I've been searching for stuff rather than my usual tally-ho approach. Wherever Boy goes I tend to look elsewhere first, seems to be working but I am still dying a bit in combat. Seems like I can barely touch the levelling up at this stage, as certain perks are blocked. Cooldown? Is this tied to XP or can I buy this?
Your level is tied to your gear, you can upgrade that to unlock extra tiers on certain skills. Your axe (and therefore most of the useful combat skills) is gated through story progress though. Most of the best stuff unlocks early though, you shouldn't be dying too often in story stuff, but if you venture off the beaten track you'll bump into purple bastards meant for later.
I might be doing something wrong. Not played too many games with skill trees and I think maybe I'm missing something. I seem to be miles off the required stats for even the first layer of skill upgrades. Done for tonight anyway, just bought a few things from
Had another look this evening, turns out the 3/200 runic/cooldown requirements were for an additional perk rather than the attribute itself (I thought it required the full amount just to unlock, which is why I felt miles off the pace). I just had to hold square to select and had enough xp for loads of them. Also got my weapon slots, armour and Boy powers sorted.
I'm gonna take a break from this for a couple of days, just returned to
Spoiler:
Midgar after getting the light arrows
and Yoku's Express is calling. I think the combat is pretty good rather than truly great, but almost everything else superb. Cramming this amount of content in is a remarkable achievement. I'm sure this has been mentioned by others, but it reminds me of Breath of the Wild in the way things quietly tug you away from the main quest.
The way this gradually opens up is brilliant. It seems to be an absolute whopper, but doesn't present itself in the daunting off-you-go-then way that Breath of the Wild does, at least not for the first 10hrs or so - it still feels fairly linear albeit with huge scope for taking different paths in search of items (rather than massive detours). There seem to be plenty of bosses for me too, not sure why a lack of them was highlighted in reviews. I've already fought more than I saw in Arkham Knight.
Question on the general size of the game:
Spoiler:
I've travelled to one area from the hub room thing, then back again (I'm currently en route to an even higher peak than the one I was aiming for). Is the game really as big as the hub/warp room suggests, and there are six or so more full areas that I've yet to see?
The answer to my realms question, which I just Googled. You have been warned, spoilers in the spoiler box obvs:
Spoiler:
The realms you can travel to: Alfheim, Helheim, Jotunheim, Musphelheim, Niflheim. NB: some of these locations are optional. The three further locations - Asgard, Vanaheim, Svartalfheim - are inaccessible at any point, so they merely exist as a Big Tease. The article I read suggested they might be in God of War 5, but the fact that they're on the warp screen in this one suggests incoming DLC to me.
I'm gonna finish this over the weekend. Wanted to take my time with it as its a masterpiece, easily my GOTY so far and just behind Zelda and Bloodborne this gen.
I’m slowly coming to conclusion that it’s one of this gen’s absolute finest too. Great world, lots to do and see, combat slowly picks up and becomes brilliant, you really do feel progress both as a badass god and as a father.
General atmosphere and audiovisual and stuff is superb.
The only slight downpoint is, even on second hardest difficulty, a lot of the game becomes insanely easy once you unlock a lot of skills and upgrade. Certain enemies are still tense fights though.
Right. I am tired of this tedious claptrap. It looks lovely, is polished as can be and has decent weighty feeling combat. But by christ I'm tired of throwing my axe at runes, tired of endlessly whacking something big until it finally falls down, tired of the huge climb/jump here signposts. And I'm really tired of that canoe. I'll keep playing but this ain't going anywhere near a goty.