5 ms·

I love MGS, but apparently death stranding doesn't seem to be as good as people say it is. He is indeed an exceptional writer. I'm still curious if he would be

by jokoon 7y ago

I love MGS, but apparently death stranding doesn't seem to be as good as people say it is. He is indeed an exceptional writer. I'm still curious if he would be able to make a movie or a TV show.

mbalex99 7y ago
Death stranding is interesting and worth the play nonetheless. I think it's a memorable experience. Are you going to jump for joy? No. But it's not a forgettable game or experience.
JimiofEden 7y ago
Death Stranding is definitely a lot more divisive. I personally enjoyed the snot out of it, but understand why others didn't. It's definitely a quality is in the hands of the beholder sort of thing though.
NikolaeVarius 7y ago
I don't think he's an exceptional writer. He is very imaginative and has vision, but his writing has a ton of ass-pulls, general WTF, and weirdness for the sake of being weird. Some of it can be cool/entertaining, much of it just seems kind of dumb.
ShamelessC 7y ago
The story was really the worst part of Death Stranding for me even though the gameplay is what gets noticed as bad. Unlike the MGS games, the story has so many opportunities to take a nuanced stance on issues of the internet (aghem, Chiral Net), data collection and the obvious metaphor of Amazon.com. It wastes every opportunity to tell a story about how the internet is inherently good even if it's controlled by Bridges. The game is spent building bridges without any question of whether those bridges actually make us more connected or more distant. Furthermore, the "extinction event" i.e. the death stranding is presented as something which is inevitable to all species rather than something which is explicitly caused by and solved by humans. It's just really strange seeing all this low hanging fruit go to waste. There are plenty of other problems such as character names and plotlines being overly literal. The exposition dumps are way too much, even compared to MGS which is famous for them. Overall though it just comes down to the game having an utterly bizarre viewpoint on the world's problems. I had thought that to overarching theme of "rebuilding America by connecting everyone again" would at least touch on the current state of US politics where people are more divided than ever. Unfortunately, the game chalks that problem up to an inevitable event of nature rather than something humans could actually prevent. Going into the game as a huge Kojima fanboy I basically gave the story way too many chances to redeem itself and it just gets worse. So bad, unfortunately, that I'm forced to reassess his other games. Surely they have their faults which "come with the territory" of crazy anime style plotlines. But are the good parts even attributable to Kojima? Did somebody special from his Konami team not make it over to Kojima Productions? Anyway, having said all that, the gameplay was pretty cool, the world itself was beautiful and I do suggest you at least check it out if it goes on sale or something. Meanwhile I'll be waiting for Kojima to hopefully tell better stories in the horror genre as he's suggested he may do.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  It just kinda sounds like you’re mad that he made a game about his own ideas rather than your ones.
  - ShamelessC 7y ago
    That's certainly true and you're right, other people may find his ideas agreeable and engaging. I personally don't. I suspect that HN's technically savvy userbase won't either but I don't really know. It also had to do with my expectations being set by the Metal Gear games. While they certainly all had a touch of absurdity in them, there are messages in those games that I largely agree with such as the notion that war begets revenge which begets war (MGS V) or massive data collection resulting in population control (MGS IV). But it's all subjective and I can totally understand other people enjoying this games story. I just personally didn't.
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      Yeah, I can appreciate your perspective. Given the obvious technology-orientation of the story, if you're expecting it to be about some of the more topical technology-oriented issues, you're probably going to be disappointed. That said, if you're expecting the story itself to make perfect sense, then you're also going to be a bit disappointed. I've learnt to not have any expectations about what I'm going to get from a Kojima game, and instead just follow along whatever journey it is he wants to take me on.
      - ShamelessC 7y ago
        Thanks for saying that! I always feel bad when I give honest reviews about any form of entertainment really because ultimately it's incredibly subjective and someone definitely will have enjoyed it. I hate that people might perceive that as a personal attack although I totally understand because some of these stories are just super personal to each of us. I will say that I was pretty disappointed by the massive amounts of reviews claiming it was a walking simulator when they clearly put a lot of work into making the balance system a pretty innovative mechanic. Furthermore, games like Red Dead Redemption 2 (which I absolutely love, btw) consist of large portions of traveling and get little criticism for it. I think one time that could have been better is the occurrence of encountering "random side quests" as was done in rdr2 often was extremely successful in making the world feel alive as you traverse it. But that mechanic doesn't really belong in the mostly empty world of Death Stranding.
throw_m239339 7y ago
> I love MGS, but apparently death stranding doesn't seem to be as good as people say it is. The script was horrible despite the cast of talented actors. I'm not talking about the plot itself but the delivery, the exposition dumps, the stupid dialogues, it's a catastrophe, even by videogame standards, which makes me ask myself whether Kojima was always like that but he had other people keeping him in check or something… And unfortunately the gameplay couldn't redeem anything, the gameplay was tedious and unfun. MGS is fun, you infiltrate places by various means, you have a lot of cool gadgets, there is tension. The story was silly but it had memorable characters. in DS, everything sucks except the concept, the idea, the concept is interesting, the execution is bad. Yes, Kojima tried to be innovative, but it just doesn't work because it fails at the most basic things regarding gameplay and story telling. The game is beautiful though. > He is indeed an exceptional writer. He is an "idea guy". Like George Lucas and many many other. He needs somebody else to makes sense of his ideas.
concernedctzn 7y ago
Death Stranding was my game of the year last year, I played it without knowing anything going in and had a great time. I've seen a bunch of people say they were turned off by the reviews and then ended up loving it when they finally tried it themselves.
AmericanChopper 7y ago
It breaks a lot of convention, and it's weird, so it's going to have a lot of people who love or hate it. It's a very well made game (aside from the classic, impenetrable Japanese-style menus), he seems to have fully implemented his vision for what he wanted it to be. Whether you like it or not is more down to whether it clicks with you. Since the experience is hard to describe, the only way to find out is to play it. But if you find that you don't like it, I'd suggest that you at least get a couple of hours into chapter 3 before you give up, because that's where the game starts to get into its' swing. The other thing I'd mention is that people seem to think Kojima takes himself more seriously than he actually does, and I've seen people complaining about things that'd I'd enjoyed and attributed to Kojima humor. Also, it basically has a feature length ending, with cutscenes interspersed with repetitive gameplay where you just have to trigger more cutscenes. If you want to complete the ending in one sitting, make sure you have a couple of hours. Edit: One thing I remembered that frustrated me about it. The game is essentially a stealth-action, and it gives you a lot of freedom to choose how you approach the problems it gives you. But it doesn't always reward your choices the way you would expect. Did you choose to clear out an entire area of baddies so that you could freely loot it? Well in some specific cases, they'll respawn before you're done.
missosoup 7y ago
Death stranding is the only game I ever preordered, anything made by Kojima got a free pass from me - until then. After a couple of hours it becomes really clear that Kojima spent ALL of his time on the plot and directing the cutscenes, and it's almost like the actual gameplay was left to be done by a pack of interns who weren't even given guidance. The terrain physics are awful. The combat is extremely repetitive and not at all engaging. Almost every mission is 'go from point A to point B'. The plot (or rather the series of cutscenes that convey the plot) have absolutely nothing to do with the gameplay. They might as well have the player do rounds of tetris between cutscenes and the overall experience would remain largely unchanged. When you get roughly through 3/4 of the game, you hit the level that's shown in the early trailers. That level is great fun. And despite being late into the game, it starts showing you tutorial tips and coaching you on mechanics you already know. You realize that this was meant to be the opening level of the game. They clearly intended to create a much better game but at some stage said fuck it, we'll make a bland open world exploration sandbox and throw in some cutscenes. It's sad. I would have happily waited another few years to get a full game that plays and feels like what was in the trailer level. No more preorders even for Kojima.
ekianjo 7y ago
> He is indeed an exceptional writer. I almost choked on that one. He is exceptional good at coming up with ideas but writing wise he is absolutely terrible and gets worse over time. Way too verbose where it does not have to be.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Yes, a good story teller weaves the details and themes into the plotline so the pacing never gets interrupted and the delivery feels natural. Kojima interrupts the entire game with a character monologue about some tragic past or some modern geopolitical issue. Makes sense for every single boss to launch into 30 minutes talking about all this stuff right before a gun fight.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    > Kojima interrupts the entire game with a character monologue about some tragic past or some modern geopolitical issue. Makes sense for every single boss to launch into 30 minutes talking about all this stuff right before a gun fight. and then you had the extremely awkward scene in MGS5 in the back of a truck with Skullface where nobody talks for 20 minutes and you can't skip it, because they "forgot" to record a long monologue. So bad.
- scollet 7y ago
  Isn't the heavy-handed approach part of the charm? I can appreciate the bluntness without having to compare it to other media, although I agree with you.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    Its part of the charm if you accept that every Kojima game will be flawed in the same way forever from now on. Its like the George Lucas syndrome, the more Kojima gets his way the less focused his productions are. Creators benefit also when listening a little to their critics. I also think tone matters a lot in games. MGS1 lives in this kind of comic book, science fiction tone and is perfect in that regard. But something like mgs5 feels like a caricature in every way as it tries to be like a comics and realistic at the same time. It just does not work.

by jokoon 7y ago

I love MGS, but apparently death stranding doesn't seem to be as good as people say it is. He is indeed an exceptional writer. I'm still curious if he would be able to make a movie or a TV show.

mbalex99 7y ago

Death stranding is interesting and worth the play nonetheless. I think it's a memorable experience. Are you going to jump for joy? No. But it's not a forgettable game or experience.

JimiofEden 7y ago

Death Stranding is definitely a lot more divisive. I personally enjoyed the snot out of it, but understand why others didn't. It's definitely a quality is in the hands of the beholder sort of thing though.

NikolaeVarius 7y ago

I don't think he's an exceptional writer. He is very imaginative and has vision, but his writing has a ton of ass-pulls, general WTF, and weirdness for the sake of being weird. Some of it can be cool/entertaining, much of it just seems kind of dumb.

ShamelessC 7y ago

The story was really the worst part of Death Stranding for me even though the gameplay is what gets noticed as bad. Unlike the MGS games, the story has so many opportunities to take a nuanced stance on issues of the internet (aghem, Chiral Net), data collection and the obvious metaphor of Amazon.com. It wastes every opportunity to tell a story about how the internet is inherently good even if it's controlled by Bridges. The game is spent building bridges without any question of whether those bridges actually make us more connected or more distant. Furthermore, the "extinction event" i.e. the death stranding is presented as something which is inevitable to all species rather than something which is explicitly caused by and solved by humans. It's just really strange seeing all this low hanging fruit go to waste. There are plenty of other problems such as character names and plotlines being overly literal. The exposition dumps are way too much, even compared to MGS which is famous for them. Overall though it just comes down to the game having an utterly bizarre viewpoint on the world's problems. I had thought that to overarching theme of "rebuilding America by connecting everyone again" would at least touch on the current state of US politics where people are more divided than ever. Unfortunately, the game chalks that problem up to an inevitable event of nature rather than something humans could actually prevent. Going into the game as a huge Kojima fanboy I basically gave the story way too many chances to redeem itself and it just gets worse. So bad, unfortunately, that I'm forced to reassess his other games. Surely they have their faults which "come with the territory" of crazy anime style plotlines. But are the good parts even attributable to Kojima? Did somebody special from his Konami team not make it over to Kojima Productions? Anyway, having said all that, the gameplay was pretty cool, the world itself was beautiful and I do suggest you at least check it out if it goes on sale or something. Meanwhile I'll be waiting for Kojima to hopefully tell better stories in the horror genre as he's suggested he may do.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
It just kinda sounds like you’re mad that he made a game about his own ideas rather than your ones.
- ShamelessC 7y ago
  That's certainly true and you're right, other people may find his ideas agreeable and engaging. I personally don't. I suspect that HN's technically savvy userbase won't either but I don't really know. It also had to do with my expectations being set by the Metal Gear games. While they certainly all had a touch of absurdity in them, there are messages in those games that I largely agree with such as the notion that war begets revenge which begets war (MGS V) or massive data collection resulting in population control (MGS IV). But it's all subjective and I can totally understand other people enjoying this games story. I just personally didn't.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    Yeah, I can appreciate your perspective. Given the obvious technology-orientation of the story, if you're expecting it to be about some of the more topical technology-oriented issues, you're probably going to be disappointed. That said, if you're expecting the story itself to make perfect sense, then you're also going to be a bit disappointed. I've learnt to not have any expectations about what I'm going to get from a Kojima game, and instead just follow along whatever journey it is he wants to take me on.
    - ShamelessC 7y ago
      Thanks for saying that! I always feel bad when I give honest reviews about any form of entertainment really because ultimately it's incredibly subjective and someone definitely will have enjoyed it. I hate that people might perceive that as a personal attack although I totally understand because some of these stories are just super personal to each of us. I will say that I was pretty disappointed by the massive amounts of reviews claiming it was a walking simulator when they clearly put a lot of work into making the balance system a pretty innovative mechanic. Furthermore, games like Red Dead Redemption 2 (which I absolutely love, btw) consist of large portions of traveling and get little criticism for it. I think one time that could have been better is the occurrence of encountering "random side quests" as was done in rdr2 often was extremely successful in making the world feel alive as you traverse it. But that mechanic doesn't really belong in the mostly empty world of Death Stranding.

throw_m239339 7y ago

> I love MGS, but apparently death stranding doesn't seem to be as good as people say it is. The script was horrible despite the cast of talented actors. I'm not talking about the plot itself but the delivery, the exposition dumps, the stupid dialogues, it's a catastrophe, even by videogame standards, which makes me ask myself whether Kojima was always like that but he had other people keeping him in check or something… And unfortunately the gameplay couldn't redeem anything, the gameplay was tedious and unfun. MGS is fun, you infiltrate places by various means, you have a lot of cool gadgets, there is tension. The story was silly but it had memorable characters. in DS, everything sucks except the concept, the idea, the concept is interesting, the execution is bad. Yes, Kojima tried to be innovative, but it just doesn't work because it fails at the most basic things regarding gameplay and story telling. The game is beautiful though. > He is indeed an exceptional writer. He is an "idea guy". Like George Lucas and many many other. He needs somebody else to makes sense of his ideas.

concernedctzn 7y ago

Death Stranding was my game of the year last year, I played it without knowing anything going in and had a great time. I've seen a bunch of people say they were turned off by the reviews and then ended up loving it when they finally tried it themselves.

AmericanChopper 7y ago

It breaks a lot of convention, and it's weird, so it's going to have a lot of people who love or hate it. It's a very well made game (aside from the classic, impenetrable Japanese-style menus), he seems to have fully implemented his vision for what he wanted it to be. Whether you like it or not is more down to whether it clicks with you. Since the experience is hard to describe, the only way to find out is to play it. But if you find that you don't like it, I'd suggest that you at least get a couple of hours into chapter 3 before you give up, because that's where the game starts to get into its' swing. The other thing I'd mention is that people seem to think Kojima takes himself more seriously than he actually does, and I've seen people complaining about things that'd I'd enjoyed and attributed to Kojima humor. Also, it basically has a feature length ending, with cutscenes interspersed with repetitive gameplay where you just have to trigger more cutscenes. If you want to complete the ending in one sitting, make sure you have a couple of hours. Edit: One thing I remembered that frustrated me about it. The game is essentially a stealth-action, and it gives you a lot of freedom to choose how you approach the problems it gives you. But it doesn't always reward your choices the way you would expect. Did you choose to clear out an entire area of baddies so that you could freely loot it? Well in some specific cases, they'll respawn before you're done.

missosoup 7y ago

Death stranding is the only game I ever preordered, anything made by Kojima got a free pass from me - until then. After a couple of hours it becomes really clear that Kojima spent ALL of his time on the plot and directing the cutscenes, and it's almost like the actual gameplay was left to be done by a pack of interns who weren't even given guidance. The terrain physics are awful. The combat is extremely repetitive and not at all engaging. Almost every mission is 'go from point A to point B'. The plot (or rather the series of cutscenes that convey the plot) have absolutely nothing to do with the gameplay. They might as well have the player do rounds of tetris between cutscenes and the overall experience would remain largely unchanged. When you get roughly through 3/4 of the game, you hit the level that's shown in the early trailers. That level is great fun. And despite being late into the game, it starts showing you tutorial tips and coaching you on mechanics you already know. You realize that this was meant to be the opening level of the game. They clearly intended to create a much better game but at some stage said fuck it, we'll make a bland open world exploration sandbox and throw in some cutscenes. It's sad. I would have happily waited another few years to get a full game that plays and feels like what was in the trailer level. No more preorders even for Kojima.

ekianjo 7y ago

> He is indeed an exceptional writer. I almost choked on that one. He is exceptional good at coming up with ideas but writing wise he is absolutely terrible and gets worse over time. Way too verbose where it does not have to be.

crimsonalucard 7y ago
Yes, a good story teller weaves the details and themes into the plotline so the pacing never gets interrupted and the delivery feels natural. Kojima interrupts the entire game with a character monologue about some tragic past or some modern geopolitical issue. Makes sense for every single boss to launch into 30 minutes talking about all this stuff right before a gun fight.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  > Kojima interrupts the entire game with a character monologue about some tragic past or some modern geopolitical issue. Makes sense for every single boss to launch into 30 minutes talking about all this stuff right before a gun fight. and then you had the extremely awkward scene in MGS5 in the back of a truck with Skullface where nobody talks for 20 minutes and you can't skip it, because they "forgot" to record a long monologue. So bad.
scollet 7y ago
Isn't the heavy-handed approach part of the charm? I can appreciate the bluntness without having to compare it to other media, although I agree with you.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Its part of the charm if you accept that every Kojima game will be flawed in the same way forever from now on. Its like the George Lucas syndrome, the more Kojima gets his way the less focused his productions are. Creators benefit also when listening a little to their critics. I also think tone matters a lot in games. MGS1 lives in this kind of comic book, science fiction tone and is perfect in that regard. But something like mgs5 feels like a caricature in every way as it tries to be like a comics and realistic at the same time. It just does not work.