NOTE:
In this review, I’ll only be talking about Destiny’s Vanilla Campaign and Multiplayer as it currently operates following the massive overhauls the game received post-launch. I’ll release an additional review with my final thoughts on the game later this year once I have completed all of the DLCs.
____________________________________________________________
Back in April, I picked up a used PS4 copy of Destiny and decided to do a casual replay of this game that I spent so much time on between 2015 and 2017… To say replaying the game was an odd experience is a tad bit of an understatement.
I’m a college student now. Heck, I’m an English major and I’m fully intent on teaching a high school English class someday. My whole thing is analyzing stories, writing, and themes, and yet I couldn’t help but fall in love with this game all over again.
Calling this game underwritten is putting it kindly. Most of the characters, including the player, are given next to nothing to characterize them. The Guardian is brave, Ghost is a quirky exposition robot, and The Stranger is vague. It’s actually almost tragic how little I can tell you about the beings that occupy this world.
And it isn’t like the actual campaign is groundbreaking either. The main plot hinges on healing The Traveler, an entity in the sky that our character knows hardly anything about. The bulk of what the player learns regarding the nature of the Traveler comes from a cutscene fairly early on wherein The Speaker tells us that it created the Ghosts during the final days of the Collapse.
All of this is to say that Vanilla Destiny is lacking just about all the fundamentals behind getting a new player involved in the story and yet I can’t ever find myself being disinterested in it.
In my head, this comes down to three things.
1. The gameplay loop
2. The world
3. The music
Destiny’s gameplay is some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a shooter and that’s because it has what is quite possibly one of my favorite combat systems ever.
The gunplay is smooth and each class of weapon has very clearly defined advantages and disadvantages to using them. I’ve also found that because of this, I can’t just run off into a combat encounter without considering what I’ll be fighting off using the weapons in my arsenal. Fighting the Cabal the same way I’d fight a Bladedancer in the Crucible would be asinine and so the game encourages you to think around that.
Likewise, the subclasses in the base game make a massive difference in combat. Destiny’s variety of enemies and locations ensure that even if you have a general strategy of what to do, you’re rarely ever going to get the same experience twice.
This is compounded by a progression system that actually allows you to feel a tangible difference in-game as you become more powerful. Rarer and stronger weapons enter the loot pool as you continue to level up and you can feel it. Your damage output and the amount of damage you can take significantly changes depending on what weapons and gear you have. It’s not just that you’re in for a hard fight if you’re under level. Sometimes enemies can be so far beyond you that they’re just unkillable. But they won’t always be and that’s why the Destiny grind works for me.
What’s impossible to beat one day might be cannon fodder another and that fills me with such elation. It’s stuff like that that reminds me of why I play video games in the first place. It’s fun. Just good, old-fashioned fun.
Moving on to Destiny’s world, I think the best way to describe it is “lived in.” Even if the player doesn’t learn as much as they’d like to about something like the Traveler or the Vanguard, all of those things are very much in the game and they’re given their due reverence. So much is hinted at or spoken of in passing. The Tower is full of different factions like Dead Orbit or Crota’s Bane. The player is given a choice between three different races for their Guardian, one of which is a species of sentient living machines, capable of compassion and that can wield the Light. Even without being told about The Last City’s inner workings, I know there’s something there and that fills me with a sense of pure wonder.
This wonder can also be found in the exceptional music that was created for the game. With Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, and Paul McCartney at the helm, it’s hard to go wrong and Destiny’s soundtrack proves that. The music covers moments big and small throughout the game, delivering heroic anthems and setting the mood for somber moments of longing for what humanity has lost. Destiny would not be Destiny without this music and every day I’m grateful that these songs saw the light of day despite the fallout between Bungie and O’Donnell.
To wrap this up as it is getting rather wordy, Destiny is a game I love and I loathe and I’m so glad I decided to replay it this year.
In this review, I’ll only be talking about Destiny’s Vanilla Campaign and Multiplayer as it currently operates following the massive overhauls the game received post-launch. I’ll release an additional review with my final thoughts on the game later this year once I have completed all of the DLCs.
____________________________________________________________
Back in April, I picked up a used PS4 copy of Destiny and decided to do a casual replay of this game that I spent so much time on between 2015 and 2017… To say replaying the game was an odd experience is a tad bit of an understatement.
I’m a college student now. Heck, I’m an English major and I’m fully intent on teaching a high school English class someday. My whole thing is analyzing stories, writing, and themes, and yet I couldn’t help but fall in love with this game all over again.
Calling this game underwritten is putting it kindly. Most of the characters, including the player, are given next to nothing to characterize them. The Guardian is brave, Ghost is a quirky exposition robot, and The Stranger is vague. It’s actually almost tragic how little I can tell you about the beings that occupy this world.
And it isn’t like the actual campaign is groundbreaking either. The main plot hinges on healing The Traveler, an entity in the sky that our character knows hardly anything about. The bulk of what the player learns regarding the nature of the Traveler comes from a cutscene fairly early on wherein The Speaker tells us that it created the Ghosts during the final days of the Collapse.
All of this is to say that Vanilla Destiny is lacking just about all the fundamentals behind getting a new player involved in the story and yet I can’t ever find myself being disinterested in it.
In my head, this comes down to three things.
1. The gameplay loop
2. The world
3. The music
Destiny’s gameplay is some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a shooter and that’s because it has what is quite possibly one of my favorite combat systems ever.
The gunplay is smooth and each class of weapon has very clearly defined advantages and disadvantages to using them. I’ve also found that because of this, I can’t just run off into a combat encounter without considering what I’ll be fighting off using the weapons in my arsenal. Fighting the Cabal the same way I’d fight a Bladedancer in the Crucible would be asinine and so the game encourages you to think around that.
Likewise, the subclasses in the base game make a massive difference in combat. Destiny’s variety of enemies and locations ensure that even if you have a general strategy of what to do, you’re rarely ever going to get the same experience twice.
This is compounded by a progression system that actually allows you to feel a tangible difference in-game as you become more powerful. Rarer and stronger weapons enter the loot pool as you continue to level up and you can feel it. Your damage output and the amount of damage you can take significantly changes depending on what weapons and gear you have. It’s not just that you’re in for a hard fight if you’re under level. Sometimes enemies can be so far beyond you that they’re just unkillable. But they won’t always be and that’s why the Destiny grind works for me.
What’s impossible to beat one day might be cannon fodder another and that fills me with such elation. It’s stuff like that that reminds me of why I play video games in the first place. It’s fun. Just good, old-fashioned fun.
Moving on to Destiny’s world, I think the best way to describe it is “lived in.” Even if the player doesn’t learn as much as they’d like to about something like the Traveler or the Vanguard, all of those things are very much in the game and they’re given their due reverence. So much is hinted at or spoken of in passing. The Tower is full of different factions like Dead Orbit or Crota’s Bane. The player is given a choice between three different races for their Guardian, one of which is a species of sentient living machines, capable of compassion and that can wield the Light. Even without being told about The Last City’s inner workings, I know there’s something there and that fills me with a sense of pure wonder.
This wonder can also be found in the exceptional music that was created for the game. With Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, and Paul McCartney at the helm, it’s hard to go wrong and Destiny’s soundtrack proves that. The music covers moments big and small throughout the game, delivering heroic anthems and setting the mood for somber moments of longing for what humanity has lost. Destiny would not be Destiny without this music and every day I’m grateful that these songs saw the light of day despite the fallout between Bungie and O’Donnell.
To wrap this up as it is getting rather wordy, Destiny is a game I love and I loathe and I’m so glad I decided to replay it this year.