I'm gonna give one more warning that there'll be spoilers here. Go finish the game if you haven't yet. You've been warned, because I'm not gonna use spoiler tags in a thread marked with spoilers.

Last chance.

Ok.

I just finished this. I'm amazed with how 'grounded' (relatively) it stayed throughout. Starting, I figured they'd blow their load and seriously get into it with the Aesir higher-ups at least, but in reality, the game only has half-a-dozen characters while continuously referencing others.

The entire game is seriously just about getting to that mountain, and the way their don't blow their load while doing it is just masterful imo. With the way they constantly reminded us how much the Aesir are shitbags, I wouldn't have even blamed them to see Odin or Thor come down and make some cameo appearances. It's set up so marvellously for sequels.

I know next to nothing regarding Norse Mythology, but even I was surprised that Atreus is Loki (are he and Thor not brothers? Or is that just a Marvel thing?) I also don't know if 'Faye' is supposed to be someone important, is she maybe also Thor's mum ergo half brothers? Forgive my ignorance, as I said, I don't know Norse mythology.

I'm genuinely just amazed that they basically spent the whole game setting up the antagonists for future games (Freya, Thor, Odin), without (imo) compromising this one. It never felt rushed or contrived. Baldur's was a great story with an equally great conclusion.

I was also pretty surprised by the Marvel-esque post-credits sting. I wasn't expecting anything when I went home after the game (I was just doing a trophy round-up and started there). So yeah, Thor IS in the game, but I'm not counting it, lol.

Finally, I'm curious what that mural in Jotunheim means. Will Kratos die and pass on his mantle to Atreus? Is he dying already? Will the kid take over as the main protagonist? I haven't played the original games, so I have no real 'attachment' to Kratos, but he was just brilliant in this game. Would be sad to see him go.

This is a whole lot of word vomit, but I literally just got done with the platinum and had to get stuff off my chest. I'm probably forgetting a lot of what I want to say, but yeah. This game is fucking incredible, easily up there with Playstation's best like Last of Us and Bloodborne.

I'm super curious if Sucker Punch can also hit a home run with their new IP.

 

Good game, very different to the others, but promising in therms of future potential. I must admit I was a bit disappointed that we didn't really see Kratos go all out, and the way it's looking, with the last mural, we may not get to see full throttle except for the scene where he dies (not a spoiler, just a guess). Though whether we saw his full power depends slightly on the relative power levels between Greeks and Norse, as typically the Norse gods are much weaker in than the Greek gods (just in terms of what godhood entails in the two mythologies - Ryuugi had a writeup of it somewhere on spacebattles). It could be that age hit him harder than I thought, or that the Norse gods are just quite powerful.

On the other hand, while Loki and Thor were never brothers by blood, I doubt Atreus will accept being adopted by Odin or come to be even half buddy buddy with the Aesir. This would imply there is a significant change from the mythology incoming, which would be nice, as having Atreus copy Dad and try to eliminate a pantheon would be cool af. Also interesting to see how much he'll take after his dad, and how much after his Norse heritage (the powers of Loki), as if he is to fight a pantheon, Loki alone won't suffice - or they could change the approach from punching to trickery, but that's unlikely both from mechanical perspective (difficult to get right) and thematic, as it would still be a a GoW game.

My prediction is that Kratos and Thor fight, and are quite evenly matched, but due to his age/other hesitation Kratos dies saving Atreus (due to the foreshadowing in the final battle scene), and Thor has to retreat licking his wounds. I doubt they want to give Kratos a weak end, so I'm keeping my hopes up. Atreus either escapes or is kidnapped by Thor (if they want to keep with the mythology), and then the game goes from there.

 

I'm working on getting the Jotunheim rune right now, but got sucked into the Valkyrie quest. Those are great boss fights. (So I've actually not read the posts above to avoid spoilers)

But I just want to say...this is the Game of the Year right here. Absolutely stunning game. I love it.

 

That's a Marvel thing. Loki and Thor are not related in the actual myths; Loki's just some jotun that hung around the Aesir being both friend and foe depending on his mood up until he tricked Hod into killing Baldr. Then Odin had him tied to a rock with the entrails of one of his sons and set a venomous serpent above him to drip poison into his eyes.

Supposedly, Loki's punishment will last until Ragnarok, where he and his children will lead an army of giants to Asgard and kill all the Aesir (Loki's scheduled to personally kill Heimdall, if memory serves).

As for Kratos' wife, she's "non-canon". I've never heard of her before and I've spent no small amount of time studying classical mythologies. I'm pretty sure they just made her up.

She wasn't the only thing either; they messed around with a lot of the mythology for the game, such as the fact that it was the Vanir that murdered Mimir and Odin who desperately tried to save his friend and advisor. Something like a full half to two thirds of the shit the game blames Odin for (including that whole thing with Freya) either never actually happened, was entirely someone else who did it, or happened, but in an entirely different context that generally made it pretty reasonable. It's not really a huge deal, and not very different than what they did to Greek mythology, but it kinda bugged me at times when i was hearing it.

 

My money is on Freya killing Kratos, should that ever come to pass.

 

See...I’m taking Mimirs stories as unreliable narrator. He seems to blame Odin for everything

 

Easy Allies did a spoilercast with Cory Barlog, the game's director.

It's really, really fascinating. It makes me excited for the lore deep dives that are sure to come from the game archaeologists, lol.

One gem in this podcast is how Cory lays down how powerful Faye is. His example is by talking about visual language, and how devs use it to guide characters. Like the yellow paint you see everywhere.

Then he says that all the yellow paint in the game was put there by Faye. She's literally guiding their journey all the way. She's seen it all, already done the journey in advance etc. Fucking fascinating.

He also confirms Mimir is unreliable.

 

Eh. Honestly, I'm thinking they purposefully changed the underlying narrative of the Norse mythos, in no small part because that's exactly what they did to the Greek mythos in the original trilogy. That's not a bad thing in and of itself; the game tells a fantastic story beautifully. I'm not trying to say anything bad about it.

I just found myself going "Wait a minute.... that's not how that happened" more than once during the expositional bits, which were made all the more jarring when other elements were so true to the mythos (such as the time Thor dressed up as a woman [Freya, specifically] to get Mjolnir back from Thrym).

 

As I posted above, Mimir is confirmed to be an unreliable narrator - the example given was not honestly translating Jormungandr's words (though that might have something to do with his connection to Atreus).

But by what you've just said, the version Mimir told regarding getting Mjolnir back was 'close enough' that who's to say we don't have the correct version?

I just find it an odd hang-up I guess. Being Greek myself, I don't find myself correcting Greek myth in fiction because... Well, it's fiction lol.

There was a lot of other cool shit in that spoilercast. I didn't pick up on it, but Atreus' first summon being a wolf and his immediate reaction to finding out he's a God is asking if he can turn into a wolf were massive hints of his true nature - apparently Loki is heavily linked with wolves.

 

It's not a knock on the game, don't get me wrong. I get why they made the changes they did, and it all serves to enhance the story they're telling. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just something that hit me every once in a while because I know the myths as well as I do.

To draw an analogy, it's kinda like being computer-savvy and seeing this scene. It's an in-universe event/scene/whatever that's superficially accurate, but wrong enough in all the details to pull you out of the narrative for a moment. It's really not a big deal at all, just something I noticed while playing it.

As for Loki and wolves, kinda. The big connection between Loki and wolves is the Fenrisulfr. Fenrisulfr, otherwise known as the Fenris wolf or Fenrir, is the son of Loki and the giant Angrboda and the father of the wolves Hati and Skoll, who chase the Sun and Moon across the sky. He is prophecised to be the one to slay Odin during Ragnarok. Then we've got the whole "Loki's son Narfi was turned into a wolf as punishment after the death of Baldr and Loki's imprisonment". That's... about it when it comes to Loki and wolves, but he was very well (perhaps even best, pre-MCU) known for his shapeshifting (such as the time he turned into a mare, fucked a stallion, and gave birth to Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse), and Atreus immediately asking about turning into animals is certainly a nod to that.

 

I wonder what the snakes coming out of his mouth signifies in that final mural. A curse? Does he somehow birth Jormungandr? IS HE ACTUALLY OROCHIMARU?!

 

Jormungandr is supposed to be one of Loki's sons too, so it's entirely possible.

My first thought on seeing that mural was what happened to Loki after Baldr's death in the original myths; the Aesir captured him, strapped him to a rock, and had a snake drip corrosive venom into his eyes. My assumption, especially given the post-credits thing when you go back to the house, is that the next game starts with Atreus getting captured by the Aesir while Thor keeps Kratos busy, and that will be the impetus for Kratos to get involved in their take on Ragnarok.

Edit:
The one thing I'm really curious about though is who the woman in that mural is; she's clearly important to Atreus and she dies in his arms, so I assume it's a love interest for the kid in the next game, but I have no idea who that could possibly be.

 

Isn't that Kratos?!

 

At 9:50ish. Now that I'm looking closer at it, I can kinda see Kratos in there now, yeah. It still looks to me like a dead woman buried face-first in Atreus' chest, but I could see it being a dead Kratos on his back being cradled by Atreus now.

 

Yeah, I saw if as a dying Kratos in Atreus' arms and seemingly Atreus screaming to the heavens and 'birthing' Jormungandr.

 

Faye is Loki's mother, Laufrey. She's definitely canonical to Norse mythology, albeit a relatively unspoken of figure in the Prose Edda.

 

That actually makes a fair bit of sense. I've never heard of Laufrey being called Faye, but a new name while she's in hiding mask is sense. Not really sure how much it matters, but it works.

That... Is kinda brilliant. Nicely done, new headcanon accepted.

 

Huh, I interpreted the snakelike text (though runescript is often curvy) as sign of spells (and thus his magic), as in nordic tradition magic is often in the form of singing (though I'm not sure about the norse)

 

Just finished the game.

On a gameplay perspective, I liked most things. The collectibles weren't obnoxious enough to annoy me overmuch, I like the optional but helpful nature of most things, and the map was large and sandbox-y without being needlessly huge (and empty). I loved the fights with the Valkyries. Challenging, but with very specific mechanics that reward good reflexes and preparation with no randomness. I fought all Valkyries as soon as I could, which probably made them more challlenging, but I loved every second of these fights. Playing it on 3/4 difficulty, the game started out incredibly difficult and got easier over time (probably because I collected literally everything the moment it was available to me). A challenging but not unreasonably so endeavor, like I assume 4/4 would be.

My one complaint with the game design wise is the music. Until the very last bit (the Last Wish mission) the music is basically non-existent, which is a shame. All big titles need a characteristic and suiting music score, and I think this is the one major part that this God of War failed at, even where the previous ones didn't.

Also ... I was not aware that this was going to be a trilogy. Or however many. I thought that this would be its own thing. So when I realized that the total godly body count would be 2, I was not a little bit disappointed. I also feel like all the Thor buildup in this game (which was amazing and subtle enough to be effective) is going to be mostly lost until the next game comes, whenever it does. I hadn't seen Atreus being Loki coming, but I'm okay with it. Ragnarok baby, let's go a-killing.

I do think that Kratos dying is inevitable, but I hope it doesn't happen. I don't want a shift in protagonists. God of War is about Kratos, and I'd rather they didn't try to change that.

Regarding the mythical accuracy (or lack thereof), I'm not sure why anyone expected complete accuracy to legend. Have you ... played God of War? Being Greek myself and playing through the original games, I was entertained by seeing such swathes of the mythology come to life and ignored the butchering of characters and specific myths. In contrast to the original trilogy and the Greek Pantheon, the Norse mythology has been treated with respect and delivered with a lot more elegance and attention to detail that the bumbling, one dimension approach of the original games.

Now I go around gathering the last few things I'm missing. I still need the three realm tears from Niflheim and the second rounds of challenges from the lava realm. I can't get past the 'take no damage from the 20 enemies that includes an ancient and a bunch of wulvers' challenge, and the stupid shit is the first one, too. FML

 

Took me like 10 tries to do that. Basically played like Dark Souls. Shield up and ranged. Being hit while in Rage doesn't count either.

I also had the pommel that makes the R1 throw OP.