Topic: Death Stranding OT

@Thrillho Haha! I love that picture!

So do you enjoy the gameplay? The fact you haven’t given up on the game suggests you’re getting into it, I hope. There is something strangely addictive about delivering those packages. And the online part is so cool, if you’ve gotten there yet, where you link places into the network and it opens up the shared world.

@Th3solution I’ve had no problems with the gameplay so far but the game does like to give you a serious amount of busy work with so many deliveries so I’ve had to suppress my completionist tendencies to actually get on with the game (hence 20+ hours for only the second chapter).

The one thing though is I sometimes get issues with my right index finger so I’m having to train myself to use my middle finger more for R2 seeing as you spend a lot of the time on foot holding that button down!

And the chiral network opens up early on (once you link the first site) so I’ve seen that in use. It’s cleverly utilised so your first trip through areas aren’t spoilt by all the equipment and hints left by other players. There have been plenty of bridges in that first area to help me get around more easily for sure!

@Thrillho I’m curious how the new construction items in the Director’s Cut affects the gameplay. Some of the charm of the game is, like you say, having to puzzle out the delivery path and plan your equipment and resource management. The risk and reward factor of taking more packages so as to improve your delivery but at the expense of a potentially more difficult run and possibly damaging packages if you overextend yourself. As you go through the base game you already end up with an amazing set of resources, but a couple of the new things in the DC look to be pretty overpowered so as to make deliveries way easier. But i and imagine they don’t unlock right away.

@Th3solution It’s hard for me to know what’s new given I’ve not played before!

A quick read online and it sounds like the blood grenades are new? They immediately “kill” any of the floating BTs which is obviously pretty handy but requires blood packs to use.

It sounds like I missed out picking up the maser gun in chapter 2 though. There was a delivery to a nearby factory site but specifically said “maser gun advised” so I assumed I must get it later in the game, rather than that mission giving it to me 🙄

@Thrillho The blood grenades were actually a staple in the original game, so those aren’t new. The maser Gun sounds new though. I don’t remember that.

As for grenades, there are different types depending on which body fluid or source you make them from. Each has a unique affect, so I’ll say that. Blood can destroy them, but the type 1 and 2’s do other things, so you feel free to experiment if you want.

@Th3solution I haven’t played around with the Ex grenades much. I used one of the ones I got early on and couldn’t really tell if it was doing anything!

I didn’t progress very far into chapter 3 but got the “fast travel” so have gone back to get the Maser gun. I’ve only tried it in the new firing range and it’s a battery powered stun gun essentially so makes handling MULES much easier.

I haven’t made it to the abandoned factory yet as I got distracted by the Ludens Fan location and shipped a few items I find during chapter 2 to him.

Well, I’ve been well and truly sucked in by this game. I completed chapter 3 this morning with a play time of…. 47 hours 😳

I’ve spent far too much time rebuilding roads and trying to get 5* ratings for every place as soon as I find them and am realising I probably don’t need to be so aggressive with getting the stars so quickly.

I flew through the short chapter 4 as well which was full on Kojima as that’s the chapter where you meet Mads for the first time on the WWI type battlefield.

Loving it so far though but it’s scary how quickly half an hour plus gets eaten up doing some deliveries!

Got as far as meeting Mama in the flesh and that’s one grim backstory she has..

@Thrillho Good to hear you are enjoying it. I'm pretty sure I spent about 300+ hours in this game in the end as it really grabbed me. Getting 5 stars on all the places as well as doing all 500 deliveries took me a long while but became really addictive. It really opens up when you get more gear as well so really must go back now I've got the DC installed to see what the new stuff is like.

@render I can see I’m going to end up going for the platinum on this one! But damn that Elder and his silly hilltop shelter..

As for the new stuff, as I said on the previous page the Maser gun is new and fires electricity to take down MULES. You get it before the Bola gun (the one that ties them up) but I prefer the latter.

I haven’t ventured into the factory area that is part of that (near the distribution centre in the first area) and haven’t bothered with constructing the race track either (up near the Timefall Farm).

It looks great though and runs smoothly at 60fps.

@Thrillho Can't wait to check out the distribution centre. All the trophies popped when I imported my save except for the ones which you need to have fabricated at least one of everything. I guess the Maser will be one of those and maybe even the race track.

Once I've done those then I should get a platinum for pretty much nothing. Always a bonus

@Thrillho Good to hear how well you’ve got along with it. I totally relate to how it has sucked you in. One of my favorites last gen, for sure. Brilliant game.
Be careful to not get burned out too much though. At about the 2/3 point it can get slightly tedious and cumbersome. But the ending is fantastic and so worth it.

@Th3solution Yeah, I can see that being a problem so I think I won’t be pushing for the 5* ratings immediately and let them come a bit more organically. Unlocking the truck and fixing up the roads helps with that massively though as you can just do runs covering most of the map with ease.

I forgot to say how jarring it was to see Conan suddenly turn up as a prepper too Afterwards, I remember hearing he was in it but it was still weird.

And I remembered another change in the DC version of the game; Monster energy drinks are now gone and it’s homebrand Bridges Energy Drink only now!

A fair bit of progress since my last update.

I'm almost 100hrs in now and just at the end of chapter 8 (so that's Unger, Mama, Deadman, Clifford, and Heartman done since the last post).

The battlefield chapters are really cool, even if combat really isn't the strongest point of the game. That part of the story is really interesting though.

The rest of the story has seen me do the mountain areas, reconnect with the preppers around there, and then also with the ones south of Heartman's lab. I spent a fair amount of time building the roads around the mountains but couldn't be bothered doing it all the way down to Mountain Knot City. So instead it's been a lot of time setting up ziplines around the mountains. It's a much quicker way of getting round but pretty boring just watching Sam fly through the air for minutes on end..

The rest of the characters are all kind of weird and their names are a bit on the nose too! Heartman seems particularly odd but, in true Kojima style, it all works and the overall theme to include previous extinction events is quite well done.

I've just crossed over the tar at the south edge of the map and am intrigued as to where this is going to go!

@Thrillho sounds like you’re pretty close to finishing it if I’m honest. And I know what you mean about those battlefield sections, so atmospheric... I thought the third one in particular was fantastic!

How are you rating the game now that you’ve seen the vast majority of it?

@colonelkilgore Is it really close to finishing?? I thought there were 15 chapters although some have been shorter than others..

I've really enjoyed it though. It can get a bit repetitive but that's mostly because I'm trying to do as many deliveries as possible, 5* places etc but you could easily plough through the game without worrying too much about that. As I said above, the story is nonsense but clever and there are a lot of (ahem) strands still waiting to come together.

@Thrillho from what I remember… and it’s been a while in fairness, the middle sections (which it sounds like you’ve done for the most part) is where the main part in terms of play time is spent. Once you’re through those it can all come together relatively quickly.

@colonelkilgore Yeah, I thought that on one hand there can't be many more areas to explore but having done 8/15 chapters, there must be a fair bit to come!

I saw this morning that the Kojima productions account retweeted a couple of people talking about chapter 9. I managed not to see what they were about but something big must be coming..

As an aside, Hideo himself is impossible to follow on twitter as he has spates of retweeting 100s of things in one go

@Thrillho every time I chat about it, it reminds me that I really want to play this again but don’t know where I’ll find the time. There really is nothing else like it. It was my first Kojima game… and I’ve played a fair few since, the guy is a genuine gift to the gaming industry. Like a gaming equivalent of Sergio Leone.

@colonelkilgore Well, even if you import your save from the PS4 you won't automatically ping the platinum for the Director's Cut as they've been tinkered with slightly. So maybe you can import your save to get the new plat and then have a slightly more streamlined run through the game if you ever get to it!

I'm glad that the game has held up though because it's great to see Kojima do something that isn't MGS and still be so special. Without knowing how this is going to end, it would be great to see something completely different again from him for his next project.

@Thrillho agreed, as much as I’d love a Metal Gear Solid remake, I’d be happy for it to be handled by someone else. New Kojima IP’s would be as exciting as anything in gaming moving forward.

In terms of importing my save, Death Stranding would definitely be one of the games that I’d like to fully experience again as it’s just so unique. I’ll probably get a pang of Kojima-withdrawals in a year or two and I’ll just have to crowbar it in to the schedule somewhere.

Well, hope you enjoy the rest of it, I actually thought it had a pretty good ending… if it did maybe suffer from The Return of the King syndrome, in that there are a few moments which felt like appropriate cut-off points… and then there was more… and then some more etc.