Board 8 > The Death Stranding topic - A Crytobiote a day keeps the Timefall away

(+) Yeah! (+)

TIL that if you hold you're breath when grabbing cryptobiotes they won't fly away.
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So for items like PCCs and ladders and whatnot that get damaged by timefall, is there any way to repair them? I know container spray doesn't do anything.
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you can use chiral shards to repair them or just upgrade them to level 3 and then they're protected from Timefall

For PCC items at least

ladders just get dead
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Well they're more resistant at Lvl 3, not immune like it sounds like you're saying, but an upgrade to any level also serves as a "free" full repair.

I also recommend largely avoiding using chiral crystals for repairs. The cost for doing so compared to other resources is insane. Of course if it's like a shelter and you want to get it functioning quickly, just use enough to get it to that point.
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Can someone explain how to get EX+ grenades? I got EX 1+ once entirely by accident, but no amount of getting my ass kicked seems to do it again.
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I cannot

As I never really even used the peepee and poopoo grenades
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Yeah, it's not terribly necessary most of the time, but I figure they might actually be helpful when BB is getting maintenance.

Also they apparently all stun the giants.
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They do. I've used some #2s as a last resort when I was out of good stuff to buy time for the online item reinforcments. But it's kind of unfortunate you get access to the hematic grenades so soon after the poop grenades.

This game seems chock full of neat details that you will also never see if you play correctly. I'm 60 hours in, never died to a BT to make a void out, never worn out my shoes, EX grenades are kinda useless.

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Oh my god ch 9 spoilers

I was SLAIN by the Mario/Princess Peach and Mario/Princess BEACH line

In awe at the sheer audacity of Hideo Kojima

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That is THE LINE
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Oh, the way they were talking I was expecting for a line that was actually offensive or something, not just offensive to writing.

too many people talking about the line, not enough people talking about the meanings behind the names of Amelie and Cliff imo
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and beated

I have a lot of mixed thoughts on the game. The online is legitimately brilliant and would probably only work in something like this. There's a lot of questionable parts to the story, but damn if the storytelling isnt great at times. Loved the ending sequence, really, even if it was kind of predictable at that point, it was just really cool to see play out.

I wouldn't say it's my favorite Kojima game but it is the most Kojima game and I guess that's all I was expecting, so I enjoyed it. And I'm still interested in whatever he does after this.

iiicon posted...

too many people talking about the line, not enough people talking about the meanings behind the names of Amelie and Cliff imo

also yeah the names in this game are so fucking ridiculous but Amelie's might just be the end all be all of Kojima naming schemes

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I couldn't remember when you guys are talking about for a second and then I remembered Ame Lie
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I thinking peope that are pro the ending is just one of those things I'm NEVER going to understand. I've never hated an ending more. I was almost on board with a #KonamiWasRight when I went to bed that night. I was actually, physically mad.

To be fair that was MOSTLY because of the first chunk of it, not the latter.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I wouldn't say it's my favorite Kojima game but it is the most Kojima game and I guess that's all I was expecting, so I enjoyed it. And I'm still interested in whatever he does after this.

Pretty much me

But also it's my favorite of anything he's done this decade
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death stranding is a game without any characters and an ending telegraphed 25 hours before you get there but the creators still wants to spend the last 6 hours explaining it and it is somehow not the worst thing they have ever made. it uses melodrama, bombast and pure sincere energy to push through a bad story and honestly i respect that.
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As someone who's very bad at ever picking up on anything like that I needed those 6 hours of explanations
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I've reached Chapter 4.

I regret to inform you that this game may in fact have become Bad.
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GANON1025 posted...

I've reached Chapter 4.

I regret to inform you that this game may in fact have become Bad.

story or gameplay or both
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I started turning on it during the junk dealer quest.

Such a horrible, surreal experience.

Chapter 3 is awesome!!

I'm mainly talking the gameplay in 4. I'm still really liking the story.
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I had like, 20 fountain pens for the Elder in my truck. What's going to happen to them now??
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MichelBollinger posted...

I started tutning on it during the junk dealer quest.

Such a horrible, surreal experience.

it went on so long. and the junk dealer is an asshole! and somehow this wasn't the worst love story kojima ever wrote! death stranding is an enigma.

GANON1025 posted...

I'm mainly talking the gameplay in 4. I'm still really liking the story.

oh yeah it's a real sharp turn in gameplay that isn't signposted very well. at least it's very short once you know what to do.
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Where's my BB
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iiicon posted...

it went on so long. and the junk dealer is an asshole! and somehow this wasn't the worst love story kojima ever wrote! death stranding is an enigma.

It seems like a pebble in the ocean compared to DS as a whole...but it stands out the most as a point where I started turning on Kojima himself. There was no recovery.

One of my favorite things that happened me in the game still was the 1st time I saw the random porters I mistook them for a mule and beat them down and I had negative likes from them the rest the game.

That's -3000 likes for every unconscious porter
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Yeah actually it wasn't so bad! I think going through the kind of area they had set up with your huge ass stack of boxes was both frustrating and comical.
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Another thing about the random porters one time I saw 2 of them carrying packages to a place I wanted to level up so I thought I would steal their packages

Turns out when you beat them down they drop other random items but never drop their packages you can only get them through trading and after I beat them down obviously they didn't want to trade with me
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You sully the good name of Sam Porter Bridges Strand.
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The great deliverer has a dark side
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Man the Junk Dealer stuff those fucking mails man! Bitch could have walked on her own!?
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junk dealer is an asshole anyways, fuck that guy

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Their character arc continues even into the post game
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Speaking of post game character arcs my favorite is visiting the elder and hes just a bt at that point
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Junk Dealer's Girlfriend has an .. interesting voice actress. From what I understand, she's a model Kojima really likes who doesn't actually speak English?
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I wonder why everyone, including me, calls the different segments Chapters when actually they are Episodes.
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Previously on death stranding
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MichelBollinger posted...

It seems like a pebble in the ocean compared to DS as a whole...but it stands out the most as a point where I started turning on Kojima himself. There was no recovery.

i think it encapsulates a lot of my feelings about death stranding as a whole. it's a story about people surviving in a world that doesn't have much time left, and reaching out to grab whatever is close and refusing to let go. and it's told in an extremely awkward way about characters who have very little reason to be together. and the woman has very little characterization beyond 'empathetic.' and it goes on too long. but it's still weirdly engaging?
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ninkendo posted...

Speaking of post game character arcs my favorite is visiting the elder and hes just a bt at that point

Dont know if I actually am gonna go back to do postgame but do you still get this kind of stuff if I ignored this guy completely? Also ignored the pizza dude so don't know if that works

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I would highly recommend you do all 5 pizza missions
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Also I assume you wouldn't get any of that stuff unless you had already done a 5 star ranking on that character
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I started doing hard mode and it's not too bad so far.
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GANON1025 posted...

Junk Dealer's Girlfriend has an .. interesting voice actress. From what I understand, she's a model Kojima really likes who doesn't actually speak English?

Oh she's very clearly just saying her lines phonetically without understanding them.
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After marinating on the game overnight, here is my vague impression:

I think a lot of the weirdness I feel after beating this game is because so much of its themes are front loaded and blatant. And it has to do this, because every aspect of the gameplay reinforces the core themes (this is Cool and Good). Itxs like Kojima desperately trying to sell socialism and the value of communnity to shut in nerds. People are stronger together so you should want to help other people out, because life is hard on your own. A country's strength is it's people overcoming differences. Kojima hates nukes and killing so he made a world where killing someone makes them a nuke. Also, pay your taxes so the government can build roads, which might be the best thing ever. This game is the greatest road propaganda of all time. The gameplay itself is weird and clunky and the boss fights are kinda inconsistent and it shouldn't really work at all but it's still weirdly addicting.

So now the rest of the plot is a character drama in this weird world. And I like the characters, I really do. They are all strange and slightly wacky and likable in that weird Kojima way. Amelie is the only one I didnt really care for. But I think icon is right - it isn't really that deep! The characters and the concepts in the story don't really feel too fleshed out for the amount of time you spend with the game, and that's a bummer.

That said, it's still enjoyable, I just think it maybe isn't worth the bad pacing. It gets overwrought at times but I think it stuck the landing. On a technical level Kojima has improved a lot in this actor-heavy cinematic style compared to MGSV. I don't think he's quite at the level of Naughty Dog in TLOU and UC4, which maybe isn't fair to say but it seems pretty obvious to me that's where he is trying to be. We even got Troy Baker twice! But I'd love to see more of this so keep on keeping on.

So overall, more than like...actual quality as a game, I feel like Death Stranding asks two questions: "how much can you tolerate Kojima's bullshit" and "is a Hideo Kojima Game better when he has total creative control? " To which my answers are "surprisingly a lot" and "uh...I dunno about that."

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Are the stores of Metals/Ceramics/Resins/etc. shared among all the stops, or are they individual? Like if both the Junk Dealer and Craftsman have 2000 metals and I take 1000 from the junk dealer, will the craftsman (and therefore every other place) only have 1000 at that point?
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individual
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Wow OK, then I have a lot more stuff than I thought I did! Completing the roads will be a lot easier.
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I think they just gradually increase in amount at each location too? I definitely shouldn't be maxed out in as many places as I am if they don't.
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The junk dealer stuff is awful, and the emails you get make it worse. The dialogue in this game is truly terrible. But after that when I started to get to the more story-heavy stuff, I was still excited because nothing had happened for 20 hours before that. The pacing in this game is bizarre.

I think it's become clear that Kojima isn't a storyteller. He hasn't written a really great story since MGS3, and back then he had a primary co-writer. However, people got so attached to the story of MGS as a whole he felt that was people wanted from him, so we got an incredibly mechanics-heavy, story-light game that then crashes into MGS4-style nonsense.

This is a baffling game, but not in the way it wants to be. I still like it somewhat though.
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