Kojima is the JJ Abrams equivalent in the game industry. Great visual execution, but absolutely horrendous story-telling that will make you wish were dumb as a piece of loaf so as to not notice it.
When Kojima made a comment that he didn’t fully understand the story himself… It sort of all made sense. It’s just connotations mashed together, beach, strand, hair, cord… A big pile of nothing to create intrigue with no payout, no mystery to reveal, just more layers of confusion. Sort of like Lost. I’m sure JJ and Kojima would get along great.
But oh boy are some of those moment exceptionally beautiful and spectacular in all its illogical absurdity. Mads Mikkelsen’s acting. Got goosebumps. But then it falls apart by revealing flaws through the fourth wall. Like did… part of this mystery hinge on the double meaning of words? Whatever the fuck was going on, it’s a little bit silly for synonyms to play an important part.
Kojima has a lot of other great tastes. Using music to create moments of excellent cinematography. Motion capture and character designs have always been fantastic. There are moments in Death Stranding that made me have to put down the controller and just. Enjoy. The same goes with Metal Gear games I grew up with. The flower field in MGS3, and forcing you to pull the trigger… The attention to detail on so many gameplay mechanics. It’s just brilliant. But, the illogical and meaningless complexity for the story and world building? That part has always been the weakest part and left a bad taste. In MGS it was confusing enough, but it had a certain charm. In DS, puuh, it’s rough.
JJ and Kojima should have nothing to do with writing storylines and plots. Imagine how much brilliant stuff we would be left with? And I never understood why. In JJs case, I suspect it’s simply decent return on investment for those who fund the movies. But from a craftsmanship perspective, it’s weird. The culmantion of work from hundreds of artists, all masters in their respective fields, and it shows, yet, it comes together to tell a story, surrounding a plot that a 14-year old might put together.