God Of War Ragnarök: The Kotaku Review

From Kotaku: "Yes, the axe is cool. Sure, the fights are tons of fun. And I definitely enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny of the large worlds you get to visit. But what kept me glued to my PS5 for nearly 40 hours was the story of a son becoming a man and a father trying to figure out how he feels about that. I probably could have enjoyed this story a tad more with about half as many puzzles and skill menus, but even so, I found myself smiling, feeling satisfied, as the credits rolled. As I said at the start, God of War Ragnarök is very good."

[z2g]

I’m pre-ordered up on my ps5 and ready to go!

[neutralgamer1992]

This is the game that will win GOTY

[Lore]

Of course Kotaku wants less rpg mechanics in games. More time and effort on their end to master the game

[SullysCigar]

They're probably too preoccupied with their concern that Brok and Sindri making everyone's armour is dwarfist.

[The_Hooligan]

Exactly! I mean half the time the reviewer seems to be complaining about things that you can just not do if you don't want to. It's not a bad thing to have the option for RPG elements. He could have just said "there are plenty of RPG mechanics that some players will find delightful, but if you rather not focus on them like me, you can pick just a few things to upgrade and you'll still be a badass."

But instead this is what the guy said "I can’t stress enough how irritating I find all of Ragnarök’s various armor, weapon, and ability menus. Every few hours during my 35-hour playthrough the game added more stuff to manage and tinker with. You can upgrade every piece of armor and equipment. Some weapons and armor have to be crafted with a combination of two or three of the game’s dozens of crafting materials and currencies. You can also equip abilities and runes, and guess what, you can upgrade those, too. You also have to manage multiple skill trees, each of which contains skills that you can (yep!) tweak and upgrade.

Eventually, I acquired an amulet that had a dozen slots I could fill with various combinations of gems, and I sighed. I can’t imagine Kratos would actually want or care about all this stuff. I know I don’t. While I assume some players will get a kick out of min-maxing all the stats and skills; creating specific builds and whatnot, I just got tired of it all. I’m here to rip enemies in half and toss around a big ol’ axe, not to balance my taxes via seven different menus. Thankfully, if you just pick two stats and upgrade everything around those, you can mostly ignore all the fluff and still end up a powerful god-killer."

Well I'm going to be a part of "some players" who will definitely enjoy all the tinkering because it feels so rewarding when you have just the right equipment on. Can't wait to play this game.

Edit: below is from mp1st review

"Elsewhere, the gear system has been expanded with more variety in types of armor, mods, and runes that you can collect. There are tons of them, and the game wants you to play around with the toys it gives you. But if you aren’t that big of a fan, there are options to automatically equip pieces of gear suited to a specific build, such as those wanting a health or damage build."

I guess the Kotaku reviewer just wanted to complain about something that you can have the game do for you if you don't want to lol.

[MrBaskerville]

It's an opinion, one some happen to agree with. Personally the rpg elements made the first game worse, so removing them would be an improvement in my eyes.

We could turn the table and say that any reviewer who doesn't complain about it must be afraid of backlash. It's nonsense and a very weird and gamer like way to look at a review.

[SullysCigar]

^ Did you miss the part where you can skip rpg elements and just play it as a hack and slash if that's your preference?

That's literally the reason the reviewer's point is moot; it's there if you want it, ignore it if you don't. It's a great thing, because you can please everyone...except those contrary few that wish to create downplay because they work for Kotaku.

SMS even included a transmog system this time, so those that want to pair aesthetics with attributes can do so if they like. You wouldn't even know it was there if it doesn't interest you.

"It's an opinion" is often a handy excuse, but not when it doesn't affect you either way. That's called 'nitpicking'.

[CanadianTurtle]

Dude, I know it's cool to hate on Kotaku. I also can't stand them either. But having an abundance of RPG elements CAN definitely break the experience and feel too overwhelming. This is absolutely valid criticism because if you want to play the game efficiently/effectively without dying too much, you are forced to learn the inventory/menu/upgrade system which can suck the fun out of the experience. God of War series has always been known for having light RPG mechanics. It has always been an action game first and foremost.

So having too many RPG elements in a game that was known for a different genre can be a negative for some. It's absolutely valid criticism

[ironmonkey]

Just amazing!

[Father__Merrin]

The graphics are insane I've not seen this detail in a game before