Just finished God of War 2018 [Short Review, Spoilers]

I Platinum'ed the game, 98%ish percent completion, I had a Lore Crystal glitch out on me so I didn't bother finding the last few things.

• I was really surprised, I went into this thinking it would be a major franchise shakeup and not be God of War anymore, but really except for the switch to a fixed camera instead of a roving one, it was the same style of game but just expanded. I love how much God of War levels twist and turn and the little secrets you can find, and giving more excuses to explore those levels with prettier graphics was fantastic.
• The kill animations were satisfying as usual, but I do prefer the old-school style of combat, the over-the-shoulder view makes it too easy to get hit. I played on Easy mode because of that so it never did end up being a problem, but things like the Valkyrie fights probably would've been massive levels of bullshit on higher difficulties because of it.
• Characters were really good, got a soft spot for the Dwarves and the Head. Atreus had moments but I did find him to ultimately be Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode 1, way too annoying. (Also there's a running theme of Daddy/Mommy issues permeating Sony games as a way to show that they're mature now. God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, the later Uncharted games)
• The Norse setting was effing awesome. I was super impressed that they made the story and setting so interesting without Odin, Thor or Loki even being present until I saw the ending and the secret ending, HOLY SHIT

After Horizon: Zero Dawn a month ago, I felt they'd made a lot of rookie mistakes that made elements of the game annoying to play and I was less enthused for the upcoming sequel because I need to see if they'd fixed things first. With God of War, I'm extremely hyped for the sequel now (probably not hyped enough to not patiently wait for it, but still pretty hyped!) and wonder if there's going to be more than just one more game in this setting, it feels like there's a lot of potential for this to be as deep as the Greek Mythology in the original games.