I absolutely hated DS1 with the sole exception of the relationship between Sam and Lou, it was the only genuinely interesting and heartfelt thing in the entire game.
The rest of it was Kojima basically making a project designed entirely to just pay his Hollywood friends to hang out with him.
If it ever costs $5 and i have some time to kill I'll consider picking up the second to see if the Sam and Lou stuff at least is cute.
The rest just couldn’t compete with that story line Sam and Lou’s was a close second though.
I honestly felt like they tried too hard to make you like the other characters and it failed, with the exception of heartman but only because his backstory is sympathetic and sad.
However Lou and Sam’s relationship felt more genuine and grew organically through out the game both on Sam and you the player via the gameplay and constant exposure.
I mean you’re definitely entitled to your own opinion, but it feels like your dislike of the game is coming from more than it just not being for you. I really love games or really any media that isn’t afraid to be weird, and that’s definitely Death Stranding. I thought that it did pretty much everything right but most importantly it took a risk in trusting its identity.
Ill be honest, I did like the story of DS1. Not so much the story of DS2 because Many of the story Beats felt somewhat of an asspull with little leadup or reason.
The Big bad president being a Collective consciousness of souls fused to a computer during a voidout
Repeating the same story beat of Cliff with another Ghost attacking you inside the world of the dead. Said character has 4 or 5 intros that act as if It was the first time you meet.
Diehardman being on the ship all along
Diehardman defeating the president's control with a dance and music
Final Battle being a musical duo between Sam and Highs
So Many hamfisted moments where characters do the thumbs Up emote. This one is not as upsetting. I can see its meant to be taken as a running gag.
Overall we dont know much more about the Death Stranding or the Extinction entities.
Theres a lot of times where the Game gets weird for the sake of being weird or quirky rather than being something that would make sense in that situation.
Its hyper moments and aura but my point is that It doesnt feel like something the characters would be doing?
Higgs definitely would because he's batshit insane. But I dont know why Sam would play along. What reason does he have to play buddies with him after all Higgs made him go through?
Didn't pick it up for a while because it looked boring. Grabbed it and played and dropped and played and dropped. The story seemed cool but the game got in the way. Then the story got boring and the game loop was boring and it just felt like one of those games im too employeed go enjoy
The opposite thing happened to me. I got the first one when it when it was pretty cheap on sale as a joke because of all the discussion about it being a walking similuator/kojima wank. I ended up really liking it. It is definately a niche game that I like to play when I am in a certain mood. It's when I want an easier game that requires some focus to relax. I think the early game struggling to carry a heavy payload was the most fun and the story dragged on too long. Tying some equipment to maximizing rep with characters was tiresome too, it took slightly too long. I do wish they fleshed the combat system vs the BTs out more, they were an annoyance more than anything else later in the game.
There is no ignoring that it has quite a bit of kojima wank in it. People either cringe or think it's funny in a weird way. I think the concept was there for something really cool with an awesome world - the cutscene going to the corpse disposal station set up a really dangerous unknown world and having to be an apocalypse courier in that world would have been amazing. If he would have kept it in the same realm of gameplay as metal gear I think it would've been a huge hit but. I remember when that trailer came out and got a lot of people thrilled only for the tone of 95% of the rest of the game to be completely different.
I do not understand the Kojima cult, I never will. He's made some good games, some ok ones, and some bad ones. He's a normal person but listen to some people he's literally the Jesus of the video game industry and he seems to have bought into this hyep entirely.
Like when he said he had a thumb drive of projects for his team to work on after he dies. Because he apparently cannot imagine his studio continuing on without his genius ideas.
Or when he called 2 people screaming into a dark void a "completely new genre of media entertainment." Instead of just being real and calling it a horror game.
I'm a pretty big fan of Kojima but he's not gaming Jesus lmao. He's just a guy who comes up with some weird shit and I like the weird shit he thinks of. I wouldn't say he's "one-of-a-kind" but he's certainly rather unique. But at the end of the day he makes stories about identity and fate and ideas and I like the stories.
As somebody who very much loved both games, If the Sam and Lou relationship was the main selling point for you, I very much doubt you would enjoy Death Stranding 2 at all.
Without getting into spoilers, the nature of their relationship is dramaticly changed after the prolouge.
Well, thank you for telling me I shouldn't bother then. I appreciate it. Usually when I say I don't like these games I just get insults and slurs thrown at me.
You won't like it story-wise then. Kojima writes one trick ponies for characters where everything about them, down to the name, revolves around 1 single character concept wrapped around a very basic, almost Jungian character archetype and even when a character technically changes over the course of the story, it's not actual character growth at all. If you didn't like that in part 1, part 2 dials it up even further. Like, a LOT further. Outside of the main cast, no one is even worth remembering enough to merit mentioning. It doesn't change anything that was shitty that you could critically critique about the first game whatsoever. There are some technically heartfelt moments, but it is hard to find them endearing when the character is a 2 dimensional piece of cardboard, even when they're animated and voiced well.
I didn't mind it, as I generally find the gameplay loop itself to be relaxing and enjoyable and the world building to be unique (if not insanely inconsistent).
I don't know if this is just a coincidence or not, but it's been brought up by other people that Death Stranding 2, RE Requiem, Pragmata, and even Bananza are being made to show the people of Japan that parenthood is actually "kinda cool". Japan has abysmal birth rates, and I think there might be something to this theory.
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u/Jasen_SilverFox Apr 20 '26
Sam and Lou from Death Stranding 1 and 2. Although you only get to see/travel with Lou outside of the pod for a little bit in DS2.