This is such an unbearable load of crap... best western combat system by a literal galaxy a "pretty damn low bar".
Your previous, as hilarious as prententious comment, already made crystal clear you've never been even near this combat system, no point in doubling down now. Either that, or you're just openly manifesting how much you suck at games that aren't designed around button mashing. It's necessarily one of these two.
There, here's something that's not from GAF, Era or any PS subreddits (at this point drop the mask altogether and ask directly from comments out of XboxForums.com):
"It's about the skills, because alot of the time in DMC or Bayonetta you kind of button mash your way into victory, you can't do that with God of War. It's very much about the precision of what's going on around you, and because it's so tightly controlled, because it's so well designed, you're able to maintain that control the entire way through, and it's just absolutely brilliant."
"So those are the gameplay systems and you might think of what I just said and being "yeah okay that sounds okay".. I can't explain to you how good this gameplay feels." - SkillUp
In the Ragnarok Review, he claimed God of War has his favorite combat system of any game, ever. SkillUp, the DMC, Souls and Bayonetta fanboy.
There's not a single flaw with the combat system, let alone "many basic issues". Systems execute to
perfection everything they set out to achieve. As an antidote to your ignorance:
And it would cool if you could overlook the (deserved) confrontational tone of this comment, and your desire to simply disagree based on this or your personal bias or faulty preconceptions, and open the video I've linked. A video only covering the basics by the way, as a
full and 100% exhaustive GoW combat breakdown couldn't possibly take less than 5-6 hours.
Game combat's nothing more than a mirror put in front of the player. You suck, combat suck. You're good, combat's good.
You're insanely skilled, combat rewards you and scales up with you. You're a literal superhuman? Combat manage to support and reflect that as well:
There's unfortunately no way to show this properly via recorded material, as you'd have to be familiar with the system controls yourself to properly appreaciate the extent player's skills impacts the game.
Your encounter won't look/feel as mine, and mine won't look and feel as GBG, with an infinite number of in-betweens. And it's that amount of possible in-betweens that makes it the purest embodiment of "depth".
To close, just in case your idea of a "basic issue" with the core gameplay would be parroting the extremely short-sighted "too close camera" sentiment, the topic was covered just yesterday in another Thread:
Main goal of God of War combat should be to make the player feel like a God (of War). Despite being given tools to get rid of hordes of enemies with ease in the blink of an eye and facing (coming out victorious) enemies 100 or even 1000 times bigger than Kratos, I don't remember ever feeling like a God of War in 13 God of War games before playing the 2018 one.
This shouldn't really make sense given how much more vulnerable you are in the new ones, so why is that?
Because for the first time, God of War 2018 puts you
in the game, with systems, especially when played at GMGOW, requiring you to be constantly fully focused and engaged.
Preferring to press buttons and get rid of hordes of enemies in an instant in spectacular fashion is understandable (many praised action games do that), but other kinds of players might prefer to personally feel in the action, be given flawless controls and infinite amount of agency in every facet of the fight and actually
earn that feeling of being a God of War, meaning once skilled enough to become a literal God (=master) of War (=combat).
What's the first rule in a brawl? Mind your surroundings at all times.
You don't, you deserve to get hit and make that no-hit power fantasy stop, because you're not being worthy of being called a God (=master) of War (=combat). Kratos would never get hit because he forgot he was fighting someone who's now behind him. And not only you weren't aware of your enemies at any given moment, you also missed the on-screen danger
and Mimir indications? You need to go back to training, rookie.
And I know it could sound I'm being condescending but I'm really not. There's not a single combat system that's as satisfying to master at this to me, and its mainly because of its camera.
Personally, "styling" by button mashing to increase a combo number means absolutely nothing to me. My concept of "styling" is more starting the Muspelheim 100-enemy trial, slowly walking toward an enemy, dodging his attacks at the last second, destroying the living shit out of him, turn at the last second to shield parry the fire bullet coming from behind sending it back to its source, and then unleashing all hell as the rest of the gang closes in on me.
However, that being said, I want to point out that this doesn't fully apply to Ragnarok. Encounters in that game were not as maniacally polished as GoW 2018, and in part due to the introduction of so many new and different enemies the game legit felt confused (not confusing, but confus
ed itself) at times, and actually made me wish for a further away camera in more than one occasion. Something I would have never asked for and actually resisted passionately in GoW 2018.
