Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Death Stranding 2: On The Beach Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Thank you for the support! Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Topic of the show:Death Stranding 2: On The Beach Review - Bless’ Score -  Jerica’s Score - Greg’s Score so far - Ads - Superchats Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to your Death Stranding 2 on the Beach review. A kind of funny games cast for Monday, June 23rd, 2025. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside Forbes 30 under 30. A.K.A. New York Game Awards nominated, AKA BB Poppy. Blessing Eddie O. Ye, Jr. Good day, Greg. Good day to you. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm great. Has this notebook shown up on content? Did you bring it out on the preview? I don't remember. I think I did bring it up on the preview. I just forgot.

This is an amazing notebook. Hold this up. Yeah, right. Look at this. It's a little death stranding thing. They gave you when you were at Kajima Productions preview in it. Yeah, this is one of those ones where I mentioned this on one of the preview things, right?

But we got there and they're like, by the way, no laptops, no phones, like no electronics allowed at the You're not allowed to connect. You're not allowed to connect while we're disconnecting, connecting the world, connecting Australia. In the disconnected world. Yes. But yeah, they gave us these notebooks. And so all my notes are in here. And it's funny, I didn't take any more notes for the review.

And so when I got in, because I had left this in the office, I was like, you know what? I'll just use my notes from the preview because I don't think much has changed, spoilers. But I just started reading these and I'm like, oh, man, I took a lot of notes. And a lot of them are, it's funny just looking back. Give me your funniest one you've seen so far. I mean, open the page, find me a funny one right now. The one that I... It's so funny, it should be that hard.

Find a funny one to you right before this, right? This is the best I've seen a baby look in a video game, L-O-L. There was another one where I just, I just write B. ET spiders, and that's it, which we'll talk about. There's a note, I had an earlier note in here that says something along the lines of like, oh, no, this game is playing it a bit more straight. And then a note here that says, never mind, Kojima on is bullshit. Yep, yep, yep, yep, as he should be.

In rounding out our trio, it's the one, the only. It's Jericho, Hannah from JK Games podcast. Hello, Jericho. Howdy? How are you? I'm phenomenal. Yeah? I'm a little tired, but I cannot wait.

Why are you so tired? I've just been playing a lot of Death Stranding, too. And I can't talk about it, and now I probably can. So the energy has something has crept into my body, and now I'm alive. Every time I pee on something, a mushroom appears. There you go. Exactly. You get that checked out.

Yeah, maybe. Jerica, of course, thank you for joining us. Of course, we love collaborating and crossing over with you. But this, of course, only happened because you reached out to me and said, hey, who can I talk to a PlayStation to get a code for death stranding too? And I said, hey, why don't you just come review it with us? Hell yeah. And you said, yeah.

And we did a whole thing in Chicago where we revealed it. But I want to correct you. I didn't write into you are wrong. and I also did miss the very, very end of the show, but I don't think it came up. You said, of course, we flew Jericho out here. Jericho flew herself out here. She said she literally said this is a once in a lifetime opportunity,

so she flew herself from the one the only Arkansas. No, Green Bay, Alabama, Alabama. Green Bay, Alabama. I remember I said it when we were out there. I was like, wait, are you Arkansas? You're in Alabama, and I went Greenbow, Alabama in the Forest Gump voice. That way I'll always remember Alabama. I was like, okay.

But I had to get there in the end. So, Jerica, thank you for doing that for us. Yeah, thank you for. having me. Yeah. It's been a journey. Yeah. And we're going to get into that journey here, everybody, because of course this is the Kind of Funny Gamescast. Each and every weekday in a variety of platforms

we run you through the biggest topics in gaming. Whether they be previews, reviews, or just topics we need to talk about. We cover them all each and every day live. Twitch.tv.tv.tv. YouTube.com slash Kind of funny games. Of course, podcast services around the globe.

If you love that, of course, join us when our programming day starts with Kind of Funny Games daily. It goes into a gamescast. Then there's something like the Kind of Funny podcast. Then we stream video games and we have a great time. If you like what we do here is a small, independent 11-person business, we would love you to pick up the Kind of Funny membership.

Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. Apple and Spotify, you can toss us $10 a month. Get all of our shows. That's more than 80 episodes a month, ad-free. And of course, get your daily dose of me. Greg Miller in a series we call Greg Way. That's 15 to 20 minutes of me podcast. solo to add up to four hours of exclusive content each and every month.

If you are watching live, like so many of you are right now, of course, be part of this show. You've read IGN's review, you've read GameSpot's review, you've seen it all. You've probably read Jordan Midler's at VGC like I have. Go ahead and super chat on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games with your questions, comments, concerns, we will tackle them here. Of course, this review will be spoiler-free as much as that's possible. No big beats, but obviously we're going to talk about Pigs the game. You might someone, but I want you to know ahead of time.

Obviously, don't go into story spoilers. wouldn't be there for you. However, housekeeping for you, we will be there for you this weekend. If you didn't know, Friday, Mike and Roger are freaking it again. Freaking it again. Friday the 27th, Mike will go step for step on a treadmill with Norman Redis and another

literal marathon stream for the launch of Death Stranding 2. But this time, they have a few surprises. Get ready to go the distance because they will stream as long as you support. Can they make it pass KFGD on Monday? How high will Mike's heart rate be? Come, or how much Chili's will

they order. Come find out Friday, June 27th, exclusively on Twitch. Then of course, on Saturday, it's my championship parade. Here in San Francisco, I'll see you outside the ferry building on the Embarcadero at 10 a.m. We will do a parade on the sidewalk. We will walk wheel of signs. We will mock Tim and ruin Pokemon Go Day until we get to square pie guys. 10 to noon Saturday in San Francisco. Of course, we're an 11-person small business all about live talk shows. Kind of funny games daily already covered that meta and Xbox are teaming up for a headset and Jerica doesn't want anything to do with it. Yeah. Do you?

No, no. I got my Xbox everywhere. I don't need to strap to my face. After this, it's going to be the kind of funny podcast featuring Danny Jalas. And then it's going to be a stream of Dune Awakening with Mike and Nick. If you're a kind of funny member today's, Gregway, is Mike and Roger buying a treadmill. And I've seen parts of it. It's an experience.

Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney Twining. Today, we're brought to you by Cash App and Mood. We'll tell you about that later for now. Let's begin the show with what is and forever will be topic of the show. Death Stranding 2 on the beach is upon us. Of course, out tonight for deluxe edition users. You can get in and get it that way. June 26 for everyone.

The PlayStation Network description reads, embark on an inspiring mission of human connection beyond the UCA. Sam, with companions by his side, sets out on a new journey to save humanity from extinction. join them as they traverse a world beset by otherworldly enemies, obstacles and a haunting question should we have connected. Step by step legendary game creator

Hideo Kajima changes the world once again. Jerica, you said you are low on sleep. Yeah. How many hours have you put into the Death Stranding 2 on the beach and have you rolled credits?

Around it 80 hours and I have rolled credits. 80 hours. Could have been more. It could have been more. have been more, but I wanted to see the finish line. Talk to me about those 80 hours then from a top level. So that's obviously main quest, but how much side stuff did you do? Where did your time start getting lost?

I started taking my time back from the game, and that's not a negative way of saying. I want it to take more of my time. We'll get to that later. But probably about 30 to 40% of the game, I've started going, just mainlining, more the main missions in the game. But beyond that, were you just doing all side stuff? Were you building roads? Oh, oh, yeah.

I got way in the weeds, way deep in the weeds with building my roads. And we'll get to it. But like some of the exciting things with this game is what else can I unlock with this prepper? And started really getting connected with some of those individuals I was meeting. Okay. Yeah. Blessing. Yes.

How many hours are you in death training to and have you rolled credits? I have rolled credits. Yeah. So it's going to be fun talking about this because I did the preview at Kojima production a couple months ago, right? Where they allowed us to play up to 30 hours of the game. So this playthrough, the review play through, I rolled credits at around probably closer to 45 hours of playing. If I combine that with my preview, then we're talking about probably closer to 70 hours of playing overall. But for this playthrough, it took me about 45 hours to roll credits.

Okay. And then I have not rolled credits. I am in episode 14 of 16 episodes talking to you out there you're like you got like an hour and a half left but last night I was playing playing got to a thing and I was like I'm gonna put it down here

obviously 40 plus hours I have plenty to say about it and know how I think about the game but we'll get into all that but I don't want to start there since I didn't even finish it blessing right back to you give me your top level synopsis and score for Death Training 2 on the beach it's so funny because like I mentioned before

I didn't most of the time for reviews I like to take notes and this time I didn't because I felt like the notes that I would take are the notes that are already in this preview. Yeah, of course. And honestly, a lot of the things I said during the preview echo here. I'm going to read one excerpt for my preview notes to kind of sum it up. I said because this is a rare direct sequel from Kojima, it feels reactive to any and all criticism of death training one. The combat is fun and engaging.

It gets you into the game quicker. There's more dynamic weather and obstacles. There's more tools and upgrade systems. the story feels easier to follow and more interesting. It's more beautiful. It's bigger. The soundtrack is better. There's more variety in the BTs and the ways to deal with them. There's a glossary system akin to active time lore,

which makes the story easier to follow. And all that is still echoed here, right? I think the game is still doing the thing of, all right, direct Siegel, what are all the pieces of feedback that we can take from the previous game that we can use to make this game overall, which is a better experience. The one other excerpt I'm going to take from my preview notes is this.

as Buckwild, the rules of this universe are, there is such conceptual and emotional buy-in from those crafting this story that I can't help but to buy in myself. Destrating 2 plays so strongly by the rules of the first game. I'm emotional from an early on speech about beaches. And I think for me, playing it in this review play-through, that's the thing that shines most is Destraining 1 when I think I first played in when most of us,

when we all first played death training one. I think one of the main takeaways was, oh, this world is weird. Oh, this, the Kojima is like going full Kojima. Oh, this game is bizarre. All that shit. Right. Oh, Cairo Network.

Oh, beaches, BTs, BB, like, all that shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Playing it this time around, I, like, I can't believe how much buy-in that I have into the universe that they've crafted here where they're talking about the Cairo Network and, like, crazy things that go on with the Cairo Network. And I'm sitting there like, yeah, I get that. That's weird.

Like, that's interesting. Like I'm fully into what they're doing narratively here. And I think it works because it's fully in on what it's doing. But then also they really use the world to uplift the characters. And this time around, I think the characters really shine. I don't know if I have a favorite character. Maybe I'll say Troy Baker's performance as Higgs is like my favorite performance in this game. It's fucking awesome.

But between that, between fragile, between, you know, what we see out of El Fanning and Shioly Kusuna's character of Rainey, right? Like, I love this cast so much. And I think narratively, the themes that they're tackling, the tone that they have, like, I think it's really unique. I think it's really interesting. I think it's really special. Gameplay-wise, it's more distracting, but in all the best ways where they have

figured out how to make this the best truck simulator meets, like, you know, third-person action game in the weirdest world possible that they could have made. And I fuck with it so heavy. if I'm going to give this a score out of 10, I'm going to say it's a 9.5. Damn. You love to see it. I have so much,

I'm jotting down things you're saying because I want to double back to him. But Jerica, at top of the order here, where are you going to score this one? Listen, I was a huge, obviously I wanted to ask to be a part of this because I was, I've played a few Metal Gear games.

Metal Gear Solid 5 was the last one I played, but I never finished it. Metal Gear Solid 3 was my first Kojima game that I digested. and I, to say that, I'm like, Des Stranding was like one of the first games obviously doing his own thing

and I just fell in love with just how weird it was and the story overall like really hit with me. And I also, I'm not the most exciting person in video games when you're like, the play style. Like I could do a walking simulator, which was a lot of people talking about the first game. I enjoy the Aviats. I enjoy the,

Dust Stranding is a vibe and it helps you like sit and reflect with, what you actually got going on in your life or with Sam in the game. For Destrating 2, I think the fix was the pacing of it all. And primarily, like, for me, I can now recommend Destrating 2 to someone that hasn't played the first game. And it be okay. And I'll get to that in a second. Because it gets you into the world much sooner, they equip you with tools that are introduced at the right points of the game,

depending on what area you're in, depending on what part of the story. The narrative's tied into that too. Like, you're introduced and fed at the right points. And it encourages you, like it, I feel like I am empowered as a player to try new weapons, to go to this new area that looked a little nerve-wracking.

I don't know if I want to go over there yet. I know there's BTs over there. By the way, I never enjoy BT interactions in the first game. So you don't love them in this game either, but I felt more. empowered to not shy away from those experiences. But overall, I think the fixing of the pacing, the introduction of the narrative, and how they sort of set you up for success based on that next mission is really well done.

And it's way easier to follow. I think this is going to be more of a hit with more people now. But yeah, it's the learning curve of this world is intimidating, especially if you haven't played the first game. but they do a lot of things to help with that. What's your score? 9.5. Damn, you're right there with blasts.

I love it. I want to get that to it so bad. I'm ready to do it. Greg Miller. Hey. How'd you like that's raining too? Well, I'm jotting all the nose not because I can't wait for this discussion with you all.

But yeah, you know, my, especially for so many people watching this, uh, history with Hideo Kojima games is quite well documented, right? Like I would not be here without Metal Gear solid. So that's how important that game was,

let alone that series, alone him as a creator and stuff like that. And so I've had an interesting ride with Death Stranding 2 on the beach. An incredibly enjoyable one to just, you know, get ahead of it or whatever. But, you know, what's fascinating was even pulling in all, you know, you were talking about, you know, a better experience. It's easier to follow these things here. I went back and listened to the kind of funny gamescast review of Death Stranding 1, the original one,

not the one Roger and Mike just did, but the one that was me and Fran and Andy and Imron, right? and Tim leading it and us talking about it. And there were wise words said on that podcast by me. And they were listening to Fran and Andy talk about where they were with the game. And I kept saying, oh, my God, I wish I had that experience. Where I mainline Death Stranding 1's trying to hit review embargo. And Andy and Fran were similar comparable hours to me, but were lost in the side stuff. And so with Death Stranding 2, I feel like I explore.

more and did more side stuff, which helped me care even more about the world and about what was happening. And I think something powerful that you said, Bless, was the idea that, like, when you get it, the buy-in from both the creators and the players is so important here. Listening to that Death Stranding one review, of course, from 2019, right, when the game originally came out, November 8th, 2019. It was this, the first question from Tim is, what is this game? Because we still didn't know, we didn't understand what Death Stranding was. So there's so much bending over backwards. And to start Death Stranding 2 on the beach and we tossed right back into it of the Cairo Network, the BTs. Like there's no handholdy.

Like there is, you know, we talk so much about Final Fantasy 16, right? An active time. The fact that they have their little glossary every time it pops up, you can hold down your start button, right? You can go right in, read it. You can go back there. When you come back to the game after a full restart of the game, it pops up. And there's like, story so far section, you can go click in and refresh yourself if you are lost and all that. like you talking about the better experience so many of the reviews talking about both good

and negative and positive impacts of a frictionless experience right i think that goes so far to make death stranding to something very special and for me personally on the score range of where we're talking about it's an interesting one you and i went to lunch on friday and i was talking to you about it and i was like for where i am right now i think it's an eight i think it's a great game but i'm not obviously done with it and i need this and i was talking about the thing I wanted out of it and stuff you and you were like well hold your horses a little bit blah blah blah and so now to be there with an hour and a half to end credits they paid off in the end here with what I was looking for of like here's this big story moment here's a meaty cutscene here's all this

stuff and it was like okay like last night yeah yesterday into last night when I was really cranking through it was like damn you're doing you're giving me what I wanted here and it was this slow methodical build to get there so it's like for me right now with an asterisk not being I mean, I'll beat it in two. After the kind of funny podcast, I'm going to sit down and beat the game, right? I'd be leaning towards 8.5, but I'm also hot on the ending as I build to the ending,

so I'm interested to see if the ending actually pays off and everything, let alone then doubling back to do more of the stuff and finish off more of the side things. Like, you know, this is always such an interesting thing where we're reviewing these games. We want to stay quiet to each other, but then you also hold so much in. And so outside, when it was just me and Nick out there,

he was like, oh man, you know, Tim sucks. I'm like, I know he does, because Tim's not in the office. He's like, we gotta stop making fun of him. I'm like, no, no, we don't. I sent Tim a video from Death Stranding on Saturday night, and he didn't even respond to it. I want you to watch it. And I start playing this video, Nick's just watching,

he goes, this is insane. I know, I know. Like, that's what this game is. It is that level of quirkiness, of weirdness. Again, like, Kojima being Kojima, you know, coming in and giving you all this stuff to do. And I've plenty of criticisms on it,

but I found myself even in the car talking about it. I would make the criticism and then go back to like what the mission statement of the game is. Like what is he trying to say? What is he trying to do here? So for the things that bump up against me here and you know, 40 plus hours of it, like it's a great game. I think it's a great, great game. I'll be interested to see when I finally roll credits and obviously go back and plow through some more side stuff,

what I'm going to feel like because I still want to go. I still think some of the most interesting stuff I've seen is the end of those individual threads with the individual people who need you and stuff like that. So it's going to be a fascinating look. at this in general. But again, I want to get into all of this. We have so many questions. I have so many things jotted down. I guess where I would want to start is the question of blessing. Yeah.

What was your style of gameplay? When we launched Gamescast as a daily product, one of the things we always said was it would be so great to read other people's reviews and talk to each other of how this happened and then have on. And so reading Simon Cardi on IG in today, reading Midler over VGC, it was interesting how they tacked. situations. How did you play death stranding? Because to Jericho's point, you're given so many tools.

There's so many different ways to tackle things. Yeah, it's so funny because I was surprised and delighted, the phrase of the year, where when I would get to a new facility or deliver to a new prepper and they would give you an upgrade or give you an item, they're like, oh, here's this unique grenade thing that I'm not going to spoil, but like it'll fucking do this. And I'm like, wow, I can't believe. First of all, I'm never going to use that because I don't play that way. Like, there are so many times where I'm unlocking items where I'm like, wait.

Not for me. Like, not for me, but also that's cool as shit. You know what I mean? Like, that's not even a way that I imagine tricking, like, the human enemies in the game because they see if, like, I'm putting out a grenade that pretends to be a thing. And I'm like, oh, shit, I didn't even think to play that like that. Because when I'm facing human enemies, I'm playing the game like a fucking action game. I'm playing it like a third person shooter. I'm playing it like Middle Gear Solid 4, honestly.

Wow. Like, it starts off. Because I, I, one of the items you'll get kind of earlier on in the experience is a Trank sniper rifle, which I think is like the first like, oh, this is clicking moment for me where I'm like, oh, I can now, if I go to the tower to mark everybody at a base, at an enemy base, and then use the sniper rifle to like start picking them off one at a time and then they'll run to me and then I mow them down. Like, that's sort of my routine when it comes to the human basis.

So I was like really impressed when I started listening to other podcasts this morning as well. Like Jordan Miller was talking to how he was stealth around and like he played it like a stealth game. And I'm like, yeah, I guess you could do that. I have moments where I'm in an enemy base. I need to extract something. And I'm taking out people and I have one person left. And I like, I can see that they're on the other side of the base. But the thing I need to extract is right in front of me.

And I'm like, I guess I can let that guy just chill. Right. I'm like, in narrative, I'm not killing these people. I'm just knocking them out. So it's like, well, let me just get my bag and leave. like fuck that guy and so I'll do that but earlier on I referenced truck simulator because

that is sort of how I played at a certain point you you unlock vehicles I think faster in this game than you did in Destraining 1 and one of the vehicles you unlock is a bigger truck that could hold more items and it like it runs a little slower but like I you can

customize it to you know have like one of the things I like is that it has like a like a pulley that will grab items from the ground as they're driving past them. And after I unlocked that truck, that was the way I navigated them out most of the time. Like, I've been on the

Mario Kart stream we did last week. I was saying a lot of like, hell yeah, brother. And like, honestly, that's my character in death training too. Like, it is, it is a nomadus with his backwards cap and sunglasses on, driving a truck, and me being like, all right, let's sit the countryside. We're going to deliver packages.

And, like, that was the, the, the, the game for me. Like the BTs was, I think we're the main thing where I'm like, all right, cool. Abandon the truck and I'm going to tiptoe through these BT areas while slowly hitting them with the blood grenades. But for me, that was the way that I played. Jericho. Pretty similarly. Yeah. I definitely in the first game, like, I was always hesitant to jump it. Like, I didn't really engage in like the mule camps at all because I just always got my butt kicked. And I was like, they're messing up my deliveries. They're beating up my

packages. I don't want to do that. But with Destriting too, I feel that I've had tools given to me or at least incorporated like how I might go about doing this. So combat has been a part of the game that I usually shy away from, but this one I'm engaging more to your point. Like I love the sniper. Like I was using that a lot because I don't want to go hand to hand until later and we'll get to that later. I actually had a lot of fun with the melee later on.

Yeah. But initially like I just want to, I don't want to fight right. now. I don't want to, I don't want them to like mess me up. So like let me take them out from a distance or let me trick them and use some of that stealth action to save this, uh, this camp or get whatever materials I'm going to get. But overall, yeah, like, I do love just walking around in this world so much. But that's where it starts taking time. And that's just part of, that's the vibe. You know, you might not want to invest this much time into a game, but if you do and you enjoy that,

you're going to have an amazing, but you don't have to. That's what I love about Destrain, too. Like, you have your, you can play your own way and keep that from beginning to end, it seems.

So to your point with the BTs and like, I learned exactly like how many grenades I needed to take out this great, this BT. And I sort of kept to that pattern the rest of the game. But I will say like, yeah,

like overall, like it's, you can play pretty much any way you want to play. I like to explore this world because it is, so pretty, though. It's a really good world, especially compared to dust rating one. I'm playing on PS5 Pro, and I stayed in quality mode the whole time, baby.

I did. I normally am a performance gal. Listen, I like those extra frames when I can, but like, it, I don't know that if it's been technically shared what it is on the PS5 Pro yet, but, like, it seemed to be at 60 FPS and 4K. Like, it looked awesome. And performance mode looked pretty good, too, but I, I, to not get too deep into that, but let me go back.

Yeah, it's so pretty. And I love going and looking for a place to put down a little stamp to tell people like, this is a great place to take a picture. That's kind of gamer I am. I like, you know, Pokemon stat was one of my favorite games as a kid growing up, so I like taking pictures of photo mode's awesome. It's all about the journey. At the point where I had to sort of stop doing that

because I wanted to get to the end for y'all, like I wanted to get to it, where I started speeding up, that's where some of my fun. left me like going faster through this game so yeah that's a game you want to soak in soak in take take your time with and i think you nail it of like i think again a lot of reviews we're seeing today are talking about it frictionless for positive or negative reasons but i think that's done overall in a way to make it your own yeah what do you want the game to be and i found that to be refreshing and exciting and definitely an interesting choice that I think it works for and against sometimes

and to how do you play the game right? Like I am Midler. I'm trained in the trenches of Metal Gear Solid. I am stealthing everything. I am using that fucking rope to choke the shit out of people every time. Oh yeah. Take them down.

CQC, right? And so it was interesting to be in those situations and all right, cool. Sam, thanks for making this delivery. Now we're giving you this fucking gun that does this. I've never even touched the sniper. Never even wanted. Never did it.

Never. I think I stealth in. I sneak through. And again, like as I went and played, right, then I'm getting things that augment that play style as well.

I have a whole kit of shit that I don't use because it's not for me at all. But then you're getting decoy grenades, right, that throw off and you can put up a hologram to distract people over there. You're getting stealth grenades,

toss them down. They'll make like something you can hide behind, all these different things. I'm like, okay, cool. This is dope, right? But then it comes into this interesting thing of a criticism I would have for it

is the fact that I think, since you're giving me all of this and saying tackle it however you want. I think then the overall quality of those combat scenarios comes down a step. Where you were talking about shooting a guy stealth and then having them come at you, right? Doing that way. It would be this,

there was one stealth run in particular that I'd then, you know, aped for all my other stealth runs of like, all right, cool, I'm coming in. There's not that much cover, this long bridge. I'm going to go over.

Oh, the guy saw me. Oh, wait, he's coming. This area is so large that this guy's coming at me and now I can do it. I have a silenced gun. I can take him out or whatever, and it doesn't matter. So I would take him out,

he's down, go a little bit further. Another guy would see me, have that guy come here, take him out, right? And it kind of broke the immersion of like tighter scenarios where they would see bodies

or be turned off by that kind of thing. So again, it was part of my play style of that's how I attached because I wanted to come in stealthily, but then it kind of was immersion breaking. Like, ah,

you're not that smart that you're, that the other guy isn't doing this or calling that in or they didn't see that or hear that. It's a push and pull of, then you could do what, way and tackle this. You could do that. You know, BTs, I'm right there with you, Jericho. Like, game one, I never enjoyed fighting them. Death Stranding two, I also don't enjoy fighting

them. So I was the same way of like, cool, going out. Let's get the blood grenades. Like, I'll just fill my grenade pouch with them because I know it's going to take three, sometimes two, to take these guys out. So I'll be ready for it. But then I was also the same thing of, I got, I don't remember, and I know, especially you're reading a lot of the reviews today and the comparisons to Death Stranding one, Vanilla, not Death Stranding directors, which changed so much. But Death Stranding one, I really don't remember using vehicles that much. I remember being very, I am the kind of gamer of like, I'm going out and, oh man, the battery's down to, you know, a fourth. It's gone down a fourth. I need to stop. I need to fit. Like that part of it,

I never did. So like, when I started experimenting this time and I got the big cruiser truck and I put on all the extra batteries, it was like, cool, I'm driving this thing everywhere, picking up every piece of cargo, dropping it off all the way, you know, to trying to go to the specific places to get more likes rather than entrusted to somebody else. But it was that idea of like, okay, cool, like, I'm driving, driving, driving. There's a BT over there. I'll let the BT notice me. It'll do the tar thing there,

but I'll hit the Jets and just drive out of the BT tar rather than have to fight them. And even then it's like, it's cool that I have this option, but then I also don't feel like I'm playing in the game correctly, but it's a weird one of like, I don't like it, but I do like it,

if that makes sense. Yeah, it's funny hearing people talk about their play styles because I think something that the game does that I really like is, it puts you into the, like the mind of its own world, right? Where it's, I saw something in one of the reviews

where somebody mentioned like, oh yeah, and I ended up driving over the enemies to kill them. And I was like, I would never have thought to do that because I don't want to cause void outs. Like, you know, like, there were times where I was like, I was in a truck and I looked at an enemy

and I was like, I could run them over. But like that seems risky. So I'm going to get out and like use the non-lethal stuff because I have such buy into the world their building. So like I never, I don't even know. what happens if you run somebody over type stuff, right? And like, I think that for me, that goes for

when, um, you unlock a new weapon or you get to a facility and you have the prepper that like is doing the typical Hojima thing where they explain everything and like, like any detail, right? Like they will talk through a view of, oh, and I just put together this B.T. Holognade. I will do this and this and this. And if you throw it at an enemy, it's going to do this and this and I'm like, I, even though I know there are people that probably hate that shit, I love, I love it. love that shit because it makes it feel realer to me. Right. And like, I think in that same way, the more and more I unlocked these things, the more

I did feel like I'm breaking the game of it because I think way more than in Descrating one in this game, I feel somewhat overpowered, but in a way that I like because I look it as like, yo, I'm Sam fucking Porter Bridges. Like I am that guy when it comes to delivery. You know, I am that Amazon truck driver. And so like, you know, I kind of like. being able to look at a thing and being like, all right, I got to drive all the way here,

or I got to drop off a package all the way here, and I know there's a BT area, and like having the inkling of, what if I just get in my truck and just fucking drive through it? And I do that and like, just starts to go awry, but I still get through it. I ended up enjoying that experience, even though I think I felt like you in some ways

where I'm like, this is the way the game wants to be played, but also is there a game a way the game wants to be played because it is sandbox overall. Yeah, and I think that's a big part of what they're trying to do, here, what Kajima and the team are trying to do is give you that experience of what is your San Porter Bridges. And I think that works well in times.

I think sometimes it works against it. I think, you know, my biggest criticism, especially early on when I was talking to you and I was like, I don't know, an aid or whatever. And I think it's changed here at the end in what they're giving me story beats wise. But I think for the majority of this adventure, I never

looked at San Porter Bridges and said, oh, it's San Porter Bridges. I looked at him and went, hey, it's Norman fucking Reed us. Like, you I feel like Norman Reed. Sam has fewer lines it feels like in this game overall. He's a more quiet protagonist. You do have choices on what you can say at certain points, but those aren't voiced. And so when I have him in this stupid hat that gives him a buff that I'm wearing, you know what I mean? I have him in his sunglasses. Even before I had him the stupid hat with buffs, I had him in the trucker hat that said, why, why me or whatever? He's wearing these sunglasses. I'm like, that is just Norman Reed us on a press tour. We did nothing to his hair. We did nothing to his face. I'm not, like, I think the story that, they tell here on paper sounds very emotional, but I feel like I would say for my 40 hours, right? 30 of them have not been emotional. Like, you know, I think here at the end,

we've come together where it's like, okay, now I'm with you, now you're doing it, you're giving me these full-fledged cutscenes that are really driving at home, but this is where I argue with myself. One of my problems with the game, in terms of my criticism,

is how clear the gameplay loop is, and how much the gameplay loop is, is Death Stranding 1. So if you've already played Death Stranding 1, you already know where I'm gonna go, but stick with me of like, you go to the terminal, you get the order,

you get the thing, you plot out your course, you get there however you want to, which I adore. I'm such a dork about it. I zoom in, I actually put the markers of where I want to go.

I'm like, I'm gonna do this and navigate it, I think great. Get the thing, drop off the order, great. Go back to your base, go back to the thing,

usually get to, you know, go to sleep in your deal, you wake up, like, and then you wait there's some of the bed, somebody barks in order in at you of what's going on.

You go up to the terminal. Again, it's a lot of terminals this time around. Holograms, even to people you know, the people that you're working with on you, the Magellan as we've seen out there, right? Talking to you through hologram form. And it becomes this very isolated loop, which of course is the whole point of death stranding

that it's supposed to be, we're isolated as humanity and da-da-da-da-da. And I get all of that. But it didn't, in those, in terms of the grand scheme of it, it didn't drive home, I think, the narrative plot point to me of like, hey, we're all disconnected from

each other and this is a problem. As much as it drove home like, oh, this is a cheaper, faster way to do a video game of this person's AI giving me the mission and me going off and doing it rather than me coming back for the big Kojima cutscene that I'd expect, right? Here they all are and they're talking and interacting. Because

when they do that, there's still no one better. Every cutscene in this game that you actually get, I feel like, holy shit, that was art, especially these late game ones, maybe even halfway through where you really get cooking where I was like, damn, this is awesome. I wanted more of that, I guess, for this. And it left me feeling isolated,

but I don't think in the isolated death stranding way, isolated in the, it's just, I'm staring at Norman Redis while we go deliver these packages to this person. I find that fascinating. Because like, I think the routine that you're talking about is part of what makes the experience for me. So to back up, I 1,000% agree

as far as like the Norman Reidus aspect of it. I, like, if I have, I think as far as my biggest critiques for the game, I think Sam Porter Bridges is too quiet and too like, like he doesn't have much going on in terms of, I don't want to say the performances. I think Norman Rita himself does a fine job, right? But I guess as far as character writing and who he is personality wise and all these things,

and it'd be fine if it was like a silent protagonist situation where he was supposed to be an avatar of the character or he's supposed to be an avatar for us. But it's not that. Like there is so much story happening around Norman Redis and two Normaides in this game where it's like, no, you should have a lot more going on emotionally and expressively. And even times where there are cutscenes where he, you know, has a moment that's supposed to be like interesting or emotional or he interjects in a way. Like I find that stuff kind of awkward in ways. And he's the only character I have that with every other character is fucking awesome.

Like to the point of that you're talking about with like Kojima's delivering that Kojima shit that he won as far as cutscenes. and all this stuff. But I think dialing it back to what I was saying as far as routine, I think the one of my and I don't want to say struggles because I honestly think this is like

a really good problem to have. But one of the things I have with this game is that the gameplay loop and the routine of it wants you to exist in this world as a porter. It wants you to do the thing that you're talking about.

All right, go to the facility. You know, take in the order from the terminal. Go walk a long distance and like struggle with the conditions of the environment. Get to the next facility. deliver it, go to sleep, wake up, and do it all over again.

Like there are so many times where I'm pressing X to skip the cutscene of going up the elevator or skip through the dialogue of like talking to the hologram or do whatever. And I like that because I think routine helps to kind of cement that experience in a video game. But at the same time, I'm also somebody who's really interested in what's going on narratively. And so like I ended up mainlining a lot of this game because I was so fascinated with the story, but I was also sad about mainlining at the same time because I also just want to exist in the world like it's a really good thing to have

where I'm like oh damn the gameplay and the story for me personally is like are both separately so good but they're kind of at odds with how I want to play the game because I just want to see what happens next. Understandable. So it sounds like from hearing your perspectives on that like what could have

we've seen more of like or situations that maybe Sam could have been in where we get more of those moments like for me I one thing I'd like to have seen more of is like more interactions I want the the preppers to be able to feel like they're real people like I still still feel like they're like holograms

and it would have been cool to get to a point where we go further with them and see them outside of their environment like a back and forth conversation yeah or like with Sam like it's you bring it maybe think about something because there's a few one-off interactions that he has with the crew of the Magellan

which awesome shit by the way I'm in love with the ship I love all the sounds it makes. It's great. But there's like one-off conversations he has with some of the crewmates. And it's almost awkward when he tries to make a joke because he's not normally making jokes, but it's usually just me and Sam. So like Sam ain't going to talk to me the player. So maybe we don't get to see those interactions because of that.

But I don't know what would be the, what would have helped that situation? Like what kind of situation would like to have seen him in to get more from Sam? Let me pull one out here, okay? Gerald of Revere, Rivia, Super Chat and says, Greg, how do the themes of the game affect you now that you have a child? Thank you for your great coverage. Of course, Lou, such a big part. Obviously, we all know the BB.

And now we know Lou. I mean, you can't get away from Lou. I think this is one of the disconnects from me and being Norman Rebus and not saying, like, what could we have gotten more? I think there could have been more talking to Lou. There could have been more talking of being a father. There could have been more of an emotional. resident's core there where again

it feels like it's Norman Reedis. Norman Reis has been told he has a baby. All right, great. That's what I'm going to go do. Like I feel like there wasn't enough struggle there and that then breaks off into the all right, cool. Something horrific has happened

or there's been a scare or whatever and I'm just in my room sitting on my bed staring at the wall like not acknowledging it. And they have things where they try to work around. Again, the cast surrounding you, right? We haven't talked about doll man, right? Oh, yeah. We know a doll man who you've seen forever in these trailers or whatever,

the little marionette puppet, right? That hangs from Sam's belt just like Mamir, right? But he also hangs in the room. So when you're in bed, you can turn and talk to him and he'll say something or this. And I also think he talks too much in a lot. Like sometimes when I'm getting my fucking ass handed to me, I got knocked down by a BT or some other boss thing. He's like, oh my God, Sam, you're bleeding.

I'm like, I know I'm bleeding, doll man. Thank you. Yes. The packs are working as fast as they work. I can't accelerate that. Is that kind of thing. but it's like, again, not to have that back and forth from him, I think, is rough. For as silent as he is as a protagonist, that then puts, I don't feel like he's silent because

I'm projecting onto him. I feel like he's silent because he's got nothing going on. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think, you know, Jericho mentions that it's us and Sam, right? But yeah, you often forget that Dalman is there. And I think in the same way that we're referencing Mimir from God of War, like Kratos talks to Amir. Amir talks a lot to Kratos, right?

Like, there's conversations happening there. And I think for, you know, there's a... big emotional beat slash theme of the game that centers around Sam Porter Bridges and like what he's going through in the moment of this game. Of course. Right? And like I think there

are so much meat on the bone there that is maybe a little bit explored through Sam Porter Bridges. Maybe that's maybe that's what they're doing through a lot of his like kind of quiet nature in it. But I think it would have been much better explored. Yeah, having him having like more conversations with

doll man. Because, yeah, to your point, like, yeah, Dalman speaks up. And Dalman is very different from Mimir in the way that, like, I think Dalman, he does the Kojima thing of he speaks up in mechanical, like, situations of, yeah. Let me explain this thing you already know that's happened to you right now. I'm like, I'm aware of what's happening, Dalman. Thank you. Exactly.

And that's the meaning is like, my relationship with Dalman is I'm annoyed by him most of the time. I don't, I loved Mameer. I do not love Dalman. It's funny because they, in this game, they do a lot more of those music cues where you're making delivery and like, as you're approaching it, like a song will pop up. Farrell and Polichick on the beach, right? Thank you, Roger Percordy. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Roger Percorny. But they do that to like, one, build that, build up that emotion, but then also fill in the silence between some of these moments, right? Yeah. Like, doll man is right there. Like, I would have to hear a story from doll made.

And, like, they have that in the D.HV. Magellan sometimes where he's a bit more casual with just having conversations with Sam. But see, this is the weird one, too, or this is me wanting my cake and to eat it or whatever, right? Where it's like, I think the music cues work. I think when that pop up. up that works really well because it usually is the game knows I'm setting off on something that's going to take me a second. So let's give you a, like, this soundtrack has such a, like,

clear through line of like what it all is. And like not all of it's my kind of music, well, I guess than the majority of it because it's very somber, uh, instrumental. I'm not a music guy, but, you know, metal, like metal, but like sterile is what I would, you know, I guess I'm describing. Right. And so like, when that shit kicks up and it's like low roars doing whatever, I'm like, this works for what I'm doing as I drive through this snowy landscape on this, you know, truck that I've outfitted with snow tires and I can go up like vertical slopes and all this shit because I'm just going to fucking drive everywhere and do it. Like there's a pushing pull to it that I don't know the right answer. I think it's more like I could have just gone for more

cutscenes, more introspection, more seeing Sam struggle with what is going on, what he has to deal with here rather than just be silent the entire way. Yeah. More cutscenes. Yeah. I don't, I don't think you get enough cutscenes until you really i agree i think we are as somebody who's at the end right with again an hour and a half like it literally was yesterday's multiple hours of it where i was like oh now we're now it's a kajima game now we're and even then they're not super long at while we're looking at this again you mentioned this and i just want to shout it out they're not uh super long like you know sometimes where you put the controller down for metal gear four or five whatever uh we're looking at a hig scene right now troy baker out here doing his uh business i know Troy baker obviously

he's a friend of mine, like a personal one. I think this might be my favorite Troy performance. I agree. 100%. I mean, I'm saying that as somebody who loves Last of Us and like, but like to see Troy be a villain and to see Troy go full into it and be his face and all this. Like he fucking rocks in this game.

Yeah. It was one of the highlights of my whole experience is seeing Higgs and his space and Troy bringing that to life was just insanely cool. Like it gives me goosebumps. like going back and like thinking about some of those scenes that he was in. And again, I think that's, we're seeing, I was seeing so much of him here at the back half, right? Where it's like now he's really doing the thing and he's really eating the scenery and he's being a, he's being a dick and he's doing this thing and he's arguing and he's always got he's one up in him. It's so funny because in interviews, Kojima talked about Neil one, uh, being that character who he sees as the Mads-Mickleson role in this game and like.

Because it's pretty much exactly the same. In terms of the setup of, you know, him and the soldier and the flaming head guys. But in casting the actor for Neil, right? He was talking about wanting to get somebody that could, like, live up to that Mads-Mackelson performance. And I'm like, Neil was great in the game, don't even wrong. But I'm like, bro, bro, look at Troy Baker. Like, he put on a performance in this thing that I think people are going to look back on and be like, yo, that was fucking sick. Remember this?

Yeah. But I think, again, like, that's the interesting thing, too, is like, it's so hard to play this, watch it and embody it, right? And then start really thinking about the behind the scenes of it, right? because obviously it's Heday Okajima and it's him bringing in all these celebrities and doing all these different things. But as I'm watching, I'm like, man, I don't feel like I'm getting as much Norman

as last time. I wonder if that's a pricing thing, right? Oh, El Fannie's in here. Man, she's a pretty quiet character. You know what I mean? But meanwhile, Troy is fucking guitar man out there doing this shit fucking doing accents and yelling and screaming

and it's like, fuck, this is awesome. You know what I mean? I'm sort of thankful it worked out that way, if that's the case, because those were definitely some of the best moments in the game. And it's like Tar Man talks so much, but of course, it's just George Miller's face. Doing the things.

I'm like, that makes sense as well. But so it's like, I don't know. That's one of the things of playing this game. And it's so interesting on two different experiences, staying with me. I went two different lines. Now, it's not a joke. Don't worry. I'll make it fast, right?

But I want to go to Superman in review, right? Where when we were doing Superman the movie and talking about all this and I was telling all these behind the scenes stories leading up to it, I talked about how Dick Donner, the director of Superman was like, Superman needs to be. be an unknown. Otherwise, if they wanted like, you know, Robert Redford and Paul Newman, it would be Paul Newman in the Superman suit. It wouldn't be Superman. And I feel like that's a lot of the characters here, specifically Sam Porter Bridges, where I had such a hard time getting in line with what he was going through and where he was emotionally, because I don't think he was giving enough to me

for it, but also the fact that it was just fucking Norman Redis. It was just Norman Reetus with no bells and whistles, where even Troy looks like the Joker to some degree. And then you could glance, to be like, he looks like the Joker, but his performance is so amazing that I think it takes away from whatever he looks like, right? I'll say, like, it's also, I'll bring in Leah Sedu into the conversation, the actress who plays fragile,

where, like, it's in very stark contrast to Normaridis, where she brings such emotional depth and such, like, personality and such like a, like a different emotional, like, part of the spectrum than, like, what you see out of Troy Baker because Troy's this extreme madman, but fragile is this, like, emotional, like she kind of centers the story

like in some ways I almost feel like she's even more of a main character than Norman Rita sometimes even though like 100% but like fragile is for me the center of the story here She has I think way more Three dimensional space Three dimensional space more to do

And like she she I think lives up to the task Of delivering on that Yeah I think when we get to the end of the year We're talking about video game performances Like there's so much to highlight in this game but I totally feel you as far as I don't think Norman Rees is like one of those things

to highlight and that's not by the fault Norma Reitas I think maybe it is I had the same thought of like availability or you couldn't have them in the studio for that long I do want to go back and talk about Can I make one other point because it's worthless enough

if we don't do here I won't do it Superman and when we're doing in review one of the things Nick called out in Superman too was that it's two right Tim was talking about I can't believe how intrinsically tied it is to one I think it's the same thing here I thought it was interesting Jerica

that you said you could recommend this to somebody without playing the first one, where I think, like, there are two halves of a hole, where it is like, I think without one, I think you jump to be like, what is the chiral network?

What is it? Whereas we're all like, okay, got it. Yeah, no problem. Floating shadow people with embilical cords.

I'll go kill them. Don't worry. But it's like, I think this game does such a great job of being a continuation of death stranding one. But, and I'd be interesting, eventually for you,

Jerich on this topic, I played this and I was very much before reading reviews today, like, yeah, it's death stranding, like, whatever. And then so many people today talking about, oh, well, it's better, you know, it's cleaned up and it's frictionless.

And it's done this where this is what my rose-colored glasses of Death Stranding One War. I don't remember being frustrated by not having as many weapons or as many tools or as many things. But I know that they changed that in the PC director's cut we talked about. But before then, I want to jump back to you. Well, I want to bring it back to the conversation about the Kojima-ness of this game. Sure. That was one of the conversations that I remember having with you at lunch last week where, you know, it feels like, I remember one of the big, criticisms I'll hear from people with Death Training 1 around the review period was that

man, Kojima needs an editor. Like, we gotta, we gotta put some leashes on what this man is doing as far as like, how crazy we'll get with cutscenes and all this shit, right? This game felt like Kojima had an editor. Like, this played completely like, he had somebody, he had people that were like reeling him back a little bit. And like, I felt that, but also I kind of liked it because we still got the crazy cutscenes. We still got the weird ass and cool ass story.

beats we still got, I think, enough Kojima-ness out of it, but at the same time, like, you want to talk about this being the direct sequel to Death Training 1. Like, this is one of the few times, if not maybe, like, the first time on this level that Kojima's making a sequel, that's straight up, all right, here's the game again, but better.

Like, with Kojima, you're always getting some kind of redefining. You're always getting a, oh, it's a prequel this time, or, oh, it's a different character. Oh, it's, you know, he's old now. Like, there's all, it's open world. There's always like some big shift in terms of one Kojima game for the next, even within the same series. Death training one, or death training two is death training one, two.

You know, it's a death training. It's a part two. It's a part two that is doing the rare Kojima thing of just being able to look at all the feedback, looking at everything and go, all right, let's make this better. All right, let's make this frictionless. Okay, let's maybe like edit down or paste out the cutscenes better so that you're not front loaded with all this shit. all right let's make him maybe not as long like they don't have to be one hour long cutscenes

you know what I mean like at every corner of this game it feels like the team looked at ways to make this more frictionless than the last and I fully felt that I want to hear about your comparison to the old Death Stranding Directors cut but first I want to remind you we couldn't do this without your support

on patreon.com slash kind of funny YouTube.com slash kind of funny games Apple and Spotify that's where you pick up the kind of funny membership to get all of our shows ad free and of course get your daily dosers of me in a series we call Greg Way. But right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsors.

This episode's brought to you by Cash App. We've all had those moments getting meals out with people that always end in some kind of awkward experience of having to figure out the least complicated way to just get it done. Or even after figuring it out, have you used an app and ended up having to wait days for your money to finally show up?

What if we could solve all of that? Easily. Cash App is a completely different experience. Fast, easy, and safe. And a great way to receive and transfer money to family and friends. It's incredibly easy to set up. You just enter your phone or email and some other basic information, no bank account needed. And then there's no waiting around for days. It's your money you shouldn't have to wait.

We love using cash app because it's fast, it's safe, and it just makes life way less stressful. For limited time only, new cash app users can use our exclusive code to earn some additional cash. For real, there's no catch. Just download cash app and sign up. Use our exclusive referral code, kind of funny in your profile. Send $5 to a friend within 14 days, and you'll get $10 dropped right into your account. Terms apply. That's money, that's cash app.

This episode is brought to you by Mood. Let me tell you about the online cannabis company that's revolutionizing how we deal with life's challenges. From sleepless nights to stress-filled days. Mood.com has created an entire line of functional gummies that target specific health concerns with 100% federally legal THC blends. They'll deliver them discreetly right to your doorstep, and you can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code Kind of Funny. I've been having a great time trying out all their different gummies,

and I'm loving how each one feels. Their sleepy time, gummies will knock you out in about 15 minutes flat, no hangovers, no groginess, and their epic euphoria gummies are perfect for those days when nothing's going right. And best of all, not only does mood stand behind everything with an industry-leading 100-day satisfaction guarantee, But as I mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code Kind of Funny. So head to Mood.com, browse their amazing selection of functional gummies,

and find the perfect gummy for whatever you are dealing with. And remember to use promo code Kind of Funny at checkout to save 20% on your first order. And Jerica. Yeah. Back to you. So thinking back at the first game, like, I would say like, this is my type of vibe. I don't mind walking around, exploring, being in the moment and taking cool pictures. but I went back and played director's cut

because I've actually never played the director's cut of this game. So I went back and played it a little bit before diving the two and immediately I was like, oh, I was still having fun making deliveries and exploring this world. But I remembered, like, as I was playing through two, why I sort of got a little bit more bored

with Destrity One. And it was because, and what finally hit with Destrani 2 was the change in environments, I think, and knowing that when I would get a mission. So instead of point A to point B, through Iceland, basically the whole time, Indestrating 1, because I feel like the environment didn't change a whole lot other than when you got to go up a mountain, like, once or twice for this mission,

then you left it. But in Destrating 2, to me, I feel like the environment, obviously it's way larger, but as soon as I'd get a new mission to go to a new spot or the direction was a new outpost that I hadn't been to yet was always super exciting to me. And that got it. That's where the hook started really getting me in. Like, I want to go to the next location, the next prepper. I want to meet them and see what they have.

And that journey for that mission, like, took me to a new environment or introduced me to a new, a river that wasn't just, it was a creek a second ago, but now it's like an overflowing river. Oh, the changing waters. The weather and like the night and day cycle like really up the ante when it comes to like making sure that you're not. I feel like I said in the first one, it gets real repetitive. The game is repetitive. But I think the environments and the choices they make here and the second one make it way more. You encourage you to go explore more because there's just so much to look at.

The world feels like way more alive in this one. I think a lot of that is like the like all the weather system stuff. that you're talking about, right? Yeah. Sometimes when it rains, the water levels and the rivers will rise with changes how you need to navigate the environment because a ladder might not work to get you across that river. You might need a bridge this time, which I think is really smart. You have like sandstorms and stuff that'll come through and, like, you know, create a way more

aggressive environment. Like, all that shit I think is so fucking cool. Like I remember the first, it was probably halfway through the game where, well, there's early on in the game where there's a sandstorm. But then, like, halfway through the game, there was like another natural sandstorm. It's not like a scripted thing. like it's a thing that just happened. And I'm like, all right, I'm just going to drive through the sandstorm.

See what happens. It's directly in my path for where I'm trying to go. And it was like a harrowing like, oh man, this reminds me of driving in like a bad storm in real life. Like whenever you have that experience of like, okay, well, everything's going to be fine, even though my heart's kind of beaten a little bit. I was having those experiences in this game. And I think technically one of the coolest things I've seen in this game are when there are these gatequakes that happen, which are essentially earthquakes.

but they're caused by, I believe, the plate gates that are popping up. You'll learn more about those when you want. Yeah, yeah. Plague, that's how you get to Australia. But, you know, don't worry about it. But the gatequakes happen, and, like, they just, they're earthquakes that happen, you know, sometimes. But then every now and then, you'll see, like, a gatequake happen, and then a piece of the mountain. Like, there'll be an avalanche on the mountain that'll happen naturally.

Or, like, if you're in a big snowy area, like, you'll see, like, a snow avalanche, or you'll see things fall on top of over and that feels like technically such a step forward in triple a video games like it's like i don't see shit like that often that happens like naturally in the environment when i when i had a quake the first quake i had when i was climbing a mountain i was like oh i wonder if this will cause an avalanche and domino's like oh my god it's an avalanche like oh shit you know what i mean like ran off and like got behind a rock and just let it plow past me and i was like that's a nice touch of like oh that's cool that this is happening so this should happen and then it actually happens like damn And that world does feel alive.

It is stuff. Yeah. And back to it of like, you know, there's animals running around in this world, right? Yeah. You're supposed to capture for one of the sanctuaries that I believe the sanctuary people. I probably shouldn't say anything about that. But it's like, I don't think that's a spoiler, but I want to save that reveal for yourself or whatever. But there's animals to capture and there's all these different things.

The environments do change. The weather, yeah, whether it be a sandstorm or a timefall storm or whatever, night and day, like you're talking about. Like, there is enough going on that I think when I review Death Stranding 1 with everybody back in the day. I kept saying, you know, this is a meditative game for me. I distinctly remember being in a snowy area and being in Quebec City playing it once snow outside falling, right?

And it was like such a, and it was just me, get the package and go deliver the package. And I think, yeah, for me, it's so fascinating because I would never, even though it is, I would never describe the gameplay as repetitious because I think all gameplay is. You can only do so much in a video game, so of course I'm swinging my sword,

that's repetition after 30 hours. But the very nature of it, I mean, I would describe this. Everything that surrounds getting to the gameplay is repetitive, which I think, again, is on purpose for what they're trying to set up. I do think there be ways to make that less frictionist. Like when I want to skip the fucking cutscene of putting it in to deliver it to the guy, don't make me hit the button and then it goes resume or skip.

I'm like, let me skip or whatever. And then every time the guy, the, you know, hologram guy, oh, thanks, Sam. Let me check what you did. Wow, they're in pristine condition. I'm like, all right, skip, skip, skip, I don't need this part of this. You know what I mean? Anyways, though, the gameplay itself doesn't.

That is the joy of this game. It's very much the same thing of why I didn't want to rush through it. Why I wanted to go see it, you know, I'll beat it this afternoon. But it's going to be one that lives on my PlayStation because there's going to be those nights. It was just like, damn, I got 15 minutes. Oh, let's do a delivery. Let's run it off. Let's see how this one.

I didn't finish this side quest. Let's see how this going to go. Some of them pay off in bigger ways this time around. So like, you know, I'm not going to get into like specifics with it, but I ended up doing a mission. And that just went in a totally different direction than I was envisioning and was such a fun surprise. And there's like a couple of things in there that like are.

I can envision the one that you might be talking about. You know, and I just wonder if there's more of those moments that maybe I've skipped over. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's not what I was thinking of. Have you seen this one?

There's multiple of those ones, right? But the payoff to that. Yeah. I don't, I guess not. Can I show it? I'm not going to play audio, but you have such a good live reaction face that I'd love to see you this one. I'm so fascinated because, yeah.

Is that like you complete all? of those orders? I wanted more of that. So you haven't seen this. No, I'm not seeing this. Oh, I like that hat. You were wearing. Well, that's the goofy fucking hat or whatever, right, to make it go. Oh, yeah. I'm not seeing this at all. So this, again, to your point, Jerica, right, of like, I finished this one. And this is, again, where I was like, oh, thank God, I did all these. Because this is, like, one of my moments of the fucking game. What the fuck? Right? And Nick watched this and he's like, this is insane. I'm like,

this is the game. It's, like, this is all, like, the coolest shit. And the fact that this is hidden behind just a side quest to go do that. you want to talk about like that's fucking awesome me wanting to go see every one of these like as soon as i got this i was like oh well i have to prioritize going and doing all these because what else is hidden exactly oh my god have you played a specific song for um for dollman no no oh i haven't i missed okay y'all got to talk to doll man more in the dhs i did i talked to him a lot he told he didn't want to talk to me anymore he didn't have anything else to say if you think i didn't screen grab this and i won't be using this ad nauseum from him

hair. That's crazy. Yeah. And like that's again like the power of what they have here. And again, what I think like, you know, as I'm, you guys are reviews that matter. You've rolled credits and done those stuff. And as I finish you, an hour and a half away from rolling credit. I know, I know, I know. But I mean like, like, and not only that, but it's also like, I also love some distance from it. You know what I mean? Of like this, the run up to this playing as much as I can doing all this different stuff trying to get it like, if there's more experiences like, yeah, I think, because this won't be done an hour and a half. If it turns out that there's more of this happening in the world. Yeah. That's where I'm like, damn, there's so much

more I want to go seeing so much I want to go experience and do and have right yeah like that's that's that's what makes the game special I also think something's interesting that we haven't talked about at all in this review but we talked so much about it in the 2019 review is collaborating with others and I think this comes as a double-edged sword for us as reviewers when we we've had code what since switch two launch week which is why I'm way behind had to go to sGF had to do switch two coverage but when that came that we were given two weeks where all the people playing are you know building the bridges here I'm setting up my charging station all this different stuff building out this world together as you will when you get this game if you connected online which I assume you would and you should right just like death stranding one was and I think there's so many things there that

have been upgraded and tweaked and friction more frictionless and I was shocked by even our little reviewer pool the amount of things that were built out there whether they be bridges or ladders or drops or signs or this right. This past week, it's been off. And so like they're for me playing a, I know you beat it. I think I beat it before it went off then. You, for me playing and really putting in the hours, it's gone from the opening in all these opening areas, just a bevy of things and whatever. And now it's just dead quiet. No way. So it's only me building my own. I'm like, I'm very depressing. I'm carrying the PCC with me. Throw it down. I need a charging station here on this mountain or whatever. And so I'm so excited to see that come back online with everybody tonight and have a, a far different experience I think playing

because one of the things we talk so much about in the original review was Andy saying, oh, you've got to be online for this. It's such a better experience to see this. And even in the beginning here where it was like, oh, Yong Ye built this station. Thanks, Yong, you know what I mean? Like that little thing, granted it won't always be like that

because, you know, we're going to see strangers out there. That's so funny because, yeah, like, for the second half of the game, the social stuff became so key for me where I look at a destination. And I'm like, ooh, all right, that's tough terrain. Should I drive a truck and I'll look at the map and see that somebody built a generator in the perfect spot. And I'm like, that's perfect for battery.

All right, we're going. Like, I can actually do this. Yep. And, like, there was some big, like, later game parts where I'm like, all right, fuck, I got a big delivery to make. And it really was online stuff that really pulled it together for me, like, be able to make some of those deliveries. And so.

I found myself doing more of that this time. Like, usually I'm just the one liking and stuff. Like, thank you. I'm lazy. I don't have time to build this. But this game, I was looking for more opportunities. Not because, like, we were obviously reviewing it and getting to it before other people are.

playing, but really I saw more opportunities to help. Just because of the different types of environments and, you know, there's like one area that you go to that's just like these, like, I don't know what they're called. I'm not a geologist, but it's some kind of rock towers like and you're having to like get up and around them. Yeah, that sounds right. Stalagmites. Yeah.

I think slag tights hold tightly to the ceiling. One makes it. Whichever ones come from the ground. Tites, I think, make the. T on the ceiling. Okay, there we go. They're the select heights. But there's just a lot of different types of ways you have to get around the terrain

where I see more opportunities to help. Oh, like someone might go this way like I did. Let me put the generator right here. So I did find myself doing more of that during my playthrough. Yeah, again, I'm excited tonight to see it all come online. And I hope it keeps the stuff we already built it. So we see where other people are putting in because, yeah, there were plenty of times where it was like, damn, I could really use something.

And early on it was everywhere. It was everywhere. And that's why it was even easier, I think, to use vehicles and do all this different stuff. Did you guys try to set out the monorail? Yeah. Here's the thing. Early on, yes, because other people were contributing. Yes.

Later on, when it's just me, it's like it needs all these. And I'm like, I guess technically I could drive to all these different places and get my resources that I've left at all the, or I've earned in all these places. But I'm like, no, I got to get going. I got to move on. I try to make it happen because like the game starts to send you back and forth a little bit. I was like, oh, man, it'd be really nice to do this. But yeah, it's just a lot of material. and like I for me for in my review brain I was like all right I just got I just got a shot for it but I do love the idea I one of my favorite things in in games is to see a system set up for people with more potential than me

when I first like got to the mines and I was like oh this is purely for generating resources and the monorail will help you transport resources from place to place oh that's for like the top tier of player like that's not for me because I'm not thinking about resources on that level I do the resource stuff when I can like Like if I see some chemicals or some fucking like ceramics just out and about, I'll pick them up. I'll put them in my D.E. Regel in for safe storage for when I need them. But I do love, I love the prospect of when the game is out for everybody, probably seeing YouTube videos or TikToks or whatever of people doing crazy shit as far as like what they're building and destrating to. Because I think the minds are going to enable that by a lot. A thousand percent too. And I'll be interesting to see, you know, I thought one of the cool things that they added here was these, um, teleporters.

you know what I mean? When you put down your PCC, you can use these teleporters to teleport to certain situations, which again, frictionless, let's make it easier. What are people's complaints? Of course,

you can't take your cargo with you, but I could easily see it of psychos like Jericho or people who are just playing it for the first time be like, you know what, tonight I'm only going to go to the minds and just work on the streets

and just do this thing. And I can't wait. Yeah. Just dying to do that. One thing I want to compliment is the, like, art direction and like overall, visual design of the game.

Like, Yo-Jo Shinkawa has been a long time collaborated with Kajima and like, you know, we know him for the art of Metal Gear and all that stuff. I think he continues to kill it here. Like, obviously a lot of this is taken from Best Training one, but I will forever be impressed when I'm looking at San Porter

Bridges and I see like him, I see like, you know, a package hanging off the left arm, another one off the right arm, like, you know, shoes dangling, you know, big old backpack full of things that are stacked up on top of each other. And it all looks so, So, like, it all looks, I guess, like, I don't know if industrial is the word I'm looking for, right? But it looks made for a job.

It looks made for this is like this purpose. Like purpose, right? But it also looks cool at the same time. It's workwear. Yeah, it's cool. It's trendy. But it like has a visual distinction to it that I really fuck with. And there's that.

And then also, yeah, like the Higgs slash like the robot or cyber samurai guy that keeps popping up. Like, I fucking love looking at that shit. What a spectacle? like all the the cutscenes with this and going towards like when you start approaching the end like I just is strapped in and ready to go and to the point where I'm like some things I know this might go over some people's heads but to the point like it almost moved me to tears because it just was so badass like I never had something so badass like move me to tears is a weird emotion oh yeah it was different I love it I want to get to the gillian super chats we have but I want to start I want to end I guess with

this one question topic like, where are we at with Hayao-Kajima games in boss fights with Death Stranding 2? I feel like, you know, we are also here on the precipice of Metal Gear Solid Delta coming out, oh, the end, oh, you know, Middle-Ger-Solid, oh, Vulcan

Raven, Psychomantis, boss, like the pantheon of amazing boss battles you get out of Hideo Kijima games, but from the previous ones. Death Stranding one, I remember being like, oh, fighting BTs, especially the big ones where it fills up and I jump from bus top to stop, never that interesting.

I don't remember anything really beyond that that got me. And then playing this one, I'm in the same boat. I'm just like, the combat for me isn't the thing in Death Stranding. It is better, sure, but it is still, like, I don't know it was better. One of the other letdowns for me was like, we talked, I know this is very top level, but like, oh, Neil's just like Mads-Mickleson. So you already know what the Madd-Mickleson's fights were like. These fights, I feel are the same thing.

I'm just like, this isn't that interesting or enjoyable. The carrot at the end of the stick is getting into the cutscene To find out what is going on what the fuck is going on I like that part of it But the actual gameplay of it Not feeling with it nor am I challenged by it Then the big stuff here where the you know fight a big bad It's also like

These aren't okay shoot red weekpoint I got it like you know It's like I don't feel like I These are ones I'd rather see as a really cool cutscene Than me get in here and have a I feel stilted fight with a giant thing For me it's the gameplay versus the spectacle of it Because I think spectacle wise, the boss fights are like

nine out of ten or ten out of ten. Like I think the Neil stuff in terms of the environments they put you in and the situations and like the visuals of it are all the way there. That's cool. The visuals are cool. Yeah. But yeah, then like you get into the actual gameplay and it really is point in shoot, which does bring me back a bit to I think

Metal Gear Solid 4. I know the beauty and the beasts might have had like their own unique things going on, but I think I think this is most similar to that as far as like being in the beasts were just fucking shoot them right and like chase after this one flying. Yeah. This one's got tentacles.

And I mean, I think there's a larger conversation to have about Kujima and Kujima boss fights because I still think that like, overall, I think he delivers for what I went out of them in my taste for them. But I do think time has passed him a little bit. I do think mechanically, like, there's got to be a little bit more going on in these things. I think gameplay-wise, like, you might have to think, it's crazy to think that like Kogima needs to think out the box, right?

But I think, I think gameplay wise, like, I could see it. I totally understand where you're coming from. Even though spectacle-wise, I think he's still top-tier. I think he's still there. That is why I'm at a 9.5 and not out of the 10. Is some of the combat and some of the interactions that you have, like, to your point, really... I was looking for more, like, environmental,

like situations that I've had to figure out to destroy a boss, you know? Versus it's just me... Yeah, versus me just trying to shoot this thing as much as I can. Absolutely despise the BT. battles. Don't like them. I hate being in the tar. It slows me down. It's a horrible feeling. And really not too much evolved from that, those type of fights in the second game. But yeah, you make a good point. And I think because this whole set that it's like a set piece, it's a movie. Why won't he take more advantage of the environments? And like it's so pretty.

And oh, that was really cool. But like, yeah, I'm just shooting the boss over and over. So that didn't that didn't win me over either. And again, this is the push and pull of yeah, I can eat it too, where it's like, on the one hand, this is every time before I set off on a mission, I'm so particular about what I'm picking, do I need this,

I'm never gonna need a climbing thing. I'll do them, blah, blah, blah. Then boss fights, you get into them and it's like, I don't find this that engaging or interesting. And then there's all, there's just machine guns and grenade launchers all over the ground. Yeah.

Which of course is good because I'd be annoyed as hell to be in this boss fight and only have like my rope. But then on the other hand, it's like, well, Why am I doing this? Like, this isn't, again, this is taking me away from the gameplay I actually like, but I feel like they're building a game that's trying to appeal to everyone all at once, even though they say they're not.

And I think, I also think, thematically, they're trying to lean more into, like, the sticks as opposed to the ropes, right? Like, I think this game is a big, multiple reviews call out the fact that that's a direct line. Yeah, like they love talking about sticks and ropes and they love leading in. I think in this game, one of the taglines to it is should we have connected? And I remember doing the Kojima interview for the preview, and he talked about like, but over the pandemic and with the state of the world and stuff, right? Like, he kind of had the personal realization of like, oh, maybe we need more sticks.

Like, maybe we should lean more towards sticks than ropes sometimes, which is a scary thing for him to say. But also, like, I think part of that kind of lends itself to why there's like more actiony stuff going on in this game. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I would have loved to, to your point, I think I would have loved to see more outside the box thinking as far as like,

you know when I think about my favorite kujima boss fights I think about psychomantus right which was like of course you know having to figure out like oh unplug the thing replug it and then the end which is way more cerebral and made more of a sniper battle and having to track him down and doing all that stuff I think those are when he shines the most when he can figure out a new way to

like make us think about gameplay but yeah like most of not all the boss fights here are yeah chase and shoot and it's not as interesting I want to get some super chats and this is our chance to answer your questions based on all the reviews you're saying of death stranding to today of course youtube.com slash kind

funny games i see weiner says is roj in the credits uh i don't believe so i don't remember seeing roger's i haven't rolled i haven't rolled me as i guess i didn't really like pay attention there's a lot so yeah i didn't see thanks there nobody knows we'll figure that one for you i would assume not they would have to reach out to roger to put him in the credits right

for a special thanks no maybe no I don't know uh big letters kind of funny all of us that were all the credits remember that one time where he was like I think it was in his one of the podcasts I only way he just called him like a foreigner He just likes a foreigner

How Dight Dute 1E How similar are the controls and menus To Death Stranding 1 I think the biggest change Is the Audre Deck button to scan Is on L1 Instead of R1

That fucked me up for a long while Yeah Playing this game But they do I think they improve the menu system Like the in-game menu system now D-pad is responsible for bringing up multiple types of menus. You have like your little wheel that you'll use to rotate of like,

all right, I want to look at weapons, I want to look at grenades, I want to look at items or whatever. And I think that's, I like that as a hundred percent. It was easier definitely in those combat encounters, just having that sort of simplified and separated. And then one thing I would wish, like, because like one thing that also threw people off was just like how many things you have to micromanage and like when you are picking up cargo, like where is this go? I do wish there was like a capture all button and maybe y'all correct me. I couldn't select all, but I could select all, but I couldn't like put it all in a different spot or when you're picking up cargo. There was a thing that I'm like, why can't I pick up all of these at once and put it here?

Oh, I see. And like you can, but you also can't. I feel like if you, like, you're saying if like a bunch of things are on the ground. Yeah. I would assume that if you press pause and go to cargo management, but yeah, I guess I don't know There's some, yeah, I don't know, but there's like some small nitpicky things like that, but overall, like it's really easy to manage. I'm still using that auto. Like, they added the auto arranged feature where it puts, I use that all the time.

And they added it just in like, yeah, one of the circle menus. So you press like lefty pad and hit a direction. And you can have like a shortcut. Yeah, to it. Yeah. It's handy. Uh, a dem two times. How does it feel delivering packages?

Do BTs screw you every 10 minutes like in Death Stranding? I love the story so much, but that element let me down a tad. Has any of that been improved? proofs last changed. I didn't feel like it was that often in the first game, but maybe I'm wrong, but definitely don't feel that in this one. Because, you know,

it's been a long time since I played the first one, but I don't feel like that's over every 10 minutes. And then also it might depend on the day and night cycle too and what's going on in that region. Yeah, again, I don't enjoy fighting BTs. I felt like I saw them. And again,

this is trying to remember a 2019 game, but I felt like I saw them far fewer times than I did in Death Stranding 1. And in the same vein back to this like, bringing down the difficulty or making it too frictionless. Timefall was also never a concern for me. Or if that was for y'all where it was like, oh, I like drove by backtracking out of a space last night.

And it was like, oh, from the very beginning, here's a timefall shelter. And it's like, I haven't used that once here. And I remember in Death Stranding 1, it being a legitimate fear of like, oh shit, it's raining,

I got to go. But here it just never did. I think they've lessened how that really hurts. I agree with that. Jeremy P. has a question that sounds spoiler but I don't think it is. So excited for Death Stranding 2. Not sure if you can discuss this, but

is there a post game chapter where you can wrap up side content after the story like in Death Stranding 1? Also, any plans for a spoiler cast later on. Spoiler cast, all options are on the table and that's a great idea. We'll probably end up doing that, I would imagine. To keep it spoiler free, I'll say you can keep playing the game after you finish it. Good enough.

Demon Hacker says, any changes made to zip lines. Love zipping. I never zipline. Oh, really? I'm a big zipliner. Oh, I'm not a zippermint. No, no, I've never. Even a death training one, I was like,

nah, I don't fuck with this. Really? Yeah. And the first one, could you, like, use the monorail? Like, what is that extra zip line? You know what I'm talking about? Like, I don't remember, because you can grab a monorail, like, zip lied and use that.

If you have another ziplied, you can actually zip to that. I don't know if you can do that. That's cool. Yeah, that's an extra way of zipping around. Interesting. I can't think of anything. I feel like they work a lot.

You can change the trajectory of the zip line itself. Like it can now curve or go up or down. No way, really? Yeah, because you can change the way it goes around. So like if there's a mountain here, I can go over there. Oh, that's super cool. It's funny because I never built ziplines. I just always used the zip lines that were there for me.

And so that's actually really good to know. Yeah, yeah. Dany in the middle of the live chat says, how the fuck did Greg even play Death Stranding once? So many things he didn't interact with. What do you mean? Like that we just talked about how this whole game is, play it how you want to play it.

I just playing like a regular Joe. I played it like I want to walk around. I didn't want to use my resources on zip lines. It's pretty simple, actually. These resources, I'm protecting. All right, I'm using them on my shit. And I was listening to the review, I got scolded by Fran and Andy because they were like, oh, yeah, I'm putting resources into the streets and something like, I never fucking do that.

I use them, but I don't use them. It's like, oh, Andy's like, you're going to take a penny, leave a penny guy where you don't take that really leave a penny. For real, I'm like, anytime I see a request for like a structure or whatever, I'm always fulfilling you. If I can. Bobby Joe, blessed, did they actually change anything from the game demo

you all took part in? The one thing I noticed was when I, and I don't know if this is a change or if maybe this is like a different part of the game, but like in a boss fight I was doing during the preview

when I died, it would give me the menu to like revive or like try it again or whatever. And in the game and during a boss fight I died and it put me into like the repatriate thing of like swim back to the Sam or whatever. Yeah, I'm like, do the baby thing, and then that's how you...

So I think that was the only difference I really noticed. One thing I will say, this isn't related to the question, but we've had, like, the trailers and stuff playing throughout the, like, the episode of B-roll. Man, a lot of spoilers in these trailers. Let me tell you. I almost texted you last night, because it was like, we were coming up finally at, like, hour 39 of where I was going to see

the trailer they ran at SGF. And I was like, why, wait, why the fuck did they show this at SGM? No reason for them to show that at SGM. That was crazy. Jackie M. We'll start with you, Jericho. How much more time do you expect to put into Death Stranding to? Easily, I think 20 to 40 more hours, I think is easy just because of like how much

side content I didn't do. And I want to see how those play out. And then, yeah, I'm going to get in there and put my zip lines up. I'm so ready. Bless. man it's tough for me because it's so tough for me to play games after I've rolled credits sure um I would like to play more just because like I think there's there's still a lot of meat left on the bone the phrase of the day um but also I kind of want to start the altars and

so yeah we'll see I can see myself playing like 10 more hours if I dedicate myself to picking it back up yeah I'll be this afternoon after kind of funny podcast and then it's going to be another one of those best intentions where it's like I remember that's stranding one where I was like I could see me platinum this and then of course a million other reviews and then of course a million other reviews carry you away and you never get back to it. It's the same thing here where it's like, man, I want to see all these side missions through.

I want to see what other people are building tonight. But it would be, it would be interesting to come back to it because it would, I really do feel like I'd come back and then it would be like, cool, I'm warping all over the map. I'm using, I mean,

I'm not playing it the way I've played these 40, whatever, two hours will be when I beat it. So it's like, I don't know if I, I don't know. I would love to do that. I would love to sit here and plan on it,

but I'd imagine I got to get back to other stuff and go play other things, but then I'm at what? Fantasy Li-Fi? No, yes. I mean, yes. Of course, I want to get back to fantasy Li-fi. I need to finish Pokemon now the Switch 2 updates out. You know what I mean? Which one is that again? I was Violet. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. And then what I need to finish Link's Awakening as well? Because I'm like, what, two dungeons short on that now from the Switch review stuff we were doing. But then beyond that, of course, I need to do Expedition 33. I feel like I'm in the place right now where I'm ready to go tackle that. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, yeah. So there's too much to play right now.

good one. Kobe writes in on a super chat and says without any in-depth details, would you say the game is bleaker and would you say the game is bleaker and hopeful or more of a pessimistic view of the world compared to the first? Leaker and hopeful.

That's what you're saying? Are you reading it? I'm not trying to understand. I don't know. He already knows it's bleaker, but is he saying it's hopeful? Oh. Or is it more pessimistic? I don't want to. I don't want to comment. I don't want to because I feel like it ruined some of it.

I'll say right now where I'm at, I feel, maybe I shouldn't say anything. Yeah, it's a weird one to talk about in that sense. Because I don't know, whatever you're feeling through your journey, you don't want to know at the end if I think it's going to be more bleak or more hopeful.

Yeah. And obviously for people who have finished it already. Tavin says, I just got the plat in Death Stranding 1. Requires me to play hard mode late game and I enjoyed it. Should I start in hard mode for two? How is normal mode in terms of difficulty and cargo and structured dead grating?

aggregation. As I've been saying this entire review, I think the game is incredibly easy and almost maybe to a detriment. So I would say, yeah, if you enjoyed hard mode on the first one, do that. I agree with that. I'm wanting to turn it up a notch myself. So yeah. Gene says does Detroit Rock City play when we fight Troy?

No spoilers. No spoilers. I do want to definitely shout out the soundtrack. The license music is so fucking good. It was definitely one of those of like you have your little player that you can go in and put songs and I was putting, I put them on it and then I'd go to Spotify. Yeah. follow that on this and put them on my real playlist too,

so I'd be all set to do. I see Wiener says, can you speak to how female characters are treated? This is a conversation that I've seen, obviously, as the discussion and discourse begins today. Yeah, this is a fun one because,

like, a lot of my immediate group of friends don't love Kojima games because they don't love the depiction of female characters oftentimes in Kojima games, which I think is very understandable, especially when you look at, like,

quiet, and like, oh, she dresses like that she breathes through her skin, right? Like, that's the meme that flows around in my friend group. And, like, it's funny because I, I don't want to defend

it because I'm like, well, I think that's genuine and I think that's authentic. And like, you know, if you feel that way, you feel that way, right? But I'm also like, having played all the Mellow Your Solid's, I'm like, oh, but like there's some really good female characters in Mellier's Solid 2, but also I totally understand where you're coming from. I think in this game, and I want to hear Jericho's answer more than my answer. Honestly, so I'll answer quick.

I really like the core cast of women in this game. In fact, I like their vibe and I like their presence more than Norman Reas. I agree with that. Derek, what do you think? I totally agree. And if anything, they're put on, I don't want to get into this because I like the surprise of it

to see how these friendships evolve. But they're put on a pedestal and they're sort of like, definitely one of the bricks of the narrative of why things are happening. So yeah, I think they, all the women in this game have something very important

they're working through. And just like it's a, you know, everyone talking through emotions and grief and how humans sort of overcome that and find partnerships. So that's all I'll say. But yes, I think Radgel's role has been elevated and I can't wait for you to see how that evolves with the other characters. Yeah. It's good. I think even Sam's jealous of some of his friendships that have come out of the, like on the show. And he's like always making comments like, oh, I wish I could join in.

There's like such a third wheel vibe to a lot of different things, which are cute and like again, like really great in terms of what it is. Yeah. Kabob's writes in and says, Per Steve Saylor, accessibility is not great, question mark. Well, Steve's saying that, I believe Steve. Yeah, I have not. Well, I haven't dealt in those settings, but like, I definitely agree with him. Yeah. Madog, Nick 96 says, would you say the trailers have spoiled anything?

The trailers, yes. Yeah. Is it spoiled anything or is it just laid out these breadcrumbs that like, when you're playing something and they introduce somebody, you're like, oh, I know that person because that I've seen that. I think it's, it's because of the nature of death stranding, like, everything is so, weird and like you really don't know what you're seeing until you have context around it so like if you not touch the game i don't think the trailers are necessarily spilling anything for you but like for me

watching sgf and being like 20 hours into the game watching that cutscene i was like oh interesting even stuff they were showing here i was like haven't seen that yet so i can imagine i'm about to see that like there's nothing i'm and once y'all play the game you'll understand there is nothing i understand less than why they show that scene at SGF. Yeah. It's such a bizarre scene to show, especially knowing all the other scenes you could have shown at SGF. That would have been way more hype.

That would have been way less like, spoilery. Yeah. It's a weird one. We'll see. David N's Super Chats says, I never finished Death Stranding one, but I want to jump into two. Would the story recap videos do a good job to cash me up based on what you've seen in Descranti too? Find something else on YouTube.

I think the one they do in the game's really short. Who is it? Like, I don't just find something. find something else like a channel. Yeah, yeah, find like another video like recap it.

IGN's done a bunch I know. There you go. Just something that's a little bit more lengthier. But yeah, I think you definitely could get more from the story

than the little snippet they give you at the beginning the game. Yeah. Yeah, there's a bunch out there right now. Yeah. And yes,

I think you could do that and be fine. I think it would give you a setup of what this is, who these people are, what's going on with the baby. Yeah, I can't find the one. There was one I watched

before the preview I did that like did a really good job. But I can't find it in real time, but honestly, you're probably fine watching any of the ones that are there. And then, like, in addition to that, maybe watch the one in the game itself, just as, like, a final, like, you know, layer of defense to, like reinforce that. But you'll be fine. You got the corpus also. And our final super chat for right now is from Christopher who says, bless, go play the altars right now.

Dude, what interest do you have in the altars, Gregory? I, everybody says, Greg, you love clones and all stuff. And it'd be a really cool thing to do. And then it's the management part. When it looks like fallout shelter, I'm like, that's where you'd lose me right there. I do not want to do that whatsoever. You look clones? I love clones, race, yeah.

Like, which ones? I mean, Connell, of course, Superman's, clone. Half his DNA's, half his DNA's Lex Luthor. That's super boy right there. We got a, you got a stew going on. God. Fair enough. What do we got in terms of closing thoughts on death stranding to Jericho?

I'm so glad it exists. think it does push the envelope in a lot of different ways, which Kojima's known for. But that's why I'm glad it exists, because I think there's things that can be influenced by this game. And then, you know, I've been reading his book, the Creative Jane while sort of re are playing this game. And he's just put so much of his inspirations, whether it's from books, movies, TV. Obviously, we know that he's a fan, but he has just put so much of it's into Deserating One and Two. So it's sort of cool to see how that all came to be in his perspective.

But yeah, like, he's pushing the boundaries in a lot of cool ways. And I can't wait to see what he does next. And, yeah, Destrain 2. So far, one of my favorite games of the year. And once again, it made me cry a little bit a couple times. And then that one scene was just so badass and I cried. Yeah. You have to see when you get to that part, you know, it's good.

Yeah, I agree with Jericho as far as, like, it's up there as one of my favorite games of the year. Like, this is for sure a contender for me. in like I think a guaranteed lock in my top 10 list. And I think even more so, I think it's up there for Kojima games. Like I would have to sit and really think about it

because every Metal Gear Solid is like really special to me in different ways. But I think Death Training too really lives up as a Kojima game as far as what is delivering gameplay wise, what is delivering story wise, like what is doing at I think at this point of his career as like you know, he's been such a

staple over decades and still is cooking up new. ideas and doing really cool, interesting, and different things that I think do actually work. And so, yeah, if you have any interest in Destraining to, definitely go play it, especially if you played the first one. If you really didn't like the first one, that I don't know if this is going to be the one, but like, yeah, if you, if you're interested, pick it up, play it. Yeah, this is a great game. I can't wait to finish it this afternoon. I can't wait to play more after that. And more than anything, I'm just so happy that Hideo-Kajima gets to go make weird

shit. Yeah. You know, again, like the headline from Games Daily last week, right, of him and Wood kid and Woodkin being like, it was, it tested too positively, right? Like, I love the idea that this is out there and you're already seeing a smattering of opinions running the scale on what it is. And then these think pieces of what it was and how people

connected with it and where it went. Um, I love that he's making that kind of art. And I think it's you know, fascinating to play a game where you really get, and this isn't for everybody, but for me in particular, like, You get more, the more you put into it. Like I'm getting more out of this, the more I put into it and more I want to go do it and what I want to investigate. So a great game for sure.

9-5, 9-5, and then a tentative 8 or 8-5 from me, maybe more. We'll see tomorrow when I, I think we're doing it what you've been playing, where I can finalize my review score for the one, the only Death Stranding 2 on the beach. But ladies, gentlemen, and B's, if you love Death Stranding 2, or think you will, we have so much more Death Stranding 2 content for you. Of course, Friday, it is the Gibronies doing their stream. Roger and Mike are doing another walk-a-thon marathon stream where they have a treadmill. A bunch of different surprises.

They will start playing on Twitch.tv slash kind of funny games after the games cast on Friday. They will then play as long as you want. They are already saying, can they make it past kind of funny games daily on Monday? We will find out. Of course, if you love Death Stranding and want to know more, you should go watch Rogers excellent interview with Caroline Polichick over on the games cast from last week. He got to sit down with her because, of course, he got her into this game. Not like he signed the contract, but he gave Kojima her album.

Kojima reached out. She is now doing on the beach, the title single from Death Stranding 2. So you can see Roger live his dream as he talks to her about the insane journey they've been on. Of course, if you need to catch up on Death Stranding 1, there is a 21-hour death stranding one stream video up on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games, where Roger and Mike's first marathon stream has been edited into one video for you to go do.

And then, of course, you could check out Mike and Rogers Death Stranding 1, 2020, review on the Kind of Funny Gamescast feed. So you don't have to go far to find more death stranding coverage here. For now, though, we will bid you a do, remind you that this is the Kind of Funny Gamescast each and every weekday. We run you through the biggest topics in gaming, whether they be previews, reviews, reviews, or just things we need to talk about.

Of course, if you like that, pick up a Kind of Funny member. membership, patreon.com slash kind of funny, YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, Apple, Spotify, get all the shows ad-free, support a small independent business, and of course get your daily business of me, Greg Miller, and a podcast series called Greg Way. Jerica, where can people keep up with you? You can find me and Kayla on Jackie King's podcast pretty much everywhere. So stay tuned because we are about to do some cool stuff with our channel. Spoiler alert, we're about to play lots of tiers of the kingdom right now. There's some games I got to play more of that I've never finished, and that's one of them.

Okay. Well, thank you again, Jericho, for making the time coming out here, doing all this. I hope everybody shoots over to support you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. No problem. We're going to reset for the Kind of Funny podcast, which you can watch live on Twitch and YouTube, later on YouTube, everywhere on podcast.

But for now, until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.