It’s been 3 years since the events of the previous game. Atreus is no longer a boy, but a teenager who can face threats on his own. All thanks to the training of Kratos, who is constantly waiting for threats from the Norse gods. After all, killing Baldur cannot be without consequences. Kratos and Atreus become targets for many powerful beings: Freya’s lust for revenge, who has lost her beloved son, Thor has similar or even double grievances (after all, Magni and Modi died at the hands of a Spartan), and finally Odin, who does not like the alien murdering newcomer his kinsmen. Meanwhile, in almost all nine lands, the effects of fimbulwinter, the winter that heralds ragnarök, are growing stronger. Father and son hit the road again to understand their role in the coming war.
Parental history
As you can see from the above description, knowing the first part is more than advisable. There is no revolution here that separated Greek adventures from Scandinavian ones; Ragnarok is a sequel very much set in the world of the previous part. This has its advantages, because it allows you to see the consequences of Kratos’ actions, and the returning characters become even closer to the player. The plot again combines the epicness of the clash of the gods with a very intimate story about parental love, making difficult life choices and the ability to let go.
The characters are phenomenal. I adore Kratos from the very first part, although his first incarnations, in which he was an eternally angry bhoot, look caricatured from today’s perspective. Only the game from 2019 made him an (anti?) hero of flesh and blood. There’s more of it here, and it’s shown much better. Although Kratos is still a supporter of emotional cold breeding ( pun intended ), he is gradually becoming more and more open to his son and friends – yes, Spartiata finally has people close to him. A great decision of the developers was to diversify the accompanying characters. It’s a pity that usually the game decides who will explore the world with us, but different companions mean more dialogue richness and some cosmetic changes in the game due to the unique skills of the sidekicks.
The beautiful thing is that the events of the previous installments have not been forgotten. During numerous dialogues, Kratos recalls his past adventures and often regrets the deeds he committed back then. In this way, it reappears a certain unfortunate captain of the ship, or mentioned for the first time since the adventures with God of War: Ghost of Sparta on PSP Kratos’ brother – Deimos. Such elements complete the story of Spartiata, showing how far the hero has come and how his approach to revenge and to other people has changed.
SPOILER ALERT!
And here I will allow myself a spoiler, because a certain element of the scenario / gameplay lowers the overall rating in my opinion and I just have to share it. So if you don’t want to spoil the ending, skip ahead to the next paragraph. The subtitle of the game is Ragnarok , while this event actually lasts in the game for… an hour? And this is when the story mode can take twenty-five hours, and with side quests twice as long. The adventures of Kratos and Atreus are interesting, set in various locations and enriched with great dialogues, but at the same time the plot focuses too much on preparing for the war of the gods, and when it comes to it, it has absolutely no idea for it. Yes, it is sublime, because the united worlds attacking Asgard bring to mind the famous finale of the filmAvengers: Endgame . However, when you come to the very end of the ending, the duels with Thor and Odin (by the way, boring and without panache) take place in the same place! And it’s in the backyard arena in front of the Allfather’s headquarters, which is barely bigger than a chicken coop. I’ve already mentioned the MCU, I’ll compare it again: in ThorsAsgard is an amazing, magical place with fantastic architecture. Meanwhile, in the game from Santa Monica Studio, the seat of the gods looks like a random Viking settlement. Where is the epicness that this studio once was able to conjure up? Moments before the finale, you can see Thor fighting in the background with the great serpent Jormungand – so why can’t we get close to this place? Or jump between dimensions with Odin? My hastily made suggestions have more creativity than what the player ends up getting. Just as I praise the progress the series has made between old and new installments, I miss those totally exaggerated action scenes here, like duels with gods in God of War III . Since the end of the world is coming, it should be done with a proper fart… erm… bang. And it’s not here.
And after spoilers
The biggest novelty in the game is the introduction of a second playable character. Already in the previous installment, Atreus showed himself to be an archer, but only now we can draw the string and pierce the enemies with a hail of arrows. In addition to the usual arrowheads, there are also special ones: sound and runic ones, with which a lot of logical puzzles are associated during exploration. The bow is also surprisingly good in melee combat and sometimes it’s just easier and faster to bash a monster in the head. Loki also got his own fury mode where he turns into a wolf.
At the same time, it’s hard to consider Atreus a character equal to his father. And I don’t mean that Kratos is a veteran and his son is a youngster. Too many elements have been neglected. Spartiata again got RPG-like statistics, thanks to which, depending on the selected armor and weapon, different builds are created . There are more options, because you can also develop shields and its rond or amulets that give additional effects or increase statistics. In relation to this, Atreus was completely neglected, because the only element that was given to the player is the development tree. It’s useless to look for statistics, and the change of armor is only cosmetic. The creators were even lazy enough that the last two skins are just a change of armor colors from the beginning of the game.
The stages in which we control Atreus are almost always different from those with Kratos. It’s just that archery pales in comparison to the axe, blades of chaos and other weapons used by the parent. Definitely the least interesting is the adventure in the Iron Forest, which, although located in a beautiful location and full of good dialogues, goes on forever. Mainly by riding the yak, which has a speed of five kilometers per hour.
Tight sandbox
And while we’re on the subject of transportation. I wasn’t a fan of the boat in God of War , so the sequel allows me to dislike other forms of locomotion just as much, such as sleds, or the hapless one. Ragnarok is again a quasi-sandbox , in which you can travel through, and here’s a novelty, all nine realms. The problem is that these means of transport are usually slow, not very steerable and therefore tiring. Yes, the creators have blown up the maps in this way, but there are few such harbors for boats or other beaches, which means that there is no full freedom of movement here.
Overall, the game is all too often corridor-like, where Kratos has only one path to the goal, and the rest of the paths lead to bonuses after only a few meters. Although some places are inaccessible at the beginning, but even after unlocking the appropriate equipment, this does not change the labyrinthine nature of the places to a small extent. There is also a lack of free jump, which means that the hero is constantly limited by any hedge. The platforming sequences are trivial and devoid of any weight – Kratos simply leads the player by the hand and cannot even fall into the abyss. All interactive places are properly painted so that they cannot be overlooked. That’s why I consider this element of gameplaytoo outdated and in a potential sequel, the creators must opt for free exploration with more than one route to the goal.
Ragnarok also has another, but very annoying, feature. Logic puzzles are back in the game often and densely. However, as soon as the player starts thinking about something for more than 10 seconds, the companion immediately suggests a solution. Sometimes incorrect, because in the dialogue there is a suggestion of something that has already been done (e.g. an obstacle has been removed). Hell, if you could decide about such help yourself, but no, it’s automatic and you can’t turn it off. Usually, the puzzles are very simple and make you want to throw at your companions: “get your mouth shut.” This is another example of unnecessarily dumping the player.
Interregional tourism
A few more words about locations. As I mentioned, this time Kratos and company visit all nine worlds. It is beautiful in places, some lands are brilliant. In turn, others fail, again pointing to Asgard or Svartalfheim, where you don’t feel the dwarven atmosphere at all. However, for a large part of the main plot, the characters visit places that we have already seen in the previous part. Yes, fimbulwinter messed up a lot in them, there is much more snow and destruction everywhere. However, it is still a kind of backtracking, reheating assetspreviously used. So did the creators take the easy way out and just didn’t design the next levels? Well, no, because after completing the main missions, completely new locations are opened to the player – often large and in a completely new atmosphere. Their exploration is pure pleasure. Why, however, we only get there on sidequests , only Santa Monica Studio knows.
End of an era
I tested the game on PS4, so I can’t answer the question of how much the legacy of the old console weighs on Ragnarok . The only important thing is that everything looks beautiful on the old hardware, and the gameplay is pleasantly smooth. Bear McCreary’s soundtrack is again a masterpiece – pompous, choir-filled tracks perfectly complement the adventures of Kratos and Atreus.
What surprised me was quite a number of minor technical errors. In previous games from Santa Monica Studio, I don’t recall experiencing them. However, here the action icon can get stuck, sometimes the characters interpenetrate, other times some animation loops and does not want to end. The most serious bug occurred to me when I died finishing a quest while my companion dealt the killing blow to an enemy. Due to this double death, the location looked empty, there were no more enemies there, but at the same time the quest was still active. Only loading the previous state of the game and another arduous duel helped. Once again, I have the impression that Ragnarok could wait a little longer with the premiere and get these few cuts.
The end of the road
God of War: Ragnarok enhances or enhances almost every aspect of its predecessor. Paradoxically, it is not a better game. Well, Santa Monica Studio previously made a real Kratos Copernican revolution, delivering a game in the spirit of its predecessors, yet modernized and enriched at the same time. There is no such courage in breaking patterns in Ragnarok . It’s just a classic sequel. The plot is good most of the time, the dialogues are great, the locations are interesting. At the same time, I can’t forgive the creators of the ending treated with neglect and a truly platformer construction of levels (deprived of any arcade challenge). There won’t be tens, but the playability is 9/10. I wonder what pantheon we will see next.
