God of War features a more in-depth blocking system than previous games in the series. Kratos will need to utilize blocking and parrying if he wants to survive this adventure. Blocking and Parrying go hand in hand in the new God of War. While blocking requires that you simply press and hold the L1 button, parrying requires you to time that press of the button as the enemy attacks.
There are some things to look out for when blocking in the new God of War, and this is mainly a visual queue that occurs before an enemy attacks. Enemies will attack you in a couple of different ways in the game. The first is with a standard attack. This can be blocked simply by pressing and holding the L1 button. You will not receive any damage from blocking a normal attack. The second is with an attack that is preceded by a yellow circle.  This means that the attack has the potential to stun Kratos, regardless of if he tries to block the attack or not.
The attacks that you’ll want to look out for are the attacks that have red circles. These powerful attacks can not be blocked or parried by Kratos and will do damage regardless. When an enemy attacks with a red attack, you’ll want use the X button to sidestep, double tap the X button to roll, or simply move out of the way of the attack to avoid taking damage.
This is one aspect of the combat in God of War that must be mastered as if you take two many red attacks you’ll wind up dead really quickly.
