Opposite Day — The Worst Things About My Favourite Game: God of War (2018)

Ever since I got my hands on God of War (2018), I felt like I had awakened as a gamer. It's been a title that accompanies me throughout my life, with consistent replays and references that — quite frankly — would not be possible without its existence. Time and again I've mentioned that it is, single-handedly, my favourite videogaming experience that I think everyone should try.

But today? Today's National Opposite Day, which means that I am no longer looking to spread positivity around this title. Through all of the love I've given Santa Monica Studios (and over 100 hours playing their game), it's time I sit down and get a reality check — here are the worst things about God of War (2018).

Please bear in mind: this game is nearly six years old now, which means that I will be treating this as an article from the perspective of most people having played the game. I will be including spoilers here that talk about the final sequences of the game. You have been warned!

Alfheim

ugh... here we go again...

Your journey starts with a now-aged Kratos (who is looking spry for a 1,055-year-old man) and his son, Atreus, cremate the young boy's mother and must fulfil her dying wish of having her ashes spread at the peak of the realms. This ensues the 20+ hour narrative where you'll travel through Midgard in order to reach the peak, spread her ashes, and go home for much-needed rest. Then you kill a god, meet the smartest man alive, cut off his head, resurrect it with the help of a goddess, go to another realm, then many more, and then suddenly it becomes far more complex than it originally started.

All's fine and well as you traverse through Midgard, and there are even some fun realms that you can go to... but the first one you go to, and the one that's supposed to set the tone and pace of the game, is none other than Alfheim — home of elves. This is easily my least favourite area of the game, as it quickly becomes a slogfest where you go from foe to foe without the first semblance of enemy variety (more on that later), but it doesn't feel as epic, and if anything, Alfheim manages to make the experience feel very linear and segmented.

It doesn't paint an excellent picture for the rest of the game and the realms — it felt like a needless deviation from the primary goal only to have an excuse to have Kratos and Boi travel to a new dimension that was likely difficult to add elsewise. The boss is an uninspired, copy-paste version of the enemies you (quickly) get tired of fighting, and the slow pacing as you climb up to the light of Alfheim is not only disgusting for trypophobic-sensitive folk but also slow and linear.

It does culminate in a pretty cool section where you kill everything super easily (and a fantastic look at how the Zeus-armour run looks like), but if I could skip it, I would. Speaking of skipping…

Unskippable Cutscenes in Your First Playthrough

Now, this is a problem specifically for anyone who had to play the game on the PlayStation on release, impulsively bought it on PC, and then replayed it a lot of times on PC, too. At this point, you've heard each one of Kratos' lessons at least five times, you have memorised a lot of the greatest lines, and sometimes, all you want to do is punch a Draugr in the face and pass the introduction section as a therapeutic retreat.

However, your first playthrough gates you entirely from being able to do this. As I've already played the game several times by the time I tackled it on Steam, I did try to skip some of the cutscenes I wasn't too keen on rewatching (there are a lot of long cutscenes that don't really contribute much once you've played it a few dozen times). With about three hours of cutscenes, it isn't easy to justify having to rewatch them when all you want to do is play through the game to finish it again on Steam.

Not that you would want to skip these cutscenes for the most part, but for speedrunners and those who just want a hack-and-slash experience, I can see how this would be upsetting. After all, God of War's roots are all about smashing gods and hitting buttons. Or was it backwards?

No Native 32:9 Compatibility

You can see Kratos in the corner waiting to start the animation for the first cutscene when resolution is unlocked by Flawless Widescreen...

Is it petty that I'm complaining about this? Yes. Is it Opposite Day and I don't care? Also yes! I picked up God of War (2018) and slapped it into my Steam backlog not because I didn't want to play it — I was positively quaking (the shaking kind, not the duck kind. Though that one, too) from excitement to experience it, but I waited until I could get my beloved 32:9 monitor, the Samsung Odyssey G9.

This massive 49'' monitor has a resolution of 5120x1440 and makes any game you boot on it (and is compatible) look engulfing and breathtaking... when it works. Native 32:9 resolution support is rare to come by with some AAA companies, and God of War (2018) limits it to 21:9. Thank the gods for Flawless Widescreen, or I'd have been weeping.

...more.

Mythological Inaccuracies

The God of War universe is rarely ever mythologically accurate. From the atrocities they did to everyone's favourite hellish hound to the way Chronos was represented (because really, what on EARTH?), it's not like mythological accuracy is part of the job description. After all, you are playing Kratos, who is on a rampage, killing all of the gods — something has to go wrong for Olympus to fail so massively and die to one man. Demigod? God? Who knows at this point?

When entering into God of War, I knew I shouldn't expect mythological accuracy; after all, I just wanted to punch Loki in the face and kill Fenrir (which, upon later introspection, I realised would be a tough boss fight because it's killing a dog, but that's a story for another time). When Baldur showed at my front door screeching at the top of his lungs, there was only one thing I couldn't get out of my mind: HE HAS TATTOOS?! There's no mention of tattoos in Viking mythos — in fact, they don't even have a word for such a thing! So everyone you see with some sweet ink? Yup. Inaccurate. I guess they still did manage to make me want to punch Loki in the face, but that's for a different reason altogether.

I get it — Santa Monica should have free rein to do as they please with the world and create their own myth... but did they have to turn Baldur into that weeping mess of a man? And then make us fight him like 20 times? And oh my GOD. ON THAT NOTE…

Baldur Fights... and refights... forever.

There aren't many times you can say the first boss fight you have in a game is also the last one... and the one in between... and the one that happens at the most climactic moment... and the one that happens three times in the same fight (seriously, Baldur REALLY needs to stop healing). But here we are. And here's Santa Monica. And here's God of War (2018).

The first time I fought "The Stranger" I was pumped. It was a badass fight, it set the tone for the game (something Alfheim failed to do), and it really gave me an idea of how epic and badass these upcoming battles were going to be. Little did I know that they liked it a bit too much, and Baldur can heal and reheal and go for rounds 10 through 100 without getting tired. At least he can't feel any of this, right? The first time he healed mid-fight, it was intimidating. The 10th? Not so much. This also leads me to:

KRATOS... HEAL!!!

Me on Friday after a tough week at work.

After the first fight with Baldur, Kratos does the godlike thing where he magically heals all of his wounds. It's a nifty ability to have, being a god and all... but then he never uses it. Ever.

Being a dumb gamer whose fatal flaw is hubris (I perfectly fit into Greek myth), I started my game in the hard difficulty in my first playthrough. It took me to about the time I was done fighting Baldur (the first time, not the 20th) to decide I wanted to fight him again... but this time, in the hardest difficulty. I didn't even understand the levelling system at the time, but I did know one thing: I consistently screamed at the screen for Kratos to heal at least once between fights. But he refused to, I kept barely passing fights with enough HP, and then there was a Traveller standing in the distance that I was going to have to fight, accompanied by at least a legion of Draugr, 20 Nightmares, 10 Tatzelwurm, five revenant, and one Troll that you have to fight after you kill everyone else for good measure. Which, of course, I'm talking about…

The Enemy Variety

First Draugr fight of 826.

You saw it coming because you know it's annoying — the sin of having to refight Baldur 32 times doesn't really feel as bad as having to fight a Draugr for the 100th time. I wouldn't be surprised if I found out that 90% of the fights have regular Draugr and, in fact, I'd believe you in a heartbeat.

That's because that's basically the only type of enemy that exists in God of War (2018). Aside from having to fight 10 different trolls, 12 ancients, and 102 Baldurs, you also get the luxury of having 23 enemies... in the whole game. Considering Howlongtobeat sets it at 20+ hours to play, that means that you get to encounter at least one new type of enemy per hour! But then you meet most of them in the first hour, and when you're going for completionist runs (at over 50 hours), you really just stop finding new enemies to fight and then get tired of dealing with Draugr for the 28 millionth time.

I still have nightmares of Atreus screaming "DRAUGR!!" in my fourth fight and fighting almost an entire dozen in my fourth-ever fight in the game.

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Honestly, I'm starting to hate God of War (2018) and second-guessing putting it as my favourite game... But all jokes aside, that concludes the list of all of my least favourite things in my favourite game, God of War (2018)! It's all for the giggles of Opposite Day, but I have to say I am quite passionate about a few of these points... I guess no game is perfect, even if I'll forever claim this one is!