The more I think about the game, the more it feels like something that was hacked up, reconfigured, and pieced together out of several very different iterations. These are the parts as I see them:
- Beginning through being kicked off the Zeppelin. Very well paced, this was extremely forwardly compelling to me (gameplay nitpicks aside). Introduced all aspects of Columbia as a real place with a hideous underbelly.
- Finktown gunsmith fetch quest and switching to the Vox universe. Tedious and unfocused by comparison but establishes some logic about the tears.
- Songbird crashes your second zeppelin, Market and Comstock House exterior. Very much like the Finktown quest in terms of gameplay. While the ghost fights sucked, I did like seeing the war-torn market area. In some ways, it is superficially like the beginning of the game, just with a lot more shooting.
- Comstock House: From another game entirely. Absolutely nothing like what came before or after.
- Fighting on the Hand of the Prophet (airship). Could be another game reskinned in my opinion. The dropships and waves of enemies were somewhat like what happened outside of Comstock House, but also introduce a new mechanic at the last moment (Songbird) just for this section.
- Denouement: The reveal, a long interactive cutscene that ties together what you've seen.
If this sounds overly critical, it's not meant to be. I enjoyed it, I just wanted to think through the disjointed feeling I had throughout the game.