This is the closest thing to a review as you'll get from me. It kind of naturally flows through the different aspects of the game so I just bolded the relevant topics to make it a little easier to navigate, instead of trying to separate everything in different sections.

It took me a full week to beat Destiny's first story arc, three times longer than my average Bungie game. To say it was fun would be an understatement; it was refreshing and reenergizing and I can't wait to replay those levels again solo, with different difficulties, with friends, and with different classes and subclasses. And since there's nine main levels and nine side quests across four different worlds featuring four distinct enemies... there's a hell of a lot of replayability here. Add in deeper exploration and analyzing of the environment art and architecture and all the other details of the gameworld and I'm overwhelmed and excited by what lays in front of me.

And then of course, there's Strikes, Patrols, and the Crucible, too! One of the reasons it took longer to beat the main story was because I kept getting distracted by everything else. The way the game is structured allowed me to shift between activities without losing immersion, and that's important to me. There's an ongoing war in the Sol System and it was nice to not always be the main hero and instead do supporting attacks in patrols/strikes or "training" in the Crucible. I always loved the idea of War Games in Halo 4, that there was this lore and an excuse behind competitive multiplayer, but was never really convinced that we were on holodecks practicing with each other. What was dying & and respawning in that circumstance? Was it complete virtual reality that enabled that? And how greatly had the UNSC's technology improved to be able to implement this? Perhaps it was simply because there were so many Halos that hadn't done this, it was harder to make the jump to one that did.

With the Ghosts, the Guardians are allowed to actually die and return. And the history of the Twilight Gap helps support the reasoning behind the live-fire testing.

As for the actual gameplay... When I played the Crucible during the Beta it was fun, but it didn't come across as amazing. But I think you just have to put in a couple of days of getting pounded in the head by Titans or torn apart by Hunters. There was this hump that I went over last week and all of the sudden the Crucible just made sense to me and I've been having a blast ever since, even while losing. And I usually have zero to just a glimpse of interest in the multiplayer side of games, so this is a strange new world to me. We'll see how long it lasts!

One last comment on immersion: having Lord Shaax monitor everything with his condemnations or inspirations really ties me back into the Tower and how, when I am there, I'm walking past him hearing the same kinds of comments as he looks at his stats.

And I've heard a very many interesting thing on the Tower. It's not a unique thing to love Nathan Fillion, but I do, and his Cayde-6 character is the perfect blend of funny/cool. I hope they can get him back for more in-depth future stories. I'd also love to see NPCs walk around and interact with each other. Dead Orbit getting into a quiet argument with the Vanguard or the Consensus would be really interesting to see, for example. On a related note, I'm pretty sure the weapon-smith, Banshee, is a Ghost-reborn Tom Waits.

The voice-acting as a whole is good. Peter Dinklage brings a lot of subtle quirks to the Ghost, making him endearing but still not quite a human - more like a living instrument. I don't see Ghosts as a bunch of A.I.s like Cortana here. They are tools of the Traveler and while they have sentience, they seem to have a different experience of life than humans/Awoken/Exo do. The voice acting especially shines when the Vanguard comes in before missions and Strikes. They always sound badass, a role akin to Lord Hood commanding a strike.

I'd actually like to hear more characters speak to me in the story missions. Not too much to overwhelm Fireteam chatter, but a bit more variety would be a great way to siphon some of the great lore and mysteries of the Grimoire into the main story. Have the Vanguard and the Speaker watch us as we explore the interior of Venus and comment on the mysteries we're enlightening.

Speaking of, the Grimoire is fantastic. I wish it had been a full book that came with the game, and I hope it finds a printed form in the future. I also hope to see it integrated into the game itself. The content is there, we just need another section in the menu screen to scroll through the text and illustrations you unlock. Maybe even a vendor on the Tower who sells cards for Glimmer if you don't want to unlock them the traditional way. Have it available on Bungie.Net and the Companion App as well, so you can take the game into the bedroom or bathroom with you, of course. There is a wealth of cool short stories, legends of famous guns, and so many mystery and theories in there that make the world of Destiny amazing. It would be a shame to see some player never even attempt to look at it and miss lines like this *SPOILERS*:

"It is my hypothesis - a hypothesis at best - that the Vex saw the abominable presence at the heart of the Garden as a divine power. I can hear your protest already: how can machines have a god?

"The answer is simple. The Vex, for all their voracious intelligence, could not understand or decipher what they found. They searched through all available reactions, and they settled on the course with the greatest payoff...to worship this power, and to remake themselves in its image."

Or something funny like this: "...A lot of Guardians never come back, especially the new. Are you new? Oh. Well! I'm sure you'll make it." - Cayde-6 (I can just perfectly hear that in Nathan's voice.)

Or interpretations of the Darkness like these: "The Acataleptic Clause claims that we are intrinsically unable to understand the Darkness. In many respects this belief parallels the Praxic Creed, which suggests that we should stop worrying about the nature of the Darkness and focus on resisting and defeating it.

"Certain positions - often labeled heretical - imply that the Traveler itself triggered the Collapse, or that it knew the Darkness was coming for it and hoped to use the Solar System as a sacrifice or a proxy army. The Binary Star cult is one notable example."

Every time I catch up on the Grimoire, my need to play Destiny reaches overdrive. In the game itself, there's still plenty of world building (which feels like it's already at the level of Halo 2's expanding universe) in the form of items. The armor and weapons are oozing with style. I got an auto rifle the other day called "The Problem" and immediately fell in love with it. And now I check every item I get for its description because they range from cool to humorous to providing clues to the ongoing mysteries.

The current theory I'm spinning in my head is that the Fallen are a foreshadowing of Earth's civilization. They're the closest to us, and while they seem infected with Darkness, they also have their own, baser conquests. They're the ruins of a civilization that was intimately tied to technology like us. They are what we might have become after the Collapse, and still may become. There's a little short story in the Grimoire of Cayde-6 fighting alongside a Fallen that brought these thoughts to the surface. It's interesting, and it also made me laugh aloud at:

"For a while we just killed things which is hard to make interesting in a story so I'll pass it over."

Before the Beta, and after, there were a lot of terms, factions, and eras floating around. Twilight Gaps and City Ages... lots of vague things that I wanted to not speculate too much on in the past, wanting instead to learn about them firsthand. Now a week into the game, I feel like I have firm grasp on the universe and am already turning over story ideas for the Sketch Journal project and hey, maybe even a comic down the road. :)

The story included in the game itself is a fun but simple framework. As I've said in this forum before, Destiny feels like a roleplaying game. It's a sourcebook ready to get me started on my own adventures and it comes with a starter quest that introduces me to the various factions and shows me how to play the game and build my character. If this campaign was ALL there was to be found for years until a Destiny 2, I'd be disappointed, but if I've received the impressions correctly, this truly is just a prologue for a serialized adventure that will hopefully delve into all the nitty gritty of the lore as more content and DLC is released. My XBox Live is about expire and I need to find the change for a season pass before long - so hopefully some of that future DLC is free like GTA V. It would make me, and I'm sure others as well, more ready to break our wallets if we get little doses of free content in between the bigger expansions.

The gameplay itself is already better than some of the Halos. It felt great during the Beta, it feels even better as I master the game now. It's so finely tuned and natural it's ridiculous! As a vehicle-fan, it's a little lacking in the that department at the moment, but it makes up for it by having some of the best feeling FPS controls and feedback I've ever tried. As a Hunter, I truly flow between my knife and handcannon (I really need to try another primary weapon one of these days), as I leap between pillars or slide between enemies. The neat little bonuses that the classes and equipment provide make the game so varied and growable while making your Guardian feel unique. While Ragashingo is going invisible behind a rock, I'm sniping ammo across the map to gain it. I'm swinging out a giant 11-shot Handcannon with near-instant readying as I triple jump across the heads of a Cabal Phalanx... I already have so many stories of cool gameplay to relate!

The difficulty curve seemed slower and more challenging than during the Beta, which I appreciated. Earth still felt like a test to a newborn Guardian. I had to bump up the difficulty on Mars as I had leveled up too quickly jacking around on a few patrols. I'm now a level 22 Bladedancer and I still have so much left to do. I think there's even a few maps and maybe even a strike I haven't played!

Having two variants of most, if not all, maps is such a nice little way to make the game feel even bigger. Firebase Delphi might be my current favorite - or maybe it just happens to be the one I'm doing best in. :) I love the massive Bastion though, and the slightly smaller First Light. Being able to use Sparrows and Interceptors is a treat and it's where the classic Halo player in me really comes out. I've missed you Brute Chopper - I'm happy to see you reborn in these machines of war! I'd love to someday pilot a Spider Walker or a Cabal Tank. Hey, I'd even take an Imperial Land Tank across mountains for a future level, but that's a bit far-fetched, hah!

Have I covered everything? Do I need to talk about art direction and music? They're faultless in my opinion, and the thing I've been most excited about since first seeing Destiny. The color palettes are lovely and refreshing, with some color sets I just simply haven't seen in a video game yet. The music compliments the world perfectly. It syncs up and betters it. The sound too. It builds the universe's character. From the variety of pieces on the Tower to the vibrating sounds of Vex (which today I discovered was reminding me of a Pink Floyd song off of the album Medal). Some of the boss battle music is near the top of my list, and as the game wades into the RPG genre, so does Marty & co somehow borrow elements of my other favorite video game composer, Nobuo Uematsu. The Cabal's themes take the cake. They build into these marching, imperialistic pieces of fanfare, while still veering into the goofy and fun nature of the character's designs. And then those aloof, crystal-like piano notes come cascading down the bombastic lasts... It gave me goosebumps the first few times I heard that piece, and made me love the Cabal that much more. The final battle's music track was also pretty blood-pumping and made the encounter memorable.

I really love this game. It's addicting. I find myself thinking about it, wanting to get back to it while I'm away, and I haven't felt that way about a game for years! The game already wins "Best Loading Screens of All Time" in my book. Being able to see beautiful planets and space travel while I see a variety of spaceships fly past between different modes of play is just right up my alley. The other trophy it wins is being perfectly designed for my level of social interaction. It's so neat to be playing through a story alone, move into a more open area, be attacked by a wave of enemies, and then be rescued by a team of PC Guardians driving past on speeder bikes with their capes-a-flowing. And I never have to hear a peep! It might even make people seem more polite, thanks to the social actions. It's just pleasant to revive someone and then be bowed to before they run off on their own journey!

Well, I can't wait for what comes ahead from Bungie, and every night I can't wait to get back to my own questing. I'm looking at you, Vault of Glass, but I've got a few more things to learn before I take that challenge. Look for more Sketch Journal pages in the near future - I've got some great ideas now that I actually know what Destiny is! Thanks for reading all of this, if you've made it this far, and hit me up on the 360 if you need a companion who gets distracted looking at the pebbles in the sand. This is a fantastic universe to get lost in. :)

I will hit you up. Very nice write-up, Levi.

+1

I feel like Jack Nicholson in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest given the current atmosphere regarding critical appraisal of this title. I'M NOT CRAZY! I DON'T NEED A LOBOTOMY!

Favorite thing is something you mentioned about the consistency of the experience. I can do something different every night when I get home, but it's still the same game and same character I am working on. At LVL22 there is still always 3 or 4 things I can choose to do that will advance me, are fun and provide different experiences. All within the context of mass murder of course.

Not to give it a pass on it's flaws, but some of the stuff people hate I love (Dialogue and VO being one). The quality of the rest of the experience is overwhelmingly A-game Bungie. It's missing some of the unique gimmick levels of Halo's past, which though beloved just don't add much to replay so I'm sure their efforts were better spent elsewhere, or saving them for later.

Having the Grimorie in game, via terminal in the tower, a character you speak to or menu option (Like MAss Effect) would be super rad, probably the one thing that I would want them to patch. Laggy slow loading second screen can eat a whole bag of severed Dreg arms.

PSN:Numinar

P.S. Please nobody smother me to death with a pillow while I sleep.

I too am having no issue with the dialogue. Everyone keeps bashing Dinklage, but he sounds okay to me.

Bad VA work is something that ruins immersion in my eyes, and at no point has that happened with my Ghost.

No comment from me other than to say your review reflects many of the features of Destiny that I also like.

Kudos.

Good post, man. You put words to many things in my brain.

Also, long ass-post.

I think the Cryptarch would be a perfect place to place all the Grimoire information, seeing as how he is the collector of all information pre- and post-Collapse. It would also make going to the Cryptarch something to look forward to instead of feeling like we're getting taken by a used care salesman.

So when are going Raiding? :-D