It’s safe to say that the God of War franchise is one of the most beloved in Sony’s history. The story of Kratos, from an epic Greek tragedy to the end times of Norse Ragnarok, continues to astonish and entertain fans with the latest title God of War Ragnarok up for this year's Game of the Year award. However, the franchise was not without its stumbles
The original trilogy is certainly rife with “of its time” mishaps, as technology and culture were different even 10-15 years ago. The modern games in the franchise don’t escape the ire of fans either, with some questionable decisions regarding the game design and story.
10 Sexual Minigames - Greek Era
As beloved as the 2000s-era games were, the sex minigames are something many fans look back on with embarrassment, hilarity, or both. u/TahomaYellowHorse celebrates the fact they aren’t in the modern games by saying “The sex mini-games were an appeal to juvenile young teenagers. They won’t come back, and I do think that’s better.”
It doesn’t help that the sex scenes themselves weren’t even plot-relevant. Even the one with Aphrodite led nowhere, completely breaking the tension of God of War 3 with a frankly terrible fanservice scene. It’s not that sex can’t be a part of Kratos’ story, as most epics from myth tend towards passionate love and lust. While optional and mostly tongue-in-cheek, most fans are pretty indifferent to their absence in modern games.
9 Shallow Combat - Greek Era
There’s no denying that the original God of War games were a spectacle. They were boisterous and brutal, and for people who just wanted to hack and slash their worries away, the combat system for God of War was perfectly serviceable, and the cinematic kills are the clear star of the game. However, for those looking for more depth, God of War doesn’t really have much to offer.
u/Mrkancode sums it up well by saying “Eh. Character action is a genre that lives and dies on its combat depth. I never felt anything that motivated me to keep playing aside from the story and some of the secrets. I suppose that's why it gets a bad rep. The combat may be serviceable but when the entire game is defined by that aspect, serviceable isn't going to do it for me.”
8 Simplistic and Repetitive Puzzles - Sprinkled Throughout The Franchise
The game can’t just always be killing things, so to pad things out, puzzles were a big part of God of War games. Sadly, a lot of them, are far from the harder puzzles that Resident Evil and Silent Hill would offer. In fact, a lot of the puzzles were basically an HD version of the TI-84 Boxman. True, there were really innovative optical illusion puzzles from time to time, but they are the exception.
It’s mostly just moving stuff onto platforms or hitting something far away with a special new item that the player just got. There’s no real meat to the puzzles, and it certainly doesn’t help there’s so much of them. u/INCS88 states “The puzzles in this game range from DUH?’ to ‘oooo, this is interesting to ‘omg I can’t believe how tedious this is.”
7 Terrible Camera Angles - God of War: Ascension (2013)
God of War as a franchise is well-known for its effective use of camera angles to showcase a sense of scale and majesty. No matter how powerful Kratos was, it’s a reminder that what he’s up against is much bigger than his quest is, both figuratively and literally. However, they took things a bit too far in Ascension.
u/omiros14052003 states “It ruined the combat for me because in combination with the awful camera placement that made Kratos too small I couldn't understand what was happening and the enemies were beating me pretty bad.” Paired with how terrible the game’s framerate was on release, it’s no wonder Ascension isn’t as fondly remembered.
6 The Multiplayer Mode - God of War: Ascension (2013)
Although the developers of God of War should be given some credit for inexplicably making the game mode fun despite studio demands, it really wasn’t a well-polished mode. New additions would be locked behind progress, meaning that the new player experience was frankly terrible, a shame considering the pantheons teased in the gear.
u/Experiment_Magnus sums it up by saying “Honestly the only gripe I had with the game was balancing. Every time the devs made new powerful armors and weapons, it'd punish new players to oblivion.” Of course, with the direction of the franchise gearing back to refined single-player experiences, this is unlikely.
5 Boring Level Design - God of War (2018)
Although there’s nod enying that God of War (2018) is a beautiful game as far as visuals go, pushing the console to its limits. However, all that flash doesn’t actually leave much room for interesting level design. The lack of real verticality as well as “hallway” feel of many levels leave much to desire, especially in sharp contrast to the fact that literal monsters were once levels in previous games.
u/SPinc1 states “While I loved the game overall, I didn't like the level designs of Gow4. They were mostly boring with a few exceptions.” Thankfully, these criticisms were addressed in spades by the time Ragnarok rolled around, with more varied stages as well as more populated spaces.
4 Unfun Grinding - God of War (2018)
u/Rykka95 simply states “Muspelheim and Niflheim are grindy slogs, and weren't very fun.” as the major examples of one of the 2018 game’s biggest problems. As opposed to the streamlined point system of the older era, the new game makes progress needlessly grindy at points, replacing fun sections with difficult padding.
The problem with using a light RPG system for a game like God of War (2018) is that instead of making it fun and complex, they stretch out the content with unfun difficulty. There’s a grind involved to get items that unfortunately aren’t nearly fun enough to be considered real rewards, outside of bragging rights.
3 Lack of Enemy Variety - God of War (2018)
Perhaps the biggest criticicism of the game, God of War (2018) was incredibly repetitive in terms of enemies. The bossfights can be summed up as “Trolls, Twins and Baldur”. With how many amazing creatures there are in Norse myth, it’s disappointing how often God of War (2018) just focuses on the most unremarkable of them, big meaty trolls.
In fact, in a thread asking what Snata Monica should do to improve Ragnarok, and one of the top comments was u/Starry_420 saying “Honestly, just more variety in enemies and glory kills.”. A simple request, yet it immediately addresses one of the biggest mistakes made in the 2018 game.
2 Underutilized Gods - God of War: Ragnarok (2022)
God of War: Ragnarok was generally seen as a solid sequel to its predecessor, with its great story, added enemy variety, better level design, as well as fair balancing all around. However, despite all the amazing new gods in the story, they unfortunately don’t get nearly as much focus as they could have in the story.
In particular, Thor felt like much less of a presence compared to Baldur, who was a constant thorn in Kratos’ side. While the variety of bosses is great, the second Thor fight simply didn’t resonate as much emotionally as the final Baldur fight did. u/TellMeYouAreSorry states “Like, come on, are you going to tell me that the second Thor fight was superior to any fight with Baldur? It was a huge letdown. I finally wanted a rematch that would shake the world, and we got that.”
1 The Final Battle of Ragnarok - God of War: Ragnarok (2022)
Despite all that it does well, God of War: Ragnarok sadly didn’t deliver as well as it could have when the titular Ragnarok finally arrived. Instead of a world-ending spectacle akin to the likes of God of War 3, it was instead a moderately difficult section with more mobs than usual, a disappointment for a franchise known for its cinematic flash.
While there were some great heartfelt moments in the post-game regarding Kratos, everything else just felt like lost potential. u/StylizedSotiX sums it up best by saying “I was expecting more from Ragnarok - the game's tittle- more destruction and more deaths. That final battle did not feel as epic to me.”