Long time Shenmue fan, first time commenter.
Here are my thoughts on what Death Stranding is, what it does well and what it doesn't. This will be a wee bit long, so bear with me (kinda like a review of sorts).
1.) Gameplay: From what I've seen of this game it gives the initial impression of a walking or hiking simulator but, there is more going on underneath the surface, like the environment terrain is like a puzzle, an obstacle to overcome and it is the biggest enemy you'll face in this game. I like to compare the old mario games from 8 to 16bit era (more on that later). In relation to DS with an example: there is a deep stream you have to go across, first you scan the area, colour coded areas appear ( red=bad yellow= caution) the red is an no-go, do you see a rock jutting in the river that can be used as an anchor, maybe a ladder can be used like a bridge to overcome the R=bad, but then you've lost that ladder for some other obstacle down the line, what if you went upstream to see if the water levels drop, it would be slow and you could be walking ( walking simulator in the realist sense) for ages with the same risk of damaging the packages from falling over the awkward, bumpy terain ( balance is important in game, which in turn is affected by your carrying weight, which then affects your stamina) but you've saved that ladder you might need for that mountain up ahead.
You get to the mountain ( all of the examples above work for this except the angles have changed ) you start climbing at a 90 degrees angle but now your stamina going down fast because of how steep it's getting ( stamina goes %0 you fall or slide down eg damaged delivery). What can you do? You could use that ladder you didn't use earlier for leverage on a surface to climb above the new obstacle in your way, and this can apply to a straight up angle, 90 degrees or a narrow flat cliff edge.
I personally think it's a great gameplay loop that can carry it and it's somewhat innovative and rather strangely compelling aswell. Because it's meant to feel like an actual journey getting there, overcoming that obstacle and the BTs and such. I can picture seeing that mountain over there and feeling a sense of achievement getting to the top and looking down at where you were before unlike in other games, like "Bethesdas" mountain meme (see that mountain over there you can go there) all I'm thinking is oooookay any thing new, anywhere?
Now back to the mario comparison. So the walking simulator part is more like a platform puzzle, or a new take on it. Instead of mario jumping on a koopa or avoiding a fireball plant, he has tools for the job like the mushrooms or the feather you can get to fly over those annoying axe throwing gits. It's a simple, almost tedious premise but alot more is going on than just spamming the jump button over and over.
But hear is where I think the game falls short, BADLY, and I think it's a real shame cause there is potential here in spades but, it's just not rewarding enough. The gameplay-loop of stealth, walking -simulator with minor combat would work if the games length, especially the campaign, 40 plus hours on average we're hearing, was shorter. The crappy " thanks, see you later" generic npc holographs that you can deliver packages to for the vast MAJORITY of side quests and some main story plot points just smacks of lazy fetch quests. The journey to get there is bloody brilliant and tells a story all on its own and then you're reminded your're just a glorified delivery guy with no meaningfull reason to keep going, no new interesting character or story progression that has real weight ( pun not intended HA HA) to the struggles of the main character, Sam Bridges Porter.
I was quite worried by the trailers because of Kojima's last 2 games which either ( in MGS4 case) had such convoluted story, which that in itself isn't a bad thing, but then you add a 15 upward to 45 minute cutscene ( I'm not joking here) just to tell me about nano bots that could have been explained in 5 to 10 minutes with no character development in that time at all; as a point I loved MGS1 to 3 but I never finished MGS4 because it just wasn't REWARDING in any way to go through that and I'm a guy that loves heavy dialog games. Then MGS5, the polar opposite of 4 in story with amazingly inventive ways to stealth/combat loop your way through the missions, unfortunately the mission become very, very repetitive with no real meaning of why you should keep doing it for the 50th time. That to me, which is just my opinion, is the problem of DS: It has an amazingly new fresh gameplay loop that can be compelling but coupled with no "cohesive, foused story" and repetitive unrewarding rewards for your trouble ( fetch quests ) getting there. In closing DS is a better game than MGS4 and 5 ( more story than 5, no overly long cutscenes like 4 that would make you lose the will to live for a fleeting moment) but has all of the messy, horrible parts of their DNA still in it more (fetch quest ) or less ( poorly executed story ). I think if someone was there to tell Kojima NO when he needed to hear it instead of YES, SIR in relation to pacing throughout the game and taking advantage of SONY's ability to take his "story ideas", which are good, and turn it into a functional, enjoyable experience that is well executed then I don't think reviewers or ourselves would be talking as much about the divisive view that the game has as much. That is a real shame because it could have been something amazing instead of being just....okay to good.
Thanks for reading if you got to the end, HA HA.
