God of War: Ragnarok Review. ...I didn't like it.

This review contains full spoilers for God of War: Ragnarok and some for God of War (2018).

God of War Ragnarok was boring, and in no way worthy of praise of progress, let alone Game of the Year awards. It'll still win Game of the Year.

On the basis of challenge, gameplay less challenging than Sifu or Elden Ring. Boss fights less visually impressive or difficult than the original God of War trilogy. The story of Father-found child less impactful than... well, GTA V.

However, Cory Barlog has done it.

Himself a man previously seen on Twitter supporting The Last of Us Part 2 creator Neil Druckman in his part of making yet another overrated boring, predictably written game, he's done it.

He made an average to frustrating game which doesn't deserve accolades, that is getting said accolades because people are dumb and the videogames industry has as much integrity as the Oscars giving Shakespeare in Love Best Picture over Saving Private Ryan.

I'm not mad, I'm just tired.

One Long Shot

Who cares?

Cinematography is about conveying the story to the audience. In the case of videogames, horror is often first person because it amplifies the major component that makes it horrifying. In films, you relate to a character in a scary situation and hope they survive, but in AmnesiaL Dark Descent, Resident Evil 7 & 8, ad much as it may be Daniel or Ethan', when the monsters are coming, it's for you.

Action adventure games however are often still third person because they still yearn to be like movies. Cutscenes and cinematics to show off their graphics and ability to match the dialogue, acting and gravitas of movies.

Recently, in the past ten years or so, a new has been pushed by Naughty Dog and Sony, namely the push for film and TV actors and celebrities to be in videogames to give them more of a critical acclaim and legitimacy as art, rather than pastimes for children, meaning low art.

In videogames outside of Sony, even before this the push for 'better' actors than the usually hired VAs has been done to some extent. Bethesda have also been known for this, though less for a selling point and more to amplify the voice acting of their games, since graphics have never been the forefront of their releases even from day one, with the likes of Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean in Oblivion and Matthew Perry voicing Benny and John Doman of The Wire fame playing Caeser in Fallout New Vegas. Fallout New Vegas is notable for many film and TV actors that you may not have even noticed from their voices who you'd be loathe to now. Ron Perlman, Danny Trejo, Zachary Levi, Felicia Day to name a few.

With the inclusion of mocap and the uses of the actor's facial expressions you'd be longing for the next release, the acting, the dialogue the ability to have a movie for 60 quid where the story is entirely a fantasy land and inhuman looking characters with no jarring poorly composited CGI to be found.

Kratos's shoulder is a star of this game, with the majority of his dialogue being performed off-screen with no facial expression to be utilised.

The story is fantastic, Game of the Year worthy alone if you're a Sony shilling game journalist who's job requires maintaining a good relationship with the games companies or ...an idiot.

Every God of War: Ragnarok Scene

Here's every scene:

Odin and Thor turn up because Atreus is also revealed the Norse God Loki, and Loki is the key to a green portal and as he's half Norse God, Odin becomes the main villain and surrogate father for Atreus to run off to when Kratos equals being such bad father dude.

Atreus has a Greek name and Norse name, Greek/Norse God who has to decide which world he's a part of (spoilers, it's Greece, because Kratos is the Dad you play as and Odin and Thor = bad guys because then you get to fight them wow so cool).

Scene 1-99: Atreus, now a playable character the Ellie to our Joel-ian Kratos, leaves home to fight skeletons and infiltrate Odin and maybe help the good Greek team to learn about Ragnarok where everyone will fight and Kratos will beat them in the same circular arena dodge-hit boss fight.

Gone are the days of original God of War trilogy spectacle and stages of climbing a moving Titan to hit water horse Poseidon while waves of undead Greeks attack you, or ripping off Medusa heads to shine at and destroy statuesque enemies; hello to waiting for a bloom-encrusted magical colour to attack you emitted from some whipping around copy and paste slightly fast human-looking guy.

Kratos is not a good father or mature man.

Kratos, an immortal and at least 50 year old man who is currently on his second turn at fatherhood says 'Atreus don't go anywhere or do anything unless I specifically tell you to I am not abusive nor am I a Cory Barlog self-insert, I am right and a concerned father don't go anywhere or do anything unless I tell you'.

Atreus, the 13 year old God

Loki

Who you play as killing multiple enemies before heading to the enemy who needs you alive

Says 'Nah I think I'll be fine and leave?'

And then leaves.

He goes back, Kratos is angry, they fight.

Atreus makes good points while sharing what he found out, Kratos is abusive and petulant, before Atreus is grounded. At the first opportunity Atreus sneaks out to do it again.

Rinse repeat for about ten hours, before finally Kratos realises maybe Atreus will be fine and that he's wrong. Maybe stop shouting at, imposing restrictions and dismissing the person with God powers who is less likely to get killed than himself and wasting the player's time with this second time father's inability to realise what being a God actually means.

Wasn't Kratos 13 at some point? By this game's logic Gods age somewhat, Odin looks pretty old wth grey hair.

So anyway, after the majority idiot plot that could be resolved with anyone at Sony asking 'Hey isn't Kratos kind of an idiot? Even if we play him as concerned and blinded by that, isn't it a waste of about half a game's character progression to drag it on so long?'

In the end... y'know. Atreus says his name's Atreus, rejected the Odin father and key green portal thing and fights Odin with Kratos.

They win, at some point they slowly bump heads (a recurring theme this game enacts to try and make you feel relationships between characters rather than write dialogue or acting we can see evidencing the relationship in this game) and then Atreus goes on his own.

Predictable, waste of time, says nothing that your average Dad/kid found family plot couldn't in:

The Last of Us, the movies Maggie, The Book of Eli, Hanna. A Modern Family subplot between Phil Dunphy and Haley where he finds out she's no longer a virgin and is growing up without him able to do anything about it (wherein after twenty minutes he finds that he has no input and it doesn't change her in his eyes at all).

One Long Shot =/= Good Cinematography

The cinematography is the worst offender, the pointless attempt to make the game one long handheld shot then makes the experience that much less engaging. The handheld is an annoyance, constantly distracting for no reason beyond reminding you of the mocap stage.

The reason I'm disliking this so much, is that it is everywhere. It'll be in The Callisto Protocol, it'll be in Uncharted 5, The Last of Us 3, God of War Reboot DLC, and every triple A title from now to the end of time until such time as a single cinematographer tells them

Hey. It helps to be able to see what's going on. And also, if your characters are acting, delivering dialogue, show their faces.

The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, the original God of War games. We can see what's going on and we can see the character's faces when they deliver dialogue, which allows us to relate to the character's feelings and makes the moment memorable and distinct.

There are no shoulders blocking the screen when Aragorn says 'For Frodo'. No handheld when Captain Jack Sparrow emits 'Bring me that horizon'.

Think. Honestly. When was the last time you wanted to rewatch Birdman?

Technical ability doesn't equal good filmmaking. It's the utilisation. If they fail to show faces with dialogue, you'll forget. If they don't cut for reactions, they've failed to utilise the Kuleshov Effect and a dozen other techniques used specifically to make the experience more effective.

The attempt to do one long impressive long shot is a fad to sell, nothing more. It would be better overall for them to have just cut back and forth and let the actors deliver dialogue in close-ups when significant, mids or two-shots when

Dialogue

Other than 'Boy' the meme which tells us that Kratos will shout or bark at his kid in a way that's shown to be masculine but in reality is nothing more than telling of Kratos's detached nature and inability to actually give the care required to a child to raise them, there is no memorable meaningful dialogue. They don't even try.

The majority of the dialogue is the usual transitionary quips between locations, people mentioning lore about a place that you don't care about or some story about a character you'll never see or hear about again.

The rest is forced attempts at a Father Son relationship or group dynamic, but it's just trying to enforce stakes for Ragnarok, the Avengers: Endgame of this two part Last of Us ripoff which includes slightly taller Tyr and upgrade shop Brok, including the Godly 'Occasionally-turns-into-a-bird' Freya. What a team.

When Odin does reveal his boss fight, it's underwhelming. He shoots Dragon Age Inquisition-esque overbloomed laser magic while shouting 'You just couldn't not do this!' 'Why did you have to be so difficult!' et al 'til end.

When Kratos and Atreus finally head bump, in my own personal lone opinion, it's not earned. I feel nothing. The cleverest point is when the art is revealed showing the reality was that nobody was going to die the whole time, but they couldn't show it because it might have changed it. But that thematically means... what?

They stopped a self-fulfilling prophecy and it means... it's mildly funny they panicked at all? I'm not sure. Something about mastering your own fate... or fate terrifyingly existing but see Kratos, you actually do have to control and manipulate people in order to get good results. ...yay?

I long for the day of videogames cutting between shots, focusing on characters having more depth than caricature, having morals more than don't be an obviously abusive Dad just because you're petulant, and for the stories to be dealing with a modern ideal of established understanding of parent-kid relationships rather than a past one mired by blatantly wrong ideals of masculinity and abuse-as-sympathetic.

Least of all not rebooting IPs or Greek Myth stories bound by brand recognition and being original again.

I didn't like it.

It'll win Game of the Year somewhere.