I am replaying the game on No Mercy again. Will wait for NG+ to try out GMGOW, but A LOT of my complaints about the combat being too messy and hectic have dissipated. So many of the fights that gave me problems on my first run are done so quickly, I start looking around for enemies because I remember them being much longer encounters.
Those lizard/frog enemies that stick to walls and spit poison at you are so easy to fight now. I just grab them with the L2 Chains Attack and use R1 to bash them to the ground repeatedly. Those damn Elves are still a pain to fight, but now that I am finally freezing enemies and switching to blades for extra damage to frozen enemies and vice versa, they die much faster. Those triangle attacks do so much burn damage that just one attack can set most enemies on fire and then axe can kill him in a hit or two.
As for going down in 2 hits sometimes, 1 if i wasnt at full health, no longer an issue because i always go in with my defense maxed out. even with vitality at just 20, i am able to take 5-6 hits. Havent died to a single dragur having fought 3. those guys gave me so much trouble. now i just freeze them before they even get a chance to do anything. The Triangle charged Axe throw will stop any red unblockable attack so those poor bastards can never pull off their best most devastating attack anymore.
One last thing I will say and I will probably create a thread for this because we simply cannot allow this kind of shit to go unchecked, and that is the ironwood Naughty Dog level. I got to that point in the story just 6 hours in. that means I did the entire svalterlheim hubworld, the alfheim open world in just 6 hours. but the ironwood level took me 2 hours. A full 2 hours. i couldnt rush through it, period. it is everything thats wrong with Naughty Dog games and there is literally 2 hours of it in a game far superior than anything naughty dog has made in 9 years.
SSM should NOT be copying Naughty Dog. ND should be copying SSM. GOW 2018 was perfect in terms of pacing of the main campaign mixing in with optional islands involving combat and puzzles. This is torture. There is combat here. You get new abilities. there is a cool boss fight at the very end, but TWO FUCKING HOURS?? thats the length of an entire movie. You go on FOUR collectathons wih angroboda. FOUR. This after TWO walking sections with her with unskippable cutscenes.
It shouldve been a 20 minute section with just one buffalo riding sequence, not four. maybe 2 combat sequences ending with that cool boss fight. Dont get inspired by Naughty Dog please. Your crater level is something ND doesnt have the talent or patience to produce. Stick to that kind of game design.
. She was the toughest boss in the game by far but I still think 2018's Valkyries were by far tougher than the Berserkers and Gna. It took me forever just to beat the one in Muspelheim.
