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sparrowsabre7 · 4 years

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Ok, strap yourselves in for me reacting to an hour long cutscene. Die-Hardman is president now and finally takes off his mask permanently. I feel we've been robbed because Tommie Earl Jenkins has an incredibly expressive face, much less stoic than Reedus and Mads. Looks like all of the preppers and scientists are at the briefing as DH explains that though extinction is inevitable, it is our duty to savour each moment and the promise of tomorrow. Sam steps out of the briefing and Deadman catches up to tell him they used Bridget's umbilical cord to pull him from her beach, but it was too late as her beach had already gone. Damn he was gone a month, meaning exponentially longer on the inside. They followed the revolver connection instead.

"The stick that became a rope" that's a nice way of tying in with the themes of nonviolence and cyclical storytelling. I like that.

Now Deadman's talking about Cliff. His "common law wife" was Lisa Bridges. And says John/DH killed him, which we already knew. Now DH is apologising for killing Cliff and says it's because he loved Bridget so much. He also says he's called DH because Cliff wouldn't let him die and he says he loved Cliff as much as he loved Bridget and is now torn up that BT Cliff didn't kill him. This is some powerful acting here, probably the single most emotionally raw performance in the game. Reedus and Mads are great at what they do, but they do largely stick to the moody, broody thing.

DH says he thinks Cliff brought him back as penance to make things right and Sam says that's bullshit, "if you aren't scared of death, how can you value life" which, while a little cliche actually resonates in this moment without feeling clunky. "That gun won't help you here" is repeated, again, reinforcing the nonviolent ethos of this new America.

Oh damn. Lou's gone. Decommissioning order came through and she's no longer online, as Deadman's points out BBs are not strictly speaking ever alive. Deadman disconnects Sam from the network temporarily, so he can take off his cufflinks if he wants to allow him to go wherever he needs to without being tracked by the UCA but when he takes Lou to the incinerator to prevent a voidout he will be reconnected if he hasn't done so. Sam embraces him and sets out, but Fragile stops him.

She says Fragile Express has been made the first official courier company in the UCA but also that she didn't kill Higgs, she let him choose: death or eternal solitude on the beach, and he killed himself.

I feel like there's a whole lot of expodumping going on that could have been more naturally peppered throughout the story. That Higgs reveal could easily have happened at the time instead of now. It has no punch now it's been at least 4 hours since then if not more.

Ok. One last delivery. Same as the first one. Another breathtaking piece of music to score the final mission as the camera pulls way back to see the full beauty of the world. It is quite powerful and I do almost get a bit teary. Like I keep saying, Kojima knows how to use music to sell a moment.

Sam arrives at the incinerator and connects to Lou and flashbacks begin again. Bridget and John discussing Sam as a BB candidate or a foundation... to build the Chiral network I presume. Repeat of the scene of Cliff giving Sam an astronaut and John comes in and they shoot the shit. More replaying of scenes, Cliff and Bridget arguing, John scheming with Cliff to escape with Sam. For some reason he has to shoot his wife too, I presume because as an act of euthanasia, but it's not really clear. Mads sells the subtle emotion well entirely through expression, showing how far performance capture has come. He kisses her forehead before killing her and I realise I think this is the only time we've seen her face. Does it count as fridging if the woman was essentially never even onscreen or came out of the fridge in the first place? Once dead her soul leaves her body and we see it from the repatriation camera and fly into Sam. So I guess, like Mama sharing a body with Lockne, maybe Lisa does with Sam.

Replaying of Cliff's death, John tries his best to save him and stop the Bridges staff.

Sam is now there in the flashback too, but imperceptible to other characters, except Cliff it seems at the end. Cliff tells him as his son he's his bridge to the future. A hereditary legacy. Clunkily then immediately over explained as "before you I was like any other Cliff a dead end with no way forward," and underlines that Sam brings people together and bridges them to the future.

Bridget shoots twice and Cliff falls to the floor, but bb Sam is hit too in what is probably the most horrible thing I've had to witness in a video game that isn't even that violent or gory per se. Bridget screams and breaks down, thus explaining her comment about the two shots that started it earlier and why she was so desperate to send Sam back.

We follow bb Sam through the seal to the beach. Ahhh, so the cross on the chest of the dolls and Cliff was a mirror of the scar Bridget left when healing his gunshot wound. I'm now trying to think if we ever saw Sam's belly button before now. Cliff is out in the waters of the beach wading out as Bridget places Sam into the sea to repatriate.

We're back in the tank now looking at John and Bridget. It seems in the shooting, being that it severed the umbilical cord, Sam no longer has his ability to be a BB since that connection is severed. John wonders if they should risk putting a repatriate out into the world, but Bridget says she'll raise him as her own.

Back in reality we see Sam has removed Lou from the tank and placed his cufflinks in the incinerator instead. A nice symbolic visual of burning his shackles which is surprisingly not overplayed, but given they seem to have been designed like handcuffs explicitly for this visual moment and literally any other design would have made more sense in-world, probably shouldn't heap too much praise.

He's desperately trying to revive Lou in a hwartwrenching scene before finally succeeding and leaving the facility. Outside it's raining, but the rain is normal and neither of them age. It's unclear what caused this, whether it was because of the separation with Bridget's beach or because Lou's been released but it's a quiet victory all the same, remarkably restrained as an ending that leaves a sense of satisfaction.

So it's all over, but before I sum up I wanted to share one of the more poignant quotes which is actually in an email from Heartman "About Sam's Return" unlocked upon completion. He talks about how in thousands of years, if intelligent life walks the earth again after the inevitable sixth extinction, they would find fossils and maybe even some of our records. "We cannot hope to guess how much the will understand about who we were. After all their intelligence will not be like ours ... (they will have) different conceptions of what it is to die. But it matters not if they never understand who we were. All that matters, in my opinion at least, is that they know we were here."

I think that's the best summary for the key argument of Death Sranding, that humanity is driven by its connections and quest to leave the world better than we found it. A legacy, something to remember and be remembered by. On these themes, I cannot fault it. It works so well in terms of gameplay and story synergy on that front that Ibthink the story would have been greatly improved if it had been significantly streamlined to focus solely on that. However, I can't deny the cool visual and atmosphere of the BTs, Cliff, all that jazz, but Bramelie was character definitely too overwritten and didn't have the charisma nor connection to back it up. She wasn't the Boss from MGS3 she was a mere plot device. Saying over and over "I an the extinction entity" just underlines that. Cliff absolutely worked for me, his whole story, acting, design; superlative.

Higgs definitely shit the bed as a villain. Quirky charisma only gets you so far and I still don't really get why he wanted to blow up the world. The Englert thing just made it weirder. Oh and some endgame journals reveal he was beaten as a child. Whoop de doo, what lazy writing to try and create empathy for a villain, especially when it's all delivered in an email.

Fragile, Mama and Lockne were... there. Typical Kojima women, supporting the protagonist but never really doing anything of their own accord. Their backstories wrought with uncalled for violence and tragedy.

Deadman was fun, good performance by Jesse Corti on vocals, as was Heartman. Given they both served almost exclusively as expobombs they still felt rounded enough to be interesting. I feel it's not entirely a coincidence that Kojima gave his director friends the most interesting characters.

Sam himself was played with minimalism, but not to the point of seeming wooden or unfeeling. Reedus showed surprising depth with relatively little material when compared with some of the support characters.

Gameplay I've already talked about enough, but it does astound me that on approaching 45-50 hours (forgot to check stats) it still remained fun to deliver parcels and traverse the world.

Overall, do I recommend the game? Yes, if you have the time and willingness to be open to something new. No if you hate weird shit and don't like the sound of the concept. If you don't like the sound of it, you probably won't enjoy playing it.

As to this play along. It was a fun experience articulating my thoughts as I went, particularly with a game as long as complex as this, but I did often find myself torn by relaying events and actually commenting on them. It was a lot of pausing for writing and interrupted play and I think, ultimately, I probably wouldn't do another, or do it in a different way.

#death stranding #sparrowsabre7 plays death stranding

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