A Boy and his God: God of War review
Published Apr 12, 2018 12:00 am
By Adlai Rosh
Warning: This review contains spoilers for previous God of War games.
God of War is the fourth main entry in the titular franchise and follows Kratos after the events of the third game. An indeterminate amount of time after Kratos’s legendary killing spree where he destroyed the entire Greek pantheon, he’s cast away the Blades of Chaos and settled down with a mortal woman and their child, Atreus. On the day of his wife’s funeral, a mysterious tattooed stranger shows up at Kratos’s door claiming to know who he is – and what he is. Deciding that home is no longer safe, Kratos and Atreus begin their trek to the highest peak in all the realms to scatter the ashes of their dearly beloved, as she requested.
The story makes many twists and turns and holds its own as a standalone experience. Even if you haven’t played the previous titles the game helpfully gives you just enough information through exposition and incidental dialogue to fill in the gaps. I won’t say that the game ignores established canon, though – it may be set in Norse mythology, but Kratos is fully capable of alluding to past conquests in contexts that are equal parts awesome, hilarious, and heartwrenching in hindsight. The tattooed spartan’s almost constant deadpan delivery makes for a few giggles when contrasted with other characters’ more emotional delivery, while at the same time does good to underscore the gravity of the situation whenever circumstances demand it.
Kratos is far from the angry godkiller we came to know over the course of the franchise. Several centuries are enough to start regretting your decisions, after all, and his rage at the Olympians has boiled away into an almost constant bitterness. Kratos rarely says more than he needs to here; he has no need for flowery language or lengthy speeches. He says what he means, and means what he says. This contrasts spectacularly with the moments where he does get angry – in combat, Atreus may comment on how frightening Kratos can be. Despite this, Kratos is a rather emotive character thanks to how he’s animated. Early on there are several points in the story where Kratos reaches out to Atreus from behind as though to comfort him, only for him to pull his hand back. The gesture shows up at different points, serving to highlight both his and his son’s character development – despite how readily Atreus clings to his father’s back when climbing obstacles or Kratos reaching out to catch him, Kratos rarely extends that physicality in their personal interactions at first.
Atreus, meanwhile, is the foil to Kratos. Young and energetic, his interactions with his father bring to mind an overly excitable child on a road trip. He helps break up the monotony of exploration with dialogue that can be entertaining, informative, or even provide hints to current problems. He’s an elegant, organic solution to the dreaded objectives list, providing a gentle reminder of the pair’s goals and where they need to go without being oppressively obvious about it. I personally love Atreus as a character and the dynamic he and Kratos have going on. More than just a tagalong, he’s an essential part of the game, from puzzle solving, to combat, to the story. Indeed, it would be a much more boring experience without him – a fact that is exploited to excellent effect later on.
Atreus can even hold his own in combat, providing Kratos much-needed crowd control at the push of a button, peppering foes with arrows to give his father enough breathing room. Later on as his confidence in himself grows, he can even automatically follow-up on some of Kratos’s attacks in ways that are both impactful and non-intrusive – and Kratos can do the same. When Kratos performs a slam attack, Atreus may hop off his back and fire a few arrows. When Kratos knocks an enemy into the air, Atreus can fire at it to maintain a juggle. When Atreus chokes an enemy, Kratos can hit them with a heavy attack so he can hit them while they’re down. He can even dropkick foes attempting to attack Kratos, and frequently calls out the location of off-screen enemies to give the player enough time to react with a dodge.
The combat in this game is far removed from the previous games. Forgoing his iconic Blades of Chaos, Kratos now wields the Leviathan Axe, an enchanted weapon with the power of frost. In addition to melee attacks split between light and heavy strikes, Kratos can throw the axe to hit distant foes and recall it with the push of a button. It’s amazing how the team at Santa Monica Studios managed to make the simple act of throwing an axe an absolute joy to behold. The axe hits enemies with a satisfying thump, and in the case of light axe throws, sails up in a slight arc like a boomerang. Recalling the axe doesn’t just send it in a straight line towards Kratos – it curves around and cuts through foes in its path before landing in the old warrior’s hand ready to be used at a moment’s notice. It may seem shallow at first, but as the game progresses and the player unlocks more techniques, they can start chaining together axe throws and melee strikes in an elegant, brutal dance. Throw in Atreus’s arrows and you have a technical experience that exceeds the previous games’ combo-oriented gameplay that focused on rewarding sheer numbers.
Combos in this game aren’t just the number of hits you can inflict in a row before you get interrupted – they’re the different ways you can string together attacks and abilities. Hitting an enemy with a heavy axe throw freezes them; unarmed, Kratos can kick the frozen enemy into their allies, freezing them as well. Heavy axe attacks launch weaker enemies into the air, allowing Kratos to juggle them with light attacks and arrows. Kratos is far from harmless without the axe - his unarmed hits build up a gauge that opens enemies up to brutal execution finishers when filled and applies a debuff to every other foe in range when it’s done. Throw in special runic attacks and the combat opens up even more – do you pick a quick area of effect blast that momentarily stuns nearby foes, or one that locks down a single foe in exchange for leaving you without the axe for a few precious seconds? Do you equip a heavy slam that heavily damages everything nearby, or a creeping, ground-based projectile that steamrolls everything in a long line in front of you? Every runic attack feels fun to use while not being game-breaking, and even Kratos’s Spartan Rage is best used as a last resort – though its damage output is respectable, every strike regenerates Kratos’s health while active and he’s effectively invulnerable until the effect wears off. The game’s combat truly opens up later on when the axe is upgraded and Kratos can purchase additional skills through a simple skill tree.
Boss fights, something the series has been known for, are present, but they’re not to the ridiculous scale of past games such as being swallowed by a giant or fighting a goddess for the fate of the world. This is by no means a bad thing – every boss fight feels different, from the encounter with “the stranger” at the beginning of the game, to a fight with a rather large dragon, to fighting a dual boss that tests your ability to keep track of multiple opponents, the boss fights are widely satisfying and challenging all at once. One boss I was handling spectacularly well, even somewhat bored by how easy it was going until he started dropping bombs that reduced my vision and made it easier for his blatantly-telegraphed attacks to hit. If I caught it in a combo, it would leave bombs at its feet that would blind me if I didn’t pay attention. Even strafing to the left or right wasn’t enough, the AI smart enough to lead its shots just a bit so it could catch me off-guard. No curving shots or instant kills or any such cop-outs – just punishing me for moving in predictable ways, plain and simple.
Not just a weapon of war, the Leviathan Axe is also used to solve puzzles. Most of them involve freezing gears in place and can feel repetitive after a while, but there were also times I couldn’t help but feel extremely happy with myself for figuring out a solution. From hitting destructible walls to make a path to spinning ancient machines, the game really likes to remind you that the axe is a tool of many uses. Even if those uses mostly involve smashing things. One of the most frustrating applications of the axe is using it to solve rune-locked chests that frequently require you to hunt down three rune-marked totems and destroy them. They’re rarely far away from the place you find the chest, but it can get a tad frustrating to look around the level to try and spot a somewhat obscured hiding spot.
The art direction in this game is impressive, though it takes a while for that to manifest. Kratos and Atreus have many, many different locales to explore, from snow-covered mountains, abandoned mining shafts, and ancient temples to fiery volcanoes, serene lakes, and the space between realms. Midgard is personally the weakest location, aesthetically, but even then it manages to pull some impressive sights such as Tyr’s Temple or the Witch of the Woods’ hut.
For all the game does right, there are some flaws inherent to the structure of an open world; there are collectibles to collect and sidequests to embark on, with challenges to face and items to unlock. There’s a shop and crafting system, and foes can randomly drop stat-enhancing enchantments that you can apply to your armor. Personally, any moment not spent advancing the main story is a moment wasted. There are multiple points where Atreus or another character will drop not-so-subtle hints at how you’re edging closer to a point of no return (“We can do that, or we can explore some more”) and the temptation to go out and do some open world busywork was rarely enough to drive me towards pursuing these side objectives. The story rarely throws anything insurmountable in your face and is paced pretty well that by the time I completed a few side objectives I was steamrolling through most of the content at a disappointingly quick pace. Only when I reined in my pathological urge to do something did I get a well-structured challenge again. The option to fast travel is also locked for the majority of the game, which paints the dilemma of “do I do this sidequest, or walk all the way back to the sidequest after I finish this story beat?” in an even more unflattering light. Luckily the game has more than enough dialogue to fill in otherwise boring treks through side objectives and long periods of enemy-free enivornmental puzzles.
The equipment gathering is even more of a mixed bag for me – aside from changing Atreus’s armor and upgrading weapons to access higher-tier skills available for unlocking, the shop seemed poorly balanced. There’s an armor set for slaying a specific type of mini-boss that is woefully underpowered by the time you actually have the resources to make it. Equipment costs scale so vertically that even as I completed the game I could rarely afford more than one upgrade at a time. The shopkeepers are entertaining enough characters who undergo their own character development alongside the heroes – and indeed assist in their development, somewhat – but even their charm isn’t enough to carry the tedium of the equipment system. Even trinkets feel kind of disappointing to use, though that’s possibly because I never unequipped the Amulet of Kvasir, a trinket that slows time briefly when a last-minute dodge is performed akin to Witch Time from Bayonetta. Everything else felt rather mundane by comparison. Character builds don’t matter particularly well unless you want to tackle the sidequest and postgame, where foes can be incredibly deadly; enchantments and axe pommels offer a degree of customization that allow for really creative builds focused on things such as perfect axe throws, runic attacks, or even just stringing together kills and constant health regeneration. I wish there were more occasions where this could be utilized in the main storyline.
Despite all the flaws inherent to the type of strange hybrid game Santa Monica Studios has made God of War, the story is still quite respectable. I’m puzzled at the decision to leave the game on a cliffhanger, and I won’t deny that the buildup to the last few moments didn’t lead to a satisfying conclusion. A few plot threads are left dangling and a few more are picked up, leaving me with more questions than answers by the end of it. It’s hard to figure out what questions the game answers later on, and what questions it’ll leave for a possible sequel or expansion – which I guess is both a blessing and a curse.
Can I recommend God of War? In all honesty, yes. Though the ending left me a little peeved, the story was tight and the gameplay was fun. There’s enough for everyone here, from newcomers looking to sink their teeth in the latest entry to the franchise to veterans who were eager for more Kratos in their life. As a casual God of War fan I loved the fresh approach to the series and the occasional nod to past exploits, and I look forward to the continuation of the plot – even if my excitement for new developments stem largely from bitter resentment left over from the bits of plot the game keeps unresolved.
Warning: This review contains spoilers for previous God of War games.
God of War is the fourth main entry in the titular franchise and follows Kratos after the events of the third game. An indeterminate amount of time after Kratos’s legendary killing spree where he destroyed the entire Greek pantheon, he’s cast away the Blades of Chaos and settled down with a mortal woman and their child, Atreus. On the day of his wife’s funeral, a mysterious tattooed stranger shows up at Kratos’s door claiming to know who he is – and what he is. Deciding that home is no longer safe, Kratos and Atreus begin their trek to the highest peak in all the realms to scatter the ashes of their dearly beloved, as she requested.
The story makes many twists and turns and holds its own as a standalone experience. Even if you haven’t played the previous titles the game helpfully gives you just enough information through exposition and incidental dialogue to fill in the gaps. I won’t say that the game ignores established canon, though – it may be set in Norse mythology, but Kratos is fully capable of alluding to past conquests in contexts that are equal parts awesome, hilarious, and heartwrenching in hindsight. The tattooed spartan’s almost constant deadpan delivery makes for a few giggles when contrasted with other characters’ more emotional delivery, while at the same time does good to underscore the gravity of the situation whenever circumstances demand it.
Kratos is far from the angry godkiller we came to know over the course of the franchise. Several centuries are enough to start regretting your decisions, after all, and his rage at the Olympians has boiled away into an almost constant bitterness. Kratos rarely says more than he needs to here; he has no need for flowery language or lengthy speeches. He says what he means, and means what he says. This contrasts spectacularly with the moments where he does get angry – in combat, Atreus may comment on how frightening Kratos can be. Despite this, Kratos is a rather emotive character thanks to how he’s animated. Early on there are several points in the story where Kratos reaches out to Atreus from behind as though to comfort him, only for him to pull his hand back. The gesture shows up at different points, serving to highlight both his and his son’s character development – despite how readily Atreus clings to his father’s back when climbing obstacles or Kratos reaching out to catch him, Kratos rarely extends that physicality in their personal interactions at first.
Atreus, meanwhile, is the foil to Kratos. Young and energetic, his interactions with his father bring to mind an overly excitable child on a road trip. He helps break up the monotony of exploration with dialogue that can be entertaining, informative, or even provide hints to current problems. He’s an elegant, organic solution to the dreaded objectives list, providing a gentle reminder of the pair’s goals and where they need to go without being oppressively obvious about it. I personally love Atreus as a character and the dynamic he and Kratos have going on. More than just a tagalong, he’s an essential part of the game, from puzzle solving, to combat, to the story. Indeed, it would be a much more boring experience without him – a fact that is exploited to excellent effect later on.
Atreus can even hold his own in combat, providing Kratos much-needed crowd control at the push of a button, peppering foes with arrows to give his father enough breathing room. Later on as his confidence in himself grows, he can even automatically follow-up on some of Kratos’s attacks in ways that are both impactful and non-intrusive – and Kratos can do the same. When Kratos performs a slam attack, Atreus may hop off his back and fire a few arrows. When Kratos knocks an enemy into the air, Atreus can fire at it to maintain a juggle. When Atreus chokes an enemy, Kratos can hit them with a heavy attack so he can hit them while they’re down. He can even dropkick foes attempting to attack Kratos, and frequently calls out the location of off-screen enemies to give the player enough time to react with a dodge.
The combat in this game is far removed from the previous games. Forgoing his iconic Blades of Chaos, Kratos now wields the Leviathan Axe, an enchanted weapon with the power of frost. In addition to melee attacks split between light and heavy strikes, Kratos can throw the axe to hit distant foes and recall it with the push of a button. It’s amazing how the team at Santa Monica Studios managed to make the simple act of throwing an axe an absolute joy to behold. The axe hits enemies with a satisfying thump, and in the case of light axe throws, sails up in a slight arc like a boomerang. Recalling the axe doesn’t just send it in a straight line towards Kratos – it curves around and cuts through foes in its path before landing in the old warrior’s hand ready to be used at a moment’s notice. It may seem shallow at first, but as the game progresses and the player unlocks more techniques, they can start chaining together axe throws and melee strikes in an elegant, brutal dance. Throw in Atreus’s arrows and you have a technical experience that exceeds the previous games’ combo-oriented gameplay that focused on rewarding sheer numbers.
Combos in this game aren’t just the number of hits you can inflict in a row before you get interrupted – they’re the different ways you can string together attacks and abilities. Hitting an enemy with a heavy axe throw freezes them; unarmed, Kratos can kick the frozen enemy into their allies, freezing them as well. Heavy axe attacks launch weaker enemies into the air, allowing Kratos to juggle them with light attacks and arrows. Kratos is far from harmless without the axe - his unarmed hits build up a gauge that opens enemies up to brutal execution finishers when filled and applies a debuff to every other foe in range when it’s done. Throw in special runic attacks and the combat opens up even more – do you pick a quick area of effect blast that momentarily stuns nearby foes, or one that locks down a single foe in exchange for leaving you without the axe for a few precious seconds? Do you equip a heavy slam that heavily damages everything nearby, or a creeping, ground-based projectile that steamrolls everything in a long line in front of you? Every runic attack feels fun to use while not being game-breaking, and even Kratos’s Spartan Rage is best used as a last resort – though its damage output is respectable, every strike regenerates Kratos’s health while active and he’s effectively invulnerable until the effect wears off. The game’s combat truly opens up later on when the axe is upgraded and Kratos can purchase additional skills through a simple skill tree.
Boss fights, something the series has been known for, are present, but they’re not to the ridiculous scale of past games such as being swallowed by a giant or fighting a goddess for the fate of the world. This is by no means a bad thing – every boss fight feels different, from the encounter with “the stranger” at the beginning of the game, to a fight with a rather large dragon, to fighting a dual boss that tests your ability to keep track of multiple opponents, the boss fights are widely satisfying and challenging all at once. One boss I was handling spectacularly well, even somewhat bored by how easy it was going until he started dropping bombs that reduced my vision and made it easier for his blatantly-telegraphed attacks to hit. If I caught it in a combo, it would leave bombs at its feet that would blind me if I didn’t pay attention. Even strafing to the left or right wasn’t enough, the AI smart enough to lead its shots just a bit so it could catch me off-guard. No curving shots or instant kills or any such cop-outs – just punishing me for moving in predictable ways, plain and simple.
Not just a weapon of war, the Leviathan Axe is also used to solve puzzles. Most of them involve freezing gears in place and can feel repetitive after a while, but there were also times I couldn’t help but feel extremely happy with myself for figuring out a solution. From hitting destructible walls to make a path to spinning ancient machines, the game really likes to remind you that the axe is a tool of many uses. Even if those uses mostly involve smashing things. One of the most frustrating applications of the axe is using it to solve rune-locked chests that frequently require you to hunt down three rune-marked totems and destroy them. They’re rarely far away from the place you find the chest, but it can get a tad frustrating to look around the level to try and spot a somewhat obscured hiding spot.
The art direction in this game is impressive, though it takes a while for that to manifest. Kratos and Atreus have many, many different locales to explore, from snow-covered mountains, abandoned mining shafts, and ancient temples to fiery volcanoes, serene lakes, and the space between realms. Midgard is personally the weakest location, aesthetically, but even then it manages to pull some impressive sights such as Tyr’s Temple or the Witch of the Woods’ hut.
For all the game does right, there are some flaws inherent to the structure of an open world; there are collectibles to collect and sidequests to embark on, with challenges to face and items to unlock. There’s a shop and crafting system, and foes can randomly drop stat-enhancing enchantments that you can apply to your armor. Personally, any moment not spent advancing the main story is a moment wasted. There are multiple points where Atreus or another character will drop not-so-subtle hints at how you’re edging closer to a point of no return (“We can do that, or we can explore some more”) and the temptation to go out and do some open world busywork was rarely enough to drive me towards pursuing these side objectives. The story rarely throws anything insurmountable in your face and is paced pretty well that by the time I completed a few side objectives I was steamrolling through most of the content at a disappointingly quick pace. Only when I reined in my pathological urge to do something did I get a well-structured challenge again. The option to fast travel is also locked for the majority of the game, which paints the dilemma of “do I do this sidequest, or walk all the way back to the sidequest after I finish this story beat?” in an even more unflattering light. Luckily the game has more than enough dialogue to fill in otherwise boring treks through side objectives and long periods of enemy-free enivornmental puzzles.
The equipment gathering is even more of a mixed bag for me – aside from changing Atreus’s armor and upgrading weapons to access higher-tier skills available for unlocking, the shop seemed poorly balanced. There’s an armor set for slaying a specific type of mini-boss that is woefully underpowered by the time you actually have the resources to make it. Equipment costs scale so vertically that even as I completed the game I could rarely afford more than one upgrade at a time. The shopkeepers are entertaining enough characters who undergo their own character development alongside the heroes – and indeed assist in their development, somewhat – but even their charm isn’t enough to carry the tedium of the equipment system. Even trinkets feel kind of disappointing to use, though that’s possibly because I never unequipped the Amulet of Kvasir, a trinket that slows time briefly when a last-minute dodge is performed akin to Witch Time from Bayonetta. Everything else felt rather mundane by comparison. Character builds don’t matter particularly well unless you want to tackle the sidequest and postgame, where foes can be incredibly deadly; enchantments and axe pommels offer a degree of customization that allow for really creative builds focused on things such as perfect axe throws, runic attacks, or even just stringing together kills and constant health regeneration. I wish there were more occasions where this could be utilized in the main storyline.
Despite all the flaws inherent to the type of strange hybrid game Santa Monica Studios has made God of War, the story is still quite respectable. I’m puzzled at the decision to leave the game on a cliffhanger, and I won’t deny that the buildup to the last few moments didn’t lead to a satisfying conclusion. A few plot threads are left dangling and a few more are picked up, leaving me with more questions than answers by the end of it. It’s hard to figure out what questions the game answers later on, and what questions it’ll leave for a possible sequel or expansion – which I guess is both a blessing and a curse.
Can I recommend God of War? In all honesty, yes. Though the ending left me a little peeved, the story was tight and the gameplay was fun. There’s enough for everyone here, from newcomers looking to sink their teeth in the latest entry to the franchise to veterans who were eager for more Kratos in their life. As a casual God of War fan I loved the fresh approach to the series and the occasional nod to past exploits, and I look forward to the continuation of the plot – even if my excitement for new developments stem largely from bitter resentment left over from the bits of plot the game keeps unresolved.