That's what she said?

Said she: what's that?

It’s alright but is very clearly a ps4 game. Small constrained theatres for your fights against three or four characters at a time followed by a slow walk, followed by a squeeze show just how much Series S is holding this gen back.

I think part of my problem is that I was expecting a PS5 game that they’d somehow managed to hobble onto PS4 but what I’ve definitely been presented with is a PS4 game with a few graphical upgrades and more frames. I’m not saying it’s shit - before the defence force jumps in - but I’m having to change my expectations of what I thought I was getting.

Decided to finish off my playthrough of the first before starting the second. So it’s just sat there. For now.

I never understood the hoo ha for the first game. It was pretty looking but a clunky old dog to play. Took genuine will power to actually finish it. Also got really sick of getting fucking hacksilver out of chests nearly all the time.

I’m sure I’ll love it by the end. The first one took a while to get going but was incredible by the end.

hylian_elf wrote:

I’ve played an hour and I’m already rolling eyes at hack silver on the floor and in chests.

There is still a lot of hacksilver and it's a good thing.

hylian_elf wrote:

I’m sure I’ll love it by the end. The first one took a while to get going but was incredible by the end.

I'm over 20 hours in and it's really opened up.
I'm wary of spoiling anything so I'm not gonna say more than that.

There is a load of squeezing isn't there?!

Very impressed with Ragnarok so far. I've played for around 4 hours - so I know I'm only scratching the surface, and I'm taking my time to clear things as much as possible before I move on. The diversity of the bosses and mini-bosses, along with the general improvements in combat, make it even more of a pleasure to play than GoW (2018). As a long time player and fan of the series, it's great to see something grow up with me. The relationship with Kratos and 'Tre is incredibly relatable - despite the setting being completely the opposite. Wonderful stuff.

Two man lift

I've played the first couple of hours. Definitely more of the same, for better and worse. Should be reasonably entertaining.

I think it gets better, and more varied, the more you play. It helps if you can get invested in story which, I admit, isn’t the best, but again there have been little plot developments that I’ve enjoyed. There also seems to be more variety of bosses in this than the 2018 game. I recall fighting the same trolls over and over and so far I’ve probably not fought the same Mini-boss or full boss twice. I’m sure that will change as I’ve seen some challenges that you gain stuff by fighting more mini-bosses but so far a definite improvement, however slight, on the first game.

I’d also say it’s up there with the prettiest of games and the density of the environment is impressive. I can still recall when creating a bit more foliage in a game had a trade off in frame rate.

Recalling the axe after getting it stuck in an enemy’s head never gets old.

hylian_elf wrote:

Recalling the axe after getting it stuck in an enemy’s head never gets old.

I love the spinning throw attack.

Really don’t enjoy using the blades. They look cool but far prefer the axe combat.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

It sounds like more of the same, which is cool because not many third person action adventures are as good as GoW 2018...but it's also a smidge disappointing to read. I thought the last one was great and assumed it paved the way for full-on magnificence (one of my biggest takeaways was how fucking amazing the next game could be), but it seems like it's still 'just' great.

Kinda like how Breath of the Wild was arguably a 10, but you'd have to be a moron not to see that certain elements could be improved for a follow up that pulled out all the stops to improve on the groundwork. Looking forward to Ragnarok but hoping for more of a step up with Tears of the Kingdom...

This is fair and about where I’m at with it. The surprise from 2018 is gone and it’s been replaced by Ubi-bloat. Those four and a bit years haven’t been kind to the design template and what we seem to be left with is a game that may well be a bit better than the first but somehow feels worse (to me). My last big boy game was the LoU remake and that feels more contemporary than this.

I was thinking about BotW whilst playing on Sunday evening and the smartest thing that did was give you space and nothing to do - it felt organic and respectful of my time and intelligence. This is literally some meandering story of Norse greatest hits, that consistently pummels you with names you’ve heard before from that time you read Erik the Viking as a kid, alongside a million different colours of map marker and two separate companions who tell you exactly where to go next if you chose to stop and rotate your camera around the landscape for more than three seconds.
The smoke and mirrors of the one take are more noticeable this time around too.

It’s a fine experience - a strong seven, perhaps an eight - but it’s a game that seems to have swapped clarity and purpose for bloat and condescension and the single worst collection of menus and upgrade screens I’ve ever come across.

The axe throwing is still good and I await the standalone PSVR2 axe throwing spin off with excitement.