God of War Review Thread
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Actually I have looked up this fight, there is no direct video on it. I'd have to find it in the middle of a random let's play to even get a clue.hanselthecaretaker said:
It isn't the Soul Eaters that are the problem with combat, if it was just these one enemy types, then fine. But it isn't, there are several enemies that just ruin the combats pacing. The teleporting mages, are another example.
The thing is that there are plenty of other sections where the combat shows potential. Like early on when you encounter enemies you can't fight with the axe and have to bare-fist them. That's great, having to swap out weapons, to deal different damages on the fly in combat is a great way to keep the player on their toes.
It's when the entire tactic is designed to ruin the flow of the combat that causes these issues for me.
I've beaten Soul Eaters before this particular one has caused me grief. Spam throwing the axe into a weak spot over and over again is not interesting and is not fun. Chasing down teleporters while you hope the boy's arrow not only hit it, but also stagger it enough to be hit by Kratos, is not fun. Especially when sometimes they'll super armor through your hit and hit you with their own spell or attack anyway.
There are moments of greatness in the combat, some of the boss fights have been great. Other fights that rely on a gimmick, are much less great. One of my favorite fights were the duel fights against the brothers, and the duel fight against to two different elemental statues. Both those encounters show how swapping weapons on the fly can make the combat incredible.
Yeah, the Soul Eaters aern't that fun, but I didn't find them that annoying. Only an optional one gave me trouble, and that's only because he was a way higher level, but it only took me two tries to beat him. They're more manageable when you get enough XP to get the parry projectile skill. They take so much damage from it and are much easier to kill.CritialGaming said:
After finally having the time to put a few more hours into the game after my initial 2 hours or so, I'm not feeling the combat either. It's a bunch of little things that I really can't get into a fun flow, I still only have one upgrade so far (looking at the pause screen now and I can get a few more). I'm playing on Hard, which might be a mistake, as enemies seem to take too long to kill; I got that heavy cleave attack right away. It seems like doing stun damage isn't worth it besides against the standard enemies (which are easy enough to kill anyway) because I'll build up the stun meter against a tougher enemy and before it builds up enough to do a finisher, I'll have to dodge some other enemy's attack and by the time I get back to said enemy, the stun meter is basically depleted. Little things like Kratos being able to interrupt his animations isn't consistent, I can basically insta-interrupt a heavy attack to block but I can't interrupt a light attack to block, which doesn't make much sense. And, several times I'll press block before an attack (when I'm purposefully waiting and looking to do a counter) and I guess I press it slightly too late and Kratos doesn't block when prior to that I've pressed block even later than that mid-heavy-attack no less and been able to block. Sometimes I press R1 for heavy attack and Kratos doesn't do anything. I don't think the feedback is good on whether you're staggering (breaking poise or whatever) an enemy or not when you're in a combo and the enemy just attacks you when you think they can't. I'm also finding some of the enemy telegraph animations pretty cheap. It's just a bunch of little things causing the combat to not flow or feel nearly as good as it can. I'm also not liking how every combat encounter seems to have at least 2-3 waves of enemies (feeling like Uncharted 1 in that sense). I'm dying like 10 times or so every encounter because I'm trying to figure all the little intricacies in the combat to get in a satisfying flow. I know that I can play much more careful and win in 1 or 2 tries but that's not really fun though.CritialGaming said:
Oh, and that 1st runic power is fucking useless, it stuns the enemies for like the duration of Kratos' animation on using the rune so it basically does nothing.
Enemies can be spongy especially early on, but mixing attacks up between the axe and fists, plus some arrows can either usually build up a stun meter quicker or deplete a health bar faster for normal enemies. Crowd control management is essential in larger groups, especially with drastically different enemy types. If you need to build up a stun meter on a tougher enemy, make sure the scrubs are taken out first so they can't interfere.Phoenixmgs said:
Of course it makes sense. Light attacks are generally too quick to benefit from interrupts, while it would be annoying if you couldn't interrupt a much slower heavy attack with how hectic some fights can be.Phoenixmgs said:
R1 is light attack by default, which makes sense as the button press is much shallower than R2 for heavy.Phoenixmgs said:
I suppose it's understandable for someone who's a big fan of action games like Bayonetta or the like to not feel the combat even after a few hours. It's a slower burn towards gaining more useful abilities and finding a variety of infusions to enhance things further. I think I have around 15 hours in so far and have over half my skill tree unlocked with four or five different runes each, so I'm starting to see the depth of what can be done mixing things up. It's just a matter of finding what works best against different enemy types. Sometimes the tips jotted down after repeat encounters can help to enhance strategical efficiency and effectiveness.Phoenixmgs said:
This video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0qCOPZD__w] proves that wrong 15 seconds in. It's mostly used as an "oh shit" defensive move anyways when feeling overwhelmed. There are simply too many ways combat can branch out to make a call on it after only a few hours imo. Yeah it can be sparse at first but I think it would've been overwhelming if everything was available from the start. The whole progression system is designed to feel things out piece by piece and mix and match what works best for your style.Phoenixmgs said:
Basically it takes a while to open up. Once you start getting more runes and other moves you'll have a lot more to experiment with. In the end though, it boils down to how well each player digs the style. I like it quite a bit because it channels certain elements of SoulsBorne but also combines it with more classic, gamier combat mechanics. It's nearly the perfect blend of several of my favorite games of the past couple generations.
I've played the game quite a bit more since the post, I just completed Alfheim section last night. The more moves you get, the better the combat does get. And, I just got the rune that gives Kratos basically "witch time" on dodges. However, there's quite a few things that are just done poorly on the foundational level of the combat system that the better moves do cover up better.hanselthecaretaker said:
-From reading a few posts here and there on other forums, the difficulty levels seem to be barely play-tested. The whole opening of the game (until you get to The Lake) seems to easily be the hardest part of the game and it is very brutal on just Hard, let alone on the GoW difficulty. And people here in a thread about difficulty thought devs actually thoroughly play-test and balance every difficulty level when games release so poorly balanced regularly.
-My logic with heavy attacks being less likely to interrupt is that heavy attacks just logically take more commitment and are harder to basically stop doing. A boxer doing quick jabs is obviously more able to adjust than when he is unleashing his strong right hook. So, it seemed odd how quick you can interrupt a heavy attack but not a quick attack. And, I reversed the shoulder buttons because throwing/shooting with L1+R1 is ingrained muscle memory.
-I'm guessing that video is on Normal or lower difficulty because on Hard, that starter rune just basically pauses combat for a couple seconds because the enemies are basically ready to act after Kratos' animation is finished. Maybe I can get in a light attack right after but I stopped using it after trying it like twice as I figured it would at least stun enemies long enough to get in a cleave, but it doesn't; I might as well just parry an attack at that point. Now I have much better runes anyway.
Back to those "foundational" problems in the combat system I mentioned at the start. How the enemy "super armor" works is really poor combined with the fact that enemies play by different rules than Kratos. Enemy combos stun-lock Kratos for cheap deaths while enemies can just attack in the middle of your combo. Kratos has literally no "super armor" for himself, you can do a heavy leaping attack and be completely knocked out of it by any kind of attack. There's also an unresponsiveness and perhaps lag at times with the controls. I'll purposefully be waiting to block to get that counter and Kratos just won't block when I know pressed the button before the attack. There's times when I press sprint (which I put on R3) and Kratos doesn't sprint, which means that window that was open to do a sprinting attack in now closed or I get hit on my side because Kratos didn't run. Also, the i-frames associated with the dodge just feel inconsistent, I'll be perfectly dodging like 5 attacks in a row getting a flow going, then Kratos just doesn't dodge like 3 attacks in a row when I feel like I'm timing the dodges properly. Probably half my deaths felt like I died because Kratos is not doing what I'm telling him to do, that's probably exaggerated along with some bias but there's definitely a good percentage of deaths that feel that way. With the top tier action games, you can probably count those type of deaths on one hand over the entire game.
Another major issue is that the enemies just aren't fun to fight for the most part. The highly mobile/teleporting enemies basically just disregard much of Kratos' kit making them not very fun to fight. A lot of fights is just figuring out the optimum set of moves/abilities to utilize instead of just having fun with the combat system. I'm at this fight with 2 purple revenants (not a realm tear fight BTW) and I Youtubed 'God of War 2 revenants' to see if I'm missing some move/ability that I don't realize owns them and the 3-4 videos I clicked on were just people cheesing them. I did totally forget about the Boy's summon thing that I just got, which I will use now. But the combat system doesn't encourage playing with style or flow, but just surviving. I really hate how enemies will just spawn in or come over and add to the current fight. I don't have much problem with the camera like some people have because I'm fine with looking over the area, knowing what enemies I'm fighting, and keeping track of their general positions even when off camera (and with the indicators turned off as well), but what throws me off is additional enemies joining the fight in the middle of it. I started this one fight killing the 3 nightmares I saw so I'm like "ok, I got those nightmares out of the way" and then bam an exploding nightmare hits me ("ok, I must've missed one"), then another 2 hit me and I'm like "what the fuck?" Then, I start the fight over and kill those initial 3 nightmares again and keep moving forward and seeing these other nightmares just traveling over from somewhere else. Like I said, I don't have issue actually fighting with the game's camera, but not when it spawns in enemies off-screen. Then, to up the challenge, the game thinks that 1-hit-kill enemies are the way to go; again, that just encourages cheesing vs actually learning and being creative with a combat system. Lastly, none of the bosses have been good fights yet, The Stranger was visually cool but gameplay-wise really simple and basic.
Edit:
I've been checking out the occasional video here and there on the harder difficulties just to see what other people do and again, to see if I'm missing something, and I was watching a video of a couple early fights on GoW difficulty and here is how that first rune power works on GoW [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhSBDXtLQak&feature=youtu.be&t=360]; as you can see it basically does nothing and the guy didn't even get a hit in afterward. I was playing on Hard but the power basically does the same thing there. I dropped down to normal because Hard just isn't much fun, not that I can't beat it because it's easy to cheese enemies (as seen in the aforementioned video if you watched any more than just those few seconds of the rune power) but that's not very fun.
Phoenixmgs said:
I took the time to read all that, but still only the bold stood out. Chances are your preferred game design would escape this level of subjectivity; maybe not for the same reasons, but it's clear this game is not within that blueprint.
I have no idea why I still bother trying to refute anything here as it is increasingly appearing futile, but again for a couple examples...
Light attack cancel's, like I said before, are pretty pointless considering the attack is fast enough that interrupting isn't beneficial. The same cannot be said for heavy attacks.
Hel's Touch, like I said before, is mainly an "oh shit" defensive power meant to get out of overwhelming situations. It can be upgraded to work better offensively, but still not considered its main use.
The button responsiveness, it must be kept in mind that there is, like Souls, an element of weight to this game that traditional action games lack. I haven't blamed the game for it yet, because I like the deliberate physicality and sense of motion captured inertia. I'm guessing millions of others feel the same.
I can only chalk up the rest of your complaints as regurgitated noise that's also seemingly been irrelevant to the enjoyment millions of others have apparently had with the game's combat. Perhaps they're all wrong or misguided from your perspective, but considering you clearly have established your own biases and haven't even finished the game or appealed to its design differences as actual differences vs detriments, a grain of salt it can be taken with, imo.
I don't have nothing against the God of War's core designs, it's just several little things on that foundational layer that I find poor. I'm not like "this isn't my God of War" or "this camera is garbage" like say TheGamingBritShow where I'm obviously against the core direction the game went in. It's sorta like my take on the Uncharted series, I find all but Uncharted 2 to be 5/10s or lower while I love Uncharted 2. It's obviously not the core design of Uncharted I have an issue with but a bunch of little things that Uncharted 2 nailed while the others just didn't. It's like that classic Simpson's Hank Scorpio episode where Homer quits his dream job over the little things.hanselthecaretaker said:
The bigger picture stuff that I don't care for would be that I'm not a fan of the RPG elements in the game. I personally don't think I should have to worry about my level and enemy levels in a character action game, which this game still very much is IMO. But that really isn't that big of a deal as to why I'm not in love with the game (it's around the 6/10 area for me right now) and the RPG elements just feel more like I'm wasting time looking through inventory/upgrade/stat screens when I really shouldn't be doing that for a game like this than having a negative affect on actual gameplay. So far I'm also not a fan of the puzzle design, which seems like 90% of the puzzles are basically just on that Where's Waldo level where you're just trying to find stuff to hit to unlock chests. I recall the 1st God of War's puzzle design to be much better.
Kratos has several times not sprint when I hit sprint and I, of course, change sprint to R3 or R2 depending on the game because L3 for sprint sucks and ruins controllers. There's several times where I know I blocked or dodged before an attack; again, I probably exaggerated the amount but it's definitely there. I also came across a GameFaqs thread [https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/191627-god-of-war/76576702] (I know GameFaqs and grains of salt and everything) but several people are having issues with Rage of Sparta activation and weapon switching after doing a rune attack, which I haven't experienced yet since I don't have to switch weapons yet. There's definitely something on the animation level that's just a little bit off that the top tier action games just don't have. I also just came from Monster Hunter and that has more weight to it than a Souls game and the reason you can die in MH isn't from controls but bad hit-boxes.
Phoenixmgs said:
I can agree the game isn't as responsive as it could be, but haven't had a significant problem with it when realizing due to its animation-bound design you just can't spam/cancel into any move from something else. I guess I'm used to Souls, where you almost have to wait for one move to completely finish before you think of committing a button press to something else. Rage should be an exception imo though, and perhaps they could tweak some of the other timings too. The biggest problem with responsiveness I've experienced is probably stun finishers, which I put on Hold X to avoid R3 lock on interference. I sometimes notice I have to wait for Kratos' current animation to finish before I can commit to holding X when I see the stun prompt.
Again, this isn't designed like a "top tier" action game where input responsiveness is given the utmost priority. I can understand that people are having problems with it, but unless the devs are willing to revamp its design then it's something they'll have to accept if they want to play it. It can become more enjoyable if one can tolerate the differences. I think after playing Horizon: Zero Dawn it could be tough though, since imo that game plays like a dream once Aloy grows up.
Again, I'm not saying I need instant animation interrupts on everything like a Platinum game, I need consistency. I'd say Monster Hunter is a top tier action game while having more weight and deliberation than a Souls game, Souls is a button masher compared to MH. I only have one nitpick about the controls/animations with MH and that has to do specifically with the bow dash; everything else control-wise is basically perfectly spot-on, my character always does what I input. Anyway, the point is God of War is not on-point with controls, responsiveness, and consistency like other action games whether it's Bayo/DMC, Ninja Gaiden, Souls, Monster Hunter, etc.hanselthecaretaker said:
You mentioned the Stun Finishers and that's exactly another area where the animations don't flow at all. You can't run up to an enemy holding the finisher button and have Kratos smoothly transition into the finisher. You run up and have to stand there for a second to actually do the finisher. You bring up Horizon and Aloy perfectly transitions into that game's "finishers" / critical hits when the machine is down or shocked; you can even slide into those criticals and Aloy still perfectly transitions animation-wise (I think I slid into every critical hit, I slid for everything, I loved DAT SLIDE lol).
I am enjoying the game more and more as I get new moves/powers and everything because they mask those issues but the base combat system just doesn't feel great and you have to play with it for probably the 1st quarter of the game. I said previously that I lowered the difficulty to Normal and the game just recently became cakewalk easy so I bumped it back up to Hard. The boss fight at the top of the mountain finally had the epicness that a God of War boss fight should feel like.
Another inconsistency I realized with the controls is that Kratos doesn't always dodge in the direction you tell him to. For example, on a straight down vertical attack (OHKO as well) I'll obviously be dodging left or right only to have Kratos dodge backward and thus not dodge the attack. I also don't like how both Kratos and enemies attack and glide forward to land attacks. I just faced my 1st valkyrie and I'll definitely be far enough back to be out of range from her spinning attack and she hits me because she glides towards me during the attack. Kratos does do the same thing as well so I guess it's fair but it doesn't help in combat feeling "right".
Also, the game is very static without any sorta systemic systems in place at all. For example, rolling into water doesn't stop the burning status effect. Those red balls that explode with electricity only affect things they are programmed to (I actually tried to explode a rune pot for one of those chests with an electricity bomb but it didn't work).
Lastly, the RPG elements are now pissing me off in a sense because there's no reason for them and secondly because they aren't even good RPG elements. Kratos' actual stats matter very little outside of his overall level. And I hate that I can't experience content at whatever pace I want. The game will just throw tanky OHKO enemies at you on certain sidequests and challenge type rooms. This isn't an RPG, I've not coming back to content because I'm underleveled and secondly it doesn't even make you OP because the high-end stuff you can get from most "high-level" optional content can't even be used if you do it early. And the fights can easily be cheesed even at a low-level, the fights don't challenge your actual skills but challenge your current number. Whereas Bayonetta will have challenge rooms that challenge your ability to do wicked weaves or say not touch the ground, thus the game is challenging you to master all aspects of combat vs just giving you tanky OHKO enemies that challenge your number. You'll come back to a Bayonetta challenge because you just need to "git gud" vs the numbers being stacked against you. Now, I just drop the difficulty level from Hard to Normal for those fights because fighting those enemies underleveled on Normal is basically the same exact fight as coming back properly leveled and fighting them on Hard.
Also, the game is very static without any sorta systemic systems in place at all. For example, rolling into water doesn't stop the burning status effect. Those red balls that explode with electricity only affect things they are programmed to (I actually tried to explode a rune pot for one of those chests with an electricity bomb but it didn't work).
Lastly, the RPG elements are now pissing me off in a sense because there's no reason for them and secondly because they aren't even good RPG elements. Kratos' actual stats matter very little outside of his overall level. And I hate that I can't experience content at whatever pace I want. The game will just throw tanky OHKO enemies at you on certain sidequests and challenge type rooms. This isn't an RPG, I've not coming back to content because I'm underleveled and secondly it doesn't even make you OP because the high-end stuff you can get from most "high-level" optional content can't even be used if you do it early. And the fights can easily be cheesed even at a low-level, the fights don't challenge your actual skills but challenge your current number. Whereas Bayonetta will have challenge rooms that challenge your ability to do wicked weaves or say not touch the ground, thus the game is challenging you to master all aspects of combat vs just giving you tanky OHKO enemies that challenge your number. You'll come back to a Bayonetta challenge because you just need to "git gud" vs the numbers being stacked against you. Now, I just drop the difficulty level from Hard to Normal for those fights because fighting those enemies underleveled on Normal is basically the same exact fight as coming back properly leveled and fighting them on Hard.
Yeah there are quite a few tanky enemies, but most of them can be cut down quicker utilizing runes, juggles, fists to build stun early, etc. I haven't played in a while; last I just reached the summit area where you get the talking head. Most enemies have gone down in less than ten hits, especially using light/heavy rune combos or juggling extenders with freeze status effects. The troll in the elevator area still took a while but that's by design. I also noticed they can be staggered if you hits the symbolic areas with arrows or an ax throw.Phoenixmgs said:
What do you think of the shield mechanics?
On the story path, you don't find many of the purple tanky enemies. It's mainly on the sidequests and optional content where you can run into a lot of bullshit. There's a sidequest looking for a whetstone and it's basically just 5 challenge rooms, and one of those rooms vs OHKOing wolves (yes, fucking purple wolves) was when I first dropped the difficulty from Hard to Normal. There's quite a few enemies you'll come across that you can't juggle (like the stone ancients, revenants, travelers) or you're just facing too many enemies at once to really be able to just go after the tanky enemy and there's quite often more than one OHKOing tanky enemy. There was one stone ancient soul-eater enemy on a beach and it was so very purple, I had to do the "finisher" thing 4 times to actually kill it while it basically had OHKO attacks so I totally dropped the difficulty on that bullshit. I'm past getting the head from the mountain and that's when The Lake fully opens up to be able to do most, if not all, of the optional content as the water drops even more. I explored this one island, found everything and at the top there was a tear and 3 purple enemies pop out so drop the difficulty because I'm not coming back to every island or area just to do one more fight. And the tears, you don't even know if it's a fight or not, sometimes you just grab some "dust of the realms" and sometimes a group of purple enemies jumps out.hanselthecaretaker said:
One short anecdote about the controls. I was fighting this purple orge right by the shoreline and I got it down to the finisher prompt (which is O for me) so I run up to it holding O and Kratos jumps in the fucking boat. Then, I die getting back out of the boat and had to redo the fight like 3 or so times. I guess that's more a super rare instance and circumstances (since I made O the finisher button) and more so something to just laugh at more than a serious issue but it pissed me off when it happened.
Are you talking about just blocking with the shield or the full suite of the bare-handed moves? Blocking is fine, it's nice that you have to be at least somewhat facing the enemy to block unlike classic GOW. I feel the timing is a bit off at times like most things in the game. You'll block the same attack like 5 times in a row and just miss 2 or 3 in a row when you feel your timing hasn't changed. The last fight I had was against those basic frozen white-walker-like enemies, I was easily parrying their attacks and Kratos just wouldn't do that counter power attack move. I even paused to look in the skill tree to make sure I was using the right button, unless you need the axe out to do it for some reason (which I didn't as the axe is useless against them). It was weird.
So, I finally finished the game a few nights ago, and I'd give the game a 6/10.
The story was really anti-climatic for me. I was looking forward to finally getting to the Giant realm and it ended up being so disappointing for a couple reasons (don't wanna say anymore for spoiler purposes). The core relationship between Kratos and BOY was overall good, but the overall plot was really dragged out. I always sorta felt like, "Yes, I got this done, now I can move on." But then the game is like, "Nope, you ain't doing that yet because you also need this thing that we didn't tell you about."
I really hated the forced RPG elements in the game along with probably the worse difficulty balancing I ever recall a game ever having (I don't get how that wasn't heavily criticized in reviews). This game is not an RPG and I shouldn't come across "high-level" enemies that are just tankier versions of previous enemies. Even in RPGs, you turn around because you come across a fucking dragon when you're only at the point of killing wolves consistently. In God of War, you'll comes across high-level wolves that'll OHKO you when you've been killing normal wolves already. Not only would this be considered poorly done in an actual RPG, it's a damn ridiculous for it being in a character action game. On to the horrible difficulty balancing, the game starts out really hard in the beginning (if you play on Hard or the Hardest level), then by the mid-point of the game, it gets so easy that I was wishing I could jump up the hardest level (as you can only play on that if you start the game there and you can't drop the difficulty ever). The game gets so easy that some fights you can literally just have BOY spam his 4 arrows to stun every enemy to the point Kratos can just do finishers on everything. And you can't really overlevel much in the game either because gear that you can craft unlocks via story progression so it wasn't because I became OP via overleveling. The difficulty spiking at the very beginning and only ever dropping as you go is a very common issue.
The combat itself felt overall fun and solid, around what I'd say is 7-8/10 on its own, but the bad RPG elements and difficulty balancing make it so most fights end up being too hard or too easy to really get the most out of it. I have a few control issues like Kratos not always dodging in the direction you press along with some other responsiveness issues. I do agree with Yahtzee's take on combat with regards to how the moves you unlock aren't necessarily useless but I didn't find that a lot of the inputs for moves really flowed well and I just didn't use them. Then, every time I would get a new move, I'd be like "oh yeah, there's these other moves that look cool" but I'm not using because the inputs didn't flow well. It's kinda hard to explain and it may just be a preference issue on my end. Lastly, the way the special/magic moves (runic attacks) worked with regards to a cooldown system made the combat feel very MOBA-ish because at the start of every encounter, you'd mainly unleash and do all your cool/powerful shit, then clean up with the basic moves. Whereas the old GoW games had you having to decide if an encounter was worthy of you magic instead of say your magic just regenerating so you can use it all every encounter.
The story was really anti-climatic for me. I was looking forward to finally getting to the Giant realm and it ended up being so disappointing for a couple reasons (don't wanna say anymore for spoiler purposes). The core relationship between Kratos and BOY was overall good, but the overall plot was really dragged out. I always sorta felt like, "Yes, I got this done, now I can move on." But then the game is like, "Nope, you ain't doing that yet because you also need this thing that we didn't tell you about."
I really hated the forced RPG elements in the game along with probably the worse difficulty balancing I ever recall a game ever having (I don't get how that wasn't heavily criticized in reviews). This game is not an RPG and I shouldn't come across "high-level" enemies that are just tankier versions of previous enemies. Even in RPGs, you turn around because you come across a fucking dragon when you're only at the point of killing wolves consistently. In God of War, you'll comes across high-level wolves that'll OHKO you when you've been killing normal wolves already. Not only would this be considered poorly done in an actual RPG, it's a damn ridiculous for it being in a character action game. On to the horrible difficulty balancing, the game starts out really hard in the beginning (if you play on Hard or the Hardest level), then by the mid-point of the game, it gets so easy that I was wishing I could jump up the hardest level (as you can only play on that if you start the game there and you can't drop the difficulty ever). The game gets so easy that some fights you can literally just have BOY spam his 4 arrows to stun every enemy to the point Kratos can just do finishers on everything. And you can't really overlevel much in the game either because gear that you can craft unlocks via story progression so it wasn't because I became OP via overleveling. The difficulty spiking at the very beginning and only ever dropping as you go is a very common issue.
The combat itself felt overall fun and solid, around what I'd say is 7-8/10 on its own, but the bad RPG elements and difficulty balancing make it so most fights end up being too hard or too easy to really get the most out of it. I have a few control issues like Kratos not always dodging in the direction you press along with some other responsiveness issues. I do agree with Yahtzee's take on combat with regards to how the moves you unlock aren't necessarily useless but I didn't find that a lot of the inputs for moves really flowed well and I just didn't use them. Then, every time I would get a new move, I'd be like "oh yeah, there's these other moves that look cool" but I'm not using because the inputs didn't flow well. It's kinda hard to explain and it may just be a preference issue on my end. Lastly, the way the special/magic moves (runic attacks) worked with regards to a cooldown system made the combat feel very MOBA-ish because at the start of every encounter, you'd mainly unleash and do all your cool/powerful shit, then clean up with the basic moves. Whereas the old GoW games had you having to decide if an encounter was worthy of you magic instead of say your magic just regenerating so you can use it all every encounter.
I haven't had much time to play lately, so am only at the Tyr's Temple area with the spinning loops puzzle. The tanky enemies are my biggest complaint, as it makes most SoulsBorne enemies seem like flakes; same with bosses. I think battles of attrition are annoying in general, and at most a game should have maybe one or two story-centric instances of them, if any.
The other stuff about combat like some sketchy control issues with delayed reactions and the like I can chalk up mostly to the animation system and my own personal button mapping. I hold X and Circle for finishers and sprinting respectively, because I'd rather limit the amount of stick clicking I do. Targeting is enough imo.
In general though I'm still really having fun with the combat overall, given the variety of runic attacks and ways to mix things up; especially after getting the
. The cooldowns aren't an issue for me since I'd rather have the ability to reuse those attacks after a time span than having to go searching for magic orbs or whatever. It helps keep the flow of combat going and adds some strategy and suspense in terms of when to use them (generally after stun arrows or staggers for me). I also haven't had a problem with enemies interrupting them like some have said.
The exploration is another strong point, and I can see myself wanting to find everything eventually. The boat reminds me of Wind Waker a bit, but more interesting because of the dialog interactions and varied locations. The revisiting areas because you haven't found a certain item yet can get tedious though. I think Souls games flowed better and felt less gamey in terms of discovering new things.
The story so far is pretty subdued, and I'm waiting for some big reveals but won't exactly be surprised if they don't happen considering they're planning another trilogy. In terms of delivery and presentation though it's pretty much a high water mark. TLoU2 might outdo it in some ways, but I'd still be more impressed with how Kratos was handled given it once seemed impossible to give him any meaningful depth. There's a part where he had to cut out the heart of this troll and even with no words, his body language conveyed so much in terms of how he felt after doing that kind of thing for probably the millionth time in his life. Where almost always before it was out of pure rage and bloodlust, now it appeared to be such a heavy-handed task even when done out of selfless necessity. I actually started to feel sorry for him.
The other stuff about combat like some sketchy control issues with delayed reactions and the like I can chalk up mostly to the animation system and my own personal button mapping. I hold X and Circle for finishers and sprinting respectively, because I'd rather limit the amount of stick clicking I do. Targeting is enough imo.
In general though I'm still really having fun with the combat overall, given the variety of runic attacks and ways to mix things up; especially after getting the
blades
The exploration is another strong point, and I can see myself wanting to find everything eventually. The boat reminds me of Wind Waker a bit, but more interesting because of the dialog interactions and varied locations. The revisiting areas because you haven't found a certain item yet can get tedious though. I think Souls games flowed better and felt less gamey in terms of discovering new things.
The story so far is pretty subdued, and I'm waiting for some big reveals but won't exactly be surprised if they don't happen considering they're planning another trilogy. In terms of delivery and presentation though it's pretty much a high water mark. TLoU2 might outdo it in some ways, but I'd still be more impressed with how Kratos was handled given it once seemed impossible to give him any meaningful depth. There's a part where he had to cut out the heart of this troll and even with no words, his body language conveyed so much in terms of how he felt after doing that kind of thing for probably the millionth time in his life. Where almost always before it was out of pure rage and bloodlust, now it appeared to be such a heavy-handed task even when done out of selfless necessity. I actually started to feel sorry for him.