SuperAndroid17
Member
The music is sooo much better than HR. Granted.. HR had some an amazing OST.
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided vs. Human Revolution
- Thread starter Alpha Phoenix
- Start date
Mankind Divided was so bad. I was really surprised and frustrated. Game ate my saves, the pre-order DLC being single use (so you can't get it back in another save) was bad, the mission design overall was terrible.
The level design in general seems even more vent-oriented than the last. Overall, it's taken a hit. Being limited to one city was nightmarish (do you hate dream sequences in games? Golem City is basically that--a linear level you can't leave that makes no interesting use of the game's actual choice and consequence stuff. The art design is way better in MD, but since the level design itself is bad, like... I would never actually willfully recommend the game to anyone.
I'm not sure there was a worse disappointment in 2016.
The level design in general seems even more vent-oriented than the last. Overall, it's taken a hit. Being limited to one city was nightmarish (do you hate dream sequences in games? Golem City is basically that--a linear level you can't leave that makes no interesting use of the game's actual choice and consequence stuff. The art design is way better in MD, but since the level design itself is bad, like... I would never actually willfully recommend the game to anyone.
I'm not sure there was a worse disappointment in 2016.
Lol I got stuck there too.
I didn't have the points to buy heavy lifting, so I used a frag grenade to knock the object blocking the grill, then popped lots of booze + health stuff to get through the electric floor.
It turns out the way to
get through the front door was in that weird house where you could reconfigure the security system to do different things. If you called the cleaners to fix up the mess, left the area, then came back later, the room will be clean and there will be a keycard to the rave in the toweled swan on the bed.
That place threw me off too because the secret compartment in that room had nothing in it and I was like whaaaaaaaaat
tearsintherain
Member
HR by far. Story and setting were more interesting. MD is pretty cool for a few hours but the story is just not very good and the characters are a bit caricature-ish. Mechanically MD is superior but honestly a few months after you finish you remember the story and characters, not how easy it was to toggle weapons.
As someone said, while both games have flaws HR had a soul and characters you ended up liking. MD is full of assholes and the game feels stripped of emotion.
As someone said, while both games have flaws HR had a soul and characters you ended up liking. MD is full of assholes and the game feels stripped of emotion.
Impetuous Imp
Member
Having just played both back to back for the first time, I can say I'm on the fence as to which I prefer. I wish I had the gameplay and level design of MD but the characters, story and feeling of progression of HR.
While I loved the side quests and the rich detail of Prague, it felt like 85% of my gameplay was side missions - which gave a great feel of the world, but very little of my time was devoted to understanding or furthering the main plot. The game ended with the feeling that I was only just getting started. Some of the choices left a bad taste
and the "final choice" the game presents you with felt more like any of the other moral choices you make along the way rather than a major culmination as it did in the other games
I bought the full package and the one-time use DLC irritated me a little (but didn't offend as much as some others) but I was pretty upset when I realized that as soon as you move the items from storage to your inventory, you better not reload from a previous save because those items will be gone forever.
While I loved the side quests and the rich detail of Prague, it felt like 85% of my gameplay was side missions - which gave a great feel of the world, but very little of my time was devoted to understanding or furthering the main plot. The game ended with the feeling that I was only just getting started. Some of the choices left a bad taste
because you can't get a completely good ending for everyone without some major glitch-explots
(and ultimately doesn't need to be a choice at all since you can save everyone if you made the right previous choices and move fast enough).
I bought the full package and the one-time use DLC irritated me a little (but didn't offend as much as some others) but I was pretty upset when I realized that as soon as you move the items from storage to your inventory, you better not reload from a previous save because those items will be gone forever.
Gai Murakumo
Member
Gameplay wise Mankind Divided no doubt. But story wise Human Revolution I like more.
vonStirlitz
Unconfirmed Member
[Redacted as the member no longer wishes to be associated with this website, and the reputational damage and distress caused by association with this website. In addition, the user considers that the action of the management, and the nature of the site and members of its community, renders the original terms and conditions of this site void, and it unconscionable for either side to be bound to them. The user reasserts their IP rights in all content and does not give any authority for its continued usage on this website. Despite requesting that the user's account be deleted, in accordance with data protection rules which apply to this website over multiple jurisdictions, the admin team have failed to delete this account, requiring the user to take its own steps to ensure the valid deletion of data.]
KyanMehwulfe
Member
Yeah... the example that always sums it up for me is that I once spent about 20 minutes dragging boxes through a vent system to climb up its large drops that I think was never in any way intended to be 'climbed' but rather used as an escape path (where you 'fall' down a couple floors at a time to reach ground level safely and faster), and I am pretty sure I had no business trying to climb up through the vent in that direction lol.
And yet, somehow, after dragging another box up the first large dropoff,I was able to get it to the second dropoff and somehow it still worked.
The game is just chock full of creative exploration play and adventure experiences like that.
I put 40 hours into the game my first playthrough and still somehow missed a couple side-missions, and immediately replayed it a second time in about 20 hours. I mean, how I score or rate its quality is almost besides the point that any game that can get 60+ hours of fun out of me that quickly is a darn good game.
In MD's prague, did you guys a)
and b) on the rooftops (in the area where there's some "glass roof" over the street)? I was amazed that it was (partly) possible to climb up there and even found a PDA or something up there I think
I can understand the frustration from corrupted savefiles, but I will never understand the amount of hyperbole you resort to. Like in what bizarre universe does MD have bad level design? I get the criticism of there not being as many hubs as Deus Ex games usually have, but "nightmarish" - seriously? And mission design "overall terrible"? At this point I can only laugh and shake my head in disbelief.
get into that trap-apartment, where all the exits get closed off after you enter and you need to deactivate the bomb in time or die?
I can understand the frustration from corrupted savefiles, but I will never understand the amount of hyperbole you resort to. Like in what bizarre universe does MD have bad level design? I get the criticism of there not being as many hubs as Deus Ex games usually have, but "nightmarish" - seriously? And mission design "overall terrible"? At this point I can only laugh and shake my head in disbelief.
Impetuous Imp
Member
I got there - always wondered if it was actually part of a side mission that I didn't manage to pick up, since I didn't completely understand what the message meant at the time I found it. and it felt like there were pieces of story to it that I was missing. While it was cool to have access to almost everywhere from the get-go, I felt like it was always a tough call between exploring everywhere so I didn't miss anything vs. holding off so I didn't end up backtracking to the same place a bunch of times.
I feel you. What I did was have a "pure" first playthrough where I just kinda like "roleplay" and do the missions I stumble upon but don't go looking in every single tiny corner or open every storage unit and then a second playthrough with new game + where I did the remaining side-missions and other stuff.
Barry Burton
Member
Mankind Divided is an improvement in just about every area, except it's main story is really weak and I never really got invested in the plot happenings or the characters. That one aspect of it was so disappointing that I probably prefer Human Revolution slightly overall.
AlwaysPlaying
Member
I think Mankind Divided is a better game. I think they did s very good job of polishing up on what was missed in Human revolution. They were both good, but mandkind divided is just amazing.
General Lee
Member
One thing I found was very "immersive sim" about MD is that you could just
grenade the locked doors
grenaded the front door
This trick was actually pretty useful in a few places where I had plenty of extra
grenades
I have to agree that overall MD is an improvement in terms of game play, but the main story line pacing is not good. The side characters seemed like interesting, but we barely scratched the surface before the game was done, and the majority of the play time I was just digging through random apartments and sewers that seemed to have a higher population density than the streets.
Prague was a well designed area, but it didn't interest me in terms of the cyberpunk theme. Golem could've been a great second hub, but unfortunately it was just a linear level like the rest of the levels outside Prague. Maybe the devs thought the two part Prague map would be considered as separate, but they're too similar to make a difference, even though I think they're supposed to have a low/high class separation. That's something they could've emphasized a lot more and created more visually distinct parts of Prague.
Prague had a lot of areas to explore but doing so never felt worth it to me. Never got really invested in the skill tree (since stealth was already piss easy as is) so Praxis point and XP weren't a factor to me and hacking into e-mails really doesn't do it that much for me anymore.
HR may have the same problems (I haven't played it since its release) but it obviously felt fresher at the time.
HR may have the same problems (I haven't played it since its release) but it obviously felt fresher at the time.
Sumio Mondo
Member
HR felt more finished and felt like it had a more fleshed out world and more locales. So there is that. Having said that, I really enjoyed my time with MD (level design was better on the whole and side quests were excellent) until the abrupt, sequel bait ending.
Music was good but not as great as HR's was. Too many composers, imo, should have been just McCann again.
Music was good but not as great as HR's was. Too many composers, imo, should have been just McCann again.
Lostconfused
Member
I'll remember Human Revolution more fondly than Mankind Divided. The 2nd game went the Mass Effect 2 route where it manufactured a plot for the middle of the trilogy but the connections to the overall plot of the trilogy are very tenuous.
His Majesty
Banned
Mankind Divided for me has the better gameplay and aesthetics (I love Prague) but Human Revolution offers a much better story and its different locales really help with that.
I don't know but Mankind Divided is missing something crucial to express that globalist conspiracy feel that HR had.
I don't know but Mankind Divided is missing something crucial to express that globalist conspiracy feel that HR had.
Interficium
Banned
Mankind Divided plays far better but the whole narrative feels like you're just some random beat cop in Prague.
Similar threads
- Poll