This reflects how I feel. GoW 2018 is so good and it feels like a completely organic adventure. Everything fits together so well. Ragnarok feels like it was designed on an excel spreadsheet where they said that every hour of gameplay needs to have
15m of combat
15m of walk-n-talk traversal
15m of puzzle
15m of RPG collecting/equipping
and then they repeated that same hour for like 50 hours. It feels very inorganic and planned out by a project manager. Corey's game felt like a real adventure from beginning to end.
I would say that
God Of War: Ragnarok commits a sin that, while not fatal, follows it around like a stigma, and that is this. It
constantly reminds me of how awesome
God Of War (2018) is. Whenever a game that is by all accounts good or not great falls short, it has a tendency to commit a variation of this very sin--constantly reminding me of how awesome another game in its genre is. See how RE4 clones constantly remind you of how awesome RE4 is as one of many examples.
When the sequel to an amazing game can't measure up to its predecessor(s), this is usually the reason. People can claim eww woke, or too much talking, or Atreus sucks, but what it really boils down to can't be identified by a single flaw. It's an undeniable fact that the combat in
God Of War: Ragnarok is a comedown. The bosses are not nearly as fun, none worse than the Berserkers who are the most dreadful part of the gameplay. I would rather walk and talk with Atreus and Angrboda for three hours than suffer through a single Berserker fight. Compare this to fighting the Valkyries in 2018, which were incredible and I looked forward to immensely. Even the fight against Gna just feel tedious and unwelcome, something thrown at you just because. I hated it.
The Norse saga deserved a better sendoff than it got. And for all my complaints,
God Of War: Ragnarok isn't a bad game. It just couldn't follow up 2018's act and ultimately is just average--which coming off of 2018 has a chilling effect over the entire experience.