Is the new God of War cooler, or is the old God of War cooler? Let's talk about the finale of the old series

As a well-known first-party masterpiece on the Sony PS platform, the God of War series has achieved many successes since the first PS2 game in 2005, and its robust action-adventure gameplay coupled with large scenes and wonderful Greek mythology stories has been well received by players. But the gradually fixed gameplay will eventually make people tired, coupled with the industry and player tastes have gradually changed to arPG+ open-world mode, which also makes the old "God of War" series feel a huge challenge, so the last work of the old God of War, "God of War: Self-Appointed God of Death", only sold about three million.

This defeat also more or less spawned the emergence of the new God of War in 2018, thus making the series win a huge change, this time to briefly talk about this seemingly poor donkey skill, but let me feel the last old God of War series "God of War: Self-appointed God of Death".

The familiar gameplay is mixed with a few twists and turns

The gameplay of the old God of War series has been almost fixed since the first generation, combining moves / action adventure / QTE cool execution / multiple weapons and magic combinations / appropriate puzzle and scene interaction / linear advancement, and later you can find that most of them are in the explosive mode or weapon magic and other places to make changes. The advantage of this is that it is stable, because this gameplay combination can be better accepted by veteran players who have been in contact with God of War from a generation, so it is safe to launch a sequel and expand the customer base within a certain range, but this kind of gameplay begins to be slightly tired after the "God of War 3" ushers in a climax, so that it has affected the performance of "God of War".

Of course, the production team of "Self-Appointed" is not unaware of this, so they try to add freshness from the following points:

Anger scale

This is definitely the most controversial change in God of War's Self-Proclaimed God of War, and a similar design has appeared in True Three Kingdoms 5. The biggest problem with this type of system is that it limits the player's control of the complete moves, although the fault tolerance rate can be greatly increased in the late game (the anger scale can be grown by upgrading weapons), and the four magics after the anger value is full are all unique, but most players are difficult to tolerate and play until the middle. Because the battle in the God of War series accounts for a large proportion, it is equivalent to a large number of hands and feet in the early stage of the game, and if the early scale is not long enough, as long as it is hit, it will return to the most basic move ability, which is a very annoying thing.

The production team may want to use such a system to increase the challenge and restart the God of War series that has been criticized in terms of difficulty and depth of the battle system, but reality proves that the market is not appreciative, and not many people are willing to play until the middle of the game, resulting in their calculated focus on the fun of continuously accumulating anger in battle and releasing powerful moves to reverse, which is unacceptable to most people.

Grab hand-to-hand combat and pick up weapons

In the past, we can see the enemy charging like three generations, or the generation grabbing the creeps and freely choosing the solution, "Self-Contained" has become able to pick up five weapons on the battlefield at random, attack with fists and feet when there is no weapon to pick up, and R1 can also grab enemies without armor value to attack.

Ability to manipulate the time/doppelganger collaboration

Perhaps seeing various precedents on the market, "Self-Appointed God" can add new tactics and gameplay after getting two plot relics in the middle and late stages. For example, hitting the enemy in the air = after flying to make him slow, such as calling the doppelganger and Kratos to attack together, in the middle and late stages of the increasingly fierce battle, the ability to make good use of these two holy relics is absolutely necessary, and at the same time, there are also occasions for the use of holy relics in the puzzle solving, adding a little freshness.

Bounce back

In the past, "God of War 2" has always had this operation after it began to get the Golden Fleece, and this time "God of Death" under the siege of the anger scale and a more diverse enemy, it is more important to create a counterattack time at the right time to create a counterattack, if it is only blindly attacked, not only is the offensive easy to interrupt, the scale is difficult to effectively accumulate will also make the battle situation more and more unfavorable.

A handful of novel QTE interactive performances

This can be said to be a very detailed change, and even most people may be completely indifferent, but I appreciate it. The QTE of several medium-sized enemies in this change is specially designed (similar to taking the previous Cyclops QTE out of the small change), taking the personal favorite elephant soldier as an example, after triggering the QTE, the player needs to maneuver Kratos to dodge the dying struggle of the enemy, while continuing to attack until the critical point, and finally triggering the brutal and refreshing bloody performance. This sense of participation in the battle execution is more engaged than simply watching the performance, but unfortunately, the similar design in "Self-Appointed God" is less, and the deeper impression is like a soldier and a snake woman, but in the bitter battle, it is really difficult to describe the happiness of seizing the opportunity to enter the QTE and fighting with the other party all the way to the final successful execution.

The old God of War series is a collection of performances and feels

A major feature of the old God of War series is the various brutal performances and the wild feel, "Self-Appointed" after 3 works plus outsourced "Spartan Soul" and other works, the mastery of the sense of blow can only be described as pure fire. We can see the sound effects of various attack methods and the combination of the picture at the right time, almost to the point of perfection, such as Kratos brutally smashing the enemy's head to the ground with his hands, and you will find that the sound effect and the sense of the moment on the screen are so just right, and the sense of substitution is very strong.

The performances that include the interactive QTE mentioned above are also very refreshing and sophisticated, and the magic such as fire magic has introduced the QTE additional setting, and the combination of the camera action and the pause of the sound effect is also very smooth. The gameplay and concept of "Self-Styled" may no longer have a fresh feeling, but it can be clearly felt that the production team's mastery of the camera and the sense of blow is very sophisticated, which is undoubtedly valuable.

Ordinary stuffing stories, disappointing boss battles

Since the main axis of Kratos's own story has been derived and described in the 2-3 generations of God of War, other works in the series, such as "Soul of Sparta" and "Chain of Olympus", can only be interspersed with time points around one generation. The same is true of "God of War", which is set a generation ago after Quitos killed his wife and daughter to be loyal to Ares, and he is determined to find a way to break the oath he made with Ares, but the story as a whole is not too impressive, even if it is not compared with the imposing works such as "God of War 3", "God of Death" does not have a brotherhood bridge that makes a slight impression like "Soul of Sparta". The boss battle is undoubtedly the most disappointing piece, whether it is fighting with large bosses or humanoid bosses, it lacks charm and fun, but ordinary creeps and elite monsters fight more fun.

epilogue

"God of War: God of Killing Self-Style" was in a wave of generational rotation, not only the IP of God of War itself has been slightly tired, the production team's intention to slightly modify the original gameplay has also ended in failure, so that Santa Monica Studio realizes that complete changes are imperative, resulting in the birth of a new God of War in 2018, but it is also a pity that "God of War" itself in the combat feel of the extreme sophistication brought by the pure ACT combat fun, It was a thrill that would be addictive and difficult to extricate myself from as long as I could understand and devote myself to it, and I will never forget it to this day.