Just platinumed this masterpiece yesterday. A reboot that does what reboots should do - provide a fresh, modern take on a franchise whose formula was getting stale. God of War (2018) not only retains the brutal, high-octane combat and the focus on mythology (this time Norse mythology) but also turns the franchise into an open-linear (bloodborne inspired), narrative-driven experience, which was something I would have never expected from a God of War game. The story finally has maturity and a great understanding of the central character, as well as a compelling father-son relationship that grows in interesting and quite emotional ways, and it was carefully planned out with every action and cinematic created in motion capture and seamlessly blending gameplay with cutscenes, creating a continuous shot story throughout, also with no loading screens ever after booting the game.
The gameplay offers more options than ever with more expansive enemy types, badass runic attacks and special moves, as well as the always satisfactory throwing of the axe and pulling it back like I'm Thor. There's a broad skill tree, armor with enchantments that we can use to up our stats (strength, runic, defense, luck, cooldown) and upgrades we can make to pretty much everything we carry, its RPG elements were well placed. The boss fights are perhaps the biggest disappointment compared to the other games, not as epic or cinematic. But the rest of the combat I think it's definitely an improvement.
The graphics are the best I've seen on a PS4, especially the character design, Santa Monica has a reputation of pushing the Playstation hardware to the max and this is another great example. There's also interesting end game and side stuff to do, so it wasn't bothersome to get the rest of the trophies (except for one hardcore boss).
Overall I feel like this is everything right with modern gaming, it combines all the good stuff that makes a singleplayer story-driven game but without making it too linear or limited, but expansive and always evolving as we go through its ~20-hour story, always with fresh locations, combat moves, puzzles, exploration, characters, story surprises, etc. It plays great, it looks great and it's a step forward in videogame storytelling
The gameplay offers more options than ever with more expansive enemy types, badass runic attacks and special moves, as well as the always satisfactory throwing of the axe and pulling it back like I'm Thor. There's a broad skill tree, armor with enchantments that we can use to up our stats (strength, runic, defense, luck, cooldown) and upgrades we can make to pretty much everything we carry, its RPG elements were well placed. The boss fights are perhaps the biggest disappointment compared to the other games, not as epic or cinematic. But the rest of the combat I think it's definitely an improvement.
The graphics are the best I've seen on a PS4, especially the character design, Santa Monica has a reputation of pushing the Playstation hardware to the max and this is another great example. There's also interesting end game and side stuff to do, so it wasn't bothersome to get the rest of the trophies (except for one hardcore boss).
Overall I feel like this is everything right with modern gaming, it combines all the good stuff that makes a singleplayer story-driven game but without making it too linear or limited, but expansive and always evolving as we go through its ~20-hour story, always with fresh locations, combat moves, puzzles, exploration, characters, story surprises, etc. It plays great, it looks great and it's a step forward in videogame storytelling