This is a game that somehow makes me absolutely love it but also hate it for good reasons, the story was good but also it was so badly paced that I wanted to just stop playing numerous times. The game improved for me massively a bit into chapter 3 when roads were able to be utilised and ranges of vehicles but I also despise how these vehicles drive when they are on any ground that is even remotely challenging. The ending was great but the ending of chapter 13 was so long-winded that I was basically zoned out most of the time hoping it would end. The games graphics, voice acting and sound design are however perfect and I basically had no problems with these at all. However when you take in the pacing of the story its hard to even remember many of the vast and complicated story points that are presented to you, though partly this seems intentional from Kojima to be able to pull of the many story turns that occur within the last few chapters. The game also did not feel like it was built for combat many times, though while I did play it on hard difficulty the chapter 9 boss fight and the whale fight near the end of the game felt clunky and with the whale fight was extremely frustrating trying to do anything, it did seem that the way the combat was designed to me didn't feel like it could accommodate what should of been very grand boss fights. However the game does give you basically infinite options to complete many things, going to do any order is basically doable on foot and in any vehicle if you try hard enough and look for appropriate routes and made going to places more enjoyable (other than when any vehicle meets its greatest enemy the smallest rock in existence). Many characters paid off in the end but it did definitely feel like there should of been more especially with how many hours you can and will put into the game even when basically doing nothing. It is extremely difficult to actually rate this game just due to the amount of times I'm really enjoying myself and the amount of times I am hating it or just wanting stuff to move forward significantly faster then what they are, the ending of chapter 13 encapsulates the games story telling formula perfectly but to me happens to be one of the most gruelling moments. I found myself enjoying chapter 4, 7 and 11 a lot because they were so short and it was one of the few areas where the combat system seemed to work fine. Chapters 3, 5 and 6 were also relatively good with the gameplay change in 6 making it more challenging as a whole. Driving around these chapters in a truck across roads that myself and other players had built also helped the progression go more smoothly but the whole journey was never this smooth. In retrospect Death Stranding is not similar to any game I have played before and it is definitely an experience your most likely not going to see anywhere else be that experience in times really enjoyable and times really disappointing. I would probably not recommend this game to most people, definitely not to people who are newer to games or especially people beginning in single player story based games, but there is definitely something here that is really good that if can be endured in its less than good moments is definitely an experience I would recommend to people to at least try.