I know he's a big fan of the series and the show is called Hype, but too much revisionism. Mafia 1 was slow and clunky, the cars were a nightmare. The racing level was all kinds of bad.
The 2nd game was much better, but it did not need to be open world. If the game had been linear like Uncharted, then the gameplay could have been tight as a drum. Instead it had to have controls that did everything, when it really didn't need the open world. You don't need UbiSoft towers in your open world, but the place needs to feel alive or what's the point? As is, you're driving 10mins across a city to get to the next mission because that's how R* did it in 2002...with nothing else in this lifeless husk of a city except collect wanted posters for achievement points.
The story is pitch perfect, but the mechanics of the game need sorted.
Was Stella ever shown in XV? I haven't kept up too much with it, but I thought she was only shown in Versus XIII.
Well no, but we didn't know that. Many hoped Lunafreya was still Stella and the director wouldn't comment about the change if appearance..then just last month we were finally told she was booted.
I Was meaning more about Brandon being annoyed at the subversiveness of it, which is exactly what happened with Stella. The developer took a character people had already become attached to, replaced her, kept quiet and finally said "hey, care about this one instead. She's good too".