Anger is a dangerous emotion. He knows it well Kratos, the ghost of Sparta, anti-hero who accompanied us on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, making us slaughter all (or almost) the Hellenic Pantheon with Swords of Chaos. Two years ago, when at E3 they showed Kratos returning, accompanied by his son Atreus, it was immediately clear how much the idea of Cory Barlog and Santa Monica Studio was very different from the origins of the brand. Not always changing is wrong, but where is the line that separates the right evolution from the total disruption of the rules? When can a video game still be defined faithful to those canons that, although once so loved, could now be grotesque, out of place and obsolete? This is the great difficulty it will place before you God of War, a title that aims to bring newcomers to the saga closer, but leaving many roots in that trilogy (plus a prequel and two spin-offs) from where it all began.
Rebuilding a life
The whole plot of this God of War revolves around very specific and much deeper themes than the previous chapters: the plot, from an auxiliary engine companion of the gameplay, now instead becomes the beating heart of everything. The incipit that will make Kratos and his son Atreus move will be the death of his mother, Faye: Their goal, to take the ashes of their beloved to the highest mountain in Midgar, will lead them to encounter terrible enemies and fantastic locations, in a riot of bright colors, blood and danger. The journey also acts as a means for the connection of a relationship between father and son: the first sees in the small a set of problems that he has faced in the past and the will to avoid that they also occur in his son; the second, on the other hand, finds in the father that elusive figure, who is unable to show his feelings and which makes him feel unwanted.
In one of the first gameplay sessions, after Kratos and Atreus have fought against a troll and shot him down, the latter begins to rage with his knife on the shoulder of the now dead enemy, almost to vent an anger given by fear and helplessness. "You are not ready" escalma Kratos, with a bitter expression on his face: the whole narrative will exude from all pores this feeling of melancholy, which shows a Kratos afraid, more than from Norse gods and dangers, from the fact that Atreus may someday become like him. Naturally the evolution of history will unravel this skein that I have slightly mentioned to you, and which I will avoid ruining you in words: it must be lived in the first person, because this time you will not experience the evolution of Kratos and his change in the game. He has already changed, he has grown and is wiser, and the player, in about 20 hours of play (which become a bit more if you aim to take all the collectibles and complete the side missions), will come to have this awareness. . It will be up to you to understand if this pleases you or not.
Modern gameplay
Of course, the gameplay is not a simple element positioned at random, but it too is vital to the game it creates a combat and character advancement system halfway between the classic God of War and the new modern productions. The camera is positioned behind our hero and the combat system becomes slower, more reasoned, but always bloody and adrenaline. To give us the awareness of what we have around us, a system of indicators around Kratos will indicate which enemies are there, which are about to attack and which to shoot, allowing you to be able to dodge, parry and counter every single shot. The weapon that will accompany Kratos from the beginning on his journey this time will be theAx of the Leviathan, equipped with some peculiar features (such as the possibility of being launched and returning to your hand, but also various upgrades), capable of redefining the concept of standard combat system.
It is necessary to clarify a concept immediately: although the setting may remind you of a souls like, God of War is anything but. It borrows the aiming and combat system, but redefines it with a speed not found in other productions: it will be vital to link the various combos, frame attacks with and without ax, understand where enemies come from and which ones to kill first. They will also have a level, a vital bar, and all in all the strategy will take the place of some of that speed you experienced firsthand in the previous trilogy.
To deepen these dynamics, a role-playing system will definitively transform the game from a simple Action to an Action RPG: you can in fact insert runes inside the ax, able to give it new abilities, enhance its traits and change some parts. Even Kratos' equipment can be upgraded, bought or created, thanks to the two blacksmiths Brok and Sindri who, scattered throughout the game map, will also assign you secondary quests and create nice comic curtains. In addition to Kratos, you can also customize Atreus' equipment who, as the journey continues, will become more confident in his abilities and will be able to help you by shooting standard, magical arrows and attacking some enemies. In addition to these customizations, through experience you can enhance the skill runes of your ax (adding bonuses and effects) and buy skills related to the various attacks that you can do, greatly increasing the combat dynamics, leading you to create your own style of play. In the title the historical two bars will remain: the first for vital energy, while the second this time will have the function of Fury of Sparta, mode where Kratos' arms will catch fire and his movements will become as fast and snappy as they used to be.
The game world also changes in its scheme: instead of having a standard and linear game progress, this time the various maps will find space for multiple roads. In fact, you can pass through various paths that, although they still lead to the same point, will make you find different materials and enemies. A bit like Miyazaki's titles, some points will act as a link in the map, creating shortcuts to reach the old areas already visited - perhaps with new skills such as to be able to access new spaces - adding a strong backtracking component. The Lake of Nine will act as a hub instead, a real openworld-like area that, thanks to a boat, will give life to fun side quests focused on combat, which will give you rare items and useful upgrades for your adventure; It will also allow you to access the Bifrost, required to travel between the various worlds of Yggdrasil.
Some of these worlds will be necessary for the progress of the story, while two in particular will allow you to experience what is the end game of the game: Muspelheim, a world of fire that will launch you into an old-fashioned Arcade mode, fun as it will make you experience combinations of absurd attacks, and Niflheim, a foggy world that will take you to visit procedural dungeons capable of making you find exceptional equipment.
Combat, as mentioned before, remains the true protagonist of the game, and although a bit everything has changed in this new God of War, the spirit of the game that permeates every living space of the work of the Santa Monica Studio still recalls the classic one. Muscle memory will make you turn up your nose every now and then, but nothing insurmountable. The real and only problem of the game remains precisely in this concept: God of War as we knew him is dead, buried under piles of years, video games and various evolutions. This is not always good: there is not the same taste in quartering and killing enemies. There are no memorable boss fights, and all the space that was previously occupied by Quick Time Event and battles against giants, gods and titans, gives way to a more reasoned gameplay, perhaps equally beautiful, but different. Yet, if you know how to overcome this obstacle, you will find in God of War one of the best combat systems of recent years, setting a new standard to reach.
The Pantheon and Norse mythology
We had already seen it with the first trilogy, and yet it remains astounding: the research work behind the Norse mythology in this God of War is superlative. Every single theme, every detail and every little comma scattered in books and stories has been taken, inserted into the game and adapted to the dialogue of a Kratos from another Pantheon. The bearded warrior's distrust of the gods remains, as if to bring down to earth every single detail narrated by Atreus, who instead sees everything with the eyes of innocence.
The light of Alfheim, the various runes, the Snake of the World, passing through the aforementioned Yggdrasil and arriving at the epic exploits, every single detail is reproduced to perfection, leading the player towards a spectacular journey, as much as visually as for the notions. All this is combined with a wonderful soundtrack, evocative and always suitable for the context, capable of overwhelming the player in a riot of images and sounds.
The emotional spectrum
Kratos' early adventures were purely filled with wrath: it was the overriding, almost unique feeling that moved the legs of the Phantom of Sparta towards its goal, to kill every single Greek deity. This time, however, thanks also to the transition from protagonist to couple, the emotional spectrum of the game expands, reaching sides never seen before. Although Kratos' Wrath remains, it is now more adult, better channeled, and juxtaposed with feelings such as sadness, pain and fear. To increase the details also Atreus and the relationship between the two, that will bring forth more empathic moments than usual, reaching peaks never seen in a God of War.
Don't despair though: there is a great connection between the old titles and this one, and it's more palpable than you think. You can easily approach the game without having lived the old adventures, but if you have, you will often see in the eyes of Kratos the old flame that once burned in his personal battle, and the same distrust that always led him to live isolated from the world.
A feast for the eyes
Graphically the game continues to squeeze the PlayStation 4 to the maximum, surpassing in some places productions such as Horizon: Zero Dawn. Some tricks help to cover the open fields, thus allowing the game to focus on the objects and areas of the nearby location, but it does not create a disturbance, on the contrary it allows you to have breathtaking landscapes in front of you. The whole is amplified by an HDR that really completely changes the gaming experience. On PlayStation 4 Pro the game will allow it to be played at 30fps in 4K or at 60fps in FullHD: unfortunately some small framerate problems remain, especially during the progress sessions, and some loading blocked us for almost half a minute. We are confident that these issues will be resolved as soon as possible with a dedicated patch, nothing so harmful.
In step with the times
God of War is the classic example of a game that is revolutionized to keep up with the times: no multiplayer (thankfully), but the inserted endgame, the opening of the game world, the RPG details and the intriguing storyline were dynamics unrelated to the brand. Net of this product, the final result remains an exceptional game in every respect. Yet a bit of a bad taste in the mouth for those old-fashioned boss fights and that light gameplay, based only on game skills and nothing more, remains. God of War is sure to be a worldwide hit: it deserves it, on the other hand. Barlog has also tried to insert as many things to pay homage to old fans, going from old-fashioned difficulty to end-of-game arcade mode. However, it is not possible to complete the title without a hint of regret for what has been lost.
God of War defines a new canon, a new version of a gameplay that perhaps it was not necessary to rejuvenate so much, but that is forged in dynamics extraneous to him in a superb way. A modern way of telling an epic that speaks to the hearts of the players, while bringing their hands to always find new combinations to slaughter Nordic enemies in the best way.
