The other optional area, Nilfheim isn’t nearly as good. It is actually tedious. It’s a sort of maze of traps. The whole area is covered in most that slowly drains a meter. When that meter is empty, you start taking a damage, and it will completely drain your health very quickly. There are chests littered everywhere that give you Mist Echoes, and each chest you open refills a portion of that meter. The mist echoes are used to craft the armor set, which increase your resistance to the mist. They’re also used as a currency for the central chamber which is filled with chests and a few Realm Tears that are locked until you have enough Mist Echoes. If you die in the maze, you lose your Mist Echoes, so you have to make it out. It ends up being repeated small incursions to slowly get enough materials to craft armor with increased resistance. It’s an exercise in tedium. It’s a neat idea that just doesn’t end up being very fun. It’s the first time I’m playing this game that I didn’t want to be doing the activity in front of me. It’s bad enough that it will probably be the thing that prevents me from getting the platinum trophy. I don’t think i can stomach grinding it out for a few hours to get through.

1. Either of the attacks where you recall the axe and attack in one move.

2. The unarmed alternate stance heavy attack, where you leap with the shield. Perfect for following up after a sprinting punch sends the enemy flying.

3. Tripping enemies with a thrown axe.

4. I've only just unlocked the Blades of Chaos, so I haven't fully explored those yet. But right now, the thing I love the most is the heavy attack "finisher" ground slam you can tack on to the end of a light attack combo. Simply because that move was always a staple of combat for me in the old games, so it makes me feel "back in the groove" more than anything else.

Side note, because this post is about the unarmed shield attack: One of MANY things I love about this game is how satisfying the unarmed combat is. It's not just a fallback for when you forget to recall your axe - sometimes it's actually the best option. I find myself using it a lot just for fun, so when that Muspelheim trial where they regenerate health came up, I felt very prepared. :)

Doing so unlocks an even more challenging version of the trials. The very first one is "Avoid taking damage" with a 20 enemy countdown. It starts easy enough (although not exactly super easy, but manageable). Once you get down to about 8 left, though, it throws a Soul Devourer and two Wolvers at you (after having previously thrown two Wolvers, a pair of the spear throwing Hel-Walkers, and a pair of the fast fire guys at you).

I tried three times and haven't made it through yet. I'm stopping for now to travel to Niflheim, which I haven't done yet.

This game continues to impress me. It's a non-stop ride. I honestly can't believe I'm still this enthralled with it--usually once the main quest in a game is over, I pretty quickly lose interest and motivation to keep playing it.

Here's what I'm using at the moment:

Light Runic Attack:
Charge of the White Bear

I love using this charge to close the distance on an enemy. Once it's upgraded, you can also use R2 to follow up the charge attack to do a sort of ground smash that has an area of effect. It's great for closing the distance on a mob and dealing a big damage hit right off the bat, and works equally as well for dealing good damage on a strong enemy.

Heavy Runic Attack:
Ivaldi's Anvil

This attack it just a big area of effect attack that freezes low tier enemies and does good damage on higher powered enemies. I use it a lot to just save my ass if I get overrun by a trash mob.

I'm using Cyclone of Chaos and Tartarus Rage as my light and heavy runics for the Blades of Chaos. I don't have too many opinions on those yet, as they're the only two runic attacks I have unlocked for the Blades, so I haven't been able to experiment with anything else. The Cyclone is great for mobs, and Tartarus Rage is just a big slam attack that deals decent damage.

I'm also using the Boar Stampede summon for Atreus. It's maxed out stun damage, so it's great for locking down enemies, which I've found more useful than trying to make Atreus a big damage dealer (although that might be totally possible with a different summon).

Cory Balrog, servant of Morgoth, Durin's Bane, the Nameless Terror, Demon of Might, is interviewed by Gandalf of the Istari, for 10 days, although primarily for two days and nights upon the peak of Celebdil from the 23rd-25th of January in TA 3019.

Seems pretty intense.

Here's Kinda Funny's:

Here's Easy Allies':

Here's Giant Bomb's (a podcast, rather than a video, and is mostly spoiler free):

Giant Bomb Presents: God of God of War

Some good stuff in there, and it's good to know (if obvious) that there's definite plans to continue the series. Sounds like there's some big plans for the story, and that this first game really is just laying the groundwork.

Mine is the shield gong ranged attack:

I use the Talisman that gives me basically just that final move with a big stun effect.

I’d have to think about my favorite move. The R1 counter after a perfect parry sending an enemy flying across the arena is always really satisfying.

I loved the way the game ended. The actual story ending was good, but artistically, rolling credits on the right side of the screen while you still control Kratos as you walk out of the temple and back down the stairs as he explains the meaning of the name Atreus to his son . . . it was just fantastic.

Have you gone home recently?

Yeah, I did that basically immediately. It was neat, but also very obvious. I was like half expecting him to show up towards the end of this game.

I'm definitely down for more God of War with this combat, but I wonder if they can really follow up this story well. Do we move from Kratos getting to know his son and revealing the truth and coming to terms with himself into Kratos and Atreus working their way through the Norse gods like Kratos did in the first series? I mean, sure, they can justify it, but I'm not sure what meaningful story follows from here. I'll sure give them a chance to show me, though, after the amazing job they did with this game.

I loved the way the game ended. The actual story ending was good, but artistically, rolling credits on the right side of the screen while you still control Kratos as you walk out of the temple and back down the stairs as he explains the meaning of the name Atreus to his son . . . it was just fantastic.

Have you gone home recently?

The final Baldur fight was great. His switching between fire and ice vulnerability to force the player to use both weapons was brilliant. It's honestly something I wish the game leaned on a bit more. It does a decent job of it (The encounter with the fire and ice trolls at the same time, where you can lure them into killing each other is fantastic), but I would still have liked to seem them play with it more.

I'm amazed that they made me care about Kratos and a God of War story. And it was excellent. I think it hit on every level that it was supposed to, nothing felt cheesy or bad. The pacing gets a little wonky at the end with it just continuing to introduce MacGuffins to chase down, but I was enjoying the game and wanting it to continue so much that even that didn't bother me.

I loved the way the game ended. The actual story ending was good, but artistically, rolling credits on the right side of the screen while you still control Kratos as you walk out of the temple and back down the stairs as he explains the meaning of the name Atreus to his son . . . it was just fantastic.

I'm looking forward to mopping up the stuff I haven't done yet. I freed two dragons during my playthrough, and I freed one Valkyrie, Gunnr. I also fought Eir and Kara, but got my ass handed to me, so I left them and continued the main quest. I got 30 some odd ravens, and I haven't even been to Niflheim yet.

I hope the photo mode patch comes soon. Or maybe I hope it comes in like two months, as that will give me a good reason to start a new save and go through the whole game again.

Like we were discussing before, the game's controls take a lot of getting used to. They start off feeling a bit unnecessarily complex for the combat early in the game, and you can manage by following a simple quick-attack + block/parry combo.

But that's not what the game wants you to do, and before long, you'll realize that this strategy will get you killed real quick as soon as your enemies close the distance and surround you. So you have to mix it up. You have to learn what moves fit your playstyle, and how you can adapt your playstyle to make the best use of your moves. More importantly, you have to become faster at picking and choosing the enemies that you have to prioritize, because some do heavy damage, some are fast, and some will pick at you from a distance.
So you have to keep learning, getting better, and you have to mix it up. And the great thing is that the more you do it all, the more you realize how beautiful the combat can flow. It becomes a dance, and you realize that doing awesome things that look incredibly cool are also the best way to play the game from a practical standpoint.

At the same time, there's something really satisfying about being a badass, rather than just having the game present you as one, or asking for button prompts to showcase some scripted fight sequences. The way the game is organic about everything except for finishers (which you have to earn) keeps everything genuinely exciting, and you end up wanting to chain together the moves, because you get great stuff like the gif above, without it being fake.

I remember that moment in Alfheim, where the hive becomes aware of us and makes a last-ditch effort to overwhelm us as we make a mad dash to free the Light. Kratos tells Atreus to go all-out, because "you won't miss!". I took that as my cue to spam everything I had, because, as Kratos pointed out, there's so many enemies swarming, that you kind of have to unleash everything in your arsenal at once. And it worked, and both felt awesome, and it looked awesome.

The only other game that I can think of that rewards you for organically chaining together as much awesome without stopping is Titanfall 2 (and to a more numbers-based degree, the Devil May Cry/Bayonetta games).

It's good stuff that makes me want to fight just for the sake of fighting.

Finally beat my first Valkyrie last night. Was a tough one. Her normal attacks were fairly blockable but she would occasionally do a special attack where she’d jump on me and kick me in the face to death. I finally learned the extremely quick tell and figured out I could dodge at the right time and finally won after about 30 minutes of trying.

The one I faced had odd normal attacks. They were able to be parried, but the timing is just odd enough that it was sort of difficult to get right. She starts from across the arena then launches herself at you, but there's just a split second of hesitation when she gets to you before she swings--just enough that it's easy to be lured into blocking too early.

She also really punishes you if you get greedy with your attacks. I got the parry down, and go in for the counterattack, but if you get to greedy she does this crazy spin attack. You can block it, but if you screw that up, it leaves you wide open and she does three or four spins that just decimate your health pool.

It was a very, very fun fight, and I'm looking forward to finding the rest of them.

One of my favorite things is a Talsmen I have that instantly refreshes my Runic attacks. Being able to hit a boss with two uses of each Runic attack deals MASSIVE damage in a very short amount of time. :)

That sounds awesome.

One of my favorite things is a Talsmen I have that instantly refreshes my Runic attacks. Being able to hit a boss with two uses of each Runic attack deals MASSIVE damage in a very short amount of time. :)

Kill enemies quickly was a neat one, where you had to kill everyone within a small time frame or they just continued to respawn.

I'm looking forward to going back when I get some better gear.

I also did my first Valkyrie fight tonight (the one that's pretty obvious along the story path), and that was a really fun fight. I'm glad, too, because so far nothing has really lived up The Stranger fight. Thor's two dipshit sons weren't that interesting or challenging.

I just now got the Blades of Chaos and am getting ready to enter Helheim, but my controller died, so I figure that's a good enough stopping point for the night.

Once again, I cannot overstate how good this game is. Between this and Horizon: Zero Dawn (not too mention Bloodborne), I'd recommend that just about anybody that doesn't have one should go pick up a PS4 if they can, even if it's just a used launch model for cheap. This game is that good. It's the first game since like Ocarina of Time that got perfect 10s basically across the board and actually deserves them. Literally my only complaint so far is "They started the game with the best fight, so none of the others live up to it."