808smatt

I had low expectations at the start of this game, but now I'm thoroughly impressed by what Bethesda has done here. I can tell they put a lot of time and effort into this game. I enjoy the different stages and environments. Every time I hop into a play session I'm fully immersed and feel like I'm Indiana Jones. They did a great job with the variation with linear levels and the open world which keeps things fresh. The game is quite polished and I haven't run into any issues at all which is an automatic +1 to my rating, especially given the state of the gaming industry these days and how products release half-baked. I'm roughly 30 hours into the game at the time of this review and will probably go for the 100%. It's also great how they didn't incorporate any modern ideologies and focused on giving us solid gameplay. Great job with this one, but by any means Hollywood please do not make any more Indiana Jones movies, I refuse to believe they can do anything to save the franchise at this point.

Who game-tested the first boss? There's no way a human being tested it and thought it was a good first boss.

This is the funnest game out since Elden Ring. The combat is flawless and the world building and character designs are very appealing.

I spent around 125 hours getting the Platinum trophy for this game, and it was well spent. The story taking place in Hawaii was a bold choice and I think it was well executed. I can't think back to any games taking place in Hawaii previously so it was a fresh experience. Almost every aspect of this game is an improvement over the previous entry. The story, combat system, characters, side quests, mini-games. There was one part of the game that I had to play on the way to get the platinum trophy that I did not enjoy at all: DONDOKO ISLAND. This was such a tedious and uninteresting grind I wanted to cry. The Ichiban Confections mini-game from Like a Dragon was 100x better than this. I was so disappointed that it wasn't brought back for the sequel. I wanted to cry having to play Dondoko Island. It was so unfun and I cannot stress that enough. Other than that the game is a blast. The Dungeon side quests are hella fun too with great rewards. The third dungeon is locked behind a pay wall as well as New Game +, wasn't impressed by that at all. I should detract a point off the scoring but I'm focusing on the base game for this review.

I've been a fan of games from FromSoftware for a while now. I heard about the hype about this game and decided to give it a shot without being too familiar with the AC series. My biggest gripe about the game is that you will reach some points in the game and you will have to scrap your whole mech idea to get past a certain boss or mission. You will have to grind previous missions to earn enough funds to purchase the parts. I've never had that experience in previous FromSoftware installments. Having to YouTube a certain mech build or strategy ruins the immersion for me, which was hard to gain in the first place because of the barebones story and any kind of character development. The combat is the one saving grace of the game, and weapons feel great to use overall.

Santa Monica simply cannot miss. A whole story unfolding in this DLC for FREE is something I’m sure the God of War community greatly appreciated. Revisiting characters and enemies from previous installments was a fantastic touch!!