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S3 Ep240: God of War: Ragnarök
74 Plays3 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they discover the joys and pitfalls of fatherhood in this week's episode!
Intro:
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Intro:
- God of War Ragnarök OST - Svartalfheim
- God of War Ragnarök OST - Jotunheim
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
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Transcript
Energetic Show Introduction
00:01:05
Speaker
How's it going everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake and I'm joined by my co-host is always Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah. There you go. Um, same. That's good that you're on the same hype level as me. No, that's exaggerated. That's, that's me trying to rise to your level of energy. Um,
00:01:34
Speaker
Are you saying you're more laid-back than me? Jake, look at the rings under my eyes. I don't care how deep your voice is, right? Look at the rings under my eyes that are just baked in. I mean, I literally have genetic rings under my eyes, though. I have shadows under my eyes forever. I thank my grandfather for that. Do you? Well, now he's dead. Lean in. Lean in. Lean in. Let me look at you.
00:02:01
Speaker
I have bags under my eyes forever. I mean, I see them now, but not recalling like every time I've seen you like, ah, that that facial feature he always has. Right. Well, I think that's normal. I think people.
00:02:18
Speaker
People kind of, I know at least guys. I'm not being sexist here. I just don't want to speak for other people's experiences.
Perception as a 'Dump Stat'
00:02:27
Speaker
But amongst the friends that are guys that I've known, it's like once they know the person, they tend to not care about a lot of other things. Like if someone showed up in pajamas one day, I'd be like, huh, that looks comfortable.
00:02:41
Speaker
That's it. Like my inquis, my curiosity has died and I just accept this as normal. Um, but similar for like facial things or whatever. You just see people as people, which is, you know, that's kinda nice.
00:02:58
Speaker
I will say I'm a little bit better than that. If you drastically change your hairstyle, I would notice and call that out. Or if you have an entirely new hoodie or something, I'd be like, is that new? But yeah, I get a lot of that. That's just who they are. Guys don't follow up on that stuff. Is that a new shirt? It's that person, right? Yeah.
00:03:27
Speaker
There's nothing that stands out to that extent. I will say that I am on the lower, I say this over and over again, but perception is a dump stat. I do not notice things. So part of this is just justifying my own behavior and reaction to others. I'll give other people some rope they can say that they notice such things.
00:03:47
Speaker
For me, I mean, like some people, I will, I will say some people you can really, really tell when they're tired, right?
Pranks and Hidden Objects
00:03:53
Speaker
They're just like, they look defeated. They just pulled themselves out of a battlefield. But I think some of that is like a wear on their sleeve type.
00:04:06
Speaker
Cause like I've been on discord and like somebody's like a little bit coffee or something. I was like, are they just sound like a little bit stuff that are congested? There was like, Oh my God, you must be sick. These are sick indicators. Whereas like you can just not have that still feel like shit. And nobody would have, I mean, granted it is a voice medium in this case, but like would have no fucking idea. That's not really the thought. Sorry. The two were like one, um,
00:04:37
Speaker
Dear God, we lost in the third wind of the podcast already. That's all right. Do you know how much time we had? Like, what a pause we had after our initial opening. I was just like, how long can we go with this? And even I started to reach to the point of this is too long of a pause for a podcast. People are going to think that the episode's over. Thanks, everybody. Uh huh. But it was the two thoughts where one is the frustration of
00:05:04
Speaker
I don't like that that exists. I understand why it exists of like, you can't see people's suffering or like discomfort or anything unless like they literally say, Hey, or unless it's like the case of like, Oh, you're actively bleeding from the face. Is something wrong? Yes. That's one thing. And then the other part of it was,
00:05:28
Speaker
If you're willing to share, there was something I put on your person or I guess in your jacket that you did not discover for a week or two. Right. Was this was this the cup? Was it a cup? Was that what it was or was it some other? I wouldn't call it a cup as much as a shot glass. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a phallic shot glass, I think, if I recall correctly. Yeah.
00:05:55
Speaker
Yeah, that was funny. You put it in my hoodie, I think, when returning it because I had left it over at your house. Yeah. And then when you came by, you dropped it off and I was like, excellent. And it would have been years if you didn't say anything. And you said something that I still forgot and it still took me a while.
00:06:14
Speaker
to actually go and check it. But time is a flat circle like none of this mean none of this makes it's all a simulation would have been great is if I just never mentioned it. It had passed enough time to the point you didn't remember
00:06:27
Speaker
you had just no context for how it would have gotten there in the first place. You put your hands in your pocket and you're like, what is this? And then you bring out like a penis shot glass, like on a zoom call or out at the grocery store. It's usually like, what? Well, what's funny is statistically, it probably would have come up the next time I was at your apartment, actually, because I don't visit that many other places.
00:06:50
Speaker
So I feel like that wouldn't land as heavily because then you would assume you just smuggled it in. Yeah, just smuggled like, Oh, did Dave hug me for extra two seconds? What were his hands doing? Like you're analyzing a magician's trick. Yes. Yeah.
00:07:06
Speaker
This is actually this is this is funny. We were talking about this incidental noticing something. It's like, oh, if you saw a green car and you're like, huh, green cars are cool. You're more likely to notice when you see green cars. There's a phenomenon for this. And I'm going to figure out what it is by searching for it.
00:07:28
Speaker
But just recently I saw on YouTube a clip from Catch Me If You... Not Catch Me If You Can, because Catch Me If You Can is the one about counterfeiting money. I've heard the name of the movie. I could not tell you anything else. Yeah, but it's the one with the the magicians. It's a bunch of like Hollywood magicians and it's got some people nobody knows. I can't remember. No, people everybody knows. I can't remember the name of it. It's not a good movie.
00:07:57
Speaker
But I watched a clip of it, and now I realize that we're talking about sleight of hand. And this was not but a few moments ago that I actually saw this clip.
00:08:08
Speaker
Oh, is it the one where they're passing around a card? Yes. I've seen that one clip, nothing else. Now You See Me is what it's called. Now You See Me too. So also a huge marketing mistake because the first movie was called Now You See Me and the second one was not called Now You Don't.
00:08:35
Speaker
Like I get why they had to say like, now you see me too. But right? Like it's already campy. I don't know. Make it the tagline at least. Now you see me colon. Now you don't. That would make more sense.
00:08:51
Speaker
Part of the now you see just now you don't you'd be like what? Hasn't seen the first movies absolutely lost It's like hey, do you want to go see now? You don't you would assume that person fucked up a title? It's like what what movie do you want to go see? Yeah, but that doesn't land very well. Do you want to go see tomorrow not today?
00:09:16
Speaker
What? Yeah, or Edge of Tomorrow or something like that. It's all good. The morning? Do you mean dusk? What do you mean? It is fake. It's fake. But that's it. That's a requisite amount of non-topic time. What do we want to talk about today? I was thinking an actual game title. Sure. It's like an actual game.
00:09:45
Speaker
Yakuza like a drag. No, wait, we did that one. I've gotten that. Well, no, but maybe it's me. No, we didn't do like. Oh, yeah, we did. I was. We did. Hadn't played it. We did. We did. See what happened when we had the res we're now completely deter from the episode. We had that episode, Dan. Yeah. And then Dan was the only one who played it at that time. Right. Yeah. And then I played it.
00:10:11
Speaker
And then at some point in the future, you're going to play it. Maybe we should just do another episode with it. I don't know.
God of War: Ragnarok Impressions
00:10:17
Speaker
Frequency illusion is what it's called, or Bader-Meinhof phenomenon, frequency bias.
00:10:24
Speaker
I feel so sorry for anybody trying to follow along to us. I am really sorry. But I was thinking maybe as an alternate to that, we could talk about God of War Ragnarok. Sure. Have you played that? I did play that after you left it at my house, which I make it sound like I play the games that you leave at my house, but this is more of an outlier than the rule.
00:10:47
Speaker
Um, what's crazy that was in his pocket right next to the penis shock. Yeah. Still didn't notice. It was, it was just the desk. It's very, very risky. Um, but yeah, God of war Ragnarok. This is the, um, the second game we've covered in the God of war series. And it's like five, six, I don't know. But the second one in the, uh, the rebooted,
00:11:17
Speaker
Take him a jig. Yeah, I'd say similar to Doom. I feel no need or desire to go back and play or cover the older games. Well, we already did. Oh, you're talking about for old God of War. Old God of War and old Doom. Like we're not playing Doom 1, 2 and 3. Yeah.
00:11:40
Speaker
Retro Ahoy has already done such a good job on the Doom series that I'm just going to recommend people check that out. He's got that's already better than ours anyways, like, but he's done stuff for Doom. So I can specifically say that friend of the show. What's your podcast talk about? They jump around a lot and usually promote other creators. Um, but I mean, like, what would we talk about for an old game like Doom? It would be very difficult because like,
00:12:08
Speaker
It's not that those games are unfun, but they just don't really have the depth. I do think we could kind of cover God of War old games to a certain extent, but they're not like the new ones. Hot take. Speaking of the new one. What did you like about this one compared to or actually even just going into it? Obviously, we played God of War 2017. Yeah. What were your expectations going into it? Were you expecting them to
00:12:39
Speaker
blow it up, be more of the same. Were you expecting good things from it going in? I feel like it was 2018, but I'm not 100% sure. So I'm good to go with 17 as well.
00:12:49
Speaker
I'm getting a head shake, definitely 17. I haven't looked it up. It's an educated guess. So I tried to go into it without like crazy high expectations, but unfortunately when you play a game after it's been nominated for a lot of awards and won a lot of awards, it's kind of hard to completely divorce your expectations from that. But I don't know, I really enjoyed
00:13:14
Speaker
The previous God of War, obviously, and it kind of left off with this. Oh, also full spoilers. If you like autoplay to this, we're just going to freaking talk about everything. Uh, that's your, uh, that's your off-ramp. See you guys come back, you know, whatever. Um, but yeah, spoilers for Ragnarok. Uh, ever since we got the teaser with like Thor showing up.
00:13:38
Speaker
I was like, I'm still in this, right? I'm still invested. It did feel kind of like a little bit of an intermission, but an intermission for like Lord of the rings where you could just leave in the middle and like go out and do something else for a week and then come back and be like, I am now ready to consume more content. Right. Um, and so I just wanted some minor improvements really on top of that. I didn't expect anything earth shattering.
00:14:07
Speaker
I would say I'm in a similar, or I was in a similar camp. Um, and I felt like it kind of perfectly met those expectations because again, like it was so much of it was the same as far as gameplay. It was what I remembered playing, um, several years back.
00:14:26
Speaker
But they built upon it as far as from the gameplay story, et cetera. We'll get into more of that in a sec. Yeah. But it wasn't like coming back to it. I'm like, ah, yes, this is why I like this. Not, huh. It didn't feel foreign going back to. Nice. They didn't do a genre shift. This isn't Halo Wars to Halo. Right. It's not like, OK. Now in this RTS, in this MOBA, you'll be playing as Kratos, the God of War.
00:14:55
Speaker
Right. Remember to stay behind your creeps, Kratos. They didn't do anything like that. It's it's very much. There's like a recap option in the menu to like catch up. And I didn't click it, but I appreciate when games do that, especially if it's been a couple of years. I think. I don't remember if I did or not, I feel like I must have because they kind of shotgun through or maybe watch on YouTube.
00:15:24
Speaker
the key points towards the end of the last game, which is helpful for context, because I forgot a lot of characters and what had happened specifically. And I just wanted the rough high-level notes of, here's what happened and why it's important, but cool. We don't need to go to every single specific inside question how it tied in. But just having the context of specifically who Freya is and why she's mad, that was a good thing. That's a big one, yeah. Very early on in the game,
00:15:53
Speaker
Freya's shows up and she's still actively trying to murder you. I'm like, right. Killed her son. Whoops. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, I think they do a pretty good job with that, too, because I didn't watch the introduction and it's been, you know.
00:16:12
Speaker
as many years as I played the original God of War, right? So I did feel like they kind of introduced the main plot hooks in such a way that you can kind of catch back up. You don't really have to watch the recap, but it's nice that it's there. And I think more games should do something like that because it almost gives you like a
00:16:34
Speaker
We were recently talking about Alan Wake and Alan Wake actually literally does this to an extreme extent. We're like between chapters. It's like previously on Alan Wake and then we'll like tell you what you just did.
00:16:50
Speaker
as though you set the game down like every half hour you're like okay gotta go for a run. I like that though it's it's fun in an episodic way because one it kind of encourages you to like break it up yes uh two they did it also in like wolf among us and i kind of like like the
00:17:10
Speaker
for something that's more weighted in a story fashion that kind of like, hey, here's where the emphasis is on this stuff. Like sure, maybe did some other things, but it's like, hey, just like these are the high level beats. Okay, cool. Next part. Yeah. It's fun to have like those gaming sessions versus like I can't sit down and just even for like a new game, like play it for eight hours. When I was playing War Ragnarok in the other room,
00:17:36
Speaker
I had like, Oh, there's my specific God of war time. I think I was also sick of the time. Cause remember drinking a fuck ton of tea, but I would sit there for like two hours or two and a half hours exactly. And then like, okay, I'm done. And I'd be like, Oh, I wonder what's going to happen next. And it was fun to kind of go to like the week by week.
00:17:54
Speaker
I didn't play it for a week at a time. I was going to say, you're, you're, you're just conditioned by the anime release approach where it's like you get one piece, one content drop every week. And so people, people can get used to, I think just engaging in multiple content drops for all of these different things. But like my natural inclination is just like.
00:18:18
Speaker
I'm going to watch Ghost in the Shell this year and that will happen over the course of a week and then I'm done. That's anime. I've hit the quota.
00:18:32
Speaker
Because I feel like if I just binge it too much without having those things and something again that's more story driven or where the story actually matters, it is so easy for me to become lost in the weeds. Yeah. Because everything just kind of blends together. If I don't have any like separation, I'm just like, oh, I'm on this main quest. I forget which side quests happened along the way, which ones are tied to what. Yeah. And it's just all like stuff happened.
00:18:58
Speaker
I think some games are worse for that than others. Taking this back to games for a second, cause I definitely started to drift off into no man's land. Ragnarok does a pretty good job of having like a couple main story beats that right now, like I could still talk about and will still talk about. Whereas my memory is not normally too good for like moment to moment gameplay, right? Like I'm not gonna remember all the bosses,
00:19:27
Speaker
or whatever the heck, but there's a couple standout moments and there's a couple important things that happened. And as long as those are happening at a decent clip and not like overwhelming, I can stand to play a little bit longer. I definitely had some longer play sessions for Ragnarok. I mean, when you were grinding out the, not the Raiders, the Barbarians, Pirates. The Berserkers. Berserkers, yeah. Yeah.
00:19:55
Speaker
I knew it was a D&D class. Yes, that's not one of them. But yeah, I don't play D&D. Berserker is, it's an archetype. I knew what I was doing and I apologize for doing it. It was a bait. It was all a bait. It was a bait, yeah. Or battle rager, actually. I don't even know if Berserker is, but anyways. Yeah, I didn't have too much of that issue. Ragnarok also has really good pacing.
00:20:25
Speaker
So it'll say like, here's your peak. Here's where like, Oh, you started to drop off a little bit. We're doing a little bit too much talking, a little bit too much puzzle solving. Somebody just like punched you into a cut scene. Um, and then that cut scene lasted like four seconds and now it's a boss fight or something like that. Um, which is pretty much the high, the high point of the series for me. I really do enjoy the combat.
00:20:48
Speaker
Yeah, it feels really good. I found myself exploring a little bit more and actually trying to do more of the optional combat and puzzle challenges, usually because they were tied to some type of upgrade material. I'm like, why is my guy suck? Yeah. Yes, it was me the whole time. I said, but that's not true. I'll defend you in this. The game does do the the not everything levels around you like Skyrim approach where true.
00:21:18
Speaker
There are a lot of fights out there that are specifically like, this guy has a skull on his health bar. You can try to fight him. He'll kill you in two hits. If you fail the parry, two hits, you will die. Also, he has some true combos. So some of those are multi-hit. So good luck. Thumbs up.
00:21:36
Speaker
and programming is always a mechanic that I forget exists. But in my head, there was specifically the ice worm fight in Alfheim, in the Alfheim desert. When I came across that, first off, I could not find the third fucking pillar for the life of me. It was around the corner.
00:21:56
Speaker
But as I was learning how to do that, I was like, okay, I know what I'm doing wrong and where I'm fucking up. I just kept going back to it for a bit.
Combat Challenges and Strategy
00:22:03
Speaker
And I think I did that one for like half an hour and actually was severely under leveled and under skilled at that point. But it felt good. I keep going back into it and be like, okay, I know what to do and how like the fight flows and operates and how
00:22:19
Speaker
I was going to interact with like my special abilities and like when I was going to throw an axe first versus switching to the whips. Right. Chains, if you will. Mm hmm. Like it does feel really good to do the combat. But I did notice several times specifically in Alfheim where I was definitely underleveled and was getting my ass beat. I needed to a change of my strategy or be just come back. Yeah, I think that's one of the ones that has some of the
00:22:48
Speaker
Berserker fights you can encounter early that, um, Kratos is not at that level yet. Like your gear is not upgraded. Um, I kind of brute force my way through some of them, but yeah, I was, I was treating it like a second row boss. I was like, okay, you know, slap space between attempts. All right. Got a true up here. Calm down. Think about what I did wrong in that last encounter. Visualize let's figure out, you know, how we can do this better.
00:23:13
Speaker
And then like note by note, make the same mistakes over and over again for two hours. So there was a little bit of that, but I don't know. It's, it's fun. And the resets, they're a little, if I were to gripe, if I were to just find like a thing to poke, poke a gripe in, uh, the resets are like a little bit longer than I like. If I'm going to be like death zergin a boss fight. Um, but that is honestly a very minor thing.
00:23:43
Speaker
I played Super Meat Boy. That's the problem. I played Super Meat Boy, or you can hit a button, and it's just like, you're at the beginning. Let's go. What does the Super Meat Boy have to load? The Meat Boy sprite? OK, that's it. Yeah, arguably a little bit harder to do in God of War. But I also, there's an upgrade both this game had and the previous game, which is like the casual consumable, is what I'm going to call it. So I used it all the time once I remembered
00:24:13
Speaker
But if you die you can press the button and if your companions with you a companion is with you. They'll revive you You can keep fighting Yeah, I was trying some fights without it and past the point I realized that I'm just not that good It helps a lot Yeah, I just I Didn't use that because I was taking valuable currency and then I wanted for other things so I just died a lot more than I probably needed to and
00:24:43
Speaker
It is the least valuable currency I will interject because it's just the hack silver. You get so much of it throughout the course of the game that unless you're trying to upgrade like every piece of gear and even if you are you can actually farm it at certain points.
00:24:57
Speaker
If you start, if you're playing God of war or you will play God of war and you're watching this listening to this full spoilers thing, spend your silver on the revive item. It's okay. I enable you. I disable you with a judgment, but nothing else beyond that. I really don't give a shit. I just, it just wasn't for me. Yeah. I mean, so fun. Okay. If it makes you feel any better, I use the one with rage.
00:25:28
Speaker
The one that gives you like a full bar of rage instead of a ton of health. Oh, okay. Nice. Yeah. That's hardcore. I think I want to use my rage for honestly. Oh no, my rage, it became for healing. So it was just getting into the same pattern of play style where I would cycle between my weapons and be like,
00:25:49
Speaker
Is my R1 up? Is my R2 up? I just like, chain special abilities, switch weapons, chain special abilities, use my other weapon.
00:25:59
Speaker
I just go through all of that. Then I look like, how much else did I have left? Well, got to buy some time. And then I would hit them normally with a stick and then back off a little bit and then do that again. And I beat the game, so fuck off. But that's fair. That's fair. And there are, to your credit, there are some pretty difficult main story bosses. The berserker fight is obviously more difficult. But there are a couple that
00:26:24
Speaker
Who are the guys who come up and out of the ground who were like really pissed? They have two swords. Yeah, the draugr. Yeah. They thought surprisingly aggressively. They are very much like the berserker fights. They don't go to your level. And they have like an enrage mode and sometimes they get covered in fire. And if they're covered in fire and you attack them, they explode, which just hurts anyone in melee, which is probably you. Yeah.
00:26:50
Speaker
So until you kind of like learn that and work around it, they're terrible. But to the game's credit, they do provide what feels like a lot of options for playstyle for combat because you have three weapons. Spoilers. You have your axe, frost axe. You have your flamey chain whips and you and then you get the.
00:27:14
Speaker
Yeah, when you've thrown the axe trick out over the axes, and you're punching people. There's a set of armor that's specific to it, though, specifically for using your face. It gives you a poison modifier and some other stuff. I really only use that in the first game for building up stun. Yeah.
00:27:34
Speaker
But like they also have the spear. But like in each of those, they have like, hey, you're some melee options. Here's some range options. Oh, are you attacking while backing up? Here's another option for that. And I'm like, I want to hit the buttons until they die. And then if I fuck up, you know, maybe learn from that mistake and go from there. But they really do give you a lot of options for every single thing, it feels like. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The I really like the system in this one. I don't recall if everything came over.
00:28:03
Speaker
Um, we haven't really talked about shields yet, but in the original, I think shields were only for parrying and there was only the one type. Everything else was cosmetic. Uh, the spear is new to this game and the spear is my favorite. Honestly. Um, I kind of like favors ranged, but it also has some other utility, like stealing enemy elements and stuff. Um, that it was just super cool. And I actually like, so I was playing late and then I like went to bed and I was like, all right, Jenny.
00:28:32
Speaker
I've got to tell you about this magic item. Cause this is such a cool idea for a ring. Like I had a character in a campaign where he made a magic spear. He could call back to himself basically kind of think like Thor's hammer of returning would be the suffix, right? But the idea that there's a magic ring that just generates infinite spears is just the coolest thing and they use it to such great effect.
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah. I didn't know where they were going with it initially, but I was like, Oh, I like that. I didn't really throw the spirit too much outside of like, this is the mechanic. Um, I did like aggressively just thrusting into people zing. Um, but it feels like a more aggressive option even than the whips. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's pretty balanced actually.
00:29:26
Speaker
I don't think it has the highest damage, I think both the...
00:29:30
Speaker
Uh, what are they? Blades of something edgy. Chaos. I can't remember the term. Chaos. Yeah. Of the, the maximum edgy. Have to use chaos. I am going to kill chaos. Um, and the, uh, Leviathan X both probably have better DPS. I'm not going to present sure. I would assume so. Just based off of it, also doing a stat modifier. Yeah. Which I don't think, uh, spear does bite a vault. Yeah. Spear is, um,
00:30:00
Speaker
it comes with luck as you level up your spirit gives you luck which is cool so there's a bunch of different stats I think they were the same kind of in the first game and there's a bunch of different builds you can equip different like gems for some some different effects and things I went mostly like
00:30:18
Speaker
I had decent strength, but like defense and luck, I think. I had a bunch of like on proc effects, so. Spear's freaking great though. Yeah, big fan. Had a lot of good success with it, and if you didn't use it a lot, one of the cool little tidbits is if an enemy's gonna channel something, and you've embedded some spears, because here's the spear mechanic. You can embed spears in an enemy, some of the melee attacks sometimes ranged,
00:30:48
Speaker
And then there's a detonate button, which is like you slam your spear in the ground and there's this metallic, you know, like metal on stone sound is the way to describe it probably. And the spears detonate wherever they are on explosion. That can interrupt enemies that are channeling an attack, including bosses. So like those orb enemies that when you encountered in the desert, there's a particular thing where it'll become vulnerable and you can put it in like a staggered state.
00:31:17
Speaker
Um, but only if you attack it when it's in that vulnerable state, throw a couple of spears at it, just like attack it, just wait for it to go there and then hit the button straight to stagger. That's great. The strategy tactics. Like I said, I didn't use any strategy, but that is good to know. How did you feel about the puzzle solving as far as optional stuff? I'm not huge into it. Probably. Hmm.
00:31:47
Speaker
I don't really like puzzles. That's kind of the problem. So like. They do something for pacing. I get that. Right. Maybe the game would be a little too, too much adrenaline if they took the puzzles out. But I don't think there was ever a time I came across one of the, the nor near chests where you have to find symbols. And I was like, I am excited for what is about to happen. Correct. Yeah. It's.
00:32:17
Speaker
It's usually like a lot of just like panning your camera, looking for stuff. It feels almost kind of too slow of a change of pace. Or I'm going to throw my ax into this piece of purple and see where it bounces. And it'll give me the little peggle line for where it says it's going to go.
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah, some of those, it felt like I really had to keep looking around and positioning through the exact spot. And then when you find out what it is, like, oh, OK. It doesn't feel rewarding in the same way. It just feels like.
00:32:51
Speaker
You're, you're doing like a mini scavenger hunt each time. It's like, all right, I've hidden three eggs. You're like, it's two AM. Are we doing this? And you're like, yeah, like the kid runs off like, all right. Um, yeah. And some of them are timed. So like, it'll be spinning. You have to like get all of them spinning at the same time, time with a Leviathan X or detonate them with the spear or something like that. Like there's, there's different types, but.
00:33:17
Speaker
This as well as some of the other collectibles in the game, the Ravens. There's Odin's Ravens. Odin is a character in the game, I'm sure we'll talk about. I just don't really like collectibles in games. I don't know if any of them improved my experience versus I checked a side path and there was a chest and there was loot inside of it. They definitely pad out the time, but I don't care about that. And I would almost consider that a negative, right?
00:33:46
Speaker
I did like figuring one or two out, but again, it's usually more of like a, Oh, that's what you want me to do. Fine. Yeah. It feels more like you're, it just feels very begrudging the whole thing. There's one that I didn't hate or hate is a strong word, but I kind of liked with the, uh, there was treasure hunt things where you would get like a picture of a location.
00:34:13
Speaker
And if you take a look at that picture, it'll be like for a specific area. You'd be like, ah, I've seen that statue knocked over. I bet that's, I know where that treasure is. And you can just run and pick it up. And the treasure actually isn't spawned into the world until you get the treasure map. And that's kind of cool. It's, you know, it's a little bit Sea of Thieves, which is not a terrible thing.
00:34:37
Speaker
See, I was using the same example as a counterpoint because I haven't played that much. You see, so when I got a thing like I don't know where the fuck this is. And then I'd put and put it away and keep playing. And at some point later, it's like, hey, you found the treasure. And I'd look at like, oh, I guess it is the same place. Yeah. And then I would move on. It seemed very random to me, but I wasn't really looking out for that. Though I will say, scenery wise, it is very pretty. Yeah, it looks great.
00:35:06
Speaker
I love the art design and the world there. I did not necessarily like traversing parts of the world where it gets into the, hey, you got to put your hand in these handholds and scale a cliff. And I'm like, oh, can I drop down quickly? They're like, nah. Can I jump up quickly? Nah. Yeah. OK. Now, to be fair, it is usually tied with,
00:35:33
Speaker
story or like some dialogue where like two characters are talking and it makes sense to like, Hey, we don't want to interrupt this with action. So we'll give you a slower pace thing. But maybe you've already completed that area. You're just kind of looking around for a collectible or just exploring for a box to punch to get some hacksilver. And then it's like, Hey, this feels awkwardly slow. Yeah. I think, and I could be wrong, but I think some of those hid some in-level loading.
00:36:03
Speaker
of assets. Oh, any time you were in a tunnel or something like that. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. Because I mean, the obvious one is the actual the world tree, which you go back every time you load. And it was the same in the previous game. We just ran around in a straight line for like a thing like, oh, wait, there's the door. Yeah. It it's kind of novel until you remember that it's literally Assassin's Creed, where it let you jump around in the simulation.
00:36:32
Speaker
until it was time to load in. But they do some dialogue. You can practice your move set if you want. Be like, oh yeah, I can dodge back and then throw my axe and I'll spin a circle or whatever. But yeah, I have the same gripe, right? Like this is fitting into that nice bucket that's being full at this point of things that slowed down the pace of the game that I didn't particularly find moment by moment enjoyment in.
Game Pacing Critique
00:36:58
Speaker
But I acknowledge that
00:37:02
Speaker
The game is not like it's not supposed to be ghost runner always on or something like that. And maybe it would be fatiguing if you were fighting that much, but there are a couple big fights in the game and like battles that carry on a little bit. And I enjoyed those segments. Right. So maybe, maybe we don't need the slow parts. No slow parts 2023. That's the next games coming out. Right.
00:37:29
Speaker
Probably not. There's no there's probably good end of episode thing, but I don't think there's any Confirmed or even rumored continuation for the series. It will be a couple of years likely Yeah, they didn't do the same thing though. They didn't have a teaser for this one. That's true We'll see I guess The characters added in this one sure because I would say there's a lot of
00:37:58
Speaker
Yeah, I felt like in game one, it's like Kratos, boy, Mamir, Freya head. Yeah. And then like Baldur and his relatives kind of. Yeah, Thor's brothers also are characters for a while. Thor's sons. That's right, his sons. Yeah, yeah.
00:38:29
Speaker
Um, I can't even remember their names. Nobody knows. They do bring it up in this game a couple of times. Um, cause like when you're playing as Loki with Thor, like they talk about that son that you explicitly stabbed when you're a little shit bag. Yeah. But again, I don't even remember his name after I played both games. Yeah, I can't recall either, but.
00:38:56
Speaker
There are a lot in this one, right? They introduce Freya, Freya's brother. Freya becomes more of a character. Atreus fills out his character arc like a lot more in this one. And that's actually a question I would ask because there are playable segments here. So in the previous game, it was all Kratos all the time, 24-7.
00:39:19
Speaker
You only need the edge, et cetera, et cetera. But like in this one, they do try to split it up and have you play as Atreus at times. How do you feel about playing as Atreus and then also just Atreus? I kind of like it and him as a character. Like I understand like for the age that character is at,
00:39:49
Speaker
Like, I understand the character. I don't necessarily like playing as the character. He's like 14, 15, something like that in this one around. Like, it's not like he has bad moves. It's not like he's a shiddly written character or anything. But like, I don't want the teenage boy when I'm here. I'm here for the bear, not the. But like, which is funny because he does transform into a bear. So right. Right.
00:40:17
Speaker
Game of Thrones missed opportunity, but I'm very much here for Kratos and his playstyle. It's cool to have some ranged options as a trace, of course, but the whole time it felt like I was waiting to catch back up with Kratos' storyline and what was going on overall.
00:40:38
Speaker
So, like, I didn't really care as much about, like, Atreus' backstory and the inclusion of, hey, all the giants are hiding in these pebbles. And there's a bunch of them. And that'll be for DLC later. And I'm like, OK. It just didn't grab me in the same way. Yeah. I mean, that's fair to say. I'm similar, similarly inclined. I think he's mostly a plot device in the greater story.
00:41:08
Speaker
Even the playable segments. I mean, I can respect what he does as Loki and like kind of not the most adept at it. This is not this is not Marvel, Loki. You know, this is he's still a boy becoming a man. Yes, he does not have advanced subterfuge skills skills at this point, but he does kind of get over on Asgard a bit, which is, you know, part of the plot is
00:41:38
Speaker
Odin's the bad guy, whoa. And he and the Asgardians are- Odin, not somebody else. Odin, yeah. And they're this big threat and they've done all this terrible stuff to the realm.
00:41:55
Speaker
Odin seems willing to use Loki to assemble this mask and look into a tear that was created when you mirror the first giant. Obviously, you guys would be familiar with this if you watched Attack on Titan. Yeah, died. And. So Loki's like getting some of this information and it's not really clear how much work he's going to do with Odin.
00:42:24
Speaker
And so there's a little bit of ambiguity for his playable sections, but ultimately he's, he's homeboy. So. Yeah. But I mean, at the point where it initially starts to happen until like a, a point much later in the game, towards the end of the game, uh, you are very unsure about, I wouldn't say it traces allegiance, but you don't understand the full.
00:42:51
Speaker
scope of everybody's intentions and you feel like you might be helping out the bad guys. That's the vibe you have the entire time and it doesn't feel good. It is cool to see the other side of things. You actually get to see Asgard. You get to see the people there and how they interact with each other and the effect of
00:43:14
Speaker
you know, you murdering some other family like it actually tells more of a story and it humanizes a lot of characters, which I thought was a nice touch from a storytelling perspective instead of
00:43:28
Speaker
how they did for Last of Us 2, where it's like, hey, how do we get them to care about these other people? Right. Kick the dog. Kick the dog. Always kick the dog. Like the one plot device. Oh no, James. While you were describing that, I just imagine it's like a Maury episode, but it's like Odin. And he's like, bring out Sif and bring out Atreus. The crowd is like, oh.
00:43:55
Speaker
Uh, yeah, it's, it is a little bit like that though. Yeah. They're like, um, a conflicting, conflicting motivations for sure. For a lot of those characters. And it does have a, a bit of a happy, happy twist. I don't know. Am I disappointed that the, I feel like you jumped, you jumped plot wise to something that pass me. I want to talk about. Sure. Let's jump back to here. Sure.
00:44:24
Speaker
I teared up at many points in the story, particularly about two hours of attempts on that berserker. Yeah, here is this guy. He's prophesied to lead a revolt against Odin and like take him down and start Ragnarok, et cetera.
00:44:43
Speaker
So like early on in the game, you helped here out by freeing him from prison. And they just kind of like hanging out the dwarf house with y'all. And like you're essentially assembling the team slowly. Like, yes, you're on board with Freya now. You guys are no longer enemies. You get Freya as well, who like, OK, I don't know too much about that side character, but they exist.
00:45:07
Speaker
Um, tears, also the Norse God of war. We should, we should interject. So when they were both in the same room, I was just like, if they touch, is this like an anti-matter thing? Or it's like, I don't know. But like, just a cool character overall. And I was invested about like, where's this going to go? Yeah. Um, cause tears are pacifist. That's the important thing. I really want to bring up the, uh, the red versus blue joke from like 14 years ago.
00:45:37
Speaker
I'm sure that's still very popular media and everyone except me will probably get it. Well, it's just at the time, the joke was the one character misunderstands the pacifist and like, why are you calling him a pussy fest? Gotcha. Gotcha. No, he doesn't want to fight people. Yeah. So you call him a. Anyway.
00:45:59
Speaker
Um, but like everything with teary storyline is, was interesting to me. And then teary just fucking stabs a Brock and he's like, yo, I've been Odin the whole time. Um, babies, wayla's play in the background.
00:46:17
Speaker
And it felt like a really cool reveal, because I did not know. Yeah. They technically do leave some breadcrumbs. If you go and look back, you can then say, oh, I guess that would make sense. We're not looking at in the context of, is this Odin? You're just like, this is gameplay. I've freed a character. I'm building the dream team. So the whole time, you're doing everything as Kratos or Atreus. Odin has knowledge of everything that's happening, because he's
00:46:43
Speaker
Hanging out with you guys. She's already soaking up the information. Odin's coming from inside the house. Yeah, and it felt like a cool, a cool reveal, cool drop. Yeah. Because like the whole time, like everyone says like Odin's like a shifty motherfucker and you shouldn't trust them. But they always depict him in game as like seemingly a pretty reasonable person for every single interaction you have. Yes. Yeah. I mean, yeah, kind of.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah, I did really like the reveal. I think it actually plays into, um, we've talked about the proper setup for a twist, which is you don't actually provide people enough information and they'll figure it out unless they're like psychopaths. Um, instead you just provide enough information that people are like, huh, first of all,
00:47:36
Speaker
They don't notice it at all. And then you start to ramp it up till this is a sense of unease or like I feel like I'm missing something. And then you give them the twist and hopefully they figure it out right before you outright tell them. And this game nailed that perfectly. Yeah, they did. They did a Westworld episode seven. Yeah. That was nice. It was really cool. And a tear has
00:48:06
Speaker
There's some setup in the post game, which I did go through and do. And I know we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll go back and talk more about the plot and things like that. But Odin is manipulating. Um, he's doing a really good job of impersonating tier. And some of the few times that he screws up, there's like a little foil to call somebody by the wrong name or something like that. That's all a hint the entire time. And it has big, um, Bioshock one vibes to me where it's like, I wasn't going to figure this out, but
00:48:35
Speaker
You're right. And now I'm thinking back to all those times and it all just fits in. Yeah. I like the the knowledge drop into like that you look back and you're like, oh, all of these dots are now connected. Yes, exactly. I did not see the the red string and all of these clothespins in my wall. Right. Yeah. The murder wall has been assembled.
00:49:00
Speaker
But yeah, really interesting character. And I liked the, it's a big difference in the new God of War compared to the old one where Kratos is just like, he shouts all the time. I watched some clips and like that voice actor must have quit immediately afterwards because he had to shout every single line he said in the old God of War. But in the new one, Kratos is a little bit reformed. He literally finds a pacifist God of War
00:49:29
Speaker
who's like, I'm broken. I am not willing to fight anymore. It's wrong to do so. And Kratos is like, I can work with this. This is not how old Kratos would have taken this. Yeah. So I don't know. I like the character interactions. The character interactions are really well done. They recorded tons of lines.
00:49:52
Speaker
I mentioned it, but the previous game, Mimir was often referred to as just head by Kratos. And pretty exclusively, he calls him Mimir in this one. And there's some brotherly back and forth ribbing and chuckling and stuff like that. It's just wholesome. What somebody pointed out, it might have been Stacy, but somebody said basically that like,
00:50:20
Speaker
Mimir and Kratos do like this gay dad co-parenting of Atreus. And I was like, Oh my God, you're right. That's funny.
Character Dynamics
00:50:27
Speaker
Two and a half men. One and one 10th. To be fair, Mimir is ahead above the rest. There you go.
00:50:41
Speaker
But yeah, all of the character interactions, like you mentioned before, Atreus was like your only real side pal or companion in the first game. But as you switch between, I'm playing as Atreus, I'm playing as Kratos. Maybe you're teamed up with Freya. Maybe you're teamed up with Brock or Sindri. And there's a lot of good fleshing out the characters and the world's dialogue and interaction between them.
00:51:03
Speaker
So, it doesn't feel like meaningless. Anytime I had like a new matchup, I'm like, oh shit, yeah. Like, I was stoked to do Kratos and Brock. Yeah. Because Kratos is very terse and very like, give me the information. Let's do the thing. And then Brock's foul mouth, but also very, he doesn't do any bullshit. He doesn't do any like flowery language around something. He's just like,
00:51:31
Speaker
Here's what it is. But he's also surprisingly wise. So just having them interact together was like a really cool playoff of each other.
00:51:42
Speaker
Yeah, we didn't even mention them in our character lineup. Brock and Sindri. They're so, they're so core, it seems like. And they, they sort of like an even greater function in this one than the first game. Um, and they're more entwined with the plot and all of that. Um, they're also just the best characters. Like they're like,
00:52:04
Speaker
If Peabody and Atlas had voices, yeah, they had voices. This is who they would be. I can see that. I can see that. Yeah. But yeah, they're solid characters.
00:52:20
Speaker
it makes it all the more impactful like when Brock dies because like he's dead dead and then it fucks up with Sindri because he's partially responsible for like, I shouldn't say partially, he is responsible for Brock not being able to come back to life again because he lost that key part of his soul. But I like dark Sindri who just like
00:52:42
Speaker
rules of nature. Well, somebody's like always like super timid, like he doesn't like things being dirty. He's very like, oh, oh, you know, one of the he's a Peabody, if you will. Yes. Yeah. And then when Brock dies.
00:52:59
Speaker
He's just, he doesn't, he like, he abandons everything. He's like, I don't care about any of that stuff because it doesn't matter because I've lost Brock. So like there is no point to anything. And like at the end of the game, after you defeat Odin and then you put his soul in a pebble and you're like, what should we do? Do we have the right to, you know, really decide if somebody lives or die? And then Cindy just comes up and just fucking crushes it. Yeah. Just crushes it with a fucking hammer and he's fucking,
00:53:28
Speaker
He looks so angry all the time. Yeah. It's really funny. I love the moment for the, the reversal kind of, cause like there's two, two likely outcomes, right? Because Freya is the one who's been wronged by Odin, like the most among the party present. Yeah. And it's just like, is she, she would be within our rights to just end him here. That's why she's here. Right. And she's like.
00:53:54
Speaker
The real treasure were the friends we made along the way and then just straight up grabs it and smashes it. And it's just it's such a good subversion because Sindri doesn't care. He doesn't stick around afterwards. He just kills Odin and leaves. Yeah. Did you end up going back and playing? I did. Okay. The epilogue quest there. The funeral for Brock.
00:54:17
Speaker
Um, Oh, maybe we'll get some resolution with Sindri. Nah, not really. Not really. Yeah. He's a Lord of hatred in the next Diablo game is Sindri. So we'll see how that, how that ends up. Um, but yeah, I dunno, they were, they were great.
00:54:38
Speaker
There were other side characters too. Thrude, I believe her name is. I really like her. She has a very believable character who's like...
00:54:50
Speaker
She's in the place where she kind of wants to be friends with Atreus, right? Like, and they start to build that friendship. And it's not Romeo and Juliet, because they're not like romantically into each other at all. But it's like a companionship that is doomed by their families. Well, it's like, hey, is your dad a crazy god? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Me too. Those my. Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:18
Speaker
But, but I think she's the game does a good job of making the bad guys believable, which Western media does not often do. This is something I see more in anime. Yeah, it's a lot of times it's over the top.
00:55:37
Speaker
stuff for the sake of being over the top. Like it's getting a lot of like eighties films where it's how evil is this person? They want to take down the ski slope for business, but like they have them always be like they have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Like they're just a swirling evil. They're just a douche for douches sake. Um,
00:55:57
Speaker
And it sucks from a writing standpoint, because I understand sometimes you're like, we just need an antagonist, and that's the role that they will fill. Cool. But for me, it's always more interesting. This is a point you've always brought up every time we've brought up storytelling or anything. Everybody is a hero in their own mind. Yeah. So it makes sense to apply that to the villain or the antagonist character of what are their actual motivations. And for a lot of good stories,
00:56:27
Speaker
Now I'm a suit myself by using a bad example of Fates stay night. Okay. Interesting. All right. I don't think it's a great enemy of any means, but you have these two characters, Kirito and.
00:56:41
Speaker
the other one. I'm not going to be able to correct any of this. All right. I watched this once a decade ago. Yeah, it's it's not worth going back. But like you understand both characters motivations. Yeah. They're on opposing sides for where they land. But you understand where both are coming from.
00:57:01
Speaker
And that is helpful because again, put in that character's shoes and given these events happen to them that they would have this outlook on life, you're like, no, that actually makes sense. Even if you don't like them, even if you don't want them to win, you can at least empathize with them or sympathize with them to a degree to say, I understand where you're coming from. I understand why the character would do that.
00:57:27
Speaker
instead of just they're on screen, everybody's booze and throws popcorn like, Oh, they're the Grinch is on. They're the worst. Uh-huh. Yeah. Like Robbie Rotten. Yeah. Um, slip and fall on a banana peel. Um, yeah, I think this game nails it too. Right? Like looking at the characters.
00:57:48
Speaker
The protagonist and the antagonist for each of them, I think by the end of the game, you can answer the question of what do they want or what did they want. And that is the key. That is the core that you build a character around, be them a hero, a villain. That is just their means that branches out of what they want. Like Thor wants a family, but he also wants acceptance. And Odin is not ever gonna give that to him.
00:58:16
Speaker
Like, Thrude wants a family. Sif wants a family. There's a lot of, you're going to see a lot of family themes in this game as you play through. It's subtle, but you can barely pick them out. Atreus wants meaning. He wants to find out what his purpose is. He also kind of wants a family. Freya is like, she wants her brother and she wants revenge.
00:58:43
Speaker
But she kind of like it through her her dialogue, you get more of a glimpse that she's like deeply attached to her world and being stranded in Midgard for so long, kind of separated her from this piece of Anaheim is her realm. And like Kratos is just he wants what's best for his son. Full stop to any means necessary.
00:59:13
Speaker
Um, the villains are the same, even the ones like Odin. I love Odin as a character, by the way, because like every scene that he's in there, he's just like old man with a cane. Uh, but he gets, he gets energized when he's looking about these secrets of the universe. And he doesn't lie about that. That is actually what he wants. The thing that he hides is that nothing else matters to him. Yeah. Everything else is really, I would say it means to an end, but like they just.
00:59:44
Speaker
They exist as other variables, pretty much. Because one of the big turning points, obviously, is at the end where Thor is like, hey, guys, maybe we shouldn't. And then Odin just stabs him immediately without question. And he's like, I'm sorry that it came to this, or I'm sorry this had to happen.
01:00:07
Speaker
but he wasn't sorry that he killed his son. He's like, you're in the way now. Yes. Yeah. You were hindrance, not a benefit. Exactly. You're against me. You're not with me. That's all that matters. Yeah. It just doesn't mean anything. It's not like he turned on a dime. Like I don't think he actually ever really cared about his son or the rest of his family. Yeah. It's very much like, uh, how can they serve me for my overall goal or scheme?
01:00:32
Speaker
Yeah. Which was really trying to look into the secret of the mask, which I don't think ever really gets explained. No, it doesn't. It is some vague magic. They very explicitly closed the door on it too, right? They're just like, in goes the mask and the portal's finally closed. They will never know, which is fine. I mean, to be fair, we all know what happens when you put on the mask.
01:00:57
Speaker
It's true. You become Jim Carrey. Yeah. Because here's the thing. That mask is actually Loki's mask. OK. Like in the movie, the mask that is the origin of the mask is Loki's mask. It was a wooden mask in the Jim Carrey movie, too. It was very similar, wasn't it? Yeah. Oh, no.
01:01:21
Speaker
It's all connected, baby. It's all connected. Yeah, I like I think that's one of that's the strength, though. Like if you go, if you're going to play this game and you've listened to this and you didn't have any interest in it, but you're interested now, I recommend it for the gameplay. I recommend it for the story. The first one's the same. But I mean, they did ramp things up, I think, in the second one coming out of here, I was like,
01:01:49
Speaker
Fallout did this thing where there's this like the splash screens where it tells you how each faction had their ending and it's like in the Brotherhood of Steel were Wiped out in the wasteland because some crazy guy with a plasma rifle showed up one day and went to town And that's kind of the vibe I get for each of these characters There's even like the epilogue sequence where you're walking through and talking to them where it's just like
01:02:16
Speaker
It is their character cut mid credits. Yeah. With them kind of stopping back in to say like, how's it going champ? You know, like I am great. I was the God of war. Good game though. I think it's great. Yeah.
01:02:40
Speaker
Um, honestly, just a high recommend still, there's one or two, I think a minor missteps for like things to me just seem unrelated for like a section of story here or there, or just maybe to understand part of an interaction, um, had very minor bugs in the way of like a companion not following correctly. Where the one time I mentioned, I think that one event didn't trigger, I just had to relaunch my game, but that's really it.
01:03:09
Speaker
I had audio issues, but I'm playing on PS4. I don't know if that was the same for PS5. If you had similar issues where it sounds kind of like Teni or Machini in the background, you can play around with it and move more of the dialogue into like the center channel. And that fixed it up for me. I did have to sacrifice some of that surround sound detection of where dialogue was coming from, but it didn't matter. You're going to ruin the main theme when that kicks in.
01:03:48
Speaker
I don't know the other notes after that. I know it's like deep humming. There is some humming. Yeah, but I recommend it as is often the case. I mean, this is this is an expensive game. But if you have any interest in playing it, Dave,
01:04:05
Speaker
left his copy at my house, so just reach out to me.
01:04:10
Speaker
We want to get this across state lines and see how far to the west coast we can make it, boys. Let's ship it around. So the brotherhood of the traveling God of War can CD or DVD. It'll be like the one hug bot that made it down to Philadelphia. Oh, yeah. And that's where it will die. It did die in an alleyway in Philly. So that's just that's just life. I don't know if that was a hug or if it was just traveling, but I know it was beat to death in an alleyway in Philly. That's the only thing I remember.
01:04:44
Speaker
But I Hope you guys aren't beat to death in an alleyway in Philly. That's my my desire for this year If you guys have ideas for new episodes different games we could cover Maybe maybe games that we could pretend that we covered but we don't actually play you can send those into soapstone podcast gmail.com or
01:05:05
Speaker
You can join the discussion on Facebook owned by the medicorporation at facebook.com slash slipstone podcast As always we'll see in the next one