To say kratos had no character development I disagree that anger and rage was the character leading to the end of an entire methodology and it's well made in perfect sense
@@filipbrcko yeah he also didn't mention that the Olimpian gods tormented him day and night with visions of his murdered family which was not even his fault to begin with
The bloke who made the video has probably only played the new games and watched videos explaining the old ones because I guarentee anyone who actually has sat down and played through every god of war game youll understand his actions arent something hes proud of and he sees himself in a monsterous way and it just makes you love the new games' story that much more
I know Ghost of Sparta & Chans of Olympus is not wildly known to the general gamer but they do explore his character further in those games. Even ascension gives you a deep dive into his character
I mean, Kratos always had moments of self reflections on his choices and morality, he was tricked by Ares to kill his family and tried to take revenge yes, but you glossed over the key moments of his character when for exemple : When he's reunited with his family in the afterlife and promises to never leave again but has to leave to prevent his daughter from being erased from existence, taking all of his strength to leave her behind, Or when he killed his mom turned into a monster by the Gods, actively asking himself what he'd become right after she died in his arms, Or when he thought about ending it after his brother's death, or when Kratos litterally tries to kill himself because he couldn't handle the guilt of his crime that he's been desperately trying to drown in alcohol and meaningless sex, Or when the sisters of fate came close to get him to submit to Zeus saying that he could have his family again through illusions, Or when he was trying to convince Pandora to not sacrifice herself because she reminded him of his daughter Caliope, even after saying she shouldn't trust him, acknowledging he's a piece of shit after killing the Gods that wronged him, litterally saying at the start of the game "i bring the destruction of Olympus", The whole series has been a tale of a broken man who was forced to destroyed his life for the sake of Gods who betrayed him and wouldn't even let his get the release of death when he wanted it, and i really wander how you only got the surface level of understanding "a man killed his family and he's pissed" since you said you replayed the game for the occasion of God Of War 2018, i dunno, that just my thought
i was very happy of what they did with kratos when god of war 2018 came out but it really irritated me when the devs said the same thing about kratos as he did. hope your comment goes to the top so more people can appreciate the old kratos
Also his main Motivation in the first Game wasnt Revenge, that was just the Iceing, he wanted salvation from his Nightmares, and Visions. He killed Ares but he lost, the Game God of War cant be won. And that alone has a lot of Narrative Weight.
Nope katos just smashed things. Never was deep until 2018, but without the old games we would had never saw the best game character development ever in kratos
I would like to note that in God of War 2 Kratos does in fact pause for a moment to reflect on what he is doing and to what end. However, Gaia is there, spurring him on to seek revenge. So the part of him that had doubts was there before the 2018 game.
Plus, nearly everyone he knows was either killed by the gods in some way, or betrayed him for their own ends. On top of never forgetting that he killed his wife a child, there’s only really two paths he could take. Self destruction, or total war. He tries both and only succeeded in one
There's a LOT of bad takes on the og God of war series. There are many MANY times where Kratos being a bastard monster is questioned and it really does come off as the game actively telling you 'hey what you're doing is wrong but Kratos is going to see it through because he's blinded by grief and rage.'
Yeah, it just rarely happens through dialogue. The moment where you can go back and see the woman crushed by the door mechanism is one of these moments. GoW3 tends to just do things that prompt questions from the player rather than ask the questions itself, coming from a game who's two predecessors have historically done their best to paint Kratos's actions in a justified light.
The ending of both the first and third games are perfect examples of Kratos' character being more than just 2 dimensional. At the end of the third game you visibly see his realisation of what he's done, and you see how that collateral damage he caused affects him when he impales himself on the blade of Olympus. The only thing that lacks dimension or nuance in those games is the way people oversimplify it, just like in this video.
@@Gamfluentyou brought up a good point. If Kratos hadn't killed the gods and just went to Olympus and knocked out Zeus, they wouldn't have taken that lying down. They'd have hunted him down and fuck things up even more. They literally toyed with mortals. They had to die, imo
I think the theme of the first few games is a show case of how rage and vengeance can lead you down a path of evil, anything and everything means nothing in the face of your rage and single minded goal of retribution. It’s akin to a greek tragedy
Man, I had similar apprehensions when thinking about Ragnarök. I thought, “Where do they go from here?” And honestly, during the first bit of Ragnarök, I felt that way, like it was building to nothing. Luckily, at my current place in the game (i’m not even done yet), I am so happy to say that the game has a solid continuation of the last game’s story.
Well if the series continues to "mature" with its audience, we can expect Kratos to be a grandpa in GOW6 and GOW7, presumably with an Egyptian god grandson.
The amount of glossing over and shallow analysis of Kratos' character is beyond unacceptable in this video. Kratos does try to take the non-violent solution on multiple occasions. He tries to avoid fighting Theseus, Perseus, and Icarus in God of War 2, he is extremely reluctant to kill Orkos who actually begs for death. Hermes has to provoke the shit out of him after Kratos outright dismisses him, until he Hermes sings a literal poem mocking him about the murder of his wife and child, and he even tries pretty solidly to dissuade Hercules from fighting him, and is actually fairly calm and soft spoken in his attempts at doing so, and it takes Hera comparing Pandora to a whore, when Kratos was finally starting to bond with her and seeing her as a daughter-figure similar to Calliope that Kratos finally snapped her neck. You need to replay the old games, and play them carefully, and then after that, go watch EndlessJess' video where he lists off all the countless times Kratos showed far more depth and pathos to his character than people like you are willing to give him credit for, let alone pay attention to. Kratos doesn't even bother to say he doesn't care. Kratos literally saying in God of War 3 to Athena after she talks about the mortals: "Let them suffer. The death of Zeus is all that matters." Zeus: "Look around at what you have done." referring to the destruction Kratos has caused. Kratos: "I see only what I have come to destroy." Pandora: "But I trust you, Kratos." Kratos: "You shouldn't." Kratos knows he's a piece of shit, he acknowledges it, and hates himself, and sees himself as a monster, but the gods never give him a chance to calm down and stop being a monster, which is why he ends up going off the deep end and killing them all, with his final conclusive act being to give the power of hope back to humanity as a form of penance for all the damage he caused to Greek. And yes, obviously, it doesn't make up for what he did, that's beside the point. The point is Kratos is 100% aware of what a monster he is, and once his revenge was finally over, he did the one and only right thing that was within his immediate power to do, and that was at least give humanity a chance at recovery, which Athena would have surely not given them, and instead manipulated them right back into serving her, likely under the same abusive conditions that the rest of Olympus did. Kratos referring to Hephaestus: "Hephaestus did what every father should do. Protect his child..." The amount of times Kratos shows deeper emotions in the game is staggeringly high. Just because it doesn't dive into a deep, philosophical analysis over it doesn't mean it's not present, or there. Expecting it to try to reach beyond that point (at least in those games) is foolish, and ignorant, due to the simple fact that those games were explicitly designed to be showcases of Greek tragedy, with an emphasis on the brutality, mayhem, and inescapability of the rage which consumes Kratos, which Zeus does in fact comment on at the start of God of War 3. The fact of the matter is the 2018 and about to be released Ragnarok games are taking a deeper analysis of the character, because now is obviously the right time to do it, where time has passed both in game, and in real life; a point in time where vengeance is behind him, and he can at last move on, whereas in the older generation of games, expecting Kratos to act self-reflectively in a world that does nothing but use, abuse, manipulate, and torment him is just outright ridiculous. Kratos: "I am what the gods have made me!" It may sound like a justification to you, but that statement is 100% double-edged. Like it or not, without the gods to drive Kratos to madness, and endless rage, he would not have become the self-loathing monster he was.
I think as you say the older games showcase the "tragedy" of the Greek gods and legends, but when playing these games I don't really feel a proper human connection to any of the characters. Nothing is subtle and everything is aggressively thrown in your face in a matter of fact way. While I thoroughly enjoy this hard-core style of game design, nothing from the old games compares to the sombre tones showcased in the new game. The new game is far more relatable and realistic which for me at least fully immerses me in its story. I think a good way of looking at it is the old games we're tributes to the Greek myths of chaos and war where as the new game is a saga about humans, focussing on its characters and their relations. Down to personal preference I fully appreciate all forms of storytelling and entertainment that enhance immersion and I feel that the new game provides a far more compelling plot with far more developed characters resulting in a overall superior experience.
Yesss brother I agree , thank you for this detailed and inteligent answer , thank you for listening to.your.intuition and acted upon.sharing your toughts.I believe you did justice for his caracter. 🙏 Just think about it people , you burn in the fire long enough that you become.the fire. The gods kept him in that fire , they made him that monster , don't expect a zen master when the man is always burning on the inside plus remember that he cared so much about his brother that when he got kidnaped he made the red tattoo on his body in his honor because he had one exactly the same from.the birth. Kratos always had a big heart , because he had to truly love his family to be so hurt that he expresed himself in a rage that destroyed the world. His rage shows that he cared deeply and honestly
I agree. The older games TRIED to have emotional moments, but it always felt too rushed, like the game was afraid to lose the player's attention. A good example is Kratos accidentally killing his own soldier in game 2. While Kratos is still speeching about the guy, a random monster shows up, triggering a pointless boss fight. As someone who had a serious mythology craze years ago, it feels disappointing to see so many iconic gods, heroes and monsters get downplayed as kill fodder for Kratos.
Always easy to tell when someone did not play the 2 PSP games. Those stories do great work to round out Kratos's character with his family being explored. Scenarios include him being given the choice to stay trapped with his daughter or return to reality, and also how his brother was given an awful deal in life due to him being treated as though he was the one being described in a prophecy... despite it actually having ended up being Kratos. Man, Deimos brought some great pathos to Kratos.
In the first game he is suicidal. I think you oversimplify his development in the first game. The only reason he pursues Ares in the first game is because Athena promises that she will end his nightmares about killing his family.
It’s criminal that game journalists have no idea what they’re talking about, watch the “one thing people get wrong about Kratos” video and you’ll understand.
This deserves more views. I think that the old God of War games are more mature and refined than you cut them out to be (though they are still filled with mindless violence) but overall I like this take on the series.
Indeed, the entire point of the wanton destruction and death was to act as the real world translation for Kratos' pain and anger. As time went on we see that as much as this is a form of pressure release, so too is it a blindfold, further enforced by those whose actions deserved his wrath. But towards the end the writers show that while anger and the pursuit of personal justice can be justified, if you take no measure to reduce the collateral of your actions then they will have consequences that are only known in the aftermath of what has been wrought.
@@Jaanikins it can be, even with intent. For an example If one walks to and from place A and B for either a long time or often enouph. they will have moment where they don't recall what they've been doing for the last ten minutes or so. This is being in a mindless state, a trance of sort. Intent doesn't get rid of the mindlessness. Play a game where you kill endless enemies, if all you do is kill then who, what, why, and how many so far? Questions which need to be asked are to be never answered for the player doesn't ask, just kills more. Just look at gamers as a whole, we mindlessly play games all the time. Focused or not we play and we enjoy what usless things we've done for a reward that may have no use or value at all.
there are so many hole and glossed over points in this video. its clear research was not done for this video, more in the sense of the actual myths and lore. he make a lot of errors or just straight up misinterprets a whole part of character. this video needs more work.
@@Gamfluent Well he destroyed most of the Greek City states by the start of GOW2. At that point his kill count was probably in the tens if not hundred of thousands. But yes, the millions I mean are the ones who died over his actions in GOW3
@@Gamfluent Actually, it's likely that not that many people died because of the Gods. Few of the Gods were explicitly evil before Kratos opened Pandora's Box. It's explicitly stated that they were corrupted by evil. Sure most of them weren't good beforehand or consiensious of mortal. But before that most of their bad deeds weren't large scale or just for shits and giggles. Zues kidnapped Deimos, but it was out of fear and he didn't enjoy it. When Ares tried to destroy Athens, the other Gods saw it as too far and went out of their way to stop him. They were against the murder of a couple hundred thousand so they did have some standards. Even after being infected, characters like Hera were more upset about the destruction of Greece than Kratos was. Their actions after being infected 1) Arguably can't be held against them as their moral agency was affected 2) STILL aren't even remotely close to what Kratos did. There is NO evidence that implies that the gods were responsible for the deaths of billions or even millions. Thnatos is the God of Death and Persephone tried to destroy the word so you could argue they're worse, but the others likely only killed some individual people (besides Ares). Kratos has killed far more than the rest of the Greek Pantheon combined, and while he was their victim to an extent, he was worse than nearly all the Gods he killed. Full stop. Plus, now that we know Kratos could just go to other parts of the world to avoid the Greek Gods/afterlife he has no justification of "It's them or me". He could've just left and started over, but he was consumed with anger and would rather millions die if he could feel a little satisfaction. Mans far worse than Zeus (Zeus is still an evil bastard though).
Update: yea, eat your words sir, that ending hit me so hard knowing the sacrifices my dad made for me & not appreciating it until we’ll into my adulthood TRUE CINEMA
10 seconds in and you already heavily undermine the depth of the Greek saga of God of War. They are still very mature and Kratos was always fleshed out.
Sure, was the funny sex minigame the immense depth? Did he ever stop to consider if killing everything in the universe was mature? Were any of these questions asked, and how quickly? It's more like just a destructive rampage.
@@popopop984 You sound like an upset feminist hired by buzzfeed. You’re cherry-picking the only parts of the game that are, you know, fun? Do you know what that is? Or do you think every single piece of gaming must have a lesson, and everything aspect, every feature, everything you do in the game must be in service to the theme. It’s a video game, there will always be something geared towards having pure fun, while still having the depth be there. You’re very ignorant
@@popopop984 Hey stupid, yes, he did consider what he was going to do at the end of 2 and start of 3 and decided that nothing else mattered but the death of Zeus. Kratos knew what he was doing, but chose to continue his revenge anyway.
@@popopop984 gow literally with Kratos attempting to kill himself because of the hopelessness of the situation he's in. Kratos was always meant to be deep. And you guys say we're just there for the mindless violence and set pieces. Gow was always meant to be a story about learning to improve yourself even in the worst of situations. You sympathize with kratos in gow1, cheer for him in gow2 and get uncomfortable with his actions in 3. It is uncomfortable because you learned to get invested and sympathize with kratos, and even if he did do horrible things in 3 he does end up realeasing hope to the world at the end, wich also allows him to continue his odyssey towards Norse mythology! It always was deep.
Why is everyone saying that GoW is a reboot? It's still a continuation of GoW3 and the other games, Kratos just journeyed north and started killing stuff there after he killed everyone in Greece.
Until I dealt with a 4 year battle of my own chronic pain, I was with you in saying that it just was crazy for him to destroy so many people in the path of his vengeance. Then I experienced what true pain is and think about what I would have done if that pain had a true physical antagonistic being that was causing it and I not only suffered at their hands but watched that being doing it to others. To think of what not just I would do to end them but what a trained Spartan would do in that scenario and I honestly think Kratos held back. He didn't go out of his way to kill anyone that wasn't a direct impediment to his goal and even tried to spare a few that were too eager to try and insult and berate him. Remember that he was willing to walk away from Hera until she attacked Pandora who, although she was actually older, acted and looked the same age as his own daughter who he started treating as such after realizing what wrong he did when killing Hephaestus even though it was self defence
I don’t know if you played the game brother but he didn’t kill the gods because they killed his wife and daughter he ruled as a god of war in between 1 and 2 and was so powerful that Zeus feared him because fear was released from Pandora’s box so Zeus tricked kratos into giving Zeus’ weapon all his godly power and then killed him with it his revenge is for the gods attempting to kill him
I think the entire story of God of War is that the Gods created a monster who thought they could control though lies and deception, but the monster ends up turning on them.
@@frozzytango9927 you think wrong ares specifically says he created kratos to help him overthrow Olympus ARES created kratos THE OTHER GODS knew what areas created and feared him hence Zeus’s line “your hands are already stained by the blood of a gold I shall not let ares fate be my own” this is right after kratos asks him why he would betray him so yeah kratos had no issues with gods (except ares) until the gods betrayed him and attempted to kill him that’s when he realized the very god that did it was his father this is what caused kratos to go through his emotions notice the new kratos doesn’t think about Caliope or his old wife at all he thinks about hiding the rage against his own father and brothers and sisters his rage literally destroyed his family/world
@@Scarface_saiyan yeah so Ares wanted to create a perfect monster.. but the monster turned on him. He said he wanted to create the "perfect warrior".. later the death of his brother made him even more cold and heartless.
I fundamentally disagree with the characterisation you gave kratos before the new games. This exact same argument was even made fun of IN RAGNARÖK. It was something along the lines of " oh so you still kill gods, but youre sad about it now? " not to give the actual line away and who says it, but this is incredibly dismissive of all the building blocks that the new games proudly stand on.
You 100% ate your words about Ragnarok. It exceeds everything gow 2018’s story did in every aspect and fleshes out kratos’ character even more. Very glad you was wrong, although I knew you would be anyway, because I love this series.
@@MeltyZombie Fair enough. Though I have to admit the pacing of the new GoW games is a bit of a turn-off for me so I can't really give an opinion on either GoW4 or Ragnarök.
The original games are a lot more mature than you depicted them as. The difference is in the type of storytelling, and the mindset of Kratos at the time. In the original GOW games, it is true that the game has mindless violence. However, that doesn’t mean that it lacks discussion of his morals at the time. This is because the message is more subtle and baked into the world. This was probably the best way of developing the story and Kratos, as we play through the perspective of him as he does anything to have his revenge. From this, we witness the mindless destruction (which he admits he causes). If it was only mindless violence “designed for teenage boys”, then the depictions of the earth changing as gods die in GOW3 wouldn’t have been added. However from GOW18, he has taken his revenge and has a son. With a more reasonable and calm Kratos, the story is naturally more explicit in its messages. With which type of message is superior, it mostly comes down to personal preference. To state that all stories need to be told explicitly to be good is similar to how some hardcore vegans tell people that everyone needs to not eat animals to become moral. Also, the video unjustly criticises the game for having young people enjoy the violence. How a demographic tends to enjoy media does not matter, and it shouldn’t affect the way the game itself is analysed. It’s like criticising soccer for purely being a sport for spectating to get rowdy, when it is also watched and played for the sake of developing physical skill, strategy, fitness and a social group. Sure, a lot of us as children (even adults) probably loved murdering all the gods without a second thought, but most stories in general are purely interpreted without questioning morality by many people. I remember watching Star Wars when I was 8 years old, believing that the empire existed to fight the rebels. I enjoyed the series for the action (as did many children), yet that doesn’t mean the series lacks any depth.
not in the way you think. there is alot of blood and gore, but the story is not complex at all and there is no character development for basically anyone. its brainless, like a child
It had more mature themes than this video made it out to imo, but you have to admit that the game was made to appeal to young boys with mindless violence and sex minigames, not to explore any meaningful themes regarding revenge or loss.
@@sarwatarannya8786 then you really haven't paid attention to the games and their stories then. And they have explored the ideas of vengeance and loss. Yea it had sex and a ton of violence, which the sex was optional, not mandatory at least I think besides Aphrodite. Not to mention you can only do them once in any of the games so I think that's a bit of a disingenuous statement.
@@sarwatarannya8786 are you joking GOD OF WAR 1-3 Ghost of Sparta Accession and Chains of Olympus have one of the best storylines in all of games that GOW18 and GOWR doesn’t even sniff
You kept saying GoW3 didn’t ask the player about his actions and how it affected everyone else but it did. We always saw the damage done to the world when Kratos killed a God. Even zeus himself mentions it, in gow2 Athena mentions it that Kratos can’t kill zeus or everything will be destroyed. Whether on purpose or not, the sacrifice of the innocent ended up being for the greater good. Kratos broke the wheel of gods ruling over humans and when all the gods were dead, he gave hope to humanity so everything can start over again, this time without petty gods meddling with human life.
You also kinda oversimplified Kratos vs Hera. He didn’t want to kill her, even though she set Hercules on him. Kratos killed Hercules in self defence too. He just wanted to get through that garden and keep it moving, he only killed her because she disrespected pandora. He wasn’t some mindless killing machine when it came to hera, she could have stfu but she decided to talk shit and bring Kratos’s wrath on herself.
Exactly, this is a good video but he misses a lot of plot points of the first series. What makes God of war 2018 good is that Kratos evolves naturally.
Ok kratos was not just an angry guy he was always a mature character he keep blaming the God's for all his misfortunes but his brother dies his mother turns into a monster and his father has tried to kill him
The difference is that the original trilogy never really did anything with kratos' character besides 'the gods have made his life shit and now he wants revenge'. This isn't a dig at the old games, I love them as much as everyone else, and there are interesting things in their stories, but in terms of story and character, the new games far outshine them, it's barely a competition. Kratos was flawed in the old games, but he wasn't conflicted until the new games.
I think GOW is a testament to how Gaming as a medium has evolved, We used to have a bunch of polygons that interacted with each other with some semblance of form, now they're full blown pieces of art that utilise the brains of hundreds of different artists to give an experience that we will remember and incorporate into our lives
It’s still a reductionistic way of looking at the early God of Wars, games that always had deeper writing and characterization than the gaming public gives it credit for
@@Janon743 that is true, I think the best example of that is in chains of olympus where Kratos had to push away calliope in a qte. usually Qte button mashing happens when kratos is doing something that requires a massive feat of strength, crushing the jaws of a minotaur or slamming down the Hydra's head. but in that moment, you had to button mash harder than you ever had to before, signifying just how much strength it took for kratos to push his daughter away. The old games are riddles with these kind of moments that appeal to whatever humanity Kratos has left, He was always the character he is in the HD generation, but there was little story to develop him into anything more than a vengeful madman
Eh? You haven't played many JRPGs or Japanese games then have you? Even back then, I see games like Vagrant Story and if you prefer a western game, Arcanum, being way more beautiful than a lot of novels and literature. Gaming had always been one of the more superior artforms. Its just people being ignorant or downright dismissive for no real good reason that downplays the beauty of video games.
It's crazy how we thought Ragnarok wouldn't be as good as 2018, and yet here it stands, better than the previous game. Truly, it takes such a phenomenal team of writers to craft not only the first narrative, but also the sequel narrative in a way that only adds to the experience of the first, making every feeling much deeper, every impact much harder, every beat so much more meaningful
The OG games are edgey on purpose, but the third game purposefully makes you think; AM I THE BADDIE? Yes, Kratos is a Vilian protagonist until the very end of GOWIII. He realizes, "what have I done?" He single handedly caused the Bronze Age Collapse. He tries tell to Baldur, but he refuses to listen to him. Venegence is never good.
Christopher Judge really did an amazing job at playing as a Kratos who no longer kills someone just because they were an annoyance, he really fleshed out a calmer side who is not just a father but also a teacher in the ways of keeping a cool head in combat I really can't wait to see what happens in Ragnarok, looking forward to it so much
The brothers, Fraya, Modie, and the Serpent. That's 5, other than those he kills everyone he meets. GOW OG 2 girls on the boat, Orcale, woman with the key that kills herself, gate keeper at the temple, and does not try to kill the grave digger. That's 5, other than those 5 he kills everyone depending on the player.
"In the original God of War trilogy, protagonist Kratos had very little character development". Literally as soon as you boot up the first game: Kratos: "The Gods of Olympus have abandoned me. Now there is no hope..." Narrator: "And Kratos cast himself from the highest mountain in all of Greece. After ten years of suffering, ten years of endless nightmares... it would finally come to an end. Death would be his escape from madness". Yeah, very little character development, am I right? I mean, it's not every day the first thing you see when booting up a game is the main character mournfully attempting suicide. We'll just gloss over that, I guess.
And exactly WHO is the audience for God of War? I was 28 when the first game came out and plenty mature already. And I'm still part of the audience for these games.
Kratos in Ragnarok was amazing. They truly did expand on his character in a meaningful way that fit the story. I would give examples but the game just came out so im keeping it spoiler free
David jaffe wore his inspirations on his sleeve and it was definitely a product of it's time. But gow3 was definitely not the odd man out for kratos. He burned a spartan soldier to death just to complete a puzzle in the first game and killed some innocent boat captain just for an item he had on him 💀
He burned a man because it was the only way to reach Pandora's box. Kratos even shows his regret in the scene and says how it's a sacrifice the gods demand. The boat captain left his man to die and tried to flee (of course, he had nowhere to go in a boat, but still). So Kratos did the same after, leaving him to his death. Both cases aren't holy justified, but they are also far from the "psychopath killing for fun" people try to paint Kratos to be.
Crazy to think about the risk the developers took in trusting their audience. They could’ve easily followed the same form factor, maybe had Atreus and Faye killed, and have Kratos walk the same path, destroying the Norse pantheon, for the sake of universe expansion and extra hype. But Kratos really went from one the least likable characters, to one of the most loved fathers. Crazy character development, excellent decision on the developers’ part.
For me GoW trilogy will always hold a special place in my heart precisely BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF NUANCE. The PURITY OF PURPOSE unencumbered by all questions was something truly special. Every single piece of media and every single writer always applies the methodology learnt at school to add nuance and ask important questions and thats great but it becomes repetitive and exhaustive. So sometimes just PURE UNDILUTED PURPOSE is a very refreshing break from that. A bad example but John Wick (1st movie) was PURE, one theme no questions asked pure brutality and that was a welcome break from all those tragic heroes whose background we have learn and which gets in the way of the sheer purpose and action. We were NOT MEANT TO SYMPATHISE with original Kratos. He was the ESCAPE from all of the minutia of everyday life, and the consequences of the choices we all had to face (especially as hormonal little teenagers). GoW trilogy was never meant to be just ANOTHER game. It was a REBELLION and it was BEAUTIFUL. Saying that the development of Kratos in the reboot captures us perfectly now, adults who look back at the way we felt/acted and cringe(if not feel shame) as all of us now have to live with the consequences of our teenage rebellion and nowadays must think about our actions while trying to guide our own children and prevent them from making the same mistakes as we made. I feel like the games were perfectly written and marketed towards our generation, with Kratos growing WITH us as a character.
God dang…I’m watching all your vids because after playing the 2018 GOW and Ragnarok…I just can’t get enough of the lore and story. These games ARE narrative masterpieces and sooo fun to play. Great work on these videos. Really filling that void now that the adventure is over…for now.
In the og trilogy he isnt just mad angry guy he only really becomes that in 3 saying its childish is just pointing out that you haven’t actually read into the story without seeing him for more
I really hate it when people stated that the original trilogy of this series kratos was just a mindless hulk who killed, thats not true. . . People perception is make things to fit a certain narrative and not the truth. I played the very first game 1 year removed from high school and I understood what David Jaffe was explaining as a man who was lied to, tricked, confused, totured, etc. These lame ass explanations of a character are sickening. . . .
It is sad to see, god of war was always deep and it is a shame that many people just ignore how the Greek games were told and played out like an actual Greek tragedy. Gow1 especially plays out like one of those Greek tragedy’s.
I just finished the main game and personally I think it has surpass 2018 God of War. The story is beautifully woven and meaningful. Kratos & Atreus relationships are again tested. Atreus learning consequences and Kratos learning to be a good father and friend.
This was an incredible retrospective to the game, one that I had not fully considered or I suppose grasped at the time. Only now coming back to it before I can get my hands on Ragnarok, do I truly understand the game and the story it was trying to tell. At first I was confused why GoW4 got game of the year over Red Dead Redemption 2 and personally even after understanding the story it's still a close call, but now I know more about why that is. I don't know if it's the fact that I really want Ragnarok, or just want to play this game again, but I have an urge to go back and play on new game plus just to re-experience this game now fully understanding the intentions this behind this story. At least before diving into the world of GoW Ragnarok.
Then you’re just as dumb as him because this was an awful retrospective he missed the entire point of the original fucking trilogy, Holy shit do you not understand fucking storytelling through gameplay.
@@nibbanibba5064 Well, unwarranted insults aside, I never played the original trilogy. Besides, interpretation is left to the audience and if that’s what he got from it then it’s what he got from it. I only ever played GOW (2018) I only barely played GOW3 before skipping it. And Red Dead Redemption 2 is still my favorite. I can’t believe you dug through all these comments just to insult me for no reason.
Dawg your opinion was already invalidated after that first paragraph, how can you call this a great retrospective if you haven’t even had any experience with the series in question. And don’t flatter yourself bro I’ll call out anyone you’re not special, if I dig through comments and I see you It don’t matter
You should give serious consideration to double checking the names of characters in the story you're critiquing while writing your script, you got magni's and hera's names wrong.
I would say that ragnarok does add more to kratos's story. kratos, now that his son knows more about him, has to deal with the coming of ragnarok potentially causing to revert back to his old ways. his first real test for his growth.
0:58 Cut to the end of GOW wherein Kratos after laying his brother into the grave, openly questions what he’s become. Cut to God Of War Chains Of Olympus wherein Kratos has to physically force himself from leaving his daughter, in order to save the world. Cut to God Of War 3 wherein Kratos tries to keep Pandora from sacrificing herself, due to his reawakened fatherly spirit. Cut to God Of War Ascension wherein Kratos is tempted at the idea of having even a false image of his family back. Cut to God Of War 3 AGAIN wherein Kratos kills himself because he realises that while he’s had his vengeance, he must atone and so shoves the Blade Of Olympus into his chest. To say Kratos was literally just ‘me angry’ shows to me you didn’t take the first games seriously at all, but now that the graphics are better and the combat is more ‘realistic’, suddenly Kratos has gained personality.
Personally some of the worst takes on the original trilogy are that he had no personality and that he was just angry and some of the worst takes on the new games are that he is just old
2 seconds in and I already doubt you even played the games. And Ragnarok is so mature with gods swearing like 12 year olds, Marvel jokes, and characters holding your hand in every puzzle and boss encounter.
The difference being i would assume is someone having their wife and daughter killed by another vs that same person being tricked into killing THEIR OWN wife and daughter.
So I guess you didn't play the original God of War games. If you did, you wouldn't be saying that the story in those games are awful. Well looks like I'm going to be taking you to GOW school. In GOW1, Kratos is on a quest for the gods. One of those quests is killing Ares. There's the personal vendetta because Ares tricked him into murdering his family. All he wants after this is to be relieved of his trauma. The gods did initially promise that. But when it's all said and done, they backpedaled. So there's your premise for the first game. It's a good character driven story with emotional depth and good action adventure title. GOW2 picks up where the first one left off and we see Kratos is still resentvile of the gods false promises of relieving him of his nightmares. After Kratos takes down the Collusis of Rhodes, he gets betrayed by the Gods. He's on a mission to get his revenge yet again and we get more of the Greek embedded in the sequel. Zeus being the son of Chronos. And how it sparked the great war between the Gods and the Titans. And it's all a repeat when we get to that cliff hanger ending. Very cool setup. GOW3 is the climax for the series and has both times Kratos is betrayed. This time, it's the Titans that betray him. He goes wiping them out. There's another plot point where Kratos has to protect Pandora when he's taking her to the flame of Olympus. And at that moment she was willing, Kratos was not. His thoughts change thinking that maybe his lust for vengeance isn't worth a child's life. Zeus steps in though and as Kratos is about to walk away, Pandora goes for the flame again. Zeus taunts Kratos after failing to save Pandora. And that's when Kratos Snaps. He does decide now that he wants to kill Zeus. Giya intervenes and Kratos kills both Zeus and Giya. Until Zeus keeps him in the darkness when Kratos seeks the light. After finding it, Kratos beats Zeus mercerlessly. Zeus dies, Athena reveals her true colors. She wants to rule the world. But after that, Kratos attempts suicide by impaling the sword in his torso. It drains the powers from Kratos and that's what happens. Back to what you said. You really think the original God of War trilogy didn't have a good story? What game were you playing? Oh wait. It says you play Nintendo Wii games. So you clearly don't know what you're talking about. The new GOW games are abit darker for sure. But if it wasn't for the original trilogy, we wouldn't have games like that. So maybe think before you speak and talk shit about the original God of War trilogy.
0:47 Literally the end of God of War 3 where he kills himself to restore hope to Olympus. The whole cutscene is him regretting everything. What about the start of the first game where he throws himself off of a cliff, "The Gods of Olympus have abondoned me" after he killed Ares to ****Get rid of the nightmares from killing his family****. I fail to see how you think Kratos in the trilogy is a "Character with 3 traits"? You clearly just weren't looking hard enough. The spin-off's even go into further detail. You clearly weren't paying attention when you played these.
The whole point of GOW 3 was to show how far kratos had fallen and how you weren't supposed to be rooting for him. You outright state how you thought he was a POS yet somehow missed the entire point
It doesn't deserve more videos. It's just yet another video spreading misinformation regarding the original games being mindless and shallow while claiming the reboot has a deep story when in reality, God of War was always deep. Kratos was always a complex character, the reboot didn't make him any more complex, it just made him a grumpy old man with an annoying kid tagging along.
@@Gardetrace even though I agree that kratos wasn't completely mindless, it is crystal clear that the game developers themselves believe that old Kratos was one dimensional. The biggest pay off for his character is when he unveils his scarred forearms forgiving his past self while simultaneously redeeming himself as an upstanding yet formidable God of war. The fact that you can't see this shows that you are sore because this man criticised something you enjoyed. while they were great games, this videos point is that god of war developed and matured from a saucy unapologetic pile of pure rage into a compelling story about evocative characters. This version of Kratos serves as a role model rather than a medium of violence and surely this showcases the superiority of the newer installments.
I think the main reason as to why the devs don't ask Kratos these questions is because we play the game through Kratos and thus we are just as blind as he was They don't ask anything intentionally and indeed, by the third game he's been betrayed so much he snaps. He gives up everything for rage. But we don't because we haven't been tortured for as long as he has and to that extent when we see him murder everyone with the tsunami caused by poseidon's death it shocks us. It shocked me even if I was very much under age to be playing such games ( I think I was 14-15?). I made me question like "hey ain't that a little too much?" But I continued on because the game gave me no other option, because he, kratos, was fed up and trying to sway him away from his path of vengeance like Gaya tried, only made it worse
All these years later, and people are still repeating the "Kratos was a 1-dimensional character and The God of War series was never deep until the 2018 game" narrative Gaming Journalists parrot. Kinda feels like you never even played the games if the only character traits you say Kratos ever had were being really angry all the time (somewhat true), responding to every challenge or insult with immediate violence (not true), and being really good at smashing things (he really is tbf, but then again, so is Link from LoZ). As someone has already pointed out in the comments, the glossing over and dry puddle deep analysis of Kratos's character is unacceptable.
First 10 seconds of the video and I already know where this is going. Kratos in the old games was just a dumb angry slab of meat who killed everything in front of him. That's it. Let's ignore him being a normal human who on the brink of death literally made a deal with the devil and was of course deceived into KILLING HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER and on top of that the gods stuck their ashes on his skin to remind him of it... Then he found out his long lost brother was still alive but brainwashed by the gods to hate him even though Kratos' life quest until then was finding him. And when they finally reconciled Deimos was killed by a god. Then he was given the chance to spend eternity with his daughter in Elysium but had to let her go to save the universe. Then, he had to kill his mother who was turned into a monster. THEN when he finally had the chance to kill Zeus and end everything the one goddess who was on his side sacrificed herself for the bastard. Add on top of that he was killed and sent to Hades multiple times, betrayed by the gods even more times, denied his only wish (to forget his crime of murdering his family) and was constantly made into the bad guy for taking revenge when the gods were openly taunting him and revealing themselves to be the culprits of his suffering. But no, he was just an angry man who killed without reason.
Well... there's still Freya at least, and I'm interested to see how Kratos would handle someone with a very personal vendetta against him. Baldur didn't really have this for Kratos, Kratos in this fight against Baldur was put in the mediator position between Freya and Baldur, but it's different with Freya, Freya really is going out to kill Kratos with vengeance all over her mind, and I wanna see how it's gonna play out
Now that it is out, please make another video about your final opinion! :) I enjoyed this one a lot. I wouldn't even mind new set of retrospectives considering Kratos in Ragnarok and Kratos in Greece. Awesome work!
Og kratos definitely had charecter development, the new gow really makes kratos’ character shine, but to say he didn’t have any development in the old games is a major downplay
You make some good points but you call tbe OT childish way too much. It's not childish, I remember playing it when I was 20 and thinking 'man this guy is an absolute asshole' and by the end of 3 I thought 'okay man was it really worth it'? I think we were being challenged as players.
I like your video, but you're missing a lot of plot in the og trilogy. While in part three his actions were awful but the game ends with a redemption ark. Kratos holds the "hope" for humanity that was held in Pandora's box. When Athena asks him for it, Kratos sacrifices himself to release it upon the world . The after credits scene shows Kratos somehow survived and crawled away.
"Not a meaningful story as much as the first" Oh boy could you not be more wrong lol. Won't spoil anything, but you will love what they did with Kratos here.
Hello, I am a woman and a daughter. I was born to an angry, drug-addicted father whose sole good deed in my life was showing me the love of video games. And that included this franchise. I grew up playing God of War long before I probably should have. I also see those traits of anger in myself and I hate it. I also felt an (albeit weak) connection to Kratos because I was born in late March, making me an Aries (silly I know). When I was angry I loved playing God of War because I loved taking my anger out on strings of code and animated figures in the TV who had no soul or feelings. They were not real. My father, on the other hand, took his anger out on others and on his belongings as well as mine. There have been video games I was never able to finish because his reaction to getting angry at a video game was to destroy it. Those games are now too expensive for me to return to my library of video games that I have now as an adult that I have built up myself with my own money that I earned through hard work, not selling other people's things and my Christmas gifts like he did. Being violent in GOW was fun, and it still is fun. Still to this day, I find joy in watching Kratos beat gods bloody when they wrong him because at the end of the day, it's a video game. No one is getting hurt and I would not do the same as him to people in real life. When God of War 2018 came out I was 22 years old, an adult. Ragnarok came out when I was 26. I am now grown and I am now immensely proud of where Kratos has ended up. Not just as a character but as a PERSON. I see Kratos interacting with his son and I am not only happy for him but JEALOUS of Atreus because he has a father who loves him and would never hurt him or wrong him. He has a father who CARES. I was not so lucky. I do not have a relationship with my father currently, nor will I ever, because of reasons that would take too long to tell. But the one thing I carry away from the GOW Norse saga is the same thing Kratos has been saying for two games now. We MUST be better. Better than those who came before us. I make better choices not for my father and not in spite of my father, but for myself and those around me who I care about and who care about me. Ironically enough, my father said something similar to Freya when he left after me and my mother told him to. He cried and said "If it'll make you happy, I'll go." And he did. And then he came back into my life with no lessons learned, doing the same shit as before. It took 5 long years for me to get him and my mother to understand that I wanted nothing to do with him and that he would never have a relationship with me ever again. Like Baldur, for me it was simply too late. The damage was done. No amount of kowtowing would ever change it. And like Freya, he never said the words "I'm sorry". Still has not to this day. and I doubt he ever will. And I'm okay with that. Regardless, I do not display violence towards my father because I am not him. I am better than that. I may have grown up playing God of War, but as an adult i know that violence is not the answer. Destroying everything around you is not the answer. To anyone else struggling with generational trauma, I implore you. *The cycle ends here. We must be better.*
I have to disagree with this. To say Kratos was just a mindless and violent character is not looking at all of the God the God war games (before the 2018 release) closely enough. Kratos did actually have moments of self reflections, even did a lot of good to save Greece before God of war 3 even though it was partly so he would be rid of his nightmares In God of war Ascension - when he finds out from Orkos that Ares and the Furies were planning to make a warrior to overthrow Zeus, he kills the Furies and sets out to kill him(even though it was mainly to take his revenge) In Chains of Olympus, When he was in the Elysium Fields, when Persephone reveals her plan to Kratos, Kratos had to choose between - being with Calliope but if Atlas Destroys the pillar that holds the world, Everyone, even Calliope would be dead or be erased from existence Or - forsake Calliope to save Greece, but he will have to live with never seeing his daughter again and Kratos chose the latter. - He also saves Helios from the hands of Atlas so all of Greece from saved from the hands of Morpheus In Ghost of Sparta, - When he had to kill his mother(When she turned into a monster) because she tried to tell Kratos who his father was, he deeply regretted what he had done - Another example is his objective as a whole, he went out of his way to find Deimos(Kratos' brother) and rescue him when Callisto reveals that Deimos is alive - Kratos held himself back from fighting Deimos, even took a beating from him. - When Deimos, was captured by Thanatos, even in a battered state, Kratos still tried to save Deimos even if he said that he will never forgive Kratos for not saving him - When Deimos died, Kratos carries his body to give him a proper burial - Finally, when Kratos places Deimos in a grave dug by the grave digger(Zeus), he contemplates even just a moment on what he had become In God of war 3, - Even when he initially didn't care about Pandora or saw her as just a key, overtime Kratos saw Pandora like his own daughter and tried to stop from getting to the flame even though he ultimately lets go of her to get revenge on Zeus Overall, Kratos isn't and wouldn't have went out of his way to start a war with the Gods if they had at least tried to rid him of his nightmares eventhough it is said that it is impossible to remove his curse or Ares had never used him for his plans to destroy Olympus to overthrow Zeus in the first place. Kratos simply didn't have a choice at all. He was already broken from killing his wife and daughter. The Gods treating him like an expendable tool, making him kill his mother by hiding the truth about Zeus being his father, and keeping Deimos in torment made it even worse
I'm watching this after he made all these videos on Ragnarok. I bet this was one of those moments where you were find yourself thoroughly delighted to be so absolutely wrong. You look like you really enjoyed delving into the Ragnarok Brett. Good for you. I really enjoyed your deep dive into the various thematic and character elements. It gave me a deeper appreciation for a story I really liked to begin with. Thank you Be well
I believe his character arc was more the descent into the blind rage. In fact, where once, we saw him not want to kill Orkos, son of Ares, and the one who would enable him to start upon his path, to the poor old Captain who Kratos torments indirectly without regard, to Poseidon’s slave girl who he practically fed to some gears to open a door. His arc is the descent into the horrifying brutality… but we see him, after killing Zeus… no longer blinded by vengeance. It brought him no happiness, no relief. And the world around him crumbling. In that moment he finally beheld with clarity what his quest brought about. Only destruction.
I obviously haven't played Ragnarok yet. But I have a feeling that this next game isn't really going to be Kratos' story. It's going to be Atreus' story. It's going to be about whether he's going to heed his father's advice and break the cycle of violence and misery or if he's going to continue it. Kratos may be who we're playing as but he's not the person the story will be about.
this was a really well written narrative, this gave me a different view of Kratos and his story because i never played the older games. Please make more videos like this, I enjoyed this videoso much
Then please go play the older games because this guy does a really poor job explaining him, i almost feel that he himself has'nt played the previous games
Right by the start, you are already wrong lol God of war had always been deep, profound, nuanced and kratos had shown a lot of character development. The only reason you say it was not much of a matured game is because you can't really conect and relate to a god slayer, and thats what most people think kratos was before. But he was not. He was a broken man. He was a father who lost everything, a warrior without an army, a son with the worst father he could ask for, and he loved pandora, but had to see her die. It was not ground breakingly nuanced, but either is the trope of a father learning to protect and love his son. That is more relatable, but less original than a god killer with ptsd. Both god of war storylines are great, and both god of war story lines are REALLY mature, and people should learn to praise them both. You, my friend, got it wrong.
I kinda enjoy the simple cruelty and aggression of the previous games. It’s an indulgence. I’m still young, but I’m also quite mature too. I don’t think that view is going away with age. - I’ve always enjoyed lore, moral complexity, etc. I enjoy that too. But the old games still appeal for that violence.
A solid essay! As someone who's played since the original, it is quite amazing to see Kratos as a character develop the way he does and has. Ragnarok can't come any faster. The point you made about GOW3 and how his destruction of Olympus is the destruction of Greece, you're right, back then you didn't think about the millions of lives in Greece.., Pretty crazy how they went full ball with it too- Kratos destroyed Greece. Imagine if short stories were made (From the game or in the deleted content) of people living lives in Greece only to see it be demolished in front of them, first the ocean, then the skies, etc. absolutely crazy. I'd like to think that there are survivors but who knows. Probably wont be explored ever again.
To say kratos had no character development I disagree that anger and rage was the character leading to the end of an entire methodology and it's well made in perfect sense
Thank you. Someone that knows
also people talk shit about the qte with his daughter but is the biggest character development he gets in the og games
@@filipbrcko yeah he also didn't mention that the Olimpian gods tormented him day and night with visions of his murdered family which was not even his fault to begin with
The bloke who made the video has probably only played the new games and watched videos explaining the old ones because I guarentee anyone who actually has sat down and played through every god of war game youll understand his actions arent something hes proud of and he sees himself in a monsterous way and it just makes you love the new games' story that much more
That’s not development though?
I know Ghost of Sparta & Chans of Olympus is not wildly known to the general gamer but they do explore his character further in those games. Even ascension gives you a deep dive into his character
Yea, the psp games with demos and his mother went into allot....
Chains*
@@liltay5850 *Chads ;)
The entire saga needs a full rebuild with the same engine, then just the extras changed out.
Too bad Ascension was ass. The story was actually pretty good
I mean, Kratos always had moments of self reflections on his choices and morality, he was tricked by Ares to kill his family and tried to take revenge yes, but you glossed over the key moments of his character when for exemple :
When he's reunited with his family in the afterlife and promises to never leave again but has to leave to prevent his daughter from being erased from existence, taking all of his strength to leave her behind,
Or when he killed his mom turned into a monster by the Gods, actively asking himself what he'd become right after she died in his arms,
Or when he thought about ending it after his brother's death,
or when Kratos litterally tries to kill himself because he couldn't handle the guilt of his crime that he's been desperately trying to drown in alcohol and meaningless sex,
Or when the sisters of fate came close to get him to submit to Zeus saying that he could have his family again through illusions,
Or when he was trying to convince Pandora to not sacrifice herself because she reminded him of his daughter Caliope, even after saying she shouldn't trust him, acknowledging he's a piece of shit after killing the Gods that wronged him, litterally saying at the start of the game "i bring the destruction of Olympus",
The whole series has been a tale of a broken man who was forced to destroyed his life for the sake of Gods who betrayed him and wouldn't even let his get the release of death when he wanted it, and i really wander how you only got the surface level of understanding "a man killed his family and he's pissed" since you said you replayed the game for the occasion of God Of War 2018,
i dunno, that just my thought
This comment is pure 🔥
i was very happy of what they did with kratos when god of war 2018 came out but it really irritated me when the devs said the same thing about kratos as he did. hope your comment goes to the top so more people can appreciate the old kratos
Kratos: Sound argument. Now give me those two orbs boi.
Also his main Motivation in the first Game wasnt Revenge, that was just the Iceing, he wanted salvation from his Nightmares, and Visions. He killed Ares but he lost, the Game God of War cant be won.
And that alone has a lot of Narrative Weight.
Nope katos just smashed things. Never was deep until 2018, but without the old games we would had never saw the best game character development ever in kratos
I would like to note that in God of War 2 Kratos does in fact pause for a moment to reflect on what he is doing and to what end. However, Gaia is there, spurring him on to seek revenge. So the part of him that had doubts was there before the 2018 game.
His great Grandma was gaslighting him hard
Plus, nearly everyone he knows was either killed by the gods in some way, or betrayed him for their own ends. On top of never forgetting that he killed his wife a child, there’s only really two paths he could take. Self destruction, or total war. He tries both and only succeeded in one
There's a LOT of bad takes on the og God of war series.
There are many MANY times where Kratos being a bastard monster is questioned and it really does come off as the game actively telling you 'hey what you're doing is wrong but Kratos is going to see it through because he's blinded by grief and rage.'
Yeah, it just rarely happens through dialogue. The moment where you can go back and see the woman crushed by the door mechanism is one of these moments. GoW3 tends to just do things that prompt questions from the player rather than ask the questions itself, coming from a game who's two predecessors have historically done their best to paint Kratos's actions in a justified light.
The ending of both the first and third games are perfect examples of Kratos' character being more than just 2 dimensional. At the end of the third game you visibly see his realisation of what he's done, and you see how that collateral damage he caused affects him when he impales himself on the blade of Olympus.
The only thing that lacks dimension or nuance in those games is the way people oversimplify it, just like in this video.
@@Gamfluentyou brought up a good point. If Kratos hadn't killed the gods and just went to Olympus and knocked out Zeus, they wouldn't have taken that lying down. They'd have hunted him down and fuck things up even more. They literally toyed with mortals. They had to die, imo
I think the theme of the first few games is a show case of how rage and vengeance can lead you down a path of evil, anything and everything means nothing in the face of your rage and single minded goal of retribution. It’s akin to a greek tragedy
Man, I had similar apprehensions when thinking about Ragnarök. I thought, “Where do they go from here?” And honestly, during the first bit of Ragnarök, I felt that way, like it was building to nothing. Luckily, at my current place in the game (i’m not even done yet), I am so happy to say that the game has a solid continuation of the last game’s story.
Building to nothing? Or have you not payed attention to all the points about ragnarok happening ?
@@knighthawk34ps3 i was saying thats how i felt, prior to playing
@@ethantaylor8276 kinda dumb but ok
Well if the series continues to "mature" with its audience, we can expect Kratos to be a grandpa in GOW6 and GOW7, presumably with an Egyptian god grandson.
@@kingstarscream3807 i don’t think the writers would be at all interested in rehashing the plots and hooks of gow 2018 and ragnarok
The amount of glossing over and shallow analysis of Kratos' character is beyond unacceptable in this video.
Kratos does try to take the non-violent solution on multiple occasions. He tries to avoid fighting Theseus, Perseus, and Icarus in God of War 2, he is extremely reluctant to kill Orkos who actually begs for death. Hermes has to provoke the shit out of him after Kratos outright dismisses him, until he Hermes sings a literal poem mocking him about the murder of his wife and child, and he even tries pretty solidly to dissuade Hercules from fighting him, and is actually fairly calm and soft spoken in his attempts at doing so, and it takes Hera comparing Pandora to a whore, when Kratos was finally starting to bond with her and seeing her as a daughter-figure similar to Calliope that Kratos finally snapped her neck.
You need to replay the old games, and play them carefully, and then after that, go watch EndlessJess' video where he lists off all the countless times Kratos showed far more depth and pathos to his character than people like you are willing to give him credit for, let alone pay attention to.
Kratos doesn't even bother to say he doesn't care.
Kratos literally saying in God of War 3 to Athena after she talks about the mortals: "Let them suffer. The death of Zeus is all that matters."
Zeus: "Look around at what you have done." referring to the destruction Kratos has caused.
Kratos: "I see only what I have come to destroy."
Pandora: "But I trust you, Kratos."
Kratos: "You shouldn't."
Kratos knows he's a piece of shit, he acknowledges it, and hates himself, and sees himself as a monster, but the gods never give him a chance to calm down and stop being a monster, which is why he ends up going off the deep end and killing them all, with his final conclusive act being to give the power of hope back to humanity as a form of penance for all the damage he caused to Greek. And yes, obviously, it doesn't make up for what he did, that's beside the point. The point is Kratos is 100% aware of what a monster he is, and once his revenge was finally over, he did the one and only right thing that was within his immediate power to do, and that was at least give humanity a chance at recovery, which Athena would have surely not given them, and instead manipulated them right back into serving her, likely under the same abusive conditions that the rest of Olympus did.
Kratos referring to Hephaestus: "Hephaestus did what every father should do. Protect his child..."
The amount of times Kratos shows deeper emotions in the game is staggeringly high. Just because it doesn't dive into a deep, philosophical analysis over it doesn't mean it's not present, or there. Expecting it to try to reach beyond that point (at least in those games) is foolish, and ignorant, due to the simple fact that those games were explicitly designed to be showcases of Greek tragedy, with an emphasis on the brutality, mayhem, and inescapability of the rage which consumes Kratos, which Zeus does in fact comment on at the start of God of War 3. The fact of the matter is the 2018 and about to be released Ragnarok games are taking a deeper analysis of the character, because now is obviously the right time to do it, where time has passed both in game, and in real life; a point in time where vengeance is behind him, and he can at last move on, whereas in the older generation of games, expecting Kratos to act self-reflectively in a world that does nothing but use, abuse, manipulate, and torment him is just outright ridiculous.
Kratos: "I am what the gods have made me!" It may sound like a justification to you, but that statement is 100% double-edged. Like it or not, without the gods to drive Kratos to madness, and endless rage, he would not have become the self-loathing monster he was.
I think this is a fair response. Thanks for watching!
I think as you say the older games showcase the "tragedy" of the Greek gods and legends, but when playing these games I don't really feel a proper human connection to any of the characters. Nothing is subtle and everything is aggressively thrown in your face in a matter of fact way. While I thoroughly enjoy this hard-core style of game design, nothing from the old games compares to the sombre tones showcased in the new game. The new game is far more relatable and realistic which for me at least fully immerses me in its story. I think a good way of looking at it is the old games we're tributes to the Greek myths of chaos and war where as the new game is a saga about humans, focussing on its characters and their relations. Down to personal preference I fully appreciate all forms of storytelling and entertainment that enhance immersion and I feel that the new game provides a far more compelling plot with far more developed characters resulting in a overall superior experience.
Yesss brother I agree , thank you for this detailed and inteligent answer , thank you for listening to.your.intuition and acted upon.sharing your toughts.I believe you did justice for his caracter. 🙏
Just think about it people , you burn in the fire long enough that you become.the fire. The gods kept him in that fire , they made him that monster , don't expect a zen master when the man is always burning on the inside plus remember that he cared so much about his brother that when he got kidnaped he made the red tattoo on his body in his honor because he had one exactly the same from.the birth.
Kratos always had a big heart , because he had to truly love his family to be so hurt that he expresed himself in a rage that destroyed the world. His rage shows that he cared deeply and honestly
I agree. The older games TRIED to have emotional moments, but it always felt too rushed, like the game was afraid to lose the player's attention. A good example is Kratos accidentally killing his own soldier in game 2. While Kratos is still speeching about the guy, a random monster shows up, triggering a pointless boss fight. As someone who had a serious mythology craze years ago, it feels disappointing to see so many iconic gods, heroes and monsters get downplayed as kill fodder for Kratos.
@@greendemon905 100% true and there are too many examples of this
Always easy to tell when someone did not play the 2 PSP games. Those stories do great work to round out Kratos's character with his family being explored.
Scenarios include him being given the choice to stay trapped with his daughter or return to reality, and also how his brother was given an awful deal in life due to him being treated as though he was the one being described in a prophecy... despite it actually having ended up being Kratos.
Man, Deimos brought some great pathos to Kratos.
Deimos not appearing or even being mentioned in the console games is criminal
In the first game he is suicidal. I think you oversimplify his development in the first game. The only reason he pursues Ares in the first game is because Athena promises that she will end his nightmares about killing his family.
The fact that this doesn’t have more views is criminal
Or the CZcams algorithm
It’s criminal that game journalists have no idea what they’re talking about, watch the “one thing people get wrong about Kratos” video and you’ll understand.
Give it time.
@@damenwhelan3236 No it doesn't deserve views, this dude who made the video is literally a game journalist. 💀
Because it's wrong
This deserves more views. I think that the old God of War games are more mature and refined than you cut them out to be (though they are still filled with mindless violence) but overall I like this take on the series.
Indeed, the entire point of the wanton destruction and death was to act as the real world translation for Kratos' pain and anger. As time went on we see that as much as this is a form of pressure release, so too is it a blindfold, further enforced by those whose actions deserved his wrath. But towards the end the writers show that while anger and the pursuit of personal justice can be justified, if you take no measure to reduce the collateral of your actions then they will have consequences that are only known in the aftermath of what has been wrought.
The violence is not mindless it was always with intent. Simple emotional motivation towards a goal is not “mindless”.
@@Jaanikins it can be, even with intent.
For an example If one walks to and from place A and B for either a long time or often enouph. they will have moment where they don't recall what they've been doing for the last ten minutes or so. This is being in a mindless state, a trance of sort. Intent doesn't get rid of the mindlessness. Play a game where you kill endless enemies, if all you do is kill then who, what, why, and how many so far? Questions which need to be asked are to be never answered for the player doesn't ask, just kills more.
Just look at gamers as a whole, we mindlessly play games all the time. Focused or not we play and we enjoy what usless things we've done for a reward that may have no use or value at all.
this is why you have 500 subscribers pussy, KILL ALL WHO SPEAKS AGAINST ME.- kratos
there are so many hole and glossed over points in this video. its clear research was not done for this video, more in the sense of the actual myths and lore. he make a lot of errors or just straight up misinterprets a whole part of character. this video needs more work.
Man. It's been a while since I've seen someone be this articulate and completely miss the mark at the same time.
It’s kinda weird
@@Gamfluent That doesn't justify Kratos's killing of innocent civilians though?
@@Gamfluent The literal millions he killed over the course of the games. His kill count vastly exceeds any of the Greek Pantheon
@@Gamfluent Well he destroyed most of the Greek City states by the start of GOW2. At that point his kill count was probably in the tens if not hundred of thousands. But yes, the millions I mean are the ones who died over his actions in GOW3
@@Gamfluent Actually, it's likely that not that many people died because of the Gods. Few of the Gods were explicitly evil before Kratos opened Pandora's Box. It's explicitly stated that they were corrupted by evil. Sure most of them weren't good beforehand or consiensious of mortal. But before that most of their bad deeds weren't large scale or just for shits and giggles. Zues kidnapped Deimos, but it was out of fear and he didn't enjoy it. When Ares tried to destroy Athens, the other Gods saw it as too far and went out of their way to stop him. They were against the murder of a couple hundred thousand so they did have some standards. Even after being infected, characters like Hera were more upset about the destruction of Greece than Kratos was. Their actions after being infected 1) Arguably can't be held against them as their moral agency was affected 2) STILL aren't even remotely close to what Kratos did. There is NO evidence that implies that the gods were responsible for the deaths of billions or even millions. Thnatos is the God of Death and Persephone tried to destroy the word so you could argue they're worse, but the others likely only killed some individual people (besides Ares). Kratos has killed far more than the rest of the Greek Pantheon combined, and while he was their victim to an extent, he was worse than nearly all the Gods he killed. Full stop. Plus, now that we know Kratos could just go to other parts of the world to avoid the Greek Gods/afterlife he has no justification of "It's them or me". He could've just left and started over, but he was consumed with anger and would rather millions die if he could feel a little satisfaction. Mans far worse than Zeus (Zeus is still an evil bastard though).
Update: yea, eat your words sir, that ending hit me so hard knowing the sacrifices my dad made for me & not appreciating it until we’ll into my adulthood
TRUE CINEMA
10 seconds in and you already heavily undermine the depth of the Greek saga of God of War. They are still very mature and Kratos was always fleshed out.
LOL
Sure, was the funny sex minigame the immense depth? Did he ever stop to consider if killing everything in the universe was mature? Were any of these questions asked, and how quickly? It's more like just a destructive rampage.
@@popopop984 You sound like an upset feminist hired by buzzfeed. You’re cherry-picking the only parts of the game that are, you know, fun? Do you know what that is? Or do you think every single piece of gaming must have a lesson, and everything aspect, every feature, everything you do in the game must be in service to the theme. It’s a video game, there will always be something geared towards having pure fun, while still having the depth be there. You’re very ignorant
@@popopop984 Hey stupid, yes, he did consider what he was going to do at the end of 2 and start of 3 and decided that nothing else mattered but the death of Zeus. Kratos knew what he was doing, but chose to continue his revenge anyway.
@@popopop984 gow literally with Kratos attempting to kill himself because of the hopelessness of the situation he's in. Kratos was always meant to be deep. And you guys say we're just there for the mindless violence and set pieces. Gow was always meant to be a story about learning to improve yourself even in the worst of situations. You sympathize with kratos in gow1, cheer for him in gow2 and get uncomfortable with his actions in 3. It is uncomfortable because you learned to get invested and sympathize with kratos, and even if he did do horrible things in 3 he does end up realeasing hope to the world at the end, wich also allows him to continue his odyssey towards Norse mythology! It always was deep.
Why is everyone saying that GoW is a reboot? It's still a continuation of GoW3 and the other games, Kratos just journeyed north and started killing stuff there after he killed everyone in Greece.
I think that has more to do with the combat system than continuity wise.
Mainly because of the gameplay and tone changes. Over the shoulder, more cinematic, more character focused. All that
@GreenGhost420 That is literally what I was saying
Until I dealt with a 4 year battle of my own chronic pain, I was with you in saying that it just was crazy for him to destroy so many people in the path of his vengeance. Then I experienced what true pain is and think about what I would have done if that pain had a true physical antagonistic being that was causing it and I not only suffered at their hands but watched that being doing it to others. To think of what not just I would do to end them but what a trained Spartan would do in that scenario and I honestly think Kratos held back. He didn't go out of his way to kill anyone that wasn't a direct impediment to his goal and even tried to spare a few that were too eager to try and insult and berate him. Remember that he was willing to walk away from Hera until she attacked Pandora who, although she was actually older, acted and looked the same age as his own daughter who he started treating as such after realizing what wrong he did when killing Hephaestus even though it was self defence
I don’t know if you played the game brother but he didn’t kill the gods because they killed his wife and daughter he ruled as a god of war in between 1 and 2 and was so powerful that Zeus feared him because fear was released from Pandora’s box so Zeus tricked kratos into giving Zeus’ weapon all his godly power and then killed him with it his revenge is for the gods attempting to kill him
I won’t lie. Kratos wasn’t even just angry and had sex. He had a lot of moments of depression and even tried to kill Jim self at one point
I think the entire story of God of War is that the Gods created a monster who thought they could control though lies and deception, but the monster ends up turning on them.
@@frozzytango9927 yeh
@@frozzytango9927 you think wrong ares specifically says he created kratos to help him overthrow Olympus ARES created kratos THE OTHER GODS knew what areas created and feared him hence Zeus’s line “your hands are already stained by the blood of a gold I shall not let ares fate be my own” this is right after kratos asks him why he would betray him so yeah kratos had no issues with gods (except ares) until the gods betrayed him and attempted to kill him that’s when he realized the very god that did it was his father this is what caused kratos to go through his emotions notice the new kratos doesn’t think about Caliope or his old wife at all he thinks about hiding the rage against his own father and brothers and sisters his rage literally destroyed his family/world
@@Scarface_saiyan yeah so Ares wanted to create a perfect monster.. but the monster turned on him. He said he wanted to create the "perfect warrior".. later the death of his brother made him even more cold and heartless.
Straight up murdered all credibility in the first 30 seconds
I fundamentally disagree with the characterisation you gave kratos before the new games. This exact same argument was even made fun of IN RAGNARÖK. It was something along the lines of " oh so you still kill gods, but youre sad about it now? " not to give the actual line away and who says it, but this is incredibly dismissive of all the building blocks that the new games proudly stand on.
and eat his words he did
Take a look at which part is most replayed here
You 100% ate your words about Ragnarok. It exceeds everything gow 2018’s story did in every aspect and fleshes out kratos’ character even more. Very glad you was wrong, although I knew you would be anyway, because I love this series.
2018 and Ragnarok doesn’t even sniff the story from GOW 1-3 Ghost Of Sparta Accession and Chains Of Olympus like do people even pay attention
@@li_yankeeking5478 ok but he wasn't putting down the old games, he was just praising the new one for exceeding GOW4
@@MeltyZombie Fair enough. Though I have to admit the pacing of the new GoW games is a bit of a turn-off for me so I can't really give an opinion on either GoW4 or Ragnarök.
I found Ragnarok to be so much worse compared to the 2018 GOW.
Writing went way down hill. Felt like a CW production
@@codybrashier9871 I feel calling it “CW” is a tad far, though for every good moment, there was a bad one.
He, in fact, did eat his words
The original games are a lot more mature than you depicted them as.
The difference is in the type of storytelling, and the mindset of Kratos at the time.
In the original GOW games, it is true that the game has mindless violence. However, that doesn’t mean that it lacks discussion of his morals at the time. This is because the message is more subtle and baked into the world. This was probably the best way of developing the story and Kratos, as we play through the perspective of him as he does anything to have his revenge. From this, we witness the mindless destruction (which he admits he causes). If it was only mindless violence “designed for teenage boys”, then the depictions of the earth changing as gods die in GOW3 wouldn’t have been added.
However from GOW18, he has taken his revenge and has a son. With a more reasonable and calm Kratos, the story is naturally more explicit in its messages.
With which type of message is superior, it mostly comes down to personal preference. To state that all stories need to be told explicitly to be good is similar to how some hardcore vegans tell people that everyone needs to not eat animals to become moral.
Also, the video unjustly criticises the game for having young people enjoy the violence. How a demographic tends to enjoy media does not matter, and it shouldn’t affect the way the game itself is analysed. It’s like criticising soccer for purely being a sport for spectating to get rowdy, when it is also watched and played for the sake of developing physical skill, strategy, fitness and a social group. Sure, a lot of us as children (even adults) probably loved murdering all the gods without a second thought, but most stories in general are purely interpreted without questioning morality by many people.
I remember watching Star Wars when I was 8 years old, believing that the empire existed to fight the rebels. I enjoyed the series for the action (as did many children), yet that doesn’t mean the series lacks any depth.
God of War from the very start was always mature. You just didn’t know it.
not in the way you think. there is alot of blood and gore, but the story is not complex at all and there is no character development for basically anyone. its brainless, like a child
It had more mature themes than this video made it out to imo, but you have to admit that the game was made to appeal to young boys with mindless violence and sex minigames, not to explore any meaningful themes regarding revenge or loss.
@@sarwatarannya8786 then you really haven't paid attention to the games and their stories then. And they have explored the ideas of vengeance and loss. Yea it had sex and a ton of violence, which the sex was optional, not mandatory at least I think besides Aphrodite. Not to mention you can only do them once in any of the games so I think that's a bit of a disingenuous statement.
@@sarwatarannya8786 are you joking GOD OF WAR 1-3 Ghost of Sparta Accession and Chains of Olympus have one of the best storylines in all of games that GOW18 and GOWR doesn’t even sniff
@@jamaicancloud “tHeN yOu rEaLlY” “aCtUalLy” o my god shut up.
You kept saying GoW3 didn’t ask the player about his actions and how it affected everyone else but it did. We always saw the damage done to the world when Kratos killed a God. Even zeus himself mentions it, in gow2 Athena mentions it that Kratos can’t kill zeus or everything will be destroyed.
Whether on purpose or not, the sacrifice of the innocent ended up being for the greater good. Kratos broke the wheel of gods ruling over humans and when all the gods were dead, he gave hope to humanity so everything can start over again, this time without petty gods meddling with human life.
You also kinda oversimplified Kratos vs Hera. He didn’t want to kill her, even though she set Hercules on him. Kratos killed Hercules in self defence too. He just wanted to get through that garden and keep it moving, he only killed her because she disrespected pandora. He wasn’t some mindless killing machine when it came to hera, she could have stfu but she decided to talk shit and bring Kratos’s wrath on herself.
Exactly, this is a good video but he misses a lot of plot points of the first series. What makes God of war 2018 good is that Kratos evolves naturally.
I don’t know man, it seems like you’re justifying mass murder
@@Liberty7628 if you’re not paying attention then yeah it’s just mass murdering.
@@Liberty7628 all war is mass murder broooooooo ❤
Kinda just sounds like Buzzfeed hired you to write this
Ok kratos was not just an angry guy he was always a mature character he keep blaming the God's for all his misfortunes but his brother dies his mother turns into a monster and his father has tried to kill him
The difference is that the original trilogy never really did anything with kratos' character besides 'the gods have made his life shit and now he wants revenge'. This isn't a dig at the old games, I love them as much as everyone else, and there are interesting things in their stories, but in terms of story and character, the new games far outshine them, it's barely a competition. Kratos was flawed in the old games, but he wasn't conflicted until the new games.
I think GOW is a testament to how Gaming as a medium has evolved, We used to have a bunch of polygons that interacted with each other with some semblance of form, now they're full blown pieces of art that utilise the brains of hundreds of different artists to give an experience that we will remember and incorporate into our lives
That's a really cool way to look at it
It’s still a reductionistic way of looking at the early God of Wars, games that always had deeper writing and characterization than the gaming public gives it credit for
@@Janon743 that is true, I think the best example of that is in chains of olympus where Kratos had to push away calliope in a qte.
usually Qte button mashing happens when kratos is doing something that requires a massive feat of strength, crushing the jaws of a minotaur or slamming down the Hydra's head.
but in that moment, you had to button mash harder than you ever had to before, signifying just how much strength it took for kratos to push his daughter away.
The old games are riddles with these kind of moments that appeal to whatever humanity Kratos has left, He was always the character he is in the HD generation, but there was little story to develop him into anything more than a vengeful madman
Eh? You haven't played many JRPGs or Japanese games then have you? Even back then, I see games like Vagrant Story and if you prefer a western game, Arcanum, being way more beautiful than a lot of novels and literature. Gaming had always been one of the more superior artforms. Its just people being ignorant or downright dismissive for no real good reason that downplays the beauty of video games.
It's crazy how we thought Ragnarok wouldn't be as good as 2018, and yet here it stands, better than the previous game. Truly, it takes such a phenomenal team of writers to craft not only the first narrative, but also the sequel narrative in a way that only adds to the experience of the first, making every feeling much deeper, every impact much harder, every beat so much more meaningful
Saying kratos only had 3 character traits is total BS!!!
20:54 THE FORESHADOWING IN THIS VIDEO IS INSANE
The OG games are edgey on purpose, but the third game purposefully makes you think;
AM I THE BADDIE?
Yes, Kratos is a Vilian protagonist until the very end of GOWIII.
He realizes, "what have I done?"
He single handedly caused the Bronze Age Collapse.
He tries tell to Baldur, but he refuses to listen to him.
Venegence is never good.
I can’t wait to see your Ragnarok video because you definitely ate your words on the the next game’s ability to put forward a good message
Christopher Judge really did an amazing job at playing as a Kratos who no longer kills someone just because they were an annoyance, he really fleshed out a calmer side who is not just a father but also a teacher in the ways of keeping a cool head in combat
I really can't wait to see what happens in Ragnarok, looking forward to it so much
The brothers, Fraya, Modie, and the Serpent. That's 5, other than those he kills everyone he meets. GOW OG 2 girls on the boat, Orcale, woman with the key that kills herself, gate keeper at the temple, and does not try to kill the grave digger. That's 5, other than those 5 he kills everyone depending on the player.
To be fair, Kratos never killed anyone for being an annoyance.
@@ggwp638BC tbh, you can kinda just kill Athenians for no reason but they do give you health so there's that
@@bipstymcbipste5641 That falls into player choice, not necessarily cannon
@chandllerburse737 Nope, he doesn't bother with Hermes until Hermes basically shits on his dead family and continues to attack him refusing to let go.
"In the original God of War trilogy, protagonist Kratos had very little character development".
Literally as soon as you boot up the first game:
Kratos: "The Gods of Olympus have abandoned me. Now there is no hope..."
Narrator: "And Kratos cast himself from the highest mountain in all of Greece. After ten years of suffering, ten years of endless nightmares... it would finally come to an end. Death would be his escape from madness".
Yeah, very little character development, am I right? I mean, it's not every day the first thing you see when booting up a game is the main character mournfully attempting suicide. We'll just gloss over that, I guess.
It feels significant that the first and last thing he does in the Greek saga is attempt suicide
And exactly WHO is the audience for God of War? I was 28 when the first game came out and plenty mature already. And I'm still part of the audience for these games.
Kratos in Ragnarok was amazing. They truly did expand on his character in a meaningful way that fit the story. I would give examples but the game just came out so im keeping it spoiler free
they expand on his character in the OG series
Yeah honestly the new games really do make kratos a more unique character
@@flighttrain1189 how
David jaffe wore his inspirations on his sleeve and it was definitely a product of it's time. But gow3 was definitely not the odd man out for kratos. He burned a spartan soldier to death just to complete a puzzle in the first game and killed some innocent boat captain just for an item he had on him 💀
He burned a man because it was the only way to reach Pandora's box. Kratos even shows his regret in the scene and says how it's a sacrifice the gods demand.
The boat captain left his man to die and tried to flee (of course, he had nowhere to go in a boat, but still). So Kratos did the same after, leaving him to his death.
Both cases aren't holy justified, but they are also far from the "psychopath killing for fun" people try to paint Kratos to be.
correction: athenian soldier, and it was the gods who required sacrifice
but yeah the boat captain was a moron move
Crazy to think about the risk the developers took in trusting their audience. They could’ve easily followed the same form factor, maybe had Atreus and Faye killed, and have Kratos walk the same path, destroying the Norse pantheon, for the sake of universe expansion and extra hype. But Kratos really went from one the least likable characters, to one of the most loved fathers. Crazy character development, excellent decision on the developers’ part.
You know good character doesn't mean good person right?
@@Sundowner13ah yes and the sky is blue and snow is white 🙄
For me GoW trilogy will always hold a special place in my heart precisely BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF NUANCE. The PURITY OF PURPOSE unencumbered by all questions was something truly special.
Every single piece of media and every single writer always applies the methodology learnt at school to add nuance and ask important questions and thats great but it becomes repetitive and exhaustive.
So sometimes just PURE UNDILUTED PURPOSE is a very refreshing break from that.
A bad example but John Wick (1st movie) was PURE, one theme no questions asked pure brutality and that was a welcome break from all those tragic heroes whose background we have learn and which gets in the way of the sheer purpose and action.
We were NOT MEANT TO SYMPATHISE with original Kratos. He was the ESCAPE from all of the minutia of everyday life, and the consequences of the choices we all had to face (especially as hormonal little teenagers).
GoW trilogy was never meant to be just ANOTHER game. It was a REBELLION and it was BEAUTIFUL.
Saying that the development of Kratos in the reboot captures us perfectly now, adults who look back at the way we felt/acted and cringe(if not feel shame) as all of us now have to live with the consequences of our teenage rebellion and nowadays must think about our actions while trying to guide our own children and prevent them from making the same mistakes as we made. I feel like the games were perfectly written and marketed towards our generation, with Kratos growing WITH us as a character.
That is the point of the essay, you agree with him completely.
You’ve literally just agreed with his points
I don’t remember disagreeing with him. is it my wording? two ppl have said the same thing.
Well said!
God dang…I’m watching all your vids because after playing the 2018 GOW and Ragnarok…I just can’t get enough of the lore and story. These games ARE narrative masterpieces and sooo fun to play. Great work on these videos. Really filling that void now that the adventure is over…for now.
He did indeed eat his words. Ragnorak was a beautiful story ❤️
In the og trilogy he isnt just mad angry guy he only really becomes that in 3 saying its childish is just pointing out that you haven’t actually read into the story without seeing him for more
Ah, yes. God of war. my favourite Nintendo Wii game.
I really hate it when people stated that the original trilogy of this series kratos was just a mindless hulk who killed, thats not true. . . People perception is make things to fit a certain narrative and not the truth. I played the very first game 1 year removed from high school and I understood what David Jaffe was explaining as a man who was lied to, tricked, confused, totured, etc. These lame ass explanations of a character are sickening. . . .
It is sad to see, god of war was always deep and it is a shame that many people just ignore how the Greek games were told and played out like an actual Greek tragedy. Gow1 especially plays out like one of those Greek tragedy’s.
Death can have me when it earns me! The sequel is amazing! Especially the end when they hug it out so emotional.
That wasent from ragnorok it was from the original trilogy and referenced
20:18 one week later, he ate his words.
"they need to answer those questions"
Me who just watched odin give his proposition to kratos: no
Ah yes, the son of Thor, ultra Magnus and the wife of Zeus, hella
I just finished the main game and personally I think it has surpass 2018 God of War. The story is beautifully woven and meaningful. Kratos & Atreus relationships are again tested. Atreus learning consequences and Kratos learning to be a good father and friend.
This was an incredible retrospective to the game, one that I had not fully considered or I suppose grasped at the time. Only now coming back to it before I can get my hands on Ragnarok, do I truly understand the game and the story it was trying to tell. At first I was confused why GoW4 got game of the year over Red Dead Redemption 2 and personally even after understanding the story it's still a close call, but now I know more about why that is.
I don't know if it's the fact that I really want Ragnarok, or just want to play this game again, but I have an urge to go back and play on new game plus just to re-experience this game now fully understanding the intentions this behind this story. At least before diving into the world of GoW Ragnarok.
Then you’re just as dumb as him because this was an awful retrospective he missed the entire point of the original fucking trilogy, Holy shit do you not understand fucking storytelling through gameplay.
@@nibbanibba5064 Well, unwarranted insults aside, I never played the original trilogy. Besides, interpretation is left to the audience and if that’s what he got from it then it’s what he got from it.
I only ever played GOW (2018) I only barely played GOW3 before skipping it. And Red Dead Redemption 2 is still my favorite.
I can’t believe you dug through all these comments just to insult me for no reason.
Dawg your opinion was already invalidated after that first paragraph, how can you call this a great retrospective if you haven’t even had any experience with the series in question.
And don’t flatter yourself bro I’ll call out anyone you’re not special, if I dig through comments and I see you It don’t matter
@@nibbanibba5064 My opinion was only on the parts relating to GOW 2018, but whatever I don’t need you to validate my opinion.
@@SmallvilleStudio I wasn’t justifying your opinion…. I was trashing it 💥(BOOM) 🎤 drop
He definitely ate his words
Ah yes, Hella and Magnus are my favorite characters for sure
You should give serious consideration to double checking the names of characters in the story you're critiquing while writing your script, you got magni's and hera's names wrong.
lol I lost it when he kept saying Magnus
In gow 1 he was more depressed than angry
I would say that ragnarok does add more to kratos's story. kratos, now that his son knows more about him, has to deal with the coming of ragnarok potentially causing to revert back to his old ways. his first real test for his growth.
0:58 Cut to the end of GOW wherein Kratos after laying his brother into the grave, openly questions what he’s become. Cut to God Of War Chains Of Olympus wherein Kratos has to physically force himself from leaving his daughter, in order to save the world. Cut to God Of War 3 wherein Kratos tries to keep Pandora from sacrificing herself, due to his reawakened fatherly spirit. Cut to God Of War Ascension wherein Kratos is tempted at the idea of having even a false image of his family back. Cut to God Of War 3 AGAIN wherein Kratos kills himself because he realises that while he’s had his vengeance, he must atone and so shoves the Blade Of Olympus into his chest.
To say Kratos was literally just ‘me angry’ shows to me you didn’t take the first games seriously at all, but now that the graphics are better and the combat is more ‘realistic’, suddenly Kratos has gained personality.
Personally some of the worst takes on the original trilogy are that he had no personality and that he was just angry and some of the worst takes on the new games are that he is just old
2 seconds in and I already doubt you even played the games. And Ragnarok is so mature with gods swearing like 12 year olds, Marvel jokes, and characters holding your hand in every puzzle and boss encounter.
Yeah i wondered if i was the only one not liking the gods. Especially odin. Less of a wise all father and more of a whiny little bitch
exactly my thoughts, sometimes i wonder if npc meme is actually real
I would bet everything I own the 2 of you are virgins 😂
The difference being i would assume is someone having their wife and daughter killed by another vs that same person being tricked into killing THEIR OWN wife and daughter.
God hearing him say *Magnus* instead of "Magni" poked my brain in a spot it didnt want to be poked
So I guess you didn't play the original God of War games. If you did, you wouldn't be saying that the story in those games are awful. Well looks like I'm going to be taking you to GOW school.
In GOW1, Kratos is on a quest for the gods. One of those quests is killing Ares. There's the personal vendetta because Ares tricked him into murdering his family. All he wants after this is to be relieved of his trauma. The gods did initially promise that. But when it's all said and done, they backpedaled. So there's your premise for the first game. It's a good character driven story with emotional depth and good action adventure title.
GOW2 picks up where the first one left off and we see Kratos is still resentvile of the gods false promises of relieving him of his nightmares. After Kratos takes down the Collusis of Rhodes, he gets betrayed by the Gods. He's on a mission to get his revenge yet again and we get more of the Greek embedded in the sequel. Zeus being the son of Chronos. And how it sparked the great war between the Gods and the Titans. And it's all a repeat when we get to that cliff hanger ending. Very cool setup.
GOW3 is the climax for the series and has both times Kratos is betrayed. This time, it's the Titans that betray him. He goes wiping them out. There's another plot point where Kratos has to protect Pandora when he's taking her to the flame of Olympus. And at that moment she was willing, Kratos was not. His thoughts change thinking that maybe his lust for vengeance isn't worth a child's life. Zeus steps in though and as Kratos is about to walk away, Pandora goes for the flame again. Zeus taunts Kratos after failing to save Pandora. And that's when Kratos Snaps. He does decide now that he wants to kill Zeus. Giya intervenes and Kratos kills both Zeus and Giya. Until Zeus keeps him in the darkness when Kratos seeks the light.
After finding it, Kratos beats Zeus mercerlessly. Zeus dies, Athena reveals her true colors. She wants to rule the world. But after that, Kratos attempts suicide by impaling the sword in his torso. It drains the powers from Kratos and that's what happens.
Back to what you said. You really think the original God of War trilogy didn't have a good story? What game were you playing? Oh wait. It says you play Nintendo Wii games. So you clearly don't know what you're talking about. The new GOW games are abit darker for sure. But if it wasn't for the original trilogy, we wouldn't have games like that. So maybe think before you speak and talk shit about the original God of War trilogy.
0:47 Literally the end of God of War 3 where he kills himself to restore hope to Olympus. The whole cutscene is him regretting everything. What about the start of the first game where he throws himself off of a cliff, "The Gods of Olympus have abondoned me" after he killed Ares to ****Get rid of the nightmares from killing his family****. I fail to see how you think Kratos in the trilogy is a "Character with 3 traits"? You clearly just weren't looking hard enough. The spin-off's even go into further detail. You clearly weren't paying attention when you played these.
The whole point of GOW 3 was to show how far kratos had fallen and how you weren't supposed to be rooting for him. You outright state how you thought he was a POS yet somehow missed the entire point
I love how i watched this AFTER playing all of ragnarok, watching alot of this guys character essays.. and just going "Yup. You ate your words buddy"
Can't believe this video only has 300 views
It doesn't deserve more videos. It's just yet another video spreading misinformation regarding the original games being mindless and shallow while claiming the reboot has a deep story when in reality, God of War was always deep. Kratos was always a complex character, the reboot didn't make him any more complex, it just made him a grumpy old man with an annoying kid tagging along.
@@Gardetrace even though I agree that kratos wasn't completely mindless, it is crystal clear that the game developers themselves believe that old Kratos was one dimensional. The biggest pay off for his character is when he unveils his scarred forearms forgiving his past self while simultaneously redeeming himself as an upstanding yet formidable God of war. The fact that you can't see this shows that you are sore because this man criticised something you enjoyed. while they were great games, this videos point is that god of war developed and matured from a saucy unapologetic pile of pure rage into a compelling story about evocative characters. This version of Kratos serves as a role model rather than a medium of violence and surely this showcases the superiority of the newer installments.
@@shaneosullivan3358 Tell me you didn't play Old GoW without telling me you didn't play Old GoW.
@@frozenvoltz6739 I played god of war 1, 2, 3, 2018 and very soon ragnarok as well.
@@shaneosullivan3358 And if that's the case how could you come to the conclusion about the new games having "superiority" over the old games.
I think the main reason as to why the devs don't ask Kratos these questions is because we play the game through Kratos and thus we are just as blind as he was
They don't ask anything intentionally and indeed, by the third game he's been betrayed so much he snaps. He gives up everything for rage. But we don't because we haven't been tortured for as long as he has and to that extent when we see him murder everyone with the tsunami caused by poseidon's death it shocks us. It shocked me even if I was very much under age to be playing such games ( I think I was 14-15?). I made me question like "hey ain't that a little too much?" But I continued on because the game gave me no other option, because he, kratos, was fed up and trying to sway him away from his path of vengeance like Gaya tried, only made it worse
Dont forget that Hera insulted Pandora and did other things, she deserved what came to her as well as Zeus with what he said and done.
I finally just got around to playing Ragnarok and these videos have been absolutely amazing.
Thanks for this awesome content.
Can't wait on your ragnarok video my guy. Really love your videos
All these years later, and people are still repeating the "Kratos was a 1-dimensional character and The God of War series was never deep until the 2018 game" narrative Gaming Journalists parrot. Kinda feels like you never even played the games if the only character traits you say Kratos ever had were being really angry all the time (somewhat true), responding to every challenge or insult with immediate violence (not true), and being really good at smashing things (he really is tbf, but then again, so is Link from LoZ). As someone has already pointed out in the comments, the glossing over and dry puddle deep analysis of Kratos's character is unacceptable.
I like how the two new games actually justify its existence and make Kratos a more unique and likable character and one that I very much care about
"I'm not expecting it to tell as meaningful of a story as this game did". You're right. It told one more so.
Good to know that, two weeks later, you’ve eaten your words. Thor even had a redemption arc, on top of callbacks to the last game.
First 10 seconds of the video and I already know where this is going. Kratos in the old games was just a dumb angry slab of meat who killed everything in front of him. That's it.
Let's ignore him being a normal human who on the brink of death literally made a deal with the devil and was of course deceived into KILLING HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER and on top of that the gods stuck their ashes on his skin to remind him of it... Then he found out his long lost brother was still alive but brainwashed by the gods to hate him even though Kratos' life quest until then was finding him. And when they finally reconciled Deimos was killed by a god. Then he was given the chance to spend eternity with his daughter in Elysium but had to let her go to save the universe. Then, he had to kill his mother who was turned into a monster. THEN when he finally had the chance to kill Zeus and end everything the one goddess who was on his side sacrificed herself for the bastard.
Add on top of that he was killed and sent to Hades multiple times, betrayed by the gods even more times, denied his only wish (to forget his crime of murdering his family) and was constantly made into the bad guy for taking revenge when the gods were openly taunting him and revealing themselves to be the culprits of his suffering.
But no, he was just an angry man who killed without reason.
Well... there's still Freya at least, and I'm interested to see how Kratos would handle someone with a very personal vendetta against him. Baldur didn't really have this for Kratos, Kratos in this fight against Baldur was put in the mediator position between Freya and Baldur, but it's different with Freya, Freya really is going out to kill Kratos with vengeance all over her mind, and I wanna see how it's gonna play out
Expectations subverted
It played out how I was hoping it did.
No, they make up like barely after their second fight
I think you should have made a 7 course meal with your words
Now that it is out, please make another video about your final opinion! :) I enjoyed this one a lot. I wouldn't even mind new set of retrospectives considering Kratos in Ragnarok and Kratos in Greece. Awesome work!
Og kratos definitely had charecter development, the new gow really makes kratos’ character shine, but to say he didn’t have any development in the old games is a major downplay
Also the setting hes in and being a spartan makes his charecter make sense in a way even if it’s not morally right
You make some good points but you call tbe OT childish way too much. It's not childish, I remember playing it when I was 20 and thinking 'man this guy is an absolute asshole' and by the end of 3 I thought 'okay man was it really worth it'? I think we were being challenged as players.
Love the way the most replayed is the scene with the naked woman 😂
Completely unrelated but I still to this day wonder how his brother was so God damn ripped after being chained up since he was a kid.
I like your video, but you're missing a lot of plot in the og trilogy. While in part three his actions were awful but the game ends with a redemption ark. Kratos holds the "hope" for humanity that was held in Pandora's box. When Athena asks him for it, Kratos sacrifices himself to release it upon the world . The after credits scene shows Kratos somehow survived and crawled away.
It seems like he either forgot that part exists, or he just doesn’t know about it.
"Not a meaningful story as much as the first" Oh boy could you not be more wrong lol. Won't spoil anything, but you will love what they did with Kratos here.
Hello, I am a woman and a daughter. I was born to an angry, drug-addicted father whose sole good deed in my life was showing me the love of video games. And that included this franchise. I grew up playing God of War long before I probably should have. I also see those traits of anger in myself and I hate it. I also felt an (albeit weak) connection to Kratos because I was born in late March, making me an Aries (silly I know). When I was angry I loved playing God of War because I loved taking my anger out on strings of code and animated figures in the TV who had no soul or feelings. They were not real. My father, on the other hand, took his anger out on others and on his belongings as well as mine. There have been video games I was never able to finish because his reaction to getting angry at a video game was to destroy it. Those games are now too expensive for me to return to my library of video games that I have now as an adult that I have built up myself with my own money that I earned through hard work, not selling other people's things and my Christmas gifts like he did. Being violent in GOW was fun, and it still is fun. Still to this day, I find joy in watching Kratos beat gods bloody when they wrong him because at the end of the day, it's a video game. No one is getting hurt and I would not do the same as him to people in real life.
When God of War 2018 came out I was 22 years old, an adult. Ragnarok came out when I was 26. I am now grown and I am now immensely proud of where Kratos has ended up. Not just as a character but as a PERSON. I see Kratos interacting with his son and I am not only happy for him but JEALOUS of Atreus because he has a father who loves him and would never hurt him or wrong him. He has a father who CARES. I was not so lucky. I do not have a relationship with my father currently, nor will I ever, because of reasons that would take too long to tell. But the one thing I carry away from the GOW Norse saga is the same thing Kratos has been saying for two games now.
We MUST be better. Better than those who came before us. I make better choices not for my father and not in spite of my father, but for myself and those around me who I care about and who care about me.
Ironically enough, my father said something similar to Freya when he left after me and my mother told him to. He cried and said "If it'll make you happy, I'll go." And he did. And then he came back into my life with no lessons learned, doing the same shit as before. It took 5 long years for me to get him and my mother to understand that I wanted nothing to do with him and that he would never have a relationship with me ever again. Like Baldur, for me it was simply too late. The damage was done. No amount of kowtowing would ever change it. And like Freya, he never said the words "I'm sorry". Still has not to this day. and I doubt he ever will. And I'm okay with that. Regardless, I do not display violence towards my father because I am not him. I am better than that. I may have grown up playing God of War, but as an adult i know that violence is not the answer. Destroying everything around you is not the answer.
To anyone else struggling with generational trauma, I implore you. *The cycle ends here. We must be better.*
What Kratos desires more than anything is closure
"What stories are left for him to tell"
Bruh, gow2018 ended leading up to ragnarok, or did you missed it?
Not to mention four of the nine realms left unexplored...
I have to disagree with this. To say Kratos was just a mindless and violent character is not looking at all of the God the God war games (before the 2018 release) closely enough. Kratos did actually have moments of self reflections, even did a lot of good to save Greece before God of war 3 even though it was partly so he would be rid of his nightmares
In God of war Ascension
- when he finds out from Orkos that Ares and the Furies were planning to make a warrior to overthrow Zeus, he kills the Furies and sets out to kill him(even though it was mainly to take his revenge)
In Chains of Olympus,
When he was in the Elysium Fields, when Persephone reveals her plan to Kratos, Kratos had to choose between
- being with Calliope but if Atlas Destroys the pillar that holds the world, Everyone, even Calliope would be dead or be erased from existence
Or
- forsake Calliope to save Greece, but he will have to live with never seeing his daughter again and Kratos chose the latter.
- He also saves Helios from the hands of Atlas so all of Greece from saved from the hands of Morpheus
In Ghost of Sparta,
- When he had to kill his mother(When she turned into a monster) because she tried to tell Kratos who his father was, he deeply regretted what he had done
- Another example is his objective as a whole, he went out of his way to find Deimos(Kratos' brother) and rescue him when Callisto reveals that Deimos is alive
- Kratos held himself back from fighting Deimos, even took a beating from him.
- When Deimos, was captured by Thanatos, even in a battered state, Kratos still tried to save Deimos even if he said that he will never forgive Kratos for not saving him
- When Deimos died, Kratos carries his body to give him a proper burial
- Finally, when Kratos places Deimos in a grave dug by the grave digger(Zeus), he contemplates even just a moment on what he had become
In God of war 3,
- Even when he initially didn't care about Pandora or saw her as just a key, overtime Kratos saw Pandora like his own daughter and tried to stop from getting to the flame even though he ultimately lets go of her to get revenge on Zeus
Overall, Kratos isn't and wouldn't have went out of his way to start a war with the Gods if they had at least tried to rid him of his nightmares eventhough it is said that it is impossible to remove his curse or Ares had never used him for his plans to destroy Olympus to overthrow Zeus in the first place. Kratos simply didn't have a choice at all. He was already broken from killing his wife and daughter. The Gods treating him like an expendable tool, making him kill his mother by hiding the truth about Zeus being his father, and keeping Deimos in torment made it even worse
I'm watching this after he made all these videos on Ragnarok. I bet this was one of those moments where you were find yourself thoroughly delighted to be so absolutely wrong. You look like you really enjoyed delving into the Ragnarok Brett. Good for you. I really enjoyed your deep dive into the various thematic and character elements.
It gave me a deeper appreciation for a story I really liked to begin with. Thank you
Be well
I believe his character arc was more the descent into the blind rage. In fact, where once, we saw him not want to kill Orkos, son of Ares, and the one who would enable him to start upon his path, to the poor old Captain who Kratos torments indirectly without regard, to Poseidon’s slave girl who he practically fed to some gears to open a door.
His arc is the descent into the horrifying brutality… but we see him, after killing Zeus… no longer blinded by vengeance. It brought him no happiness, no relief. And the world around him crumbling. In that moment he finally beheld with clarity what his quest brought about. Only destruction.
I obviously haven't played Ragnarok yet. But I have a feeling that this next game isn't really going to be Kratos' story. It's going to be Atreus' story. It's going to be about whether he's going to heed his father's advice and break the cycle of violence and misery or if he's going to continue it. Kratos may be who we're playing as but he's not the person the story will be about.
Someone full of rage and hatred.
Don't expect him to be logical.
Because they won't stop at nothing to achieve his/her goal.
Actually they do confront his actions it's at the end of the game and it's done visually by him looking at the destruction that he brought
Great video! I wonder how surprised you were once you fond out that GOW Ragnarock took GOW to a total new level of story telling.
this was a really well written narrative, this gave me a different view of Kratos and his story because i never played the older games. Please make more videos like this, I enjoyed this videoso much
Then please go play the older games because this guy does a really poor job explaining him, i almost feel that he himself has'nt played the previous games
Right by the start, you are already wrong lol
God of war had always been deep, profound, nuanced and kratos had shown a lot of character development. The only reason you say it was not much of a matured game is because you can't really conect and relate to a god slayer, and thats what most people think kratos was before. But he was not. He was a broken man. He was a father who lost everything, a warrior without an army, a son with the worst father he could ask for, and he loved pandora, but had to see her die. It was not ground breakingly nuanced, but either is the trope of a father learning to protect and love his son. That is more relatable, but less original than a god killer with ptsd.
Both god of war storylines are great, and both god of war story lines are REALLY mature, and people should learn to praise them both. You, my friend, got it wrong.
I do not know if this is bait, but a lot of people were caught who have not played the OG trilogy.
I kinda enjoy the simple cruelty and aggression of the previous games. It’s an indulgence.
I’m still young, but I’m also quite mature too. I don’t think that view is going away with age. - I’ve always enjoyed lore, moral complexity, etc. I enjoy that too.
But the old games still appeal for that violence.
y do u keep calling to Hera as "Hela."
Oh my goodness
Also, Magni, not Magnus.
@@fatbrett its okay, we won't tell anyone 😩
A solid essay!
As someone who's played since the original, it is quite amazing to see Kratos as a character develop the way he does and has. Ragnarok can't come any faster.
The point you made about GOW3 and how his destruction of Olympus is the destruction of Greece, you're right, back then you didn't think about the millions of lives in Greece..,
Pretty crazy how they went full ball with it too- Kratos destroyed Greece.
Imagine if short stories were made (From the game or in the deleted content) of people living lives in Greece only to see it be demolished in front of them, first the ocean, then the skies, etc. absolutely crazy.
I'd like to think that there are survivors but who knows. Probably wont be explored ever again.