I didn't expect multiple genuinely human moments from the video game equivalent of a marvel movie.
God of War is a shallow story about a manly-man edgelord with a late-2000s beard and attitude towards women, being angry and screaming the name of whatever god he's planning on killing next.
Dad of Boy and Dad of Boy 2 have made me legitimately tear up several times watching the bf play it.
I find the constant Marvel movie comparisons around this annoying. Obviously it's not the video game equivalent of groundbreaking film, but it's not just pumped out schlock, either. I find it be to be a bad faith comparison.
Some of the humor approaches (but is never quite as bad imo) Marvel quips, but yeah, I think it's an unfair comparison.
During an early Svartalfheim sidequest,
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Mimir explains how Odin tricked the dwarves into submission by replacing their farms with forges to produce him weapons, leaving them in the position of no way to feed themselves (the pollution from the industry destroyed their croplands) if they didn't continue to produce and sell weapons to Odin, which made them enough money to buy and import food. (Mimir explicitly says something like "the choice to work or starve is no choice at all.")
It was surprisingly deep for a AAA sidequest, and not something I would ever expect from Marvel.
Some time near the end of the story missions,
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a character (I forget who) spells out how violence is justified in overthrowing Odin, because the status quo is already violent towards the inhabitants of the nine realms.
which is the exact opposite of Marvel's liberal ideology of incremental, peaceful changes.
Game's not perfect and I don't expect it to radicalize anyone who isn't already there, but at least its third act isn't complete libshit garbage like every other mainstream super hero media.
Also loved how the game handles what appears to be a genuine attempt at "no you'll be just as bad as Asgard in destroying Asgard" through one of the key characters but then it turns out to be a fantasy version of cointelpro poisoning revolutionary willpower.
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The first Tyr we meet is actually Odin in disguise trying to pacify Atreus against completing Ragnarok even when it revealed only Asgard would be destroyed and all the previously oppressed realms would thrive again.
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Yes! "A perverted version of Tyr's peace." Mimir called faux-Tyr a lib :michael-laugh:
Another good moment is when they find out Odin used the Midgardians as human shields against the invasion. I thought we were about to be hit with the typical trope of "oh we've made a terrible mistake, we have to find another way!" Nope, Kratos is just like "that's the cost of war, war fucking sucks, deal with it so we can finish this and kill Odin."
Just overall super pleased with how the game treats violence/war as this really shitty thing that should never be sought for the sake of it, but also recognizes that there are situations where it is necessary despite its terrible costs. The immediate post-game isn't this big glorious celebration, it's just a somber walk back through your camp, an emotional father-son goodbye, and then a viking funeral for a friend whose brother is now a broken man :deeper-sadness:
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I also liked that Kratos had to teach Atreus not to reject his humanity towards others, the motivation for wanting to stop Odin, but also that yeah innocent people are going to die. Also don't know if you found it but there's one family sigil in Vanahiem that criticizes one family that tried playing centrists during the asgard-vanir war and got wiped out by the asgards cuss none of the vanir wanted to hide them cuss they were, as even stated by the item description, a bunch of fence post sitters. Honestly for being a vidyagam it has some pretty good story writing (Loved Hiemdall being some creepy spawn likened to a Fox/Newsmax TV Host with his snippit on Juton "revisionism").
The first game wasn't so bad about it but the new one really is. The writers love those Marvel style quips/jokes and it fucks with the tone a lot. I think the literal last line of dialogue in the game is a callback to a riddle.
Was never a fan of the old school "Kratos having a NuMetal beard" God of War games but I really should check out the soft reboot "Kratos having a left wing theorist beard" God of War games sometime.
First one's pretty fuckin' good yeah
Haven't played the second one yet
I'm only (I think) about 3/4 the way through and honestly I kept thinking the "War is bad, like, always, it's literally always bad even when it's 'for good reasons' it fucking sucks and unless you're absolutely one thousand billion fucking percent sure it's necessary you shouldn't even begin to have an opinion that isn't 'Let's not do a war or side with anyone in one, you don't have to pick a side' and even then you and everyone involved will be left with the massive cost afterwards" was going to turn into lib shit at some point but honestly they just kinda left that as the entire statement and moved on. It's been a refreshing anti-"chauvinist world police" underlying theme that I was pleasantly surprised by tbh.
Plot spoilers in a sense for where I am:
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I'm up to fighting Heimdall so obviously we're fully "going to war" but they haven't really returned to retcon any of the cost/unavoidable/etc things and left the statement on war as being universally bad, even though we've been forced to enter into one in a sense. It was more the comments on the elfheim war etc that I meant in particular either way, but even if they do switch it back to some half hearted lib take by the end I think the amount of "no you're not the good guy because you won your shit war" has been quite good and necessary for more 'main character' brain westerners to be forced to accept either way.
