Finished GOW2018. Gotta admit it feels like the ending really nailed it in the feels department and even though Baldur is a total fucking asshole, I can't help but feel really bad for him at the same time. I really do appreciate Kratos doing his utmost to not be the guy he used to be(even if the "You will leave us and her alone" was preceded by an intense knock down, drag out boss battle where Baldur face got turned into fucking hamburger). The ending section in Jotenheim also worked very nicely and man did that kinda throw the entire game into a different perspective.
I did kinda like how when Kratos takes off his bandages and lets them blow away in a sort of relief and Atreus just "Can we go now?" I half expected Kratos to go "Boy, can't you see I'm having a powerful moment here?". Also that look of fatalism on kratos's face when he sees what was under the curtain in the mountain hall An apparently depiction of his own death, and presumably for real this time
But yeah, I do see why this game gets the praise it gets, where it successfully channeled the tragedy of the first GOW and the character beats really land well most of the time, but it also has enough Spectacle to go with it's mythic setting without it being ALL SPECTACLE(Something the later GOW games suffered from).
As mentioned before, it's not perfect, but it's damn good. It has the sense to put the grindy bits of the game as optional realms for endgame gear, whereas exploring the side areas along the critical path and doing some of the favors/Lake of 9 stuff is more then enough to get you to the end of the skill tree and have plenty of money left over for good end game gear. At least on the difficulty setting i was playing on.
If I have to complain about anything, it's some of the lackluster variety in enemies where there's not a ton of different types and most of them are just variations of common types(Red, Blue, etc) and every once in a while, you fight a troll or an orge just to make things a little more challenging.
GOW did what I didn't think was possible after GOW3. It redeemed Kratos as a character(if not as a person) and it was a fascinating journey to experience.
As for what's next, I got the niflheim cipher completed in the final act, so I can go visit that when ready and I have all 8 Valkyries and some random Lake of 9 exploring and such(opening all the sealed chambers). I think I'm gonna hold off on that for a bit though and come back later. I'm ready to move onto something else and I've got a couple games in mind.
Off the top of my head, Unmetal just came out and the few reviews say it's good. It's also almost October so that means I'm itching to play some Spoopy games so Little Nightmares 2, Majoras Mask and Blasphemous come immediately to mind. I also want to play Eastward but I think I'll save that until get through some other games.