God Of War PS4 Review: 8 Ups & 1 MINOR Down

Down

1. Full Game Takes A Good 4 Hours To Get Going

The only remote thing that gets in the way of everything I've mentioned is a belaboured, slow start.

Possibly intentional as a way to show Kratos blowing the cobwebs off and "getting back to work", it does mean you've got a good few hours of very basic, repetitive combat to get through.

There's only one execution animation per enemy, so expect to see the same body-rips and ogre head-crushes over and over. These can be mixed up with a charged axe attack that ends each enemy with a different animation too, but it still means the earlygame settles into a weirdly empty rhythm that belies the game's true scope.

Once you're past this and can unlock moves that let you attack while dashing, chain blocks and shield-bashes into combos and all-round stay on the move in a confident manner, everything changes. It's arguably a shame, that this opening bit takes so long to play its hand.