It's fitting to see Sucker Punch Productions close out the eight generation of consoles with Ghost Of Tsushima, after all, they opened it almost seven years ago with Infamous Second Son. Hmm, maybe "opened" isn't the word I am looking for because it wasn't a launch title but it came out during PS4's infancy and became one of its flagship games. If we take a minute and look back at that period you'll remember chaos, a lot of it. After dominating the previous generation, Microsoft dropped the ball HARD with Xbox One. The DRM controversies which prohibited play between people from different countries, paranoia caused by the Kinect camera that was always on and mic'd even when you weren't using it, lack of backwards compatibility, the always online requirement and general confusion in what the console represented lent itself for an easy opportunity for Sony to swoop in and capitalize on the mayhem, which they did brilliantly. Combine all this and more with a distinct lack of relevant titles and it's not surprising to see that PS4 "won" the console wars and Infamous Second Son was one of the first signs of Sony's upcoming domination.
Of course because I was a wee broke teen back then, I did not partake in the initial chaos so I watched from the sidelines, literally, I watched a playthrough of this on YouTube hahaha. Finally, in 2018 I bought myself the console I wished for so long but somehow I never came around this game, until two months ago when a friend of mine offered himself to give me free PS4 games he got for free for getting a PS5, yep the madman actually managed to snag it before the scalpers!
Anyhow, with all this power invested in me, I gladly accepted his insanely generous offer and I decided to start off with Second Son. Turns out it was a good call because this is the ideal game to discuss game design and more importantly, the transition that occurred during this generation. Before we jump in that wormhole let's set the stage.
Seven years after the events of Infamous 2, the X-men like Conduits are few and far between and a certain government-established organization called the Department Of Unified Protection or D.U.P. for short is hunting down the remaining ones. To make their mission easier, they create this propaganda machine and start calling Conduits "Bioterrorists" and because the average citizen is a dumb dumb, this propaganda works.
This is where you come in. You play as Delsin Rowe, an angsty 24 year old delinquent who has a knack for creating Banksy-like graffiti. You and your older cop brother nervous sweating reside in a small Akomish town called Salmon Bay which is a few miles away from Seattle. Now, the Akomish are a fictional Native American tribe created specifically for this game and this is just one of the many cool twists when it comes to the setting of the game. To not get too deep into the plot, a Cond... Bioterrorist crashes a D.U.P. van he was transferred in and by touching Delsin, you gain his smoke powers. You can imagine Delsin is not thrilled, seeing as he's already on thin ice in his community. The real problem arises when D.U.P.'s director arrives in your village.
Her name is Brooke Augustine and she's a big ole' meanie. Catching Co... Bioterrorists is no easy work but Augustine is a merciless individual who takes great pleasure in inflicting pain. And she has concrete powers which D.U.P. was founded upon. Imagine creating a concrete spike in your kneecap out of thin air or rotating multiple chunks of 'em at a speed that grants you the ability to move extremely fast or even levitate, sick stuff but she's no rad lady.
After she interrogates Delsin, you get a choice: betray the tribe to protect your secret or turn in. The plot does not change regardless of your choice but this introduces a mechanic that was all the rage in the early 10's - the morality system.
Each action or bigger decision you take is reflected in the gameplay in shape of upgrades or side characters acting differently. This admittedly, sounds cool but unfortunately to implement such a complex mechanic in a straightforward action adventure game such as Second Son leads to it feeling superficial and gimmicky. During my playthrough I decided to be a good guy but I wanted to test how well the system worked so I made a few "villain" decisions and the results were... underwhelming. The binary nature of your choices rarely represent your feelings and regardless of your pick, the general story beats will remain the same.
Sure a side character will act differently during their introductory mission like killing drug dealers with Fetch instead of just destroying their stashes but as soon as that's over, it's smooth sailing. The coolest thing about the system is how the public perceives you and how they react to you on the streets. That and the way it influences your stencil art which I'll get to later but other than that and certain upgrades, this feels undercooked even with the added replayability factor which leads us to the visuals.
For the most part you'll be messing around Seattle, a city that was rarely portrayed in this medium, despite its long history, interesting architecture and well known music scenes so seeing it here in such detail was really cool. This attention to detail is nothing new to Sucker Punch but since they're from the Emerald City, this was a given and the results speak for themselves. Even after 6 and a half years, Second Son looks and feels great, especially the particle effects and lighting, truly sensational stuff. This level of graphical fidelity this early in the console's life cycle was achieved by frequent communications between the studio and Sony during the designing phase of the PS4 which was something I was not aware until I started reading as a preparation for this review.
The slightly janky facial animations are worth mentioning but they did little to deter my enjoyment.
The regular frame drops however, were an issue which is why I had to cap the frame limit to 30 instead of leaving it uncapped like it had on default for some unknown reason. But even with that cap I would still get regular dips during large scale altercations with the Dups. They wouldn't be as extreme as the 25-30 drop I had prior but this was still a problem and I would occasionally get hit because of it.
When it comes to music and sound design, Second Son passes with flying colors!
The guitar-centric, gritty soundtrack is without a doubt an homage to Seattle's longstanding musical history but it's also very refreshing seeing as most games opt for an electronic or symphonic soundtrack. It's surprisingly "technical" too as it features many staccato riffs and oddly metered drumming sections as well as these wonderfully glitchy, industrial bursts that would have no trouble finding themselves in a Prodigy song.
Take "Serial Tagger" for example and how it utilizes electronica and compare it to the banger that is "Higher Elevation" and how it plays with moods.
This is just a taste of the variety and experimentation that took place and it's no wonder considering who were the key players. Bryan Kei Mantia who played with Buckethead, Primus, Godflesh and Tom Waits is responsible for the superb drumming while Nathan Johnson of Brick, Looper and Knives Out fame focused on the composing side of things.
Oh and "Serial Tagger" is an especially relevant song because it plays during your stencil art mini games I mentioned which are one of the coolest things about the moral system and honestly the whole game. Not just because you have a choice of what art piece you'll spray but because you actually get to use your controller. You first shake it like a can and then aim where you want to spray your paint and voila, you directly interacted with the world and left a permanent mark.
Things get even better sound design-wise. All your powers and interactions between them and the opponents or terrain have a distinct, crunchy and extremely detailed sound which immediately informs you of what just occurred. The crackling sound of fire coming out your cinder blast, the whooshes of concrete missiles before colliding with Dup armor or the buzzing of your neon lights while running, all these things are so well put together that you become immediately immersed to a point where free roaming ends up being extremely enjoyable.
The list of positives continue as we approach Infamous Second Son's finest feature - the combat. On paper, smoke, neon, video and concrete powers sound silly and to an extent they are but whatever you pictured in your head, this is AT LEAST ten times better. Smoke lets you move through vents and dash around the streets while dishing consistent damage best suited for mid-close combat while neon is for players who like to snipe from afar and reposition extremely fast.
Video allows for some sneaky maneuvers and control of the battlefield and finally concrete is just all around broken haha which is why you get it after defeating the final boss.
Their uses don't stop there because each power has abilities that make traversing Seattle that much interesting and fun. Video is best suited for flying between skyscrapers while neon is your go to if you just wanna cosplay Sanic and go fast as fuck. You can literally remain in air for a solid 60 seconds if you're creative enough and if you know how read your environment and that my friends, is very fun, especially if you're being chased. Now when I say read your environment, I am referring to power sources that are all over the city, for example, if you want to change from smoke to neon, you just find the nearest neon sign and you drain that sucker.
This is a great implementation because your surroundings define the way you wanna approach combat and this freedom works wonders when you start thinking about combos.
Unfortunately, while the mechanics are great the mission design is where the game shows most of its age. Remember the Prototype or Crackdown games and GTA trailing missions? Most don't and there is a good reason, they're forgettable. Okay maybe that's unjust regarding Prototype because I had a blast playing the second part but this approach to design is very outdated these days and in a way Second Son is among the last big games of this type. You just cannot expand on this formula more than they have I feel and even with the extremely fun combat, clearing an area of enemies, collecting an audio log or finding a secret agent for the 15th time just gets stale, no matter how fun the combat is. Enemy variety is also an issue, remember when helicopters acted like mini bosses? Well Second Son has those as well and as in other games, they're not that fun to go against.
The writing is also one of the weaker points of the game. It's avoids being bad due to good vocal performances and two great side characters, your older cop brother Reggie *quiet cough* and Fetch, a fellow Con... Bioterrorist and ex-drug addict who lost her brother after he saved her from their parents who wanted to give her to the D.U.P.
As you can see, the game isn't afraid to visit some dark places but unfortunately, the way the characters and story beats are framed leaves the game feeling like an edgy teen show which could bother some, I didn't mind it as much but there were a few cringeworthy moments and Delsin's demeanour can get tiresome at certain points.
It's also quite predictable in some parts but luckily, as with every Infamous to date, Second Son has these wonderful comic-inspired cutscenes that show you the background story of important characters you meet.
So what happens when we put all of this together? You get a very enjoyable 12+ hours of great gameplay, more if you take your time, play on a larger difficulty or wanna collect each collectible which I did. And yes the game manages to overshadow all the negatives I mentioned and I definitely recommend it. However, the most fascinating aspect of Second Son for me is how much game designed changed during the previous generation with more and more studio tackling open world quasi-RPG mechanics that became synonymous with Sony exclusives and you can be sure I'll visit them in the future.
What matters to me the most is that Sucker Punch are one of the very rare "AAA" studios that kept their integrity over the years and always put player experience at first place and never attempted to be overly greedy and this is what the industry is severely lacking. They always take their time and the results are always at least good, the latest example being Ghost Of Tsushima which I'll absolutely grab at one point. Very glad they are finally getting the attention they deserve, especially after defining my childhood with the amazing Sly Cooper trilogy and doing the same to others with the Infamous trilogy and you can be sure that I await for their next project with bathed breath which I cannot say for the vast majority of studios.