Death Stranding (2019)

God, this game's first two hours must be, at most, 20% gameplay. Incredibly long cutscenes with overlong exposition dumps with redundant information kill any desire to play it. Kojima would never use 1 word if 10 would suffice and probably misread "show, don't tell" as "show and tell and then tell again".

If this wasn't a critically acclaimed game, I would've stopped playing by now.

I can't believe it, this game is actually fucking great?! I expected it to have some artistic/experimental merits, but I thought actually playing it would be a slog. I was sure I won't finish it, but I wanted to see what it was really like. But now, 5 hours in, I'm sitting there completely awestruck and thinking every 10 minutes "Why is this actually so fun?? I don't understand!!".

It's a hiking simulator - I never would have thought that carrying stuff around and trying to keep your balance is a game mechanic that could be so engaging. It's a prime example of how you can make a game this long and set in an open world without any combat (although I think I've gathered there will be some kind of combat later on (EDIT: there totally is combat)). And then there's all this crazy Kojima shit you'll encounter along the way, plus amazing cutscenes. But Jeeesus, this dialogue is pretty embarassing. We need to connect America so we can save to world and stuff lol.

I'm playing on Game Pass right now and I'm thinking about getting the game on Steam, so I can experience the Director's Cut. Is the DC worth it...?

Started studying for the Bar Exam this month and figured this was the perfect time to give Death Stranding a try. So far, that hunch has proven correct. I can see why a "delivery simulator" would underwhelm most gamers picking up a AAA title, but it's exactly the kind of soothing break I need after 8 hours of studying. The juxtaposition of such simplistic gameplay with weighty, lore-heavy cutscenes is also great for my purposes, as it makes my time in the game FEEL like it's working towards something important even while the general gameplay loop is pretty simplistic.

I will say the first few hours of this thing are a big ask for those without patience for Kojima's love of repetitive, long-winded cutscenes. I'm probably 10 hours in and have only "played" the game for about...3 hours tops? Hoping there's better balance in the cinematics-to-gameplay ratio from now on.

For all that this game does right, I still feel like I’d have to force myself to keep playing it, so I’m stopping because I have other stuff to do. It feels so bloated in the writing, the systems, the pacing of gameplay in general... Too much tedium and information overload.

You could take the game’s best elements, like its core game design, its excellent atmosphere, and a few neat story motifs, put them into the framework of a 6-8 hour mid-budget indie game (“walking simulator,” if you must), and you’d probably get something I personally would like way more. It feels “overproduced”, and I think the blank check approach to making a huge, marketable AAA product was not the best direction for this game’s idea.

I do love some things about it, so it’s a bummer that in practice I’m just a bit bored by how it’s playing out. That’s what I expected when the game first came out, hence why I’m only playing 2.5 years later, and unfortunately the expectations came true. I’m sure it gets better, but I don’t want to sit through any more for occasional moments of greatness.

Played the first 2 or 3 hours on PS5. More accurately I guess I played for about half an hour and watched a movie.

The overall atmosphere, the look, the vibe, that is all outstanding. There's a back and forth between a sort of calm moodiness, and a dark tension that is pretty captivating. Love the direction of some of the cutscenes. There is definitely a ton of time spent in cutscenes and conversation, some of which definitely feels superfluous, but I'm just rolling with it so far.

Gameplay-wise I think it made a poor initial impression before quickly becoming much better once it opened up a bit and gave me cargo not requiring constant babysitting of my balance with L2 and R2. People who love Elden Ring's open-world traversal would probably also like that here, with all the unevenness and verticality, the need to strategically plan out how to reach somewhere on the map, and little messages and asynchronous help from other players.

I can take a bit of the annoying stuff, but I just hope that it doesn't cross back into that territory too often. In general I am liking my experience so far.