Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense

[kingv]

You’ll probably fly through the last couple of chapters. The game picks up a ton after chapter 3 and just keeps picking up pace.

[Svejk]

Looking forward to it 

[HardcoreRetro]

This game is good.

[Svejk]

Been trying to figure out how to change Sam's suit color for the longest time... Gave up and decided to look it up...  You have to beat the game before you can do that..   
Really??  Good or not, I'm not planning on playing through this again, Kojima.   

[MMaRsu]

[kingv]

Been trying to figure out how to change Sam's suit color for the longest time... Gave up and decided to look it up...  You have to beat the game before you can do that..   
Really??  Good or not, I'm not planning on playing through this again, Kojima.   

After you beat the game you can just keep playing, like if you want to close out sub quests or complete roads or whatever while stunting on em in head to toe pink.

[Svejk]

Finished Chapter 11 last night.  Can't believe how the pacing in the game has ramped up.  Really starting to get those good ol' Kojima vibes...

And boss battle after boss battle... Shits kinda crazy.
  

[bluemax]

https://twitter.com/EGMNOW/status/1207033798501601282

[Svejk]

Got to "Episode 15" at 4:45am.  Looks like Monster Energy contract ran up, cuz now the drank is Porter brew.  Not sure if that was part of the latest update or if that's an endgame change.
So I technically beat it, but there's still some epilogue it seems? 

[HardcoreRetro]

It becomes porter brew after one of the missions.

[kingv]

The epilogue is just basically like... new game plus, sort of. You can just continue to play the game and deliver packages, but there is no more story in chapter 15 afaik.

[Svejk]

Ah, ok so..

spoiler (click to show/hide)

"the Inauguration mission" is basically a free mode so to speak?  There's no real ending to said mission?
Just curious for trophy purposes.

[close]

[thetylerrob]

I’ll have the soundtrack in my playlists for awhile. It’s still a really great game if you can enjoy the gameplay and story. I don’t think most will be comfortable talking about it in a goty conversation.

[Svejk]

Overall I thought it was a pretty good, unique experience.  I enjoyed my time with it all the way to the end; flaws, missteps and all.. However, it's certainly a game of have no interest in going back to.  I'm done with it.  It's certainly no Grandmasterpiece like Snatcher or MGS1, but still a good Kojima title imo.

[HardcoreRetro]

The point where people said it was supposed to get more enjoyable actively ruined most of the fun I had with the game. Should've leaned way harder on that traversing is a struggle shit.

Once you get the powerlegs any semblance of challenge goes out of the window. Just holding the two trigger buttons while pressing forward already ruined most of the challenge before you even got to that point.

Papers, Please did the "turning mundane thing into videogame concept" a lot better.

[Pissy F Benny]

I think the names alone make the game good 

Samantha America Strand 

Kojima must’ve hit himself in the head with a hammer before coming up with them 

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN/status/1209684233700048896
 

[kingv]

The point where people said it was supposed to get more enjoyable actively ruined most of the fun I had with the game. Should've leaned way harder on that traversing is a struggle shit.

Once you get the powerlegs any semblance of challenge goes out of the window. Just holding the two trigger buttons while pressing forward already ruined most of the challenge before you even got to that point.

Papers, Please did the "turning mundane thing into videogame concept" a lot better.

I kind of agree with that, though if you haven’t gotten to the really snowy parts, traversing there is notably harder.

But overall, I felt like the most compelling gameplay was just straight up traversing and building/finding stuff to make it easier to traverse. Any time you are forced into interacting with BTs or mules kind of just ends up sucking

Ultimately, I feel like kojima was scared the game without the conflict from enemies would be too boring so he shoehorned in some combat scenarios. I wish he had the confidence to just go full out into the logistics thing, it was unique

[Svejk]

One of the big things I liked about it was that it felt like it had proper closure... No need for a follow up.  (Please don't, Kojima). It left me satisfied enough that I look equally forward to his next project, assuming it's another new IP.  Which based off his recent tweets, seems to be the case.

[kingv]

Yeah, I like that too. First kojima game in a long time (maybe ever) that has a complete story.

Also, like Dante, I think it’s his most coherent story since probably MGS1. Best thing kojima could do (for us) at this point is just continue to make one off games. His name is enough to carry a new up. Even if some are just ok and not great, plenty of people will check them out.

[Coffee Dog]

I feel like coherent is the wrong term for a story so simple that it can be described in like four sentences being told across multiple movies worth of cutscenes.

[kingv]

I still couldn’t tell you all the moving parts in any of the metal gear solid games.

The la li lu le lo, philosophers legacy, etc. it’s all just so convoluted and basically just nonsense.

At least I can explain the plot to Death stranding. Mgs4 or even MGS5, I can’t.

I didn’t find the plot to Death Stranding bad, it’s just the scripting is crappy and the acting. It has bad dialogue over explains itself, and most of the acting is corny. But it’s no worse than any other kojima game and probably better than most of them.

[paprikastaude]

damn I don't even play online but this game is fun whenever it has the mercy to shut the fuck up. also feels a little more handholdey than MGS5 in that regard.

[Svejk]

I never thought traversing land just to deliver packages would be fun, but it is in this game.  Some missions, and the preparation for them alone, really make you feel like you're about to go an expedition.  Building roads that you get to haul ass on feels like such an accomplishment.  I don't play online either, but I love how it utilized the online function.

[Pissy F Benny]

I’m only on chapter 3 but does the game stop restricting you giving likes 

Let me give like to my hearts content Kojima

[Svejk]

I want to say as your ranking goes up, you like window/meter gets longer.  Not 100% on that.

[Pissy F Benny]

Turns out I was trying to like when there’s a load of signs in one area and it was getting confused/not registering

[kingv]

Was playing with my buddy last night and 1) you can bolo BTs 2) you can piss on them to escape.

[Svejk]

Was playing with my buddy last night and 1) you can bolo BTs 2) you can piss on them to escape.

I didn't know about the bolo gun working on BT's, but I'd full-on R. Kelly them all the time.

[paprikastaude]

tfw you get over some waterfall in the midst of nowhere with only 1 ladder

[kingv]

Was playing with my buddy last night and 1) you can bolo BTs 2) you can piss on them to escape.

I didn't know about the bolo gun working on BT's, but I'd full-on R. Kelly them all the time.

(Image removed from quote.)

At the end of the game the move for me was to run through bt areas with blood grenades and throw them at your feet. Never thought about whipping out my strand and making em a beach.

[Bebpo]

Got back to this today after a couple week break to play Control, The Messenger and finish 13 Sentinels. Did Ch.6?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spent all day making zip line routes from every station to another across the entire snow mountain and then one down the back mountain to the weather station (which I'll link to the main road I rebuilt between South and North knott). My greatest accomplishment was taking the zipline route down from the Mountaineer to the base of the mountain at the base of the river where there's a private room on my game with vehicles to transfer to across the flat swampland. Since I had all the zip routes setup I did a lot of the standard orders as I was going between them and got a lot of stars and neat gear and files.

Was super satisfying and fun. That and the WHITEOUT part going to the spiritualist were fucking amazing. I couldn't see shit and somehow ended up on top of a ridge and my terrain tracker showed like a 100 foot drop down I had to go past. So I threw down and anchor and started going down and then my floating carrier carrying the fucking rocks just DROPS and snaps off and lands on some cliff mid-way down the cliff. So I have to make my way over to this tiny ledge it's on and and switch to power suit and grab it all on my back including the carrier and then anchor down and re-deploy. EMERGENT GAMEPLAY.

Also the graphics in this snow mountain are fucking insane. Zipping around it just looks nuts and the whiteout holy shit. Now that I played through Control I can say while that has great art, I really think Death Stranding has the best art/gfx of anything this year. Then when I got to the WWII part it was like how the fuck did they push out these visuals. Just blows me away and feels like a 1000 person dev team, 5 year game like Rockstar would make in the visual fidelity of it all. Kojima's team are incredible artists.

And I thought the gun play was pretty satisfying in the WWII bit. Ran out of assault rifles and switched to shotgun right when these guys rushed me and took them all out in a pretty satisfying way.

[close]

Anyhow still absolutely loving this. Gonna hold off figuring out my top10 list until I clear this in the next week or two. Feel like it'll probably be my GoTY. Just feels like such a huge epic adventure with so many great moments. Even building roads is really satisfying, especially when you get a lot of use out of them and other people do as well.

[Bebpo]

So I got to the first point in the game yesterday where I found something I dislike about it (besides the chasm area which was kinda annoying when my bike wouldn't make the jump and I'd fall and crash and baby would cry), I was continuing to expand my zip line network with each new station I got to in ch.7 and I ran out of chiral network bandwith because those ziplines eat up 500 each and if you need 3 between spots that's like 1,500. So I had to start grinding standard orders to get stars up (which I'd largely ignored until this point and only done standard orders if I was on my way somewhere anyhow and could carry the extra stuff) and that got kinda boring/draining fast, especially with a well built zipline network because you're just hitting X for 3 mins gliding across ziplines to get to your location. And then you get a star up and they give you an extra like 250 bandwith which doesn't help much.

Basically got a little burnt out when I stopped progressing/exploring and started grinding. As long as I was ignoring the grind stuff and just moving forward I love the adventure so I need to get back to that which is my plan for today. Most of my early settlements are still under 3 stars because I never did standard orders which might be why I'm hitting the cap. I've got about 24,000 bandwith total at this point.

Anyhow duckroll gave me a tip for standard orders to look at the estimated likes and only do the ones that give large likes w/premium delivery because that will up the stars up the fastest. I never looked at the estimated likes so some of the orders I'd do would give like 1/8th of a star which would feel like a grind.

I did finish connecting my mountain zipline network to distro center south of lake knott on the main road so between zips and cars I can move basically anything up to 300 weight easily and within a few minutes.

In retrospect though I think the game would be better served if the chiral bandwith cap wasn't connected to stars. Leave the gear upgrades and database files and cosmetic items for upping stars. Those are fun and satisfying rewards for doing them. But all optional. Whereas the chiral cap is sorta necessary for progression and when tied creates a bit of a grind there which the main story progression would be better off without. Death Stranding works best when the gameplay is about what you want to do. Do you want to connect these areas? Do you want to make this run? You should never be forced to do anything outside the main missions which take you to new areas/challenges. This is just a minor gripe though. I got a little burned out yesterday but excited to play today on the holiday and get back to progression.

[Svejk]

Up until Chapter 4, I did practically every side order possible... Once to Chapter 5 or so, I kind of b-lined a decent bit... Just wanted to see where it was all going.  Besides getting better gear, half the time I'd eventually find better gear and/or get some from the share lockers... Most my lvl 3 gear was taken, not earned. . Thanks everyone!  I donated what I could as well. 

[Bebpo]

Yeah I've been rocking a speed skeleton lvl.3 for a while I found and I can only make a lvl.1. I hope it never breaks 

[paprikastaude]

That story though Just let me climb your vistas.

[Bebpo]

so I spent NY day off playing all day. Got like 8-9 hours in 
and made 0 progress 
not sure how I feel about that 

Basically, rebuilt all the roads in the entire map now that I had a lot of mats everywhere (loading up trucks with mats) from being pretty far in and I ran dozens of standard missions everywhere while doing that. Got a bunch of places to 5 stars, and the optional novelist son area that helped me finish the roads over there. Brought my bandwith cap up to something between 27,000-28,000 and the roads let me get rid of a bunch of ziplines I didn't need because of the roads and so I'm down to ~20k usage giving me like 7,000 overhead now. Even spent 2 ziplines going north from Spiritualist to the station by the incinerator because there were 2 online zips in that direction anyhow and it's a shortcut, but could clear them and have 8,000 free if needed.

I have an addictive personality with games and with DS it really easy to just keep going and doing runs and building out the roads and ziplines so you have perfect routes to everywhere, which is kinda dangerous for game time 
but it also feels like kinda a waste of time for a bunch of busywork doing that stuff afterwards.

At this point since I have a ton of chiral bandwith overhead I think I'm good to get back and finish up the story. But I also kinda want to finish this map with perfect road or zip routes to every single station 

The only stations I don't have easy connections to are 1) Timefall Farm, and 2) Junk Dealer & Chiral Artist. I don't think there's auto-pavers for either of those areas? So I'm guessing if just put up ziplines from south knott to Timefall Farm across the river (seems closer than going from Weather Station ziplines) and same with Junker Dealer/Chiral with a zipline from south knott to junk dealer and then from junk dealer to chiral artist, that would finish it every place connected so far. And probably only take me about 6 ziplines or less which is 3,000 bandwith so I'm good for that (plus I'd get more from bringing those 3 up from 2 stars a bit).

then there's still the whole 1st map, but given how addictive & time consuming connecting this main map out is I'm not gonna touch that until I finish the story so I don't end up spending dozens of hours on it.

[Bebpo]

lol, played a few more hours before sleep and yeah zip route to timefall farms (this was kinda a pain to set up with the mule camp right where I needed to set up a zip line), zip route to chiral artist -> junk dealer -> film director -> elder with a cut back to south distro before elder and a junction one stop to collector. Everyone is now connected and feels good! This is the kind of game where you gotta set your own goals and I really wanted to connect everyone so far. At around 27k / 29k bandwith so cutting it close but shouldn't have to build much more. All the missions seem pretty doable with this setup.

But man, I unlocked the timefall farms pizza mission with the hand carried champagne and fuck thattttttt. I already thought up a strategy in my head (one thing that's cool about this game is I'll be somewhere and think up a new strategy for moving things), but still seems like it'll be a pain in the butt and take at least like 20 mins on foot.

[Pissy F Benny]

When do you start unlocking the cool cool shit, I’m on chapter 3 and have only just got a shitty motorbike 

[Svejk]

Near the end of Chapter 3, is when you get the truck, iirc.  Loading that thing up is great.

Then you'll have this playing in your head as you go...

[paprikastaude]

These final chapters are taking a nosedive into awfulness. This is clearly not gameplay made for bossfights. Or backtracking the entire map, half of it without items but with tons of enemies

[Svejk]

I'm glad the final chapters didn't drag on longer than they needed to imo.  I was ready to wrap it up and didn't seem as long as the MGS4 ending.

[pancakesandsex]

so I spent NY day off playing all day. Got like 8-9 hours in 
and made 0 progress 
not sure how I feel about that 

Basically, rebuilt all the roads in the entire map now that I had a lot of mats everywhere (loading up trucks with mats) from being pretty far in and I ran dozens of standard missions everywhere while doing that. Got a bunch of places to 5 stars, and the optional novelist son area that helped me finish the roads over there. Brought my bandwith cap up to something between 27,000-28,000 and the roads let me get rid of a bunch of ziplines I didn't need because of the roads and so I'm down to ~20k usage giving me like 7,000 overhead now. Even spent 2 ziplines going north from Spiritualist to the station by the incinerator because there were 2 online zips in that direction anyhow and it's a shortcut, but could clear them and have 8,000 free if needed.

I have an addictive personality with games and with DS it really easy to just keep going and doing runs and building out the roads and ziplines so you have perfect routes to everywhere, which is kinda dangerous for game time 
but it also feels like kinda a waste of time for a bunch of busywork doing that stuff afterwards.

At this point since I have a ton of chiral bandwith overhead I think I'm good to get back and finish up the story. But I also kinda want to finish this map with perfect road or zip routes to every single station 

The only stations I don't have easy connections to are 1) Timefall Farm, and 2) Junk Dealer & Chiral Artist. I don't think there's auto-pavers for either of those areas? So I'm guessing if just put up ziplines from south knott to Timefall Farm across the river (seems closer than going from Weather Station ziplines) and same with Junker Dealer/Chiral with a zipline from south knott to junk dealer and then from junk dealer to chiral artist, that would finish it every place connected so far. And probably only take me about 6 ziplines or less which is 3,000 bandwith so I'm good for that (plus I'd get more from bringing those 3 up from 2 stars a bit).

then there's still the whole 1st map, but given how addictive & time consuming connecting this main map out is I'm not gonna touch that until I finish the story so I don't end up spending dozens of hours on it.

Junk dealer will get you speed skeleton upgrades, and chiral artist is worth bringing stuff too once in a while for the boots she gives you as a bonus reward.

[Bebpo]

At hour 35 and at the end of Ch.7 I decided to take a side detour and build all the roads/zip line connections, get all the optional stations connected to the network and get every station to join the UCA. In doing this I ended up gettling about 75% of them to 5 stars along the way. Finally got my last station to join the UCA just now and gametime is ~61 hours. So that was a 26 hour detour.

Now that everyone's connected, time to get back to the adventure and finish the story. Then can decide whether to finish out 5 stars on the last handful I don't have 5 stars yet for completion. Some of the side missions were pretty good and by 60 hours in and 35,000+ bandwith I had ziplines crossing everywhere with shortcuts all over. Didn't need to build any other structures besides ziplines since everyone else builds those, so spent all my bandwith on ziplines.


So far the "adventure/campaign" up to the end of ch.7 is a 10/10 experience for me.
Whereas the "side stuff" gameplay of getting everyone connected and on the UCA and to 5 stars UBI-game completion stuff that seems about 30-50 hours of content was about an 8/10 experience to me. It was fun, sorta and had some cool experiences, but had a lot of repetition and dragging bits. I'd read forums while hitting X across long zipline chains.

Hopefully the last few chapters will be 10/10 like the first 7, but will see soon! My recommendation to my past self would be to not bother with the standard missions and getting everyone connected and just stick to the campaign which is well paced.

[paprikastaude]

Even through the end I didn't get the basics of the story, because I thought the president was Sam's mother (and because I skipped through most non-major story bits). Only now I read up that she was only the adoptive mother, which makes everything much clearer.   

[Bebpo]

Whoops, guess I was at the end of ch.8, not ch.7 this whole time. Got to ch.9, good stuff. Maybe finish this up tomorrow!

[Svejk]

Granted, I agree with Spieler that the gameplay isn't geared for boss fights, but I still had fun fighting them.  It was a nice change up from just delivering shit.  A necessary change of pace, imo.

[Rahxephon91]

I enjoyed the boss fights because yeah they switched up things and pretty much ounce you have the blood powered guns everything is pretty easy and painless.

I do think the BT Spawn rate was rather annoying though. Reminded me of Far Cry 2's checkpoints.

[Bebpo]

Beat it. Damn that was a long ending.

I have some gripes about some of the bits in the end stuff & some story stuff, but damn, what a epic adventure journey. Can't remember the last game that felt like such a big long interesting journey. MGS3? Dark Souls? There has to have been stuff more recently. But a lot of it definitely gives me that epic MGS3 feels.

It's not as good as MGS3 (kojima's best game), and I think MGS1 is pretty much short and near-perfect, but I think Death Stranding is my 3rd favorite Kojima game and definitely the best thing he's done since MGS3. I'm glad he got off MGS/Konami because letting him do something else gave us a pretty cool game. Especially considering they did all this in like 3 years of Konami/Silent Hills collapsing. Hopefully they can pump out another original game like this in 3 years or less.

[Bebpo]

Things I liked about Death Stranding in the end:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

+NPC cast in the world and their emails and world building of people living in this interesting post death-stranding America
+Cliff's story was pretty good. Really should've been the main plot for Death Stranding in an MGS3 way because it gives MGS3 vibes pretty hard with The Boss/Big Boss getting fucked over by their country; Plus it had lots of Mads
+Passive multiplayer was AMAZING. Took what Souls has been doing to the next level.
+World level design is impeccable. Probably one of, if not, the best open world sandboxes in any open world game. You can tell nothing was auto-generated and they level designed the shit out of this map inch by inch for specific challenges for going through each area and for a lot of the 500+ missions. Feels alive and varied and going through a place on foot, with power skeletons, with bikes, with trucks, with ziplines is a totally different experience.
+The main campaign is fantastically paced. Like you're always moving forward into new areas with new physical challenges to get through, often new mechanics and split up by a just right pace of cutscenes that aren't too short or too long and are very entertaining. Also a real good length for a big epic journey feel. While it might not feel like you've walked across all of America, it feels like you went on a big journey.
+Probably the best damn motion capture to date. Combined with good voice acting and good Kojima direction, the cutscenes are the closest I've seen a video game storytelling come to TV shows. Character models were pretty amazing too.
+Overall visuals and art direction were insane. A++ there.
+Sound direction as well. I'd crank up my 5.1 system for this game and it used it like no game in a good while. Some of the sound effects like during the whiteouts and when the giant BT steps in at Edge Knot city are incredible. A++ here too.
+Building stuff was really satisfying!
+Coming up with delivery strategies was great. Really good original core gameplay.
+So many items! Lots of fun gadgets to play with.
+Lots of fun missions
+Shooting is pretty fun. Fun fighting mules, later on BTs and fun fighting Cliff's skeleton mercs.
+Human boss fights were good. I liked the Higgs fight though I wish it was a little more stealth based and you had to sneak up on him, The Cliff fights were fun and I didn't mind the giant BT ones because you had the option of running and that was more fun and faster and worked better. Platforming across the sea of buildings with giant whales was fun with speed skeleton in full dash and dash jumping
+Original music was great and licensed selection was fantastic. Loved the Low Roar stuff. Just wish you had a music player when out on the map.
+Oh and I love all the little animation touches. Like BB swimming in hot springs and all the animations of Sam in the private room. Those are the Kojima touches I expect in his games.

[close]

Things I didn't like

spoiler (click to show/hide)

-Amelie was a terrible character and the whole story towards the end about extinction event nonsense that was really talky and blahhhh was giving me MGS4 vibes. The scenes on the red sea moon were especially awful ending stuff. And those first credits of having to sit and here bad monologue from her and then wait and then sit was testing my patience. I think the story would've been a lot better if they just cut her character and the story was just about re-connecting America + Cliff/Sam's story. They could have fleshed out Higgs out to be the main antagonist if they really needed a human one, but otherwise the BTs and ghost Cliff should've been enough. Basically I'm fine/like/enjoy the story stuff until Edge Knot City, but from there until the end of the first credits it's all kinda downhill. Luckily instead of ending on that, the game ends on Ch.14 Lou which is a pretty good solid ending, so was happy with the story in the end but they really should've cut out a lot or all of that Amelie stuff.

-The two giant BT fights sucked because they have so much goddamn health it's just bullet sponge fights of keep moving, keep getting more rockets and keep shooting for 5-10 mins until it's over. Once was enough. I was pretty pissed when the whale fight happened (I was already kinda annoyed in that last area that you couldn't fabricate anything and the BT bosses you already beat are back and you have to run from them again but while carrying cargo that can't be submerged), and I didn't expect SPACE WHALE to be the final boss of the game since I thought I was headed to the beach for the final confrontation. So long grindy space whale sucked. The one in Edge Knot is even worse because it's a small arena with a really tall enemy and the camera can't deal with keeping track of the ground level (items) while also the sky with raining jellyfish and the boss.

-Some of the grind to get stations online or stars up is kinda annoying and grindy. Like Veteran Porter sure takes a lot. Artifical caps until you sleep so even if you deliver stuff, the stars don't go up, is annoying.

very minor nitpicks:
-2 parts of the rebuilt roads go through BT territory and the car stops every time. Should've cut a clear route for the roads so that doesn't happen.
-Sometimes you just sorta stumble on nothing and then you crash into stuff and the baby cries and it's annoying :X

[close]

Overall I really liked it. I'd probably give it like a 9.5/10 overall for the main campaign and like I said earlier about an 8/10 for the side content. So maybe overall a 9/10. I definitely think it's one of the strongest AAA campaigns I've played in a game in a while (and usually sandbox games don't have great campaign; but the campaign was closer to MGS3 where it's non-linear way through a section but still very level designed vs. completely open like MGS5). As much as I love indie stuff, it's nice to play a big amazing visuals and music and VA and 5.1 adventure that's varied and satisfying because the budget is there. Probably my GoTY for 2019. Will look at all the games I played tomorrow and make my top 10 list and see if there was anything else I'd rate higher in 2019.

Also:


3.1% really surprised me. I feel like getting everyone on the UCA is like getting all the towers in an Ubi game and figured a lot of people do that stuff. But obviously not! I think I'd have expected somewhere between like 20-40%, then again my clear time was 65 hours so a lot of people probably didn't want to invest that much time into it.

Still probably gonna play it for a few more sessions and do some more missions and check out a few spots on the map I never checked out and tools I never played with. But pretty much done and satisfied 

[Svejk]

As much as I preached, "This will be Kojima unleashed!!1!1!", I couldn't help feel that he was still held back in certain ways.  Whether it was Sony, himself or whoever, it feels like he had to play it safe in certain ways.  I suppose I was so use to his flashes of Gore and more pervy instances.  I suppose it could be looked at being more refined.  I dunno.   Overall though, he pulled off something different (not sure about 'a whole new genre'), but unique enough to feel fresh and fun still.   I'm mostly glad that he seems to be moving onto another new IP.  Bring it, Kojima.

[Bebpo]

I don't really find DS safe at all. The game is very non-traditional and it shows in the reviews and sales probably aren't gonna be anywhere near MGS.
Also making a game not about shooting which turned off A LOT of people is ironic since by the second half or 3/4ths in it basically becomes an action game with

spoiler (click to show/hide)

guns and cars and grenade/rocket launchers/tranq grenades and you can shoot down everything.

[close]

I think if it was like that from the start it would've reviewed and sold a lot better. But it would've taken away a ton from the game's progression of starting out on foot with just a backpack and a wobbly corpse and making it up the first mountain was a challenge. DS's progression slope of challenge & abilities is incredible. So I respect that the game is not safe.

I feel like this is gonna be a game that I miss as time goes on because it was so original and refreshing and nothing else like it. Feels like it'll be similar to Shadow of the Colossus where it's a cult classic that people always bring up. Just was an incredibly high budget AAA cult classic which is insane but props to Sony for funding it and letting Kojima do whatever he wanted.

No idea whether Sony will be willing to do that again if DS didn't light up the charts, so who knows what the next Kojima game will look like. But I sure hope they give him a blank check again.


Anyhow, I got back to the game because the gameplay is so damn fun and am 3/4th through building out my ziplines and 5-starring all the eastern map. They 5-star so freaking fast compared to the central map it's a breeze and a lot of fun, plus they're all so close to each other when you're ziplining. I've been unlocking a shitton of post-game interviews, so I gotta sit down and read them all since Kojima loves to pack half the story explanations and character motivations into text logs post-game. I have like 35 unread now since the last chapter of the story haha. Caught up on emails at least. Probably gonna keep playing until I 5-star everyone which isn't gonna take long from where I'm at.

[paprikastaude]

I wish it didn't even have the shooting parts that it did. Should've had more traversal challenge and tools instead of a gazillion weapons that you can't use most of the time.

[chronovore]

I wish it didn't even have the shooting parts that it did. Should've had more traversal challenge and tools instead of a gazillion weapons that you can't use most of the time.

Which is a complaint about Mirror's Edge as well. It's almost as though gamers don't necessarily need to have shooting in every damned game.

[Bebpo]

Mirror's Edge is a really bad comparison to Death Stranding. ME is straight up a platformer with bad combat forced in. Death Stranding is an action adventure with stealth & combat pretty similar to the MGS series. Combat is fun and feels natural in DS. It's not a chore or pain like Mirror's Edge and at least in my experience never made me go "darn, I wish I was just hauling instead of shooting these mules". For BT's you can just go stealth route anyhow. I had a hard time seeing BTs even with BB at max connection. Usually by the time I could see them enough to shoot them they were already grabbing me and I couldn't shoot. But with stealth and cufflinks I got through all the BT stuff no problem.

[Bebpo]

Finally found the stats page 71 hours in 
They really hid your stats well under bridge links.
Pretty impressive stat counting. Was cool seeing all my stuff there and some helpfulness in completing my 5-star and some trophies. Built 98 ziplines!

Also learned about Porter trading from looking through achievements. Neat. I really enjoyed the porters walking around picking up stuff on their own. Added a lot to the world feeling alive.
And learned about hard mode. Was wondering why I had 120+ S ranks but no legend of legends. Playing on hard now.

And I unlocked the I guess best weapon in the game?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The homing rocket launcher that shoots 4 at a time from Evo Devo Scientist at 4 stars
Would've been nice to have this for the 2 sponge BT HP bosses. Guessing instead of 10 mins of shooting at them, they'd go down in a few mins with this.

Used the rocket to murder a mule camp since I never killed anyone the whole game and wanted to see what happens. Lou died from sadness ;____;

[close]

Enjoyed the

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Epilogue interviews for each character after the ending that you unlock doing runs in post-game.

[close]

Pretty ok with the story. Great game!

Would probably get my very first PS4 Platinum trophy but pretty sure one of the hidden trophies is gonna be those memory chips and that's one thing I'm not gonna go collect. Only found like 6/54 during my travels.

[bluemax]

Thinking about going back to this game just makes me tired. Playing it never felt fun, it always felt like work.

[Bebpo]

Man, I just found out Del Toro, Refn and all the preppers are dubbed by professional voice actors and I feel betrayed. I thought they did their voices! Thought Refn was a surprisingly good actor. The prepper's surprise me too. They had time to visual capture Edgar Wright by he can't record 20 lines of dialogue?

[Bebpo]

Thinking about going back to this game just makes me tired. Playing it never felt fun, it always felt like work.

 

I can't relate to this at all. I get some people feel this way hence it being so polarizing, but can't relate. i guess it's like how some genre like rts and battle sims like total war aren't fun at all to me. Everyone enjoys different things.

[Rahxephon91]

gOOD GAME. rENEWED MY FAITH IN kojIMA!@