I powered through a starting session of this last night, almost caught up to where we got the collective Branson playthrough (start of Ep. 3)
Kinda missed when/how to build generators during that, so having the bike at my disposal now has been huge, also luckily didnāt have any BT appearance areas trigger for quite a while after
Built a couple bridges and finished a ton of side drop offs, Portbound
i havenāt been playing much cause i kept losing connection to the servers when online, i think the patch today cleared that up
in early? chapter 3. i went though an hour or two of just getting owned by mules and BTs in a creepy abandoned mall (i wish there were more ruins like this)
but then this dude just gave me a GUN and I walk out and thereās suddenly roads being constructed everywhere and iām kinda ready to fuck some delivery freaks up
I essentially agree with your post but I do think that cultivating idiosyncracy is a worthy artistic goal in itself and that Kojimaās ability to do so is an achievement.
Being a large part of any Kojima game seems like it would be amazingly humiliating.
Parts of this story sure do get really fucking goofy huh?
yeah I ah
I guess itās too much to hope that they wouldāve been able to re recruit fukushima after leaving Konami but the scripts of kojima games have stood out as weak ever since he started figuring out what he wanted to do thematically and mechanically again
The writing in this is frequently protracted garbage, moreso than MGSV, which is too darn bad because the effect created by the rest of it is pretty neat
Iām in episode 4 now just chilling and looking for other preppers.
The story is kind ofā¦ I just donāt know. I want to see more but every time I see more Iām like yep so thatās what thatās all about then okay onto the next scene. Like three+ years of mystery and stuff from the trailers and within the first five hours the game is just like so hereās what all that means enjoy your journey and off you go and fifteen hours later itās just reiterating on all the stuff they explained to you up front at the beginning.
For example WWI battlefield is just Madsā beach (which is like your own personal afterlife), yeah? And the fucked up babydoll is just his desire to reunite with his BB? And all of this is basically Egyptian conceptions of the afterlife literally transposed into videogame mechanics? Okay cool onto the next thing then.
Iām wondering when the twists and turns start appearing or if they ever will. Are there any surprises or is it just going to be a 90 hour trek with 9 hours of cutscenes that just excruciatingly explains every last random detail you saw in the last three years worth of trailers? Is there anything being said here subtextually with any of this stuff or is everything just presented straight-faced the entire way through?
I rushed through pretty hard to get to the end for fear of spoilers and hoping for some huge reveal and everything coming together, and while I wonāt say I was disappointed with the outcome I will say I wish I had taken my time and not worried about it.
like I donāt even think he needs an editor or someone to say no to him or less credit for his cultivated idiosyncracy as much as an actual writing staff that can produce comparable flourish to a good indie game
the dialogue is agonizing compared to any throwaway MGS1 codec conversation and he shouldnāt really have been able to throw away one of his strengths like that, I think some of the frustration is with whatās left still being worthwhile, butā¦
every meaningful moment between two characters lingers way too long like it was staged by a blisteringly drunk terence malick
I donāt know if the writingās so regularly painful (like holding it in while carrying something heavy), I believe itās more the abundance of free reign cinematics with top notch visuals, leaving the so-so exchanges and hit you over the head keywords/names/titles, to jut out like a rock from the soupy sea ofā¦well everything else.
Every once in a while thereās a casual exchange, or infodump that sounds justified, both natural.
Agreed that itās overpoweringly stiff in narrative stretches, Koj could definitely benefit from a a smoother writing assist (Fukushimaās imprint remains traceable but vaguely defined). Like other auteur or media voices he ingests and echoes, those of his characters often feel in service or submissive to the world theyāre in, adjacently Refnās characters/voices, pretty extra/alien as well.
I definitely agree that Kojimaās ideas are a lot of fun while a lot of the actual writing is a hot mess and could use some real treatment work by a professional. That being said I imagine Kojima prefers and probably overvalues the surreality of his dialogue. Without it it wouldnāt feel as much like his, for better or worse.
death strandingās flaws as a piece of theatre make me wonder what it would be like if the actors were allowed to write their own linesā¦ will there be any room for improv in the 3d scanned motion capture revolution
āFuck, this bike is like something from Ride With Norman Reedus!ā
I got high on likes after building the first highway out of the base in chapter 3. My player link stat went way up, and my āsync levelā increased by 20%. Does anyone know what this actually means? I couldnāt find an answer online.
I think it increases a few things, like the number of connections you can have to other players and their stuff in your game (these links are called strands), so your world will get more populated over time with other players.
Thereās also a menu item you can find that tells you all the players youāve linked with and you can go and select specific players to see more of their stuff.
INTENSELY on-brand
Thereās only one jelly baby for Cuba, and itāsā¦
Christ, itās been three years since this? I thought it was, like, this past spring. Or last fall or something.
