Edge #379

[Kevvy Metal]

2 hours ago, Isaac said:

 

I will give you Elden Ring but the new GoW is the most 7/10 game out there. It's just shiny and expensively produced, it does nothing new, interesting or original. It's also overlong, and needed an editor.

I can’t disagree with this more, it’s a literal evolution and improvement in every way from the original which itself was a 9/10, the pacing of it is actually a virtue where it’s all actually chapterised - each with it’s own flow dynamic - but doesn’t announce it per say. It’s blockbuster videogame entertainment at its finest, and absolutely a 9/10. 
 

If you value originality over refinement, then I guess there’s Immortality? 

[Stanley]

The review for Pentiment is brilliant, can’t wait to play the game now. 

[BadgerFarmer]

I haven't played all of it yet, but for me God of War is a game where everything about it is good. Every rough edge has been filed off the level design. The combat feels solid. The characters and script are engaging, etc.

 

But then nothing, or hardly anything, about it is brilliant. It doesn't surprise me. It never really asks for my full focus. I auto-pilot through most of it because it's put together in a just-so way that's largely transparent. I know if I go that way I'll find a puzzle and a chest, and if I go that way I'm walking into a fight, and the parameters of the puzzle and the fight will be made clear.

 

It seems to follow the rules of good level design and writing and user interface and everything else to a fault. It's a 7/10 all the way.

[footle]

5 hours ago, Kevvy Metal said:

I can’t disagree with this more, it’s a literal evolution and improvement in every way from the original which itself was a 9/10, the pacing of it is actually a virtue where it’s all actually chapterised - each with it’s own flow dynamic - but doesn’t announce it per say. It’s blockbuster videogame entertainment at its finest, and absolutely a 9/10. 
 

If you value originality over refinement, then I guess there’s Immortality? 

One of them is a very polished version of a game you’ve played a hundred times before with every edge smoothed off, outside of a couple of well telegraphed optional fights. You don’t want the player to be challenged. You don’t want the player to actually have to think, or interpret: that would raise the bar too high and limit the potential for profit. It’s blockbuster entertainment in the most trivial use of the phrase - an unchallenging action movie.

 

The other redefines what a videogame can be. Have you played it?

 

 

[Kevvy Metal]

3 hours ago, footle said:

One of them is a very polished version of a game you’ve played a hundred times before with every edge smoothed off, outside of a couple of well telegraphed optional fights. You don’t want the player to be challenged. You don’t want the player to actually have to think, or interpret: that would raise the bar too high and limit the potential for profit. It’s blockbuster entertainment in the most trivial use of the phrase - an unchallenging action movie.

 

The other redefines what a videogame can be. Have you played it?

 

 

I’ve played them both, I don’t agree with anything you’ve just said and I far prefer GOW:R to Immortality. Far, far prefer it. 

[the_debaser]

Immortality and GOW are both shit tbf. 

[stir fry]

4 hours ago, BadgerFarmer said:

But then nothing, or hardly anything, about it is brilliant. It doesn't surprise me. It never really asks for my full focus. I auto-pilot through most of it because it's put together in a just-so way that's largely transparent. I know if I go that way I'll find a puzzle and a chest, and if I go that way I'm walking into a fight, and the parameters of the puzzle and the fight will be made clear.

 

It seems to follow the rules of good level design and writing and user interface and everything else to a fault. It's a 7/10 all the way.

 

Yeah, this is true. There's nothing it really excels at imo, it just does a decent to very good job at all the things it does.

 

I'm playing Nioh 2 right now, which has terrible visuals and non-existent story. In some respects a PS2 throwback. But very deep and layered combat with huge incentive to think about how you stack your RPG upgrades. I sort of prefer games like this, to really excel and stand out in a particular area, even if it's to the detriment of other aspects

 

Ragnarök is still good tho, but it sometimes feels like there can be a bit of a dogma online around big AAA games as to how good they are. In both directions I suppose. 

[footle]

2 hours ago, Kevvy Metal said:

I’ve played them both, I don’t agree with anything you’ve just said and I far prefer GOW:R to Immortality. Far, far prefer it. 

if you don’t, you probably need to play more games.

 

(and I say that after spending an hour and a half on GoW:R this evening building a third weapon - it’s “fine”, but outside of Richard Schiff wandering around being Richard Schiff…)

[Kevvy Metal]

4 hours ago, footle said:

if you don’t, you probably need to play more games.

 

(and I say that after spending an hour and a half on GoW:R this evening building a third weapon - it’s “fine”, but outside of Richard Schiff wandering around being Richard Schiff…)

I was a game designer/producer for 9 years, so feel free to take that opinion and shove it, or keep it…to yourself. 

[LaveDisco]

Statistically, the most average game is probably some free-2-play Zookeeper clone with 1 billion IAP threaded through it. 

[Petrousgyre]

21 hours ago, Kevvy Metal said:

I can’t disagree with this more, it’s a literal evolution and improvement in every way from the original which itself was a 9/10, the pacing of it is actually a virtue where it’s all actually chapterised - each with it’s own flow dynamic - but doesn’t announce it per say. It’s blockbuster videogame entertainment at its finest, and absolutely a 9/10. 
 

If you value originality over refinement, then I guess there’s Immortality? 

Maybe a little binary. I found the first game disappointing. It felt like a western studios take on Souls with them nailing the combat but with not quite taking onboard some of the deeper lessons from those games about exploration, tension and variety.

[Kevvy Metal]

45 minutes ago, petrolgirls said:

Maybe a little binary. I found the first game disappointing. It felt like a western studios take on Souls with them nailing the combat but with not quite taking onboard some of the deeper lessons from those games about exploration, tension and variety.

 

To me that seems totally like being "disappointed" in something for being something that it's absolutely not even trying to be. 
It's a narrative driven adventure game with - as Tim Rodgers would say - a focus on providing the player with various "game flavours" that it keeps on switching up between. Narration, Vistas, trinket scrounging, combat arenas...etc. It's got more in common with The Last of US, Uncharted and Final Fantasy VII Remake than any Souls game. 

Your critisising it for not taking lessons from a game it's not even trying to take lessons from. 

[Petrousgyre]

4 minutes ago, Kevvy Metal said:

 

To me that seems totally like being "disappointed" in something for being something that it's absolutely not even trying to be. 
It's a narrative driven adventure game with - as Tim Rodgers would say - a focus on providing the player with various "game flavours" that it keeps on switching up between. Narration, Vistas, trinket scrounging, combat arenas...etc. It's got more in common with The Last of US, Uncharted and Final Fantasy VII Remake than any Souls game. 

Your critisising it for not taking lessons from a game it's not even trying to take lessons from. 

 

I agree its focus on telling a conventional story isn't much like From's stuff but the combat couldn't be any more inspired by Souls, it's close to a carbon copy. Given you spend most of your time fighting it seems slightly absurd to claim the game has taken nothing from Souls. My point, I guess, is that they would have done well to ape some of the other features of Souls as closely, I can't speak to Ragnarok but in the original you just charge around following your minimap without taking in the enviroments and fight the same handful of enemies over and over. There's no real tension in exploring the environment as you just respawn seconds away with no loss and having the same fights over and over get tiresome after a while. Ragnarok may have improved some of these issues but I'm not falling over myself to pay seventy quid to find out after the original left me so underwhelmed.

[rafaqat]

loving the crying over the god of war score.

[stir fry]

I think it takes some stuff from Souls, mainly in its animation commitment and focus on patience wrt enemy openings. But it's not built out of Souls dna. I think what ragnarok does well is observe what a lot of other studios are doing and integrate it successfully within a AAA template that's playable at all levels.

 

You can find some Platinum inspirations in GoW, like the indicators for when to parry or dodge, or even dodge offset itself is in the game (not anywhere near as expressive as it is in Bayonetta, but you can carry your R1 spam combos across sidesteps). The way you keep pressure on the enemy in GoW in particular could not be further from Souls I feel like, it's about keeping posture damage high and swapping between ice and fire stances to keep DPS high as well, and cycling in runic cooldowns and procing and leveraging what buffs your build gives you on your offense. More like Nioh than Souls, in fact. I suppose Sekiro could also be an inspiration there, or even Bloodborne, but these are more Souls adjacent games.

[footle]

Third person single player melee combat = “souls like” is one of the more reductive comparisons possible.

[Kevvy Metal]

Wtf, it takes literally nothing from Souls combat apart from the fact you hit things and Attack & Block are mapped to R1 & R2 respectively. 
 

It reminds me more of Godhand with its over the shoulder camera and radar system (instead of a map its indicators around the player character). 

[Timmo]

Can't you cancel attacks at any moment with a block in this? Been a while since I played the original. You certainly don't have to be as careful when pressing the button to commit to an attack, which is Souls' whole ethos. 

[Petrousgyre]

49 minutes ago, footle said:

Third person single player melee combat = “souls like” is one of the more reductive comparisons possible.

 

Had I made that comparison with most other third person games (like the previous God of War games) then you might have a point. In this instance, however, the God of War remake copied Souls combat closely. There's exactly the same block/parry implementation, exactly the same dodge roll, the same light/heavy/charge attack all mapped to exactly the same unorthodox control scheme. There's a similar difficuly that punishes thoughtless button pressing, although not quite as brutal as Souls. The animation has the same heft and wants you to preempt your enemies attacks whilst punishing you for using a slow windup against a mobile enemy, there's even the same tricky first boss to make sure you're playing as intended and not just mashing. Perhaps it's tempting to imagine that third person combat games have always somehow played like this, forgetting how different the Souls games were - a testiment to how influencial they've become in recent years. I didn't even think this was particularly contentious - Balrog was quite open about wanting to capture the gameplay loop of Souls games in GoW prior to its release. 

[Mr. Gerbik]

9 hours ago, Kevvy Metal said:

I was a game designer/producer for 9 years, so feel free to take that opinion and shove it, or keep it…to yourself. 

That's a bit harsh. But it also maybe explains it a little bit, judged purely on a technical level Ragnarok is absolutely a solid 10/10. One of the most impressive technical achievements I've played in a long time. The term "polished to perfection" is always used figuratively by definition because nothing is perfect... But in case of Ragnarok you could arguably use it literally. It's *that* impressive.

 

Otherwise it does nothing new. And I'm not talking about the first game. Even if that game doesn't exist it still doesn't do anything new. It's a perfect mix of every notable gameplay element from this kind of cinematic experience that Sony is famous for. That's why I called it Videogame: The Videogame. Taking into account that 7 is 2 above average this is the textbook definition of a 7. 

 

[Kevvy Metal]

27 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

That's a bit harsh.

 

If you think so, then maybe you should go play some more games! 😉

 

27 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

Otherwise it does nothing new. 

 

I also personnally liiiiiiiterally don't care. A prior point made but I'm not looking for something wild and exotically experiemental and new. I want "greatness" which is exactly what that game is to me, and in the context of that game and it's predecessor, it's doing plenty new in the new game that wasn't there in the first. It's an all out improvement. To me, therefore it's a 9, or 5 fucking gold stars or 3 bags of popcorn and 6 sodas or whatever you want to call it. What it's not - to me - is average or above average. 

Immortailty, is above average for me. Because despite it doing some interesting things - sometimes a bit emperor's new clothes - it's quite a fucking boring videogame, but it's interesting watching it unfold. Also as "cinema" not even close to the various Lynch films it inspires to be. 

[Djx]

At time of typing, Metacritic has 139 positive reviews of GOW Ragnarok and 1 mixed -

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-5/god-of-war-ragnarok/critic-reviews

Yep, EDGE is that 1 mixed review.

Got to hand to them to see something off about GOW Ragnarok that the other 139 reviews didn't.

[Mr. Gerbik]

26 minutes ago, Kevvy Metal said:

 

If you think so, then maybe you should go play some more games! 😉

 

 

I also personnally liiiiiiiterally don't care. A prior point made but I'm not looking for something wild and exotically experiemental and new. I want "greatness" which is exactly what that game is to me, and in the context of that game and it's predecessor, it's doing plenty new in the new game that wasn't there in the first. It's an all out improvement. To me, therefore it's a 9, or 5 fucking gold stars or 3 bags of popcorn and 6 sodas or whatever you want to call it. What it's not - to me - is average or above average. 

Immortailty, is above average for me. Because despite it doing some interesting things - sometimes a bit emperor's new clothes - it's quite a fucking boring videogame, but it's interesting watching it unfold. Also as "cinema" not even close to the various Lynch films it inspires to be. 

That's all fair enough of course. At the end of the day this is all subjective. And keep in mind that I'm currently halfway through Ragnarok and enjoying it immensely. A 7 doesn't mean bad to me, it's a hugely entertaining game

 

Alongside Ragnarok I'm playing Pentiment. And that game isn't just entertaining, it's impressing the fuck out of me. Now that is a 9/10 or even 10/10 game for me personally. Which just shows it's all subjective indeed 

 

[Isaac]

17 minutes ago, Djx said:

At time of typing, Metacritic has 139 positive reviews of GOW Ragnarok and 1 mixed -

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-5/god-of-war-ragnarok/critic-reviews

Yep, EDGE is that 1 mixed review.

Got to hand to them to see something off about GOW Ragnarok that the other 139 reviews didn't.

 

Video game 'journalism' is an exercise in rewarding big budget games with big scores. 

[bear]

Reviews have never been journalism, always criticism. It's a different discipline. 

[Isaac]

Fine, replace the word journalism with criticism, the point still stands.

[Kevvy Metal]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

Alongside Ragnarok I'm playing Pentiment. 

 

See, this is what is great about this forum. For me it's absolutely not the nitpicking about the games with big exposure that I already know if I'm going to buy and will therefore make up my own mind if they're good, bad or in-between. It's knowing that there's a positive vibe around games that I'd otherwise of had no idea about. Even with it coming to gamepass and being developed by obsidian, I wasn't that fussed about the look of Pentiment... but seeing that at least some people where singing it's praises draws my attention to it.   

[Graham S]

Maybe it’s just the podcasts I listen to, but my impression of the general mood of people who’d played GoW 2 was that it was a bit fucking long and had plenty of boring or poorly paced bits (as well as being very expensively made). I don’t think the Edge review was an outlier in that context. But then you’re getting peoples general impressions, closer to forum posts. I imagine if you’re the lead reviewer on Sonys big game of the year then for various reasons you’re more likely to give such an accomplished game at least an 8, and you know for sure there’s a backlash coming your way for a 7. 

[Isaac]

Yeah, all the podcasts I listen to have very much been 7/10-type impressions, so it is wild to see that the actual reviews have been so universally positive.

 

Shows how dead criticism is in the review format.

[Timmo]

The problem with videogame reviews is that broadly speaking you’re having to rate two things, and how you weight the scoring between them is basically impossible. You’re looking at good the game is technically, and then how good it is artistically. I’d use Deadly Premonition and Ghost of Tsushima as examples. One is a technical dog which is incredibly entertaining and surprising throughout, whereas the other is a technical marvel whilst showing its entire hand in the first hour and turning into a very, very repetitive and dull game. How the fuck are you supposed to grade these games? You can’t. Review scores are a nonsense and if you want to use them as a buying guide, you are far better watching videos and listening to opinions. Eurogamer saw this a long while ago, few other places have.  Skillup is good, but generally I find the overall tone of a thread in this place far better than any review score. If certain ones here are talking about how fun the combat is in a game, I know I need to play it.