I have played this game in the highest difficulty settings called "to the wilder [TTW]". I tried doing every standard order and collected 168 TTW badges throughout my journey. I finally gave up after connecting all the areas, as I could not endure certain points that kept frustrating me, and that made me question why I am playing this game.
I immediately lost 50% of my interest in the last quarter of the story (around 60 hours). The fact that a certain character does an upbeat Broadway show musical scene after a serious plot-expanding deep explanation, the final fight turning out to be a "guitar charisma competition" was actually quite ridiculous. I really raised my eyebrows going "Are they kidding me? Is this how they decided to entertain the audience?" in these ludicrous scenes. I suppose the writers of the story were either suppressed or got laid-back as the antagonist of the story called "Higgs" became irritating.
Speaking of "Higgs", I pity for his lack of depth to be the antagonist. I remember these kinds of villains only in cartoons. The audience expects the villain to explain his story, but the audience gets nothing but hatred and focused devilry. He is just there so that the protagonists can deal with someone. It is quite disappointing to see the downfall of the feeling "Higgs" gave us compared to the first Death Stranding.
The game tried to season the first Death Stranding with more combat, yet it fails to present an acceptable combat experience; as the overall flow of the movement is delayed and the input is clunky. I remember the character not turning to where it supposed to turn during high intensity combat. I was quite frustrated with the character not equipping the right weapon countless times, and this frustrating experience led me not to do standard orders involving boss fights, large BTs, and the Tar Lake Boss.
I also recall a certain kind of frustation where the quests involves a long highway race-fight against ghost mechs at night. One moment includes a ghost mech turning against the momentum of the movement and leaping towards the main character with a blade. There was literally no way to exit that loop of death & recovery unless you had a tri-cycle equipped with a feature that jumps it. In the TTW difficulty, one cannot roll back the time; therefore making any unexpected quest almost impossible to endure.
After 80 hours, the gameplay cycle became too dull that I started making delibarate mistakes such as neglecting necessary equipment just to make it more interesting. At 84 hours I just closed the game out of boredom and wanted to write this review.
I must say that the graphics, the world design, the environmental instances were awesome. I would not spend 30 hours more if there were no auxillary equipment of automatically taking cargo inside the vehicle in the off-road truck.
I was overly excited on the overall story except the ending that involved fighting with the antagonist. The plot twists were awesome. The introduction of the characters except "Higgs" was amazing: the audience saw the history of each character through a cinematic experience.
I particularly liked the antagonist called "Neil Vana". The introduction of him, the gameplay that included combat against him, and the his connection to the story made Neil Vana the core of the Death Stranding 2.
I really liked the artwork & the creativity while presenting the characters during the story, yet my frustrations occured when the creativity was simply too much that it felt absurd. I find the idea of "Beach" that involves another realm that is connected to the conscious of a being quite creative; but if this creativity gives me a Broadway musical show after a serious plot expanding conversation, this means it was created without a goal. One might think that the final fight between the protagonist & the antagonist being an electro guitar charisma competition with bare chests is creative, but is still silly when followed by a sci-fi & fantasy setting.
Overall, I recommend this game only for people who liked the first Death Stranding. These people will be amazed on the new areas of Mexico and Australia, and the story; particulary of "Neil Vana". Have fun, and consider not trying to 100% this game as it can be more of a burden rather than an entertainment tool.
