I'm a fair reviewer. Honesty is not the same of severity. Maybe my previous impressions could be misunderstood. I want one thing to be clear.I'm enjoying Death Stranding, e.g. more than Red Dead Redemption 2. I'm used to focus on interactive narration and art more than mechanics and challenges. If you are interested in the ludic features, I can say that DS comes with good original challenges and mechanics.
Kojima is well reknown for stealth games as MGS series; he didn't invent stealth mechanics, nevertheless he gave stealth mechanics the modern form we are used to. He created an innovative alchemy of mechanics and game design that were already existing. Well, he made it again with DS. He doesn't invent delivery mechanics, there are a lot of games of this kind. Nevertheless he makes an original and innovative use of such mechanics, so that maybe we should use another term, e.g. stranding mechanics!! But DS is not just delivery, it's a compelling mix of delivery, stealth, fight, shooting, escaping, rpg, crafting, driving, etc. etc. Yes, you can build roads and drive motorcycle and other vehicles. You can load packages on smal floating hovercraft. You can build shelters, consult weather forecasts and plan strategies. I like stealth and fight sessions with CA, very visionary. One thing impressed me so much: chrono-rain. It's very meaningful observe ground vegetation to grow and die so quickly, A lot of graphic resources are spent for such an effect! I can see a strong visual metaphor for life here. Old good Hideo and his creative visions!I'm experiencing long game sessions of 2-3 hours each night, and I feel that I'm spending well my free time. I'm curious to discover how DS evolves and ends. DS makes you think about interesting social, economic, political, existential topics. That's very good!
The fact is that the first 2-3 hours were powerful, full of drama and pathos, making you say: WOW, great mix of gameplay (challenges) and narration (cut scenes); now the narrative side is completely put away: that's the reason why I'm a bit disappointed. At first you're excited by story, characters, visions, emotions, contents etc. etc. Now just challenges; so much that I almost forgot story! Without the narrative stimulus, challenges are just challenges! They are good challenges, better than usual challenges in mainstream games. E.g. I cannot play FPS games more than half an hour, I find shoot and fight mechanics so repetitive and boring, just good for stimulating testosterone and low instincts! On the contrary, I'm enjoying DS, e.g. more than MGS V. At the same time I have to underline some technical limits of enemies AI; probably AI level is low for the gameplay to be easy, suitable for a wide range of players. There is another fact I cannot stand, sorry: everytime I deliver packages, I receive "likes", score, bonus, and people are always saying that I'm the best carrier ever, I'm wonderful, an hero, no one is like me, etc. etc. etc. Please, Kojima, please, I'm a kid no more. You have to write games even for mature and smart people, please! :-) Another defect: you have to read too many documents for better understanding story and narrative context, an old disused trick of game design; I repeat myself: Kojima is not a prophet of interactive narration.
The weirdest feature in DS: bombs are built with Sam's body fluids, even his blood and pee! So disgusting and stupid! If you are a long time gamer, you remember for sure other stupid Kojima's obsessions, e.g. hiding Snake in cardboard box! You can even pee in outdoors spots and mushrooms grow in such spots. So silly!I'm not so intrigued by collaborative on line features. Oh yes, it's funny and nice, has something of educational, an exercise in collaboration for building a positive community. Yes, but it's just a virtual community, you cannot really interact with other people, just with their manufacts; you can gain profit by their generous actions, but they are obliged to do generous actions, no way to have bad behaviors! Well, you find a lot of pee-mushrooms on the roads, it's clear that someone is not collaborative and doesn't want to respect other people, but he cannot do anything bad than growing pee-mushrooms! Real relationships are not so easy... Nevertheless it invites and forces you to be generous. That's good after so many violent cooperative FPS on the market! However, my best experience in collaborative games was Journey by ThatGameCompany; it was beautiful to meet other avatars like you in the desert and make the long journey together comunicating just through sounds and not words! Beautiful metaphor!
It's too early to express definitive judgement; the following are just speculations. It seems that DS has to be 50 hours long for marketing reasons, but the narrative core is not proportionate; probably because of limited budget. I can imagine that the narrative core will come back in the middle and probably in the end of the game. Breaks between narrative blocks are fulfilled with long gameplay sessions exclusively centered on challenges. Even MGS V has similar structure. I'm just speculating, take it easy, ok?
I have some clues strenghtening my hypotesis. I'm in the middle of a very long sessions of challenges, so much that I forgot story. Cut scenes are very short, they show just a few interactions with people you deliver packages to. Well, in such scenes Sam (Norman Reedus) never speaks!! Short budget not enough to pay actors? I think so... Second clue: I think Kojima was aware that long gameplay sessions with no narrative support could be boring for someone. Probably budget was not enough to cover the whole 50 hours with the main starring actors. As consequence, Kojima tried to support challenges with few secondary events and more cheap actors. I have just completed a poor short ridiculous love story that was good just for telenovelas! Sorry Kojima, but I have to be honest!
Well I can see why DS is so divisive, there are up and down, pros and cons; well, for now the overall balance is positive in my opinion. DS is not the usual mainstream game, nor the usual indie game, is something different, original; it intrigues me, but it remains a mistery still now. Kojima's creative vision is weird and deep and charming at the same time! That's the reason I'm writing this sort of diary of play. I have doubts and questions more than certainties and answers! I'll understand and review such virtual experience only in the end! In the meanwhile I could change my mind! Stay tuned.
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