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00:00:01
S2 Ep82: Dad of Boy
71 Plays6 years ago
SPOILERS: God of War (2018)
Join Dave and Jake as they find out what fatherhood is like in this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
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Join Dave and Jake as they find out what fatherhood is like in this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
00:00:34
Speaker
How's it going,
Dave's Back Pain and Humor
00:00:35
Speaker
everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going, alright, Dave? Uh, it's going shitty. Oh.
00:00:45
Speaker
Did you want me to elaborate? What's going on? My back has been a huge pile of shit for months, and I'm trying to get that resolved because every day kind of sucks. But I have a little bit of scotch, which is not necessarily uncommon for every episode, but... Your back held together by scotch tape all across the back. Yes, scotch tape.
00:01:10
Speaker
We don't advocate drugs here on the soapstone, but unless they're really good. Yeah. If you got that good shit, that good, good, yeah.
Video Games and Dopamine Boosts
00:01:19
Speaker
Cut us up. Speaking of good drugs, video games. I love these segways. Video games have been shown as many enjoyable activities to induce dopamine in the brain, as pretty much everything does that you enjoy, which is a drug.
00:01:37
Speaker
And
Rebooting Games: Titles and Marketing
00:01:38
Speaker
one of those video games, to get even more specific, is God of War 2018 in particular.
00:01:46
Speaker
Was that part of the subtext? It's just like Doom 2016. Yeah. Which Doom? No, no, no. Doom. The actual one. I kind of like, it's not a full on peef when people do it, but it is a minor peef categorically. Cause I know, you know, that the fan base, anybody who lists your game and any sort of list is going to have to put in parentheses the year. Yeah. If you go back to using like the same fucking original title. So we had the first Prince of Persia, which is called Prince of Persia. Yeah. Pop.
00:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, like maybe it still had like a subtext like king's quest seven The one where this thing happened. Yeah But yeah, I get it. You need to distinguish at the same time. It just doesn't Sound the same. Yeah,
God of War: Evolution and Impact
00:02:28
Speaker
it's it's gotta be a marketing thing. Like people are going back They know that the original name people are gonna be like, oh my gosh, it's like it's the reboot. This is a new thing We're going in a different direction
00:02:38
Speaker
Like the game fully earns it but still categorically here. You're forcing people into this. It's the little things to get you It's it's just weird to like say hey, did you play this one game? And then I have to clarify the name of the game, right? You're like, oh, I kind of took away the steam. But yeah, I know I know what you're talking about. It's a great game, but Well, you play God of War. Yeah, like 20 years ago With the axe wait a second one Yeah
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah, there's significantly less acting, I think, in the older games, but God of War is a series that stands on the shoulders of Kratos, really, more than anything else. It's been going on for a long time.
00:03:21
Speaker
I'd say it's probably one of PlayStation's early top IPs. Like it is. The only reason I know that is because when PlayStation had their version of Super Smash Brothers, which is called shitty PlayStation version, they could have named it way better. That's really why it kind of tanked in sales. It's got to be like some type of frenzy or something all stars. So many all stars was baseball, I think.
00:03:51
Speaker
It's something shitty. Yeah. Um, but Kratos is one of the characters in that. Right. You're like, okay, I see that. But they also had, who's the clown from that metal racing game? Oh yeah. Yeah. Twisted Metal is not really a franchise so much as like a game. They had like a couple, I think Twisted Metal Black was like one of the most recent, but wasn't there like a new one coming out? I think it was a, there was a trailer for it. I don't follow it actively.
Narrative and Character Development in God of War
00:04:19
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. Anyways, it was just weird to be like Kratos Sly Cooper. Yeah, exactly. Jack and Daxter. I'm like, does anybody really know these characters? Yeah. It was one of those things like PlayStation has had a lot of, um, a lot of exclusives that were kind of, kind of big in the form of like, um, final fantasy for a really long time. It's PlayStation exclusive. God of war, obviously.
00:04:45
Speaker
but like in the action space in particular third-person action like God of War was you know the reason kids were running out to get playstations and then lying to their parents to get them the game it's about God right yeah it's right there in the name it's like does this have any like sex or anything in it you're like no there's no explicit sex on screen
00:05:08
Speaker
Is there sex off screen? There is, yeah. So like the older ones would have the sex minigames, like where one of them was like a threesome type thing, but it was never on screen. Instead they'd have like a bottle of wine or something like that and you'd have to like do button presses to like maintain balance on this bottle essentially. And that's the game you're playing while there's voices making sounds.
00:05:34
Speaker
for the implicit activities going on. And then people are always like, oh my gosh, creative.
00:05:41
Speaker
Those are the the young boys. I think when they play they should for a gosh of war. Oh Gosh, it was actually like a hyper Well, obviously hyper masculine like in tone Because he's literally like a Spartan killing everybody. Yeah, that's kind of his whole thing. Yeah But he also looks like the lead singer from disturbed to a T. Hmm. I'm not actually familiar
00:06:07
Speaker
bald uh has like a little soul patch type thing i don't think the lead singer of disturbed has uh like a red lightning tattoo across his face and or chest not yet but and when he needs to rebrand in the later years if he wanted to go to comic con he could pretty easily it's all i'm saying yeah
00:06:25
Speaker
Yeah, no the But the the early series portrayed a very different Kratos as one would expect given how haunted he is in this game So this is kind of the growing up tale for the for the series Tonally and literally in the story. Yeah, he's pretty fucking tone. Let's be honest.
Gameplay Mechanics and Innovations
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah
00:06:48
Speaker
But no, they did. I mean, I've seen clips of the older God of Wars. Like I said, it is very different in the style. Yeah. Because where that's a full run around murdering shit, the game starts you off immediately. For God of War 2018. Yeah. Where you see this opening cutscene and you see like this beautiful scenery, you're like PS4 graphics, you're good. Got my money's worth. Yeah, exactly. And then the cutscenes kind of stops and you're like,
00:07:16
Speaker
Huh? Yeah. There's like a little prompt on the sides, like press R1 to swing and you're like, what? And so when you press R1, you swing an axe into this tree and you essentially are felling the tree and then you carry the tree home to be part of a log for a funeral pyre for your wife who has just died. It's also a gigantic tree. Like it's it's a tree. It's an it's a full grown tree. Yeah. He just like carries it over his shoulder with one arm and you're just like, oh, right. Great. Super strength is one of the abilities of the God of War.
00:07:46
Speaker
Um, it actually like kind of evoked the uh, the bio shock moment for me at the opening where like you Sink underwater you emerge and i'm like, okay, when's the cut scene gonna end i'm just sitting here. Oh, you're saying like the plane crashes. Yeah. Yeah when games kind of like I have to remind you that the gameplay has started These are the actual graphics It's a very pretty game. Yeah, they do a really good job And that's one of my like notes on here is how well they blend in the graphics
00:08:14
Speaker
Because if you go back to old days of good old Blizzard, you had like Warcraft 3 cinematics which were fucking stellar. Then you had the Warcraft 3 in-game and you're like, kind of missed the cutscene. Cause it goes from like beautiful CGI to blatant fucking polygons and it's rough.
00:08:33
Speaker
But with this I kind of have to wait for like the HUD to come up and like okay, it's my time now exactly like it's kind of cool that we've gotten to the point in video games where Like they have to use the camera angle to indicate the controllers return to your character. Yep Like it comes back behind you in centers and you're like, okay now it's my turn to do things but the thing is like I've picked that up from Playing over time if somebody would just oh, I'm gonna pick a ps4 my try video games again. It's been like 20 years and
00:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, I've had a chance to they would be like Did it freeze? This boss keeps killing me in a cutscene and the game forces me to reload. I don't understand what's going on. I don't see any quick time events. What's up? No, it's it's it's very pretty everything to do with the snow the the locales are very diverse for in-game reasons and
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah, but the whole setting overall is no longer Greece, right? It's now and set in Norse mythology. So everything is very Nordic and Woad. Yeah, which I really like them. Is it Woad? Yeah, okay country Woad Take me home to the foot
00:09:49
Speaker
But I've always liked that, and this harkens back to my appreciation of Senua. Because I think a lot of mythology in general is interesting. But Norse mythology, I've probably experienced more throughout games, like Midgard, Final Fantasy VII. So it's cool to see that tie-in. But the season for it seems to be in the winter. And also the fact that you have an axe now instead of the Blades of Chaos.
00:10:19
Speaker
I think they're Betrayal. Are they Chaos? They might be Chaos. I was playing a different game that had the word Betrayal. It's one or the other. It doesn't matter, really. The axe is awesome, though. It is. You feel the head of the swing in the opening cinematic, but then also when you're using it in combat, because it has a heft to it. Oh my gosh, yeah. It's got light and powerful attacks.
00:10:42
Speaker
and then really unique properties also like being able to throw the axe in this stuff so like if early on they
Combat Mechanics and Strategy in God of War
00:10:48
Speaker
have you throw an axe into an enemy and it freezes the enemy because it's an ice axe which is just badass and then you can leave it there and keep that enemy frozen and you can go around punching people and you essentially you can either damage them out or you can
00:11:05
Speaker
beat up their stamina. Yeah, you can inflict like stun damage. Yeah. Yeah. And once that reaches a threshold, you can get an interaction where you get like burst damage. Yeah. So it's essentially a bleed from Dark Souls, but it's really cool to have that option in the fight. Yeah. And then you can also just summon your axe back by pressing triangle. You just kind of put up your hand, just kind of...
00:11:28
Speaker
you know what i love about that too is um the time it takes your axe to return to you depends on how far away you left it yes because i actually like uh left my axe somewhere while fighting some enemies and then went to like a different island i just boated all the way across then i want to fight went to fight some other guys and you forgot that you didn't have the axe yeah i pressed return and kratos just holds his hand up for like three seconds and i'm like uh then he catches it and immediately goes to fight it feels like
00:11:58
Speaker
Absolutely awesome to be able to just throw out your weapon returning. It's really something that like Captain America has had so much of an opportunity to utilize Yeah, and Kratos has just absolutely destroyed any potential for that good feel because it's so much better here Well, it's cuz it doesn't Frisbee back it gets lodged into things yeah, and then you actually have to use magic to summon it back and you see it kind of like yank out and
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah, because it's actually in there and then it's it's like it's frost effect is just really well used in the game. So not only could you freeze kind of trash enemies to just sit them there while you go wail on people like you were saying, but you can also use it to freeze moving components for puzzles and things like that.
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, that was actually a really cool thing. Because sometimes you're using your godly strength to crank open a door or something kind of drops down. You're like, man, I need to be strong and hold this here. You're saying somebody to go through. What do I do? So you just stick your axe and thing just like it's frozen with ice and that holds. Yeah. So then you go through the doorway.
00:13:06
Speaker
Someone the axe back anyone it's really cool. It's the coolest like way to hold the door open for yourself basically I Also really like the so you start out and you don't honestly have compared to previous games in God of War You don't have that much weapons variety They sort of started to do the devil may cry thing where they're like here's a ton of different weapons you can use there's not a lot of weapon variety and
00:13:31
Speaker
In God of War, there's like a couple toggles, like obviously you have a Spartan Rage, which is your Berserker mode, essentially. You regain health slowly over time and jump between enemies like your Batman and like punch really hard.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah, like Batman. Batman goes into a rage. Well, the reason I describe it is like games like Arkham Asylum, Arkham Knight, anything like that. They always have the lock on mechanic. So it's like if you need to close distance on an enemy for your next attack, those games are very generous in how far Batman can jump to continue combos and similar with Spartan Rage.
00:14:11
Speaker
but that the Leviathan Axe and the in-game weapon, the Blades of Chaos was mentioned. Spoilers. Well, you already mentioned them, so they're in there. It's actually really cool, though. Apparently, I didn't realize this because I didn't really watch trailers, but all the trailers they had leading up to the game never showed the Blades of Chaos.
00:14:31
Speaker
No, they don't know Because everything is with the dad of boy experience. Yeah, you see him with an axe You see that you have a son who does his own thing in combat? Mm-hmm Which is pretty he just has a bow. Yeah, and you support I feel like you have to manually trigger him shooting at targets Yeah, you hit so I'm just like mashing the square button constantly
00:14:53
Speaker
I used to call it box all the time instead of square. And people were like, it's not triangular prism. It's not pyramid.
Father-Son Dynamics and Narrative Techniques
00:15:00
Speaker
It's not sphere. It's circle. They're too deep. Anyway. Yeah. Um, triangle was the exception, right? And you get multiple, um, uh, syllables is the word I was looking for. Yeah. You're like circle, square, triangle circles too. Oh, that's true.
00:15:21
Speaker
Yeah, I can't count. Um, I realized as soon as I started that statement, I was like, this may be immediately disprovable, but, uh, but yeah, no, it feels, it feels really cool to, uh, use some of those weapons and have the boy be support. They really, really also learned from like some recent games, um, or maybe not that recent at this point, but, um, nobody likes, uh, babysitting like a week. No, it's, I feel like.
00:15:49
Speaker
The best example in my recent memory of like a bad example is that one fable mission that everyone complains about. And it's like, Hey, this person's going to do whatever they want, but goblins are going to ignore you and swarm to them. I was like, cool. But then in Bioshock Infinite, they're like, Hey, you don't have to protect Elizabeth. She'll kind of just hang out and throw shit at you. I'm like, awesome. Right. They should be supporting you. You shouldn't have to modify your gameplay a bunch to support them.
00:16:14
Speaker
And Atreus, which is the name of the boy. But boy is his proper name, obviously. He does pretty well on his own. He'll avoid a lot of attacks. As you kind of get through the game, he develops better, like marshally. So he'll do things like choke holds. You can follow up on hold enemies and get his own kind of like special abilities. So you can like hold the square button. Sort of like send out wolves, like spirit wolves to attack things.
00:16:42
Speaker
He develops and becomes much more useful as the game goes on and you can upgrade his stuff along with your own as well Which is convenient? But there are times where he might get Choke held. Yeah buy something else and I will stop what I'm doing and be like my son. Yeah, my boy I'll throw the axe
00:17:06
Speaker
Cause I feel like something bad happens if you don't. Yeah, almost definitely you lose if you wait, take, take too long to free him. But it's not like a lot of other games where it's like, I'm being attacked. And you have to like, Oh God, all right. I'll run 300 feet back over here, help you out. And then you leave and they're like, I'm being attacked. They don't do that. It's pretty infrequent. And it's a lot of times it happens if you guys are just being swarmed by enemies. Um, and I mean, that's your job anyways, deal with that. We bust out those blades of chaos.
00:17:34
Speaker
But but I mean you don't have them for like so much of the game. Yeah So you get really used to the axe and one of the things that's great about the axe besides like the heft is how it's used in animations So like one of the early fights All right, I was gonna go back to like very early plot and gameplay. We haven't touched the plot really at all. Yeah So your wife's dead You're teaching your son to do some things. I'm gonna ignore the initial
00:18:02
Speaker
The actual objective. Well, I mean, like I want to talk about the early part where like you're teaching him to hunt. Oh, okay. So you're going out and this is kind of like the tutorial section. Yeah. And this isn't with the actual God fight that comes up. Right. But you happened upon a giant troll or something.
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah. And it's one of those big bads that has obviously telegraphed attacks. Um, so you kind of chip away as health, but a lot of times you have to use up that stun meter to then get that interaction, jump on his face and like beat the shit out of him while you have your son shooting arrows at him. Um.
00:18:39
Speaker
But these enemies that have these gigantic fucking pillars yeah The way you always killed in the animation is you kind of like throw them down and then in midair you kind of Wedge your axe in their giant obelisk and then you pull it down onto their face. Yeah, it's
00:18:56
Speaker
So cool. Straight up crush them. The game actually uses these troll enemies like fairly frequently. I have very few overall grips with the game and just a few notes on where I thought they could improve it a little bit. And one of those would be in diversity fights. The combat that's there feels really good, really clean. There's a lot of ways that you can just dominate the enemy with combos and variety and things like that.
00:19:24
Speaker
But you do kill a lot of these trolls with like this exact attack. Yeah, it's it's the same archetype of enemies a lot of times Yeah, there is an exception which I got to give them credit for for one of the harder troll enemies where you go to crush him This is in hell in hellheim
00:19:42
Speaker
Um, sorry, different, different universe. Um, uh, where the gatekeeper is a troll type enemy. Yeah. And you go to crush him with his giant obelisk, like same exact animation and he blocks it and you have to be like, no, no, I'm killing you this way and actually like finish it out. But they kind of subvert the animation a little bit, which I appreciated. I was like, yeah, there's the points. But a lot of times it's the same animation per enemy type. Mm-hmm.
00:20:09
Speaker
Like let's say you kill sometimes like a a small humanoid type add a draugr thing. Yeah, you can kind of it's either you like you rip open their face and kind of like crush them on the ground or Stop you can stop them to do some aoe damage Or there's the one where you kind of like you eat them into an enemy Oh, yeah, which throw you have like very little time to actually aim it Mm-hmm, which I kind of like cuz be weird if it's like
00:20:35
Speaker
Alright, minigame. Aim at the enemy. So long, gaybousie. I like that it's kind of like a fluid, hey, you're kind of just chucking this guy. If you hit somebody, you will damage them. Right. But it's a little bonus. Yeah. Yeah. I could definitely see a little bit. I think.
00:20:51
Speaker
Doom 2016 has spoiled me a little bit and just the variety of executions. Yeah, because it was where you were facing and which side you were facing them from. Exactly. So you had tons of variety. Do you jump on top of them? Do you do all this stuff? And there's a little bit less of that in God of War. But there was still incentive for me to go for a lot of these executions, these grab kills, as I think they're called in that game.
00:21:17
Speaker
Because I had a talisman which was it had some bonus. I didn't really care about an active I didn't care about but the passive was like every time you grab enemies, you know, yeah And I just I got all the value out of that I could any point the game was like and this is a section where we Swarm you with a bunch of little enemies and you're gonna have to win this battle of attrition. I was like, well, thanks Because I will
00:21:45
Speaker
And I focused a lot on stun damage, having Atreus use the light arrows, which are really similar to another game where you can actually get that as kind of a puzzle piece. Legend of Zelda, but in that one, they're called light arrows. And they do extra stun damage in God of War. So I'd be like, light that guy up. I'm going to run up. I put away my axe. I'm like, here we go, fists. Get that stun damage up and get some of those finish animations.
00:22:14
Speaker
Yeah, it feels good. I don't think I usually want the stun route unless it was an enemy that had a huge chunk or had like sections of health instead of just a health bar. Right, like bosses and things. Yeah, or like elites where it's like, hey, you can hit me, but I'm not going to get hits done. I'm like, gotcha. Then I'll actually just go into
00:22:37
Speaker
It's actually like a fist and part shield. Oh, you have an auto shield that kind of it's like American like spins out. Yeah automatically automatically It's like Reinhardt's expanding. Yeah, so it it's you can punch with that hand or just deploy the shield immediately But it's the circular Spartan shield
00:22:56
Speaker
It feels good though, even though you're not really dealing damage. That stun threshold meter builds up pretty quick and then you get a cool animation to go with it. You're dealing comparable damage as a DPS trade-off. The melee is actually super viable, just not using the weapons against a lot of enemies. The other really cool thing I loved about the shield is you could... There's skill trees where you can unlock a bunch of attack options and combos and things like that.
00:23:25
Speaker
One of my favorites was on a parry with a shield. So you block as soon as they attack, instead of just holding block. Similar to Sekiro or any other kind of thing like that. But for games that allow you to parry when you just hold block the whole time, it really takes the skill out of you.
00:23:41
Speaker
Like sometimes I did it if I was low on health and I couldn't risk getting hit, but landing the parries feels really good and it's relatively forgiving in the timing. But you can follow up with parries on a bunch of different attacks. If you parry and then follow up with a weapon attack, you'll like counter attack once you get that skill. The one I loved though was parry into shield attack, which just launches them. You just like launch them.
00:24:06
Speaker
It's like a throat chop with the shield. Yep. And you just yeet these guys like 30 miles per hour in a direction. And if you get people off platforms, it's like Spider-Man. They're dead. They're dead if you can knock them off. That's why I did that.
00:24:25
Speaker
I didn't think to do that so much. I was mainly going around with the... I would forget I had a show a lot of time because it's not deployed and out. So unless I'm pressing L1, I'm like, it's not there. And typically the axe felt too slow in heavy mode. So I had to mash R1 a lot where you're doing a lot of light attacks. But I also got the upgrade in the tree where if you hold R1,
00:24:47
Speaker
In the combo you can whirl you throw out the axe like a foot in front of you and it like spins like multi hits like seven times I'm like, yeah, I like this blender idea. It's pretty cool. It'll like come back to you And if you're still holding the button, he'll do it again. He'll just throw out the axe again. He's just automatically he's gonna recall mechanic and
00:25:04
Speaker
They had some other things for projectile acts as well Mm-hmm, but a lot of times I was up in the fray. Yeah, I wasn't thinking like well I can check my axe out over here and I was like yeah, but they do give you options as far as Not talisman upgrades, but like sigils. Yeah
00:25:24
Speaker
where I feel like there was two per weapon, where you had like a, if you were holding shield, you could do R1 or R2, and then do a type of attack. Basically, equippable special attacks. Yeah. So for a lot of the time, I think that's what it is.
00:25:42
Speaker
That's like a stat you can upgrade, so they would be more effective. But that wasn't my primary stat, because it's always damage. Yeah. But I had one that was an AoE. It's kind of like this frost blast, which is kind of cool. And then I had this one, which was for the heavier strike, where I would drag the axe along the ground and then pull it up. And it kind of did this frost slash along the ground. Yeah. It was pretty cool. I think you got that from the boss that used the attack on you, too, which is a Mega Man moment, basically.
00:26:10
Speaker
I love that shit where you like get the power hmm naturally Especially if it's cool like there are ones that suck. It's like bubbles. I'm like all right. It's not
00:26:22
Speaker
But if it feels good mid-combat, because you could use them, like spam them real quick, you could pop everything, and then there was a recharge time, which is another stat you could put points into. So if you're like, hey, dealing with a lot of ads, let me kind of gear more towards this, it was a viable strategy, which I liked.
00:26:41
Speaker
Yeah, toward the end, there was one of the first mythic sets you can find in the game, which is pretty close to the end, I guess. You could get a full cooldown set, and I equipped that because I saw that they had a bunch of sockets. I was like, all right, I'll use some of these gems I've been accumulating because they have cool effects.
00:26:59
Speaker
And some of them were pretty powerful, so you could get elemental resist up to 85% for ice or fire or something else, and you're like, yeah, get certain bosses, that's pretty nice. But for the special attack, the one I used on the axe, my heavy was a three hit, just like smash them into the ground.
00:27:20
Speaker
With a little bit of aoe on it, but it was just tons of damage And the nice thing about the runic attacks is they're most of the time like panic buttons anything It's got some damage or stun on it where even if you're fighting anything other than a colossal sized boss will get staggered by it So if I was getting overwhelmed by like a big enemy like a traveler Which one's the traveler?
00:27:44
Speaker
So
Enemy Design and Combat Challenges
00:27:45
Speaker
the travelers look like the enemies that are basically stolen from Dark Souls. They have like either huge two-handed swords. Oh, those suckers. The knights. They have tons of health. And they also had a lot of delayed animations, which felt very Dark Souls-y. So they're like, I'm going to do like a fake out. You've already used your roll. And they're like, hit you. And you're like, oh, son of a bitch. Or they have one that's like a spin to win, where they'll like do a Darius thing or an axe.
00:28:14
Speaker
yeah hated that because i was like all right i blocked an attack and they're like doing it again like all right well second one second one clips me but you had to like wear him down if you found yourself on the back foot drop that runic attack give yourself some time to breathe it feels really good the combat just feels amazing it's it's got the devil may cry payoff where if you get into an encounter and you're just like all right let's open this up you throw an axe you freeze a guy you run up you start popping abilities and killing fools it just it feels good
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's really viable for a lot of different approaches I Sadly like they probably had Let's say 10 to 15 Skills you could do with each weapon. Yeah, there's a whole lot
00:29:00
Speaker
Like for shield combat, like 10 to 15. And then there's also stuff for Axe, Blades of Chaos. There was also the Spartan Rage. For your Spartan Rage as well. The one I love from Spartan Rage though. Is it the Rock Throw? Rock Throw, freakin' Rock Throw. As soon as I saw that, I was like, this is some tank shit right here. And the thing is, like the way Spartan Rage works mechanically, each one of your attacks drops your rage a bit. So you're expending your rage when you're making attacks. The Rock Throw takes a ton of energy.
00:29:29
Speaker
But you will always execute it if you have any Spartan rage left. So that was always my finisher. Like rage is about to end. Eat or rock. I assume that did like impact and AOE damage as well. Yeah, it was really good. The AOE was very generous. It was like a left for dead rock because I just threw it at the ground around enemies to guarantee kills.
00:29:53
Speaker
You don't even throw it at them, it's just, try and give them a shoe shiner. Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, the combat, combat felt really good. And like I said, Atreus kind of develops in his own way. There's a couple different types of arrows you can get. And they all have, there's two types.
00:30:09
Speaker
Yes, technically a couple. And pretty much anything that the game gives you, it also has a puzzle solving element, which if I were to praise the game on one thing, it would be compacting resources while making them useful. Like, for example, the axe. You start with the axe, great offensive weapon, tons of versatility. You can freeze enemies, attack them. You can freeze moving parts for puzzles.
00:30:38
Speaker
You get the blades of chaos, like midway through the game, toward the end. And it's like, great. This is great for AOE. I can do all this stuff. I can pull enemies to me like I'm... Scorpion. Literally scorpion. I was pretty badass. And it also like burns off brambles. It's like same thing with Atreus's arrows. Everything has a dual purpose where it's got like a combat advantage and then also some puzzle solving.
00:31:05
Speaker
And world utility. Yeah, yeah, which I really really like because I hate managing like a huge inventory of things there were games that that's good for but Like we talked about Zelda recently and I think that's the traditional here's the large inventory of puzzle solving tools But I find myself in those games quick like going between menus a lot more like I got to re-equip these solutions with this you kind of have everything equipped and you can kind of just
00:31:32
Speaker
With something on the d-pad cycle between this and that yeah, and then each one has multiple applications But it is kind of like Zelda in that way where you came across the brambles you're like
00:31:43
Speaker
If A don't do it and B don't do it, then what do it? And you're like, oh, this is something for later on. So you just kind of ignore it and you get to come back and they're like, hey, you can do this thing to overcome this obstacle. And you're like, oh, and then you remember the places back where you encountered that before. You're like, cool. Kind of like a Metroidvania sort of thing. Yeah. And they're really good because as soon as that happened, where I got the Blades of Chaos and I burned some brambles, I'm like,
00:32:09
Speaker
Fuck I knew of one spot from like when I was playing the game like a year ago I was like I know exactly where it is, but I'm never gonna go back there. What's the point? Yeah, then the game had me go back through that way I was like, oh that's really convenient that they redirect the the actual plot and storyline through that area again Yeah, so it's not ways to rehab to go out of your way to be like oh
00:32:30
Speaker
Well, I want some optional content. I don't know. They'll take you there, which is nice. Yeah. There's like, um, probably the area they do that the most is like the approach to the summit. You have to go, you have to go back there at least three times, maybe four through the course of the game, but it never takes a ton of time to get there. And I think that makes it more justifiable.
00:32:50
Speaker
it's a fairly small universe of the game because throughout most of it you have like the hub area of midgar where you have this giant lake and then from the center of that area you can transport to different worlds but when you transport to a different world it's for like a level at a time yeah and then once you're out of it you don't really need to go back right but when you're on like the hub world of midgar you can get from point a to point b and
00:33:18
Speaker
Five minutes tops are going end to end. Yeah, and
World Design and Optional Content
00:33:21
Speaker
typically it's a lot closer than that per objective Yeah, I uh, the first time I went to like another realm Uh, so you have to use the the bifrost Because of course you do and it like I'm a little ashamed for this but like immediately when I go to the avengers movie So yeah, that's where I would have seen it too. Exactly is in the what was it thor ragnarok because more of those You used yeah
00:33:46
Speaker
So it's just like, oh, yeah, like Yidris old tree. And here's the dial in the middle of Midgard. And here's all of this, all of these gates. It's really cool. It leads to maybe the perception that the game is going to take you to a lot of these locations. And it's not 100% realized. Two of the gates, I think, are entirely optional areas.
00:34:14
Speaker
Well, no, it doesn't force you to go to all of them for sure. Yeah, one of them I went to is the um Can't remember the name of it. It's uh, I know you don't go to heaven realm, which I think is all fun Yeah, that one. It says it's explicitly locked by odin and It will never be opened. So that's kind of nice that they tell you that it's like it can't be opened um
00:34:39
Speaker
Yeah, so the one I was thinking of was uh musa fime which is like a fire Location and there's a no time As well, I think is optional which I don't believe I even went to I thought which was the one with the elves
00:34:53
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Isn't that all fine? I think I was all fine Then what's heaven? Joe? Oh, you know him. Yeah, it should be like the thought No, we don't have to the Giants. Yeah, one of the Giants which is endgame content. That's not real of the gods. Yeah, there's a
00:35:11
Speaker
There's a lot of locations. If you know about Norse mythology, please write in. Yeah, exactly. If you're too lazy to do a simple Google. Studios there. But yeah, the game takes you through a lot of these, a lot of these locations, which is the terrain change. You know, get you out of just the Skyrim mountains, essentially, and into
00:35:29
Speaker
Just some other locales. And each one has its own unique mechanics that they'll throw in. Like when Jake was talking about the arrows that Atreus gets, or boy, as he's more commonly known. Capital B. You have these light arrows, which you need to, like, place light crystals at a thing, shoot with the light arrow, and it activates a light bridge. Yeah. But a lot of times it'll be used as a limited resource. You might need to move a crystal from point A to point B. Right. And kind of flush out your surroundings to get to your eventual destination.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah. And then they have other things like, um, partially scrolling the bridges or elevators. Okay. Yeah. Cause certain times you're like, Oh, I'm starting here on the ground floor and you get to the second floor to progress. Oh yeah. But maybe if halfway, there might be a little temporary unlock where you open up like a, a crypt.
00:36:18
Speaker
Grab some loot from a chest, because that's how Kratos... I love the way Kratos opens chests in this game. Well, if the chest he punches it from above. And he kind of scrambles his fingers around for the golds. Yeah. And then he loots a bunch of tombs. I think Atreus remarks pretty early like, hey, isn't that like a grave or something? He's like... They don't need it. Yeah, they don't need it. But he just like pushes off the stone slab on top and just like yanks and stuff.
00:36:48
Speaker
yeah it's pretty good the um i i i do like a lot of the puzzles that this game has like those halfway elevators like things you might notice out the corner of your eye and you're like ah is this a hidden oh it is cool um they also have like um treasure maps which i only completed one or two of yeah um the rewards are pretty good for the ones i completed um but i didn't really find myself wanting for power kind of by the end of it no
00:37:16
Speaker
and this isn't this isn't a slight against the game at all but if you like to optimize and you like to complete a bunch of quests and you like to get stronger there's tons of space to do that in this game like as far as upgrading your gear like getting new sets upgrading your skills everything like that you can be completely overpowered by the end of the game oh my god yeah and the game doesn't demand that you are so there's more depth than is necessary for just getting through the story
00:37:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's enough where you're getting enough gold and other resources to be able to upgrade your equipment so that combat feels Pretty easy. Yeah, it was only in Major keystone fights where I might have had A slip-up or two. Yeah where I get punished by something. I'm like, okay, right like I think I did the Hellheim fight like four times the keeper the yeah keeper. Yeah
00:38:11
Speaker
Because I was getting Clipped by something you know projectiles, too Yeah, there's more so when he's doing like the blink strikes. I'm like oh, I can just sidestep these okay Just certain like little things that got me. I like that though because it was much like the Going back to a previous episode mergos wet nurse. Yeah, it was literally a similar mechanic so Dark Souls prepared me for God of War
00:38:37
Speaker
i will say though i i prefer dark souls as far as moving around and dodging yeah it felt slightly underpowered if you did like a quick sidestep in god of war yeah i don't know why though
00:38:56
Speaker
I think if you're incorporating it into sprints, he's got a lot more clearance than the ability to avoid attacks. But straight dodging, it's definitely less powerful than Bloodborne. His block, though, is very, very strong. We've talked about the shield plenty. You also can get the ability to reflect projectiles on perfect blocks where you just imbue your shield and then fire it back out.
00:39:20
Speaker
Just like screw you flyers. I don't need to trace and to handle this for me a hundred percent anymore plus the life and axe throw but I honestly just Would always like pause throw an axe or like look roughly at them and be like square button Yeah, cuz he'll just kind of like flick out some arrows and then they take two to three arrow hits and they're dead and
00:39:43
Speaker
Yeah, I upgraded the traces bow like as much as possible because I was just like, yeah, this is free. It's free damage. You know, if you real estate name. Yeah. Nice. It's pretty good. As I've said multiple times.
00:39:59
Speaker
All right, I feel like we've gone over the combat enough, so I want to talk about the combat. Right. So early on, you meet Baldur. Yes. Who is one of Odin's sons. We don't know at this point yet. But he just kind of shows up at your house and starts drunkly, like talking shit. So you guys get into a God brawl and he's an actually difficult enemy and has like a health bar and stuff.
00:40:24
Speaker
But a lot of like the cutscenes are like you guys just beating the ever-living shit out of each other. And throughout the game when you have engagements with him, they keep going back to that. Where you're just literally wailing on each other.
00:40:40
Speaker
So for the uninitiated Kratos, he's human sized, maybe slightly tall, a little bulky, but it's all muscle. He's fit. Yeah, he's fit. But he has like super, super god strength. So earlier in the series, there was a time he was fighting a giant stone colossus, literally the colossus.
00:40:59
Speaker
He's like intercepting attacks that are meant to crush him and like pushing back off like he's freaking riding from a vengeance essentially and He just has that level of strength and him and Balder like throwing these punches knocking each other through trees houses It was straight up DBZ fights. Yes, it is I think at one point he does knock you into a mountain like literally into a mountain and
00:41:26
Speaker
And then you crack the earth you cause like a massive fissure. Yep, they're all they're all awesome. You also like punch Through a rock so you can kind of pick it up and just kind of like drop it on him Mm-hmm like you do with the the totems with the axe. Yep. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's a lot of fun shit, but it goes to show like
00:41:48
Speaker
They're comparable strength of being gods and fighting versus if you're fighting like draugr ads Where you kind of are meant to tear through them. Yeah, it's kind of hilarious that um
00:42:02
Speaker
like there's there's a certain gamification to this strength i would say because you can punch balder like through a mountain but it takes you maybe four or five punches to kill like a draugr he doesn't he doesn't like commit to every punch yeah that's the one you could say um but the the balder fights i think there's two or three throughout the course of the game uh three yeah um
00:42:22
Speaker
Yeah, definitely three because there's the initial one. The
Mythology and Narrative Conflicts
00:42:26
Speaker
one on the dragon. The dragon for some reason. And the ultimate one at the end.
00:42:35
Speaker
In either case, in any of those cases, the Baldur fights are the ones that felt most like the older God of War games. Because they're actual boss fights. Yes. A lot of the other things are kind of like, it's a giant. And they're not like absolutely huge giants. This is something I think the game maybe could have done.
00:42:56
Speaker
They could have done a little bit better. I like you're like, I don't really have any complaints against the game. And then we've had like three or four footnotes of suggestions. Right. This is it. I agree with you at all points. But this one is like compared to previous entries in the game. And part of this reflects Kratos is differing. He's grown up.
00:43:17
Speaker
He doesn't want war. The fact that he is the god of war from Greece haunts him and what he's done because he basically wiped out the pantheon of the entire Greek pantheon in previous games. But this game is not that. There's very few gods you kill. Actually, you kill zero full gods. You only kill like demigods that are still technically gods and immortal and whatever.
00:43:44
Speaker
I think you only You kill like zero major gods You you kill one demigod Atreus kills one demigod. He does. Yeah You kill the previous one Sorry, too. Yeah Because you kill there's three brothers Balder and two other people we don't care about. Yeah, Balder is Odin's son Yes, and Magni and Modi are Thor's sons. I
00:44:10
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. That would make sense thematically with all the lighting shit. Yeah.
00:44:18
Speaker
But they're kind of like derived. Usually the way that like the mythology works is the closer, the higher up the tree, the more powerful the gods are. So like if the son of Odin has sons, they're not going to be like as strong as Thor. I could have just said Thor. But anyways, like you fight some of the lower guys on the totem poles essentially, but you're not like wiping out the Norse pantheon as a lot of people suspected you would be.
00:44:44
Speaker
I'm fine with that for, like, the way they crafted the story, but at the same time, for how many fucking times Odin has mentioned throughout the game and lore-wise? Yeah. Doesn't make a fucking appearance. Yep. Like, when you kill, uh, is it Magni?
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, I can't remember if you kill Magni or Modi because their names are very similar and they're very similar. You kill one of them, or rather Atreus technically does after you beat the shit out of them. They're like, you killed a god's son, there's gonna be hell to pay. And then nothing with Odin comes up, nothing with Thor comes up. And you're just kind of like, okay, that's it.
00:45:23
Speaker
So that feels kind of weird, but the whole thing is it's not about Kratos overall. Yeah, it's more so about Kratos and Atreus because Atreus is just a kid who's dealing with his mother's death and He does have a relationship with his father, but it's not the same as what he had with his mother right because Kratos is very
00:45:48
Speaker
Kratos right his father is sir. That's like how he addresses. Yeah and Kratos's thing is he wants his boy to be tough and survive and
00:46:00
Speaker
be able to take care of himself at some point when Kratos is not in the picture. So he's trying to endict all these life lessons on him, but doesn't really know about compassion so much. Which you see throughout the game, because they have these really good interactions and cutscenes.
00:46:18
Speaker
And there are times where like Kratos is like close to like putting out his hand to like touch his son Yes at all as like a consoling effort and you don't see it happen until Like the last 10 minutes of the game. I'm like, oh my god, it happened. Yeah
00:46:34
Speaker
He can't, like he's just broken in so many ways. He can be a dad, he can't really be a father until like pretty much the end of the game. And he also doesn't want Atreus to be him at all. That's the scariest thing for him is that his son just sets down the path of betrayal. And there's actually a line like after... So Atreus doesn't know he's a god until like midway through the game or so.
00:47:02
Speaker
It's like two thirds in where that gets revealed. Because Kratos doesn't want him to deal with all of the baggage that comes with being a god. With being hunted, with being considered better than mortals, all of this stuff.
00:47:19
Speaker
But it kind of tears the trace apart because his inner godhood, he starts to exhibit Spartan rage at one point and it knocks him out. It really gets a fever because the dichotomy between being immortal and being the god doesn't reconcile in his head.
00:47:38
Speaker
but Kratos actually says at one point it's like uh so Atreus asks like oh if I attacked you you know like you attacked Zeus like would you fight me and Kratos is just like no
00:47:53
Speaker
It's like now we're just we just in this because that's that's Kratos's thing at this point is breaking the the cycle of revenge of So-and-so did so in such and such to somebody then you get revenge and then like you killed my father prepared to die Yeah, and then it's just this perpetual cycle of hatred which even so throughout the game still happens at the end. Yeah, because But not in the way it literally anyone who hasn't played the game would assume
00:48:22
Speaker
Basically just spoilers though. Yeah, but so later on you find out that Who's the the witch? Freya Freya Freya is Baldur's mom and She's a giant also like that of the giant race of the giant race is not actually Visibly a giant right? She's she doesn't suffer from gigantism and
00:48:47
Speaker
She's wee. She's petite. She's a little fusion. But she's normal humanoid size. But she is Baldur's mother and Odin's wife. And they did this as like a pact for peace type thing. But she wants to protect her son. She doesn't want to see her son die.
00:49:06
Speaker
But Balder because she granted him immortality and he's had to live with the curse of immortality Because there are downsides to it. Yeah, he can't feel he's always Resented her for that. Yeah, so he wants to kill her And basically God of War is stepping in saying No, this needs to stop. Yeah
00:49:26
Speaker
So it comes to the point where he actually intervenes and kills him so that he won't kill his mother. Yeah. But that is now instigating against Freya and she essentially says, I'm going to fucking ruin you. Yeah. But it's like the I will find you. You cannot imagine the hell I will reach down upon you. Folium Neeson on Kratos.
00:49:51
Speaker
But that's part of the lore, the mythos, but part of being a god and having those things. Like it goes back to like the origins of this are in the Greek side. Like Zeus claimed his power by killing his father, became king of the gods. And Kratos ultimately, spoilers for the old god of wars, kills Zeus and is haunted by him in some ways in this game.
00:50:20
Speaker
And he absolutely knows it needs to stop. So yeah, this is really the growing up like it's time to stop Yeah, this is the life lesson kind of the whole series The maturing of the series and it feels really good I was complaining about how there's not that many boss fights earlier like true boss fights There's one with a dragon, which is awesome. Love that, but it kind of feels like a plain monster hunter Which I'm fine with because yeah, I kind of
00:50:47
Speaker
Harkens back to the I forgot about that. Yeah, like I like monster. That's fine And there's the ones with Balder which are all awesome fights Some of them more scripted kind of like dodge to the left dodge to the right punch punch punch punch punch punch
00:51:04
Speaker
Um, but that's that's most of the the true boss fights and the freaking magni and modi Uh dual boss fight which I struggled with a bit Um, I think I died a couple times The game is very forgiving It is very forgiving. Yeah, because I I got down to like a pixel of health and then I just mashed l1 a lot and then got through Yeah, but I could have easily failed that several times
00:51:31
Speaker
The reason it was forgiving for me is because I got them through several phases where they're basically one of them is using a large sword, the other one's got a shield and a small weapon, can't remember exactly. Or no, a hammer. One of them had a hammer, the other had a sword and a shield, I think.
00:51:48
Speaker
And you'd fight them a bit you had to weaken them kind of like you're playing Ornstein and Smough and Get them both on the ground at the same time then they'll do this whole like Ultimate combiner mode where one guy like drops the hammer on the other guy's shield Lightning strikes all around you and you're like trades like this dark hazy lightning mist with you and Atreus back to back. Yeah watching for attacks and
00:52:12
Speaker
And it's really cool. It's a mechanic that's used a couple times, the darkness thing. But the fact that it's just got mechanics in a boss fight feels really good. But I died toward the end of it after a couple phases and I was like, please God, just don't make me do the whole thing.
00:52:31
Speaker
And they're like, all right, we'll revive you almost completely where you were as far as boss damage is concerned through all the phases. And we'll respawn all of the healing items in the room. We'll also give you 75% health or whatever. I'm like, cool. I can do it now.
00:52:46
Speaker
That's really nice. They did the same thing with the last fight against Balder where he's switching between like ice mode and fire mode You have to switch weapons and then as you hit him, it's it deals like chip damage the whole time like fucking a yeah He has tons at a point. I got him down to like half and then I died. I'm like oh
00:53:03
Speaker
That kind of sucks then put me back at where I was for that phase and not the whole encounter which is
Writing Quality and Storytelling Techniques
00:53:10
Speaker
nice Yeah, as far as like playability if you're not like huge into action games are the best action game player There's enough training wheels on the game like a normal difficulty or whatever that You shouldn't have too much trouble. No, it's not
00:53:26
Speaker
It's not bad. Like I don't consider it as fluid as some other things that I'm used to. As I mentioned, a clunky game like Dark Souls as that always has to be my tie-in or like Sekiro or anything from FromSoft, but it still feels really good and I didn't.
00:53:45
Speaker
Really have trouble throughout most of it. Another key point actually outside of combat. Um, the writing is so fucking good. It's really good. I don't give a fuck about the plot overall. It's good, but it's the character interactions throughout the thing. Um, because you have Kratos, you have Atreus, you have the witch, you have the two dwarven Smiths who are brothers. Yeah.
00:54:11
Speaker
You have all of these characters, but every time you have an interaction, you are met with a human response. Nothing is like from TV or movies where it's kind of, all right, maybe in this famous universe, that's what somebody would say. But it's, if you understand a traces frustration at being a boy and his dad being very judicious and not understanding.
00:54:36
Speaker
Yeah, you understand Kratos is a dad and like you understand why he's just shutting down because he can't Comprehend how to have that interaction? Yeah, he's like my word is law. This is how it has to be. This is what I know right and you see that Back and forth in between them. Mm-hmm
00:54:57
Speaker
And then when you see like the dwarven smith, they're who they are. One is very crass and one is very uh, it's like drokey's the really vulgar blue guy And he says fuck a lot. I think too. Yeah, he does like nice Yeah, he holds he holds a trace a little fart to while you're browsing menus. It's like how can I help you a little fart? It's pretty funny Um, but I love syndry also the other dwarf. He's basically the luigi to drokey as mario
00:55:25
Speaker
He's like the overly clean and goofy one. He has a, he has, you can talk to him and he's like, he describes a revelation that was given to him where he basically learned about germs. And, uh, they describe it kind of like as such and Chris is like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Uh, but it like defines his life. Like he hates touching unsanitary things. Yeah. Uh, you have to leave pass over, uh, the mayor's head at one point. We didn't talk about my mayor.
00:55:54
Speaker
Lemire is a mirror. That's all I'm he has the site which is just like
00:56:01
Speaker
knowledge of many things and able to see into the Giants future past But point you cut off his head and you carried around with you because plot reasons But he has a lot of dialogue and insight to provide but a lot of his interactions are like Normal human things like hey, I want to provide some good advice, but also I'll stay out of the situation. He's a bard kind of he follows the role of storyteller and There's some really good mechanics and things I love about that
00:56:31
Speaker
One thing is really nice. We've talked about the elevator mechanics throughout games where it's, hey, if you have a period of force travel, here we can kind of add some extrapolation of plots or exposition for a character. But as Lemire will be like telling you lore. It's Lemire, it's all M's. Like, am I? Lemire? Lemire.
00:56:56
Speaker
I could've sworn there was an L at the beginning. I could be wrong. I was worrying about the Blades of Chaos, but I think it's okay. But basically as you're boating around going from point A to point B, you'll start getting exposition about story or characters, backgrounds. And then when you park your boat, and he's like, but we can save that for another time.
00:57:17
Speaker
Yeah, uh-huh, which is really cool because it's not like The the thing just stops or it starts going on on top of other things But then they'll continue on continue from that point next time you're going to travel. Yeah, or you have a period of Going from point A to point B and it's not combat or puzzle solving Grand theft auto do some similar things or if you like swore wildly it interrupts the story and then once you resume it's like where was I then they kind of resume the story and
00:57:45
Speaker
One of the things I loved about that one particular interaction that indicated that is Mir was telling a story like a tragic story and he's like, and now we'll have like, we should have a moment of silence for this recollection of this. And then as soon as you land the boat, he's like, that's enough silence. I think that, and then Kratos is like, how about we give them a little more and cut off the dialogue. It's just, it's prime. It's pristine writing. And I love it.
00:58:12
Speaker
There's also with Mimir, I took him back up to his corpse and there's special dialogue for that where he's like, that's something no man should ever have to see.
00:58:27
Speaker
Who is the, is it Helios? I think it's Helios. It actually is also kind of a callback to earlier God of War where Kratos rips, I'm pretty sure it's Helios' head off after defeating him. And then carries around the head as a lantern. Because like light shines from his eyes and mouth. So you get another head for your belt. But this one's more, it's more wholesome.
00:58:54
Speaker
Yeah. And there's also animations for like when you go to sit down because it's kind of hooked on to the back of your belt. So you're always like facing forward, seeing Kratos' back, but you can also see Mimir's head facing you as the player. But when you go to sit down on the boat, you kind of unhitch the head, hand it over to the boy, boy sits next to him on the boat. Yeah, it's like he's just a third passenger.
00:59:15
Speaker
It's really great. There's a point where like the boat gets upset and like a cut scene or something. Yeah. And Kratos like, Mimir's like, I'm going over and then Kratos is like, I've got you, grabs them, catches it. It's great. The characters, the characters are really good in this game. Like it's no comparison. The characters of older God of War games compared to this, they're all really well fleshed out and you understand their motivations.
00:59:41
Speaker
Yeah, like they might fit in some initial tropes of like Kratos is the brooding father with like a dark past But you see it really Fleshed out and it's not some comic over the top where he's like super broody. Yeah, he's not angsty No, you just you see his hesitation in a lot of situations and you see him
01:00:05
Speaker
get frustrated and short tempered in certain situations because of that. Yeah. But a lot of his stuff is not speaking because he doesn't see the need to for most situations. So that when he actually does speak, it actually has impact in meeting. Yeah. He's like, I'm speaking because I need to, because it's worth saying, which I liked.
01:00:31
Speaker
There's a lot of good things I would like to recall that I don't really have time for. There was probably the one I remember the most. He tells the story of the tortoise and the hare while he's on the boat. But the way he recalls it to Atreus, he's like, there was a tortoise and a hare and they were in a race. The hare went really fast and it took a nap. The tortoise continued dutifully until the end.
01:00:57
Speaker
Tortoise won the race and the trace is like you don't tell many stories Oh my gosh, they humanize all of the characters. Yeah, and it really it built to Like I will believe the ending for the people who are playing it but there's no Final boss which I was almost guaranteed I was almost completely convinced there would be based off of the kind of game that was like it being a God of War game and
01:01:25
Speaker
And the fact that there was no final boss at the end I applaud The developers for because they built up to a point where I was okay with it And I think it was more rewarding that there wasn't one because of the story they were telling Yeah, they do a really good job of everything and it's not Solely an action game. Mm-hmm, but like the action parts of it are really good Yeah, the dialogue is really good. The cutscenes are really good and
01:01:54
Speaker
Everything about is really good. And the other things that you, that they add are like little puzzle sections or things that might seem more ancillary are still done in a good way and nothing feels like a slog. And you get like these bite-sized portions of you're going to a different realm to do some side objective because there's a rock in your way back on Midgard or something to that effect. And when they introduce things,
01:02:22
Speaker
It's done like a nice enough way where if you come across a lady like, Oh, right. I remember that. Yeah. You're intuitively learning. Yeah. It's a very, very solid adventure game, which is like a very vague genre, but it's, it's literally what it is. The whole thing is like, uh, and over the top quest, where it's like, if you, like Harold and Kumar go to white castle, right.
01:02:44
Speaker
They keep having these exciting adventures and mishaps, which kind of... The overall goal is still the same, but they might need to reroute in an interesting way, where it's like, oh, we need this magic artifact. I don't know if it still exists, but it's worth a shot. And everything is kind of that over-the-top adventure.
01:03:05
Speaker
Remember the fucking flying boat? Yeah, that was fun. It was freaking awesome the the the moment I would like to leave with is the The final fight against Baldur. Yeah when Kratos and Atreus are like in lockstep They're like we are in co-op mode and like Baldur is falling through the sky
01:03:25
Speaker
Kratos
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
01:03:26
Speaker
is like holding him there and Atreus is in the air falling just going full legolas on Baldr pumping arrows into him Yeah, cuz he's now capable. He knows he can survive the fall. He's a god. He's got all this stuff going on It's it felt so good in that moment like with how their stories developed to lead up to that I was just like hmm. These are good feels. I'm glad this game is providing it as you know I have no children and don't have plans for them
01:03:53
Speaker
just get that out there now and then be done with it but appreciate it in the moment yeah it's just a beautiful roller coaster ride of a father-son adventure and uh probably rated a 10 out of 10 oh that's pretty good that's um
01:04:08
Speaker
I'm not saying like they can't make improvements if there's going to be like another entry in the series. Yeah. Um, but it's fucking great. It is really great. If, if a 10 is indicative of like the height of the genre, like the best that there is in that space. I did say out of 10. So yes, according to this metric anyway.
01:04:29
Speaker
right then then i would agree with that it's it's dang near perfect there's a couple things maybe you could improve but there are things other games are so far behind right you're picking you're picking imperfections out of a masterpiece at this point and it is really a masterpiece of a game so check it out it's on playstation
01:04:49
Speaker
yeah this is one i will not buy you a playstation um yeah it's been out for at least a year yeah it was 2018 it's not gonna be a full price game but it's still one of those solid entries where if you're getting an exclusive
01:05:06
Speaker
Worth a check out. Yeah, and it's not just all violence It's got some good feels and it's a more holistic experience than they've ever had in the series. So Give it a give it a look see it's it's gonna be well remembered. I think oh, yeah And on that note, thank you guys for listening to another episode of soapstone as always You can send your feedback in to soapstone podcast at gmail.com or you could reach out to us on Facebook Join the discussion there
01:05:34
Speaker
at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast and until next time i'm jake and i'll see you in the next one i'm dave and i will also see you in the next one as well bye
01:06:01
Speaker
Oh
01:06:37
Speaker
I.