“God of War”: it happens when you repair what has broken

God of War offers the player to choose four difficulty levels, the last of which is the legendary. Perhaps it was this choice that left the most vivid imprint on the first impression of the game – I was ready to curse the developers, personally Cores Barlog and all involved in the project, because the density of flaws, contradictions and questions for the design of the battles was critically high.

Probably, many will say that choosing the last level of complexity was a mistake, what is the meaning of this action? I hasten to explain. Many players have preferred genres where they feel like fish in water. For example, in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, I would not make a high difficulty because I know that from it to expect: the limits of my patience in experimenting the builds and their synergy inside the group are extremely low, and to understand the numerous subtleties of the Dungeons & Dragons rules, it will take a very, very long time. Therefore, I boldly put “normal” and on the way!

But the fighting winging is another matter. Hundreds of hours in Mortal Kombat 11, dozens in Street Fighter V and Tekken 7, many traveled bitemaps and watched videos on YouTube on the subject: tournaments, combo-guides and analysts. The degree of my immersion in the genre is deep enough so that you can safely put high complexity in the slasher and not worry about the success of the initiative.

Next will be discussed mainly about the first third of God of War, keep this in mind.

Globally, the problem of the God of War combat system can be described by the inconsistency of the concepts laid down in it. On all its external signs, these are bitemaps or slasher – the genres of one field of berry, like the fighting. Small arenas with several opponents who are subject to different effects: deafening, tossing, overturning, discarding and debafa. The limited territories provokes the player on the competent use of space, including by influences on enemies, and there is also the need to prioritize in the battle process: to exterminate first the most nimble and annoying, and then slow.

Sounds, it seems, interesting, but there are nuances. Firstly, the level system. I do not have accurate information on this subject, but I suppose, based on personal experience, that the game uses Skaling in level – a fairly popular but secretive option that corrects the player and his enemies, depending on the difference in levels. Here it affects not only damage and protection, but also the frequency of imposing effects.

Secondly, the lack of military options at the beginning of the game. Provided that there are many enemies, their level is almost always higher than the level of the player, the battles turn into a protracted, exhausting torture. Kratos is not a god of war, but a defenseless rabbit, which is hopelessly looking for a moment to bite a strip of health of predators. There are no options for monitoring the crowd, the main mechanics do not work, because they are not allowed to implement them.

The problem is also aggravated by a specific look from a third person, when Kratos covers a good quarter of the screen, and the opponents are simply not visible from the back – their behavior in this case does not change in any way, they remain equally aggressive, and instead of intelligible visual information about which attacks are prepared, we have ordinary indicators, whose informativeness is striving for zero. Red indicators behind Kratos will always shine, and the only thing that the player can do in this case is to roll in the opposite direction. Only this is not an output, because untimely rolling with enviable regularity returns the player to the last checkpoint-if not because of the attack from the rear, then from the attack from any other side.

The situation improves slightly when Kratos learns new abilities. Until the moment when he finds the classic blades of chaos, some of them will help to overcome the insurmountable. Brewed powerful blow with an ax, although it does not have the fastest animation of the preparation, but gives a good reward for a successful implementation. Great damage, many shots of invulnerability and the ability to push the enemy away from himself, stunning the neighboring enemies, or even throw someone out of the arena. A strong blow from the run does about the same thing, only with a large calculation to stun the crowd. You notice why precisely these abilities are useful? Because they give control options, which the player does not initially have.

The ability to deliver a guaranteed blow after parrying is also useful, because with its help you can either push the enemy that fills its finishing scale, especially in a collision with something, or lift it into the air-this is also all the control of the crowd that was so missing before.

Everything else is a https://boylesportscasino.co.uk matter of technology and a little good luck. There are enough random deaths from the fault of the player here. For example, when, after an animation of a powerful blow, an attack from someone from behind flies directly to the timing. At this time, there is an animation of recovery and somehow respond to this possibilities physically. This is just one example of a dishonest defeat, one of a dozen examples.

In all this, the discrepancy of the concepts laid down in God of War lies, because for this kind of games it is necessary to give the player the possibility of controlling the crowd, and for the time being there are no time.

In defense of God of War, you can put forward two arguments. Firstly, the problem is acutely felt only on legendary complexity-I hope so-and, secondly, over time it ceases to be a problem. Когда появляются электрические стрелы, мощные рунные умения, клинки, разящие врагов размашистыми ударами на большом расстоянии, когда уровень Кратоса догоняет уровень сюжетных противников, тогда God of War становится таким слешером, каким и должен быть с самого начала: красивым, эффектным и разнообразным. At this moment, rewards for risks begin to work, and mechanics gain a second life. The game becomes a game.

In search of additional content

I was pleased that God of War constantly provokes the player to leave the plot path. A golden chest is shining in this nozzle, a secondary quest has been prepared here, and dozens of points of interest are located along the shores of the lake of nine. If you want to know what is hidden there? Go, to adventure!

To loop chests, solve spatial puzzles, learn small stories about the world of the game and endlessly plunge into the mastering of secondary content insanely! It’s like clicking seeds – if you started, then it’s hard to stop. But here it turned out not without a spoon of tar.

The smaller of the problems in the study of the world is logistics. The map displays progress in territories, but does not marry the points of interest. Opened the opportunity to set fire to the bushes or break the glasses? Return to the already investigated locations or remember where you have once seen closed content. Not the most convenient navigation, banal “questions” in the open worlds I like more.

But what really upset was a reward for research. Good armor does not fall there, they must be created by yourself, but really powerful things that come in handy here and now, the game is extremely rare, and then it is mainly a higher level or rune skills. Basically, in chests are resources to improve armor and gold.

Due to this system of awards, a noticeable increase in Kratos is rarely occurs, which partially depreciates long hours of study of the world. Therefore, as action with luting elements, God of War works badly.

And this despite the fact that the puzzles themselves, quests and levels for secondary content are done perfectly. In quests, we will be told some plot about robbers or the soul enclosed in the ring, while the gameplayo segments will turn out to be no worse than the plot levels. Somewhere it will be necessary to free the dragon or defeat a complex unique boss, but somewhere there are just chests guarded by the dead. Unfortunately or fortunately, it is the study of content – and in my case, the need to pump the game is also the main motivator to explore the world of God of War. But with reward for curiosity there are problems.

There are also a couple of pleasant details that can brighten up the spread of content. Firstly, your journey is often accompanied by dialogs between Atreus, Kratos and Mimir. This is a little bit, but makes the world less lonely-there are no peaceful non-game characters in the game at all, except for the plot pair-and at the same time tells about the long-past events, while revealing the ENT. Secondly, armor visually different from each other. Kratos begins its way in some rags, and ends in shining armor like a pumped character in RPG. It can hardly be called excellent fashion-sunny, but it’s still nice.

Children and fathers, but not really

You could notice that God of War in my story turns out to be some kind of contradictory. The combat system is good, but at the beginning bad, the study of the world is interesting, but devoid of a worthy reward. I hasten to please, almost everything is fine with the plot.

The only thing I categorically did not like in the history of God of War is the scene with a sudden change in the nature of the atreus. The scriptwriters had to either initially write it a little scum, or introduce external factors that would put into his head the ideas of exclusivity and permissiveness. This is also exacerbated by the fact that this story arch occurs at a time when the plot itself has not yet moved to the active phase and has not become sufficiently interesting. This forced premature conclusions about the viability of the entire narrative of the game. Fortunately, there was.

I have always said and will say that the heart of any artistic work is his finale. God of War is a living example of when not the most interesting, not the most deep and not the most saturated on the narrative context the plot at the end blooms a magnificent bouquet of roses.

The hooks laid during the narrative process many plot threads so that the player can see a full -fledged, complex composition only at the end. And only then can her grace be evaluated.

We observe how the ideas laid down in God of War are interconnected. Kratos leaves his past, because he sees self -destruction in the way of anger and revenge. He instills the same philosophy to his son, because he wants him to grow better than himself – the motive for continuing life in children.

In addition, a built relationship with his son on the basis of truth, and not lies, helps the heroes understand each other better, act together and be stronger. This will be demonstrated many times in the game itself, including through other characters and gameplay – the motive of unity.

Kratos does not like gods, because they seem to be those bastards, and this is one of the reasons for the change of his philosophy: to kill not for revenge, but for survival. Only now fate is still a bitch. Gods are just gods, whose children, so it turns out, often kill their parents. Not surprised that the predator eats herbivores? But Kratos does not believe in fate and wants to forge his own path on his own – the motives of fate and freedom of choice.

Each such motive is somehow intertwined with each other and is revealed through different details during the narrative. And in the end, all this arsenal of Chekhov rifles pours the player’s head with lead rain, which, of course, becomes good. It turns out in the end the most powerful climax.

At the same time, keep in mind that God of War is characterized by metaphoricality – not widespread and, perhaps, not the deepest, but easily readable – and high -quality production, which makes the finale of the game even stronger.

Afterword

The finale of God of war personally became a decisive. I cannot call the whole adventure saturated with an interesting context, gameplay or plot. I did not like, as you could understand, many aspects of the game, including the balance and features of the level of the level system. And I do not understand the concept of “one double” – in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, this produced a greater effect. Immediately, it does not work on immersion in any way, it does not allow you to change the view angle and ties the loads between the points of the teleport to the duration of the dialogs that occur there. And the advantages? Probably the most powerful of all this works only as arguments in console wars. Posterity, in other words.

But the final set all points on and, therefore, the reasons not to play God of War, if you haven’t done this yet, no. Only from the legendary level of difficulty shun, if you are not ready to sit on passing arenas for half an hour.

Great presentation, variety of content and spectacular combat system. A powerful narrative, revealed mainly in the final, and a beautiful story about the confrontation with its nature and the repair of once broken relations. They will be different, but at the same time better.