God of War is particularly dear to my heart. Having only skipped portable/mobile games (Betrayal, Chains of Olympus, Ghost of Sparta), every God of War release was for me the biggest argument for owning a new Playstation. After solid, but stagnating Ascension the series was shelved and God of War 2018 came as an unexpected and stunning surprise.
Now, 4 years later, Ragnarök turned out to be better in every aspect, barring arguably the story.
The original managed to deliver in spades in every of the three main elements of a video game and Ragnarök builds on that.
Gameplay
Ragnarök has the same rigid game mechanics as the original. Don't break what works. The new Spear mechanics is welcome, as well as the enhanced skill progression. Being able to play as Atreus is also refreshing, though feels rudimentary, simplified and much less polished than Kratos. The same is for playing with different companion characters, while that brings a value to the storytelling, there's not much difference in gameplay. But there is definitely enough variability and interesting boss battles to keep the gameplay interesting till the end.
Puzzle-solving is again evolution of the original, still enjoyable, with enough variability and rewarding backtracking.
Though my only nitpick here would be weapon switching. Using the same arrow keys for switching and holstering weapons bit me many times in the heat of battle.
Presentation
Ragnarök is a PS4 game to its core, with the main performance goal to provide a solid experience on base PS4 and improve resolution, framerate, effects on PS4 Pro and PS5, there was only so much one could improve within those constraints. Ragnarök is still beautiful and occasionally gorgeous, though the main credit here goes to the artists. In technical aspect it is an evolution of the original, with more polish, but still, with the same, mostly corridor like level design and with recurrent squeezing sections to conceal data streaming. No-cut camera was impressive, but for my money I'd like them to either let it go or do only a PS5 version. We've all seen what PS5 is capable of in R&C: Rifts Apart. The other complaint would be the lighting model, which often looks poor and dated, especially in indoor scenes. All these complaints might sound strange with the initial claim that Ragnarök is visually better that the original, but that's because between the two games TLoU: Part 2 already pushed PS4 in every aspect to its limits, and Horizon: Forbidden West showed how a cross-gen game still can tap into all the capabilities of PS5.
Story
Even during its hack-n-slash times, God of War delivered a strong story, which has been elevated to a new level with the reboot. Ragnarök's story is great, maybe less intimate and focused (at least in the beginning) as the original, but still fully satisfying. During the cutscenes I was consistently forgetting that it was a videogame. And all the actors deserve admiration for their exceptional performances. It's so good across the board that it's hard to pick a favorite. One nitpick here would be some of the anachronic jargon used in the game, with, improper amount of swear words. Also Atreus' behavior was often kin to a modern teenager. There were some moments of him showing temper when I was jokingly imagining that he at any moment might pull out his earphones and put on some music to relax...
Though the biggest downside on the story front, well, actually for Ragnarök in general, is Faye's and Kratos' arc. In the original game Faye was a mystic, ethereal being of whom little was known, but much was spoken about and her presence was throughout the whole game. And when Kratos and Atreus set themselves on this dangerous journey to fulfill Faye's last wish, I was eager to learn what could possibly push Kratos to commit to that promise, let alone risk the life of the only living being dear to him to fulfill it. Well, it would have been better to leave that unanswered. All those scenes with Kratos and Faye were redundant and contrived. Kratos always seemed embarrassed and there was more chemistry between him and Freya during peak moments of their antagonism than during these supposedly intimate scenes.
And I still don't have an answer what made them come together and made Kratos follow her. Was it the constant ridiculing and mockery that helped her to win him?! Maybe...
Verdict
It's very easy to recommend Ragnarök. For those who played the original, for all tens of millions of lucky gamers, Ragrarök is a must. It somehow constantly leaves one wishing for more and is not as striking in 2022, but is a great conclusion to Atreus's and Kratos' story.
I don't know what the development team has on their minds for the series, but I'd still be up to following Kratos for another journey. And maybe Thrud?! Well, definitely Thrud more than Atreus...