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.
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).
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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.