Death Stranding is a very ambitious triple A title that instantly sets itself apart from the rest of the market but suffers quite heavy from the lack of proper direction in every single front of the game imaginable, mostly in the gameplay department.
Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first
Death Stranding's core gameplay loop sucks, there's no denying that, even if you like the game. It's a walking simulator through and through, walking from point A to point B through various different terrains with tools like ladders and climbing ropes is all there is to the gameplay 80% of the time. But the funny thing is even the tools you're given to cross some of the trickier terrains are rendered completely useless 1/3rd into the game, I literally did not ever need them outside of the first few hours of the game. The vehicles they give you as you make progress have controls so janky that I opted out for walking anyway. Even if the gameplay is complete utter tedium incarnate, there was a lot of ways it could've been improved upon through meaningful upgrades but there was absolutely none in the game.
The combat encounters and the bosses are just boring set pieces where you have to just mindlessly perform one single action repeatedly and the shooter segments feel straight out of an unfinished third person person shooter. I know they were thrown in to spice things up a bit but they're so poorly executed to the point it just makes me want to go back to doing deliveries and walking from point A to point B
Death Stranding actually has a pretty well realized world but the way the worldbuilding is handled in this game really shows the amateurish nature of Kojima when it comes down to writing. You're fed with mumbo jumbo sci-fi info dumps after every single deliveries you make through the no name NPCs you meet basically incentivizing you to not give a shit about anything they're saying. It won't be an exaggeration to call half of the game nothing but pointless exposition dumps. As for the rest of the narrative, it's okay, I was somewhat hooked on the final stretch of the game despite the poor writing. The poor writing mostly stems from cringe-inducing dialogues so jarring that it completely takes you out of the scene but looking at the narrative from a broader perspective, it's just okay, nothing offensively bad.
If there's anything to like about Death Stranding it'd be the atmosphere and the art direction halfway past the game. But, it honestly does nothing for me when the gameplay itself is just a bunch of nothing for the most part
This was a game I couldn't for the love of god sit through more than 2 hours at once without feeling completely burnt out except for the final stretch. Trying to beat the whole thing while resisting the urge to completely drop it was a real struggle haha
Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first
Death Stranding's core gameplay loop sucks, there's no denying that, even if you like the game. It's a walking simulator through and through, walking from point A to point B through various different terrains with tools like ladders and climbing ropes is all there is to the gameplay 80% of the time. But the funny thing is even the tools you're given to cross some of the trickier terrains are rendered completely useless 1/3rd into the game, I literally did not ever need them outside of the first few hours of the game. The vehicles they give you as you make progress have controls so janky that I opted out for walking anyway. Even if the gameplay is complete utter tedium incarnate, there was a lot of ways it could've been improved upon through meaningful upgrades but there was absolutely none in the game.
The combat encounters and the bosses are just boring set pieces where you have to just mindlessly perform one single action repeatedly and the shooter segments feel straight out of an unfinished third person person shooter. I know they were thrown in to spice things up a bit but they're so poorly executed to the point it just makes me want to go back to doing deliveries and walking from point A to point B
Death Stranding actually has a pretty well realized world but the way the worldbuilding is handled in this game really shows the amateurish nature of Kojima when it comes down to writing. You're fed with mumbo jumbo sci-fi info dumps after every single deliveries you make through the no name NPCs you meet basically incentivizing you to not give a shit about anything they're saying. It won't be an exaggeration to call half of the game nothing but pointless exposition dumps. As for the rest of the narrative, it's okay, I was somewhat hooked on the final stretch of the game despite the poor writing. The poor writing mostly stems from cringe-inducing dialogues so jarring that it completely takes you out of the scene but looking at the narrative from a broader perspective, it's just okay, nothing offensively bad.
If there's anything to like about Death Stranding it'd be the atmosphere and the art direction halfway past the game. But, it honestly does nothing for me when the gameplay itself is just a bunch of nothing for the most part
This was a game I couldn't for the love of god sit through more than 2 hours at once without feeling completely burnt out except for the final stretch. Trying to beat the whole thing while resisting the urge to completely drop it was a real struggle haha