Kratos & Son Lake Tours Co.: LttP Dad of Boy

[TE-Ryan]

I've never really played any God of War games before (I quit halfway through the first because I found it real boring), but I've recently started up the newest one and maaaaaaaaan I am having a great time.

I'm already what seems like most of the way through the story, so you're not going to get a play-by-play thread from me, no sir. I just wanted to make the thread.

Like 1: I like how chill this game is in comparison to the perception I have of the God of War series. I've always seen it as a non-stop of violence and rage. That's not really my jam. I'm a much bigger fan of the peaceful canoe trips across the Lake of Nine, the conversations between Atreus and Mimir being a highlight. Combat is great, but I do appreciate that it feels like it's teritary to the travel/exploration and story/character development.

Like 2: Getting a fun Metroid II vibe from the way the water level in the Lake of Nines recedes as you progress through the story, gradually giving you access to more of the world.

Like 3: Norse mythology!

Like 4: The amount of mileage they got out of the axe-throwing mechanic impressed me, as it was consistently being used in new and interesting ways. Seems like it might have sort of fizzled out around the halfway-ish mark, though. In my travels around the optional islands, it's mostly just being used to hit explosive pots to remove barriers. But at least they're working hard to make you find the correct angle from which to hit said explosive pots!

Grumble: Seems like there is a lot of tacked-on cruft because that's what's expected of Triple-A video games. If the colour-coded loot and weird level-up system were gone, would anyone notice, or care? Do Odin's Ravens exist for any purpose other than "we need more collectibles"? I think the skill trees and labours would have been mutually improved by combining them.

Pending: If Kratos doesn't finally give Atreus a hug by the end, I will be sad. But I'm keeping my expectations low (per Kratos' own advice).

 

[Patrick]

A friend gave this to me as a gift and I still haven't installed it. I keep hearing how good it is, so maybe soon?

 

[Issun]

I am now calling God of War 4 "Dad of Boy" forevermore.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I like how chill this game is in comparison to the perception I have of the God of War series. I've always seen it as a non-stop of violence and rage.

To be fair, up until this one, your perception was entirely accurate.

 

[Paul le Fou]

 

[lincolnic]

I also recently played this for the first time! Back in June, I think? July? Whenever it was, I enjoyed it a lot too. I also liked the exploration and conversations more than the combat -- not that the combat was bad by any means, it just didn't feel too deep for me.

Do Odin's Ravens exist for any purpose other than "we need more collectibles"?

Not sure if this was rhetorical, but the ravens are just collectibles.

My only real gripe about the game is that I wish they'd had more variety (and difficulty) in the boss fights. How many trolls do you fight by the end of the game? In a series that's known for set-piece boss battles, I expected more from these. Even with the final boss, I was expecting something after that fight ended because it seemed too easy. I fought all the Valkyries too, though when I saw that the reward for that was fighting another Valkyrie with a massive health bar, I stopped there.

At any rate, this game is still Good and worth playing.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

.....shouldn't there only be two ravens

 

[Paul le Fou]

.....shouldn't there only be two ravens

ooh that's gonna bug me when I get around to this

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Give it some thought and commit it to memory.

 

[4-So]

Previous God of War games had a ultra-testosterone-fueled version of Kratos that was all rage and bombast. He's more subdued here, and they tried to make him a more sympathetic character. They didn't quite stick the landing but he's far better here than he was during his aughts MAN-PAIN XTREME ANGRY ULTRAVIOLENCE phase. (Although there's plenty of violence and anger here, too.)

The game is good times. I mentioned it as one of my favorites in the 8th console generation thread for a reason.

 

[jpfriction]

I also recently played this for the first time! Back in June, I think? July? Whenever it was, I enjoyed it a lot too. I also liked the exploration and conversations more than the combat -- not that the combat was bad by any means, it just didn't feel too deep for me.



Not sure if this was rhetorical, but the ravens are just collectibles.

My only real gripe about the game is that I wish they'd had more variety (and difficulty) in the boss fights. How many trolls do you fight by the end of the game? In a series that's known for set-piece boss battles, I expected more from these. Even with the final boss, I was expecting something after that fight ended because it seemed too easy. I fought all the Valkyries too, though when I saw that the reward for that was fighting another Valkyrie with a massive health bar, I stopped there.

At any rate, this game is still Good and worth playing.

Spoiler: Speaking of the Valkyries

I did every damn one of them, including the end one basically as early as possible. Then later on I finished a different side quest and got an item that like doubles your damage against Valkyries or halves their damage to you, something like that. Atreus's "boy that would've come in handy when we were fighting all those Valkyries" cracked me up

This was a very good video game. My only gripe is it turned my poor PS4 into a furnace because of all teh grafix. That and how late they hand out the other weapon you get to use is a bit weird (mechanically, not thematically).

 

[TE-Ryan]

Made a little progress over the weekend, but mostly just sidequesting and filling in my checklists.

I am thoroughly distraught by how quickly Atreus becomes an asshat once he learns he's a god. And now there's a weird dissonance between story sequences where he's a jerkass, and incidental/sidequest dialogue where he reverts to his kinder self. I suppose that's just a byproduct of the medium, though.

Not sure if this was rhetorical, but the ravens are just collectibles.

Somewhere in between. I was legitimately unsure of whether they served a purpose, and a little annoyed that they seemed to exist solely for the sake of having another collectible, despite the fact that there are already so many other collectibles.

I am now calling God of War 4 "Dad of Boy" forevermore.

It's good to know that I've made a difference.

 

[Adrenaline]

The old God of War games did feature a Kratos who was pretty much a constant rage machine, but those games were a lot of fun. I think people who haven't played them assume they're just constant action but they all had a lot of fun exploration and puzzle solving as well. Dad of Boy is maybe the best one but the original trilogy is great if you don't mind all the... gender stuff.

 

[lincolnic]

I am thoroughly distraught by how quickly Atreus becomes an asshat once he learns he's a god. And now there's a weird dissonance between story sequences where he's a jerkass, and incidental/sidequest dialogue where he reverts to his kinder self. I suppose that's just a byproduct of the medium, though.

Yeah, that one bugged me too, because it's not actually hard to fix, it just takes a little more planning. The easiest way to do it would be to record two versions of the conversation, one for if Atreus is a jerk and one if he's not, and just play back whichever one is appropriate for where the player is in the main plot. We do this for my company's games all the time.

If they were really set on just having one version of any given conversation, the designers could've told the writers "the player might be at any number of points in the main story when they do this side quest, so we need Atreus to be more neutral here". Then those notes get passed to the director for the VO session, and they can adjust the performance accordingly.

I'm not sure if it would've bothered me as much if I didn't work on this kind of thing all the time, but since I know how the sausage is made it was hard to get past that one. Diegetically, you could look at Atreus sometimes being nice as his mortal side coming to the forefront again, which is more or less what I did. It kinda fits since overcoming one's baser instincts seems to be a big theme of the game anyway.

 

[TE-Ryan]

Spent about an hour in Niflheim last night. Not sure if it is the best or the worst.

Also moved the story forward to the point where I've completed the "airship" cruise and escaped Helheim. There sure are a heck of a lot of elevator fights in this game.

Glad to see that Atreus has come back to his senses. Sadly, Sindri appears to remain scarred for life.

 

[liquid]

Previous God of War games had a ultra-testosterone-fueled version of Kratos that was all rage and bombast. He's more subdued here, and they tried to make him a more sympathetic character. They didn't quite stick the landing but he's far better here than he was during his aughts MAN-PAIN XTREME ANGRY ULTRAVIOLENCE phase. (Although there's plenty of violence and anger here, too.)

The game is good times. I mentioned it as one of my favorites in the 8th console generation thread for a reason.

I like old Kratos more, but I admittedly found his total lack of self awareness hilarious. Wish God of War 3 hadn't chickened out and made him the good guy at the end.

 

[Sarge]

This game was fantastic. I wasn't expecting it to be a 10/10 for me going in, but it certainly warranted it. I'm looking forward to more games in this style, a sort of near-Zelda type experience.

I have enjoyed the other games I've played in the series (the first two games and the first PSP game), but I did chuckle at how everything Kratos did was angry. Which makes some of the less angry sections fun to ridicule - "Angry balance beam walking! Angry box pushing! Graaaah!"

 

[Alex]

Kratos really mellows out in his old age. I really enjoyed the "single shot" style of gameplay, even if it means walking through a bunch of cracks and hallways to mask loading times.

 

[lincolnic]

Kratos really mellows out in his old age. I really enjoyed the "single shot" style of gameplay, even if it means walking through a bunch of cracks and hallways to mask loading times.

It's a cool design move, but the very first thing I did once I got control in this game was to turn the fake handheld camera movement all the way down, so the illusion was pretty much shattered any time the game transitioned into/out of a cutscene.

 

[Oathbreaker]

I played through this recently again because I never finished my Give Me God of War playthrough back when it came out. If you really REALLY love the gameplay and want more of it after you've beaten it, it's very worth noting that there's a NG+ mode that gives you big gameplay rewards to make it even more interesting.

Spoiler: NG+ stuff

Like a few new armor sets and being able to do things like turn the NG+ version of the Amulet of Kvasir (Witch Time perfect dodging) into something you slot into your armor as an upgrade to leave your talisman slot open for another ability.

It's freakin' great.

 

[TE-Ryan]

This game! I finished it! (Like two weeks ago, but...)

Spoiler: ending stuff

The finale was pretty great. The final battle against Baldr was suitably epic, if only just as showcase of Kratos and Atreus really working in sync as a team. I was a little surprised that he was the actual final boss of the game, but it makes sense in context.

I liked the long ending sequence where nothing really happened besides Kratos and Jr spreading the ashes. It felt right. Adding in some other non-sequitur boss battle would have completely ruined it. Atreus' reaction to Kratos finally telling a good story was so great.

The sequel hook when you go back home was fine, I get it. Big budget media law says such a thing must exist, so we tolerate it. But I was also okay with going the entire game having heard stories about Odin and Thor, but never having seen either of them. The fact that they would be key players in the sequel was already very strongly implied.

I want to say that after having enjoyed Dad of Boy so thoroughly, I will play the inevitable sequel in a much timelier fashion. But I guess that all depends on whether or not it gets released on PS4, as I currently have no plans to purchase a PS5.

I also did all the extra stuff to secure a relatively quick and easy platinum trophy.
- Muspelheim had some annoying parts, but was not nearly as difficult as I'd feared. I thought it was going to be too difficult/tedious to bother with for sure, as battle arenas in this type of game often are for me.
- Speaking of tedious, how 'bout that Niflheim? I like the idea, but man, you gotta grind up a heck of a lot of mist echoes.
- The Valkyries were rough, but eventually I learned that the key to defeating them was to play more defensively. Sigrun was an absolute beast though and I was pretty sure that was the one challenge that I wouldn't be able to overcome. Then I discovered the top secret trick to defeating her : go into the options and turn the difficulty down.

 

[Adrenaline]

I think the sequel is supposed to be on PS4 as well as PS5.

 

[Thraeg]

This was a very good video game. My only gripe is it turned my poor PS4 into a furnace because of all teh grafix.

Yeah, this was the game that made me give up actually playing games on my launch-era PS4. The jet engine fans got too obnoxious to ignore. Looking forward to finishing my playthrough on PS5.

 

[upupdowndown]

I thoroughly enjoyed Dad of Son, but I really, really wish that the cast wasn't such a sausagefest. Hoping that gets rectified more in the sequel.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I thoroughly enjoyed Dad of Son, but I really, really wish that the cast wasn't such a sausagefest. Hoping that gets erectified more in the sequel.

heyoooo~~~

 

[Adrenaline]

Norse mythology is kind of a boy's club

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Yeah but they could still have, like. Non-mythological characters and stuff.

 

[upupdowndown]

Norse mythology is kind of a boy's club

given that they felt free to write new characters who weren't in classic Norse mythology, I don't really view this as a defense

Moreover, there's generally 14 listed major male Aesir... and 14 listed major female Aesir. You also have the Norns. And, frankly, no one held a gun to Cory Barlog's head and forced him to make all of the Valkyries enemies.

Again, I quite liked the game. Looking forward to the sequel. but having literally one (1) female speaking character who isn't dead is really Not Good for a game with a fairly large cast.

 

[MetManMas]

given that they felt free to write new characters who weren't in classic Norse mythology, I don't really view this as a defense

Moreover, there's generally 14 listed major male Aesir... and 14 listed major female Aesir.

Not to mention Norse mythology is what gave us the valkyries and you could do more things with them than just have them be another thing for Kratos to sink his sharp pointy things into.

 

[upupdowndown]

Not to mention Norse mythology is what gave us the valkyries and you could do more things with them than just have them be another thing for Kratos to sink his sharp pointy things into.

LOL I went back and edited my post to reflect this before I saw this response