The runic attacks you get for it, and the gale winds essentially help you build stagger quicker on enemies was soooo satisfying. I have seen videos and posts of people not liking the weapon, or not using it, but I loved it and used it regularly after unlocking it. Ragnarok does all of this and more and cleans up a lot of the smaller issues of 2018. Ragnarok’s fatal error, at least compared to 2018 is its main story. Now don’t get me wrong, the story isn’t bad. I loved the story, however in my personal opinion, Ragnarok tried to do too much with the story. Originally Ragnarok was supposed to be split into two games, as the lead devs from Santa Monica were afraid of overstaying their welcome. This is reflected in ultimately the stories biggest problem pacing. In reality the story isn’t bad, however the game is going 100 miles per hours at time trying to go from Point A to point F, all while introducing new characters that they try to flesh out with their whole arcs. This leads to too many characters to balance and a lot of their arcs being sped up. Another issue with the pacing is the imbalance in specific segments and scenes with pacing. The game splits you up at times into Atreus and Kratos only segments, and almost all of the Atreus segments are dragged out or have some moment where it halts all momentum. The second time you play as Atreus and the first time you visit a specific realm (not going to say) holy fuck does it drag out. It’s like 4-5 hours, 1 hour is just you walking with Atreus. And even when you do encounters as Atreus it’s way too many per area. All of this culminates into such a sour experience for some portions of the game. Also GoW Ragnarok in its rapid pacing issues, also loses a lot of the subtlety that GoW 2018 had. In my opinion, in the base game there is no scene like the Blades of Chaos scene. A strong and powerful subtle scene that shows you the impact those blades had, not tells you. The benefit of this however, is that the game really lets Christopher Judge really go all out with his performance as Kratos. Judge deserved to win best performer at the game awards that year. I think while the story did have its issues, it still is not a bad story by all means. I loved the story, the themes and concepts explored here are concept. And with a more honest and open Kratos you get a lot more emotional and amazing moments in the game. Also some of the characters introduced in this game are done so well. While many people did not enjoy the final act of the game I thought it was amazing and a real send off to so many great characters in this game. And the banter and humor in this game is amazing. Mimir and Kratos’s dynamic is taken up a notch and leads for some of the funniest moment. And truly I think every major character that returns from the original cast just has some moment where they shine. Ultimately the game is not bad. The nitpicking and complaints are just me comparing it to GoW 2018, which I consider to be a near perfect game. Also, GoW Rangarok’s issues stem more of them trying to do 2 games in one essentially. However, Ragnarok is one of the best entries in the GoW series and makes for a magnum opus in its own regard. 4.5/5