I really-really love this game, even if I feel I can't rate it that highly. That's mainly because while the game touches on some emotionally affecting things, and has even a storyline of dealing with a depressed friend, it ultimately is afraid to really go for it and ends up hitting the lowest hanging clichés.
For one (and this paragraph is going to be spoilery), the wife should have stayed dead. Not that I didn't like her, on the contrary - I thought the characters they built in the flashbacks and their relationship were really sweet, but it was exactly because of that, and how it felt important that by what felt like the end of this storyline Deacon had come to an acceptance of her death. It felt like a true story of grief and moving on. And then she returns, and in an unbelievably important role as well, emphasising the clichéd nature of the story where everybody that matters to the protagonist matters to the world. Oh, and if you’re going to have a character sacrifice themself in the end, how about respecting that? Even if that sacrifice made absolutely no sense at all.
And yet I really enjoyed traveling this world on a bike and dealing with its post-apocalyptic dangers while getting to know Deacon and the other characters. It can get repetitive, but I didn’t mind much, only when the game continued after it should have already ended. But it’s the feeling of the world that mattered to me the most. I think it was aided by the fact I played the game on a higher difficulty that removed some UI stuff and made it more “survivalist” or whatever. Meaning the action also didn’t feel button smashy or easy and you had to actually be careful in order to not die (including sometimes running the hell away).
I wish the story had the guts to honour the seriousness with which it took itself, and the game should have been shorter, but I value the time I spent with it very highly, both messing about in the world and many of the story beats (the acceptance of grief really touched me, before the game lost its guts). An imperfect gem is still a gem.
For one (and this paragraph is going to be spoilery), the wife should have stayed dead. Not that I didn't like her, on the contrary - I thought the characters they built in the flashbacks and their relationship were really sweet, but it was exactly because of that, and how it felt important that by what felt like the end of this storyline Deacon had come to an acceptance of her death. It felt like a true story of grief and moving on. And then she returns, and in an unbelievably important role as well, emphasising the clichéd nature of the story where everybody that matters to the protagonist matters to the world. Oh, and if you’re going to have a character sacrifice themself in the end, how about respecting that? Even if that sacrifice made absolutely no sense at all.
And yet I really enjoyed traveling this world on a bike and dealing with its post-apocalyptic dangers while getting to know Deacon and the other characters. It can get repetitive, but I didn’t mind much, only when the game continued after it should have already ended. But it’s the feeling of the world that mattered to me the most. I think it was aided by the fact I played the game on a higher difficulty that removed some UI stuff and made it more “survivalist” or whatever. Meaning the action also didn’t feel button smashy or easy and you had to actually be careful in order to not die (including sometimes running the hell away).
I wish the story had the guts to honour the seriousness with which it took itself, and the game should have been shorter, but I value the time I spent with it very highly, both messing about in the world and many of the story beats (the acceptance of grief really touched me, before the game lost its guts). An imperfect gem is still a gem.