Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - God of War Ragnarok Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast 11.03.22

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

Tim Gettys, Greg Miller, Blessing Adeoye, and Andy Cortez give their review of the latest sequel from Playstation Studios Sony Santa Monica God of War Ragnarok fearturing the new adventures of Kratos and Atreus. Time Stamps - 00:00:00 - Our Overall Ragnarok Thoughts 00:13:37 - Housekeeping 00:14:40 - Gameplay 00:24:20 - Quality of Life and Puzzles 00:31:00 - The Environments 00:33:15 - The Characters 00:37:46 - Ad 00:40:39 - Back to Gameplay 00:58:35 - Boss Fights 01:02:22 - The Performances and Writing 01:07:22 - Our Downsides 01:25:55 - Our Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. Of course, I'm Tim Getty's and I'm joined by the new face of video games blessing at Ayoje Jr. Good morning, Tim. Good morning. Bless. Joining us as well is the Big Daddy himself. Game over Greg. Greg Miller.

Can that chair getting higher? I mean, I can see. You're up there, man. You are up there right now. This is the first time I've ever been the same height as Greg. Rare air. Yeah. I'm worried about you.

I'll come down. Cut enough circulation of his thighs. What do you mean? This is my natural height. It's my natural height. And rounded out the group today, it is the Texas treat Latino heat clicking heads and ripping them to shreds. The globe trotting head shot and natural rifle from Twitch.com. Andy Cortez.

Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Great. It is a great morning, everybody, because today Ragnarok is upon us. Of course, we got our copy provided by PlayStation. Thank you, PlayStation, for giving us copies of God of War, Ragnarock, enough copies. all four of us were able to beat this game

and now we're going to review this game for all of you and that's going to be fun we're all going to have a great time doing that normally we do Kind of Funny Games daily during this time live on Twitch.tv.tv.com and YouTube.com slash kind of funny games but this is such a big deal Greg we decided that we're going to get together

9 a.m. at embargo time of God of War, Ragnarok reviews dropping and we're going to do it live baby. We're doing a lot. So we're not even going to get into all the rigmarole and stuff yet. I want to get straight into it. What did we think of God of War, Ragnarok. Blessing, I want to start with you.

What do you give it on the kind of funny scale of one to five? On the kind of funny scale, I am giving it a five out of five, which is our highest score that we can give. It is excellent. For me, the thing that sticks out the most, and this isn't a surprise for anybody if you like God of War. So this was the God of War 2018. The story, I think, really carries this game

and really makes this game a special video game. I think for me, going into this game, the biggest hurdle that it had was living up to God of War 2018. Because God of War 2018 came through and rang the alarm. right like it alert all of us to like oh shit you know so you st. Monica has the stuff right and i think for for me at least the thing that that game did excellently was hey it is a redefined cratos it is a new kind of god of war from the ground up it is introducing the character of atraeus and it is a different combat system than what we've seen from god of war right it's a bit more akin to like

from software behind the back a bit more methodical type of combat read your enemy use your weapons Yeah, like be more careful, you know, counter, Perry, do all that good stuff. God of War, Ragnarok, I don't think goes the direction of, hey, it's last this part two, and it is a different game, it is next gen, it is a step up, right? God of War Ragnarok feels like, when first picking it up, it feels like I'm picking up, I'm picking up, I'm picking up, again, just continuing from where I left off. Sure. And that was actually a refreshing and I think good thing for this game, because it makes it feel

cohesive, right? It makes it feel like I'm continuing the same story. And the places that this story goes are places that you would never expect, right? And I don't want to say too much because I know you guys got stuff to say, but like, I am very impressed and very blown away by the story. Greg Miller. Yeah, God of War, Ragon Rock is a five out of five. It's an amazing game. It's one of those where you can say two ways after that of like, I don't feel like that surprises anybody. And then also it's a huge surprise because how do you follow up something like God of War 2018 and how do you iterate on something that was so successful make it feel fresh make it feel new but also make it feel familiar and make it feel like you are hanging out with old friends

and like you're getting into something you already know uh Sony Santa Monica does it flawlessly this is a fantastic game it is a masterpiece but I think even saying all that the thing that caught me the most off guard is that for my money and I got a lot of money no I got a lot of opinions on video games right but for my money this solidifies Kratos is the best character in video games, like the best character we've ever seen in video games. Like the journey, obviously, of all the God of War games before 2018, set up a very specific Kratos. 2018 arrived and introduced Daddy Kratos, Sad Dad Kratos.

And we saw him go from being a hardened shell of a man right there to being a little bit more open with Atreus at the end. And what we talked about in our PSI, I love you preview, right, bless was the fact that this game picks up and it doesn't pick up where we immediately left off, right? Time has passed. Atreus is older. Life has gone on for these two. but it does pick up with the seed that was planted of cratos being a better father being a more open father to atreus has grown into a tree

that is that has happened that has continued to go on they are a different uh dynamic they are a different group they are a different duo and that continues to build so incredible i mean like incredibly well in this game tim where i you know i cried in the beginning for a very specific thing that only gregg would probably cry about, right? But at the end, like, there is a moment in this game that we talk about video games is art all the time. And I feel like when we talk about, for the longest time, when you talk about video games is art, you would go, oh, well, Journey did this and made me feel that. Or there's this indie game like Florence or something like that.

And obviously, divorce that. Yeah, exactly. They're doing something very specific with it, right? And there is a cut scene at the near the end of this game, right? Pretty much the night before anything would ever happen, right? That is so incredibly well done, both from the performance of Christopher Judge, from the animation Sony Santa Monica did with his face to the writing. It's like, to the visuals, too.

It's like, this is like the thing I would go show somebody who's like, oh, well, what are video games? And you're like, this is what they can be. And that's, of course, no disrespect to the gameplay that surrounds it. That is familiar, but is still as engaging as ever and does find ways to be new. does find ways to innovate on things we already know. I'm flabbergasted that they pulled this off. You know what I mean?

There was every opportunity to not even fuck it up, right, but have something that was Horizon Forbidden West. A game we all loved, for the most part, I think I'm speaking for everybody, a game we all love, but was like two out of five. Yeah, you were you really not. I didn't like it. But it was more Horizon.

And it was like, all right, cool. I want more Horizon. That's fine. But it didn't feel like, oh, my God, this is different. This is, we've taken Aloid. God of War Ragnarok is an incredibly special game. Andy Cortez. Yeah, five out of five, man.

This game is wonderful. It really reminds me of going to the theater the night of Avengers Endgame and wondering how are they going to follow up the first part of this. Can it be better? And I think watching a preview from a friend of ours skill up and him mentioning that you're kind of immediately, immediately, you immediately forget the idea of, can this be better than 2018? You kind of just throw that thought out of the window because you're just enjoying the game so much.

And I think the performances are just out of this world. The combat is a lot more fun and they find ways to keep things fresh without making it feel like you are getting repetitive in any way. I think, I don't think it's like a, I don't think it's a perfect game. I still think that, like, for whatever reason, 208. Does a perfect game exist? I'm talking about Tetris. Inside. I think the, I think the, there are some, like, pacing issues near the end.

And it could just be because I main path to do whatever. But I still think that, like, it delivers on every front that you'd want. This game is absolutely amazing. Five out of five, a five must buy. Absolutely. One thing I want to bring up, right, regarding one of the main points that I think does make this game stand out compared to God of War 2018 is the scope of the story. Right? Because, like, you know, God of War 28thune is very much focused on Cratos and Atreus and their relationship.

And it had a very focused goal, right? It is us going up a mountain to spread Atreus' mother's ashes, right? And everything that happens in the story happens kind of around that one specific goal. God of War Ragnarok, I think, takes what 2018 sets up and turns in. it from this focus story into an epic and succeeds at it in a way that I could never expect it, right? There's like a moment later on

into the game where I had similar feelings of how I felt watching the Harry Potter movies as a kid where I'm like, wow, this world can be this expansive and like, wow, there's so much mystery and so much potential here, right? There are places they go that made me think about Norse mythology. And I probably can say this about 2018 too, but I think this

one doubles down on it and takes away further. The way I'm thinking about this Norse world in this game, I'm like, yo, I want like three sequels, three spinoffs of this thing. Like, they really blew it wide open. And it feels like God of War 2018 being God of War one in this scenario, right? This feels like playing God of War two and three just in terms of where they take it, in terms of the length of it, how jam-packed it is.

Like, one thing we haven't mentioned yet is that this game is probably nearly twice as large as the original, like twice as long. It's beefy. Yeah. By the time we finish the game, I was like, dude, I can't believe this is still going. And I think that kind of leads into some of the pacing stuff that, Andy's talking about, which I think I agree with that quite a bit. But the fact that there's so much in here, and it is so quality, and there's so much

dialogue and good contextual dialogue, and, like, there's so much just world-building stuff that is going to make you fascinated with this world. That's the stuff that really blew me away with this as a sequel. Timothy, what did you think? You know, there was Infinity War, then there's Endgame. There's Last of Us, then Last of Us Part 2. And in this case, there is God of War 2018, and then God of War Ragnarack. This is a five out of five.

this is undeniably as good as its predecessor, debatably better. And I do think that it's what day is it? What do you actually talking about? That's going to be as... Recency bias aside and stuff like that. It'll be interesting as we get deeper into conversations about God of War throughout our lifetime to see where we come down on that. And I think that for all the properties that I just named there is...

It is subjective to... I feel like at some point it's subjective in terms of the polish, in terms of like the accomplishments, in terms of the technical aspects. XYZ, but then there is the subjective, well, I prefer this character and they were better in this game or whatever it is, that stuff. So you can kind of fall there. So for me personally, I fall on the sequel to all three of those. I'm an end game person. I am the Last of Us 2 person and I am a god of war, Ragn rock person. I was enthralled every single moment that I was playing through

this game. I did way more side stuff than you guys did. Yeah, you beat it, right? I did beat it. What are your hour, what's your hour count of your safe? So my hour count is 35 hours. Jesus. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Which is a lot. And I kept talking to them like throughout.

I was like, I'm at this many hours like how much more to the game? Like you have a lot more game. And then I realized like, oh, I'm doing side stuff. But I was doing side stuff not realizing that it was side stuff. It was so good. It felt so important. And I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to miss this. And I know I can go back.

But it feels so perfectly ingrained and intertwined with the story that they're telling. And the story they're telling is, bless me saying this, it is so. much bigger than I ever would have expected. We get teased with, we get pure North stuff, right, in the first one, but then we get teased with the stuff we actually care about, the stuff that we actually know and all this stuff. And I think that this game is

coming out at the perfect time of being able to play with the mainstream's kind of understanding of things like, we just had a movie with Ragnarok in the title four years ago, right? We know what Ragnarok is. So like seeing them deal with that, it's cool because I feel like there's a level of familiarity that

I wouldn't have when they're just talking about like some of these gods and some of these characters. And I feel like it's great to like be familiar, but it's, this game is the king of subverting expectations in ways of, um, characters, you hear their name, you're like, I know what they're going to do and then they do something different. You're like, that's weird,

but it totally feels earned. It totally feels like you guys have built this world that despite being so different than what I expected to be, it feels absolutely right. Every single thing that they set up narratively has unexpected but satisfying payoff. Yeah. Like every single time I'm like, I did not see that coming. and that was really cool the way you twisted that

and I had that over and over and over again. And it really feels like I think that the put it on the box quote for me is like it felt like they held nothing back. Like they were just like, is there a cool thing we could do for this? It doesn't feel like, oh, this is part two of a trilogy or we need a sequel or whatever. I definitely want a sequel. I hope that we get a sequel.

I'm sure we'll get a sequel. But like this really feels like, no, no, no, no, we got to go all out for this. Like whatever we can do, we should do. If it makes sense. And luckily enough, it all made sense. I just spent all that time talking about just the story. That's how into just the story I am.

I don't know if a game's ever played better than this. It's just so damn fun to play. Is it absolutely perfect? No, I have nitpicks here and there. I think the menus are a little over designed and convoluted, but that's where I'm at with this game. It is a five out of five. Gear and relics and all the stuff here.

I found it overwhelming, right? Because it was just like, oh my gosh, there's so much here, but I'm just trying to do this, but I come back into there. And eventually you get your head wrapped around like any other game. But it is like, when you go into that menu, It is a menu. There is a lot going on in there, and you have to go through

and figure out what that means to you. Yeah. So before we get into even more in-depth thoughts with everything, I do want to get through. Yeah, spoiler-free. I do want to get through the rigmarole of this show. Of course, this is the Kind of Funny Games cast.

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Greg, where do you want to take us next? I think we should go to gameplay. I think we've spent so much time in this thing talking about the story, and we're not done with that. And this is also one of those games that I was excited to do this review. I am stoked to do the spoiler cast.

The spoiler cast is the one where I want to go and go and go and talk about it. Thank you for that note. The spoiler cast is happening. It will be going down on Monday, November 21st. It will be a special PSI Love You with director Eric Williams. Very, very exciting. So get hype for that. Cannot wait.

Yeah, it's going to be really tough to kind of name things that maybe turned us off or got us really, really excited without being able to kind of specify anything. So just understand that we're going to be speaking in like, Extremely bad. This is one of those games that I'd say is probably made by, like, a lot of spoiler content, right? Like, in terms of, like, reveals and moments, all the shit, like, a lot of the stuff that brings this game up to a five out of five for us, I would think, is stuff that we don't necessarily want to spoil for people.

And I've seen that go around on, like, Twitter. It's not just story stuff. There's so much, like, regarding gameplay and level design and environments and stuff. And, yeah, there's a lot of things that are all this. I wouldn't want spoiled for me. And we'll do our best, obviously, to avoid all that. and, you know, it is a spoiler for your review. We're going to do our best.

Well, you know how spoilers different to everybody, right? You can say anything. Be better. Be better. Don't be spoiler free. Be better. Gameplay, though, I think it's an interesting place to start, right? Because I think, you know, blessed especially, on PSI Love You, we did that first five hours for the preview, right?

And we had a conversation on that episode, which was like, it feels like more God of War 2018. And that's great. We love God of War 2018, but we'll this last and will this go and yet, yada, yada. And I said on that show, you know, I'm interested to see what happens next. because 2018 when we did the preview embargo, it stopped when I walked up with the bore. And then right after that, right,

you got a cut scene and right after that, it's open world. And that was like the big reveal. It was like, oh, my God, there's a compass and icons and all these different things. How long did it take you to beat? Oh, we didn't do that. Did we know?

No, no, no. I did, I golden passed it, and I did it in 26. Yeah, I didn't. I left my PS5 on Idol a lot. There would be times I would just leave the game running and, like, work on something on my computer. Sure. So I got to estimate it was around 27 to 28.

I did like one side mission near the beginning. Yeah, I did a couple in the beginning too, and then I was like, I got to go. I got to make sure I get this done. Yeah, and then I got a DM from some other people working on the game. No, no, no, reviewing the game actually. Christopher Judge. Christopher Judge is not DMing me now. But he did kind of let me know, like, oh, yeah, this is a lot bigger than part one.

And some people, that's how some people saying like, oh, 35 for 10, that's not a whole lot. I probably put around 40 into part one the first time that I went around. I do think that this story is like at least 10 hours longer. Because I, well, maybe it's, yeah, yeah,

because we did, we just replayed God of War 2018, like the three of us just replayed it, right? And for that, I main path to it. I mean path to hell out of it. And I want to say I beat it in like 14 hours.

Yeah. And this game, I also main path for the most part. I did some side stuff, but I was really like, okay, I'm going to finish this game because I'm so into the story and I want to see where this goes.

It took me about 24 hours to beat the game. Yeah, it's a, it's a beefy one for sure. Huge shout out to it, too of how they contextualize all the side stuff of yes you can do it while you're going there occasionally a trace will be like oh man we do we have to go right away and do the next story occasionally i feel like every time yeah like you're not doing the side quest morons yeah there's a lot

of great shit it reminds me a little bit too much of beating mass effect three and being like shepherd's story isn't over though go do all the the side stuff because this story doesn't really end here whatever. Like, I got a bit too much of it, and it's likely because I wasn't doing side stuff, so I'm seeing... I loved it because I did a lot of side stuff, and I heard some of it, but anytime I heard that, I mean, I guess that was like, the devil calling me where I'm like... Dude, you know, to go to the... The point that I want to finish, though, is that, you know, somebody who is the, when I, if I'm playing a game, an RPG, whatever you want to call it, an open-world game of side quests for fun, I am the, oh, I want to do all the question marks before I moved in the next thing. So for this it was like, oh man, I did some of the beginning and I had a great time with him. Like, I got to get moving on.

I want to go. And so that broke my heart. But then the way they contextualize it, you know, post credits with how the game is going to go and like doing it. It still feels rewarding right now to be doing them. It's not like, oh, this is tacked on and I should have done this earlier and that would have helped her done this. It's like I saw somebody in the chat, which is going crazy. Thanks for all the love. Say, Greg, I saw that the SyeQuest are some of the best in gaming.

I would 100% agree with that. And I am that stoked to continue to do them now after credit. I'm in love with them. I wanted to mention I played on PS5. How about all of you? Oh, yeah. PSVR. PSVR.

Performance mode, right? Everybody. Oh, yeah, yeah. I switched back and forth between because they let you on the fly. Yeah. Shout to them in terms of just like options. Jesus Christ, this game has options. So many options.

And you can turn them on, turn them off. Like, depending on what scenario you're in, I was very, very impressed with the amount of options. And I spent a lot of time even just looking and just tinkering to see like what things would look like. And at the end of the day, I favored performance over resolution for 90 plus percent of the game. But there's sometimes I want to turn it on just to see what it would look like. And like, it's just gorgeous.

It's gorgeous with that. Like this game, no matter what, you're making a good call. Yeah, I wanted to say that I think the game is just insanely polished. I ran into one bug where audio wasn't playing during the cutscene. And lucky for me, I was able to close the game, started back up. And it started to me right there back in that same spot. I had two of those where it seemed like those scripting bugs. where I would talk to somebody and then yeah like the audio would not play but you'd see their

motions and I'm like oh that's interesting but then yeah I'll reload and I've also not I know there there's like a day one patch and so there's a chance that stuff's already fixed but that was like very minor bugs right there was nothing that was like oh I just felt through the world or anything the only bug I had was one they had in the email that I've like hey we know this is a bug we're already I would fix for day one and even though I was able to power through it and get through I've never played a game this polished ever like I there's a bug here or whatever but it's like I mean When I think of polished video games, like you think of like Nintendo's Mario games, like the 3D Mario games and things like that. It's just like this, this is technically so much more impressive than anything we've seen.

But like this is the most polished technically impressive game I've ever played where it's just constantly blowing me away from every single aspect of its technical stuff, whether it's the sound, the visuals, the way those all kind of go together, the feel of the controller, the use of the dual sense of the haptics, all that stuff is just it feels how it should. I just wanted to get that out there before there's a shit ton of bugs on day one. Everybody goes, what the fuck? I thought you all said it was polished. Like, it was really, really polished for us in case it is broken for you all. That's, don't play much. It just comes through.

Nobody has faces for some reason. It's like the sat and screen. Yeah. The reviewers fucking lie. Like, no, no, no, no. Chill the fuck out. It was great for us. One thing I wanted to say at the, at the top is just one of my favorite things about

video games is when you're playing them and every single thing you're doing, you're simultaneously like I'm enjoying what I'm doing and I can't wait to do the next thing. And Last of Us too really did that for me where it's like, oh man, I'm so excited to be in this monster closet right now because once I'm done with it, I get the next story beat. And once I get that story beat, I'm going to be excited to know what happens next and then the puzzle's going to be cool. And this game does that so well where I feel like I'm constantly in a thrilling fight with a bunch of enemies and then a boss comes out of nowhere and I'm fighting the boss and then I get

rewarded with some story stuff. and then I'm going out and doing a puzzle and I get distracted by a side quest and every single thing I'm doing is constantly rewarding. The thing I just did feels like it's in the background still benefiting me for whatever reason, whether it's like, like oh man, like I left

that character story-wise. They're off doing their thing. When they get back, I'm going to learn some new shit. And it's like it just feels really well designed almost in a way of like I've been playing a lot of Marvel Snap that might surprise people, right? But there's this, the mobile gamification that has gotten so refined over the years of like people just like seeing

the numbers go up. People just like feeling like they're getting something where it's like, I do this to get that thing, to get me more of this thing, to get me more of that thing. You're just going in a circle, but it feels good. Sure. God of War does that. But instead of it just being numbers going up, it's really, really, really incredible performances and story reveals and gameplay that makes you feel like a badass. And that is just such a rewarding cycle on the level that it's at in terms of its,

the polish of rewards of its gameplay and story and the way that it combines those two. That to me is what makes this game a step above just. It's why it's a five. It's why this being a sequel to one of the best games of all time, and I'm just glowing on it. It's because it did something special, and that to me is the special thing. Yeah, I think that they improved on so many of the things

that they could have improved on with 2018, a lot of the complaints that they heard from us and from a lot of other people was like enemy variety. Enemy variety for sure, yeah. And they doubled and tripled down, I think, on enemy variety. I think they did such a great job And I think even in the beginning There's these little lizard bad guys

And I feel like Sony Santa Monica Made those to make us pissed off And be like All right, sorry about all the shit Talking about enemy variety You don't have to like go this hard Because these little fuckers are the worst These old losers are the absolute worst

Now they're exploding fuck Yeah Yeah they're doing too much of this There's like these ethereal orbs That you fight At quite a few points in the game Where I was like All right

We can skill back on the end to be right. I'm tired of these guys right because it's very much like now I'm just fighting like now I'm just fighting like just forces of energy we've gone too far. I want to shout out though the they're just a little small quality of life improvements and one of them

my absolute favorite is getting to a part in the game where you think you can progress in a certain way and a character goes hey we don't have what we need for that oh love it absolutely love that because that happened to me

you know I hadn't played God of War 2018 since the game had come out. And I had just recently beat it before hopping into this one. And there were several moments that I don't remember just because I have a terrible memory. And I'm running around at somebody in my Twitch chat is like, oh, Andy, you don't have what you need for that yet. I was like, oh, thanks for that. Appreciate that. And I love that in this game, they are letting you know that all the time. Hey, I don't think we got what we need for that, dad. Like, okay, cool. Let's move on to the next thing then. I can fuck off and not be like, what's going on with this puzzle? Am I supposed to not? No, I just don't have the tools yet.

for this perfect i can move on um i think that they're they had a lot of those things in mind now that could take away the mystery for some people it takes away a lot of the frustration for me so i appreciate i don't think it takes away the mystery and i mean i can't speak for everybody obviously it didn't take away the mystery for me i enjoyed that and then again play i feel like i'm having two two very distinct uh playthrus of the game right where there was the golden path run through and do everything which is very like okay cool to this to this to this and now that i'm off doing the side quest i feel like the side quests are often put out into the not open world, you know, high rule field open zone. And it is that idea of like, oh, I walk in. I'm like,

oh, this is awesome. There's three little blue side quest markers in a very tight spot. I can knock these all out. But then you get there and it suddenly becomes the puzzle. I was doing one yesterday that's kind of reminded me of like the deserts or right or like Arizona or something where it's like this rock, it's sun splashed, it's all these things. But it is that thing of like, well, okay, I knew I need to get up to that. You know, Kratos even walked, or we walked in one of my companions mentioned. Oh yeah, blah, blah, that thing up there. And I was like, okay, cool. How do I, and then I start reverse engineering getting there, but then I'm going that way, but then I can't get through this thing, but I'm looking for that. And suddenly I'm doing

all three of them on like a spinning plate way at the same time, not feeling overwhelmed, but also feeling like it's a puzzle onto itself of how to unlock this thing to get to these next ones. I'm somebody who does like the frustration, right? I do like the mystery of like, all right, how the fuck do I solve this thing? Let me sit here and really think about it and really solve it. And that was one of my complaints with the 2018 game because there are so many puzzles that I would get to. And I'm like, all right, let's figure this out in 10 seconds. in either Atreus or Mimir's like, hey, brother, why don't you go do this, this? And I'm like, no, shut up.

I want to solve this by myself. Like, please, shut up. Let me do this by myself. It's the same thing where you talk about in Horizon for Ben West this year, where it's like, A. Loid talks a lot. Maybe I should go probably like, like, Aloy, let me figure it up on myself. But I do think there's a good balance here where usually the bonus where that has happened

in the game for me, they've not directly solved the puzzle. It is more of a nudge of like, yeah. Let's look up. They go and they look at something, right? So yeah, they stand there and they just stare at a thing. And I'm like, all right, what are they staring at? What is this game trying to tell me? And it is not them solving the puzzle for me.

And it's some of the side stuff that I did do. There was one side quest that was essentially like this environmental puzzle of doing a bunch of elevator shit and having to figure out how to navigate this elevator maze to get to the final thing. And they shut up the whole time. They did not say a word in terms of like some. Maybe you should use that elevator, brother. Yeah. And like I couldn't figure that shit out. But I love the fact that I couldn't figure that shit out, right?

Like I like having to struggle through that shit. I think that is what makes puzzles fun, right? Is you having to like really rack your brain around, all right, what do they want me to do? What are they telling me? And the fact that in that side stuff, I got that experience. And then when it comes to the main stuff, there was that balance of them hinting toward solution, but not necessarily giving me the solution. Absolutely love that. The puzzles were really interesting to me.

I would say that overall I loved them. But I think that it is that love and how great the majority of them are that when things don't work how I think that they should, it kind of felt like, oh, this seems really. off. And mainly what I'm talking about is the puzzles that involve the treasure chest with the three different symbols on them. And then you have to kind of find them around. They're all over the first game. They're all over the second game. And they're physics based mainly. And it, of course, makes you think of Breath of the Wild with the Shrines and being able to kind of use all your abilities. And what I loved about Breath of the Wild is there's the way to do the puzzle. But then they're also like, well, you just need to hit the thing. If you figure out a way to hit the thing, you got it. And I love that because it really. You really. And I love that. Because it really. felt like it rewarded you for thinking outside of the box it rewarded you for knowing your tool set and all that. I feel like in this game there's their way they want you to do it and that's it and that can

sometimes get frustrating because there's the illusion of physics based things going on with the weapons that you have and the way that you're using them specifically with the way that you throw the Leviathan axe where it's like okay you throw it and you imagine it's like okay you can arc it or you can this or you can that there was multiple times where I definitely wasted

five minutes trying to hit something when it looked like I could and it felt like I could. And I know that I could hit at that spot, but they actually wanted me to hit it from a different angle. Oh, really? And so that would, like, kind of frustrate me. But it would only frustrate me. And I'm saying this as a criticism because that only stood out when it was bad because it's so good, 99% of the time.

There's, I, I haven't run into that. I've had it the other way where I'm throwing and I'm changing my arc and I'm doing the thing and I'm using more power. And then I get it. And I'm like, ah, I felt good to get it. that one. There's one that I have that's underground that I see all three of them. I hit all three of them and then they just

reset and then I'm hitting them in the right order and they just and I'm just like I don't know what the fuck and it's that thing where it's like I'm here on the review talk about it right. It's still scratching in the back of my brain and Mimir and Atreus have not said shit about what I'm doing wrong and I'm like I'll figure this. There was less like timed ones right I feel where in part one I feel like there was several ones or it's like

you got doing really really fast before they reset and I feel like I didn't experience that. I think it's because they There are more, I feel like they added one or two new ones that are like the three variations. So I think it's a bit more varied. So you're not seeing those ones as much. There are a ton of them though. But that's the other thing is in the menus, like you can add more time. Like they allow you.

It's not just kind of like all the different accessibility stuff and approachability, like all of it I'm so impressed with because it's not just make the game easier, make the game harder, make the game faster, make the game slower. It's like they get to the point of like not just the game, but like specific things like combat things or. puzzle things or do you want aim assist just for the puzzles? And I'm like, this is, it's just great because that's not how I want to play the majority of the time. But there was a couple times I was like, eh, you know, I know what I need to do. It would be easier if I just did it this way. And they just allowed me to enjoy the game more.

It's like, I think that that's just such a win overall. One of the things I want to shout out are the different areas in the game. Like people out there already know that in this game, they've opened it up to where you can visit all the realms. And even the realms that we've been to in God of War, 2018. feel different, right? 100% that's part of Fimble Winter.

You know, it's a new season, it's cold out here. Fimble winter out here. And that has an effect on like, you know, Midgard's all like snowy now, right? Like, there's shit going on here, right? But you visit realms that you've been to in the past, and they find ways to keep it fresh, but also keep it familiar. Like, again, it feels like picking up God of War 2018 back up from where you left off. But it almost feels like you're visiting the same city, but a different neighborhood where it's like, oh shit, I didn't know this place is around the corner. right and it makes it

they got a Wendy's here nice yeah and again it makes this world feel big in a way that I wasn't expecting them to pull off in this way and to double back on that I was so impressed that multiple times it's never not once did it quite hit this level because it's one of the greatest moments in gaming history but I got the

vibe of returning to Shadow Moses in metal and it's just because we're going back to places that are familiar but so different at the same time that it just feels like it feels like oh my god I'm visiting something and like A thing I loved about this game is that it kind of feels like the best Disneyland ride ever. Like a lot of Disneyland rides, you're kind of just chilling in a boat going down and there's like story happening around you. There's a lot of that in this game, obviously a lot more interacting.

But they just like kept the entire thing, like feeling like a roller coaster that is also giving you story the entire time. And I just love how that constantly has those moments of reflection and moments of like reveals. We're at a point out with God of War where we love and revere it so much that like even some something that came out just a couple years ago, we're nostalgic for these areas and characters and like, sure, iconography and things that, like, it felt like when we saw Shadow Moses, and that's really cool.

One thing I want to shout out as well to, oh, God, I forget I was going with this. You said something that triggered it for me, and I told me. Well, you're talking about the Shadow Moses moment, right? And it's just like, there's so many good moments in this game that I think you can tie into movies and things like that. And like, at the end, not the end, obviously, but towards

the end, there's just this one fucking moment. and I was just like, holy shit. I was like, and not a sad moment. I was like, let's fucking go. I said let's go. Yeah, so we're talking about the same thing then. Yeah, of course. Yeah, you're talking about the nostalgia of the areas.

I want to bring up characters because the, of course, the scope of this game is expanded, right? You're seeing more characters in this game. And to steal a quote from Janica Garcia, I think she said this about God of War 2018. And I'll use this for God of War, Ragnarok as well. The drama is so thick. Even with the added characters, there are so much tea. And there is so much drama. and there is so much like every character feels like they matter to some extent.

And it takes me back to, I remember listening to Greg's God of War 2018 review. And one of the things that Greg compared God of War 2018 to was a stage play of like there's a cast of characters here that you keep returning to. And like the one shot camera keeps everything grounded and keeps everything cinematic. But also, you know, you're dealing with this story that is grounded and that is focused on these characters. Even with this expanded character roster, they still keep that energy. And I think they even double down on the stage play thing, right? Like the one shot camera is still there. A movie.

Like I think the cast of characters they've introduced, the scope. Like this is a feature film. It's an epic. Yeah. And the epics are a great way to put it, right? And I think that was something people, you know, when we're doing 2018's re-review and looking through criticism of that even, there was the conversation of like, it's more grounded in quotes, right?

It's not, it doesn't have as many epic moments as God of War before, right? When you're, you know, fighting a giant or doing whatever and stuff. this one is epic Epic start to finish right I feel like they've really blown the roof off and the show on the scale and it's still the stage play or even a really great movie in the way that like it's not

and no offense Fast and the Furious or some big big budget blockbuster where it's just about the set pieces it's still about the characters it's still about that but it can go that way and what I love with the characters and what we're talking about here is the fact that

I talk about Credo's growing right and him changing and him I think him solidifying himself is the best story and best character in games. His supporting cast and his surrounding cast also do that. Even to the point that I think it's something rare to see in video games, I think, at least to this level of depth,

where when you reunite with people like you've seen before, and I mean in this game, not even like you reunite from, I've seen you since 2018. You reunite in this game with people you left out and do go do their thing. Their lives have moved on in those moments. And they make references to it and they say things or things happen. And you as the player, like, wait, what is happening?

And they're like, yeah, we'll talk about it later. It's like, that's cool. Like I like for this feeling And then you talk about it later Yeah, and you do. Yeah, you get back to it. Like that is what I was talking about the reward cycle. It's like there's, the world feels like it's living and it's happening.

And I think that the, like you mentioned it for a second, but the fact that this game also does the one shot camera thing, the entire game. And the first game was so impressive for doing that. But the fact that that one was relatively smaller. And this one has the epic crazy scale that it does constantly throughout the game. And the camera is still that one. shot. I love it because it, of course, these characters that leave you are still living their lives and having their journeys and their stories are continuing because we are live with Cretos. Like it's, there's no cuts. There's no like, you know, meanwhile, whatever. It's like,

everything's happening and it is so. And that brings me back to the stage play thing of the creativity they use with the one shot camera this time around has blown me away way, way more than even in the first game. And the first game for me was the thing of, all right, cool, yeah, one shot. All right, that really solidifies the style here. But it's not something that I'll think, we've never seen before, right? Like we played, I don't know, this probably isn't the greatest comparison,

but we played like first person games, like Portal or like Half Life where it is. It's technically a one-shot camera, right? You're grounded in that same camera position throughout the entire game, right? God of War 2018. But there's cutscenes in those games. For sure.

That's the difference. I mean, not in Portal. Well, in Portal 1, I guess not. But that's a different, that's a different reveal, right? Different game.

But God of War, Ragnarok, I think, takes it and elevates it so much where I, like, if I was working at Sony, Santa Monica, at some point I would have been like, yo, let's just fucking, like, let's just do a camera cut to do this thing that we want to do because, like, we really got to, this might be too much in terms of pushing this, but the way that they commit to it and the way that they have these transitional moments of, all right, like, we got to, you know, Credos has to go to sleep. Like, how are we going to do this?

How are we going to stimulate a night of sleep? He got to go night night. He has to go night night. How are we going to simulate that with a one-shot camera and they pull that shit off? Like, very creative, very impressive, and I think really does help solidify the what they're going for just in terms of the tone and the cinematic presentation of this game. Yeah.

Yeah, they did an absolute fantastic job. I want to talk about maybe some stuff that we didn't love. But how about... We still never talked about gameplay, but yeah. How about before we do that, we take a word from our sponsors? Oh.

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So again, start your credit journey with CHIME. Signup takes only two minutes. Doesn't affect your credit score. Get started at CHIM.com slash KF Games. That's chime.com slash KF Games. Greg Miller. Hey, Harry. Earlier in the show, you wanted to talk about gameplay.

Sure did. Then Andy asked the question we forgot about ours and then we went off on a tangent for this last thing because that's how much there is to talk about this game. But I do want to talk about gameplay because I feel like it's something we keep getting hung up on story and the epicness and all this stuff. side quest and all that's true and all that's great and I want to talk about it. But I do want to

know impressions of the actual gameplay. Because again, for me and Bless, when we were doing the PSI love you, it feels like God of War 2018, and then we got to the cutoff and I was like, I wonder what happens next. And what happens next is a big thing. And there is a big change. And then the game's off to the races as to what the game is. But it is still the God of War 2018 combat, right? It's refined a bit. It's changed a bit, but you are still using Leviathanax, you are still using your blades. You are still using your shield. And I think I think at this point

it's even hard for me to maybe put into words but on our replay of 2018 at times I wasn't bored with it at all but it was okay this is it felt like going through the motions

I'm doing this to get to the thing because I want to get to the thing and that's granted a game I've already played so I knew where the story was going and I was trying to get to my favorite scenes or favorite moments right

I didn't have that here and I don't know if that's just me where the beginning I was playing as like all right it's 2018 then I kind of felt like we were talking about in the preview

me and Janet a second of like, oh man, I'm getting my ass kicked a bit here. And then it was, oh, well, I need to get in and improve my gear. Okay, I did that. So now I'm doing better. And then it became this kind of thing. I think what you were talking about, Tim, with the reward cycle of being able to go in and be like, man, I'm committed to this armor set and doing this with my Leviathan X. And I see that I need this resource or this much hacksover.

So I'm going to sell this to get that, to improve that blades to go off and be better and stronger. And like, now on the side quests, because I, Again, the narrative part of it obviously has a lot of combat in it, but it's more storyline and you're watching the movie being part of the movie. Whereas the side quest I do feel are more, cool, you're in this open area, go to the thing. Oh, there's a bunch of monsters here. Oh, this is what's happening.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm enjoying the combat even more now. Oh, yeah. 100%. Yeah, yeah. And I'm enjoying the way they keep me on my toes of, yes, there are too many orbs. Yeah.

And every time the orbs pop up and I accidentally graze one, Kratos, you don't. don't need to yell, they do not, the damage does nothing or whatever the fuck he says. I'm like, I know,

use your shield. Use your. Trace. You know to shoot the arrow. You've seen these balls a million times. I gotta tell you, hit the thing.

You know what I mean? This isn't a real complaint. It's just a funny thing to hear that dialogue. Or yeah, then Mimir of like, what's the good. Use your shield brother.

What's the use of having a shoe. I'm trying my best. I miss the fucking pro. Backseat gaming over here. Let's fuck off my bed. I love the blessings with Mir like in the beginning of the episode was great. and then it just turns into Hulk Hogan. Brother, let me tell you.

Hope Hogan was working with a mirror. I feel like would fit, surprisingly. But anyways, yeah, these open sections with the combat, like I am still, you know, now, geez, I'm what I erupted, 26, so I'm probably closer to 30 now, right, because I'll continue to do side stuff. And it's like, I'm still excited for that.

And I see these different enemies that, you know, I don't think they're, there are enemies we've seen before are still in this game, but there is so much variety that I don't feel like I hate the enemies I've seen before as much as I might have hated them in 2018. Because these motherfuckers made a rock with the giant chest that does the thing and I got to

hit and get the thing and throw back of their chest. I'm like, I was so sick of them in 2018 on my original play-through, not even on my replay, that when they pop back up in this one, I was like, you motherfuckers. And then I've only fought like three or four or whatever. I'm like, all right. You know, at that level, I don't mind you that much. And this is back into side quest stuff, but still into gameplay. And back into the epic conversation, I appreciate that what,

could just be a side quest of get the thing, do the thing. All right, cool, you've done the errand. Thank you. Still has those moments. Like last night I was off doing one that I felt was kind of normal, whatever the thing. And like, a dragon picked us up and we were in the air. And then I was falling through the air. I'm falling through the clouds.

And I land with the shield. I'm like, fuck, that was awesome. You know, I mean, this isn't a story beat. This is just something they put in here. I digress, though. The combat itself, I am a blades of chaos man. That's where I stick. That's where I main.

That's what I've put all my XP into as fast as I could improve. And I just fucking love using those. still this deep into the game. Am I wrong? Where is combat for you? I found myself still hitting that place where I felt like I was going through the motions. And that was, I think I mentioned that in my preview in the first few hours, again, where it does feel like you're picking the game back up. And the combat improvements, you know, where the story feels like in some places they're

taking big steps and it feels like they're expanding in very big ways, the combat improvements for me felt incremental. Like the big improvements came from enemy design and enemy variety and placement and map design and role design. But in terms of the combat itself, for me, it felt like playing more 2018 with a few more bells and whistles, which, you know, 2018 had really fun combat,

so I was okay with that. Up until maybe about 18 to 20 hours in, where I felt like the gameplay for me had overstayed its welcome in the main narrative, but I was still invested in the story, right? Like, I was deeply into the story. I was like, all right, what's next?

What's, like, I want to know what the next character turn is, like, what is the next big beat? But I'll get to a combat scenario, and it is like, all right, turn off my brain, do the thing, like, fight the way I've been fighting for the last 18 hours. Dissociate for a second, right? All right, let's get to the next puzzle. All right, it's another one of these.

Let's figure out the thing. And, like, it's not designed badly by any means, but for me, the evolution isn't there enough to get me excited about it the way I get excited about, like, I don't know, other games that have, that have, like, this level of combat in it where, you know. Go for it. And my question would be then, why, like, are you going to, and I know you're not a platinum guy. Are you going to keep going to play more of the sidequest? Are you going to do that kind of thing? No. And it's tough because in the last few days, as we've been approaching this review, I have been picking

it back up to do side stuff, to clear it out. Because I beat the game in, like, four to five days. I locked in, and I hyper fixated on this thing, probably because I was sick. And I beat the hell out of this game pretty quickly. And then I took, like, a little bit of a break there. You fucked it up. I fucked up that game. As we've been approaching this review, I, you know, I wanted to pick it back up to kind of

go back and clear side stuff and refresh my stuff. myself on the gameplay and the feel of the game. And I've just found myself being like, I think I'm good. I think I'm done here. I don't think I got to do the side stuff. And I think that obviously that's not going to go for everybody. Like Tim is super into the side stuff. I can't wait.

Yeah. I think I'm really here for the main narrative. So here's my question then for you, very specific, very pointed. And it will be heated, ladies and gentlemen. Why do you like the combat of Eldon Ring? Because I assume that's one of the things you're pointing to in terms of like, there's other games where you like the combat. And you don't mind.

Why do you like that? more than you would like God of War Ragnarcks. Because it's similar, right, of like Dodge, Parry, you know, roll, get behind and enemy. I still think it's better in Ledering. Like, I said, tighter. I think tighter, I think the boss fights are better designed

in Eldon Ring. And I think enemy design in general, I prefer in that game. And like in the way that we talk about how enemies and some shooters are bullet sponges, I feel like here there are melee sponges a lot. Yes, sure. That makes sense. 1,000, right? And I think the risk and reward factor in

And games like Sekiro as well, because I think Sekiro is probably one of my favorite the combat systems in a video game ever. Right? And I'll even pull games like Seifu and many other combat games into the mix. I really like high risk, high reward. And I think God of War hits that middle point of character action and souls like action

that is more so, no, it is, you know, you have a lot of health, enemies have a lot of health. Mash you, mash, you, mash. Yeah, and it is very much, hey, mash, have fun. You know, in one of the preview things they did for God of War, they talked about playing with your food, right? So when you're saying Monica has this ethos of, we want you to play,

we want you to play with your food. So here is the Leviathan X, here is the Blades of Chaos, here are all these different upgrades, here's the different upgrades and give to the trades, here are all these tools you can use to play with your food

and be, have fun and be creative in combat. But I think that leads to less of the, you know, edge of my seat, oh, am I going to make it feel that I think I really enjoy out of those kind of combat systems? And it is more of a, all right, Mash, you know, have fun, you know, be laid back,

die sometimes, but for the most part, you're not, like, you're not getting through by the skin of your teeth. Oh, man, I am, except for when I turn the corner where I am now, where I feel, like, I feel like, I feel like Cratos again. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like, and it didn't take me all of a 30, or 26 hours. Game makes you feel like Cratos. Look at me, I got a six-pack.

I don't know what I'm, I really miss Calliope. I'm sad. No, but it's the thing where I, like, I feel empowered by it now, and I think I am playing with my food. And I don't know if you ever did. I think 2018's replay again for on PSLW you a great show we should watch remember today's the FAQ if you have questions based on any of the reviews you've read kind of funny dot com slash psil y will answer with janet later uh but even with 2018 remember i talked about like i made a huge mistake replaying 2018 where i did a new game plus so i came in

do decked yeah i was and i was just destroying things in two hits and it was super boring because it was the same thing this game and the build to it and i that's a great thing of play with your food because i forgot all about that It was for a while that I wasn't, and I was just like, R1, R2, R1, R1, you know what I? And I was like, hey, right, whatever. And then it got to a point where I was having the skin in my teeth battles, and I was actually paying attention a few to my upgrades. And it was all of a sudden of like, bam, bam, slash, slash, throw you up in the air, throw my blades into you, pull you in, smash you some more.

And then I've already used my runic attacks on this. I'll switch over to Leviathanax, use those, smash that. All right, what's my new, you know, circle button move or whatever? I forgot they call them, or whatever. I got a glave, this is cool, whatever, you know what I mean? like the special, not runic attacks, artifacts, artifacts, are right? Whatever.

One of the special moves. There's so much shit. And that's, dude, don't again. That's the menus and everything else. But what I'm saying is there's a flow not of my combat that I'm really into. And again, I can't wait to go back to. And again, not that it feels like a completely different game, just the side questss focus on combat and the open zones as we talked about, right, which I enjoy exploring because

it gives you those story beats. You have those conversations. You hear Mamir talk to Atreus or whoever, and they, you know, engage more and what's, like, it's all great, and it's still what I want. It's still the story stuff, but then it's also, I feel like before, for the narrative, right, you're cranked to 75 story, 25 combat,

and then for the side stuff I'm doing right, it is more 75 combat, 25 story, and I'm getting one I want to. One thing, I want to bring in, Andy, who is my from software brother in arms, but one thing I do want to address because a lot of chat is like, I'll just up the difficulty, up the difficulty.

And it's not necessarily a difficulty thing, because I'm God of War 2018. I did fight the Valkyries. I was like, I think it comes back to the sponginess of the combat and just the different methodology and combat design that God of War goes for because it is for me the play with your food thing isn't invalid right and I think God of War 2018 and this one have a great combat system this is not me saying the combat system isn't great it's more so me saying it's great for different reasons right and the I guess the play with your food methodology that is here's all these tools now chop them up and like you know spar back and forth with these enemies for I don't know, for what feels like a bullet-spungy amount of time, just doesn't do it for me as much as

many other games, right? Not just Elgin'ring. I just got done playing the Wollong Fallen Dynasty demo about a month ago. And even that combat system, off-rip, I was like, oh, this is my shit right here. And, like, I don't know if you know, if you understand where I'm coming from with that. No, I do.

I do. It's kind of, I think it's really tough to put into words, but I think you're nailing word. I think they're great for different reasons. I think when Tim mentions, Andy, you'd really dig this character action game. I would end up liking it for different reasons because if it's flashingness, because I think God of War is a lot more aesthetically pleasing to watch,

but that doesn't necessarily mean that it feels better to play in terms of how the combat looks because I think God of War does a great job with the style and with these crazy abilities and like you were mentioning doing the runic abilities on your axe and then switch to the blades and the runic abilities there. and then you have that B button, that circle button, whatever the fuck that it's called. There's a lot of stuff in this game.

There are artifacts. That's not right. I want to, relic. Relic. Relic might be right. Relic might be right. Well, you know, with the power of remote play, I'll get back here.

It's fun for a lot of different reasons. I think it was windy. Choose wise. Choose weenie. Yeah, I think the game is a lot of fun for different reasons. It's really tough to kind of compare them directly. It really just comes down to taste and whether you have good taste or not.

Yeah, but jumping off of that, Andy, like you bring up the character action thing. It's like, you know, this is at the end of the day a sequel to a franchise of games that was from a different era that was character action games, right? Like the first three God of Wars were more similar to Devil May Cry than they were to a from software game, right? And to me, I appreciate the meeting in the middle a little bit of it where it's like, I just love how fun the combat in this game is. I always feel like I'm constantly hitting a whole bunch of buttons and every button I'm hitting is like, feels good to me. And like switching between the weapons and using all the bazillions of different modifiers,

whether they're artifacts, ruins, relics, whatever. We're searching for connections via the internet. We're linking the PS5. We're moments away. Finding finding the runic summons thing that really fits with your, vibe and then finding the right light runic and heavy runic attack because they do different things. I don't understand why there's not a modifier that gives you back health when you parry correctly

because that's my shit. I was like maybe I haven't found it yet. I think there is? Oh, you know what? No, I got a modifier that's like when you do one of those R3 takedowns, you get like a health boost. Oh, okay. It's great.

Like just like, you know, they, they, in those moments, I don't want to really spoil what happens with the shield, but like you get like the, hey, this is a high risk, high reward sort of ability. It's like, well, give me a reward then. I give me health back. Or, you know, I think they give you rewards in other ways, but... Yeah, and for me, I think the play with your food thing

works when it is, because right now, right, I'm sitting, and I'm thinking about any given combat sequence I'm having a God of War Rag and Rock, right? And it is, all right, there's a group of enemies. Take out the Leviathan axe. Hack at them. All right, cool. Now let's do, you know, my L1R1, light, maybe a runic ability? I don't forget. Now I'm with Greg,

where I'm like, fuck, what did they call it? I think it's a relic. The runic abilities are the ones you have attached to the weapons, and the relic is the thing you put on. Okay. So it's the runic, right? I can't show you. We're right there, ladies and gentlemen. Just hold on everybody. I do my L1R1 for my light runic, do the L1 R2 for my heavy runic, right, which are like these two special abilities. Switch my blades of chaos. All right, control the, control the room for a while. All right, do my two runic abilities with my blades of chaos. All right. Now, like, I see the enemy, has their stagger meter up quite a bit. Let me switch my fists and fucking fuck these guys.

It was really weirdly satisfying to just punch a motherfucker Yeah, and like it's a great balance, right? Because it is all right, if I want to get their stagger up Cool, I'm using my fist and I'm punching them I'm punch these motherfuckers in the face and I'm pressing L3 or R3 to take them down And it is a really fun like Relic, it's a relic ability It's a really fun loop to be in in the combat right? And I think just for the thing for me is by the time I got 20 hours in I had experienced everything that combat had to offer for me right? I was like all right, cool I

I'm ready for this for this wrap up. Not in a bad way, just in the way of like, if the game was 15 hours long, I don't think I would have had that, right? I think it just, that, the gameplay in the combat on the main story, Oversaid is welcome just a little bit for me. Just looking at this, I want to keep playing it.

I want to say it over a quick. Something that I really enjoyed and just, again, being really top level with this, I appreciate how much the game varies, the abilities that you have based on, like, who is with you,

how things are being played at different times, where I love that you kind of, I feel a little differently than blessed that the moment I started to feel like I've done a lot of this, I'm doing something different. And I feel like that kept happening throughout the main game.

And especially I'm with Greg with the side quest stuff where because the balance of combat to story is off. Like that's really where you get the, we talk a lot about the first game where Mimir is in the boat and we're all like, we just wanted to keep listening to stories so we didn't like doc yet.

This game has even more ways that they have those moments. And some of them tricked me. There was like a lot of, of times I'd be doing something and like they're telling like doing story stuff and then they do the oh I'll finish this later I was like I didn't realize that was a yeah like same an optional like thing I thought that was like super important and that is always leading you to like really fun combat situations that I feel kind of allowed me to anytime I wanted to I just got this new

upgrade or whatever and I want to test it out I always felt like I had the ability to test it in a satisfying way yeah you get the upgrade and you can either keep going straight but if you go right there's a group of motherfuckers that are perfect to get ripped up by whatever you just Scott. Now, Greg, you mentioned that, like, you maimed the blades or whatever, but there are moments where it's like, well, this one, you need the ice because it's weaker to it over. Yeah, 100%. So, like, did you find yourself kind of balancing that in any way, like, later on down the line? Yeah, it's one of those things where you run into enemies, I think, and again, I think towards the end game when the blade, like, blades are nearly all the way maxed out,

you know, leveled up for me. So it's like, they're just doing a lot of damage, I think, period, where, but that middle section, for sure, it would be like, oh, you are, you are a fire guy. clearly I should be using this. Kind of like I used to be middle guy before you upgraded a corner guy. Like obviously I can't use. But I see an ice guy. I'm going to do that or wheel on them with that stuff. And then of course there's like there was one boss fight where I was really stubborn about it where I was like,

I clearly they want me to use this weapon. Let me. How does this work? This works badly. I'll go back to the weapon they want. There's some good boss fights in this game, by the way. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

That's a step up. Now, this is what's interesting to me. Talk to me about that. Do you think I, you know, me and Janet talks. Just let him like Gilden ring more, bro. What the hell? Just let it. God forbid someone ask any of you hard-hitting questions.

You just want to come on here with your powder ball puff pieces. Powder ball. That's not what I want. What am I trying to say? Powder ball. The puff piece is right. The puff piece is right. What is powder ball?

You're thinking of softball questions. Oh, yeah. Oh, and then there's powder puff football, right? We're like, yeah. I don't know. That's like a high school thing if I remember. Yeah. That's where the women would play.

Yeah, it's like where the volleyball team would go out and play with something. I doubt they do it anymore because it's incredibly sexist. Yeah, for you think about it. But we grew up at a different age. My question for you about boss fights. When Janet and I were on PSI, I loved me talking about getting our teeth kicked in occasionally and dying more. We felt like we were dying more.

I feel like... Dying more in the Rock than the first game? Correct. Oh, wow. I'm totally the opposite. But I'm dying more in regular old combat fights. Regular fights with normal, just enemies, right? For me, it's this incredibly bizarre thing that I,

I don't know if it works for everybody. The enemy encounters, the worms, the orbs, the things. I have a, like, infinitely greater chance dying there than bosses. Bosses I enjoy for the spectacle, for the story, for the conversations you usually have with them. But usually, that's when I get to breathe. That's when I'm like, all right, cool. Like, I'm going to get through this. Maybe die once.

I agree with that. Yeah, I think for me, the bosses were more so the set piece moments. And the reason why I like the bosses this time I'm around even more. It's like Godward 2018 The bosses were like you had the main like the dope The villains right? You had the The um Can we spoil 2018? Is that a thing we can do?

Yeah we can split 2018 is that a boulders of the world right? It's like oh hell yeah But then you also have like you fight a dragon and the dragon was cool But also it was just a dragon right whereas in Rag and Rock There are there are bosses the big and small it's like yo all right Yeah This is a boss of personality right here And that's also worth pointing out that I played it on normal difficulty Like I didn't I didn't want to get crazy

or anything. I switched around possibly. I was normal. I went up sometimes. I went down for a couple things. Like, like, and I loved the video just let me and it was totally seamless. I was dying to mobs,

uh, quite a bit compared to, uh, big boss. I'm right there with you. Yeah. Wait a real quick. I'm sorry, we have breaking news.

Powder puff in the chat is still happening, they say. And I have it here. In the United States and Canada, powder puff football games are flag football or touch football games between girls from junior and senior classes or across town school rivals. Funds from the ticket and concession stand sales typically go to charity,

the senior. class or do a dance. They can. Typically. Typically. I didn't expect Wikipedia to have so much information about this thing I vaguely remember as a word from high school.

Are we done talking about bosses? We've done talking about bosses? You know how anything to say about bosses? You seem like a boss guy. Boss is great. You seem like a boss ass bitch. Oh, I mean, dude, they improved on so many of the issues that I think a lot of us had

with 2018. I think like they doubled down on all the stuff that they knew they could improve. And they kept on introducing newer and more grandiose things. And it's spectacle after spectacle. I think they absolutely nailed all that shit. Like, great job at Sony's Anamonica. And again, introducing all these new elements without a huge game-breaking stuff like that.

I think we're just so kind of prepared to expect a shit ton of bugs with brand new big titles like this all the time. I think it was just insanely polished. I wanted to bring up that I feel like they wanted to set themselves apart from a lot of other fantasy and mythological sort of IPs and stuff where usually when you meet those characters they always have European accents and it's always like an English person or an Irish person and in here I think I have like a tiny issue sometimes with the fact that a lot of these are American and it feels weird where like your name is like Yeah. Your name is like, yeah. We got these Europeans this time. Yeah. It's like Globlethorf and the guy's like, hey, how's it going, Atreus? And it's like, ah, this just sounds weird.

It kind of reminds me like daps you up. He was like, yo, what's good? Because it reminds me a lot of forbidden West when there's like this really awesome looking like war chief and he's got the crazy war paint with the awesome headpiece. And he's like, hey, how's it going, Eloy? My name is fucking Robbie. And it's like, this just, there's a. disconnect here and I think I there's one character in particular where I'm like what are you doing here

yeah I don't know if you know like in horizon or god of war in god of war okay rag and rock where I'm like all right I understand like you know it's to Andy's point of like yeah a lot of these characters that have like American accents which is cool right there's one character in particular where I'm like where did this accent come from like I need a I need a backstory on like what region of midgard or wherever you're from yeah yeah can we just shout out uh Thor I I forget the actor's name but the entire time I was like, they really just wanted Josh Brolin to voice. Yeah. I think it was such a, it was such a good Josh.

Yeah. Yeah. Josh Bolin and then for me, uh, we see in the trailer when tears in the trailer, it's like, he reminds you a lot of Ryan Reynolds. There's a lot of like that sort of, uh, voice intonation. Um, I also wanted to talk real quick. I want to talk about what you're talking about here. I loved that. Like it's one of my favorite things.

I do too, but there's like every once in a while it sticks out where it's like, Oh man, you just sound like the one kid I had geometry class with in middle school. To me, I hate that. I know that it's going to be one of those things where people either vibe with it, don't vibe with it. There's going to be a lot of, like, in the middle and everything. But to me, one of the things that impressed me the most about this game is the writing in general, not just the story is great. We've talked about the story. But the writing of the dialogue, the writing of just every single thing is, it's so pitch perfect to me where I just, it didn't matter what character was talking.

I wanted to hear what they had to say. not just for lore reasons, just because there's so much actual character to the characters. And I think that for me, it helped that they sounded the way that they did. And it felt like it created this own world where it's not what we expect to hear

from these characters necessarily. And they're written in ways that I feel like, even though sometimes they're saying funny words, it's like, those funny words are surrounded by words that give enough context that I feel I was always in complete understanding of what was going on, even if they're introducing something that I'm not familiar with

when it comes to all the crazy Greek lore or Nordic lore and all that stuff. But I felt like the relatability, it felt like playing an MCU movie. And people will take that as a criticism. I obviously do not. And I think that that is a major positive. And I think that it is one of the best MCU movies. One of the things I tossed out to piggyback off. It won't sound like it at first.

I'll get there. What you're saying is that in the TikTok review I did for a kind of funny game, Go to TikTok.com slash at Kind of Funny Games and like it and share it because it's TikTok and we need help. I put in there in my very short synopsis, right, that my hard drive is full of cutscenes that I would finish. Me too. I would finish and like I record the last five minutes.

That was amazing. That's why I was so happy that I wasn't the leaker. I was like terrified. But then also I have notes in my, I have all, I jot it down notes for all the quotes to what you're talking about. And that's the thing. We've talked about how beautiful the game is, how great the acting is, how great the acting is, how great the story is, and yet, yada.

For real, shout out to the writers and not just the writers of, hey, this is gonna, we're gonna go all right. I mean, like, the line by line dialogue. Like, that is Tim, Tim, that is like one of the most beautiful things. Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. The use of it in the game, I was like, I need to get this tattooed on me. Like, I love

this so much. And that line is surrounded by lines like it. And it's just like, it's so cool. It's when creators goes, we fucking popped off. But we fucking popped off. No, but I mean, like, just like, we fucked that thing. Using swear words is like a choice all the time Because it's like you can either overdo it

It's like it's a hard thing It can either make a moment a lot more emotional in whatever way Whether it's like funnier or sadder or anger or whatever I think that every swear word in this game is like perfectly placed Yeah, I agree there's there's a fair amount of them But I always feel like it's not overdone and whenever it happens it like It adds to the emotion it goes back to the accent thing of like The characters talk the way they do to convey a certain kind of to convey their character right to convey who they are

And when swear words are used, I've been very impressed by the, oh, wait, no, we're using this for a specific reason. This person is saying this because of where they're at in life, or this person is saying this because of where they're from or who they are, I think it was very impressive. Yeah, again, just when sometimes they sound like GTA side characters, that's when it kind of just does me on.

But I still love the choice overall. I also just wanted to quickly talk about, I'm about to contradict the hell out of myself, so I'll prepare for that. I thought I was an hour away from beating it, about five different, five or six different times. But also while feeling like, God damn, it's still not over. Like, we're still going here.

While feeling that way, there were still moments where I was like, oh, this is rushed a little bit. And this doesn't feel super earned in this moment. And this is just like a tiny kind of sliver, but it's big character moments, right? And there were a couple of those near the end that I was like, this is the part where it feels like, we got to fucking wrap this up, dog. like, you know, Sony is like, hey, this game has to come out this year. Like, I know you want six more months to kind of policy sequences up. We got to push us out the door.

So there was a tiny bit of moments that kind of made me feel like, wow, that's a fast kind of way for this character's already feeling this way. That's kind of, I don't really buy that a whole lot. But aside from that, it was like, you know, there were moments near the end of the game where it's like, damn, I were still going. Like, I'm so glad I started as early as I did because, look, I started today's session at 3.30 p.m. thinking I'd be done by 5.30. And it's, it's fucking 8.45. I wonder how much of that feeling, though, is the, hey, we have an embargo. Hey, we want to do this. Hey, you're trying to do that. No, I think it's just the way things build up. Okay. In a way that kind of makes you feel like it's all coming to a crescendo. Nope. You're going to go through another kind of like big, lower story moment. I agree with that 100% in it. Like, there are so. many big story moments that are all great, but the way that they're paced out, it almost feels

like too much. I remember on a car ride, like I was telling Greg, it feels like to a certain extent, like you're eating too much of your favorite dessert. And at one point, you're like, okay, like, I need to stop eating this dessert a little bit. And so, but again, I still love. They're still great. Yeah. I love where they went with it and stuff. But it does harbor the question of like, would have it benefited it from being two different games? I don't. know but yeah that's one of the thoughts I had like later on I was like this game maybe could have used a little bit more editing just in terms of do we really need this moment from this character and this moment from this character like they

jam pack a lot in here and again it's all good stuff but you know when it all comes together and you're and in that the last six hours and you're like all right it's about to wrap up is about to wrap up and it still keeps going I I definitely understand where you're coming from there yeah it's it's funny because I definitely had that experience at certain moments and I started realizing that I was having that anytime I wasn't doing the side quest as well in the area. I feel like the side quest in especially some of the more open areas are designed to kind of like pace out the big story beats.

And as I started getting towards the end, because like these guys were all way ahead of me. And I was like, I'm this many hours in. Like how much longer do they have? Like, yo, you have way more than you expect. I started panicking. I was like, I need to get this done. And that is when I started realizing like, oh, wow, these story beats are happening super quick, but that's because I was, like, main pathing it.

But there were a couple choices. We were like, that did not go how I thought it was. And it felt a little quick. But I bet that you were feeling that way about other things that I didn't because I was like going out and doing a lot of the side stuff. And also someone in the chat said that I said that I did all the side quests. I have not done all the side quest. I'm like 35 hours in and I did more than anyone here.

But I have not done nearly all of them. You probably did like six extra of hours of side quest. And again, I think that's the thing where it's like, I can't see. I thought the pacing of the main story was fine and I ran through Golden Path, but I definitely had that longing to go do stuff, right? Because there are characters who are like, not even the Etraeus on the nose like, no, can we go do something, Dad?

It'll be like, hey, I need you to go do this favor. It's really personal. I mean, I'm like, damn, that sounds awesome. Or, hey, go find this thing for me. I'll make you something cool. I'm like, that sounds cool too. But I got to go. I got back to you.

I think the game does a really good job of how it explains what you're doing, whether it's like the main path or a favor or like the size. side stuff. It's like you know what you're getting into and you kind of have an idea of like, oh, this is going to take me this long and here's one of the type of things I'm going to do here. And I appreciate that because sometimes I feel like in some games the side quest can be a little bit

too vague and you start doing something. I don't really want to be doing this, but then you're like halfway down, you're like, I guess I got to finish it, you know? Yeah. And you wanted to move on to something though. What's that? Did I? I think I talked about the stuff that I'd, did we ever talk about

negatives? Let's go ahead. I mean, I talked about some stuff I wasn't super feeling, which was just like some of the accents and some of the pacing near the end. But I think like, I think it's really tough to make a list of things that the game could improve upon. Like I think the game is that good. Yeah, that's my thing is I think

what the game does well, it does so well that it's hard to even like want to bring up the negatives that I felt like they're there, right? There are things that like the things that I've already said, right? Like the combat isn't necessarily the best combat in the world to me, right? It's amazing. It's great. But I think

It's my guy. I got to the end of the game. I started petering it on it. And then like, I don't know. I feel like that's about it, right? Like the game is so polished. The game is cinematically incredible. I know a lot of people in chat, as you've been reading in chat, right? A lot of people keep going back and forth on like game with year, game of the year. And for me, that's not that's not as much of the interesting conversation as opposed to like, I don't know if there's any other game that has a prayer of story of the year, narrative of the year compared to this game. Like, the story here is fantastic. The writing here is fantastic. Like the characters here are like some of the best character writing and character performances that I probably experienced in a video game.

Like that is the stuff that I think people are going to look back at this game at and go, oh man, like this was a standout in terms of that stuff. There were a few moments that I feel like the directors and I want to say that these moments are very rare in this in this gigantic journey. But there was a couple of them where it's like, oh, this is where the waterworks are supposed to happen. Sure. And they're not right here. Oh, really? And for the most part, they did work. For the most part, they do pull those emotions out of you whenever a character is kind of like, you know, saying their piece or whatever.

But there were a couple moments where I was like, I'm supposed to be feeling a lot more than I feel right now. I'd love to talk to you about those moments. Yeah, please do. Well, not now. I cried once in the game. I teared up once or twice, but like there was one moment. This is, I. Yeah.

No spoilers. And I mean, don't try. I mean, don't read into this. You know it's a creative and a trait. a story, right. But when we played 20, replayed 2018, one of the, like,

the overwhelming question we got in the PSI Love You mailbag, which you should write in for the FAQ today, kind of funny.com slash PSI-L-Y, was, you know, I'm really excited to see what Greg, if Greg's relationship with this game changes because he's had Benjamin, because he's a dad now, because of all these things.

Because he's gone and spread some ashes. And he spread Jens' ashes from the top of Sutro Tower. But, and I was like, and I answered that question, unequivocally, like, no, nothing in this game in 2018, hit me harder, because I was a dad. Like, Cretus is a very, he isn't, I don't feel like he gets to be an open father,

even a shadow of what I'd want to be as a dad until like very end of the game, right? This game, definitely did. This game, the relationship between Cretus and Atreus and the themes they're wrestling with and everything that's going on was affected for me personally of being a dad, just to see how much they love each other, right, in their own ways. And like to see them deal with that and have conflicts and that, it definitely resonated with me. I think also because I main pathed it and and that that pro game shouldn't be my fault.

Like I just want to point that out there that like if anybody's like, well, you didn't do side quests. It's like, well, you shouldn't have to in order to kind of get what they're trying to put across, you know. There were, there were a couple of moments that the, God damn, I just completely lost my, my, I think you're going to compliment me. compliment you yeah not as fast as me it's what I'll say you're pretty fast you're pretty fast

somebody else as you're thinking about that way the one thing I want to throw out is like a small new pick is the menu system I think you brought this up I did I didn't really love a lot of the menu system

especially a lot of information that's not clear like that's the thing is like it's telling me exactly what it is but it's kind of like I don't really know what that means for me like okay cool

the plus five cool down plus five this it's like There's just a lot of words and I'm like, I'm just swinging my blades around. It's a game that wants you to think about your build at least a bit and I don't think they really help you with it. There are so many different modifiers and so many different things that's like, ah, but does this matter that much for me to really care about sitting here and looking at these menus and

trying to navigate like what all the stuff looks like. Like I think what it might need is like a summary menu that is here are all the modifiers that you have right now just summed up, right? If you want to go and change it thing, go here and change it. There's a couple of modifiers, bless that I didn't even know. or upgradable until about a halfway through the game where you spend so many points to unlock them and equip them or whatever

but then they have their own like tiers one, two, and three on them and I was like, oh, I didn't even... There's quite a few of that other stuff. I didn't know that these were also level upable. And the way they appear in that menu, like the upgrade menu, it is like, all right, this is upgradable, this craft. And I didn't understand what that meant

until like probably about four to five hours into the game where I was like, oh, okay, I get, like these ones that I don't have, these ones I do have, I think they could have maybe made that, made that, um, put him into separate lists or something, which I know we already have a lot of lists and a lot of things, but it was overwhelming to look at it. And I know one of Barrett's points that he really appreciates about it is the fact, though, that like, you can fully commit to an armor set, a load out. And I didn't, I, once I understood that, that's when I was a bit more like, oh, I get this. Okay. But even then, I went and, you know, trade it in all my old stuff.

That way I could get the hacksilver to upgrade the stuff I had. Even then it's still listed there of like, buy back, buy back, buy back, buy back. I'm like, ah, I guess that's when I'm at the night. I love no color rarities. I love that. Okay. I think that's a great system they got rid of in this game. Boss baby Barrett, of course, the man who wrote Can Cratos be better available right now on YouTube.com

slash kind of one of games. A great recap, get you ready for this game. What do you want to say about the gear system and all the chess? I was just really intuitive. It reminded me a lot of what I enjoyed with Assassin's Creed Valhalla where you can like very early on commit to like, this is how I want to look throughout the

entire game and a lot of chat is asking about transmog. I don't see. I don't remember seeing any transmog, but like you can, if there's a look that you want to keep, you can upgrade that up until like what I assume is level cap and stuff like that. The other thing, I wanted to bring up with the kind of tutorial stuff and like learning all of the new things that boiled over so much and like the menus that there was a certain arrow that I didn't know there was like a thing you could do with this arrow until I did a side mission because I feel like they assumed that I would do that side mission earlier.

And so like I think I know exactly you're talking about like 10 hours or like after five hours of being able to have this, it was like, oh, this is how I could have solved so many other puzzles that I'd cross paths with and I didn't know how to solve and stuff like that. So there is a overabundance of information that I feel like they could have rolled out a little better. I just, I remember the thing I wanted to mention. I think that because I didn't do side missions, uh, really any side quests except for a couple of the beginning,

that the lessons that they're trying to drill into your head are happening like a little too much where they're just like, they're really just throwing it in your face of like, hey, remember, remember. It's like, all right, like you just, I just heard that like 45 minutes ago. I don't need to hear this all of the time. Like I feel like a couple different writers wrote on this

and they're like, oh, you kept that one in tune. No, no, no, no, no. we wanted to save that story moment for like near this part they're like well fuck it they're all in there this point so like you're going to hear these lessons kind of reiterated over and over and I when you say lessons what like what do you what do you what do you talk about I just be better oh gosh oh the be better moments like there's a lot of be better moments oh see I think that they add up in a way I feel like every time it's used it has a different meaning in context and it builds up to like you know who's saying I think whenever you hear what like whenever you hear whatever you

here you're like, oh, wow, that's a great callback. And it's like, oh, we heard it again a couple hours later. And I heard a third time a couple hours later. And it just kind of like, it feels like a little too much in some moments. But that's likely alleviated if you play some side missions in the middle

whenever you're walking towards your main mission. And tears like, maybe we should get some XP somewhere else, brother. That's basically what he's saying, yeah. Going back to the menus real quick, because something that I, one of my frustrations with it, and again, the menus are probably my biggest criticism of this game entirely where it's a lot, there's just a lot of systems,

a lot of currencies, a lot of things that you have to get to upgrade things in different ways. And it's not that they don't explain it. They do explain it, but they normally explain it with like menu pop-ups that are like unskippable and you have to like go through. But they always do it at a time that I'm like, well, I want to get to the story beats. So I'm like, I'll figure this out later. And that's my bad. I get that.

But then when I go back and I'm looking at the menu like even an hour later, there's just so much. And there's so many different things with slight alterations to assess. slight thing that I'm not even really thinking about too often that I'm like huh okay and I try to double down thinking about like Barrett saying you can eventually just decide I want to go down this path and do that and that's great but then even just like going through the menus I found cumbersome where it's like the amount of times that I'd hit L1 or R1 to try to go left or right and it's like oh it's actually L2 R2 and I feel like there was a lot of times I'd have to like look and

be like what are the prompts to I know where I'm trying to get on the menu like how do I get there and this sounds like a stupid thing to nitpick but when I played this game for 30 five hours and every time I open up the menu I need to think about it. That's not good. Yeah. One thing speaking of that, I want to throw out there is that I, the skill tree I found to be like just fine. I wasn't blown away by the skill tree.

And a lot of it just feels like it is. All right. We had that skill tree in God of War 2018. Let's do it again. But like add a few different ones. I wish that, I wish the skill tree felt a little bit more, not expansive, but I guess just different from the one in God of War 2018. What I would say is even rewarding.

Like they do a new thing. there of like or maybe it's not new actually maybe I'm talking out my ass and I just don't remember it but like you unlock it and then it wants you to do it a certain amount of times that'll then let you do the other thing that is new that is new just making sure I don't remember that and it was like okay but then it's like I don't really want to do some of those and like that's where I was talking early about mating blades where it was like oh yeah I do want to grab a guy and pull them in like scorpion and beat the shit out of them and that's why I defaulted to that and again that's what the whole system is about it I feel like you can look at it feel like you're tossed into the deep end with the the menus and the different armor sets and all the different things, blah, blah. But then once you really do, well, I can, even though I need to use my Leviathan axe in a very specific moment on this thing, I can main one thing. I can, I mean, my build was what, defense and vitality the whole way through? And so like once I found the armor set that was best for that, I kept upgrading it, all the other armors became like inconsequential to me.

That wasn't about it, right? And that was freeing, of course, to then not have to worry as much about that. I am just looking for hack silver and whatever other thing I need. And the same way of like the thing of like, well, this isn't like, giving, I'm not feeling like I'm underpowered for these things and I know I would never use this move so I'm not paying too much attention to the skill tree. My favorite move is back even though it's like the most cumbersome and annoying one to use is the one where you have to put a bit of a delay between your attacks in order to change your stance and it's it's just

so annoying to pull off like it just feels so counterintuitive because like so much of the game is mash mash mash mash mash and then when you get to this one where it's like R1 attack, wait a little bit longer than you normally would attack again and he switches sides and then it's the one that spins around you and it spins around you again like that that same move is in here and I'm not I'm not mad about it I don't feel like it's lazy I love the fucking move it's just still so annoying to try to pull off and I think it's up so much the skill tree too right like I think you can like upgrade it a few times and I'll add an extra hit or whatever yeah right and I like I'll look at it and it's like a section of skill train I'm like I don't I never use this move like I don't really like this move and so cool I I guess now when I have all these skill points, I'm eventually going to upgrade it because it's not the kind of skill tree that is build how you want to play based on a school tree. It looks dope as hell.

It's the only reason why I really like it. I love to how vary the weird time about the enemy variety, but I love how varied the combat situations are, like because of the weapons that you have and being able to use them in different ways and the strengths and weaknesses the different enemies have, but just the amounts, like, whether this battle is like, cool, it's a one-on-one with a big hulking thing,

or it's a one-on-one with a human-season, size thing or it's a one on five or it's a two on ten or it's like there was a lot of combos and I feel like and I hadn't I didn't replay at 2018 so this might have been the case there but I was really satisfied with how surprised I was with the combinations I'm not even going to even hint at some of them but I was like oh wow multiple times like I didn't expect them to do this this is a really cool thing I didn't know they could do it and it's like it made me want to use weapons and abilities that I was like oh I got that I never did that thing, but I'm going to do it here because that makes sense.

And like, that means, like, I finished somebody to be like, yeah. Here's one. I did that. I do that. One of my big critiques is they got to find a different way to map, uh, either lock on or your, uh, Cratos like rage move. Because the amount of times I would accidentally activate that thing. Yeah.

Because I forget what the, is the R3 to lock on and then I'll figure out of three sprints and hitting both is rage. And I activated that so many times when I didn't want to. just because I wanted to sprint I think you can't For me This prop for these pro games Yeah you can't

Yeah you probably should have done that Yeah I probably should have done that too But I'm a default boy Default Pappies Before boy I mean I played with the back paddle With the Dodge button

And it's just like Easy mode Easy mode all day dude Good game You also play Yeah I'm really good Good game Greg real quick

I slacked you something I hope you check your slack I know how dare Oh you know We end whenever we need end Oh okay We're not trying to go. We're doing an Ironman VR stream after this.

And that's at 11, but that's at 11. Cool. We're not trying to. I don't know what your setup time looks like and all of that stuff. I mean, we'll take as much time as we can get to set up. I guess that's a good. That's a good point, I guess. Gotcha.

Gotcha. Okay. So then after we're here, we're at the natural end. Totally close. So then final, final thoughts on all of this. I know I talked a lot about the, we talked about story and gameplay and the production value and all and all that stuff. But like, really, I want to give a shout to the performances and music and how it all kind

of works together. Like, I feel like this game. Just saying it's polished is one thing and it's a major accomplishment, but there's a level of polish in terms of they had a goal and they achieved it and that goal was to make me feel things and I felt things this entire game. And I feel like that is, I mean, for anybody that knows me, for anyone that's watched in review, you know what I'm looking for from these movies. And like, you know, I want them to do something that makes me feel a certain way constantly for 35 hours. I was feeling a certain way. And it was whatever way they wanted me to feel at that point, whether it was sad, whether it was laughter, whether it was feeling like a badass. feeling I needed to be better.

All of that stuff. I was just right there. Yeah. For final thoughts, right, I think, you know, obviously the game is incredible. You know, five out of five. The story,

I keep going back to like the story moments and the twists and the turns and the characters. And for me, when it comes to story, I'm always a sucker for, like, good character writing and good character moments and character development.

And the game nails all that stuff so well, while at the same time, just giving a really good overall narrative to follow and like you know I'm very excited for people to get their hands on it and I'm very excited for us to get to the discussion of like I cannot wait for the discussion in the game right and like

our eventual spoiler cast and like being able to actually talk about it in detail because you know this review I think we've done a great job of just talking about it from a broad sense and from the gameplay sense and all the things that we can talk about without ruining the experience right for anybody but I think the real real review happens when we can talk about detail

when we can talk about like the characters and the moments and all that stuff and so yeah I would go as far as say this is a must-play, right? I can't wait for the future PSL views that we have that are looking back at PlayStation First Party and going like, all right, has the hierarchy of power changed? Right? Where do we put Sony Santa Monica and God of War versus, I don't know,

I guess last of us and not Eden on, right? Like, what does the hierarchy of power look like? Oh, all these conversations are going to be amazing. Yeah. You know, is it, do we think it's better than God of War 2018? Obviously, we'll have our own game of the year conversation coming up. You take God of War 2018 and you put in take God of War or Agnarok. Is that better than Last of Us, Part 1, last of us,

last it was part two combined. Like, there's a lot of interesting arguments, but also, you know, I'm out here saying Kratos is the best character in games, am I wrong? That's a big statement.

I'm interesting because you said it. I mean, you're a fucking idiot. But then I'm like, is he, no, let me talk about big boss. I don't mean like guys

with no dumpers. I mean, you know, a great story and a great character and a great development. You know what I mean? Do you see Kratos as a dumpers? No,

I was making fun at Mario and I have a dumper. But that means that you're talking about Creos having a dumper. I mean, Have you seen all the muscles on this man? I guess I wasn't looking.

He likes to hide it under that skirt. But I know where it's there. All right. I think the biggest takeaway from this is that we know one title that Blue Point Games is working on. Because if you look in the credits, Blue Point Games is there along with a lot of their production team. So it's like, okay, check that off the box. They announced that too. That was really cool.

Like a few weeks ago, they were like, hey, thanks to all of these support studios that helped us out with this, which is, which is cool. That's a huge discovery. And I think that's my only takeaway from this game. Otherwise, you know, you can wait for game pass. No, the game's really, really great. Absolutely played if you can. I think it looks great. It plays better.

And it teaches you to be better. It does. It does. And all the gamers out there, this is a big moment. Honestly, like what Sony Santa Monica did, this is a major achievement. Congratulations to every single person involved. And I can't wait for everyone else. to be able to play it and have the same conversations we're having.

And we're going to continue to have. We're all in on God of War. We're going to do PSI Love You Later Today, Patreon.com slash kind of funny. You can go there to get your watch live, get your questions in at kind of funny. com slash PSI-O-Y. Exactly. Thank you all your questions. Of course, thank you PlayStation hashtag.

I don't need the FTC coming after me. And if you are trying to ride the hype of all this, I highly, highly, highly recommend you go to YouTube.com slash kind of funny games and check out. Courtney's kind of funny special presentation that is him breaking down all of the previous God of Wars through the lens of Kratos as a character. It's awesome. It's about

40 minutes. It's absolutely fantastic, entirely scripted, very different than things we normally do. It is really, really, really good about hyping you up for this game. So, definitely check that out. And then we have the spoiler cast coming in just a few weeks. So stay tuned for that, but want to make sure we give everyone time to play as well.

So, 20 first. But we'll be recording it on the 14th, I believe. which means get all your questions in for the spoiler cast. It's a PSI-L-U, so I'll also go to YouTube. No, no, kindof-frey.com slash PSI-L-Y. I will add a new field right now, actually, for spoiler cast questions. So go check it out.

But until next time, love you all. Be better.