Recent reviews by Abken

A lot of fun

Great, just fix the issues with Alt-Tab freezing the game

Good

Game of the year

As a fan of Hollow Knight, Sekiro and Lies of P, this is 100% perfect game for me

Update:
After 20 more hours... it's even better. Perfect game!

Update after 100% achivements:
What a game! 10/10 perfect
The true ending boss was something else... Amazing!

Smooth gameplay, really good game feel

Update:
After spending more hours in the game and clearing up to the boss of the 4th biome (died..), I have a bit more to say.
The game feel is awesome, the ability you get after defeating a specific boss makes it even smoother and more fun. The music, visuals, atmosphere is there. The build variety is not bad at all, but I wish we had more gift slots (imagine boons in Hades) for even more decision-making and more wicked combinations. Some builds can take 3 slots and there's not enough space for build combos (e.g., full fire + full goo, full crit + freeze, etc.).
The biggest issue with the game is the KBM support. Like many other top-down games the WASD is not enough for dodging too many directions (in fact just 8 directions) and some enemies/bosses are not meant to be fought with 8 directions sadly (something that only Hades has managed to think about so far). It is still playable, but enemy design should be tweaked a little bit, so it will be playable on PC while still challenging (not dumbing down the combat too much).
In terms of early access, I guess you will see the main stuff in the first 5 hours. I doubt I will end up sinking more than 10-15 hours in it as of now, but I am definitely hyped up for the next additions/expansions.

UPDATE:
The Target Lock was fixed months after the release. The game is very playable right now and the performance is quite good with RTX 3070. Combat is definitely better than 2018, but there are many issues still if you're playing on GMGOW difficulty (e.g., some attacks ignore dodge rolls and go through the iframes without an obvious reason or indication that it's undodgeable). I like the side step quite a lot on enemies that respect player's iframes. I think it makes the game more fluid and fun and rewarding. I recommend Give me no mercy for first playthrough and GMGOW on NG+, but if you've already clearead the previous game on GMGOW and enjoyed it, you will most likely enjoy Ragnarok better for its QoLs improvements in combat.
Changing my rating from negative to positive since the PC bug was fixed and the game is redeemable around 50% with Berserker bosses, but it is not a flawless experience.


Original review:
[MAJOR BUG]
It's impossible to use Target Lock with Mouse due to a major bug – the camera teleports in all directions, trying to lock onto all enemies at once, swapping targets 10 times a second.

GAMEPLAY (pros/cons):
+ Refined and overall much better combat than GoW 2018
- Many enemies don't respect sidestep and dodge roll iframes which forces you to play more passive in the first half of the game on GMGOW

Similar to God of War but with more sophisticated combos and stances

DLC is fire, don't listen to maidenless tarnished

An amazing sequel so far
10/10

Amazing game feel! Difficulty feels fine-tuned, combat is satisfying and has a lot of variety, exploration is really fun, art and music are obviously S tier.

The only issue for me is keyboard support - some catwalks (e.g. especially trippy flower invisible bridges in the cave) are very finicky with a keyboard (8 directional angles only) and those that require jump towards an invisible path are really unfun. I wish there was some "help" for keyboard users to snap into those catwalks easier, so it will be less tedious