Full disclosure, I only played the game's main campaign. I didn't purchase any DLC or expansions for this one. (I bought a vanilla copy a long time ago.)
Destiny is a real mixed bag for me. As a fan science fiction and solid shooters, this game feels like it's too scared to show their cards.
In comparison to the Halo trilogy that came from Bungie before this, I think Destiny has a cool idea, yet a bit primitive by today's standards. I almost always play solo, so the idea of an MMO FPS scared me initially. What I found this game to do is execute on a idea well enough for it to feel like a standalone experience with seamless online elements, which adds exciting moments to your main experience.
For instance, doing patrol missions on a planet, you'll often run into a handful of other players doing their thing. Next thing you know, you create a fireteam with them and make friends. This option isn't as intimidating for me as traditional MMOs almost requiring you to make buddies to make significant progress. Hell, you might even run into certain events on the planet that requires any other player there to team up and fight a large enemy. It just works well, alongside Bungie's tight shooting combat. And despite the noticeable imbalance of weapon/armor drops and the like, it still feels incredibly fun to just shoot enemies and ride your sparrow around.
My one major gripe here has to do with story, specifically with the vanilla campaign only. Like I said, this feels like Bungie wrote a really unique sci-fi world but wasn't confident enough with their creation. The element of The Traveler, a planet-sized entity just going around terraforming stuff, or even the Exominds, a species of humanoids with some of the coolest face designs I've seen in the medium, all come together to form a world that I want to learn more about. But that's just it... they barely tell you anything. All I got out of my time was traveling from planet to planet and trying to unlock a portal to fight off some evil beings. I learned more from a simple YouTube recap video than from my entire journey through the campaign.
What's even more frustrating is the emphasis on pushing players to reach into the DLC and expansion content. As it stands, the planet maps will show icons for DLC content very early on, and the main campaign ends incredibly open. Maybe it was me expecting more of a series of stories than fragments of a larger one, but it's a crummy idea when my campaign experience only consisted of 2-3 of the same kinds of enemies and mission objectives. Like, yeah I want more content, but the way it pushes you into feeling that way feels a bit cheesy.
So yeah, I still enjoyed my time with Destiny, but it definitely shows its "live service" design. The sci-fi is cool, the comedic writing (especially with your Ghost companion) is quite funny at times, and the shooting feels great. But hey, not every new IP is a hit on their first attempt, so I shouldn't really be surprised here.
Destiny is a real mixed bag for me. As a fan science fiction and solid shooters, this game feels like it's too scared to show their cards.
In comparison to the Halo trilogy that came from Bungie before this, I think Destiny has a cool idea, yet a bit primitive by today's standards. I almost always play solo, so the idea of an MMO FPS scared me initially. What I found this game to do is execute on a idea well enough for it to feel like a standalone experience with seamless online elements, which adds exciting moments to your main experience.
For instance, doing patrol missions on a planet, you'll often run into a handful of other players doing their thing. Next thing you know, you create a fireteam with them and make friends. This option isn't as intimidating for me as traditional MMOs almost requiring you to make buddies to make significant progress. Hell, you might even run into certain events on the planet that requires any other player there to team up and fight a large enemy. It just works well, alongside Bungie's tight shooting combat. And despite the noticeable imbalance of weapon/armor drops and the like, it still feels incredibly fun to just shoot enemies and ride your sparrow around.
My one major gripe here has to do with story, specifically with the vanilla campaign only. Like I said, this feels like Bungie wrote a really unique sci-fi world but wasn't confident enough with their creation. The element of The Traveler, a planet-sized entity just going around terraforming stuff, or even the Exominds, a species of humanoids with some of the coolest face designs I've seen in the medium, all come together to form a world that I want to learn more about. But that's just it... they barely tell you anything. All I got out of my time was traveling from planet to planet and trying to unlock a portal to fight off some evil beings. I learned more from a simple YouTube recap video than from my entire journey through the campaign.
What's even more frustrating is the emphasis on pushing players to reach into the DLC and expansion content. As it stands, the planet maps will show icons for DLC content very early on, and the main campaign ends incredibly open. Maybe it was me expecting more of a series of stories than fragments of a larger one, but it's a crummy idea when my campaign experience only consisted of 2-3 of the same kinds of enemies and mission objectives. Like, yeah I want more content, but the way it pushes you into feeling that way feels a bit cheesy.
So yeah, I still enjoyed my time with Destiny, but it definitely shows its "live service" design. The sci-fi is cool, the comedic writing (especially with your Ghost companion) is quite funny at times, and the shooting feels great. But hey, not every new IP is a hit on their first attempt, so I shouldn't really be surprised here.