Mafia: Definitive Edition Review (Yarry.)
If you truly want to play this game, then get it on a sale with a healthy discount.
Don't get me wrong, it's an OK game for what it offers; a polished version of an old classic from around 20 years ago, enveloped in a modern packaging, with a revamped hand to hand combat system, the addition of cover shooting and some light stealth mechanics, which play well with the nature of the game.. but at the same time missing much of the essence of the original as it got lost in translation.
The remaster follows the original's plot quite well, all main aspects of the "template" are included with a bit of artistic freedom and adjustments here and there. Somehow though, it's not as... complete as one would like. Certain gameplay sections and side missions were left out in favor of high quality cutscene sequences, character development arcs that existed in the original version simply didn't make the cut, because who is Lucas Bertone anyway?
The characters look way more cartoonish than they used to in the original, taking away some of the serious tone the original game came with, I was astonished by how some of the cutscenes managed to be less involving than that of it's 20 years older counterpart, you'd think with the technology and manpower of today's video game studios this would be an doable improvement.
But the worst offense of them all - by far - is the difficulty.
This game actually made me load up the original version from time to time to answer the question: "was it really that hard back then?!". And truthfully - while some aspects were certainly hard in the original game - one such occurrence being the infamous car race, which garnered a generally negative reputation among players and fans of the original version - the remaster, however, took this problem to a whole new level..
The game graciously offers die hard fans the option of playing the game on "Classic" difficulty. Not thinking too hard about it, naturally, I picked said difficulty for the classic experience. Since this game includes gamepad support I played it accordingly, eagerly loading up the first few missions and playing away. As the missions progressed into more and more shooting sequences for the rest of the game, it became quite clear that using the gamepad was not a favorable idea, being forced to use the kb+m for most of these missions henceforth. The frustration was amplified by the fact that enemies turned into bullet sponges in the harder difficulties, at times requiring up to 6 hits to the chest as they rushed towards your position guns blazing, with each of their hits dealing up to 60% damage to your health bar.
However, as bad as the shootouts were on the controller, the cherry on top of this sundae is the driving, and it is absolutely aweful. Every car feels like it takes forever to get up to speed, cars either understeer like crazy or oversteer into a spin, almost like moving on ice all the time. This effect is magnified whenever there's rainfall, rendering taking corners an impossibility. (Remember the car race I mentioned earlier? Even if you played it on "Extreme" difficulty with Damage enabled in the original, it was nowhere near as bad as the remaster.. 1.5 - 2 hours of playtime were sacrified on reloading that race start checkpoint, as a fan and player of racing sims, this implementation of car mechanics and RNG events that take you out of the race is a travesty.)
So in the end, we get a gorgeous looking landscape, a more lively city with the addition of more pedestrians and more pronounced weather conditions and cutscenes that have been given a lot of time and dedication.. at the price of the gameplay, janky AI mechanics and unbalanced chase sequences, making checkpoint reloads unavoidable.
This remaster could have been so much more but chose to be yet another streamlined third person shooter, and while that's not that bad of a thing at all, it's also not a standout title given the original version's reputation.