One of the quirks I like is that you have to manually load every bullet you acquire into your gun. Seems like busy work in most games, but the low ammo count, and the fact that you're installing along with expelling each bullet has me keenly aware of my munitions at all times.
Playing on Hard and the fact that the game is way more hesitant in handing out ammo from dead enemies compared to the last game is nice.
I'm also playing on hard.
This game needs to be played on hard if not survivor, for sure.
I just finished
Seattle Day 1:
Graphics continue to be incredible, the whole Seattle area especially, is really massive not only in explorable area, but visually, and filled up with details (i can see how they crunched, when you have to create 70000 different rooms all filled with details
)
I'll say if you hated exploring empty rooms checking cupboards in RDR2, this'll game will also drive you crazy, i think you can B-line for the next storybeat, more or less, but exploring extra rooms got me a shotgun and an extra holster for rifles (to equip two rifles at once), so not exactly pointless shit.
I think it's the problem LoU1 suffered from, the first chapter (Summer?) in Boston and then Bill's town, just went on forever, room after room, but here, with more open areas and even less enemy encounters, it feels even more stretched out.
Again, if you're someone impatient it'll drive you nuts.
Encounters with Clickers are pretty much the same (which is to say, not very interesting) you have a dodge and infinite "shivs" but they also seem more aware now... i guess it balances out? I dunno i died here more times than in LoU1 though.
Encounters with humans instead are very fun (at least on higher difficulties) they react very naturally, scream names of dead comrades when you kill them, constantly flank you and check every nook and cranny when searching for you, it's very fun, when you're fighting large groups, and the areas are usually very large and varied.
You have the occasional "i'm right next to them and he doesn't see me" moments, especially in grass, but that is expected from any stealth game and tbh, it's more of a design concession than an AI one (otherwise the game would be impossible).
It still has the problem of your companion sneaking around with invisibility on, looks just as stupid as it did in the first game, but at least they're more efficient in combat (if you played Lost Legacy, it gives you a good idea).
Storywise nothing particularly interesting happened yet, Dina and Ellie are sort of bland so far, but i didn't see much of the cringeworthy stuff i was expecting: "
Bigot Sandwich" was the most cringy line i've seen so far, so nothing too horrible, but as i said, the constant banter does get old after a bit.
I'll close with a positive, saying the Wyoming Museum sequence was really cute and well done, and i liked it a lot, so i have faith for the rest of the game, in terms of storytelling.
Let's hope the pace speeds up a bit though, exploration is fine and all, but getting ping ponged from one macguffin to the next, isn't all that brilliant of a way to increase your game length.
