Beat last week, and I've already posted my extensively positive impressions. But I've been thinking about this game quite a bit throughout this week, particularly in how it fails, and how I'd like to see it improved in the sequel we all know is coming.
On a purely technical level, I'd like the "vacuum" effect to the platforming toned done in a general sense, and changed completely specifically when using Circle to drop. I think tapping Circle to scale down a building or drop down ledges should basically work how it does now, vacuum and all. However, holding down Circle should allow us to ditch all vacuuming and grabs, and just freefall down the side of a building, or perhaps a slower, controlled wall-grab fall. All too often, it just felt like a lot of the platforming control was taken out of my hands, and it was a constant annoyance. This is really the only problem I had with the underlying gameplay, which was damn satisfying.
From a design perspective, I want to see the city(ies) layout radically reconsidered. Yes, there were three separate islands, and yes, those were further subdivided into various districts that you could optionally liberate, but those divisions felt completely arbitrary and haphazard. The net result was that every place basically felt the same, and there wasn't nearly enough variance; aesthetically and especially regarding platforming. Island 1 = "normal" urban landscape, for all intents and purposes. Island 2 = lower class slums. Island 3 = ground zero.
You'd think that'd make for radically different locations, but by and large, it all felt the same. You had docks/wharfs/warehouses ringing the islands along the waterfront. You had parks (or and/destruction) towards the middle. And the rest was largely composed of similar box-like buildings that mostly looked, felt, and played the same, with the exception of the occasional flashy neon sign. All in all, there was a sense of sameness that the occasional unique building did more to stress than break up.
It all felt too small and contained, in a sense, because ultimately there wasn't enough to see and enjoy. I would like to see different KINDS of districts next time. Residential districts, shopping districts, industrial parks. I want the NPCs (and enemies) to be varied according to districts. I want the side missions to cater to and further differentiate these districts. I want the act of retaking the districts to me something more complex and dynamic than a simple binary "side mission complete" flag whereby an arbitrary hexagonal segment is suddenly liberated. How does retaking three packets of medicines from three arbitrary Reapers in any way make that part of town safer?
I want to see the sewers/underground expanded. Here's how I see things playing out. The city is more clearly divided into true, non-arbitrary districts that help define the look, feel, combat, building types (and thus, platforming). Residential districts, composed largely of apartment blocks, some single homes, perhaps a restaurant or store here and there, and plenty of schools, parks, and playgrounds. Commercial districts will be composed of mass transit hubs, restaurants, stores, malls, hotels, brothels, etc.
Different gangs or factions will have sway over different districts, initially. The kinds of missions you'll need to accomplish in order to retake these districts won't feel so random and arbitrary, and they'll need to take the more differentiated settings into account, as well as the factions holding them, obviously.
Retaking districts won't be so black/white. Pushing a faction out of a residential district might cause additional strife and chaos as they retreat into a commercial or waterfront district you've barely touched. And which become increasingly tougher, as a consequence! Eventually, as you proceed in reclaiming that island (or part of the city, however the new game will be set up), the gangs will be marginalized and might be forced to retreat to the sewers or underground or to some out-of-the-way location. Things might culminate in a final battle (perhaps even involving multiple factions) that, once complete, shatters their hold over the island. And yet, there (or somewhere else) they'll remain, in diminished capacity; but still present in case you just want to walk into a seedy part of town and fuck shit up, once the game is over. They'll still be around to cause a bit of randomly generated mischief, but their hold over the city severely curtailed.
As it stands now, with all islands cleared at 100%, the game becomes infinitely less interesting, to such an extent that I couldn't even be bothered to play long enough to finish finding the remaining 15 or so shards I was missing. Nevermind that completing my stunt list is now basically impossible. Wandering around for 10 minutes only to see 3 or so random chumps spawn is just so... blah.
The only major fault I have with the game is that the side missions feel completely arbitrary and the city completely static and empty. Traversing the city gets more and more tedious and boring the further you get into the game. The ramping up of the story and main missions compensate quite nicely at times, but not enough, in my opinion. I'd love to see a larger, more diverse, and more dynamic city next time around, perhaps with the generating substations doubling as warp points...
Don't get me wrong, I love the game, and I plan to ignore some games in my backlog in order to replay as a villain... sooner rather than later. But as good as the game is, this feels like just a foundation at times. It could be SO much better. They just need to turn the city from a setting to a character, so to speak. Living, breathing, changing, and dynamic.
Also you can deflect the boulders he throws at you with Shockwave.