Death Stranding -A Hideo Kojima Game-

looneymoon

looneymoon

they/them
AKA
Rishi
so I've very nearly 100%ed this game and I don't know........ why

The gameplay loop is pretty repetitive and filled with a lot of busywork, the writing is pretentious and full of painful exposition dumps that ruin the intrigue, and I find hyper-realistic landscapes very boring, esp as graphical fidelity to realism becomes increasingly seemless.

That being said, I think Sam's arc is executed quite beautifully, and it scratches a certain itch with the simple fetch quest grind.

Interesting lil game. I enjoyed it, though it's defs not for everyone.
 
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Dee

Dee

sweet dee
AKA
Bun, Academic
looneymoon said:
so I've very nearly 100%ed this game and I don't know........ why

The gameplay loop is pretty repetitive and filled with a lot of busywork, the writing is pretentious and full of painful exposition dumps that ruin the intrigue, and I find hyper-realistic landscapes very boring, esp as graphical fidelity to realism becomes increasingly seemless.

That being said, I think Sam's arc is executed quite beautifully, and it scratches a certain itch with the simple fetch quest grind.

Interesting lil game. I enjoyed it, though it's defs not for everyone.
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I watched TheRadBrad play through it and that was enough for me. It seemed incredibly repetitive, more so than some other titles, but some of it looked interesting, too. It just wasn't the game that caught my attention this year. Still fun to watch.
 
Lulcielid

Lulcielid

Eyes of the Lord
AKA
Lulcy
PC Requierements

EaPZ9YfXgAAU1b4
 
Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
would it be too nerdy to buy a higgs half-face mask to wear over cloth face masks

i've just got to the start of chapter 9, even though i have clocked in over 100 hours which seems too much. but for some reason i find the delivery gameplay loop relaxing, just walking somewhere or riding a bike. maybe because i have hardly been outside in months, it's just nice to see some countryside

there's the obvious politics, and prophetic aspect of everyone being trapped in their homes and couriers being a vital part of life. but it's the little things that strike me more.

everyone's got allergies, they're always crying, it rains a bunch, and the biggest challenge is walking without falling on your face. i don't know if i've ever related more to a game in my life

i'm playing it in japanese first because i have more of an attachment to kenjirou tsuda than i do norman reedus (sorry norman), and in some of the mails you get they write 誰か with the transliteration of the english 'someone' above it (サムワン). which made me think, wait a second. サム, sam. so is sam's name, sam "porter" bridges, meant to be read as a sentence. サム・ポーター・ブリッジズ, 'some porter bridges' as in a porter connects people together. i figured that was the meaning behind 'bridges' anyway, but is the whole name meant to be a statement about the theme of the game. kojima, you devil.
 
Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
could i buy a model of a lower jaw bone (not the whole half face, that's just be ridiculous thinking on it) that's large enough to fit around my face, which i could spray paint gold and attach to face mask. would velcro work to attach the jaw to the fabric so it can still be washed. i was curious if having a solid frame at the jaw would help stop the mask from riding up because the ones i've tried had constantly ended up moving up my face and hitting me in the eyes. should i look into getting a 3d printing and printing a mandible myself.

and most importantly, am i a bad enough dork to wear it outside the house.

i finished chapter 9 and gameplay-wise, that was a banger. good stuff.

also i like that all the weird stuff from the earlier trailers is in the actual game after some of the later ones made it look a bit more grounded, but also despite those bits the story itself has been relatively conventional and not as surreal as out of context clips in trailers can make it seem. (edit; i don't mean this as in i'm glad it's more grounded or conventional, i was actually curious to see how weird it would go after those early trailers. i would be interested in seeing a surreal game and how to make that work in the limitations of making it an engaging experience to actually play.)

also how much of this game is for kojima to simp over norman reedus.
 
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Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
i forgot to post about my post completion thoughts, after spending a while trying to unlock every document after the ending. for a lot of the game i thought it was a conventional story with some surreal aesthetics, but as i got further in i was like 'okay now i don't know what's going on.'

i did tear up a bit on the last chapter though

but maybe that's

because

pawing at a dead baby is some easy manipulation. but it worked, i gasped and went 'oh no, lou'

also i think my previous thing about the meaning of sam's name is basically right, but then they hit me with 'some bridges' (translated in japanese as 'real bridges'). they even threw in 'cliff' meaning, like, a cliff. i wasn't expecting that, i thought at least one character had a name that was just a name.

also am i right in reading the story as sam being cliff's baby, but also is sam's bb/lou the same baby or were the flashbacks just coming from sam

also i thought lou was a boy and ルイーズ was like, a european sounding name or something like luis or louis. i didn't think it was meant to be 'louise' until my brother (who played it in english) mentioned it and i got the lucy reports that mention his child being a girl. i was thinking of ルイス i guess

anyway i was prompted to make this post because i just got a parcel including both volumes of the novelisation lol. i am sorry for my weakness
 
looneymoon

looneymoon

they/them
AKA
Rishi
Sam was the first BB, and all the memories of Cliff through the game were his memories. Cliff was actually looking for Sam every time you encounter him, not Lou. Iirc Amelie caused the Death Stranding by bringing baby Sam back to life after accidentally killing him and Cliff? Then when Sam confronts her at the end, she decides to hold off on complete human extinction because she grew to love her adoptive son too much.

iirc Lou is just a regular BB.

At the end of the game I didn't really care for any other character other than Sam/Lou (I actually found everyone kind of irritating other than maybe Cliff and Fragile). Which I guess was kind of appropriate because even when the whole world loved him, Lou was the only one that mattered in giving his life purpose again.

All in all, a really weird take on the sad dad video game trend :lol:
 
Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
i had Thoughts about how fragile might be another quiet, in that she's a female character whose name is a weakness. i ended up liking quiet's character in the end, and also fragile. but unlike quiet, fragile's costume was cool and didn't make me regret my eyes for seeing it

i wonder if the novels have more fragile

sometimes i feel like kojima is one of those people who could do with an editor but he's just too powerful now to get one, so you get long winded exposition or scenes that just drag a little too long

although it was interesting seeing him get out of the shadow of metal gear and doing something completely new, and i liked the worldbuilding and when they said weird things like 'death stranding'

now all i need is the concentration to actually read a book again
 
Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
i have managed to read the prologue of book one, which is a total of two pages. it includes this passage:

喉を落ちて、胃液にまみれ、腸の蠕動（ぜんどう）にもみくちゃにされて、肛門（こうもん）から吐き出される。糞尿（ふんにょう）と血で汚れた裸の肉体（ハー）を、波が洗う。その肉体はただの肉塊だ。手も足も生えていない。

He fell down the throat, was covered in the gastric juices, was jostled by the writhing of the intestines, and was expelled from the anus. The waves washed his naked Ha, soiled with excreta and blood. That body was a mere lump of meat, without even arms or legs.
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it's been quite a ride so far
 
Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
i have not read any more of the novel because i leave it for when i go to bed and as soon as i get there i just want to sleep (which is why i haven't played much of mgs2), i might try to read a bit earlier so i actually get something done about it

but i am listening the soundtrack and this track is a banger

 
X-SOLDIER

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
That song instantly takes me WAY back, as my friends introduced me to Apocalyptica back in high school and I still remember first getting that nostalgia wave when it was used for Death Stranding's release date trailer. Even though I've always known about how this game focused really heavily on managing the difficulties of isolation, it's still shocking how much it absolutely nails that feeling.


I really do hope that I can finish playing it at some point after it doesn't hit home a little too hard. :monster:



X :neo:
 
lithiumkatana17

lithiumkatana17

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Lith
X-SOLDIER said:
That song instantly takes me WAY back, as my friends introduced me to Apocalyptica back in high school and I still remember first getting that nostalgia wave when it was used for Death Stranding's release date trailer. Even though I've always known about how this game focused really heavily on managing the difficulties of isolation, it's still shocking how much it absolutely nails that feeling.


I really do hope that I can finish playing it at some point after it doesn't hit home a little too hard. :monster:



X:neo:
Click to expand...

I'm in the process of doing just that. :monster:

Started it back in... June, I think? Played it heavily for a few months before I stopped gaming for a while. Been working from home since March, and the isolation had just kinda sapped my will to play for a bit.
 
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