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

6. Combat Is Ludicrously Brutal And Enjoyable

Bigger than Kratos's many changes is the new combat model. Like a blend of Darksiders, Dark Souls and God of War itself, once you get the hang of Kratos' expanded moveset, you'll fell entire rooms of enemies in a blur of axe-swings, shoulder-charges, shield-bashes and bone-crunching slams.

Grabs and executions are rare, only being triggered if you ditch your axe and rain on foes with both fists to build stun damage. Alongside is a plug-in/swap out approach to special moves, and a set of skill trees that take you from axe-flinging lumberjack to group-slaughtering hell tornado. Every attack lands with the kick of an exploding oil drum, and from beginning to end there's not one core unlockable that doesn't fundamentally add to the experience.

This over-shoulder approach sees more than a little influence from Dark Souls, as Sony channel FromSoftware's love for difficulty spikes and barbarically difficult boss encounters to pepper both the campaign and side content. You can offset this by going off the beaten path and equipping better gear/levelling up, but we'll get to that in a bit.

Takeaway point? God of War is back to setting industry standards when it comes to third-person combat.