Anyhow, so yeah, spent 15 hours all weekend playing the intro stuff for Destiny 2, playing through the Forsaken main campaign, and messing around and figuring out how Destiny works. Got from 1100 power to like 1180 in that time.
Overall, Demi was right in that for Forsaken campaign I had no idea who any of these characters were, what an awoken, taken, fallen, scorn or whatever were, and I basically wanted to skip all the long cutscenes because they were just gibberish to me.
But ignoring all that and just treating it as a 6-8 hour campaign about a prison heist by a big bad and their group of super powered monster bosses, and it's your job to take them all down, it works enough.
The structure of it where it's a bunch of mini-story levels with a boss fight at the end of each, and they're all themed around the various boss styles, was pretty cool. I think the level design & encounter design was pretty good as someone that plays like one FPS every four years. Had good challenge, good variety, good fun. Helped the gunplay and movement were really smooth and good. And the graphics were nice.
The character design in Destiny is pretty bad. But the environment design is gorgeous.
Gun variety is pretty cool. Liked how they were so many different types of weapons and they all feel unique and good. Between that and the powers there's a nice feeling of making your own build. I played Warlock but I think I would've liked Titan better. I like that Titan punches people and I could've used a shield for sure at spots.
The vehicle stuff was pretty solid too.
Game was pretty glitchy. Hit a half-dozen bugs in only 2 days of playing. A couple which made me lose entire missions and time. Wtf Bungie. Get your shit together.
I'm kinda surprised how short the campaign was. Like FF14 campaigns are like 40-50 hours, but I guess your average FPS is like 8 hours, so a 6-8 hour campaign is pretty normal for FPS. I liked how they use the map zone and design the campaign missions around it. The public event stuff is kind of fun and the combat is just really enjoyable.
But it's definitely an MMO grind and watching the Last Wish raid and stuff, an MMO FPS is not something I want in my life. I like FF14 as an MMO because the combat is something I can handle and be good at, but I'll never be good at FPS so anything beyond the story stuff or strikes isn't going work for me. But the most interesting content is the high-end stuff. FF14 has a thing where you can experience almost 100% of the content in the game on story-mode and endgame stuff are those same things but more mechanics and depth and challenge. I like that a lot because you get to experience everything. Also outside the highest end stuff in FF14 every thing you do you can matchmake quickly and get full teams of randos or even play with AI partners at this point. Playing FF14 as my first MMO has basically spoiled me because a lot of the QoL stuff isn't there for other MMOs.
Did I need to spend the whole weekend playing Forsaken? Would my life have been worse if Forsaken disappeared forever and I probably never sat down and played Destiny 2? Nah. Definitely didn't "need" to play that before it got the boot.
That being said, it was a good FPS campaign. If it was separated from the Destiny MMO and just a standalone thing it'd be even better, but it is what it is. I think I could sit down and play the other story campaigns and maybe pick up The Witch Queen and play that, but I also don't really feel the need to. I'd rather play third person stuff, rpgs and action games than more FPS campaigns.
I'd give Forsaken in this day and age like an 8/10 game having no idea what was going on besides that it's a prison break megaman game.
