Kojima is not a genius
Immediately I apologize for such an unscrupulous clicobic name for this article, but it is somewhat the only true to describe my impressions of acquaintance with the latter, at the time of writing, the game Hideo Kojima – Death Stranding .
Yes, I will criticize. At the same time, I am ready to offer and discuss the topic in the comments below. As they say, how many people are so many opinions.
Like many gamers of the world, I got a copy of the game during free distribution in EGS. He began to play from the moment of receipt, and after 70 + hours of gameplay, I have something to say about her, about her problems and her "genius".
I draw attention to the fact that spoilers are present in the article, since they can not do without them, since I will doubt the genius more touching history and storitelling.
I did not play any of the other Kodzima games, I was not close to MGS setting and its concentration on stealth elements. I tried the demo version of Guns of the Patriots and did not find anything for myself in it. And that parted.
But DS intrigued me. This is something new, in the setting of the post -apocalypse, according to trailers and shows, it was strongly incomprehensible about what the game and about what. And besides, I usually do not watch all trailers and interviews, in general, I have enough to see the material once and I decide if I want to play it or not.
Briefly my opinion – I’m Kaifalun. Many hammepy hammep and to some extent deservedly, but he came in to me. My inner Manticine rejoiced from the built gameplay delivery system, from the possibility of full control over what you are doing and how. But a spoon of tar in this gameplay barrel of honey for me became storitelling. Not a common plot canvas, but how history is told and in what quality it is presented. About this further in the text.
First, I will deconstruct how Kojima presents us the plot.
The game can be safely divided into three parts: introduction, fillers and development, finale. The introduction ends exactly after delivery of the Bridget to the crematorium and receive a proposal for combining cities in UCA. I called the whole main part of the game fillers and development, until the last node reaches the Smoley Sea. Well, from the intersection of the sea to the second credits – the final. The first and last parts by 65-70% consist of rollers and conversations of various kinds, while part two are 90% of purely gameplay points. If you expand all the events of the timeline we get the following picture:
Well, as it were, I knew in advance the passion of Kojima to such “films” inside the games (by the way, it is strange that at one time Quantum Break was criticized for such a strongly, but here it seems to be something else). I watched the Katsets not without pleasure from the setting and playing of the actors, but there was a clear overkill. You know, I am an adult and I may not have an extra 30-40 minutes to watch a cool Katsen, but it was for adults that the game was created as a general message, and in general it is read due to statements about the game from Hideo itself.
Here’s a sign where I estimated the timing of everything
You will agree with me that this is a lot, it is not evenly. How many gamdev exists? During this time, steritelling mechanics are honed quite well. Specifically within the framework of this head of the article – timings of recreation and action. Ideally, on conditional 3-5 units of action, there is a unit of rest. Rest can be expressed not only in the viewing of Kitszen, but also in the "quiet" moments of gameplay, when you do not need to concentrate hard. I’m not even talking about the fact that this can still be crushed, mixed and wedged one other through scripting scenes.
Kojima does not seem to accept new trends in the ways of the story of interactive stories, preferring to use old methods: katsen, communication by walkie -talkie or other device. All! He seemed to do not care about the audience, or you can not try to change, because they said that he was a genius on the Internet.
It was possible to https://nokyccasinos.org.uk/review/spin-time/ reduce many of the Katsenzen tralous by cutting the repetition of the previously sentenced information. The entire introduction is repeated the same time several times. I understood the first time about temporal rains and how they affect the world, I do not need to talk about him more and more. Or it was quite possible to smear some explanations along the game, plunging into them already inside the gameplay. Just the second part of the game would not be so poor on plot events.
Separately, it is worth mentioning the plot line of the cliff Unger. A military man who had a wife and son. The latter was turned into BB (BEBE) and after some events he becomes an anthonist the main character, but not for a long time. Cliff Tizeryat for a long time and stubbornly, with almost every rise from the shelter, a scene with memories of him turns on. Nothing prevented to reveal this character before, immediately after the moment of his "second" death. And here is a small piece of revelation that Sam to leave his son at the very end, before meeting with Amelia. But Kojima decided to leave this piece of the plot at the time after the first credits.
This was how it was possible to wrap the story so that it was more uniform and stable. For all here is a link to the original layout in Figma.
The first "Strike", but still tolerant.
Let’s speak frankly – the main character Sam Porter is not at all. The protagonist must be an alter player, we will know the world through him, participate in events, and save the world in the end. It is important for me to associate myself with the character, otherwise the whole built illusion is collapsed, updating the shortcomings, which actually happens.
Moreover, the detachment of the protagonist is explained by him with the disease, they say he cannot touch him, since traces remain on the body. Only now, this should not interfere with the banal to speak more, ask questions, conduct normal meaningful and living dialogs.
The hero’s silence and disinterest is a problem. If Sam is not interested in anything that is happening – then I should be interested in where? This creates a merchant dissonance. Someone can say that in this way Kojima builds a riddle around Sam’s origin, which I will answer-no, a bit of curiosity and eloquence would not have broken this incredible plot turn.
And because of this, Ridus, as an actor in the role of Sam, do not believe and this is a shame. Honestly, Norman is not so cool actor. He has a worked out the role of a harsh biker of walking and then he did not go far from him and even a little relying. Yes, in some katszen he manages to squeeze dramas and these moments are beautiful, but otherwise … such.
If you go by examples. In the first hour, Sam feels a harsh and hardened survival by a man who is probably ready to answer just as severely. In the scene of the first meeting with the creatures, when the truck turns over this impression is strengthened. But then he meets with a bridge and this severity for some reason remains. She is his mother, and no matter how you have to turn your feelings, at least some. Instead, the face is brick, even at the time of her death. And the scene in the shower with the grandfather, the cring and only, here for some reason they decided to turn off the severity of Sam.
Ridus had to give more remarks so that he himself asked about the structure of the world, more interest in what is happening, build a clear task for the actor, the image, so that he would not be shown from side to side. The lack of sufficient depth of the characters as a whole, the problem of the game, most of them do not reach this aspect, but with Sam the player spends more time and saving forces on it, well, it was not at all worth.
The second "Strike", and he most often knocked out of immersion.
Kodzima, after his dismissal from Konami, decided to ride around the world and hang out with friends, and after this search for inspiration settled to work on Death Stranding. This is briefly. It is obvious that this topic of creating ties with people, which in essence, was engaged in the start of development, formed the basis of the game. The rest is reliably not known to me, in terms of how the game was developing inside the studio, but you can give the result to the analysis and understand why the story came out such.
When writing a plot, there are two methodologies – according to the method of the architect and according to the Gardener method (Plotters & Pantsers). The latter, gardeners, “plant” characters in their created world and allow them to live and develop according to their characters, aspirations, desires, interact with each other. Such writers usually have a ghostly idea of the ending of history and only slightly direct them in the right direction, leaving them freedom of action. A striking example of this is the book of the cycle “Song of Ice and Flame” (not a series), where each character is deep and lives in events.
The writers, on the contrary, build a story from and to advance, the main thing in their history is intrigue, mystery and all built within the framework of this methodology (characters, ENT, events) are aimed at approaching the disclosure of the secret. In this situation, the characters are more flat, typical, I make the story concentrated on events.
Kojima just works according to the methodology of the architect and it seems like all the canons are in place in the form of characters, which can be described in two or three phrases. That’s just the fact that these are conventions of the methodology does not mean that nothing else to do with it. Characters can continue to deepen, acting on the contrary.
If gardeners are working out in the smallest details, and they already, in turn, affect the world and generate events, then the architects of the world and events affect the characters. Yes, in Death Stranding it seems to be seen “ears” of such a job when we look at specific mise -en -scenes with some heroes (for example, with the circumcision of the umbilical cord in the mother), but such work should be carried out within the whole plot, and not where I wanted to.
Either Kojima did not have enough time, or desire or just knowledge, but he certainly did not finalize here. My opinion is that he simply let anyone in history, and if he allowed him, no one had the right to object to him or make a remark. If so, then this explains everything, and even those statements from his colleagues who did not understand what kind of game they eventually do.
As a result, the plot without proper study is pasted on scenes and now everything is fine with them. I have almost no complaints here, a person can set up and build emotional moments. Not without flaws, of course (the sudden death of mom from nichrome caused only OR, and only), but most often it was excellent.
The third “Strike”, because the “genius” itself protrudes the global plot forward, exposing the shortcomings.
Connection. The connections are solved. They are important, build them. This is actually the whole global message of the game and it becomes clear in the first hour. And if you followed the development, watched the interviews and other materials – understanding came to the launch of the game. And it somehow. Moreover, I say this thousands of times during the passage. For what? I immediately understood everything! No need to focus on this attention so much.
Kojima is also pronouncing in the forehead, which again knocks out of immersion. Well, do not need it with gamers, they are not stupid and not stupid. Attempts are observed will delve into the questions “why?"And" Why?", But they also quickly go to self -reproach. The author, as I see, also felt it, because he began to raise other questions, but he didn’t give a clear answer to them (since they are all philosophical, or left on the second part). In the dry residue, it turns out that the control idea is clear and works unchanged.
How to fix it? To begin with, not to pronounce it in the forehead, to ilee in something else and this is in the game – the notorious chiral network. Just choose other words, use allegiance and reduce the frequency of use of the word "connection" to a minimum. Or reformulate the control idea into something else. “Why is it so difficult to establish connections?", For example.
This is the fourth Strike, because of which the final loses another powerful tool to improve it.
Well, a little trifle – a bunch of explanations. No, of course they are needed. Necessary! But not in such quantities and in the wrong form. My problem is that a lot of time is devoted to some important thing, such as chiral rains, although it was possible to get by with two or three phrases and a scene with a half-naked Frajal, and it was possible to explain for the importance of rest and its capabilities more. And I’m not talking about pop -up hints and kilometer texts in the local code, but more immersive methods. And so with many things. The characters chat a lot, but often pour from empty to empty, and even several times. But this is already as subjective as possible, it may be important for someone to hear 20 times about the fact that you can rock BB.
You probably could have the impression that I did not like anything at all, I got everything and in general would have done a hundred times better. No, I wouldn’t do it. Nevertheless, in this work there are many roughnesses that were very striking and I only tried to understand why this happened and how this could be avoided.
Probably the author himself realizes everything that he was not able to finalize, polish, implement, and that is why work was started on DS2. I fully hope for this theory, but we will check it when the second part is ready. I do not think that a trick with a delivery simulator will work a second time, the gameplay will have to be rethought.
Genius Kojima? In terms of storytelling – definitely not, not this time. In terms of game design and World-Building’a? I can say that yes, quite. The world of the game is incredibly holistic, structured, verified stylistically and technologically. Gameplay … wow … think about how to make the game process of the usual delivery of cargo to your two fascinating – worthy of genius. True, then you can strangle and say, they say, this is the merit of the entire studio as a whole, but perhaps here it is already quite stuffy.
And keep it anyway!
Notification, every 5 seconds, when you go along a rebuilt road.
