Topic: God of War OT

@JohnnyShoulder Mine all came in the box with a code to redeem for the extras. Its good 'starting' gear.

The Exploration is quite straightforward though. Its often just a fork in the road where 1 ends at a dead end with goodies. Its also worth looking up - you may see 'buckets' in trees to hit down with the axe. The skill tree and armour do add depth to the game and its also worth remembering Atreus with your skill points. Not only is the story and characters given much more depth, the game-play has too - something I greatly appreciate.

I can't say its not without a few 'minor' frustrations. Inability to vault over low objects (knee high walls) but can vault over some (waist high) and even climb up high areas that are shoulder or even over head walls/rocks). I don't like the 'walking' along a set path sections - these feel on rails and could easily of been handled by a cut scene. You have no real control on direction or pace and are tied to a path. These are minor issues so far...

@KratosMD Destiny did it

I'm playing on Hard and am finding each encounter to be quite a tedious slog. Enemies are ridiculous damage sponges. Am I doing something wrong here? Am I meant to be exploiting weaknesses to open them up to special attacks or something? Right now I block, hit them a few times (barely doing any damage) then have to block again. Then, if there are tougher enemies involved, I end up making a couple of mistakes and dying. The first boss fight was a bit lame since it was nothing but me kiting the boss around, throwing my axe at it about 10,000 times until it died.

@Matroska If you are struggling on Hard, just put the difficulty down. Even if you have to restart the game it doesn't sound like you are that far in.

Blocking will only get you so far as groups of enemies will usually attack you at the same time, so you have evade em by pressing X. Some enemies you juggle them in the air with a strong attack by pressing R2. Mix it up a little.

The first boss wait until he does his slam then you will have a bit of time attack his leg, 3 to 4 hits max then roll out the way. Throwing the axe does very little damage to him so you have to get in close. You can also use Atreus to distract by pressing [ ] to shoot arrows at him.

I'm a few hours in and still blown away by the detail on Kratos. He looks outstanding...

Had my first really wow moment earlier, when you go to the witch's House. WOW.

@Splat It's like they put ten times as much effort into Kratos than anybody else. If they zoom in far enough on any character, you know, it gets a little rough. But Kratos? You can see the individual hairs and pores on his face.

@JohnnyShoulder There will be many more haha!

@JohnnyShoulder Thanks. It seems to have levelled out a bit now. It was the earlier part before the game become less linear that had that long slog feel to it. It wasn't that the game was too hard per se, I just felt like everything was taking too long to kill. Seems better now anyway.

On a different note, I did the quest to light four braziers and the final ghost asked us to find his boat. It hasn't been added to the quest log and I have no idea how to proceed. Any pointers?

@Matroska I did the same side quest earlier but I still had one spirit to find so didn't follow it. I assume it was through the big golden gates you open up.

Some other the extra moves you can buy have been coming in useful. The charged up heavy attack can be brutal. I've added a few onto Spartan Rage as I find it is useful for bosses and tougher enemies.

I tried fighting some 'purple' enemies earlier - and they one hit killed me lol.

The black holes are tricky, sometimes you get a good item, sometimes there's a bunch of strong enemies..!

@KratosMD Thanks for the tip. Not sure if that would work in that instance as i was on one of those raised platforms with the only way off via the little lift.

This is a special game...

@Splat Yeah it's great, I haven't been playing it very much at all but I just got past the first boss. I think the craftsmanship and attention to detail are things that will be greatly appreciated by the series' fan base.

I wish I had not seen the World Serpent in the trailer. That would have been even more awesome if I had not not what was coming.

Getting pretty strong Khazad Dum/Moria vibes from my current location.

I just finished it.
Holy diver, this is the best game on the PS4. I was never a fan of the previous games, but this is miles ahead of everything. I won't say anymore as I'd hate to spoil anything, but flock me if Sony Santa Monica didn't knock that out the park.

Yeah i had a bit of a nosy round the lake of nine yesterday but half the places i couldn't access so will go back there later.

I like the two dwarfs, really funny!

Wish there was in an in-game clock. I’ve no idea how far into the game I am. Think I’ve got clocked up 15-20 hours, but I’ve seen people claim to finish the game in that time.

The game just continues to leave me awestruck. Who would’ve thought that Santa Monica would be the ones to perfect the Naughty Dog formula (transitioning between animation/cutscene to gameplay).

You just know this is going to spur ND even further.

@Fight_Teza_Fight Its something greatly missing from Sonys system - a time tracker to see how long you have spent in the game. I am sure I have clocked up over 30hours so far which is an incredible amount of time I know. I could probably have completed the story-line quests in that time but maybe not with all the exploration and collecting as many of the artefacts, ravens, coffins, chests etc as well as 'fully explored' the lake, 100% completed at least 1 'region' and have also done a number of 'favours' (I am from the UK!) too.

Its definitely resonating more with me than I was expecting a God of War game to do - maybe as I am a father with older children - my youngest is now 16 (I am OLD). Its common now for games to transition from cutscene to game-play so I am not as awestruck by this anymore. I remember Gears of war doing this and I was awestruck then by the fact the graphics looked as good as the cut-scene so its almost expected now. The difference here though is that the camera keeps a much closer and singular feel than most where as others will cut back and forth between characters for example as if it has multiple cameras.

I still don't think it merits the 'perfect' scores that reviewers are giving it but then I guess they have created their own rods by giving game like Zelda, Mario etc 10's too. Its too early to go into some of the reason's because of spoilers but its certainly worthy of a 'high' score. I know reviews are opinions and mine is most likely different from others but never the less, its not 'perfect' although it is still an excellent game and should be up there with the best games of this generation.

I hate you all.

Im going to buy this tomorrow after being a hard pass. Damn you forum members.