Alright I'm not deep enough that I'm going to drop my impressions here and not bother opening another thread for it.
God of War Ragnarok is, well it's more of God of War 2018. Take the last game and just add more and you've basically got Ragnarok in a pinch. I'd say the biggest additions to Rag from the last game is well the expansions of the realms. In the last game Midgard was really the only realm with any real exploration to it while the other realms have some minor exploration but were really just smaller levels designed to push the story along. There were also a couple of side realms that were just special things that had no exploration but instead where combat challenge arenas.
In Rag all but one realm so far was highly explorable. Even returning to Alfhiem where the dark elves and light elves battled in the first game had more explorative areas. And I think this shift in level design has a lot to do with Kratos starting with the Blades of Chaos and the expansion of his traversal capabilities. The blades can now act as grappling hooks allowing Kratos to do his best Spider-Man impression by swing from shit and launching himself up walls. This movement expands not only the exploration but even most of the combat areas are multi-level. You can now also sprint off ledges and perform ground slam attacks on enemies below you if you want. They really expanded the shit you can do in the game.
Combat has also been expanded and I'd say it goes a little too far, because not only are there a bunch of unlockable attacks (most of which are you relearning shit you had in the last game) but there is a tier system now. Basically you have to use the attack several times to unlock different tiers of it's power. When you use it enough to finished the final tier you unlock slots on that skill where you can stick a rune or enchantment thing into the skill allowing it to do more damage, or increase stun or elemental value. Which is nice on paper, but considering you have to pull off the move like 50 times to unlock the slot by the time you actually get it, it wont make a difference in how you play. Except if you focus on the skill specifically to get the slot early, but I don't really feel that's worth it.
As far as the story goes, it's a natural step up from the last game and it does feel like the 2018 game is just continuing on the same way a second season of a show would be continuing on. It is really clever how the writers fix problems they've caused in the last game like breaking Tyr's temple. The temple is broken and therefore realm travel is locked, until it isn't. All your badass gear is gone and when asked what happened to it Kratos just says, "I used it." The powering down of your weapons is blamed on the apocalyptic winter that precedes Ragnarok so it's very arbitrary but it's fine, and it's nice that they even tried to explain the obvious questions away.
I think the greatest strength with the story in Rag is how they continue to surprise you. Like all the players in the story are known, Odin, Thor, Tyr, Mimir, Atreus, Freya, etc etc we all know where the build up is leading too, Spoilers it's in the fucking title, yet throughout the game you are constantly surprised by what you are doing next, where you're going, who you meet, all that shit. It's very cool.
There are some problems though, which I've mentioned in a previous post. Combat doesn't feel as impactful to me as the last game did, the weapon strikes don't feel as powerful as they did. Hell Kratos feels weaker when opening chests too, whether punching them or ripping lids open. They changed the sound effect and adjusted the animation and it does not feel as fun. Though it also feels faster which speeds exploration up so maybe that's the point? The lack of impact in the combat, and the overbloat of it feels like a negative, but it's a nitpicky negative. The other problem is the dialog during exploration, characters will tell you the answers to puzzles immediately like they're in a rush to get through the game and they aint got time for your dumbass to struggle on a puzzle. Just don't have puzzles then. Either let people figure shit out, or don't even have them if you think your players are stupid.
But the problems are really nitpicks more than anything and frankly it's really hard to find fault with the game to be honest. It's great, if there wasn't a Final Fantasy 7 game this year it would easily be GOTY. But as we know FF7 triumphs over all, no exceptions.....this was almost an exception though.
