GAMERTIMES

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR GOD OF WAR: RAGNAROK. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!

The most awaited game of 2022 has finally been released. God of War: Ragnarok, a sequel to God of War (2018) is a much bigger game than its prequel. Santa Monica Studio took all the feedback they got from the players and added it in the sequel, like more mini-boss fights, and now finally getting to visit all the nine realms of Norse, it sure as hell feels amazing to get our hands on the game and just keep playing.

The game visually looks phenomenal, I mean each realm they created, each realm they are just a treat for you. You would wanna just walk through them and take in all the details and the visuals, I could just look at them all the time. Never really get tired of it, you know. Players who enjoyed the God of War (2018) just have no idea what they’re walking into. The God of War: Ragnarok takes everything to a different level in terms of action, gameplay, and visuals.

Let’s start with this review by talking about the game’s menu. They made a fairly decent amount of changes to the game’s menu and also change the look of the whole menu with the same options. In the Weapons section, you can equip different levels of shields with shield attachments increasing the overall stats. The Leviathan Axe which would only get upgraded to Level 6 in the previous game, now in this will get upgraded all the way to Level 9. The same goes for the Blades of Chaos, upgrades are available till Level 9.

With a new game comes a new weapon, the Draupnir Spear. The powerful weapon that was created to kill Heimdall looks really cool on Kratos and can be upgraded till Level 9. Then comes the Spartan Rage which has three types: Fury, Valor, and Wrath. The Fury Rage is the one where you punch, throw, and other stuff. The Valor Rage will consume one bar of rage to generate a moderate burst of health. The Wrath Rage will consume one bar of rage for a single high-damage attack. If the enemy gets killed, you’ll get a small amount of health.

Lastly, the Relic lets Kratos use to enhance its attacks, rage, slow time, gain a small burst of health, and much more. Then, the Armour Tab lets you change Chest, Wrist, and Waist Armour. But the change they made over the previous game is now enchantments can’t be equipped with them. Instead, there is an Amulet in which you can slot the enchantments but also have to keep upgrading with the Jewel of Yggdrasil. In the Skills Tab, you can upgrade the Leviathan Axe, Blade of Chaos, Draupnir Spear, Atreus Skills, and Freya Skills. For Kratos, the previous games’ light and heavy runic attacks for the weapons found through the chests now in this game are available through the Skill tree.

The game begins three years after the events of the God of War (2018) where Kratos and Atreus are surviving the cold weather of Fimbulwinter and the attacks of Freya. Fenrir is dying, Atreus goes to bury him but doesn’t return and then Kratos and Mimir go to search for him and fight the bear BJORN who Atreus shape-shifted into. It’s his version of Rage basically. Kratos and Atreus head home and are greeted by Thor and Odin.

Odin proposed a deal to maintain peace but obviously, the answer was no and a huge fight between Kratos and Thor takes place with Kratos punching Thor super hard in the end. Kratos and Atreus then leave their home in search of Tyr who is imprisoned in Svartalfheim by Odin. In the first few hours of the game, so much is already happening, Freya attacks Atreus and Kratos, Atreus shape-shifts into a Bear, Kratos and Thor beat the shit out of each other and so much more.

I like the character growth of both Kratos and Atreus. Atreus has now taken more responsibility than before, Kratos now talks more and worries more than ever before for Atreus, ever since he saw the mural which depicts he will die at the end of Ragnarok. The game is so big and impressive, there is so much to discover in the game, that it’s gonna take so much of your time and I bet you all, you won’t get bored at all. It’s worth your time for the game as it keeps you engaged.

Santa Monica Studio had already said we would travel all the nine realms but what they didn’t say was we wouldn’t be able to travel from the Tyr Temple since Odin locked us out of all the realms, Brok and Sindri makes it easier for us by integrating the nine realms into the Mystic Gateways using Mimir’s eyes which are made of Bifrost. Asgard gets destroyed during Ragnarok so can’t travel there after Ragnarok.

The writing for many supporting characters is well written and has been done so well that now they have more value than some of the characters had in the previous game. Brok and Sindri play a much bigger role than they did in the previous game. The new characters like Freyr, Hildisvini, and Thrud, their role is very good as well. The face model of all these characters is really good. But one of the things I like is the conversations between Kratos and his allies. Those are so good it really helps the allies bond with each other or maybe just help keep aside the differences for a while.

The boss battles are a thing of beauty. The lack of boss fights in the previous game was one of the criticisms the developers received and they’ve worked on that. There are literally so many unique bosses in the first few hours of the game than the entire runtime of God of War (2018). Each of these boss battles is fun to play. The other criticism they received was the lack of enemy types and their finishers. It’s safe to say they insanely worked on this criticism too and exceeded our expectations.

The combat system more or less remains the same with new animations and attacks. The camera hangs close to the right shoulder of Kratos helping you look around your surroundings for danger. But I think Atreus lacks combat finishers, he only has one finisher, and for some enemies, that finisher doesn’t really make sense. While there are improvements to the leveling system, I still have no idea how it really helps the game.

The gear system feels like an approach to gating optional contents. Leveling up with higher armor gives you a reason to return to those realms and kill them since earlier in fights it was difficult to kill. I sometimes find Kratos struggling against enemies that have higher or the same level as Kratos.

Talking about the visuals of the game, it looks really good although it could have been more impressive but to make it compatible enough to run on PS4 as well, they had to compromise. But it’s not an issue, the game still looks really good, like it’s really impressive with the attention to detail, I honestly love it.

There are various collectibles to collect with it having the same types of collectibles to be collected from the previous games like Nornir Chests, Legendary Chests, Artifacts, Odin’s Ravens, Favors, Relics, and Treasure Maps with the addition of new collectibles like Yggdrasil Rifts, Berserker Gravestones, Remnants of Asgards, and many more. Also, Muspelheim Trials returns in this game.

Talking about the performance of the game, there are four modes on offer: Favours Resolution and Favours Performance. In Favours Resolution, the game runs at native 4K 30FPS, if you have HDMI 2.1 support Monitor or TV, the High Frame Rate option becomes available which will run the game at 40FPS instead of 30FPS. In Favours Performance, the game runs at 4K 60FPS and if you have HDMI 2.1 TV or Monitor support, the game will run at 120 FPS. Pretty Insane, isn’t it?

The game on PS5 runs flawlessly at 60FPS with no frame drops except slight pixel hits at the edges which you will barely notice. The PS5 Dualsense support should be mentioned here since it forces you to use the haptic feedback but it doesn’t like interrupts during combat or the triggers would get tighter as you pull the bowstring, it balances them properly.

In the end, God of War: Ragnarok is just a masterpiece that one shall not miss an opportunity to play. I find it difficult to stop playing because of the world they’ve created. God of War: Ragnarok makes God of War (2018) look like a concept game with this sequel being a cinematic masterpiece. Santa Monica Studio really knocked it out of the park.

“GOD OF WAR: RAGNAROK IS ONE OF THE GREATEST GOD OF WAR EVER MADE!”