DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH

Despite the original Death Stranding releasing back in 2019, I only got around to play it (in the Director’s Cut version) 2 years ago. And despite its many flaws, I really enjoyed it. It was a very unique title about the journey, where the movement took the center stage. Yes, it was a bit clunky, the storytelling was often self-indulgent and stupid, the combat and stealth were quite primitive and not very interesting, but just the process of moving between one point and the other, making deliveries, overcoming difficult terrain was far more engaging than I could’ve ever imagined. Making a direct sequel to that game would’ve been an odd choice, but this is Hideo Kojima, so he’s full of odd choices. And besides, by the time I have played the game, the sequel was already announced. So… is it as magical as the original game? No. But it’s quite alright in its own way. Just like the first title, the premise is quite simple. You make deliveries from point A to point B across an open world with difficult terrain. As you plan your route, you need to consider the weather conditions, the terrain, the creepy BTs (different types of ghost-like enemies), the armed bandits, the weight of the cargo and conditions for the delivery and your own equipment. Maybe you spent additional time unlocking new stuff or rebuilding roads and, new to this game, monorail tracks and have more convenient options available. Maybe you wanna risk it and drive a vehicle across a zone with enemies, hoping to outrun them. Maybe you can afford time and resources to take a long way around, using safer but slower paths. That’s up to you in most of the deliveries and only select few missions in the game set strict conditions or are not about deliveries at all. The cool thing about Death Stranding 2 is that it attempts to expand and improve upon almost everything the original game did and provide more options and more quality of life features. Shortcut menus are a lot better and require even less need to go through full menus. To motivate players experiment with enemy encounters, almost all weapons are now viable from the start, making open combat and stealth more varied. As in the first game, killing humans was extremely dangerous, most weapons were not advisable to use against bandits, but in this game you really have to try hard to kill a human. Both main vehicle types got much better even before you add any upgrades to them. You constantly unlock special optional perks that make the game even more comfortable to play. You now have a lot more quick travel options, including the “mobile base of operations” that you can travel in, even during deliveries (though if you transport cargo like that, it affects the ranking). Even the whole world structure now eventually loops onto itself, covering a miniature version of Australia in a clockwise path. All these changes and tweaks alone make the game feel a bit different. But, if one were to retroactively add most of these to the original game, it wouldn’t make that title wildly different. Sure, a lot of nuance about planning combat or stealth would go away. Yet, the core experience of Death Stranding would remain. Yet, that last thing about the world structure is what makes Death Stranding 2 play completely differently. You see, while you did get to use vehicles a lot in the first game, there was an overall balance between walking and riding. And usually when you had to push to the next key point of your journey, you had to do it on foot. Most of the snowy mountains, for example, even by the end of the game were simply not well suited for using vehicles in that game. But in the sequel I spent at least 80% of all my playthrough in a vehicle. Because it was the most efficient thing to do for almost any situation. And while there’s nothing particularly wrong with this game being less of a literal walking simulator and more of a Euro Truck Simulator. If not for the fact that it basically defeats the purpose of most of the game’s mechanics that made the original so engaging. Planning the weight, the equipment, carrying around ladders and ropes, setting up ziplines… Why do that if you ride a truck instead? No need to think about the height of your cargo stack or plan where anything goes, put it in the trunk. Uneven surface? Risk of being swept away by the waters? Gripping for balance? You’re in a truck, silly, none of that matters. So, inadvertently the game robs itself of everything that made the journey across its open world unique, and becomes just another open world game with cars. Without making said cars interesting in any way. In fact, despite being so efficient, it often feels as if the developers didn’t even consider that they made a game about cars. They still get stuck on absolutely nothing or hit air, damaging cargo. They don’t have any truly unique mechanics or systems that make them as fun to use as walking is in the game. And even the reuse of the idea, where after certain missions the licensed song starts playing as you’re getting closer to your goal, is often cut short, because you barely have time to hear the song in a vehicle and you’re done. It doesn’t help that the story is not very engaging either. I’ll reiterate – the original was quite silly, self-indulgent and often nonsensical. But the concepts, the world, the mood – those were really top notch. This time, the storytelling is actually a lot better, leaner, more polished, usually far less stupid. It does do many dumb and not deserved repeats and references to Metal Gear franchise from time to time, but that’s forgivable. And the new set of characters is also solid, with some older characters returning in surprising new roles. Yet, there is no interesting concept anymore as that got fully explored in the previous game. And there’s very little to really hook you and keep you invested. The main villain is fun, sure, but also extremely one note (no pun intended). The repeat of a “mysterious soldier enemy” feels like it’s here just because the first game had one and the story for this character ends up being far less interesting than the game seems to expect it to be. And then there’s one huge plot revelation which gets introduced and then immediately resolved in the exact same scene?.. It’s an enjoyable enough game, if you liked the original. Still too long and this time it doesn’t feel like it deserves the length. The combat and stealth remain not very interesting, but they are more varied. The music score is still very good and while the licensed music isn’t in the range of songs I tend to enjoy, those are good too. It looks great. It improves on a lot. But in the end, I just don’t see much of a point in it. It’s like a nice but overly long encore to a great show. I don’t mind it being there, but I would’ve been happy with just the original game.

小岛秀夫还是那么喜欢先把结果告诉你，再告诉你原因。懵逼了50个小时之后在最后半小时通透了。

playing this was such a wonderful experience

所有愛攝影的人都該買這遊戲

岛哥哥我喜欢你

Keep on Keeping on! 比一代玩的爽，剧情稍逊于一代。 *PC首发优化有问题，经常崩溃，更新后稳定性有所提升，但性能表现下降

总体来说玩法比一代改进很多，视觉听觉体验和艺术表现力还是顶级，小巧思可圈可点，剧情不如一代惊艳。 - 从立意上来说想要探讨的是算法时代人的连接和自由的问题，十分契合当下社会主题。个人觉得正是敢将大型商业游戏作为深度人文思考载体的做法，才赋予了死亡搁浅独特的魅力。“死亡无法让我们彻底分离”。 - 新登场角色自身的经历、以及他们之间的关系刻画比一代细腻很多。但是与主角山姆的互动少，关系不如一代紧密，一直产生不了看到老角色时的亲切感。 - 反派刻画太少，不太能立得住，每次出现像个小丑。 - 不得不说小岛终究是日本游戏制作人，虽然游戏风格是欧美科幻的，也融入了很多自我表达和当代社会批判，但底层仍然有强烈的日式叙事逻辑。本作为新角色增加了很多设定和能力，这就会导致很多设定细节逻辑是不严密的，甚至和死亡搁浅总体逻辑是冲突的，角色的能力展现往往不能想象是怎么做到的，It just works！也许是有出于对市场的考量，二代剧情又回到了和拥有各种不同能力的伙伴合作攻克难关最终打败大Boss的经典日式王道叙事，虽然热血是挺热血的，特别是BT机甲合体和最后的经典1V1，但对比一代来说还是有些可惜。

10/10 Keep on Keeping on! Peko! Peko!

[h2] 割裂依旧无可替代 [/h2] 88.6h通关。中间推到披萨大厨之后索然无味，弃坑了差不多两三个月，这两周高强度还是给它捡起来打完了。和一代几乎没有任何区别但同时又有很大区别的游戏。 可以从配乐响起的瞬间上分析。很多人说二代的配乐没有一代的感动了。最表面的原因是音乐本身审美不够统一，很多奇奇怪怪的曲风都混在一起，我真的不觉得加一堆jpop是个好主意。从游戏性上来讲，送货变简单了，因此音乐也少了一代的那种苦尽甘来的奖励性质，好像是为了遵循某种模版，送到地必须放，放了也激不起任何波澜。卡车太好用了，绝大部分时候才放了半分钟的歌就送到了，惬意地开着卡车突然来一首感人的歌曲，不知道在感动什么。最重要的是剧情驱动，一代的山姆从始至终都有一种使命感，而二代没有那种急于拯救世界的感觉，也没有压抑的氛围感，也没有迫在眉睫的巨大危机，旅程十分轻松愉快，甚至这种愉快是和山姆开头遭遇的悲剧背道而驰的。也许只在结尾，剧情最密集的时候，Low Roar的那几首歌才显得恰到好处。 送货的游戏性很大程度上来源于克服困难，获得延迟享受的成就感。然而二代送货实在是过于简单，即便是雪山，用卡车也几乎能平推，更何况还有其他的花活。战斗原本是送货路程上的障碍，一代我都是尽可能的避战，遇到bt尽量潜行过去。二代的战斗却成为了山姆释放的游乐场，真有多好玩也说不上来，残酷难度想要清掉营地也很容易，但是我不是一个喜欢钻研尝试不同流派，追求“打得好看”的玩家，中后期基本都用电击波拉枪平推了，巨型BTboss战也仅仅是起到一个演出效果的作用，战斗深度几乎没有。 也许战斗升级是为了突出本作“棍棒”的主题。然而这个世界就是为了“连接”而生，一切高概念的设定都是为了服务于“连接”，而一代则是服务于这一概念的完美的耦合体。二代沿用这个世界讲述一个有关“棍棒”的故事，但是山姆所做的事仍然是“连接”，多少有那么一些割裂感。 我还是喜欢基建，本作中少有的感动时刻都在墨西哥和雪山建立滑索网时弹尽粮绝遇到了其他玩家的帮助。我还是喜欢看风景，画面太惊人了，行驶在公路上，侧身在轨道上，光是看风景就能弥补情绪调动上的不足。我还是喜欢新川洋司的科幻设定，麦哲伦号和幽灵机甲真的爆帅。我还是喜欢密集爆炸演出式的结尾，最后的裸男吉他大战真是又紧绷又难绷，贡献了我游玩历史上最诡异的心流。 割裂的好游戏。

比一代容易上手，但是一代的孤独感更强一些