When you see this article, it is less than three weeks before the official betrayal of "God of War: Ragnarok". I know that many players can't wait to experience this Sony year-round masterpiece, and they want to wake up and go straight to the day the game will be sold on November 9th. Perhaps, Sony has also felt the enthusiasm of the players, so this time it allows the media to sell the game for more than half a month in advance and release a preview of this game, which is the article you are reading in the past.
Thanks to Sony SIE's invitation, we got the media review version of "God of War: Ragnarok" early this time, and when I was writing this preview review, I had experienced about ten hours of exciting adventures in the game. Although I am not sure how long the final main line of the game will last, and I cannot spoil the content of the story I have been playing in this early review, but I can still separate the process of the game before reaching a specific story node and share with you my current general evaluation of this game.
and the plot animation that the official previously displayed in the trailer were different. The story of "God of War: Ragnarok" occurred several years after the ending of the previous story. Kitos and Atreus returned to their hometown in Midgart . Due to the death of Bader , the Nine Realms fell into the long Fenbury winter, and everything in the world was covered by ice and snow. Before the new crisis comes, Kratos and his son will avoid the pursuit of the witch Freya, while catching the time to exercise, preparing to welcome the "Twilight of Ragnarok" that is about to come in the prophecy.
The game will usher in the exit of several key plot characters shortly after the prologue begins. The large plot performances combined with two courageous boss battles form the game's newbie teaching level. This part of the experience is almost in line with the first battle between Kratos and Badel at the end of the previous work. Then, under the guidance of the Dwarf Brothers, the player will go to Swatal Farheim, the first new country where this game has left the game, to save the Nordic god Tyr, who was imprisoned by Odin. At this point, there are all the plot content that can be revealed in the current forward review.
From the trailer, you can see that Kratos at this time has obviously aged a lot compared to his image in his previous work, and his son Atreus has truly grown into a little adult - he not only has huge changes in his height and physique, but also has obvious more positive and mature performance in dialogue and battles.
The changes in the emotional relationship between father and son are still one of the central highlights of this game. I really hope that Santa Monica Studio can further discuss the relationship between Kratos and his son in this sequel. As for the plot content I have experienced so far, it really vividly describes a teenager Atreus who is full of curiosity about his own destiny and is trying to prove himself in front of his father. For the old father Kratos, is it to assist his son in digging out the truth of the prophecy, decisively embarking on a new adventure, or to maintain his old father's majesty, and to maintain his son's safety as the primary purpose in everything. While guiding the plot out, these contradictions further explore the human nature of Kratos, the retired old war god.
In order to avoid spoilers, let's click on the description of the plot part. Next, let’s talk about some intuitive changes in the theoretical experience of this work compared to the previous work.
First of all, thanks to the excellent performance of PlayStation 5 and the solid optimization skills of Santa Monica Studio, this game is a cross-generation game that logs on to two generations of consoles at the same time, but in terms of screen performance, it has not dragged down its normal performance due to the old generation of consoles. Especially when you use the PlayStation 5 console and 4K display to experience this game, you can feel the top-level picture quality that truly belongs to next-generation games.
Compared with the previous work, the picture of this work has more detailed performance in character and scene modeling.Take the scene where Kratos made a bow and arrow in a cave presented in the trailer as an example. In the real-time screen of the PlayStation 5 version of this game, players can see the cloak made of animal fur on Kratos, which has a very realistic hair effect under the cold wind. And when the camera turned to Kratos's own facial close-up, players could also clearly see that there were more wrinkles and hair details on the old father's face.
In addition, in the plot progress included in this preview, the Swatal Farheim map, which accounts for a large proportion, is also one of the important basis for improving the picture quality of this work. In this country dedicated to dwarf life, players can see the bustling town landscape that was not presented in the previous work. The wide map scene, rich building number and detailed street details are a big test of the host's function. But during the theoretical gameplay, I really didn't feel the game's screen shrinking or frame dropping.
game defaults to provide two screen modes: "performance first" and "resolution first" and "resolution first" mode. In addition, there is a separate " high frame rate mode" switch. After theoretical testing, after turning on these methods and functions, the game can run fluently with a relatively stable frame rate.
As the first "God of War" to truly log on to the PlayStation 5 platform, "God of War: Ragnarok" naturally also interrupts the function adaptation of the PlayStation 5's exclusive DualSense handle, the delicate handle vibration effect and the self-adapted trigger pressing response in different scenarios make people silhouette.
where the vibration function of the handle can simulate the action characteristics of the protagonist in different scenarios. It was the scene where Kratos used a knife to cut the bow and arrow. The handle could now simulate the subtle difference in force when the knife passed by different positions of the wooden bow and arrow. When the game enters certain specific plot performances, the vibration effect of the controller will also change according to the performance plot, enhancing the player's sense of substitution.
In contrast, the applicable scenarios of the trigger in the game are relatively fixed and single. Generally speaking, when the weapon is charged and aimed, the left trigger key will have a subtle rebound effect. In addition, in some specific performances - such as when Kratos cuts a tree with the Leviathan Axe, the game will also specifically demonstrate the characteristics of the handle adapting to the trigger.
I personally don’t dislike this setting. Of course, adapting to the trigger cannot make players feel its existence from beginning to end, but this is more in line with the players' normal operating habits. After all, this is an action game that requires frequent use of the trigger key to abort the attack. Assuming that the player has to struggle to pull the trigger key for each attack, it will make the player feel that this function is a bit unnecessary.
In addition to these changes that can be experienced through the senses, let’s talk more deeply about the changes in this gameplay level that players are most concerned about.
Within the range of the process allowed by the prospect, this part gives me the impression that based on the existing gameplay of the previous game, it is to separate the players' responses to the previous game problems and make some optimizations and improvements. Although there are not many new elements, the game experience has indeed been raised by another level based on the previous work. The basic campaign method of the
game has not changed much compared to the previous game. Players can still control Kratos to use his two weapons - the Leviathan Axe and the Chaos Blade to stop melee and ranged attacks on the enemy with ice and fire attributes. Light and heavy attacks can be combined with different key combinations to create a variety of combos. At the same time, players can also launch special skill moves by installing light and heavy attack runes to their weapons.
The biggest change in the battle design compared to the previous game is that this game has more encouraged players to use the two attribute effects of ice and fire that come with weapons.
Although in the previous game, players can also obtain damage and effect bonuses for these two attributes by making specific combos or activating runes on the weapon slot.But in the past, players have a faster and easier way to increase the damage of weapons attributes - just press and hold the triangle key of the handle to assign attribute charging to the weapon in a short period of time. After the charging is completed, press the light and heavy attack keys or throw the weapon again to trigger a brand new move with powerful damage. Compared with ordinary plain-A attacks, these moves not only have higher damage, but also easier to knock the enemy to a freeze or extinguish state, thus greatly improving the efficiency of players in killing enemies.
. In order to further improve the presence of attribute damage in the battle, players can also learn the skills of superimposing the two attribute damage effects. When the enemy is in freezing and extinguishing states, assuming that the player can quickly switch to another weapon to abort the attack, the damage caused will also be higher than that of a single attribute. From this, it can also be seen that this game has more encouraged players to frequently switch to use two weapons in the battle, and through the skills and combos of different weapons, the performance of the battle can also be more enjoyable.
Speaking of weapon skills, during the early game, I also found that the technical design of this game has been quite different from the previous game. This mainly reflects the diversity of current skills and moves. In the previous work, players can also learn a lot of skills, but some of them are only added to the action module of the original skills, which are essentially just enhanced versions of the same skills. In the future, some skills only simply increase the character's talent attributes, and there are no new moves, which seems a bit perfunctory.
But this has been significantly improved in this work. It can be seen that the manufacturing team has made some skills that were originally required to be equipped with weapons and runes into a way that can directly consume experience and unlock it. This may be due to the fact that there are too many technical runes that can be collected in the previous game, which has caused players to only use the same set of combos in a single battle. Usually, every time you upgrade your weapon level, players can learn one or two new skills and moves. Combos are very generous with attack runes and weapons charging. Players can try to explore various different combos.
Another new battle mechanism in this game is the replaceable shield and shield components - different shields will bring different blocking effects, and the components can provide extra attribute bonuses for the shield. Take the two shields that can be unlocked in the early stage of the process as an example. One of them has better ability to bear damage, can absorb the damage from enemy attacks and abort the charge. The more charge you charge, the higher the damage you will cause when you hit. Another tests the player's control over the opportunity to complete blocking, which can cause a large amount of stun damage to the enemy when blocking and counterattacking, thereby accelerating the presentation of QTE execution. The existence of these shields further expands the player's campaign style. I don’t know if players can get more types of shields in the subsequent process. If so, I have reason to believe that the shield will play a more important role in the battle by then.
In addition to these mechanism changes, the upgrade of this game's campaign gameplay also has some external factors. For example, players can usually use props such as stone pillars and stones in the scene to attack the enemy. These attacks will cause a large amount of stun damage to the enemy, so that the player can quickly trigger the execution QTE. His son Atreus also used to control more battle skills and was able to cooperate with Kratos to complete some melee combos. In addition, the areas where the battles are suspended in this game have become more open and flat - they no longer limit players to a single piece of land to suspend the battles, but there will be differences between upper and lower terrain. This means that players can let Kratos jump off the platform and launch a stronger blow. At the same time, the map scene also allows players to move quickly between different platforms through the devices in the scene, so as to temporarily pull the distance and adjust the attack rhythm.
From all aspects, the upgrade of this game in the battle system will certainly not make it a completely different game from the previous game, but it does compensate for many of the regrets in the battle design of the previous game.As for what players are very concerned about, whether the monster types in the game can still be as single as in the previous game. What I can notify you is that at least within the process progress that can be discussed in the forward review, the types of enemies I encountered are much richer than the previous work. Moreover, they are not the skin-changing monsters that players are worried about - each enemy has their own common attack method, and some even require players to control certain combat skills in order to deal with it.
