Final Trials and last 2 optional bosses wrecked my shit.
I probably spent 2.5 hours on Gná and completely overhauled my build multiple times before biting the bullet and lowering the difficulty to balanced.
Idk, kind of a rough end to my experience.
Got the Plat last night. 48ish hours total.
GNA was a really good fight EXCEPT her move where she leaps up and lands on you in a QTE. It seems like she can pull if it off when you're mid-combo on her and I had two good runs that failed because of that killing me. I guess you're just supposed to pay attention and if she jumps out of the screen when you're in a combo you need to roll the fuck away instantly.
Otherwise I thought the rest of her moves were pretty well telegraphed and reasonable to dodge/parry. Did end up using the mid-boss checkpoints for her and Berserker King. But still good fights. Berserker King was kinda forgettable. Fine fight, but just felt like various moves of the other Berserkers you'd already dealt with.
One issue that came up with a few Berserkers is I kind of hate enemies that jump away and do the blue moves because half the time I can't reach them in time if I run up and shield break and I eat the attack. I guess I should have been using the approaching shield on those bosses since it runs towards? I just stuck with Dauntless.
On the Berserker King he has some move in the 2nd half where he hangs in the air and does a big 1/2 HP bifrost attack. Seems unblockable, undodgeable and has no color signals. Maybe I was supposed to throw shit at him to interrupt it?
And on bosses I never figured out how Rage meter works. I stuck with Fury the whole game and it did jack shit damage on bosses wailing on them, but it regained about half a life bar of health and gave me some invincibility so I stuck with it. I used Valor a couple of times for the HP regen and I can see it being more useful but I hated the timing of trying to launch it right before an attack to maximize and I'd eat attacks and die sometimes so I stuck with Fury. Wrath seemed good on enemy mobs but wasn't sure it was applicable on bosses.
The final trials were....well the trials themselves were fine, the stupid repeating 2 lower trials over and over to unlock each final trial was a shit grind and should've been excised.
Also speaking of postgame grind
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The remnants of Asgard were stupid. The fights weren't even challenging mobs, just a few mobs of normal enemies. But doing that 10 times which included some backtracking to get around to these places was just a waste of time for nothing but to get the platinum trophy. This quest should've been skipped
Otherwise great stuff. I'm more ok with the finale/ending of the game after another night of playing it postgame. I think the story could've been better, and Angraboda section is way too fucking long, but otherwise the game has so many great character moments. Lotta laughs and feels in this throughout, so I expected the finale to be epic feels, but it's suprisingly a lot emptier than the strong moments before it. For example
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The scene before going to Ragnarok with Kratos and Atreus in his tent is 10x more dramatic than anything that actually happens in Ragnarok or the ending.
The game is definitely about great moments. And being like 40-50 hours long there are plenty of those. The combat is also fucking awesome though the camera could still be better.
In the end with the combat I even ended up really liking
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The spear because of its speed. Became my go to weapon for quickly taking out grunts and interrupting enemies with spear throws.
I was thinking the game was like 8.5/10 after the ending, but sleeping on it and getting back to some good combat and stuff the next day wrapping up the post-game I guess I'd give it a 9/10. It's a flawed game with some pretty legit flaws, and it's absolutely a game that symptomatic of the 200 person dev team AAA syndrome where you have like 9 writers and the you end up with logical inconsistencies between stuff. Too many cooks in the kitchen. But there's enough great quality game there that it's pretty awesome.
I hope the next God of War is a smaller team, shorter development, smaller and tighter game, but who am I kidding the next game is going to be Elden Ring GoW 75 hour game of mixed quality.