I could say cartoony but i've been saying that a lot recently, animations are bouncy, the environments are bright and colourful with plenty of bloom, voice acting is cheery and child friendly, the AI conversations in the quick look were making me cringe, character abilities turn people into glowy superheroes, ground pounding like a comic book character or sprouting flaming angel wings and swords.
I'm not averse to colourful things, but there's an asthetic in Destiny which feels like, i don't know, a kids tv show with fighting in it or something...

Having a thin story doesn't help either, kids don't care about fully realised worlds with suffering, politics and consequences, those have been replaced with magic, smiles and badass robots!

My thoughts couldn't be any less significant, given how popular Destiny is and it's sequel will be, but i wonder if anyone else feels the same.
I'm 28 and i feel too old for Destiny.

I havent played Destiny 2 but it sounds like an over course correction for how drab and lifeless the first game was, which while very pretty, nothing really stood out. That being said i've enjoyed a lot of outlandish colourful games, some of which are very gory and pervy, you could say they're aimed at teens instead of mature adults. (i'm a 27 year old man child) But I dont care. I'll admit the dialog in the beta was cringey though. Bungie have never been very good with that. (the best dialog came out of the marines in Halo)

The "mature games for mature gamers such as myself" thing is so played out. You can not be into a thing, but please don't belittle the people who are by claiming it's only enjoyable by kids.

Yep this is Destiny in a nutshell and it isnt very surprising given that its being swallowed up in the activision/blizzard blob. I dont mind the colorful cartoon stuff but the story and worldbuilding thats more shallow than an 80s action movie is just an focus tested insult to the players.

Artstyle is art style, but in regards to the story you bought a game called Destiny.

The game looks great art wise and visually. This is a lame insult. Kids can like stuff that's cool too and not everything needs to be edgier. Super moves and turning into a "glowy" hero like ones in so many RPGs and action games out there are kids stuff?

If the story isn't good and the dialogue aren't good, that's another thing. That is the real issue. I can't say myself yet because I'm waiting for PC.

You could probably just put this in the impressions thread as this doesn't really merit it's own.

Nah, Destiny 2 is a visual feast, go look at my old comments I hold no love for Destiny but Destiny 2 has made me stop and look around and say "Wow" quite a few times, it is colorful but not in a garish way, some of the design sure I can understand not liking those but all the things you listed:

"character abilities turn people into glowy superheroes, ground pounding like a comic book character or sprouting flaming angel wings and swords"

All of that is in the first game.

We are all children

@cikame: Your title made chuckle; in the 40k community we affectionately refer to the lore sections of our rulebooks as fluff.

I don’t think there’s anything childish about the visuals. If anything it made me think of Olly Moss, with perhaps a bit more saturation, in terms of color pallets and the like. It still has really cool worlds, very impressive creature designs, and a goddamn vape helmet that is seriously the coolest looking piece of gear I’ve seen in a very long time.

What surprises me is how many people think it isn’t any or much better looking than the original. It is a ton sharper, more detailed, and more dense with effects and nice lighting.

The environment, lighting, and animations (excluding those grotesque EV emotes) are all fantastic.

The fire wings are a bit adolescent, sure. And the dialogue at times tries too hard to be funny. Failsafe particularly reminded me of that focus group thing from Psychonauts. "Humour should be simplified and made immediately apparent." There's some good stuff here though. The Speaker surprisingly has some teeth this time around, and there's a scene with Cayde that was genuinely endearing and wasn't him just mouthing off wisecracks.

So i'm 35, am i too old for Mario then? i really don't understand the point of this topic. Games are not age restricted, people can play what ever they want and should not be judged by it. If you feel that Destiny 2 looks like a kids game, that's fine. Move on to something else you would enjoy more. Why waste precious time searching for validation that others feel the same as you. That should not be a factor.

Having not gotten heavy into D1 I've always really liked the aesthetic and design of it, and all the angular shapes. It seems somewhat more colorful and diverse in 2 but I don't think they've taken it to Saturday Morning Cartoon levels.

Cayde is laying it on a bit thick. I guess cause it's Fillion he has to be constantly wisecracking.

While it's okay to think that it's maybe a bit too lighthearted I don't really agree it's "kid stuff". I certainly don't want to constantly be barraged by dark and heavy themes as an adult. Additionally look at how popular super hero movies are with adults who grew up on comic books. Most of the time those Marvel movies are really just vapid action movies. But they are still enjoyed by kids and adults.

But I straight up cringe the couple times I've heard Cayde-6 talk about his "happy face, can't you tell?"

I mean, it's not like Zavala is sitting us down and going through the ABCs. Also the opening sequence also sets some pretty grim stakes in the world.

Ultimately, I don't know that the aesthetics in Destiny are really kids' show fare as much as pulp sci-fi or maybe in line with Jack Kirby's work in comics.

While there's a fair bit of levity in some sections of the game, I don't buy that it's talking down to anyone or infantilizing the audience? If anything, the fact that there's some lightness to the dialogue in the face of the narrative is kind of needed, y'know? Personally speaking, I've long since grown sick of the grim-dark shtick games have wrapped themselves up in to appear "mature" and I'm old as shit.

I play only the manliest of manly games! Leave this stuff to the children.

(Goes back to playing Pokemon and Overwatch.)

@cikame: It doesn't sound like you aged out, just sounds like you don't like the game which is perfectly fine seeing how Destiny is a hot mess anyway.

Battlefield 1 has lots of grit and is a much better game IMO :)

@cikame said:

The first look at the pic made me think of the Handsome Men in Killer 7, which of course made me think of groups of superhero guys and girls in cartoons I was vaguely aware of. Which brings to point, that the idea here is to appeal to a widest age group as possible.. Thus the lack of 'Dicktits' and such cluttering up the dialogue. And omitting the heavy issues that might be going on 'on the Farm'. Also perhaps, (I haven't played these Destiny games) the lack of killing humans in the main story, since you really don't 'die' in crucible mode. It's considered practice.

As for age level as a cutoff for playing this game, and say Mario, as questioned by @meierthered It's true that people do generally change with time, and perhaps become more reactive. But if something is fun, and they are already accustomed to gaming, I do not see the barrier. Personally, I did not think 'this is just for children' when I watched the Destiny 2 QL, and nor do I think that of The latest Zelda game, or Mario. I am in fact debating as to buy a Switch, though using it as a hand-held...well probably that is not going to happen. And yes, some games might be too child oriented for me, (and if I had a family, why I would buy it) I would expect that on a Switch. But I have observed that Nintendo does also balance that all out.

And I should add, that games like Destiny 2 (and the Mario example) may appeal because they are Escapist. Their appeal is that one takes a vacation from present realities, and invest themselves in another. It can even emotionally matter, like in Destiny 2. After all, you are saving the world, and getting better loot! But what one is not thinking about, is how old they've gotten, or the issues of the Real World. So to speak.

Well put. It seems like Destiny 2's tone is the way it is purely out of spite for the backlash the first game received (deservedly). The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle with some occasional levity to break the monotony, and it looks like both games have failed to get there for opposite reasons.

I find myself agreeing with the OP here. Many games have leaned hard into the "hero" aesthetic of late, and it falls really flat for me. The flashiness, incessant quips, neon colors and whatnot just all feels so....forced. It's this elaborate presentation that desperately wants to convince you that everything is cool instead of making things that are actually cool. The game shouldn't have to try to shove it in your face constantly, and that it does perhaps says something.

There's zero nuance to it, so I bounce pretty hard off the whole thing. When every bit of dialogue features a lame "zinger", none of it works. Being bombarded with unfunny banter is a cringefest for me. I generally like Nathan Fillion, but not even he can be irreverent enough to salvage the cheesy lines, and it's worse because you always know exactly what you're going to get from the "comic relief" character they have him playing here.

I'm not saying the game is inherently bad or anything (although it sure looks like OG Destiny + weak attempts at humor and a brighter color palette), nor am I saying I'm "too mature" for the game as if I'm above it or some shit. Personally, this just isn't my style, and it's probably just me getting out of touch, because it certainly seems like a lot of games are headed in this Overwatch-y direction. That's cool, and I genuinely hope people are into it (and this).

However, this isn't what I was hoping Destiny 2 would be. There's an awesome game that could be made around the top-notch controls of Destiny somewhere in there, but the progression/periphery is still kinda bullshit, and they've missed the mark twice in tone, IMO. Maybe Destiny 3?

Are you saying Destiny 2 is Gabriel Iglesias?

@spamfromthecan: I think it's closer to Enrique Iglesias, myself.

... Because of the dances.

... "Bailamos".

Why don't you like fun? :(

@gundamguru: As a fellow 40k player (of CSM), this is exactly what I first thought of too.

To your point about things heading in and Overwatchy direction. Superhero culture in general is influencing everything. Games heavily. More and more power sets seem just like rips and takes on colorful superhero styled abilities. I mean the Titan in D2 basically becomes Captain America with his super.

I'm fine if this type of style rubs people the wrong way. But it's an intentional design choice and I for one love it. See I feel the opposite of you do. The flashy moments don't feel like it's forcing me to think it's cool, I just think it's cool because I love all that on the surface level pretty looking shit. The part even in the first mission of this game when you defend the tower and every so often you have to get behind the lead guys shield to survive worked well for me. Sure not an overly nuanced mechanic, but I love the shooting in Destiny. I just wanted real meat in regards to content to grind through. Destiny 2 provides that in spades.

I can't speak to Destiny's alleged changes here since I never even bothered to open up the first game after I bought it, but I agree in that I've noticed in many ways a lot of games have steadily become more snarky, colorful, and light-hearted in tone as opposed to dark and deathly serious over the last generation or so. I remember remarking on this back when I played Dragon Age: Inquisition and comparing its environment, cast, and tone to Origins, and the difference can be so night and day at times.

This definitely isn't inherently a bad thing, obviously. There's nothing wrong with it, and I think everyone knows the last generation was a little wearying in how brown and drab it could be, but it's an interesting series of trends worth noticing, and I don't think it always suits every game that decides to try it out. In a way, it's more of a refreshing change of pace for me, these days, to find a game that actually takes itself seriously and plays situations straight. Seeing clips of Mass Effect: Andromeda, for instance, include so much more pithy one-liners to literal life and death situations kind of bums me out. But I guess this is me using singular examples to derail into discussing overall trends again.

I am fucking thrilled to be playing a Destiny that has a shred of personality to it.

I totally do not get that vibe at all.

Yeah, I think I'm just getting old and curmudgeon-y. :) @marokai beat me to the point I was going to make in that the "cartoony hero" aesthetic seems to be this gen's overused style like the "gritty, brown" aesthetic was last gen. I'm tiring of it quickly, but I'm glad others are enjoying it. After all, I suppose it deserves its turn in the spotlight as well, and I sure as shit don't expect video games to cater to me personally, especially given that they're in the business of mass appeal and the "hero" thing is what's hot. That's all well and good, and Destiny did need some personality. Just maybe not this much.

Here's a sneak peek at Destiny 3:

@marokai: Funny you mention Mass Effect, cause there are totally instances of "we got this" in Destiny 2.

It's just a bummer with Destiny because that first game had such a strangely regal and semi-mystical vibe to it, which went well with everything looking like some retro sci-fi book cover. It stood apart from both the dark and dreary and also the bubbly and irreverent.

Also aside from Cayde I'm totally not getting a particularly strong sense of this at all.

Listen no worries. I get it. I saw it coming the moment Avengers hit theaters. Just like oddly enough we had even more of a reverence of Dark and Gritty post the Dark Knight. But as that thing (MCU/Avengers) started to really gain popularity, I just knew it was only a matter of time before elements and aspects of that thing and it's tone and what people love about it just starts to push and push and push to lots of aspect. But it's not just for cash in purposes. I think that is what rubs me weird about this when people talk about it. I get it if it's not for them, and even as someone who rapidly loves stupid superhero shit and will overlook tropes in the face of escapist universal bullshit, I get it. It's fucking everywhere. In everything. Books, shows, games of all variety. You can't turn something on anymore it seems without somehow seeming something that reminds you of as you say the "hero" thing.

But as I was saying before, it has merits in more than just cash in stuff. If you look at someone like Joss Whedon, and some of his early works like even Buffy/Angel. The early days of building the Whedon esque tone with serious shit juxtaposition with sarcastic witty humor was all over the place. Loads of tropes too. Whedon was basically the big reason why all of this got so popularized, or one of them in the modern day, and it very much feels in line with his work all over the place. But his stuff has also been critically accepted as more than just fluff at times too right. I mean Nathan Fillion an actor of his he regularly uses is even heavily featured in D2 and was in later stages of D1. I think it started to become obvious once you saw the pieces of this thing what they were going to be going for.

Part of my issue with it even to this day, even when I accept it, is it's not wholly original. The "oh look it's the witty sarcastic Whedon superhero thing" is something that has been stickered and plastered to a lot of shit. Andromeda gets brought up in this thread and it very much was also trying to go in that route. Although I will say, a big problem in general is that we are running out of "original" things to be doing. As we dig deeper and deeper into the internet age, a lot of everything that gets made is inspired by, a remake, or a remix. The amount of in general original content across the board is pretty low. But perhaps that was always the case, and just the mass of things coming out makes us start to see it for what it really is.

As others have said, it's a symptom of the witty superhero aesthetic largely popularized by the Avengers that's kind of invading everything right now. I'm not a fan either.

However, if the tone for sci-fi shooters now is that of the Avengers, you could easily say it used to be that of Aliens or Predator. The number of games going for that kind of tone and dialogue is absurd, and I'm not sure this modern superhero trend can ever outdo that.

More games should be "fluffy". It's a million times more interesting than the drop colors and overly serious settings that dominated last gen.

Not to say realistic and serious games don't have their place and can't be great, but if I had to pick a direction to dominate in games the choice is easy.

People reducing all the crazy sci-fi imagery of Destiny is "superhero stuff" are crazy. I do understand what you are getting at with small parts, but the others are just cool fantasy/sci-fi art. It's not so far from stuff in Halo or Star Wars. To me it screams Halo meets Star Wars.

It's still a game where you are mostly blasting people with guns. Halo had wisecracking and chatty side characters too. Most of this stuff isn't superhero movies or kids stuff, in so far as Star Wars can be a kids thing because, to my first post, kids can like cool stuff.

@efesell: unoriginal personality is almost worst than none for me. If it's trying too hard to be Borderlands or Guardians of the Galaxy I would rather it just stay this weird reverent hard sci-fi thing. Haven't played 2 yet (it's downloading while I'm at work) but Cayde was annoying as shit and so uninspired in all the footage I've seen. This will probably end up being another podcast game for me cuz the story seems just as bad as the first.

I feel like I'm playing a completely different game than the OP. Fluffy? Overly colorful, like a kids TV show? What the hell?

Yeah, I don't see it.

Also, remember when gameplay was super important in a game? Aesthetic, characters, story, etc. are important to a degree, but shouldn't a game's mechanics be considered supreme?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that folks are coming out of the woodwork to complain about whatever little thing when this game came out.

There are legitimate things this game does wrong. The shaders, for example. Those actually have an effect on the game's reward system. But then again, you'd actually need to know at least a little bit about the game to be aware of that.

@artisanbreads: I mean lets be real. It does take inspiration from super hero stuff, but obviously that isn't all it takes inspiration from. Like honestly Destiny especially 2 is this weird mish mash of popular things in an odd way. It's like if you mixed Starcraft, Halo and Warhammer 40K, and you threw in a little Game of Thrones, Star Wars and Avengers/MCU (Especially Guardians of the Galaxy, like all of the space combat cutscenes feel ripped from those movies) to go along with it. But there is a lot of "popular culture" things in there that it clearly draws inspiration from. Pretty much every character, or thing in the game you can look at and tie it to another overly popular property that has something to do with nerdy pop culture in some fashion.

Now granted I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. But I can certainly see the argument that Destiny lore doesn't go out of it's way to try to say it's some original grand space tale. It wears it's inspirations on it's sleeve, and often to great effect. As stated in an earlier post the gameplay generally has benefits of a lot of that stuff so.

@devise22: All your criticisms are fair, I don't want to defend the quality (I haven't played it myself yet and it doesn't look great). I just don't think it's kiddy or just like superheroes. You're right that it draws from all over. Some of the alien stuff does remind me of 40k like you say for example. It is a bit all over the place but I think it really works in many cases visually.

You want politics and suffering in your sci-fi? Go watch the Star Wars prequels. I'm sure you'll have a great time.

But if you think the game isn't serious enough, I don't recommend watching this:

The third planet really reminds me of hyper light drifter. This game looks phenomenal idk what op is on about.

@notnert427 said:

I'm a good little ways into the game and other than that 2 or 3 super inoffensive lines by cayde in the beginning, I don't know where all these constant zingers and catchphrases are. It seems like a pretty standard shooter narrative to me with kinda all right characters. They can even at times be endearing. I guess if you're talking about the ads, then I can see how obnoxious the game might seem, but doesn't really transfer over to the end product Imo.

The progression feels a lot better than it was in vanilla destiny. They really fixed that stuff with the taken king and that's carried over thankfully. You level up, get points to put into your class. And when you fight dudes they drop better pieces of armor that in turn raises a number called power. Is that the progression you mean is bad? I mean, it's a pretty standard Rpg system. Am I missing something? I also don't get the feeling that the game is trying it's hardest to shove its coolness in my face. Different strokes I guess. I hope none of this comes across as mean, cause I definitely don't mean it that way. I just feel like I'm playing a different game than the one a lot of people here are (or aren't in some cases)

Virtually all of the dialogue seems contrived entirely at the player, like it's more riffing on what's happening than a conversation anyone would actually have with anything. It just makes it feel so much more video game-y, in that someone out loud states the reaction the player is apparently supposed to have, or the characters overtly proclaim the actions/motivations of others (or worse, third-person about themselves). I find it mildly insulting that the game doesn't seem to respect the player's capacity to figure this shit out on their own, and rather than fleshing the characters out meaningfully over the course of the story, the game pretty much force-feeds the player straight-up bios on each one and directly or indirectly tells the player how to feel about them. That's...not great.

Examples from the QL:

"I can help you, but I'm gonna be super unpleasant about it."
"He's, like, not that smart."
"This is NOT going well."
"Only my captain can access those memories, and he's super dead."
"I'm guessing this is why they don't like him leaving the tower."

And that was all within the first 20 minutes. I'm reminded of that awful Rob Schneider FMV game they played on UPF a while back.

As for the progression, yeah, it's not much different than a lot of RPG/MMO systems these days, but intentionally gating progression heavily via multiple currencies/randomized loot to try and force people into a timesink is a pet peeve of mine that extends way beyond Destiny, so I won't go on a rant there. Suffice it to say that I groaned loudly when Jeff's shader turned out to be a one-time consumable on one portion of his armor. While only a cosmetic example in that case, it's an example of how ridiculous this shit has gotten in terms of inventing more hoops to jump through via grinding, and when that is required for stuff like weapons that actually affect the game, it's a real bummer. Then again, I guess I should expect a loot game to be a loot game.

I'll stop complaining about Destiny 2 now, because I'm watching myself crap on a game I'm not going to be buying that others seem to like, and that's not really something I want to keep doing. I just wanted to clarify my issues with it, but that it's not for me doesn't mean it's bad or shouldn't be enjoyed. I still think some kind of Destiny/No Man's Sky hybrid that trimmed some of the bullshit could be fucking incredible, and I honestly kinda wish I could ignore/compartmentalize/tolerate some of my issues with the game as it is, because it does play really well (at least the first one did, and I'm assuming that hasn't changed). As an aside, it's awesome that this is a place where people can productively disagree. Cheers, duders.

Good shout, didn't think of that, it's just that with games like Overwatch being so popular i've found myself saying "cartoony" a lot so i wanted to use something else.

The response to this topic has been awesome, there's such a mix of opinions and most are really well explained, there's also a lot of questions... most likely rhetorical, but regardless i'll form a quick shot defense of myself :P.

I don't think the game is only enjoyable for kids, millions of players is evidence enough of that, similarly Mario games arn't only for kids, Viva Pinata or Snake Pass which i recently played and was great, my favourite Mega Drive game is The Lion King.
I don't necessarily want the game to be "edgier", it just seems like for a world where such a tragedy has and is taking place, the inhabitants are all distracted by shiny things and epic loot, they've set up a world where many people have supposedly lost their lives, but that doesn't seem to have affected anyone, and i don't think it's a cartoony enough place to just ignore that in service of a few laughs, that's a Borderlands thing.
Many parents will agree, their favourite kids or "kid friendly" movies have moments which feel more mature without being nasty or overly questionable, i like the movie Bolt which is stuffed with potentially heart breaking moments, situations which may make or break the characters, secrets meant only for the audience, WALL-E is a fantastic movie with a fascinating depiction of an apocolyptic earth, a ridiculous but somehow prescient view of humanity in the future, the roles of artificial intelligence. I'm getting sidetracked, basically i want to say that there is no demographic that can't receive brilliant and intelligent works, it can be a gory horror movie or The Lego Movie, so if Destiny 2 is just base level animated voice acting without much intrigue or risk that would be a shame.

@cikame: I think your kind of stuck on a point where the MMO and game aspects of this meet the universe and world building. In universe, the explanation for Guardians and how they operate with the Ghosts is that provided they are connected to the light, a Guardian cannot die. All your respawns in PVE are considered you coming back to life via your Ghost due to your connection to the light and the traveler. Whenever a mission disables said respawn, your Ghost lets you know he's lost some of his connection to the light. Even in the Crucible/PVP area, in the game modes where you have limited respawns or lives, they make remarks about how they are only connected to a limited amount of light.

So they have established that Guardians are dauntless in face of death, because a good majority of them come back from it. Which I think is why you see a lighter tone. Of course they don't look at the face of this horrible shit as PERSONALLY destructive. They don't die. They view the larger scale battles implications and plot out plans to stop bigger threats that affect people other than themselves. As stated in this thread, it's here where the narrative really draws from those super hero inspirations. As those things are also witty, sarcastic, and get away with it in the same sort of way. Because people with extraordinary powers and abilities don't feel the threat of situations as much as a normal person would when they are capable of doing such things. In this universe, on top of all the powers that of course also comes with the ability to cheat death.

That said I think a big reason you feel so much of that tone where it doesn't take it's serious material seriously is because the majority of the speaking characters with any real role are pretty much all somehow connected to the Guardians. Even the NPC characters you can talk to in the open world sections and increase reputation of, are either former Guardians or have been at war long enough that they have earned a salty, less serious reaction to the violence and war. There simply isn't that many characters that are the run of the mill average citizens, you seem them mulling about the farm and in other places, but they pretty much have always had reactionary dialogue as the player runs around to give the effect of a living breather world.

@spaceinsomniac: Nice.

Destiny's world/mythology is bland as hell for sure, but I don't think the game is childish, immature, or fluffy. Those wings are ugly, they remind me more of Warframe (which I like more than Destiny 1) than looking like Power Rangers. It's a pretty serious game, it's not like a Marvel movie where they can sometimes mishandle the humor (Thor 2). Punching the ground or a flaming sword doesn't make me think of kid's cartoon. I don't really watch quick looks anymore, but they'd often make games look silly.