Reviews continue to roll in [Polygon] (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Friday, September 12, 2014, 11:22 (3735 days ago) @ Zeouterlimits
edited by Cody Miller, Friday, September 12, 2014, 11:37

I would say that I generally agree with the review. Destiny is at its best when you are doing the story missions and not fighting bosses.

When I reached level 20, my enthusiasm diminished substantially. All that's keeping me from creating a new character or going back to Last of Us on Grounded is the promise of the raid which is supposed to be super cool. (I will wait until I do the raid to write my review of the game). Otherwise, I have no desire to grind the same shit over and over.

The length of strike bosses is problematic, especially when you ask players to do them over and over. This is why most bosses in good games are around 90 seconds at most. Longer bosses change forms. The fights are challenging only by virtue of them taking for-fucking-ever.

I will talk about the story presentation next week though, when everybody is through it and can read spoilers. Needless to say, the game did not do a good job of bringing life to the world.

Has anybody played Lunar 2 Eternal Blue? It's a JRPG for Sega CD, and remade on Playstation. When you beat it, you finish the story, which is itself satisfying, with a beginning, middle, and end. If you save after the credits though, you unlock the epilogue. Basically, you can bookend the story and get a 'good ending', and tons of areas that were either inaccessible, or too high level are now open to you. I'd say the epilogue is about 25% as long as the main game. The dungeons are filled with tough bosses, there are tons of new areas and quests, etc.

That's what needed to happen in Destiny. We needed an Epilogue for level 20 players. Tons of exclusive stuff. This is where you can do the missions that add flavor, or even do it like Lunar and extend the main story.

Level 20 is a desolate wasteland of a grind. The fact that Bungie thinks THIS is the real game is so damn disappointing.

You'll get your money's worth if you view and play it like Halo, from start to finish in the story mode. I remember Bungie warning people that early reviews might be misleading, which is funny because the very thing they could cover well - the story mode - is also the best part of the game.