Here comes my final thoughts on the game.
I played this game on the PS5, so I got to play it in checkerboard 4K/60fps. I've heard that the game was in a really bad state when it was released. Full of bugs and glitches and such. It seems like they have managed to get rid of most of the problems. I ran into a handfull of noticable bugs and glitches, plus a couple of crashes in my playthrough. So it's definitely still not perfect in that aspect.
When I started playing the game the first things that really bothered me was the bike controls and the gas milage of the bike. The controls felt floaty and not very responsive at all. It's probably a combination of me getting used to the controls and the upgrades of the bike, but further into the game the controls felt way better. The gas milage should've started at least where it was towards the end of the game, when the bike is fully upgraded, imo.
Another thing that really bothered me, before I understood how it worked, was the saving system. It turned out it was just the labels for saving in the menu was not very clear. It says "save game" in the (options) menu, but it doesn't actually save the game, it only lets you choose which save file to use (I think). The actual saving is done with the "quick save" that shows up when you are near your bike.
Early in the game I was not a big fan of the hordes at all. Mostly they where just in the way when trying to do other things, especially since you pretty much can't take them on early in the game. But later on in the game I learned to actually like the hordes and appreciate that they are part of what's unique with this game.
Just like with Ghost of Tsushima, the story didn't really get going until about half way through the game/story. If I could wish for something regarding the story, it would be that they had something to hook you earlier in the game. I think alot of people gave up on the game because of this and didn't reach the point when the story picked up.
I really liked the main/story characters overall. Most of them felt quite well written, imo. My personal favourites are Deakon, Boozer, Rikki and Iron Mike. When it comes to the smaller npc's it's not as good at all. There's alot of copy and paste going on and they clearly didn't spend much time on them.
As someone that likes open world (Action/Adventure/RPG) games with looting and crafting I enjoyed that part of the game. But it was quite shallow, I wouldn't mind if it had been a bit deeper.
The combat overall was really good, imo. It doesn feel like it in the beginning, when you don't have good gear, but later on it feels really good. It's not very advanced, but feels really good, which is more important than being advanced, imo. If the combat/controls feels off, it doesn't matter how good the mechanics of it is. I really like what both the melee and gun combat felt like. It felt really good to hit freakers and other enemies with a modified baseball bat, it had weight to it. The shooting felt quite snappy and precise (after adjusting the settings, see below), no floaty feeling aiming thankfully. On top of that I really liked the stealth in this game, I did quite alot of it in my playthrough.
A tip, if you think the aiming feels wierd/wrong in this game, change the "Dead Zone Sensitivity" to LINEAR in the game play settings. That's what I did, because I didn't really like the default settings. I think I turned off "Aim Snap" in the game play settings too. I might have changed something else too, but I don't remember what.
Another tip is to not stop playing when the main story is over. If you care about the story you should definitely play until you have gotten all (four of) the extra story "missions" you get while starting to take out the hordes.
So, some things they should improve on in their next game (imo). The story (and some other things) needs to suck you in way earlier than halfway though the game. (Main) missions needs to be opt. in, I don't like that missions start automatically just because you get close to the mission icon. I also didn't like the forced slow walking and that you are not allowed to run around and loot during some missions. Some of the balancing could've been done better, early in the game especially.
I would say that this game overall is a 7.5/10 (a good game) for me. It started out as a 6.5-7/10 in the beginning of the game and ended like a 8-8.5/10. I Enjoyed playing the game from start to finish, but the first half was definitely "weaker" than the second half. The game would've gotten a better score from me if the first half was as good as the second half. It's too big of a chunk of the game that is "weaker" for me to give it the score of the best part of the game. I'm really curious to see what Bend Studio will do next.
I wasn't going to go for the platinum in this game, but I ended up getting it in the end anyway. It was not that much extra work I had to put in to get it when I had finished all the "end game" stuff. So this is my 6th Platinum now.
Pros:
* Marking Enemies (so you can easier keep track of them during a fight)
* Voice Acting (is solid and really good overall)
* The Main Characters (felt well written overall)
* Story (in the second half of the game)
* The Combat (felt good overall)
* Graphics (is really good but there's room for improvements)
Cons:
* The Smaller NPC's (didn't feel well written at all)
* Bugs, Glitches, Crashes (there are still some of them in the game)
Small Cons (things that could've been done better) :
* Missions (all of them should've been opt. in, not start automatically when you're close to the mission icon)
* Forced Walking & No Exploration (during missions, I wish it wasn't a thing in this game)
* Story (in the first half of the game)
* Saving System (could've had a better solution)
* Gas milage of the bike (should've been better)
