Given that I haven't finished the game, so this may change, but this is one of the clunkiest and least-interesting video game stories in recent memory. It's overwrought with bad melodrama, Kratos only has one tone of voice (which is now bored instead of angry), and it's *another* rehash of my-family-is-dead-poor-me. Except now you have alive Atreus instead of dead Calliope.
And ATREUS. He is actively terrible. The game has puzzles and loot crates everywhere but they seem to have written 1000 lines of grating, condescending dialogue. "Can we go now?" "Maybe instead of looting this ancient temple we're going to leave." "We should just go, you're not going to get it."
These are all things he says, and he has a new one every couple of minutes. They've also written dialogue for Kratos being snippy back at him and telling him to shut up, so why didn't they realize that players would be annoyed with Atreus as well? Every time I'm getting sucked into the environment and exploration, Atreus rips me out.
This is all not even mentioning the dissonance between mechanics and narrative. Atreus is somehow vaguely sickly, but he can get stomped on my trolls and smashed by all manner of creature and be totally okay. Meanwhile, Kratos literally splits the earth and smashes a mountain while fighting a god, but a level 3 draugr can kill him in one hit. The man who single-handedly brought down an entire pantheon of gods can't handle a pack of wolves now.
The combat is fine. There have been 0 situations where the close-up camera has been actively additive to the experience but it's fine. It seems to me that they just needed some way to hide Atreus warping around the environment, or maybe to reduce on-screen geometry (see: fog in lakes).
Overall, it's the story that's disappointing me the most, specifically because it was touted as a stand-out aspect. Hammy, ham-fisted, hamtastical writing paired with two voice actors that lack chemistry and charisma does not an enjoyable time make.
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