Let me preface this by saying that I am a huge Mafia fan, and played the original Mafia on the PS2, Mafia II and Mafia III.
I pre-ordered the Mafia Definitive Edition and couldn't wait to play it, as it has been nearly 20 years since I played the original.'
I'm sorry to say, but I can't stand this game. Like several reviewers said, it feels like this was just "a can of paint" on the original Mafia game from 20 years ago. This was made by the studio who did Mafia III, and nearly everything in the game (gunplay, driving, weapons, the city, the insides of individual buildings, NPCs) feels like a subpar version of what was in Mafia III (which itself was a flawed game in many ways)
I also feel like the writing and storyline of the remake was really off. The original Mafia felt like a gritty rags to riches story, and even though it has been 20 years, I remember that the characters felt real and believable. The characters and storyline in this version felt like the Godfather III Michael Corleone/plot in relation to the Godfather and Godfather II versions. I remember Don Salieri in the original Mafia game as a respected mafia family boss. In the remake, he comes off as completely out-of-touch and the actor they chose to play him looks and sounds like your Uncle Mel who runs the local bowling league. The city is so lifeless and boring (especially in comparison to Mafia III - which again, was really limited), so you are having shootouts in the streets and getting into car chases, etc., but it might as well be happening in some one stoplight town in the middle of nowhere .
In one of the early missions, you are literally driving your car through a Hoovertown in a run-of-mill car chase mission that we have seen all the way back to GTA III. This was so disappointing. In real life, Hoovertowns were WWI veterans trying to get through the economic ravages of the Depression, putting up shantytowns so that they could survive - in protest of the lack of support for veterans from the Hoover administration. In the Mafia: Definitive Edition version of this, we drive through a Hoovertown as some briefly inconvenient obstacle on a completely-scripted car chase mission in which car B follows car A for a few minutes to another part of the map for a cutscene. It was as if the developers missed the entire point of why the rags to riches story of Mafia is compelling. During the Depression, the profound lack of opportunity gave organized crime numerous opportunities to fill in the void. Hoovertowns were not just parts of a city that got in your way while driving. They were profound illustrations of how bad it was during the Depression.
This was such a letdown for me. Again, Mafia III had a ton of flaws, but at least it had an interesting and believable character in Lincoln and the 1960s setting, music and constant and interesting references to race in the South and the various social issues of the 1960s made the game interesting. Mafia: Definitive Edition has none of this (except some poor quality music and scratchy 1930s/1940s radio clips about the Depression and FDR, etc. that have no relevance in game). The gunplay, driving and missions are each subpar, which adds up to an unenjoyable experience.
Just a huge letdown for me, which is sad, as I love the Mafia series.
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Hostile_18
thanks a lot for the tips on the race dude. Honestly that was the hardest part of the whole game for me lol.
