I now see why this won Game of the Year back in 2018 over the likes of RDR2. It excels in its presentation to a degree essentially unmatched by any game I have every played.
Everything looks stunning despite being 8 years old: very detailed textures but also a clear picture. Artdesign is amazing, the scale is perfect. That extends beyond the big creatures and monuments. Games often feel a little gamey in their environments, as in that they feel smaller than they should be. GoW does it perfectly.
Sound is also very well done and detailed. It gives everything in the game its proper weight. The story reaches very high highs multiple times, music is used sparringly but that adds weight to the moments it is used. Voice acting is absolutely fantastic as well, dialogue is plentiful and never dull, and the cutscenes have excellent mocap. The transitions with the gameplay are also seemless, and the lack of loading screens really brings this world alive. 10/10 on presentation.
But it is not perfect, no game is. I found the opening hours to be very hard to push through. I had not played any God of War game, nor knew anything about it, when embarking on this journey. The narrative moves rather slowly and I was not impressed by the combat. And this is the one weakness, or rather lack of greatness, of the game: the gameplay. The exploration is good but it can drag a bit sometimes. The combat did not feel satisfying, even if it did feel crunchy. This is mostly due to the axe, it improves markedly when you get the other set of weapons, but it is a bit baffling considering the quality of all the rest and of its predecessors.
Speaking of those, I actually put this game down halfway through when Kratos' past began to be teased more and more, and played the original games starting from the original from 2005. I won't start reviewing those (except an obligatory "3 is fantastic"), but it did make me reflect even worsely on the combat in this game. It all feels much...less, less fun, less brutal, at least until we got the other set of weapons, but even then I feel like it's a step down in many ways. That said, the fighting cutscenes here are awesome and give the same feeling as the sequences in the originals, and overall this game remains fantastic.
This one belongs on the "must play" list for everyone.
