God of War (2018, Playstation 4) Review

IMPRESSIVE REVISIONISM WITH A TIRED EDGE

Also for: Windows

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I got introduced to the Norse mythology through Valhalla, an animated Danish movie directed by acclaimed animator and comic book author Peter Madsen (a name he unfortunately shares with of one of Scandinavia's most infamous psychotic killers, just Google it). The movie is a depiction of the most well-known Aesir gods, mainly Thor and Loki, through the perspective of two ordinary human children. They get recruited into the Gods' servitude after a misunderstanding, and then join their carriage across the rainbow bridge Bifrost to Asgard with wide-eyed amazement.

In the movie, the gods are depicted as strong, clever and (mostly) good-natured, but with some character flaws - Thor has a really bad temper, Loki is lazy and manipulative, and so forth - but they were nonetheless heroic in their own way. Now, their legacy gets questioned, in a sense, by the impressive work of Sony Santa Monica, who chooses to portray the same tales with the Aesir gods as the villains, and their enemies, the Giants, as their tragic victims.

This reiterates the revisionist manner in which the studio treated the Greek mythology in the original God of War-games (2005-2013). The Spartan war god Kratos is the still-resentful protagonist, even though he's gotten more tempered now since becoming a family man. This entry is a reboot, in a sense, and a re-imagining of the Kratos character, but since it sometimes references previous events, could just as well be called yet another sequel. Regardless, you don't need to have played the predecessors to follow this story.

Since the end of God of War III, Kratos has escaped his violent Mediterranian past, where he wrought havoc on their entire pantheon of Gods. For a time, he has lived a secluded life with his wife and son somewhere in the forests of the frozen north. As this game begins, the peace is about to end. For reasons this game never explains, his wife has recently passed away. Kratos and his young son, Atreus, set out on a journey to reach the highest peak in the lands and scatter her ashes there, according to her last wishes.

That is the ultimate goal of the game, and it sounds like a solution in search of a problem. I expected to encounter all of the most famous Gods, and punch all of their faces in on my way to the summit. But this game has an unhealthy habit of subverting my expectations. Hardly any of the Norse gods even make an appearance. Most of them are only heard of through legends, and are only seen depicted as statues or murals. This is not inherently wrong, of course, as long as the game presents interesting content to fill in that gap. Does it succeed? Not entirely, I'm afraid.

This version of God of War has quickly reached a state of reverence, where it is often considered one of the greatest games of all time, a sentiment I can't say I share. My main concern is that while the story elements are mostly excellent, they're spread out over too much time with too many repetitive interludes. Every inch of progress is followed by a poorly motivated offshoot, inserted only to prolong the experience with tropey video game obstacles.

It is a frustrating, albeit technically impressive sit-through. It tells a character-driven story that strives for emotional depths it succeeds in reaching, but only a few times. And it is a long game; my playthrough took around 45 hours. One problem is that I've always found Kratos to be a dull, one-dimensional character. With no initial emotional investment, I found his struggle to reach out to his son hard to relate to, and I'm usually a sucker for father/son-relationships on the screen. But I refused to give up on it, and around the halfway mark the story started to reward me for my efforts.

I like their dynamic; Kratos teaches Atreus how to fight and survive, and Atreus lectures his illiterate father on Norse lore, and as their teamwork grows so does their bond. They help each outher out in combat and puzzle solving. Some cutscenes are strong, in an artful and restrained way, but a few tonal shifts along the way could've improved the effect.

But I have long pointed out that a video game is not necessarily a great way to tell a cinematic story, and this game exemplifies my issues. No matter how cinematic, the video game parts still disrupt the storytelling. In spite of having a linear main questline, God of War feels bloated with intrusive design. It uses a "one-take" mentality - just like the experimental Alfred Hitchcock-movie The Rope (which the director himself hated) - that follows Kratos and Atreus through an unflinching camera right from the beginning to the end. No cuts, no edits, and I think the effort might be wasted. 

Cutting is a great tool for a filmmaker to use, primarily for pacing, and God of War strives to be cinematic from the first frame to the last. In an audiovisual sense, it is very successful. It uses sensitive writing, nuanced performances with delicate facial animations and a haunting, pitch-perfect score. It's all framed by a magical, well-crafted northern landscape with a bit of Marvel-inspired location design in places.

It maintains the original trilogy's crazy sense of scale, with a few enemies the size of buildings and a few other creatures the size of mountains. A few eccentric humanoid characters and a lot of interesting, mythologically relevant monsters inhabit the world, offering some fine dialogue and challenging combat encounters. A lot of interesting Norse lore and folk tales are baked into the central plot as well.  And it all feels a little bit more immersive to behold through the unflinching camera.

But all that elaborate setup and character drama is let down by the frustrating pacing, which hinges on the slow exploration. Whenever a filmmaker inserts a "long take" in a movie, it is generally to add a certain tension into a single scene. It is especially powerful if a lot is going on, with a lot of characters involved. The feature film almost becomes a documentary, as you start getting concerned with the film crew's ordeal - what if an actor screws up their line at the end of a long, 10-minute take, for instance?

This nerve can hardly be translated into a video game, which by design can't be a spontaneous way to tell a cinematic story - the nerve is instead in the gameplay aspect. The cinematics of a video game are meticulously planned and animated. God of War uses the single-take for quite the opposite reason, it seems; instead of adding tension, the single-take removes it. Maybe it wants to allow the character drama sink to in, but the result feels more like a pretentious wink to the critics.

A lot of the time I don't feel particularly engaged by God of War. Exploration is long-winded and tedious. Puzzles and enemy types (even bosses) repeat way too much. Some puzzles demand that I search the surroundings meticulously for minutes, sometimes to no avail. Kratos may hit like a truck, but unfortunately moves like one as well. The game can never quite decide if it wants to be linear or open world (strictly linear would have been better), which calls for a lot of unbroken backtracking.

Atreus is a curious boy, asking a lot of questions and eager to explore, but the impatient Kratos wants to push on. Still, you're constantly contradicting his commands by scouring the lands to their full extent, simply because it is so rewarding. A lot of hidden chests, optional bossfights, optional puzzles and hidden areas line the way to the highest peak. All the while, the story loses its momentum.

Your progress is too often halted by frustrating obstacles. Some of the action cutscenes depict Kratos as strong enough to literally move mountains. Moments later, the gameplay might reveal a treasure chest behind a few rotten planks, and you cannot smash through to get to the chest (and you're wielding a friggin' axe!) You must instead find your way around. The same ludonarrative dissonance goes on with heights. Can Kratos jump like The Hulk or not? The game can never decide. In a story with aspirations on maturity and realism, it's hard to disregard inconsistencies like that.

In true Metroidvania fashion, some pathways are barred by obstacles you can only breach by powers you don't yet own. With a severely limited fast-travel, it's a nuiscance to find your way back once you get them. Other obstacles are just plain idiotic. You're telling me Kratos can't get past a waist-high pile of rock, snow and ice? No, apparently Kratos can only jump at fixed locations - an almost shockingly old gameplay limitation.

For a long time, this game frustrated me with stuff like that. But the closer I got to the end, the more the story got to me. Exhausting most side-content early on made me laser-focused on the main quest, and that's when the strengths of the narrative finally shook me. It took too long, but still quick enough to redeem the game somewhat in my eyes. Some story twists come with great effect, and the gameplay, no matter how sluggish and repetitive, feels solid throughout.

Combat is neither particularly good nor bad, but it keeps the experience together. It takes the foundations of the old PS2-God of War fighting mechanic and sprinkles a layer of the Dark Souls-mentality on top. Stamina management and attribute scores play a major part. Your default weapon is the Leviathan Axe, which you can also throw and summon back into your hand through a cool animation. Atreus helps out from the sideline with his bow, and it is fun to hear Kratos' feedback after some of the fights.

The few enemy types start repeating themselves a bit too soon, including many of the boss fights. Combat still serves its purpose, namely to add a bit of challenge and variation to the mix. Kratos' moveset is animated with a great sense of weight and strength, which translates well through the audio design and controller rumble.

Crafting allows you to imbue runes into your weapon, unlocking powerful magic attacks that you can level up through experience. Role-playing systems like that are always fun in theory, but here I didn't explore it very thoroughly. Some of the skills were leagues above others, regardless of what enemy I faced, and the rest merely functioned as placeholders until I got what I wanted.

And that summarizes how I got through the lion's share of this celebrated game. Some of it is absolutely stellar, but much of it is merely serviceable. I avoided God of War 2018 for a long time because the original series, however great it may have been back in the day, feels like it belongs to an obsolete genre altogether. And behind the well-polished facade, this reboot radiates a similar, aged fatigue. It's like plastic surgery done really well.

The ludonarrative dissonance, the long-take camera, the grounded stiffness of not being able to move freely, the invisible walls, and the confusing mix of linearity and exploration - it all adds up to a somewhat crooked equilibrium. It works, at least for now, but I have a feeling it will not age well. It might suit the tired, old Kratos persona, but the experience of controlling him and exploring his new world suffers for it.

It is still a good game; a solid vintage triple-A Sony experience wrapped in an exquisite package, and gets a clear recommendation from me. It showcases tons of potential through its storytelling alone, and I can't call a single aspect of my time with it "bad" or "downright boring". But I still cannot escape a certain sense of disappointment - the untethered praise it has received bewilders me. The conclusion to the narrative is great, but for me the game failed in building up much hype and curiosity on the way there.