God Of War Ragnarok Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs (No Spoilers)

Downs

3. Combat Has Flaws

As mentioned earlier, when "Norse Saga-era God of War combat" is ON, there's nothing like it. Taking on enemies of all shapes and sizes in a tornado of beheadings, stomps and axe swings is a total delight.

However, largely down to being a "Souls-like" combat model at its core - one that across both 2018's release and now Ragnarok - we still don't have a reliable way for you to manage group encounters.

One issue is animation or attack priority. Kratos can take tons of damage from one-hit kill enemies while you're still in the middle of an axe swing or prolonged Runic casting animation, just because they decided to tank the hit you performed, or otherwise came at you mid-move . There ARE invincibility frames to the dodge, but not at the point you'd imagine (when hitting the button), instead they come while Kratos is mid-roll.

Another problem is constantly having to dodge and evade away from enemies you can't see, but are aware of, thanks to Mimir or other support characters screaming that an attack is incoming every 30 seconds. Both 2018's God of War and now Ragnarok have cumbersome ways to turn 180° on the spot, with Ragnarok requiring you map it to a direction on the touchpad(?!), where 2018's was down on the D-pad.

Neither are satisfying, and with so many particle or graphics effects, a low camera angle having Kratos obscure what's ahead and scores of enemies baying for blood, combat can wipe you out on the spot, with little understanding of what you could've done differently.