Overall (Destiny)

by Avateur , Friday, July 21, 2017, 22:39 (2489 days ago) @ Kermit
edited by Avateur, Friday, July 21, 2017, 22:42

I'm very excited. They’ve done a better job with the story in one mission that they ever did in D1 in-game, and that was the number one improvement I was hoping for. I care about what happens next, and just finding out what happened to the central characters provides more than enough plot for this next game.

Spoilers ahead. Let me start by saying I'm not even mad or upset. And that I know this is a Beta. And that for all I know, Bungie is holding back on some story or even locations in this opening mission. And obviously there will ideally be A LOT more story and such to come that may address every concern I'm about to state.

And with that out of the way, I don't understand how you can say this one mission did more in-game for "story" than D1 did. I also don't share in your excitement. I'm also not saying you shouldn't feel excited, btw. You got something out of the mission that I didn't, and that's what's wonderful about stories, writing, and even how things play out in games. BUT, I'd personally still put Taken King over this, or I'd put this right there with D1 stuff. There's BARELY a story here. From D1, we still have been provided no reason at all to care about the city or the tower or the Speaker. Somehow these walls have kept aliens AND ships full of aliens at bay, and even Oryx was so stupid that he decided to just pop into Saturn and obliterate a portion of the rings instead of, I dunno, going to Earth and taking care of business.

Yet somehow the Cabal are the very first, after all this time, to just say to themselves, hey selves, let's go wreck what's left of Earth and capture the Traveler. And so they just woosh in and do it. Those walls weren't impressive at all. A lot of this seems to outright defy the entire believability of how we made it to this point even pre-D1, as I stated above.

And those civilians in the tower or in the city below? We still don't know about them or care. The Traveler is still just sitting there. We're cut off from its light, yet we're going to still somehow survive being kicked off a ship, and my Ghost I assume will be just fine as well one way or another. But again, maybe we're missing a part of the story at the beginning between some of these cutscenes or portions of the level. Maybe right after the last thing we see, we pull off a cool counter-attack and knock the big Cabal thing off of the Traveler. It'd be a small victory considering we just lost everything else, and it'd create consequence and urgency right from the getgo while allowing us to attempt to fight back and overcome this disaster. This could be going places, and THAT excites me. But as it was presented, no, there's really not much there aside from the threat to the Traveler/our light.

Also, it's mighty convenient that Mr. Big Cabal shows up right behind us within a matter of seconds of us clearing out everything in our path to get there. But hey, plot device, right? As for the Cabal in general, D1 did a good job of making it so that they don't scare or concern me because I've slaughtered them up and down for years now. And D1 was so flimsy on story or reason to feel worried about these guys that I'm just not bothered by them. I'm sure I'll have them dealt with in a matter of 3-6 actual gameplay campaign hours.

Wanna know what was terrifying and challenging and threatening after years? The Covenant and the Flood. Even after H1, H2 made them even more insane and threatening. And Earth was legit in peril. And Bungie's first game had provided enough set up for the Covenant and the Flood to allow me to fear any of them finding Earth. I feel like we're going to end up "reclaiming" our city that I know nothing about and don't care about by the end of this game, and the Cabal will be defeated (or at least this version of them will be just like Oryx's "threat" even though the species itself will still be around fighting us).

And let me also add that I hope I'm dead wrong. I said frequently with regards to D1's story that the game needs consequences. I need a reason to care about these characters and events and THE DARKNESS and the other baddies roaming around. I need to feel like there's actually something at stake. I still don't feel it. Mr. Big Cabal says I don't fear death and it's time to learn me a lesson. Joke's on him, we all know that we're gonna be fine and able to revive and so on and so forth.

I seriously hope that when this happens, the payoff is that we seriously lost a lot and STILL have to deal with all the other insane threats coming. I hope our backs are still majorly against the wall. I hope that wherever Bungie's end-game for D2 takes us (after all DLCs and expansions drop), that it's one of those Empire Strikes Back or even Two Towers feelings of dread. We're scattered, people are captured or dead, we've lost our lightsaber (and maybe some body parts), we've won epic battles against all sorts of foes, but there's a new Death Star on the way and Sauron still has an endless army waiting for us, and quite frankly, we're outgunned, outmatched, and it looks like there's no possible way we're going to survive Destin3. I want there to be an awesome story so bad here. I hope there's more story, the stakes feel real, and that whatever we accomplish or overcome feels earned.

To conclude, that first mission's story still felt a lot like D1. I'm not hype. But holy cow do I want to be hype. Which is probably good. I don't have high expectations, so I'm not going into this unprepared to be disappointed. Either way, if it's anything like D1 as far as gameplay goes, it should be a blast to play with friends and such, so I can at least look forward to that aspect of the game being fun. Can't wait to get my Raid on! After all, it's just a beta. I'm sure I'll see you starside in this thing regardless, and the funs will be had.