Mafia: Definitive Edition Review (Mr_Purple)
Happy to see that "Fair Play" still makes people cry after all this time.
Not 10 out of 10, but a solid remake nonetheless. Took about 8 hours to beat on highest difficulty available. Core story is almost exact copy of the original with small-ish alterations here and there that don't matter much in a long run. Compared to original, remake is scaled to down by 2-2.5 times. Pointless driving segments are removed entirely, some scenes moved into cutscenes, some - removed entirely. Unlike original... how should I put it? Mmm... remake "gets to the point" much faster than the original. Solid 6 to 8 hours linear campaign that manages to keep you interested till the end.
However, not EVERYTHING in Mafia: Definitive Edition was to my liking and I don't agree with certain decisions made for it. Side missions for Lucas Bertone were cut entirely. Apart from his brief appearence in previously mentioned infamous Fair Play (by the way, I do love the fact that devs decided to keep Fair Play challenging, this mission does not hold your hand at all) and his micro role in Free Ride, his character is not utilized at all. While I agree that his missions in the original messed with game's already slow pacing, they shouldn't have cut him out entirely. Some of the side missions were quite interesting and obtaining luxurious cars through him felt quite rewarding.
They made a decisiont to cut Free Ride Extreme too, well... not exactly. Original game featured two types of Free Ride modes: Free Ride, GTA-like sandbox and Free Ride Extreme - unlockable by beating campaign, Free Ride Extreme featured a slightly alterated version of Lost Heaven with stunt ramps, Easter Eggs (like that creepy-ass Rock face) and (I believe) 18 missions that unlocked bonus "prototype" cars that eithere were wacky or speedy af. For the remake, devs made a decision to merge these two modes. While it's not a bad idea, a lot of extremely fun missions like "Save a damsel from a Sea Monster" or "Cross a bridge" on Bolt Ace while a blimp above you is bombing you or "Chase the plane" were cut entirely. SOME original missions like "Chase UFO" HAVE made it into the remake, but there's only a handful of these, rest is remake exclusive and all of them are... extremely boring.
Last thing that I did not appreciate in a butchering of "Moonlighing" mission. Literally 75% of the mission is... gone. Cut. Even without cutscenes. Game file diggers found characters and assets that were meant for this mission went unused. Hella weird, considering how faithful rest of the game is. Feels like they simply ran out of time.
Woudn't say that it is worth a full price but it is a steal at a sale. If you liked newer Mafia games, you will like this one to. 7.5 out of 10.