A testament to the oddity that we will collectively remember as 2018 is the fact that in the Adam timeline there was a God of War game worth playing. Years back I grudgingly ran myself through the three numbered games and the two spin-offs available at the time on the Hard difficulty, it was a horrible experience. Not because of the challenge, that was embraced, but the monotonous flailing of these firey whipping swords was veiled with a revenge story with the world's worst loud protagonist. Here we are, though, with Adam saying, "Play God of War!"

As much as you can still go flailing about, a bit of strategy is often employed here more than it was in the hack-and-slash of yore. Very few weapons offer as much satisfaction as the Leviathan Axe, Kratos' main weapon that can be swung but also thrown and recalled with just as much ease. A few times a situation would arise leading into frantic combat and I'd get a little weary thinking this really just can't handle those moments the same, a new control scheme and refreshing lone camera angle offer a vastly different game than its predecessors, but would end up grinning like a lunatic as an overload of magical, particle effects and virtual blood flew across the screen.

Not only does Kratos control or appear differently here but he is thankfully a completely different character from the one we left off. Sure, he's the same guy in the continuity of God of War, yet we no longer have a Kratos who just yells about everything at everyone everywhere every time he meets them. What is left behind after the trilogy is a broken man who has not yet come to terms with who he is but also what he is as a father, a god, and at times a mass murderer. With his son Atreus, the pair set off on an adventure to spread the ashes of Kratos' wife and the boy's mother while along the way both come out the other end a little different. There is a bit in the middle where Atreus has a tonal shift, purposefully, and as maddening as it is you see why and how he landed there, and you feel so glad when he understands and redeems himself. There are a few other grievances with portrayals, a bit of heavy-fisted drama for the sake of it, but overall the story here is above anything the series, and about gaming as a whole, has offered before.

This will never make me want to replay the old games, but it does have me excited for the new journey Kratos finds himself on as he dispatches the Norse pantheon.