I’m a sucker for franchises with ongoing cross-generation stories. 2015’s Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain looping back around to 1987’s 8-bit Metal Gear was a delight, the Resident Evil series’ teetering stack of insane lore is my jam, and who doesn’t love the bizarre and entirely unnecessary mythology of Street Fighter?
God of War Ragnarök might be one of the best recent examples I’ve seen. Whereas 2018’s God of War mostly told its own story to a vague background of Kratos once having been very angry indeed, Ragnarök goes in hard on directly referencing the events of the previous games.
When Kratos is busy sorrowfully reminiscing about his brother Demios from the PlayStation Portable spinoff title Ghost of Sparta, chatting about his Spartan training, or simply expressing some belated regret for the way he treated the poor boat captain in the opening of the original God of War I’m in hog’s heaven.
As for the rest of the game? Well, I’m a little at odds with it, though I don’t exactly blame the game for this. I’ve had a lot on the last few months, including hard deadlines for reviewing some big titles that meant I couldn’t prioritize Ragnarök quite as much as I’d have liked to.
This meant that from the earliest moments I was beelining the core plot and ignoring all pleas from my buddies that there’s ample time to do some side questing. A bit of light post-game reading indicates that means I missed some of the game’s best content, with the vast crater area left completely unsmashed by Kratos’ mighty fists.
Perhaps if I’d taken the time to stop and smell the roses the narrative might have felt a little less fragmented. The core story of Kratos and Atreus learning to trust in each other’s judgment, with an unexpectedly personable Odin as Satanic tempter subtly tearing them apart is gripping, though perhaps the frequent digressions into other characters’ backstories could have been trimmed down for a more focused narrative.
But picking holes in a game of such obvious quality as Ragnarök is splitting hairs. This is top-quality game development polished to a mirror sheen, with every conceivable rough edge filed away in service of the player’s enjoyment.
Every ten minutes you get a jaw-dropping vista served up to you, there’s a conveyor belt of gradually more ferocious monsters to rip apart, and there may not be a better modern video game performance than Christopher Judge’s weary yet determined Kratos. There’s also a welcome focus on tactility, with Kratos feeling firmly connected to his world in a way that escapes many other games.
With the credits having rolled (twice) Ragnarök is now back on the shelf as I work my way through the other games I have to beat and write about by a certain date. Maybe one day I’ll get it back down and see whether those sidequests live up to the hype…
… but let’s face it, there’ll always be something new to play so I doubt it. I just wish there were more hours in the day to play so I could devote the time to this game it so clearly deserves.
Pixel Hunted 