Can a character escape his past? Can a game series?

God of War started as a series based on the ideas of what is cool from “a teenager’s notebook”. Now, it wants to do better. It’s great to have all the new progressive titles, but I have to admit that it’s also valuable for an old and popular franchise to pull something like this off.

Does it? Norse era games – God of War and God of War Ragnarök – are far from ideal, but they’ve come a long way from their questionable roots. They would have been extremely progressive if released 20 years ago. Today? Even without spoilers, I can point out a couple of things where someone should have raised their hand and asked, “are we sure we want to do this?”

Overall, I enjoyed playing them, despite some minor gripes. I mostly didn’t care about combat, which might be my issue. I liked the combat in Doom: The Dark Ages quite a lot, but I haven’t liked the combat in any game since then. For me, running around in a not-so-open world, solving puzzles, and listening to NPCs was way more enjoyable. Thank goodness for a modern approach to difficulty that lets you breeze through encounters and most boss fights if you so desire.

Speaking of combat I didn’t care about… South of Midnight is a great game! It’s a dark fairy tale. Emphasis on dark: expect serious subjects to be brought up. It’s also going to get political, for sure! But it also has plenty of whimsy, have interesting characters and stories, looks great, and is an outright musical, with lyrics that help tell the story.

Speaking of musicals… Mayor May Knott is a horror-themed game in which you rebuild a small town, and has a lot of original parody songs. To be fair, most of the game consists of busywork and light puzzles, and its performance is dreadful on any machine I have. However, the theme, quirky characters, and overall feel-good-ness, that I liked since I played the demo, pulled me through. You’re giving people homes, c’mon! No regrets!