Godfall

“We can always try again?”

Godfall is the first “next-gen looter-slasher action-RPG,” a launch title for the PS5 that has since been ported to the PS4 as well as the Xbox. You play as some guy named Orin, who the game’s box describes as “the last of the Valorian Knights, masters of combat,” as they go on an epic quest through the realms of Earth, Water and Air (the Fire realm is $15 DLC) to kill his brother Macros, who is trying to become a god.

Godfall most resembles the 2018 God of War, if the 2018 God of War did not feel right. Orin takes up the left third of the frame in extreme close-up, as they engage in melee combat with whatever is right in front of them. Orin can also throw a shield for a distance attack, they can trigger weapon abilities, and they can activate a super mode or launch a concussive attack in a radius around them if the player has enough of a charge. Admittedly, I haven’t played the 2018 God of War game since its release, but the only difference is that Godfall has five melee weapons to God of War’s two melee weapons. You also unlock suits of armor called Valorplates that give Orin a different appearance and passive buff, which is the game’s other objective distinction from 2018 God of War.

(On a side note, I use “they/them” pronouns for Orin because the player can switch Valorplates at any time, and some of the Valorplates give Orin a male-coded voice and some give Orin a female-coded voice. I struggle to not use “he/him” because the “default” Valorplate for Orin is male-coded, which makes me think that the intent was Orin for be a male)

“You push yourself too much.”

I’ve gone on for almost 300 words without giving more than a single opinion on this game. After all, I just called it a blatant rip-off of one of the most well-received console games of the last five years…that’s barely backhanded! Unfortunately, that’s probably the nicest thing I can say about the gameplay. If we look at the “slasher” aspect of the “next-gen looter-slasher action-RPG” descriptor, I would argue that it just feels wanting.

For starters, the game has a unique take on parry and dodge timings. Most action games at this point expect you to try and dodge or block at the last moment; doing so will trigger a parry or slow motion or generally something that rewards you for quick reflexes. Doing this in Godfall gets you hit. To parry an attack in Godfall, you need to block during the enemy’s windup animation, and continue to block for a second as the attack swings to connect. It’s hard to describe without video evidence or a GIF (and I don’t have the means or the interest to make one), but the effect makes me feel less like a master of combat and more that I’m fighting complete dweebs.

However, Godfall also lacks input buffering in the slightest, which means that, if you’re doing anything, you’re committing to whatever it is you’re doing until it’s done. You’re swinging your sword at a guy when you notice it’s swinging at you? Can’t cancel. (Also, you’re not going to parry it anyway…) You’re dodging and you notice near the end of the dodge that you should heal up? The heal input doesn’t work until you’re back in control of the character, so you’ll have to tap it again. You also can’t hard lock-on to enemies with a button press, requiring you to swing the camera around to maintain lock-on. If you’re engaging with two enemies at once, the game will also make assumptions about who you’re trying to attack.

The charitable side of me thinks that these complaints are really choices made to encourage slower, methodical play. I think this is reinforced by the game’s stinginess with healing items, which makes mistakes hurt a lot. However, other choices in the game seem to run counter to this. Enemies swarm you (which REALLY draws attention to the lock-on mechanics), ranged enemies often are dodge happy, there’s an additional super mode called Rampage that activates when you do a certain amount of damage in a certain amount of time, and the dual blades lose weapon technique charge if you’re not actively doing damage. For what it’s worth, I played the game in a reckless, loose manner.

Because, ultimately, my biggest complaint with the game is that the punishment for dying is…almost nothing, bosses may regenerate up to 1/3 of their HP but your advisor will make a passive aggressive comment.

“Oh, Orin…”

She has a pool of about seven or eight of these quotes. Most of them are delivered in a tone that is intentionally infuriating. There is no point to these quotes otherwise. My annoyance with them increased as the game continued. I am aware that I sound like a “scrub,” complaining about my lack of skill in a game. However, the game has barely any punishment for dying (I’d argue that dying doesn’t matter at all except in the limited respawn Tower Trial mode) EXCEPT for insulting you, and I hate that.

As for the “looter” aspect, I have this bias against loot games – I think they tend to be poorly implemented in games that work fine without them – so take whatever I say here with a grain of salt. Anyway, I didn’t care for the loot aspect here. This game gives you too much loot and you’re constantly deleting it. Furthermore, you can use resources you’ll have in abundance to upgrade weapons a set number of times, which means that you can conceivably negate your loot for the next level or two, which leads to me not caring about the loot in a “looter-slasher” game. This stands out especially as Gearbox published this, and I was thinking about how the developers should’ve just ripped off the Borderlands loot system like they ripped off the God of War combat.

As for a positive, I think the game has good art direction. The various Valorplates all look tough and intimidating in distinct ways, and the environments are dense yet in a crisp enough resolution for me. The music is also noticeable but not bad, so that’s…video game music is so depressingly dull nowadays, so at least this is better than average. …I think the voice acting is really good! Unfortunately, I have no friends I could convince to play this game, so the jury is out on the multiplayer co-op.

“You know, Orin…I can’t actually *move* without you.”

Playing Godfall in 2022 and writing a review of it on a user contributed website feels like a dumb move. After all, I would say that, if my memory serves me correctly, 90% of the interest in this game was based on it being a Playstation 5 game, and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart now serves this game’s purpose. Unfortunately, I don’t think it works as a God of War clone, and I need to find better uses of my time.

Godfall is such a missed opportunity that its kind of sad. Everyone was excited for this game because it looked like a fun action game, but then gameplay trailers released, and less people grew excited when it started seeming this would be a generic action/looter game. Honestly Godfall is just so bland and generic and nothing stands out. The main problem I had is the gameplay just gets so repetitive and tedious, most of the combat you just can go up to enemies and spam heavy attacks, and then you memorize their patterns and dodge and repeat. The enemy design in this is just so generic and bland and I just found the combat unsatisfying. The other problem is the game is a looter so you'll constantly need to replace your weapons and armor as you progress, and loot will drop randomly from enemies. As you level up you unlock new missions and get more powerful, but the abilities you unlock from leveling up just aren't satisfying either. The gameplay in this is just so bland and the sword combat just isn't satisfying, whenever I hit enemies, I just felt my weapons were too weak and not doing enough damage and many enemies came off as damage sponges, they weren't hard to kill, just tedious. The boss fights are equally as annoying, you get 3 heals only, and often you would have to chip the bosses health down and then die, and each bar of health you took off the boss saves when your respawn, so you basically have to go in spamming like Rambo and then sacrifice yourself so you can regenerate your 3 healing potions. They should have given you at least 10 potions or allowed you to upgrade how many you hold because 3 just isn't enough.

The level design is really generic and nothing stands out, most levels are very linear and just consist of going to points and killing generic enemies and mini bosses. There are side missions in this where you fight various mini bosses but they are so bland. Godfall's story is super boring that I didn't even care what was going on. Godfall isn't terrible, the combat is satisfactory, the design is competent enough, and well there are some fun moments and bosses, although those are few and far between, and you do get tons of weapons to play around with, but most of that is diminished by the boring and bland design and repetition. Godfall just doesn't have enough variety and I was so relieved when I beat the game, even if its not long. Godfall will just go in the pile of forgotten launch games, and I'll even go as far as say this is probably the worst launch game for PS5. Valhalla took me almost 100 hours to beat and even that felt less tedious and generic than this game.