Death Stranding is pretty awful

Picked it up today, because I said i'd give it at least a fair shake. Won't be starting it until tomorrow.

I'm not telling you anything other than how your post comes across, which to ME is like you're trying to convince yourself as well as everyone else. Maybe don't try so hard next time :)

I'm in 80h and just on chapter 6... For the last 20h or so the game stopped feeling like a roller coaster. The highs don't feel so high, but the bads don't feel so bad neither. Just feels like something I can play forever as a time sinker.

The game is actually pretty deep mechanically, and supports a wide variety of approaches. I can't really get bored because every time I change my play the game has answers. But it clearly has some problems, like boss fights being slow and way too easy, attacking mULE camps is also too easy, same with BTs. Plus the bad writing. There's definitely a lot of editing and balancing lacking here. But I believe this game will be a cult classic.

This might be my goty. Game is seriously addicting.

@uitravioience: Im about 18 hours into it and on episode 3. Not sure if that's far or not, but I'm always doing standard deliveries... just one more!

People.helping build roads.helps soooo much.

Mules are annoying though

@i_p_daily: Sounds like thats your problem not mine.

@Chutebox: Wait until you unlock premium orders, getting double SS rank on every mission is addictive. I'm doing a platinum playthrough with currently 60% completion.

I'm actually really enjoying this game and believe the majority of negative meta critic user reviews are by people who have not even played the game.

Literally just unlocked this when I stopped playing last night.

@robbie23: Premium orders? Wwhhaaa!!!

There’s so much game here.

Beat it today,45 hours, only finished main quest deliveries.

@Bread_or_Decide: dude episode 3 and I got premium haha.

You didn't through the whole game?

@Chutebox: I don’t think I did.

It's because his games, while very technically proficient and for the most part extremely competently designed (at least going by the MGS series as I've not played Stranding yet) are otherwise teenage fantasy, preachy, pretentious, infantile jr. college tryhard shit. The guy can design a game far and above others, but he is an incompetent story teller. He'd best stay far away from cinema because it's only the defining characteristic of gaming's medium he grasps so well that is his saving grace from being a complete laughing stock if it were absent. Yet people are practically cultish akin to Trumpism in their adoration and devotion to him, proclaiming that anyone that can't understand his convoluted, pseudo-intellectual prepubescent trash just aren't intellectually enlightened enough themselves, that the medium hasn't caught up with his genius, or some other excuse that attempts to lay the blame everywhere else other than it should be.

Which makes me curious: does Stranding even have a coherent story? Does it make any sense whatsoever? Or does Kojima pull every possible idea from the ether as usual to throw into a pot, mix it with a splash of virgin fantasy, juvenile scat humor, add a dash of salt, and then have his sycophants try desperately to serve and pass it off as the next profound breakthrough in philosophical thought? If so, I could use a good laugh.

Sorry for the rant yas, but I can't stand the accolades Kojima gets for his narratives. They are nothing but grade school tier garbage. He deserves praise for his game design (again, speaking only about MGS), but for everything else he deserves to be mercilessly mocked and laughed at.

This game is hot garbage.

That's what I was hearing before it came out. Thanks for confirming.

Just up to Chapter 3, so not really too far. As usual, the story is completely out-to-lunch, but i've actually had a bit of fun in the short spurts i've played. It's definitely not MGS1/3-tier, but it's okay.

Chapter 3 is basically the start of the game. Chapters 1 and 2 are like the tutorial map.

I'm about 60h in, and just near the end of the game now. It's actually been pretty fun. When you leave a distro center and it says "have a safe journey" it very often does feel like a journey. Since the game does have stats (not sure if you can view them or not) you do get upgrades to things like stamina and balance, so traversing the land becomes a lot easier as you progress through the game. Guns are definitely not the main focus here and I believe you get negatively impacted for using lethal force.

I'd say it's a good 8/10 but the flaws prevent me from giving it anything higher than that. If you come into the game expecting to just run from point to point, you're likely going to have a bad time. The game is 50% preparation, and 50% the journey.

@Phazevariance: You do increase stats based upon your level of each thing on the pentagram. Sorry, still new to the game... Apparently different levels affect different things like stamina/weight capacity.

Also get things that make carrying easier (exo).

47 hours into this game and still on Episode 3. Are the other episodes as big??? Enjoying the hell out of this game even though it's the worst Kojima game I've played, it doesn't say much considering he has made at least two 10/10 games:p

Metacritic just deleted thousands of negative reviews to increase the score before the Kojima Awards.

:P

As they should. They did the same for Astral Chain. They'll probably do the same for Pokemon Sword & Shield next. That's what they should do for all review-bombs from now on. That should send a clear message to review-bombers that their dirty tactics will be rejected. Rotten Tomatoes went a step further, and now only show verified user ratings for new movies.

LOL Pure bias. They haven't removed any for Forza 7.

Finally beat the game. 112h, level 323.

Overall I enjoyed it. Core game is good and it creates great moments of emergent gameplay that never get old all the way through. Never got bored to be honest, built all the roads, made an impressive zip line, attacked camps, and so on. There's enough variety to the way one choses to play.

The online component works well enough, but it's not what I'd call a golden moment in gaming as Journey was.But it does feel great occasionally. Combat situations are perhaps the weakest component of the game, boss fights are particularly mediocre.

The writing it's just too awful. Like, the story is dumb but OK yet the narrative is just so bad, it takes overexposition to a level I've never seen before and most of the time for stuff not that good or worth the time. The characters within the narrative are fine, but the construction of their narrative arch is pretty terrible. I think the biggest challenge in gaming is how to intertwine narrative into gameplay and DS is pretty terrible at that. Kojima goes so far with his attempts of emotional exploitation that just made me numb and indifferent. Even BB, didn't connect emotionally at all with. Fragile was my favourite character, great voice acting and facial animations.

But on the other hand it shines in connecting the player to the world. Here Kojima absolutely nails it. Gives vibes of Inarritu's The Revenant for its man Vs nature theme. And there's plenty of movie influences going on here. The beach takes me to the 7th Seal, BTs remind me of Kairo. The Road and even Mad Max are obvious inspirations too. And that all would be great if Kojima was good at writing. Death Stranding shows Kojima is a brilliant game designer and a mediocre writer. And sadly the mediocre writing trickles down to gameplay it self.

A good game with severe issues. I'll give it a 7.5 but believe it's a game that won't be forgotten as quickly as some higher rated games will. Mostly because although there's a lot of bad here there's also enough moments where its emergent gameplay is an absolute triumph. Not exaggerating really, there was plenty of times when after a situation was over I just took a break to think about the complexity of all that went down and how satisfying that was.

Technically is great. Graphics good, sound design great. Music ok but it's a matter of taste, to me it felt derivative but still enjoyable. Level design/morphology are great too, but the world lacks the surprises and variety of something like a BotW.

tldr:

7.5, still I'll recommend anyone to try it.

@phbz: Best review of DS I've ever read. 👍

@Litchie: Thanks. Just noticed a lot of typos!

It's certainly a provocative game that invites debate, not always for the best reasons.

Metacritic HaH

A shit game is a shit game if you think it’s a shit game

“A special kinda stupid” or people who judge a game by other people’s opinions as they are also known

HAH

@uninspiredcup said:

LMAO!

@bluestars: I agree. But that never flew here with Xbox games. That’s SW for ya

@cainetao11: that’s because A majority of Xbox games have universally been regarded as shit.

@pdogg93: but so have most of your posts

Clearly some people are incapable of NOT NEEDING the approval of strangers. I say if crackdown/DS makes ya happy good on ya.

On my 2nd playthrough and currently have 180 hours into this game. Based on gameplay alone, it's my GOTY. The open world isn't quite as enthralling as BOTW's was, but it comes pretty darn close, with a traversal system that is setting new standards.

I have to agree that narratively, the game fails in many ways, and Mads Mikkelsen was definitely underused. It felt more like Kojima regurgitating everything he's researched on the multiverse and extinction events than something that comes together cohesively as an interesting story. Mama was the only character I felt an emotion connection to (not so much her sister) but she doesn't get much screen time in this game.

Still, I'm rating this higher than BOTW simply because I haven't been this addicted to a video game in years. It gets a 8.5/10 from me and I strongly recommend a 2nd playthrough for anyone that hasn't done so. Playing the game again with all your accumulated knowledge so far is great fun.

I've heard this from a few people and that really repels me from even making an attempt at logging hours into it. I just know Kojima's going to hit me with a ton of bad cutscenes that I'm going to roll my eyes at and try to skip so why even go through it to get to them? It's a shame too because the game looks cool, he just needs to hire some better writers

Opinion not a fact.