Such an amazing experience
After just over 40 hours of game play? I have finally reached the end of God of War Ragnarök. This was a game I have been looking forward to for a while now and one that I really wanted to take my time with.
The game came out almost a month ago, and some people rushed through the story to get to the end as fast as they could, but I wanted to savor the experience in this game. I really loved the 2018 God of War game, and when that game ended, it really felt like it was just beginning.
It reminded me of when I saw the first Lord of the Rings movie in the theater. After nearly three hours in the theaters watching this movie, it ended right when Frodo's adventure was starting.
I have never played a game that was as polished as this one was. I had zero issues with bugs or anything that would normally distract a player from the story. This is rare nowadays with studios rushing games out unfinished and expecting patches that come way too late to fix the issues. So to have a game release and be a full game without bugs or leaving you waiting for a DLC to continue the game months down the road is a nice breath of fresh air.
The first thing you will notice when playing this game is the amazing graphics. The artists put more work into random things like doors than most games have for their main characters. Everything in this game is super detailed and it played perfectly on my PS5. I did have the game in performance mode the entire time I played, which played at 1080p and 60fps. The other mode you can play in is at 4k, but the frame rate suffers drastically, and pretty much makes the game unplayable for me. I hate playing anything at less than 60fps because it turns into a choppy mess. Especially games where timing is needed for the combat.
Speaking of combat. This game truly excels in that department. GoW has always been a brutal game with over the top gruesome animations and this game just seemed to add to that. Each weapon you use has its own death blow animations, from chopping the limbs off the enemies to flinging the enemies up in the air and slicing them in half before they land.
One thing I really liked in this one was that they really seemed to focus a lot on making the combat more challenging than the previous games. The combat reminds me a lot of the Souls games where dodging, parrying and timing are important for survival. Luckily the game doesn't punish you upon death like the Souls games do.
The acting in the game is some of the best I have ever seen in games. Over the course of the game, you really feel like you have a deep connection with the main characters, which is pretty hard to do in games. Most of the time, I wouldn't care if characters die in games, but there is one death in this game that is brutal. After it happened, I had to stop playing for the rest of the day because it was such a loss and the writers did an amazing job having the other characters express their feelings about the loss of their friend.
The newest God of War games have all been about the bond between Kratos and Atreus, and by the end of this one, it was really cool to see how the love between those two had grown. It is really hard to explain how great the writers did with the father/son dynamic of these two, but to see the growth by the end of the game was so cool.
So coming back to the title of this post, Is God of War Ragnarök the best game ever made? Yes, I really think that this is going to go down as one of the greatest games ever made. And to me, it is the greatest game. I love the lore of Norse mythology and to see the different stories explained in this way was just so cool.
Right now, I am going to have to take some time to figure out what I am going to play next. I haven't played anything other than this game for the past month. Luckily there is some end game content to explore. I saved some of the side quests for after I beat the game because towards the end of the game, I wanted to keep the flow going by just focusing on the main story.
Callisto Protocol looked like a really awesome game and I had even preordered it on Amazon, but their shipping date was showing a month and a half out, so I cancelled my preorder. Luckily Walmart didn't have any copies of the game when I went, so I had planned on waiting, but then the reviews started coming in and it isn't that good of a game and only about 8-10 hours in length, which after playing GoW, spending $75 on a game that is only like 10 hours seems like a waste to me, so I will most likely wait for a sale.
I hope I have kept this post relatively spoiler free for everyone. This game truly is a masterpiece and I wasn't sure if anything could beat Elden Ring for my game of the year pick, but God of War Ragnarök is the superior game. The story is just so amazing. If you are on the fence with this game and have a PS5, it is definitely one that you need to play. The next big game I have high hopes for is Hogwarts Legacy. Hopefully they don't let us down with that one.