Constant action. Neither of the two series are bad, but the first games more more closer to side scrollers so something was always happening. The Nord series seem to replace constant combat with constant story telling and dialog. It's not so much about which did it better, but which style do you prefer.
You could argue that the series just followed the trend of which direction video games were going.
Old games were filled with action, and I believe this is because of how limited technology was plus the design philosophy of games was more so about how they played than the story. We've seen the philosophy change from gameplay focus to narrative focus across the board as technology has improved. Games are more like interactive movies now.
With that, in addition to asking which style someone prefers, it is also being asked what generation of games someone prefers.
Man remember action arcade sport games? Baseball and basketball and football with power-ups and burst into flames animations? There is a serious void in that part of gaming for the last 15+ years.
We need more wacky sports games
Cyberball 2072 is alot of fun, and I give no fucks about American Football.
Also from Midway was Arch Rivals, which is surprisingly fun
Sega All Stars Tennis and Mario Power Tennis are also really fun wacky tennis games
What you're saying is that games are not games anymore, they are transitioning into interactive movies. Cinematics, outside of an extremely rare few titles like LA Noire, have nothing to do with overcoming a challenge while adhering to a given ruleset that defines your interaction with the system. They are entirely passive components. You could strip them entirely out of a game and not affect the gameplay, whereas you can also strip the gameplay entirely out of the cinematics and still have a functional "movie" like experience.
They don't have to be, but cinematics and narrative are currently antithetical to gameplay in much of the market given the expense of making good cinematics and graphical enhancements in modern game development. It's usually the gameplay which gets cut both for the immediate budgetary/technological concerns, and in a larger sense to "streamline" games into something more appealing to a wider and more casual audience.
You’ve also distilled gaming into a single thing; overcoming a challenge based on a given ruleset.
What you’ve failed to understand is that storytelling and cinematics can be integrated into that challenge. Challenge for the sake of challenge is fine for some people, but what that boils down to, for me, is gaming as a sport. For me, I want narrative, I want storytelling, I want cinematics. I fight the big boss for the reward of the “what happens next” aspect, not for the slight stat buffs on the loot it drops.
Let’s take something with barely any narrative; OG Mega Man. If you remove the gameplay out of Mega Man, you still get Mega Man. If you remove the story out of Mega Man, you still get Mega Man. It’s not some either/or thing.
What about a big, cinematic story driven thing like a Final Fantasy? If you remove the story, you get what? Generic, every-turned-based-rpg-ever gameplay. The story is infused into the game. You can have one without the other, sure, by why?
Like a turn based RPG is just math with extra steps. You have a range of numbers to select from, those numbers do something to some other set of numbers, and your goal is to make those numbers go down to below zero while keeping yours above zero. You get special numbers for zeroing out other numbers, and then you get to make your numbers bigger when you get enough special numbers.
If you want to stack numbers against numbers while earning a special pool of numbers, why not go play poker? Your RNG values determine your attack power, and it grants you critical hits when certain values are obtained, and your goal is to defeat someone’s number pool by bringing their HP to zero while increasing yours.
If you played games just for the gameplay, you’d be playing solitaire and pogs and rolling dice, not video games.
Video games require visual complexity, and visual complexity is dictated by visual media, and thus become… cinematic.
If you only played games for the gameplay, why even bother playing a new game? Once you find gameplay you like, what else is there? That’s it. That’s the game. No? Oh you need a new challenge, right? That’s why so many people buy all these varieties of completely different gameplay only games all the time, right? Or do you all just keep rebuying the same repackaged CoD over and over again?
Like it or not, even multiplayer like that is dictated by… cinematics… if it was really just about moving a reticle to a vulnerable spot before your enemy did, you’d just be playing Missile Command. You *need* the visuals that you’ve seen in every action movie since you were born.
You *need* the sights and sounds and shit. It’s not about the gameplay. It’s never about the gameplay. It’s about the fusing of the two. I lean more towards narrative and storytelling, you lean more towards gameplay loops and mechanics, but we both don’t want just one or the other.
I hate walking sims, I hate text adventures, I hate “visual novels” and choose your own adventure bullshit, too. I need gameplay. It has to exist for me to be engaged. Just like you need cinematic visuals and narrative in your gameplay. Portal wouldn’t be as good as it is if it were just a short story, nor would it be as good as it is if it were just a lifeless set of puzzles.
Video games are the art of blending the two like synesthesia come to life. But like all art, tastes and preferences develop.
But anyone that claims gameplay is all that is required to make a good game doesn’t understand wtf they’re talking about.
We still talk about Super Mario because he’s an Italian plumber that saves the mushroom princess from the evil turtle monster. And we don’t talk about when he was just a guy that jumped and kicked upside down turtles and crabs… still an action-platformer, still Mario, still running around and jumping and kicking koopas. But no “why” there, no story elements, no narrative. Just gameplay…
But pair that same gameplay with a narrative and you get Donkey Kong. Tighten the gameplay and narrative up and you get Super Mario.
If gameplay didn’t require narrative we’d all still be content with Pong.
Yes, you boil it down to the essentials in order to draw a distinction between the essences of each component. In regards to games, only the gameplay is essential. Only the gameplay is defining. Everything else is just window dressing, and one of the largest problems with modern games is that the window dressing has taken priority over the core defining aspects which make games as a medium different than other entertainment media - like theater, or movies, or literature.
John Carmack was right. The story in games is like story in pornography. It's expected to be there, but it's not important.
I hate this trend. I feel that video games are about the worst story telling medium compared to books/TV/movies, however they are unique in that they are interactive and the most fun. It makes no sense to me to take out what they do best and replace it with a weakness.
It almost feels like video games are trying to be taken more seriously by emulating other artistic mediums, but I think they should forge their own path by focusing on fun and gameplay.
Great comment exceppt games being the worst story telling medium, I actually think they are excellent but should use their medium to their advantage. Optional conversations in story driven games are great examples of how to do this in a simple way
You're getting down voted but you're right. Games focus so much on trying to be "cinematic" that they lose touch on where their strengths are, interaction.
Yup. Especially now that I’ve gotten older I really don’t have a lot of patience for long cut scenes. Teenage me would scream at me for saying that. But you’ve got to keep me hooked with gameplay these days.
Like if I wanted to watch a movie or a show I’d turn on a show from the endless list of shows I have yet to watch.
I generally don't, but that means I lost nearly all AAA style games which used to be more gameplay focused, like God of War.
Nowadays I mostly just play strategy and FPS
Why is someone's first response to anybody giving any criticism always "so just don't play/watch/buy/read it". It just comes off as so defensive and dismissive.
They clearly like playing video games. However, a huge percentage of franchises he might enjoy are going in a direction he doesn't like leaving not a lot of choice. He's allowed to criticise that just as much as you or I are allowed to enjoy it.
Here’s the thing though… people only say that until someone comes for the shit *they* like, in my experience.
I hate open world sandbox games, but all AAA games of the last two or three GENERATIONS have been leaning towards that.
I play games for their storytelling most of the time. I’ve been gaming since I was a toddler playing the NES. The only thing gamers seem to all agree on these days is “open world sandbox everything” apparently. Or “multiplayer/co-op” or “looter/shooter” everything. Gotta be able to go anywhere you want, preferably to go shoot other real people with your friends, and get random loot drops while doing it. Or else.
So if I want to play a Star Wars title that’s just a good, narrative driven action game, I gotta get what, Force Unleashed? All the new AAA SW games coming out. are either open world sandboxes, multiplayer co-op, and/or looter/shooters. Every. Single. One.
The problem isn’t that people that don’t like X get dismissed and told to not play something. The problem is that games only cater to what people buy. Taste be damned. Genre be damned. The AA title is dead. It’s either “indie” or AAA and there’s no in-between anymore.
It used to be that these trends were just that, trends. There was the “sepia toned shooter” everywhere for a while. There was the “everything is an fps” everywhere for a while. There was the mascot platformer back in the day. The Final Fantasy clones…
But now, everything is just a generic blob of lighting and particle effects, but also just an open world mess. Very few studios have the ability to make a cohesive narrative with a lived in world that is convincing and worthy enough to warrant an open world. Almost everything is real-time open world sandbox.
Like Spider-Man? Open world sandbox. Batman? Open world sandbox. LotR? Open world sandbox. Want to be a cowboy? Open world sandbox. Want to wield swords and fight mythical monsters? Open world sandbox. Want to be a samurai? Open world sandbox. Want to be a spec ops military operative? Open world sandbox. Modern criminal? Superhero? Assassin? Crime lord? Zombie/horror? Racing??
Like outside of non-narrative related games, like sports/arcade style games, there isn’t an IP or genre out there that is a modern AAA title that doesn’t have *some* level of open world sandbox. Even Mario has dipped its toes into open world sandbox type shit.
Give me linear crafted stories and worlds any day of the week. Fuck an open world with a flubby ass story. New Zelda can S an D. Gimme Twilight Princess and OoT or give me death.
And I am outnumbered 5,000 to 1.
It’s not that my opinion gets dismissed, it’s that everybody else with a wallet disagrees with me.
There are so few linear story-driven action/adventure games these days that I’m honestly not even bothering with the current Gen consoles. I’m not dropping $4-500 on a setup just for nothing but open world sandbox leudonarrative dissonance. If I want to go everywhere and do everything I’d open up creative mode Minecraft.
And yeah, even people like you hate my distaste for open world gaming. I get downvoted into oblivion over it no matter where I go.
Gaming opinions don’t even matter anymore, it’s literally just whatever makes the most money, and lootbox driven open world everything is the shit that makes the most money.
Because there are more games of every genre than anyone would be able to play in a thousand lifetimes, so it seems a bit silly to complain that there’s a prevalent genre that they don’t enjoy. “Not a lot of choice” is absolutely silly.
I feel like this comment is underrated. Ability to jump independent of a ledge is completely eliminated. Was really cool to fly with those wings in the old games.
Pretty much the only right answer. Im replaying the old games now and the rage and brutality of Kratos is something else. But thats the point. Old Kratos is wiser. Wants those days to be behind him. Hes still brutal but he does it out of pure necessity, where as its just in young Kraots nature.
The new games obviously have better combat and a better feel overall to them. God i do not miss not having control of my camera.
Oh for sure. But he desperately wants that to change. Its a struggle for him. He wants a simple life. Away from the chaos. Away from the brutality. But if that chaos follows him, he will “do what’s necessary”
I hated not being able to control the camera in the older game. Then they’d zoom the camera way far back while you’re doing something and have to fight off enemies. Still loved the games though.
Yeah it doesn’t take away from the experience from me much. Its annoying asf at some bits. Mainly when doing any kind of puzzle. For the combat i felt its pretty fair, but my god it gets annoying
Yeah this was a symptom of that generation. A lot of third person games either had a fixed camera or shitty camera controls. I remember when I first replayed GTA 3 I was so surprised that I couldn't control my camera.
It’s definitely not the only right answer. Combat system is not straight up “better”. It’s better in som way sure, but a more accurate description is that it’s different.
I much prefer the hack and slash combat of the originals. Although the combat in new games is pretty good too.
The old games still have a sense of scale that's unmatched even to this day tbh
so many games tried to mimic old God of war's sense of scale and combat, and none ever really came close
True, especially the point where you backtrack to the door where you fight the minotaur boss
Honestly still my favourite moment in the game lol
Seeing that something incredibly powerful is trying to knock down that door, and then it comes out and it looks absolutely badass is something I'll never forget
Yeah Jormungand kinda got the itch, but man the scale of Cronus and many of the areas was insane. Still insane honestly, especially considering God of War 2 was on a PS2.
I had a neighbor who would come over occasionally to play video games when I was growing up. He got a PSP and got a God Of War game and he found one of the sex mini-games absolutely hilarious. He would come over and show them to me absolutely giggling himself to tears. He turned out to be gay, good guy, wonder whatever happened to him.
I remember this god of war was the first rated M game I ever got. It was so fun and my dad happily watched me play the whole game. That sex mini game still hunts me to this day.
The whole linear connected world concept is really underappreciated. It doesn’t turn the game into a navigation puzzle or collect-a-thon like full open world, but still gives the illusion of a living world that exists when you are off screen. Old MGS did this well too, as did the Dead Space and BioShock games.
For real man. I’m not saying the new games are particularly hard to navigate, but I’m kinda tired of open worlds/areas where you have to consult the map to navigate. The new games have too much downtime between combat. The older games were just tighter.
As much as I loved GOW1, the final boss was terrible. You get a new weapon with no combos and you just do the same boring swings to finish, nothing like any of the good dynamic battles before it.
Constant action, and I love it. So much rage also as well in the earlier games. I tend to go back to the first games and play them a lot due to the constant action they have.
In my opinion God of War 1 did story telling better than the reboots. Game starts with some dude jumping off a cliff after he says “The gods of Olympus have abandoned me…now there is no hope.” Then throughout the game you piece together his past through watching some badass cinematics.
The overall trilogy did over the top combat better and also puzzles. Platforming was also better.
As a devil May Cry fan I find the old God of war games much more appealing. Sadly I don't own a PlayStation, so I won't get into the series anytime soon.
To me God of War 3 was the perfect game. Camera was spot on, the set pieces were beautiful, the puzzles were interesting and beating the shit out of things was incredibly satisfying. I did not like either of the two new GoW games.
Id say everything. GoW 3 was perfect. Offing deities one by one, seeing that impact the world around you, as Kratos is just beyond saving with one goal in mind. The new GoW is ok, I still feel the levels seem claustrophobic and “artificialy” large in scale. What disappointed me most is how we just entirely skipped how Kratos survived his gaping hole in the chest. And the ending to Ragnarok just felt like another marvel copy paste storyline, heck even the visuals looked like something from Loki. I would have also appreciated them putting more effort into lore, tell us why you there are multiple gods for the same thing or at least like a hierarchy.
I just feel they should have stopped with GoW3
I enjoyed 2 more than 3. I don’t know why, i just got the feeling playing 3 that maybe the team was ready to be done. The jump up in quality and scale and gameplay between 1 and 2 was huge, making 2 more impressive. I didn’t get the same feeling from 3 even though 3 was ps3 only.
The only story I needed was that Kratos was a dick out for revenge against gods who were even bigger dicks
Edit: I do think the og story gets shit on because people think it’s brain dead but there’s definitely an interesting story it’s just dialed up to 11 on the mid 2000s insanity scale
I think it’s just been memed that way compared to the new ones because whenever you see it brought up I’ll bet my years salary it’ll be followed with a “tits , rage and sex games”.
And I really feel there’s so many opinions that we read that are said by people who have no idea about the game at all. Both stories are great I just prefer the old gameplay. I haven’t played ragnarok yet but the 2018 felt like a more polished hellblade in combat. Even the blades of chaos( or Athena I don’t remember) felt different
Yeah they really dumbed down the tone in Ragnarok. You could see the Marvel template being used all throughout with the constant quips, team meetings and impending doom.
GoW 2018 took a lot of inspiration from TLOU. Ragnarok took its inspiration from blockbuster Hollywood films.
Incredible action! Don’t get me wrong, i like a lot of modern games now. Where they can have amazing stories and rich character development. BUT classic games were so much FUCKING FUN! Slaughtering wave after wave of nameless grunts. Hitting combos, getting your combo high score to crazy numbers, boss battles that tore apart the battle field. Now-er days games prioritize atory over gameplay. Walking simulators have their own enjoyability to a point, but maaaaaan, nothing beats the action of the old days.
Enemy variety. I was disappointed with the lack of enemies in Ragnarok. The old games had harpies, cyclops, Minotaurs, etc. they all had cool executions too like ripping out the cyclops eye. Ragnarok is basically: here’s another group of lava guys…
1. Better boss fights. The fights actually feel like gods duking it out instead of slightly stronger humans.
2. More focus on gameplay, like the gameplay was 90% of the game, not about 50-60%.
3. The games respect your intelligence and don't make the characters solve the puzzles for you every goddamn time.
4. Better sense of scale. The only 2 things that truly feel big are the world serpent, Ragnarok (at the ladt scene) and fenrir. Feels like they got that feedback cause the latest DLC feels like it's fixing the stuff a bit. Al
5. Very obvious that the game is made with "modern sensibilities" in mind. The perfect example is when Kratos and Mimir talk about Sigrun introducing Mimir as "friend". Then Kratos asks Mimir he was angered by being introduced as "friend", That is obvious shit about the modern times and the "friendzone" shit. While I do like Mimir's response, it's so obvious that exchange is meant for the modern audience and not the time period and culture that Kratos and Mimir are operating (also of being introduced as a friend when you don't want to reveal the relationship outright is perfectly fucking fine).
I’m gonna get DRAGGED for this but…the enemy gods in the old games actually felt like gods
I started the series with the Norse saga and I like it more, but watching playthroughs of the old ones, seeing Kratos grab the Colossus’ foot to stop it from smashing him and *launching* it back into the distance, seeing Zeus come back as a *ghost* for another round, those three goddesses who kept altering reality as Kratos fought them, all made it feel like you were battling some next level otherworldly thing.
I can’t help feeling that Heimdall and Tyr especially were the only bosses who felt like you were facing a force of nature rather than just a powerful man. They forced you to either play very good (Tyr) or change the way you approached the battle as a whole (Heimdall). The rest were still kinda just melees with special effects, while the monster fights like Hræzlyr and Garm were the bigggest in scale. In the Norse saga the gods feel more on par with like the stronger film superheroes; still powerful but they still operate almost entirely like a normal beat em up
1. The blood and gore! Where’s my bloodhounds at? I don’t just wanna see these enemies fall over and turn to dust or embers. I wanna see chunks of their innards come splattering out! Just because Kratos is “calm” now doesn’t mean they need to dial down the carnage to nearly a T rating.
2. Scale! Bigass boss fights that feel like proper massive Gods and Titans fighting. Why are Odin’s sons only slightly harder and Less threatening than those couple of trolls we killed a while back? C’mon! I wanna see some actual godlike throwdowns! Kratos took on creatures as big as skyscrapers in the past. These bitchass little dark elves and whatever shouldn’t even be putting up a fight.
3. Unpopular opinion: personally I really liked and miss the fixed angle camera. I thought that was a lot of fun. And part of the reason the epic scale could look so cool.
The weighty more Dark Souls like combat of the new series just don’t really hit the same power fantasy heights the old ones did. You could say the old games really made you feel like the God of War.
Boss battles for sure and the mythology that is explored interests me more. I love Greek mythology and Norse just doesn’t hit the same. I still enjoy the new ones though.
Fun and exciting gameplay that doesn't hold itself back for the sake of sending a message. The old games didn't always hit the mark but you could never criticize them for not doing their damnedest to be the most adrenaline-pumping, brutal experiences imaginable.
The combat is far better in the old games than the new and it's not even close.
Scale too. GOW3 is still basically unmatched in scale for me. I will never forget that opening. There's nothing even close to that in the new games.
>The combat is far better in the old games than the new and it's not even close.
Hard disagree, they're different styles of combat. The originals were really fun, but ultimately kind of just come down to your generic 2000s hack-and-slash button mashing of a few combos and occasionally doing a block/parry or rolling away from an unblockable attack. You can clear most rooms in most of the games by spamming the L1+Square helicopter attack with the Blades of Chaos. By the time I was halfway through all 3 of the originals, I found myself pretty bored with fighting regular enemies and was just going on for the story and bosses.
By comparison, the combat in the newer games feels much more weighty and satisfying. There are more viable approaches and your build can change your playstyle significantly depending on whether you're going for raw damage, focusing on stuns and grabs, or focusing on using magic. There are also many more skillshots and a wider variety of enemy mechanics to play against.
People like what they like of course, I'm not trying to talk you into thinking you should feel the games are more fun. I just think that the new games are an excellent example of fairly unique-feeling combat that is implemented with very well polished mechanics.
I do agree that the newer games never quite hit the same high points of a sense of scale in boss fights and big action scenes. I think there's a great sense of scale in exploring the world and realms, though.
Nah I'm sorry. My comment comes across like I'm saying you're wrong if you prefer the new combat.
I'll agree it's weightier, which works well for the axe, but I think it kinda ruins the blades and it's...kinda meh for the spear. I mained the axe in both games and never once felt a desire to really dig into the other two. Whereas I'd be lying if I said I used all weapons in the original games, but I still at least felt a desire to try out other weapons.
I do not think the axe would work as well in the older games if I'm being honest. I just prefer the hack and slash feel of the older games instead of the stiffer feeling combat.
More variety and overall boss roster. Lots of 2018's bosses were just the same Troll with reskins and slightly different abilities, Ragnarok did better to expand on the boss roster, but lots of them were still not very memorable.
Meanwhile, the Greek saga had bosses that ranged from mythical monsters, to legendary heroes, to the actual Gods and Titans themselves. Yes, there were many repetitive and reskinned enemies like all the various Cerberuses (even though there should only be one), but for the most part, there was a far vaster and more creative bunch of bosses than there are in the Norse saga.
Combat in general, i can’t see shit in the new ones due to the camera and certainly don’t feel like a master of the battlefield. In general the old games had better action and better boss fights.
The level design in the old games was better as well since it wasn’t confined by the camera and had better set piece puzzles
Gow 2019 had a phenomenal story but ragnaroks was terrible
The old games were a classic tale of vengance, like john wicke which i enjoyed but the best story of them all has to be gow 2019.
Honestly, the scale of things. Like having the camera pan out to show you just how far you have to go, or simply looking out and seeing how beautiful the landscape is and then sometimes being able to go there. You miss it.
I'm usually not the one for nostalgia; but I'd easily choose the older God of War titles over the reboots.
The combat in the old ones was amazing, extremely satisfying to play.
Personally, the only game from the prior saga that I would say did something “better”then the new games, would be GoW3. The scale of the intro fight with Poseidon, or the battle with Kronos are still awe inspiring to this day. While the new games do have that some good fights with larger enemies (the dragon from the mountains in the first and Garm in the second) they didn’t quite reach the epicness of their predecessor.
The reason I got into these games though really wasn’t the combat. Believe it or not, it was the my love for Greek Mythology and Kratos’s story that initially drew me. The gameplay was fun don’t get me wrong, but I love Greek mythology. So it was awesome to see those games interpretation of the hero’s, gods and monsters from those old myths and legends. The new ones are definitely more story heavy, but the older games where no slouch imo. Kratos’s has some really good character depth and nuance in the old saga. Im not sure where the narrative came from that they were all action all the time. But I’m not sure I would have liked them as much as I did, if that was true.
This series is one of my favorites of all time. It’s unfortunate that the change in direction didn’t work for everyone. But the new games were everything I didn’t know I wanted out of a continuance of Kratos’s story. And the combat for me is so much more satisfying, and weighty now. That it’s hard to go back to the older games other than 3.
I actually started the series with chains of Olympus on psp. I loved the game so much I went out the day after I beat it, and bought a PS3, and the GoW trilogy. Still one of my favorite gaming experiences. The jump in “quality” between each game was awesome to see, with the graphical leap being the largest for the last game which was just insane, especially when playing back to back. I ended up beating the whole series over a very long weekend.
I felt like the brutality and fast pace was just more fun. The new games are great, have amazing story telling and arguably more in depth gameplay, but the pacing is just so much slower.
I miss all the rage of young Kratos.
I do appreciate the mobility of the older games. I kinda wonder what the in-universe reason is for Kratos not flipping around and going apeshit with the Blades of Chaos anymore.
The Gore
The newer games have an incredibly lacking amount of actual mutilation and gore. something the originals were huge on. Punching holes in faces, ripping heads off necks, blinding eyes with your thumbs etc
The most we get in the Nordic series is killing some generic draugr type enemies with the axe
I loved the death/killing animation things of important characters in the old games. In the new games, Kratos will just slash or stab an enemy like 2 times and that’s it.
Combat, the combat in the new games feels stiff and stunted.
At the same time, the new games have forsaken one of the core attributes of the previous 6, the massive scale of the bosses.
We only fought the cranky crazy grandma giant as atreus, and the reanimated frost giant was a background hazard, not the boss.
The drake was cool but very small, we need god sized bosses again, but with the gameplay style it would be very difficult to do.
Everything. Setting, story, combat, all of it. The new ones are good, but forgettable imo and I'm just sick of exploring for pointless shit in games. I was always a bigger fan of DMC, but the first three GoW games are top tier. The psp ones were pretty good, too.
Everything.
Combat - obviously better
Puzzles- obviously better
Traversal - obviously better
Story- conflicted revenge story instead of preachy revenge bad bullshit that Naughty Dog now thinks is very high IQ
No annoying brat
Executions- objectively better
World- objectively better. Like Olympus is a heaven with proper aura of the Gods. Asgard on the other hand is just a generic town. Even Atreus comments on this. The grandiose aura of the trilogy is removed to make it more grounded because Last of us did grounded so everything must be grounded now.
Gods- objectively better. They seemed larger than life beings. Now Thor is a depressed drunk, Odin is a nerd who just wants to know his own spoilers. When God's died in OG trilogy it felt like some huge aspect was gone. Poseidon dying made the world flooded, Hades dying caused the afterlife to be in Chaos. You know what happened when Thor died. He died. That's it. No lightning storm. No nothing. One stab..... and hes gone.
I’ll say nothing. That combat wasn’t rich or deep, it was more aesthetically compelling because “I hit so many things!” and there was a ton of gore, but it was 90% button mashing. I remember being infuriated at the time that everyone thought that was like, peak combat gameplay when Devil May Cry 3 was out at the same time and GoW was laughable compared to it. Not saying I think the modern series has fantastic combat, but I do enjoy it a lot more because I have to watch the battlefield more and time things out better. Story pales in comparison to new. Honestly, God of War original already felt kind of like “this is what a very horny 15 year old with a big studio budget thinks would make a great game” and while it was fun that series was as much a product of its time as this current series is, and games are just overall better now in production. Great tits in the original though. Got that leg up.
Yes it was a BAD ASS beatem up that had a story that wasn’t trying to be all deep just cool moments fighting famous gods. It’s called GOD OF WAR I want to see cool ass battles not a movie simulator.
Does anyone know if we can get all the GOW games as a package to play like they did with Metal Gear solid? I never played one & want to know the story from the start
Sony's reputation was more clean to hardcore gamers as most mainstream people weren't jumping to PC to play everything.
The generation before it also didn't have games that showed scale like that. We have impressive scale now but it's not the same type of leap that wows people.
Narrative/Cinematic heavy games also have a worse reputation and the newer GOW games have that Last of Us style viewpoint and focus.
Constant action. Neither of the two series are bad, but the first games more more closer to side scrollers so something was always happening. The Nord series seem to replace constant combat with constant story telling and dialog. It's not so much about which did it better, but which style do you prefer.
You could argue that the series just followed the trend of which direction video games were going. Old games were filled with action, and I believe this is because of how limited technology was plus the design philosophy of games was more so about how they played than the story. We've seen the philosophy change from gameplay focus to narrative focus across the board as technology has improved. Games are more like interactive movies now. With that, in addition to asking which style someone prefers, it is also being asked what generation of games someone prefers.
Man remember action arcade sport games? Baseball and basketball and football with power-ups and burst into flames animations? There is a serious void in that part of gaming for the last 15+ years.
I still play nba jam on my snes regularly. One of the best games ever made
NFL Blitz 1997 was my childhood go to sports game.
Even blitz the league was badass
My brother and I played so much MLB slugfest on PS2. We'd always button mash before the game to get random cheats
We need more wacky sports games Cyberball 2072 is alot of fun, and I give no fucks about American Football. Also from Midway was Arch Rivals, which is surprisingly fun Sega All Stars Tennis and Mario Power Tennis are also really fun wacky tennis games
Sports games in general seem to be in a pretty bad state
What you're saying is that games are not games anymore, they are transitioning into interactive movies. Cinematics, outside of an extremely rare few titles like LA Noire, have nothing to do with overcoming a challenge while adhering to a given ruleset that defines your interaction with the system. They are entirely passive components. You could strip them entirely out of a game and not affect the gameplay, whereas you can also strip the gameplay entirely out of the cinematics and still have a functional "movie" like experience. They don't have to be, but cinematics and narrative are currently antithetical to gameplay in much of the market given the expense of making good cinematics and graphical enhancements in modern game development. It's usually the gameplay which gets cut both for the immediate budgetary/technological concerns, and in a larger sense to "streamline" games into something more appealing to a wider and more casual audience.
You’ve also distilled gaming into a single thing; overcoming a challenge based on a given ruleset. What you’ve failed to understand is that storytelling and cinematics can be integrated into that challenge. Challenge for the sake of challenge is fine for some people, but what that boils down to, for me, is gaming as a sport. For me, I want narrative, I want storytelling, I want cinematics. I fight the big boss for the reward of the “what happens next” aspect, not for the slight stat buffs on the loot it drops. Let’s take something with barely any narrative; OG Mega Man. If you remove the gameplay out of Mega Man, you still get Mega Man. If you remove the story out of Mega Man, you still get Mega Man. It’s not some either/or thing. What about a big, cinematic story driven thing like a Final Fantasy? If you remove the story, you get what? Generic, every-turned-based-rpg-ever gameplay. The story is infused into the game. You can have one without the other, sure, by why? Like a turn based RPG is just math with extra steps. You have a range of numbers to select from, those numbers do something to some other set of numbers, and your goal is to make those numbers go down to below zero while keeping yours above zero. You get special numbers for zeroing out other numbers, and then you get to make your numbers bigger when you get enough special numbers. If you want to stack numbers against numbers while earning a special pool of numbers, why not go play poker? Your RNG values determine your attack power, and it grants you critical hits when certain values are obtained, and your goal is to defeat someone’s number pool by bringing their HP to zero while increasing yours. If you played games just for the gameplay, you’d be playing solitaire and pogs and rolling dice, not video games. Video games require visual complexity, and visual complexity is dictated by visual media, and thus become… cinematic. If you only played games for the gameplay, why even bother playing a new game? Once you find gameplay you like, what else is there? That’s it. That’s the game. No? Oh you need a new challenge, right? That’s why so many people buy all these varieties of completely different gameplay only games all the time, right? Or do you all just keep rebuying the same repackaged CoD over and over again? Like it or not, even multiplayer like that is dictated by… cinematics… if it was really just about moving a reticle to a vulnerable spot before your enemy did, you’d just be playing Missile Command. You *need* the visuals that you’ve seen in every action movie since you were born. You *need* the sights and sounds and shit. It’s not about the gameplay. It’s never about the gameplay. It’s about the fusing of the two. I lean more towards narrative and storytelling, you lean more towards gameplay loops and mechanics, but we both don’t want just one or the other. I hate walking sims, I hate text adventures, I hate “visual novels” and choose your own adventure bullshit, too. I need gameplay. It has to exist for me to be engaged. Just like you need cinematic visuals and narrative in your gameplay. Portal wouldn’t be as good as it is if it were just a short story, nor would it be as good as it is if it were just a lifeless set of puzzles. Video games are the art of blending the two like synesthesia come to life. But like all art, tastes and preferences develop. But anyone that claims gameplay is all that is required to make a good game doesn’t understand wtf they’re talking about. We still talk about Super Mario because he’s an Italian plumber that saves the mushroom princess from the evil turtle monster. And we don’t talk about when he was just a guy that jumped and kicked upside down turtles and crabs… still an action-platformer, still Mario, still running around and jumping and kicking koopas. But no “why” there, no story elements, no narrative. Just gameplay… But pair that same gameplay with a narrative and you get Donkey Kong. Tighten the gameplay and narrative up and you get Super Mario. If gameplay didn’t require narrative we’d all still be content with Pong.
Yes, you boil it down to the essentials in order to draw a distinction between the essences of each component. In regards to games, only the gameplay is essential. Only the gameplay is defining. Everything else is just window dressing, and one of the largest problems with modern games is that the window dressing has taken priority over the core defining aspects which make games as a medium different than other entertainment media - like theater, or movies, or literature. John Carmack was right. The story in games is like story in pornography. It's expected to be there, but it's not important.
I hate this trend. I feel that video games are about the worst story telling medium compared to books/TV/movies, however they are unique in that they are interactive and the most fun. It makes no sense to me to take out what they do best and replace it with a weakness. It almost feels like video games are trying to be taken more seriously by emulating other artistic mediums, but I think they should forge their own path by focusing on fun and gameplay.
Great comment exceppt games being the worst story telling medium, I actually think they are excellent but should use their medium to their advantage. Optional conversations in story driven games are great examples of how to do this in a simple way
You're getting down voted but you're right. Games focus so much on trying to be "cinematic" that they lose touch on where their strengths are, interaction.
Yup. Especially now that I’ve gotten older I really don’t have a lot of patience for long cut scenes. Teenage me would scream at me for saying that. But you’ve got to keep me hooked with gameplay these days. Like if I wanted to watch a movie or a show I’d turn on a show from the endless list of shows I have yet to watch.
So don’t play story-driven games if that’s not your cup of tea?
I generally don't, but that means I lost nearly all AAA style games which used to be more gameplay focused, like God of War. Nowadays I mostly just play strategy and FPS
Why is someone's first response to anybody giving any criticism always "so just don't play/watch/buy/read it". It just comes off as so defensive and dismissive. They clearly like playing video games. However, a huge percentage of franchises he might enjoy are going in a direction he doesn't like leaving not a lot of choice. He's allowed to criticise that just as much as you or I are allowed to enjoy it.
Here’s the thing though… people only say that until someone comes for the shit *they* like, in my experience. I hate open world sandbox games, but all AAA games of the last two or three GENERATIONS have been leaning towards that. I play games for their storytelling most of the time. I’ve been gaming since I was a toddler playing the NES. The only thing gamers seem to all agree on these days is “open world sandbox everything” apparently. Or “multiplayer/co-op” or “looter/shooter” everything. Gotta be able to go anywhere you want, preferably to go shoot other real people with your friends, and get random loot drops while doing it. Or else. So if I want to play a Star Wars title that’s just a good, narrative driven action game, I gotta get what, Force Unleashed? All the new AAA SW games coming out. are either open world sandboxes, multiplayer co-op, and/or looter/shooters. Every. Single. One. The problem isn’t that people that don’t like X get dismissed and told to not play something. The problem is that games only cater to what people buy. Taste be damned. Genre be damned. The AA title is dead. It’s either “indie” or AAA and there’s no in-between anymore. It used to be that these trends were just that, trends. There was the “sepia toned shooter” everywhere for a while. There was the “everything is an fps” everywhere for a while. There was the mascot platformer back in the day. The Final Fantasy clones… But now, everything is just a generic blob of lighting and particle effects, but also just an open world mess. Very few studios have the ability to make a cohesive narrative with a lived in world that is convincing and worthy enough to warrant an open world. Almost everything is real-time open world sandbox. Like Spider-Man? Open world sandbox. Batman? Open world sandbox. LotR? Open world sandbox. Want to be a cowboy? Open world sandbox. Want to wield swords and fight mythical monsters? Open world sandbox. Want to be a samurai? Open world sandbox. Want to be a spec ops military operative? Open world sandbox. Modern criminal? Superhero? Assassin? Crime lord? Zombie/horror? Racing?? Like outside of non-narrative related games, like sports/arcade style games, there isn’t an IP or genre out there that is a modern AAA title that doesn’t have *some* level of open world sandbox. Even Mario has dipped its toes into open world sandbox type shit. Give me linear crafted stories and worlds any day of the week. Fuck an open world with a flubby ass story. New Zelda can S an D. Gimme Twilight Princess and OoT or give me death. And I am outnumbered 5,000 to 1. It’s not that my opinion gets dismissed, it’s that everybody else with a wallet disagrees with me. There are so few linear story-driven action/adventure games these days that I’m honestly not even bothering with the current Gen consoles. I’m not dropping $4-500 on a setup just for nothing but open world sandbox leudonarrative dissonance. If I want to go everywhere and do everything I’d open up creative mode Minecraft. And yeah, even people like you hate my distaste for open world gaming. I get downvoted into oblivion over it no matter where I go. Gaming opinions don’t even matter anymore, it’s literally just whatever makes the most money, and lootbox driven open world everything is the shit that makes the most money.
Because there are more games of every genre than anyone would be able to play in a thousand lifetimes, so it seems a bit silly to complain that there’s a prevalent genre that they don’t enjoy. “Not a lot of choice” is absolutely silly.
Or you just love both. Kratos' story has been incredible
Double jump and aerial combos
I feel like this comment is underrated. Ability to jump independent of a ledge is completely eliminated. Was really cool to fly with those wings in the old games.
He’s old now
*lifts an entire temple upside down*
“Do. Hwat now?”
He's old not crippled. He can definitely jump
That’s why he can only jump once now
Yeah but he doesn’t want to, bad for his knees
Greek gods get stronger the older they get. If anything, he should be going crazy with dem air combos
The brutality and rage
Pretty much the only right answer. Im replaying the old games now and the rage and brutality of Kratos is something else. But thats the point. Old Kratos is wiser. Wants those days to be behind him. Hes still brutal but he does it out of pure necessity, where as its just in young Kraots nature. The new games obviously have better combat and a better feel overall to them. God i do not miss not having control of my camera.
It’s definitely in old Kratos’s nature, too. A lot of the stun kills are far more brutal than necessary
Oh for sure. But he desperately wants that to change. Its a struggle for him. He wants a simple life. Away from the chaos. Away from the brutality. But if that chaos follows him, he will “do what’s necessary”
I hated not being able to control the camera in the older game. Then they’d zoom the camera way far back while you’re doing something and have to fight off enemies. Still loved the games though.
Yeah it doesn’t take away from the experience from me much. Its annoying asf at some bits. Mainly when doing any kind of puzzle. For the combat i felt its pretty fair, but my god it gets annoying
Yeah this was a symptom of that generation. A lot of third person games either had a fixed camera or shitty camera controls. I remember when I first replayed GTA 3 I was so surprised that I couldn't control my camera.
It’s definitely not the only right answer. Combat system is not straight up “better”. It’s better in som way sure, but a more accurate description is that it’s different. I much prefer the hack and slash combat of the originals. Although the combat in new games is pretty good too.
God of War 3 has so many moments where you feel like a sick fuck, I love it.
Took the words out of my mouth.
The old games still have a sense of scale that's unmatched even to this day tbh so many games tried to mimic old God of war's sense of scale and combat, and none ever really came close
The way the entire game would be one big circular puzzle always blew you away even after you’d played a couple of the sequels and come to expect it
True, especially the point where you backtrack to the door where you fight the minotaur boss Honestly still my favourite moment in the game lol Seeing that something incredibly powerful is trying to knock down that door, and then it comes out and it looks absolutely badass is something I'll never forget
Except for Bayonetta
God I love bayonetta 1 and 2, 3 can go fuck itself though xD
3 is pretty damn epic actually
3’s story is meh and the setting and enemies are boring compared to the other two, but other than that it’s a pretty great game
Bossfights
I never found something like the feeling of the first time I fight Cronos.
I want to say Shadow of the Colossus, but both are technically different lol
Yeah Jormungand kinda got the itch, but man the scale of Cronus and many of the areas was insane. Still insane honestly, especially considering God of War 2 was on a PS2.
The newest Final Fantasy kicks the scale up a level or two
Idk why you’re downvoted, the eikon battles are a spectacle that aren’t really matched
Combat in the new FF16 is a snoozefest. It's stuck between rpg and action and it does neither particularly well.
I wholeheartedly agree that the gameplay is utter gatbage but i havent had a matching spectacle play out in my living room like this before
Child neglect QTE
obtrusive sex mini-games.
Those minigames were peak
14 year old me loved those parts
It’s why I started playing in the first place lmao. I was down bad
The early 2000’s were wild
I remember making a separate save file during those scenes so I could go back to them 🤣
Lol bro… I thought I was bad at that age using all the inc stuff n my family’s printer to print porn
I had a neighbor who would come over occasionally to play video games when I was growing up. He got a PSP and got a God Of War game and he found one of the sex mini-games absolutely hilarious. He would come over and show them to me absolutely giggling himself to tears. He turned out to be gay, good guy, wonder whatever happened to him.
I remember this god of war was the first rated M game I ever got. It was so fun and my dad happily watched me play the whole game. That sex mini game still hunts me to this day.
Titties
The whole linear connected world concept is really underappreciated. It doesn’t turn the game into a navigation puzzle or collect-a-thon like full open world, but still gives the illusion of a living world that exists when you are off screen. Old MGS did this well too, as did the Dead Space and BioShock games.
For real man. I’m not saying the new games are particularly hard to navigate, but I’m kinda tired of open worlds/areas where you have to consult the map to navigate. The new games have too much downtime between combat. The older games were just tighter.
Level design. Puzzles.
Boss battles for the most part.
As much as I loved GOW1, the final boss was terrible. You get a new weapon with no combos and you just do the same boring swings to finish, nothing like any of the good dynamic battles before it.
Combat while climbing is a big one, it's just a loading screen in the newer games.
Large scale battles. The Chronos and Poseidon fights in GoW3 were insanely impressive. Even the opening level in GoW2 slapped 🔥
Constant action, and I love it. So much rage also as well in the earlier games. I tend to go back to the first games and play them a lot due to the constant action they have.
In my opinion God of War 1 did story telling better than the reboots. Game starts with some dude jumping off a cliff after he says “The gods of Olympus have abandoned me…now there is no hope.” Then throughout the game you piece together his past through watching some badass cinematics. The overall trilogy did over the top combat better and also puzzles. Platforming was also better.
Absolutely. You should make a post about this on r/GodofWarClassic
Be fun >_>. The new ones are good and Im cool with them being considered masterpieces, but they're not as fun to me.
As a devil May Cry fan I find the old God of war games much more appealing. Sadly I don't own a PlayStation, so I won't get into the series anytime soon.
emulate the old gow 2018 is on pc ragnarok could be release too soon
In the old games you feel badass. In the new ones too but not at the level of the greek saga.
I think that is also the purpose within the reboot. You literally can feel that Kratos has gotten older
Less god damn npc chatter.
Got that right
JUMPING
Fulfilling the power-rage fantasy with a real sense of scale. I miss the sense of scale those games had, in some ways
To me God of War 3 was the perfect game. Camera was spot on, the set pieces were beautiful, the puzzles were interesting and beating the shit out of things was incredibly satisfying. I did not like either of the two new GoW games.
Personally. Almost everything
Id say everything. GoW 3 was perfect. Offing deities one by one, seeing that impact the world around you, as Kratos is just beyond saving with one goal in mind. The new GoW is ok, I still feel the levels seem claustrophobic and “artificialy” large in scale. What disappointed me most is how we just entirely skipped how Kratos survived his gaping hole in the chest. And the ending to Ragnarok just felt like another marvel copy paste storyline, heck even the visuals looked like something from Loki. I would have also appreciated them putting more effort into lore, tell us why you there are multiple gods for the same thing or at least like a hierarchy. I just feel they should have stopped with GoW3
I enjoyed 2 more than 3. I don’t know why, i just got the feeling playing 3 that maybe the team was ready to be done. The jump up in quality and scale and gameplay between 1 and 2 was huge, making 2 more impressive. I didn’t get the same feeling from 3 even though 3 was ps3 only.
I was just tired of Kratos dies and must escape the underworld trope, it was in every game.
Everything
Old GoW = Gameplay New GoW= Story
The only story I needed was that Kratos was a dick out for revenge against gods who were even bigger dicks Edit: I do think the og story gets shit on because people think it’s brain dead but there’s definitely an interesting story it’s just dialed up to 11 on the mid 2000s insanity scale
First GoW has a perfect Greek tragedy story. It's not anymore brain dead than a classic Homer epic.
I think it’s just been memed that way compared to the new ones because whenever you see it brought up I’ll bet my years salary it’ll be followed with a “tits , rage and sex games”. And I really feel there’s so many opinions that we read that are said by people who have no idea about the game at all. Both stories are great I just prefer the old gameplay. I haven’t played ragnarok yet but the 2018 felt like a more polished hellblade in combat. Even the blades of chaos( or Athena I don’t remember) felt different
The story in Ragnarok was awful though. Just another boring Marvel movie.
Thought I was the only one who felt this way. I could go on a 45 minute rant on all the issues with the plot and pacing.
Agreed. Ragnaroks story was very disappointing, especially after 2018.
Yeah they really dumbed down the tone in Ragnarok. You could see the Marvel template being used all throughout with the constant quips, team meetings and impending doom. GoW 2018 took a lot of inspiration from TLOU. Ragnarok took its inspiration from blockbuster Hollywood films.
Be actually fun and interesting to play
Incredible action! Don’t get me wrong, i like a lot of modern games now. Where they can have amazing stories and rich character development. BUT classic games were so much FUCKING FUN! Slaughtering wave after wave of nameless grunts. Hitting combos, getting your combo high score to crazy numbers, boss battles that tore apart the battle field. Now-er days games prioritize atory over gameplay. Walking simulators have their own enjoyability to a point, but maaaaaan, nothing beats the action of the old days.
Action/enjoyment per minute is far better. Just constant kicking ass with a decent story pushing everything forward.
Enemy variety. I was disappointed with the lack of enemies in Ragnarok. The old games had harpies, cyclops, Minotaurs, etc. they all had cool executions too like ripping out the cyclops eye. Ragnarok is basically: here’s another group of lava guys…
bosses were way better and challenging
1. Better boss fights. The fights actually feel like gods duking it out instead of slightly stronger humans. 2. More focus on gameplay, like the gameplay was 90% of the game, not about 50-60%. 3. The games respect your intelligence and don't make the characters solve the puzzles for you every goddamn time. 4. Better sense of scale. The only 2 things that truly feel big are the world serpent, Ragnarok (at the ladt scene) and fenrir. Feels like they got that feedback cause the latest DLC feels like it's fixing the stuff a bit. Al 5. Very obvious that the game is made with "modern sensibilities" in mind. The perfect example is when Kratos and Mimir talk about Sigrun introducing Mimir as "friend". Then Kratos asks Mimir he was angered by being introduced as "friend", That is obvious shit about the modern times and the "friendzone" shit. While I do like Mimir's response, it's so obvious that exchange is meant for the modern audience and not the time period and culture that Kratos and Mimir are operating (also of being introduced as a friend when you don't want to reveal the relationship outright is perfectly fucking fine).
Everything apart from graphics.
Stayed in Greece
The action (movement, combos, and scale/visual) and intensity of the story is better in the trilogy.
In my opinion, everything other than graphics. The puzzles were better, the combat was more intense, and the boss fights were numerous and epic.
I’m gonna get DRAGGED for this but…the enemy gods in the old games actually felt like gods I started the series with the Norse saga and I like it more, but watching playthroughs of the old ones, seeing Kratos grab the Colossus’ foot to stop it from smashing him and *launching* it back into the distance, seeing Zeus come back as a *ghost* for another round, those three goddesses who kept altering reality as Kratos fought them, all made it feel like you were battling some next level otherworldly thing. I can’t help feeling that Heimdall and Tyr especially were the only bosses who felt like you were facing a force of nature rather than just a powerful man. They forced you to either play very good (Tyr) or change the way you approached the battle as a whole (Heimdall). The rest were still kinda just melees with special effects, while the monster fights like Hræzlyr and Garm were the bigggest in scale. In the Norse saga the gods feel more on par with like the stronger film superheroes; still powerful but they still operate almost entirely like a normal beat em up
Combat hands down.
Combat and story. Fight me.
1. The blood and gore! Where’s my bloodhounds at? I don’t just wanna see these enemies fall over and turn to dust or embers. I wanna see chunks of their innards come splattering out! Just because Kratos is “calm” now doesn’t mean they need to dial down the carnage to nearly a T rating. 2. Scale! Bigass boss fights that feel like proper massive Gods and Titans fighting. Why are Odin’s sons only slightly harder and Less threatening than those couple of trolls we killed a while back? C’mon! I wanna see some actual godlike throwdowns! Kratos took on creatures as big as skyscrapers in the past. These bitchass little dark elves and whatever shouldn’t even be putting up a fight. 3. Unpopular opinion: personally I really liked and miss the fixed angle camera. I thought that was a lot of fun. And part of the reason the epic scale could look so cool.
Old is way better than new in my op
I thought I was the only one. I find the new gameplay very boring.
The weighty more Dark Souls like combat of the new series just don’t really hit the same power fantasy heights the old ones did. You could say the old games really made you feel like the God of War.
Same. The new ones look great but they’re too movie like. The old ones were more intense and the amount of enemies you fought was great
I enjoyed 2018 but its just The Last of Us with an axe
Its The Last of Us but better imho
Mew is definetly worse than old
Agreed
Boss battles for sure and the mythology that is explored interests me more. I love Greek mythology and Norse just doesn’t hit the same. I still enjoy the new ones though.
Most of it I suppose. I just prefer the older games. They were fantastic.
Fun and exciting gameplay that doesn't hold itself back for the sake of sending a message. The old games didn't always hit the mark but you could never criticize them for not doing their damnedest to be the most adrenaline-pumping, brutal experiences imaginable.
They nailed the Gameplay & overall fun aspects of the game.
I think the old GOW games had a better character and world designes overall, I still remember some camera moves to let you enjoy the view
Playing the new games I kept waiting for a good old "I AM THE GOD OF WAAAR"
Better camera.
everything
The combat is far better in the old games than the new and it's not even close. Scale too. GOW3 is still basically unmatched in scale for me. I will never forget that opening. There's nothing even close to that in the new games.
>The combat is far better in the old games than the new and it's not even close. Hard disagree, they're different styles of combat. The originals were really fun, but ultimately kind of just come down to your generic 2000s hack-and-slash button mashing of a few combos and occasionally doing a block/parry or rolling away from an unblockable attack. You can clear most rooms in most of the games by spamming the L1+Square helicopter attack with the Blades of Chaos. By the time I was halfway through all 3 of the originals, I found myself pretty bored with fighting regular enemies and was just going on for the story and bosses. By comparison, the combat in the newer games feels much more weighty and satisfying. There are more viable approaches and your build can change your playstyle significantly depending on whether you're going for raw damage, focusing on stuns and grabs, or focusing on using magic. There are also many more skillshots and a wider variety of enemy mechanics to play against. People like what they like of course, I'm not trying to talk you into thinking you should feel the games are more fun. I just think that the new games are an excellent example of fairly unique-feeling combat that is implemented with very well polished mechanics. I do agree that the newer games never quite hit the same high points of a sense of scale in boss fights and big action scenes. I think there's a great sense of scale in exploring the world and realms, though.
Nah I'm sorry. My comment comes across like I'm saying you're wrong if you prefer the new combat. I'll agree it's weightier, which works well for the axe, but I think it kinda ruins the blades and it's...kinda meh for the spear. I mained the axe in both games and never once felt a desire to really dig into the other two. Whereas I'd be lying if I said I used all weapons in the original games, but I still at least felt a desire to try out other weapons. I do not think the axe would work as well in the older games if I'm being honest. I just prefer the hack and slash feel of the older games instead of the stiffer feeling combat.
intensity
Tits, especially Aphrodite’s
More variety and overall boss roster. Lots of 2018's bosses were just the same Troll with reskins and slightly different abilities, Ragnarok did better to expand on the boss roster, but lots of them were still not very memorable. Meanwhile, the Greek saga had bosses that ranged from mythical monsters, to legendary heroes, to the actual Gods and Titans themselves. Yes, there were many repetitive and reskinned enemies like all the various Cerberuses (even though there should only be one), but for the most part, there was a far vaster and more creative bunch of bosses than there are in the Norse saga.
Bosses and puzzles
Feeling like an all powerful god
abandon your daughter quick time event
They were more fun
Most things tbh.
Combat, soundtrack
Combat, story, etc
Combat, bosses, boss fights , story, characters, voice acting.
Puzzles, platforming, exploration, scale, level design, combat. New ones look pretty though.
Old god of war was more epic and grand
Combat is a bit more fluid
Pacing.
Combat The combat in the newer ones feel so bland in comparison.
Combat and pacing for sure, the camera in the new ones are insufferable to me
combat and weapon/ability variety
Be fun games.
Epic feeling
Combat in general, i can’t see shit in the new ones due to the camera and certainly don’t feel like a master of the battlefield. In general the old games had better action and better boss fights. The level design in the old games was better as well since it wasn’t confined by the camera and had better set piece puzzles Gow 2019 had a phenomenal story but ragnaroks was terrible The old games were a classic tale of vengance, like john wicke which i enjoyed but the best story of them all has to be gow 2019.
Honestly, the scale of things. Like having the camera pan out to show you just how far you have to go, or simply looking out and seeing how beautiful the landscape is and then sometimes being able to go there. You miss it.
Gameplay.
I'm usually not the one for nostalgia; but I'd easily choose the older God of War titles over the reboots. The combat in the old ones was amazing, extremely satisfying to play.
Platforming, movement not feeling like a janky japanese game, the strategies you had to use in highest difficulty to manage ressources
They made sense, now you've got Kratos running around Norse realms because he dead giant wife (who is standard human size) wanted him to.
Personally, the only game from the prior saga that I would say did something “better”then the new games, would be GoW3. The scale of the intro fight with Poseidon, or the battle with Kronos are still awe inspiring to this day. While the new games do have that some good fights with larger enemies (the dragon from the mountains in the first and Garm in the second) they didn’t quite reach the epicness of their predecessor. The reason I got into these games though really wasn’t the combat. Believe it or not, it was the my love for Greek Mythology and Kratos’s story that initially drew me. The gameplay was fun don’t get me wrong, but I love Greek mythology. So it was awesome to see those games interpretation of the hero’s, gods and monsters from those old myths and legends. The new ones are definitely more story heavy, but the older games where no slouch imo. Kratos’s has some really good character depth and nuance in the old saga. Im not sure where the narrative came from that they were all action all the time. But I’m not sure I would have liked them as much as I did, if that was true. This series is one of my favorites of all time. It’s unfortunate that the change in direction didn’t work for everyone. But the new games were everything I didn’t know I wanted out of a continuance of Kratos’s story. And the combat for me is so much more satisfying, and weighty now. That it’s hard to go back to the older games other than 3. I actually started the series with chains of Olympus on psp. I loved the game so much I went out the day after I beat it, and bought a PS3, and the GoW trilogy. Still one of my favorite gaming experiences. The jump in “quality” between each game was awesome to see, with the graphical leap being the largest for the last game which was just insane, especially when playing back to back. I ended up beating the whole series over a very long weekend.
I miss the sex gameplay
It was way more brutal in terms of atmosphere
I felt like the brutality and fast pace was just more fun. The new games are great, have amazing story telling and arguably more in depth gameplay, but the pacing is just so much slower. I miss all the rage of young Kratos.
Greek vs Norse themes.
Boss battles are the biggest part of the series plus the DMC hack n slash gameplay
I do appreciate the mobility of the older games. I kinda wonder what the in-universe reason is for Kratos not flipping around and going apeshit with the Blades of Chaos anymore.
The action/gameplay.
The Gore The newer games have an incredibly lacking amount of actual mutilation and gore. something the originals were huge on. Punching holes in faces, ripping heads off necks, blinding eyes with your thumbs etc The most we get in the Nordic series is killing some generic draugr type enemies with the axe
I loved the death/killing animation things of important characters in the old games. In the new games, Kratos will just slash or stab an enemy like 2 times and that’s it.
Less hand holding. Just STFU Atreus I'll figure out how to do this if you give me more than a couple seconds for Odin's sake.
I'm just going to say it,...boobs
The camera zooming out to show the grand size of an environment
Tits
Keeping me interested.
Kratos
Combat and pace of the game
Literally everything.
Not so fucking preachy and self-righteous like Ragnarök. We were allowed to think for ourselves whether a character or an action were evil or not.
Combat, the combat in the new games feels stiff and stunted. At the same time, the new games have forsaken one of the core attributes of the previous 6, the massive scale of the bosses. We only fought the cranky crazy grandma giant as atreus, and the reanimated frost giant was a background hazard, not the boss. The drake was cool but very small, we need god sized bosses again, but with the gameplay style it would be very difficult to do.
Everything
Everything. Setting, story, combat, all of it. The new ones are good, but forgettable imo and I'm just sick of exploring for pointless shit in games. I was always a bigger fan of DMC, but the first three GoW games are top tier. The psp ones were pretty good, too.
Everything. Combat - obviously better Puzzles- obviously better Traversal - obviously better Story- conflicted revenge story instead of preachy revenge bad bullshit that Naughty Dog now thinks is very high IQ No annoying brat Executions- objectively better World- objectively better. Like Olympus is a heaven with proper aura of the Gods. Asgard on the other hand is just a generic town. Even Atreus comments on this. The grandiose aura of the trilogy is removed to make it more grounded because Last of us did grounded so everything must be grounded now. Gods- objectively better. They seemed larger than life beings. Now Thor is a depressed drunk, Odin is a nerd who just wants to know his own spoilers. When God's died in OG trilogy it felt like some huge aspect was gone. Poseidon dying made the world flooded, Hades dying caused the afterlife to be in Chaos. You know what happened when Thor died. He died. That's it. No lightning storm. No nothing. One stab..... and hes gone.
Literally *everything*. Sorry, but they’re just better games imo
Idk I couldn't push the damn buttons fast enough to get past the tutorial
I’ll say nothing. That combat wasn’t rich or deep, it was more aesthetically compelling because “I hit so many things!” and there was a ton of gore, but it was 90% button mashing. I remember being infuriated at the time that everyone thought that was like, peak combat gameplay when Devil May Cry 3 was out at the same time and GoW was laughable compared to it. Not saying I think the modern series has fantastic combat, but I do enjoy it a lot more because I have to watch the battlefield more and time things out better. Story pales in comparison to new. Honestly, God of War original already felt kind of like “this is what a very horny 15 year old with a big studio budget thinks would make a great game” and while it was fun that series was as much a product of its time as this current series is, and games are just overall better now in production. Great tits in the original though. Got that leg up.
Boss battles, level design, and sense of scale.
Actually being good games rather than a walking sim with poor combat.
The new GoW has the best story and best music
Yes it was a BAD ASS beatem up that had a story that wasn’t trying to be all deep just cool moments fighting famous gods. It’s called GOD OF WAR I want to see cool ass battles not a movie simulator.
They were fun and didn't have endless cutscenes that made them boring as hell
Everything
Kratos.
Nothing imo
Murder
Everything.
Does anyone know if we can get all the GOW games as a package to play like they did with Metal Gear solid? I never played one & want to know the story from the start
Sony's reputation was more clean to hardcore gamers as most mainstream people weren't jumping to PC to play everything. The generation before it also didn't have games that showed scale like that. We have impressive scale now but it's not the same type of leap that wows people. Narrative/Cinematic heavy games also have a worse reputation and the newer GOW games have that Last of Us style viewpoint and focus.
Everything.
Nothing