8/25/2023 0 Comments God of war valkyries![]() God of War‘s Valkyries are optional at face value, but after you fight one, fighting all of them is mandatory. In a way, this is the quest in which Kratos takes on an investigative role, seeking to come to terms with the reasons as to why Odin locked up some of his most trusted companions. With each victory, a Valkyrie is set free, incapable of remembering what drove them insane. They’re optional, but once you go on to challenge the first one, you’ll be traveling from Niflheim to the foothills of Midgard in order to track down the Hidden Chambers holding the crazed Valkyries prisoner. Until all of these foes have been defeated, nothing about this makes sense, and that’s why the Valkyries are so great. The difficulty of these fights is one thing, but the ambiguous motifs in play make this questline illogical and unreasonable. In order to make good on this, Barlog puts his own pen to paper, seeking to fuse optional boss fight mechanics with a brand new take on the Valkyries of the Poetic Edda. Therefore, just as my last piece discussed, the ink has been smudged out. However, in God of War, Hel is absent and the Valkyries have been imprisoned by Odin himself. This is the realm over which Hel, daughter of Loki, holds dominion. Guardians of Helheim, the Valkyries ensure that those who die of sickness and old age are escorted to Helheim safely. Now, that’s exactly what I’m about to do. However, I didn’t discuss the Valkyries in that piece. ![]() I recently wrote a piece called God of War: Rewriting Ragnarokthat discussed the ways in which Cory Barlog’s latest reappropriates the tenets of Norse Mythology in order to craft something wonderful and genuinely new. Personally, the ambiguous story arc of the Valkyries quest-which I won’t spoil here-was one of my favorite parts of God of War, because it really took advantage of the source material that the game was based on. ![]() The best thing about the Valkyries is the way in which the lore imbued in them is manipulated. It’s a cool idea, but it’s not a fresh one, nor is it alone a sufficient reason for why they’re great. Best of luck, though!Īside from the Valkyries being optional, though, what is it that truly made them special? Tons of games have optional bosses. You want to take on the Valkyries themselves? Great, but that’s not what we asked you to do. God of War scratched both itches by placing incredibly difficult bosses in a game in which they were only optional. Some players hate the idea of dying twenty times before achieving victory once. ![]() Some players like a challenge, craving difficult boss fights. They’re not easy, even on the easiest difficulty, but they’re not mandatory either. This alone is one of the reasons as to how the Valkyries were designed so well. Trophy percentages attest to this, too, as the percentage of those who have completed the Valkyries questline is far lower than that of those who have completed the main game. As a result, it seems that most people who do actually fight the Valkyries tend to do so after having finished the main story. The Valkyries are powerful enough that without endgame-or even post-game-equipment, fighting them on anything but the easiest difficulty will prove to be incredibly difficult for all but the most powerful Kratos players. There’s a reason the esoteric stuff is generally only achieved by less than 10% of players. Don’t believe me? Look at trophy percentages. However, it’s an unfortunate fact that lots of players play games start to finish with 100% emphasis on main quests. However, fighting them is completely optional so why did so many people bother to do it? I love optional parts of video games and I know lots of people reading this will, too. Locked up in Hidden Chambers and gone mad in isolation, these Valkyries are formidable foes. In spite of this, the most “bossy” parts of God of War are the fights with the nine Valkyries dotted across the map. One that immediately springs to mind is the fight with Hraezlyr the dragon, although even the battle against The Stranger early on in the game is absolutely fantastic. God of War in particular has some incredibly memorable boss fights.
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