God Of War Ragnarok Vs God Of War 2018 - Review| Laughing Cephalopod

My experience with:

God of War Ragnarök

Posted April 2023

Introduction

God of War Ragnarök is a phenomenal game, combining a gripping narrative with satisfying third person combat, but it isn’t perfect. In this article I will hone in on Ragnarök’s best and worst aspects to help make the inevitable God of War 6 even better!

Full spoilers for the God of War series below.

Ragnarök Review

God of War Ragnarök (GOWR) is currently sitting pretty with a metacritic score of 94%, and an opencritic score of 93%. Whilst I never base my opinion on critical consensus, I think that universal praise is usually a good sign as long as you know what kind of game you’re getting into. God of War 2018 (GOW18) was in a similar position when I purchased it out of curiosity in the same month it released, which resulted in an instant entry into my list of favourite games. Whilst I don’t hold GOWR in such high regard, I’d be hard pressed to say that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy it.

When loading up the game for the first time, it became apparent that Santa Monica had kept the experience faithful to GOW18, even going as far as to mirror the opening to that game. This results in a sequel that feels like part 2 of a singular experience, rather than an evolution of GOW18.

The benefit of this is that almost nothing is lost from GOW18. You can still fight the same mythological creatures using a similar move set, and you revisit some of the same environments to witness how time has changed them (which in particular makes the world of Ragnarök feel like a real place).

The downside is that almost all of the flaws from GOW18 persist. I’ll go into this in more detail later, but the best way to summarise it is that the game feels extremely restrictive. Traversal is still limited to flat plates of land connected by context sensitive button prompts, meaning you can’t jump around and explore the world naturally, and there are many areas that look easily reachable but are blocked off. Furthermore, the camera still feels off in group encounters, where turning is sluggish, limiting your ability to manage incoming threats from multiple directions.

Despite my gripes, I have to express just how much I enjoyed Ragnarök’s combat. The amount of options you have at any one time hits the sweet spot of allowing creativity without being overwhelming. My personal highlights include:

Stealing elements from enemies with Draupnir
Tripping foes with an axe throw
Charging the axe with ice to access a new move set
Grappling towards foes with the blades of chaos (also from God of War 3 by the way)
Backwards quickstepping into a counterattack

My favourite addition is the expanded weapon charge system. All weapons simultaneously build up an elemental buff the more successive hits you land, which then leads to an ‘overcharge’ state where they become even more powerful. Through this system an experienced player is rewarded for playing better, and a new player is incentivised to learn.

What’s more, each weapon is useful both at range and up close, which resolves an issue I found in GOW18, where the blades of chaos lacked meaningful ranged options. Players are also encouraged to try all of the available moves with a new system that unlocks additional abilities once you have used an attack a set number of times. The result is a combat system that is rewarding to experiment with, whilst remaining intuitive.

Why then, did I find myself losing interest within the first few hours? The answer is that the game doesn’t have that singular focus that GOW18 has, where your one and only goal is to scatter Faye’s ashes. In GOWR, by the time I got half way through the Alfheim level, I had forgotten why I was there. In game, the characters were returning to a location from the previous game to visit a shrine and see a glimpse of the future. Revisiting the shrines happens often in GOWR and I struggled to engage with this element of the narrative. I was also frustrated with Tyr, who was a legendary figure referenced frequently in GOW18, but ended up annoying me with his attempts at humour whilst bantering with Atreus. Kratos has softened significantly from his depiction in GOW18, and often feels like the brunt of the jokes from characters who refuse to take the situation seriously.

On that note, now feels an appropriate time to bring up the tonal shift between Ragnarök and GOW18. Whilst playing Ragnarök, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. It felt like all of the characters excluding Kratos were trying their best to be funny. A feeling that was only exasperated when new characters such as Ratatoskr and Freyr were introduced. Don’t get me wrong, the voice cast does an excellent job throughout the game and this is one area that I feel God of War sets itself apart from many other AAA titles. However, when I re-played GOW18, the difference was immediately apparent as the dialogue there is used to create a serious tone with elements of humour, whereas Ragnarök has a more light hearted tone but with serious moments.

Story wise, there are some moments that simply feel odd, such as a dramatic sacrifice by a character who you likely won’t have spoken to all game, or a sequence introducing Gryla who is never seen or heard from again after her excellent introduction.

With regard to Ragnarök the event, the battle to end all battles felt anticlimactic, despite including incredible spectacle and heartfelt character moments. Both the build up to and the battle itself are over in a matter of hours, meaning that the conclusion to the whole Norse God of War saga is shorter than an earlier section where you pick fruit to feed to a yak. This is an instance of the pacing feeling off, and made me question whether the decision to conclude the Norse saga in only two games was a good one.

However, I would be lying if I said that the story didn’t kept me interested right to the bitter end. There are incredible story moments throughout Ragnarok, such as:

The introduction of Thor
The rift that develops between Kratos and Artreus whilst he lodges in Asgard
The family dynamics of the Aesir gods
The twist that Tyr was Odin all along
Sindri’s emotional outburst at the loss of his brother (this one is really great!)

Ultimately, I found GOWR to be an uneven experience where the highs definitely outweighed the lows. After conquering the end game content, my next step was replaying GOW18.

God of War Ragnarök vs God of War 2018

After ‘platinuming’ Ragnarök, I had the strong desire to return to GOW18 to see if I really liked it as much as I remembered. I also re-played God of War 3 to refresh my memory on the Greek trilogy, and even played Soulstice (a 2022 AA title which was heavily inspired by the likes of Devil May Cry and the classic God of War games).

Having now replayed the entire game and defeated Sigrún, I now understand why I loved GOW18 so much in the first place.

Whilst Ragnarök’s story is a rollercoaster of events which see the player hopping between the 9 realms, GOW18 is a continuous journey through a fantasy version of Scandinavia which slowly builds to an emotional payoff. The moment when you finally scatter Faye’s ashes really stuck with me after all these years and was no less impactful upon replaying. The mountain looms over the player throughout the whole journey, a constant reminder of your goal to fulfil Faye’s last wish.

In addition, the dynamic of the impatient Kratos and the naïve Atreus adds to the sense of unease as they traverse the dangerous landscape, and the sparsely populated world of Midgard feels real in the context of the story. In GOW18 the ‘desolation’ has created a land that where only the strongest survive and there is an air of mystery throughout your journey as the dead reanimate and you uncover long lost temples deep in the lake of the nine.

I really enjoy Santa Monica’s take on ancient Scandinavia and the lens through which you experience the world. Even the optional areas are beautiful and enjoyable to explore, although, side content is one area that I do think has been drastically improved in Ragnarök. In the sequel, freeing the hafgufa, or bringing the crater back to life are experiences that are epic in scale and re-ignite the spark of imagination I felt when meeting Jormungandr in GOW18.

Not only is Ragnarök’s side content an improvement from GOW18, in all honesty I enjoyed it more than the main story content for the most part. When you explore Ragnarök’s open world zones, the characters stop quipping and deliver insightful information on the world and its history instead. They even let you solve puzzles by yourself, which all feels far more in line with GOW18 and how you slowly come to understand the world and the various interactable elements, such as the sealed Valkyrie chambers.

GOWR also has a greater variety of locations and enemies. It’s a shame that each realm doesn’t have it’s own bestiary, but I have to keep my expectations realistic. There are more than enough enemies in Ragnarök, but one thing that stood out to me was how much more enjoyable the combat was in the Musphelheim trials, where you encounter unique mixes of enemies that truly test your skills as a player. Mixing lots of enemies together is something that I think both Norse GOW games don’t do often enough.

Combat in general is better in Ragnarök, but it isn’t without its quirks. Unarmed combat feels like it has taken a step backwards as the shield skills from GOW18 have been transferred into a selection of equipable shields in the sequel. The new shield abilities are cool, particularly the parry combo shield, but most were available to Kratos in the previous game with just the one shield, which makes me think it would have been better to simply include an expanded unarmed skill tree in Ragnarök. This also applies to spartan rage, where in GOWR you are required to pin an enemy against a wall before you can land multiple punches. Even the axe feels heavier in GOW18, primarily because the controller vibration is set much higher by default. Finally, it’s a shame that a lot of the finisher animations from GOW18 are no longer available, despite some being accessible via spartan rage.

One area that has seen numerous improvements in GOWR is the loot and armour system. Some key changes include:

Armour enchantments no longer need to be applied to each armour piece separately
A transmog system has been added to change gear appearance without changing statistics
All amours are now upgradable up to max level

These options allow even greater flexibility when creating your build whilst removing some redundancy from GOW18’s system. The problem is that the system across both titles is not implemented well. I have a lot of respect for the time and effort that the developers clearly invested into creating so many excellent looking armour sets and interesting perks, but in the end it all feels pointless due to the way levelling works.

Take this example, I’m at the end of Ragnarök and want to fight Gna, the Valkyrie queen. I have my weapons and armour fully upgraded, but Gna still kills me in a few hits. I then realise that Kratos is still level 8 as I haven’t levelled up the pommels on my weapons. Doing so does not affect my defence or damage stats, yet now that I’m level 9, Gna does a fraction of the damage and takes less hits to kill. The reasoning is that damage and defence scale depending on your player level, meaning that stats are mostly meaningless unless you are the same level as your opponent. If you are under levelled, you die easily. If you are over levelled, enemies can feel too weak. The same is true in GOW18, as I was reminded when struggling against a Valkyrie who felt unreasonably punishing due the amount of damage she inflicted versus how much I could dish out.

Basically, if you play these games and you see a purple health bar, you know you are in for a slog. This also expands to realm tears, where purple health bar enemies ruin the immersion by killing you easily, although this more prevalent in GOW18.

With that rant over it is probably a good time to summarise and move on. God of War 2018 sits firmly as one of my favourite games due to the way it merges exciting combat, engaging storytelling, and wonderous exploration in a beautifully presented world. Ragnarök is better in many aspects, but as a sum of its parts it is ultimately a lesser experience in my opinion.

My hopes for the future

The Norse God of War games are excellent in so many ways, but with a few areas that feel lacklustre. When looking to the future of this franchise, I hope that the following issues are addressed.

Gear and Crafting

Norse GOW goes to great lengths to feel grounded, going as far as to give lore reasoning for many of the game’s limitations, namely, a desolate world mostly populated by enemies who are present due to the lack of Valkyries to sort the dead.

This narrative focussed approach has resulted in one of my favourite aspects of the games, in that Kratos only uses a handful of weapons. This feels true to the character and the story the games portray. Compare this to the Witcher 3, where Geralt goes through dozens of swords despite only having one sword in the Witcher books. The weapons in Norse GOW all have narrative purpose:

Kratos only uses the blades of chaos when his son is in danger, as they give him great strength but remind him of a past he would rather forget.
Kratos treasures the leviathan axe and wields it with pride. He only lets the dwarf brothers work on the axe because they are the ones who crafted it.
Kratos creates the draupnir spear only to protect Artreus, and the weapon symbolises his history as a spartan, and later his status as a leader.

The point is, it would be out of character for Kratos to go around collecting random weapons from his enemies.

It feels very strange then that Kratos readily finds full sets of amour that fit him perfectly. The dwarves do craft most amours for Kratos but it would seem he doesn’t actually need it as he can wear a piece of shoulder armour and some gauntlets for the entirety of both Norse GOW games and get along just fine. The armour system appears to exist purely for rewarding players for exploring and does not feel like a part of the story.

I propose that in God of War 6, Kratos wears the same amour throughout but can customise his abilities and/or perks via an amulet similar to the one found in GOWR.

OR Kratos could craft sets of armour that are of story significance (similar to the Konusgard amrour from GOW18 or Lunda’s amour from GOWR). These armours would enable different abilities and any statistic system would not rely on Kratos’ level.

Freedom of Movement

Every time I play one of these games I yearn for the ability to break the limitations of the level design. I would love nothing more than to jump, climb, and experiment in a world as beautifully realised as the one presented in Norse GOW. I find navigating areas in these games very enjoyable until I have to backtrack or try to find secrets such as Odin’s ravens. Getting the platinum trophy for Ragnarök was mind numbing because of how slow and limited player movement is. Climbing is on rails and there is no way to fail, which does provide quiet moments for the characters to speak, but feels pointless after the dialogue is exhausted. Kratos can only jump off ledges when the game lets him, so there are many times you can see where you need to get to but have to walk the long way round.

On the subject of jumping, it would add so much to the combat system. Even if Santa Monica don’t want to revert to God of War’s character action routes, jumping attacks and jumping to evade enemy attacks would add even more depth. To be fair, Ragnarök does have plunging and rising attacks, but they feel clunky as Kratos controls like he second guesses every ledge you direct him to jump off.

Essentially, having the ability to jump around and climb surfaces would be a boon for God of War’s replayability and especially so if the series remains open world.

Consistency – Tone and Story

I love the stories of the Norse GOW games, but playing them back to back did highlight what I perceived as a difference of direction between the 2 titles.

God of War 2018 presents a believable world with a sparsity of characters and a sharp focus on the small cast. The game’s limitations and smaller scope actually help to create a desolate atmosphere, and as the plot unfolds you learn more about the circumstances that made the world the way it is – from imprisoned Valkyries to the rising dead, every element is linked in a way that sets up Midgard as a dangerous and foreboding land.

God of War Ragnarök sees the player explore realms that are bright and beautiful, without the sense of danger present in the first Norse game. Realms being affected differently by Fimblewinter seems odd in isolation but is understandable when I acknowledge that we couldn’t explore the luscious Vanaheim and Svartalfheim in GOW18, and that seeing them all as frozen wastelands could have hampered the environmental variety. Similar to the vivid worlds, the characters are all remarkably cheerier and banter is frequent between the cast - even Odin and Thor have moments of comedy.

It should be acknowledged that Ragnarok presenting Odin and Thor as more relatable did help me to empathise with both sides of the conflict, making the reveal that Odin is just as tyrannical as the stories from GOW18 more impactful, especially with the masterful ‘Tyr’ twist. I like both styles, but personally prefer GOW18’s tone.

In the future, I’d like to see more consistency between games, as despite loving Ragnarök it didn’t feel like the sequel I was hoping for.

Pacing

The pacing of GOW18 is simultaneously great and terrible. Every time I get to traverse the world uninterrupted, I find it incredibly immersive, but then I inevitably reach a dead end and have to back track. You ascend the mountain a total of 3 times in GOW18, which negates the impact of reaching the summit.

In GOWR, this issue is less prevalent but you aren’t on one continuous adventure. Rather, you jump to a random location via realm portals that don’t have the same impact as Tyr’s temple in GOW18. There are also oddities such as the very lengthy sequence in Jotunheim, when other areas feel unexpectedly brief.

I hope that a future GOW title remedies these issues and has a consistent pace throughout the experience. I would even be interested in seeing a completely linear title similar to the classic God of War games, although I did love exploring the open world sections of the Norse titles.

Dedication to Quality

Last but certainly not least, I want to praise Santa Monica for creating this wonderful series which can be enjoyed from 2005’s debut title right up until 2022’s story of redemption for Kratos. The things I loved about these games, and which I hope to be present in the future, are as follows:

The beautiful worlds that are teeming with wildlife. God of War has fantastic art direction and graphical fidelity, a true showcase for PlayStation consoles.
The lack of waypoints, hud icons, x-ray vision, and the puzzles that actually require you to look carefully at the environment.
The heartfelt stories full of characters who are as flawed as they are inspiring. The redemption of Thor and the fall of Sindri were particular favourites of mine.
The terrific voice cast who give so much life and personality to the characters.
The brutal combat that combines cinematic spectacle with deep game mechanics.
The stellar soundtracks – shout out to ‘Valkyries’, ‘The Hammer of Thor’, and ‘Rage of Sparta’.
The realisation of myths and legends from across the world. The fact that every character, location, and monster all relate to something from real world culture consistently leads to me wanting to learn about their origins.

Thank you Santa Monica for these excellent games. I can’t wait to see what you do next!

The Laughing Cephalopod