God of War 2 Review

God of War 2 "completed" (The emulator crashed like 15 minutes before the ending so I just watched the final boss on youtube alright) Yeah, still a high mark for 3d beat em up/hack and slash. Maybe still a little janky, little heavy on the block pushing and needing to cheese enemies. But damnit it's just fun. Good, classic, cathartic fun. But then, maybe that's the wrong thing to think about, the game is an icon of the PS2 only rivaled by GTA. The public face of Kratos and how games sought to emulate the series basically makes the games themselves no more than a footnote in the series history. A similar scenario to Tomb Raider, perhaps. Funnily enough, both series now have strayed far from their roots. Turning into basically something else entirely (Unless Crystal Dynamics can pull Lara back cmon dual pistols) Still, for all of that, the game doesn't *feel* like it's got a million hands stirring the pot, like a lot of modern AAA. The beauty of an era gone by I suppose. Sure, the sequel hook was probably ordered, certain story beats and notable fights existing to wow in a trailer or demo. But at it's core 90% of things in the game, feel like they exist because someone on the dev team thought the players would enjoy it. Whether for gameplay reasons, for the spectacle, or just to indulge the edgelord inside. Not that the games are *actually* that adult, of course. The thing that stood out to me was that the characters never actually swear. Which would normally be a freebie for making something "adult" that is in fact childish. It's to the games credit though, since that shows someone having common sense as to what is and isn't appropriate for the story and themes they're going for.

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