GTAIII, VC, and SA were a lot more open in many gameplay sequences because the games were rougher, less polished, but it likely wasn't intentional design from Rockstar. And there were also lots of key moments where you'd inexplicably fail something that people selectively forget. For every mission in III/VC/SA where you could have some agency to finish it in a unique way (I detailed a few examples in my first post), there were just as many where you had to follow it in the exact format the game wanted you to and it was likely much more strict than they are today, we just sort of forget them.
For instance, the famous "All you had to do was follow the damn train CJ!" There's no reason why you couldn't ride ahead of the train, get to a specific point where you know the train is going (trains are literally on rails), and kill all of the baddies from a high point, but instead you have to drive idiot Big Smoke next to the train for him to do the shooting, even though he sucks, and it puts both of you at risk and makes it very difficult, one of the notoriously most frustrating missions in the game. This one sticks out to people as an 'exception,' but in truth, it's probably much closer to 'the rule,' it's just that most other missions weren't that hard, so you didn't have to try to beat them in unique or clever ways.
But, I wrote back on page 1 or 2, that the few missions where you do have some agency give the illusion of freedom in the games, and that's all you really need... that illusion of freedom, which makes you forget how the rest of the game is on rails. Modern GTAs don't have that illusion of freedom at all. In the modern GTA, you might have to steal an airplane, fly it into the back of another airplane, just to kill the pilot, jump into a jeep, drive that jeep off the back of the airplane, and pull your parachute to land safely ... But there's no opportunity to do anything different. You couldn't, for instance, fly your plane into the front of the plane or do anything else, you have to do it in the steps the game wants you to, even though those steps all result in the same purpose.
I remember leaving Big Smoke (and the game telling me to get him) and going ahead of the train then jumping on it from a building then shooting the Vagos and going back to get Smoke. Even when the games were scripted you had a lot more freedom than recent Rockstar titles.
There is no reason why they have to script so many fail states.
I don't think the complaint is that it is a linear story. It's that each mission is very scripted on how you do it. No thinking allowed or needed cause the game gives you step by step instructions on how to do things.
Now I do think they improved from gta that it seems if you don't follow the steps you don't necessarily fail. I recently did one mission doing nothing what it told me other than escaping because I missed the instructions. I didnt realize I did it "wrong" until I did it over again and was shareplaying and my friend was like, you need to get your weapons and your horse (I thought it was scripted you lose them, the game even gives me a note after the mission that my gang members got together and rebought all my weapons for me. And my horse came to save me once I passed the marker I was supposed to get to).
I've also had times where I didn't do what the game suggested and the npc I was with was like, ok, I guess we're just going in.
Definitely an improvement on gta v where it would fail you for not doing a step. Now it seems more like it gives you a step by step of how you should do it but is more flexible if you do something different.
The problem isn't even that they're linear to me. I actually don't mind linearity. My problem with Rockstar's mission design(it's not exclusive to RDR2) that it just out right fails you if you dare do anything that the game didn't account for. I was in a big fight in one of the missions, I stepped back a inch to loot some bullets off a corpse I'd just killed, and the screen went black with a mission failed screen saying I ditched my gang. No other game with a linear mission design fails you for looting some bullets...
The inconsistency of the game design between the open world and main missions is one of the most frustrating design decisions I've experienced this gen. You can murder an entire town in the open world and accumulate a $1000 bounty, but any main missions that involve shooting up a town result in you getting away scot-free. The mask to hide your identity also actually hides your identity from the cops in main missions, while it doesn't do shit out in the open world. Sometimes you can whistle for your house, but sometimes you can't for whatever reason.
The problem isn't even that they're linear to me. I actually don't mind linearity. My problem with Rockstar's mission design(it's not exclusive to RDR2) that it just out right fails you if you dare do anything that the game didn't account for. I was in a big fight in one of the missions, I stepped back a inch to loot some bullets off a corpse I'd just killed, and the screen went black with a mission failed screen saying I ditched my gang. No other game with a linear mission design fails you for looting some bullets...
It's almost like the game is taunting you with the copious amount of corpses that appear in story missions. There's always some sense of urgency (and sometimes fail states) if you try to hang back to loot them.
I agree. The number of times I've "failed" a mission because I strayed too far from the "mission area" is too many. Got off the wagon I stole to go whistle for my horse to follow (It was out of range), but still well within the vision of the wagon, *boom* mission failed, "You lost the wagon." Did I, game? Did I really lose the wagon? Because I can still see it, and no one is stealing it.
Or another instance where I stood and stared through a hole in a wall as I watched people amble slowly toward my hiding spot. I tried to get up and move. Couldn't do it. Tried to tap out of cover. Couldn't do it. I was glued in place until the game wanted me to move.
Or another, a non-story mission even, where I skulked in to rob someone, silently took out the enemies, and suddenly, "Wanted". Redid the mission a half dozen times to make sure I never missed a beat... But no, the game was going to mark me as wanted and send the law my way regardless of whether or not I silently took everyone out, or went guns blazing. They wanted me to have you run. So run I had to.
Honestly, I think it's one of the weakest things about the game. I'm all for scripted sequences, but removing player agency in such a seemingly arbitrary manner can be frustrating.
How did they make missions in the older GTA games and had narrative then?
And how exactly does the game switching your weapons or failing the missions if you try to "break" them by doing some stuff differently help the narrative? It might sound like a nitpick to you but as a former fan of Rockstar and someone who has been playing their games since GTA2 this design is just badly done because this game is a sandbox game, not a linear game.
Even GTA4 (which had tons of scripted missions) allowed you to do stuff differently in weird ways so why the downgrade and what does it add?
I think the "downgrade" comes because Rockstar wants to make moments like we see in Tomb Raider or Uncharted, or there's a consumer demand for it and they're responding to that. It just doesn't work as well in a Rockstar game where there's an expectation (or illusion) of player agency, introduced in GTA2 or III/VC/SA.
After GTAIV, a lot of fans of GTA wanted the next GTA to be "fun again," which I Think Rockstar sort of showed their hand in how they interpreted that. Rockstar interpreted that request with THe Ballad of Gay Tony, which had lots of fans praising the game for "being fun again," but to me, it didn't seem very different from GTAIV. Sure, they showed you using a helicopter to derail a subway train, or what have you, which was an example of an over the top mission ("fun again!") but to me, those missions aren't "fun" they're formulaic. You have to use the helicopter to derail that train, and you have to do it just in the way that Rockstar wants. But that got praise from previous fans of San Andreas who were critical of IV because it "wasn't fun anymore." I'm very critical of GTAIV, but not because "it's not fun anymore," I always thought that was a stupid argument that didn't really analyze the flaws in the game, and were typical of people who played the GTA games just to use cheat codes, go on a rampage, and then turn off the game.
In games like Tomb Raider or Uncharted, nobody really questions how Nathan or Lara set themselves up for these encounters. "Oh, Nathan has lost all of his weapons again and now has to sneak to strangle a guard, get his weapons back, and then he'll fight enemies that are much stronger than the original baddie guarding his weapons..." It's such a formula, but it's an expected formula and nobody questions it because the games have never given agency to the player. Or, Lara fights through a tomb and ascends all the way to to the top of this impossible climb, only for the baddies to walk through a back door and Lara has to jump into a crypt, which causes the world to fall apart and Lara has to narrowly escape through a set piece, scripted sequence. Nobody really questions that because it's the design of the whole game.
THe problem for Rockstar games is when they introduce openness, agency, player control ... You can cause a glorious open shootout in a ramshackle town and approach it any way you want, in the most clever way you want, killing as many people as you want, and escape by jumping over a bannister and landing on your horse riding out of town, escaping to the mountains, and setting up a trap where you blow up the following bounty hunters on a narrow bridge, to narrrowly escape a wanted level. It's something you can sort of only do in Rockstar games. But, then, if you have virtually that same scenario set up for you by the game, but this time you're doing it with Dutch, the game is much more formulaic... No, you can only get through that town by hiding behind a slow moving oxcart, and then letting your allies escape as you introduce a shootout and defeat the enemies in town who don't really follow you out ... End of mission.
Or, alternatively, I just recently completed a mission in Chapter 3 where some agents are looking for me and I hide out in a barn. Outside of the story mode, if some agents were looking for me, I could jump on my horse and just scamper off into no man's land, avoiding the law, generally move away scott free without an incident. But, in the story mode mission, the agents sneak up, cause a ruckus, a forced shoot out follows, and then I need to flee into no man's land and narrowly escape them again.
Because I am given that openness when outside of a mission, it feels weird to not have that openness in a mission...
But ultimately, I think you have to suspend disbelief, or else the game would feel much more formulaic and get a lot more criticism. In the mission in Valentine when I'm hiding behind an ox-cart shooting at baddies on balconies and out of bar rooms, the game scripts those sequences to give a movie-like action sequence that you might see out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The scene where I'm hiding in a barn gives a dramatic moment where the barn is burning to the ground and agents are closing in, followed by a quiet tension of trying to hide out in a moon lit forest as those same agents are trying to find me. THis mix of scripted and open is ultimately what makes the game best, it's what makes a specific mission feel fresh in a lot of ways and build relationships between the characters to make you care about them -- if I could just flee every encounter just like how I can flee in the open world, it'd be ridiculous for me to wander back to the gang I just abandoned and start a new mission with them by my side. So, the game forces you into these encounters, and forces you to play them a specific way, because -- at least to Rockstar they think -- they're building story, relationships, and narrative in those sequences.
An example of this that another poster (Mechaplum ) mentioned -- critically though -- is of a mission where he had to go rescue a woman's brother from a cult. Now, interestingly, my impression of this mission is so, so, different from that poster's. That poster thought he was supposed to hog tie the brother and force him back to his sister. It seems like that's what you're supposed to do, and he got frustrated when the game didn't let him do that ... as the brother leaps onto his horse and gallops away, something that's very hard for you to do as the player at that point in the game. But, for me, what follows in that mission is something that stands out so much to me and it's one of the things that narratively makes the game great. This is a spoiler, but it's a very early optional mission, so read on if you'd like or ignore it but it doesn't spoil the main story at all:
You chase the brother through the mountains, trying to convince him to slow down, the dialogue gives you a ton of backstory on Arthur and him at this time... The boy and you were friends you were sort of like an older step brother for him, the boys father was abusive, the boys father was also mean to you -- Arthur -- who wanted to marry his daughter, but you weren't good enough for him. The boy was forced from his abusive father and joined this cult to escape him. The cult is proven to be hucksters, and now the kid has nothing. The mission climaxes with the boy, off his horse and you just about 10 paces away after narrowly missing a train, trying to put a gun to his head and kill himself because his life is a mess. The action sequence finishes with you going into dead eye to shoot the gun out of the kid's hand as he tries to kill himself... THe kid breaks down and agrees to go back to town with you, and along the way it goes into a ton of narrative backstory about you, this kids family, and your history. Ultimately he unifies with his sister because of the breakdown and failed suicide attempt.
Now, this is a quintessential mission that is frustrating without agency because it seems like you should just be able to skip the whole chase, hog tie the kid, and drop him at his sister's house, just as you could in any open world sequence when you want to hog tie him. But...... you'd also miss a lot of narrative development, and one of the more well told micro-stories in a videogame. It's not just back story for Arthur, but it's also a terrific, well told micro-story for this random NPC that (I assume) you never hear from again (... maybe?). I think there could be a way to try to do both here, give you agency, skip all of the narrative expose, and maybe the result of the mission is different (e.g., you force the kid home, only for you to hear he's run off again and killed himself via a letter from his sister or something)... But Rockstar makes a choice to go with story and narrative rather than agency. Ultimately, if they gave you choice here to skip all of the narrative that might be rewarding for someone like me, but 90% of people might also miss the real character development. IT's s choice that I think I'd prefer it my way (give me agency even if that means I lose out on one of the best character sequences in the game), but I understand why they still do it that other way.
Ultimately, I think we have to be realistic about expectations. I think the old PS2 GTAs gave you more agency over how you wanted to play a lot of missions, but there were also many more missions ... perhaps almost all of them ... that limited that agency just as much with arbitrary rules. I think when we look back we try to only remember the good ones that felt open, and forget the ones where we just played through them paroquially. BUt, in the moment of playing a new game, those bad instances stick out.
Man, I was doing a mission with Lenny the other night and I had just killed a bunch of folks and started looting the bodies. Lenny kept fucking yelling at me incessantly to go do the objective, but I wanted to loot first.
Then I failed for abandoning Lenny. Fucking stupid.
Can't really argue with this one. An early "Micah" mission really REALLY rubbed me the wrong way.
You HAVE to help Micah kill an entire town. I tried killing Micah when he started laying waste to everyone and it was an automatic Game Over. Seems super fucked up.
Hey look you unlocked the bolt action rifle! Do you like it? I hope you do, cause this is what I will be putting on your back during every story mission in the future!
What do you mean it's not your personal favorite weapon? It's NEW and it's awesome! Come on! Push forward!! Shoot up them bastards and have fun! Yeeeeeeehaw!
What do you mean you want to pick the loadout yourself? Is this gun bad? No, It's a good gun you say? Then why don't you want to use it? I don't understand....
Why are you players so weird? You can't control EVERYTHING you know? This is a story mission and I am the story, and I think it would be better if you use the bolt action rifle instead of anything else, can you please behave now? Stop being so weird okay?
What do you mean you want to sell guns that you don't use anymore? It's a GUN and guns are good for you! You shouldn't sell something that's good for you! Gosh why are you players so goddamn weird? What is the matter with you?
What do you mean you don't need the old repeater anymore? It's a REPEATER and it shoots bullets REPEATEDLY! Don't you understand that's VERY GOOD for you? What do you mean you have the Lancaster repeater already and don't need the old carbine repeater? Are you stupid, TWO repeater is better than ONE repeater, do the math you fucking idiot. Gosh, why are players these days so goddamn stubborn and weird? They are literally out of control!
OH MY GOD, what do you mean you want to sell ammo types that you don't need? Are you crazy!?!?! What do you mean you only use High Velocity and Express ammo anyway and don't want the game keep resetting the ammo type back to default ammo? All ammo are born equal you fucking ape!
I get why people would have an issue with this but it just hasn't bothered me too much. Maybe I'm used to the Rockstar method but I don't go "off script" too often and just do what the game is telling me to do instead of trying to outsmart the developers.
The only fail states I get normally is when I am lingering too long looting when my gang members are pushing ahead and getting themselves killed.
What do you mean you don't need the old repeater anymore? It's a REPEATER and it shoots bullets REPEATEDLY! Don't you understand that's VERY GOOD for you? What do you mean you have the Lancaster repeater already and don't need the old carbine repeater? Are you stupid, TWO repeater is better than ONE repeater, do the math you fucking idiot. Gosh, why are players these days so goddamn stubborn and weird? They are literally out of control!
I think the "downgrade" comes because Rockstar wants to make moments like we see in Tomb Raider or Uncharted, or there's a consumer demand for it and they're responding to that. It just doesn't work as well in a Rockstar game where there's an expectation (or illusion) of player agency, introduced in GTA2 or III/VC/SA.
After GTAIV, a lot of fans of GTA wanted the next GTA to be "fun again," which I Think Rockstar sort of showed their hand in how they interpreted that. Rockstar interpreted that request with THe Ballad of Gay Tony, which had lots of fans praising the game for "being fun again," but to me, it didn't seem very different from GTAIV. Sure, they showed you using a helicopter to derail a subway train, or what have you, which was an example of an over the top mission ("fun again!") but to me, those missions aren't "fun" they're formulaic. You have to use the helicopter to derail that train, and you have to do it just in the way that Rockstar wants. But that got praise from previous fans of San Andreas who were critical of IV because it "wasn't fun anymore." I'm very critical of GTAIV, but not because "it's not fun anymore," I always thought that was a stupid argument that didn't really analyze the flaws in the game, and were typical of people who played the GTA games just to use cheat codes, go on a rampage, and then turn off the game.
In games like Tomb Raider or Uncharted, nobody really questions how Nathan or Lara set themselves up for these encounters. "Oh, Nathan has lost all of his weapons again and now has to sneak to strangle a guard, get his weapons back, and then he'll fight enemies that are much stronger than the original baddie guarding his weapons..." It's such a formula, but it's an expected formula and nobody questions it because the games have never given agency to the player. Or, Lara fights through a tomb and ascends all the way to to the top of this impossible climb, only for the baddies to walk through a back door and Lara has to jump into a crypt, which causes the world to fall apart and Lara has to narrowly escape through a set piece, scripted sequence. Nobody really questions that because it's the design of the whole game.
THe problem for Rockstar games is when they introduce openness, agency, player control ... You can cause a glorious open shootout in a ramshackle town and approach it any way you want, in the most clever way you want, killing as many people as you want, and escape by jumping over a bannister and landing on your horse riding out of town, escaping to the mountains, and setting up a trap where you blow up the following bounty hunters on a narrow bridge, to narrrowly escape a wanted level. It's something you can sort of only do in Rockstar games. But, then, if you have virtually that same scenario set up for you by the game, but this time you're doing it with Dutch, the game is much more formulaic... No, you can only get through that town by hiding behind a slow moving oxcart, and then letting your allies escape as you introduce a shootout and defeat the enemies in town who don't really follow you out ... End of mission.
Or, alternatively, I just recently completed a mission in Chapter 3 where some agents are looking for me and I hide out in a barn. Outside of the story mode, if some agents were looking for me, I could jump on my horse and just scamper off into no man's land, avoiding the law, generally move away scott free without an incident. But, in the story mode mission, the agents sneak up, cause a ruckus, a forced shoot out follows, and then I need to flee into no man's land and narrowly escape them again.
Because I am given that openness when outside of a mission, it feels weird to not have that openness in a mission...
But ultimately, I think you have to suspend disbelief, or else the game would feel much more formulaic and get a lot more criticism. In the mission in Valentine when I'm hiding behind an ox-cart shooting at baddies on balconies and out of bar rooms, the game scripts those sequences to give a movie-like action sequence that you might see out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The scene where I'm hiding in a barn gives a dramatic moment where the barn is burning to the ground and agents are closing in, followed by a quiet tension of trying to hide out in a moon lit forest as those same agents are trying to find me. THis mix of scripted and open is ultimately what makes the game best, it's what makes a specific mission feel fresh in a lot of ways and build relationships between the characters to make you care about them -- if I could just flee every encounter just like how I can flee in the open world, it'd be ridiculous for me to wander back to the gang I just abandoned and start a new mission with them by my side. So, the game forces you into these encounters, and forces you to play them a specific way, because -- at least to Rockstar they think -- they're building story, relationships, and narrative in those sequences.
An example of this that another poster (Mechaplum ) mentioned -- critically though -- is of a mission where he had to go rescue a woman's brother from a cult. Now, interestingly, my impression of this mission is so, so, different from that poster's. That poster thought he was supposed to hog tie the brother and force him back to his sister. It seems like that's what you're supposed to do, and he got frustrated when the game didn't let him do that ... as the brother leaps onto his horse and gallops away, something that's very hard for you to do as the player at that point in the game. But, for me, what follows in that mission is something that stands out so much to me and it's one of the things that narratively makes the game great. This is a spoiler, but it's a very early optional mission, so read on if you'd like or ignore it but it doesn't spoil the main story at all:
You chase the brother through the mountains, trying to convince him to slow down, the dialogue gives you a ton of backstory on Arthur and him at this time... The boy and you were friends you were sort of like an older step brother for him, the boys father was abusive, the boys father was also mean to you -- Arthur -- who wanted to marry his daughter, but you weren't good enough for him. The boy was forced from his abusive father and joined this cult to escape him. The cult is proven to be hucksters, and now the kid has nothing. The mission climaxes with the boy, off his horse and you just about 10 paces away after narrowly missing a train, trying to put a gun to his head and kill himself because his life is a mess. The action sequence finishes with you going into dead eye to shoot the gun out of the kid's hand as he tries to kill himself... THe kid breaks down and agrees to go back to town with you, and along the way it goes into a ton of narrative backstory about you, this kids family, and your history. Ultimately he unifies with his sister because of the breakdown and failed suicide attempt.
Now, this is a quintessential mission that is frustrating without agency because it seems like you should just be able to skip the whole chase, hog tie the kid, and drop him at his sister's house, just as you could in any open world sequence when you want to hog tie him. But...... you'd also miss a lot of narrative development, and one of the more well told micro-stories in a videogame. It's not just back story for Arthur, but it's also a terrific, well told micro-story for this random NPC that (I assume) you never hear from again (... maybe?). I think there could be a way to try to do both here, give you agency, skip all of the narrative expose, and maybe the result of the mission is different (e.g., you force the kid home, only for you to hear he's run off again and killed himself via a letter from his sister or something)... But Rockstar makes a choice to go with story and narrative rather than agency. Ultimately, if they gave you choice here to skip all of the narrative that might be rewarding for someone like me, but 90% of people might also miss the real character development. IT's s choice that I think I'd prefer it my way (give me agency even if that means I lose out on one of the best character sequences in the game), but I understand why they still do it that other way.
Ultimately, I think we have to be realistic about expectations. I think the old PS2 GTAs gave you more agency over how you wanted to play a lot of missions, but there were also many more missions ... perhaps almost all of them ... that limited that agency just as much with arbitrary rules. I think when we look back we try to only remember the good ones that felt open, and forget the ones where we just played through them paroquially. BUt, in the moment of playing a new game, those bad instances stick out.
I do agree with you about the brother mission. I feel like in some cases scripted missions are great. What becomes bad is when every single mission has some kind of fail state just for doing one small thing "wrong" and not like Rockstar wanted. I have been playing the old GTA games but even then they usually let you do things your way even when Rockstar script them. I mean unlike the recent Rockstar games, they let you "break" them aslong as you do the ultimate objective.
Right. I never played GTA3. Couldn't be that I didn't remember that you could "set up roadblocks" before a cutscene in a 17 year old game, or would even equate that to "player agency" if I did.
The fact of the matter is that those missions were still profoundly linear, and that one instance of Arthur having the agency to help or not help someone is more meaningful agency than the ability to set up a road block.
The roadblock example was just that, not the be all end all. No need to be dense. I'll happily argue that a binary decision displays less agency than allowing the player to tackle a mission using whatever tools they like - and more importantly, using the same toolset the game has trained the player to use up until that point.
yup, I killed an innocent guy who was just looking out after horses. I REALLY didn't want to do it... I'm typically OK with this in games, but it didn't make any sense story wise...
I still haven't finished the game, but I feel like early missions from chapters 2 and 3 had more choices and opportunities while completing them.
As for the overall mission structure, the game definitely feels a little bit archaic when it forces you perform very specific actions and instantly pops the mission failed notice when you do something different (even a minor thing like returning to your horse for more weapons).
I've always found Rockstar missions a bit rubbish. I play their games for the world.
The 'Story' in this game, while proficient, feels like a big tutorial for online. Which is honestly going to be the 'real' RDR for the next 8 years.
I'm hoping they add a survival mode or something. RDR2 is a few tweaks away from being an amazing non-linear survival experience. All the mechanics are already in place - crafting, physical effects etc. I think there's already more in there than in dedicated survival fare like The Long Dark.
I get why people like the directness of the missions in terms of how it adds to the immersion and storytelling but nothing ruins either for me more than a mission failed popping up and having to restart for some totally innocuous reason.
I get why people like the directness of the missions in terms of how it adds to the immersion and storytelling but nothing ruins either for me more than a mission failed popping up and having to restart for some totally innocuous reason.
I get why people like the directness of the missions in terms of how it adds to the immersion and storytelling but nothing ruins either for me more than a mission failed popping up and having to restart for some totally innocuous reason.
Archaic game design.
Was just trying to complete an optional bounty.
It played out in two ways.
1) I approach main target (woman), another NPC (man) points out that she should come with me. She stabs him and rushes me, in my attempts to avoid getting killed, she ends up dead instead. I was like whatever, its just another optional bounty. Yet to my surprise I get....
Mission Failed - Restart from checkpoint.
2) Knowing what I knew now, in regards to how the non target NPC feels about somebody coming to collect the bounty, I yet again approach the target. She screams out that I am a bounty hunter, I immediately lasso her before she can hurt the NPC or me. But now the NPC pulls out his gun and starts shooting me without cause. Lasso fails, I shoot NPC dead, then hogtie target.
Bring her into the sheriffs office. Arthur makes a remark about how she added another body to the list of victims(speaking of the NPC which I killed just before), she does not defend herself and goes on a tirade to seduce the sheriff.
Missions feel very similarly singular in how one is allowed to approach them. Other open world games (MGSV, some of the Far Cry games etc) have much better systems in place. This game is beautiful to look at, but I will say that that is the only thing it does well. Everything else seems underwhelming and archaic. The control scheme, UI, menu systems etc all hail from a different time and not in a good way.
This sort of reminds me of the final fantasy games. When I was younger I always felt I was in a huge world that I can do and go wherever I wanted. I only realized recently how linear all the games really were after playing through 7 again last year. It's one of my fav games of all time, but the truth is, it's pretty much playing a visual novel.
I agree that it lacks agency, but it doesn't bother me. I find most games that give agency in story parts tend to tell weaker stories or have the agency largely be irrelevant to the overall story like in the Mass Effect series..
I've said in the main thread a few times that the game really feels like what we'd get if Naughty Dog made an open world game. Great characters and a very good, linear story, but with freedom in tackling (or not) various activities in the open world.
I just dont get why I have to kill 50 enemies in every mission. Its not fun, its not challenging and theres so many gunfights already, do they have to make even the stealth and hang out types of missions end in a shootout or chase
To add more fuel to the fire, this hour long review by Skill Up is really interesting in showing the pros and the cons of the game.
Lack of player agency being of course part of the cons.
