Death Stranding

Although this could be a "spoiler" - the reason behind the game being written is well known, the review takes you through the growth as a player you'll go through until you finally "get it", and then the game takes on a quality you wouldn't have expected simply based on the "boring" toil early on.

I liked the summary at the end starting at 07:40:

Death Stranding | Girlfriend Reviews
Girlfriend Reviews
Published on Nov 19, 2019
We played the confusing mailman game AKA Death Stranding and have prepared a very special episode about it to celebrate this channel's one year anniversary. Thank you so much for watching our videos. Without you I would have never grown so much as a gamer. Enjoy. #DeathStranding #HideoKojima

 

Yeah, great review and interesting concept but I would have quit.

 

I'll pass this one.

 

Yeah, feel the same way myself. I like the message, but the suffering level is way too high and overextended again just when you are likely feeling relieved, it's a lot of hours to spend, but I think it's worth it - the message and feeling it gives.

But, given the large headwind at the beginning, I think that some kind of effort should have been made - other than what was included - to spur you on - but then actually that would reduce the impact. Sigh.

 

There is market for heavy exposition campaigns, the only issue I find for death stranding in the general market is it doesnt have that action counter balance. Which is sad because if it did, he would be accused of just making a spiritual successor instead of new IP.

 

It's actually not the exposition or lack of action that would bother me, it's the clunky interface. The stuff they described in that video regarding having to make so many clicks to do something that should be simple is the kind of thing that drives me to rage. On the other hand I can be playing a platformer for a long while dying over and over trying to make a jump that must be nailed with ridiculously high precision and it just gives me a shoulder shrug and I either keep trying or give it a rest but no rage. Maybe it's just me but it's the game that's supposed to be hard, not the interface.

 

Having played through the game and going for the platinum I can tell you there is a lot more to this game than meets the eye, I'll share some of my opinions:

• the action is there for those who want it or you can be stealthy, it's the same as metal gear 5. There are actually many combat options by the end of the game.
  
  
• I don't agree with people that say that this game gets better after chapter 3. Yes a new entire map is opened to the player and all the mechanics come together but there's really alot to understand in this game, and I'm not talking about just the story, but also the way the game works. I've heard some people say that the game gets better after the first 10 hours so I take that it took them 10 hours to complete chapter 3 which was not the case for me (I may have spent 6 hours max to get to that point).
  
  
• Yes going from point A to point B is basically what you do in this game, but it's also what you do in assassin's creed, what makes it good (for both these games) is what you have to do to get there. In death stranding moving across the environment is not just a matter of moving the left stick forward (or pressing W), you have to plan your journey and be always careful how you move and how you use the various tools you are given. I consider traversal in this game part of the action as it requires the player to focus and sometimes even have good reflexes.
  
  
• Regarding the menus, I agree to some extent that they could have been done better, but as I said there are many options given to the player when doing a delivery so all the different menus are kind of required and you get to understand this a little better in the endgame.
  
  
• The online side of the game is not what makes the game good it's just the icing on the cake, and also one of the game's greatest mysteries as it is never clear how it actually works, but it adds somethings special and fits with the theme of the game.
  
  
• The story is great, not perfect but great.

All in all I'll say I wasn't expecting to enjoy this game as much as I did, when I bought it I though that at least I would get a great story (and it delivered on that), but I was actually captured by the world and the new kind of game design, and I think it's something really different from the rest. Should everyone like it? Absolutely not, but I think that in this it is the same as any other game, not everyone likes call of duty, not everyone likes assassin's creed, and just like that not everyone will like death stranding just like any other game nothing special about it, no game is that good that everyone likes it. I may suggest that you try it if you can (maybe at a friend's place).