A definite sequel but not necessarily a better one. While there are a few minor improvements to the gameplay, it abandons what people liked about the original for a more action adventure experience. The game has a much heavier focus on combat which is only slightly expanded from the first game and barely more functional. Encounters can feel extremely unfair in some cases. Other times it's a total crapshoot whether or not you make it out unscathed. My sentiment towards this game is about the same as its predecessor, but one would be better off playing that one versus this misguided sequel.

When you are making something that is supposed to fall under the horror category, what is the one primary goal that you want to accomplish with your idea? The answer might not be as crystal clear as you think. Of course, most would probably expect the product in question to try to scare you, or to make you feel some sort of uneasiness, which would make sense, as for every great horror movie, game, or whatever one could point out, they have some element that either makes you uncomfortable, nervous, or just straight up scares the fuck out of you, which leads to them having much more of a lasting impression on the audience. That’s not all that a piece of horror media could do though, as they could shift gears from focusing on scaring you to giving you an action-oriented spectacle, just generally being spooky, or even to make you laugh. But, what happens when something related to horror, specifically a franchise, starts out with the intention of scaring you, only to then start to go in a completely opposite direction? Well, in this possible scenario, you could end up with something like Alone in the Dark 2.

I had a curious mindset when it came to going into this particular game, because I wasn’t quite sure what they were going to do with it compared to the first game. Based on screenshots, it didn’t look like it was going to do anything too drastically different from the original game, and the game’s promotional tie-in, Jack in the Dark, may as well be completely unrelated to this, so I figured it was just gonna be more of the same with nothing else to really show for itself. For the most part, I was right in my assumptions, but at the same time, there was something very… different about the game that I couldn’t place a finger on for the longest time, but I knew for a fact that, whatever it was that this game was trying to do, it certainly wasn’t as effective as the original game. It is still a good game though, having all of the same “lovable” elements and quirks that the original game had, but also taking a massive shift in terms of its approach that I wasn’t necessarily the biggest fan of.

The story is somewhat similar to that of the original game, which takes place three months after the original game, where a young girl named Grace Saunders is supposedly kidnapped and taken to a mansion by the name of Hell’s Kitchen (not that Hell’s Kitchen), and when a private eye named Ted Stryker goes to investigate, he mysteriously disappears as well, so it is up to Edward Carnby to go find out what happened to them and uncover the secrets hidden within the mansion, which is a simple enough set-up that you can get behind, only for it to go overboard (almost literally) in the second half of the game. The graphics are about the same as the original game and Jack in the Dark, and by that, I mean it looks like Elon Musk’s wet dream made into a game, but it does still have a certain charm about it that I can’t criticize too heavily, the music is good, even though it has that problem of being played over and over again once more, but at least the tracks themselves are good enough to where I don’t get completely sick of them, and the gameplay/controls are almost identical to the original, both to its benefit and detriment, but the approach to this style of gameplay and controls is… kinda messy.

The game is a survival “horror” game, where you take control of both Edward Carnby and Grace Saunders, alternating between the two throughout the game, go through plenty of locations, both outside and inside of the mansion, fight off against the many different zombie, ghosts and ghouls that you will find within the mansion using whatever tools you happen to find, find many different items and tools within the mansion that can help you out in numerous ways, such as healing you, giving you a means of defending yourself, or solving the game’s many puzzles, uncover the mystery behind what is going on here through many different logs you will find along the way, and try not to get scared along the way…. even though nobody would ever genuinely be scared of any of this. Any AITD veteran will know what they are getting into with this game, as it functions and plays identically to that of the previous two titles, making the game a good time for those who are adjusted to its quirks. However, the approach to all of this, like I have alluded to earlier, is slightly different to that of the original, which somewhat drags it down.

Despite the fact that the original game was not scary in the slightest, the game was at least TRYING to primarily be a horror game, with a foreboding atmosphere, a few enemies that are still deadly if you don’t know how to properly handle them, and a properly spooky environment, which is mixed with the awkward controls and camera angles to make a game that would scare whoever played it, or at the least, make them uneasy as they kept going… at least, it would’ve back in 1992. With this game, however, it shifts heavily from trying to be a horror game, and it more so focuses on the action elements of the game instead, with you now having to face against a group of pirate spirits, as well as the many other things that try to kill you in the game. This, if you ask me, was not the way that a game series like this should’ve been handled at all.

Now, I’m not saying that this ruins the game in terms of its atmosphere or presentation, because once again, these games aren’t scary, so there isn’t much to gain from that perspective either way, but what this change does ruin is how the player approaches the gameplay and the challenges it provides. From the very moment you take control of your character for the first time, you have to quickly kill an enemy that is right by you, and then you have to quickly move into a hedge maze located nearby, while fighting off whatever creatures you may encounter while doing so, or else you run the risk of dying immediately. They just throw you into the fire, without giving you any time to get adjusted to the controls or what’s going on, which may not be so bad for those who have played the previous games, but newcomers will pretty much be boned from the moment they press start.

This is, of course, paired with the fact that you have to deal with the controls used for attacking foes, and the same camera angles from the original game, and you have something that I wouldn’t necessarily call fair a lot of the time. But, with all that being said, none of this makes the game any worse. Fundamentally, it is still Alone in the Dark, which means you still run around, solve puzzles, find items, and defeat enemies in the same way, and it still manages to have that old-school charm that isn’t preferable compared to what other games since this have done, but it can still be fun to mess around with. Not to mention, in terms of the camera angles, they are handled much better off here, with there being none that are too difficult to manage, and none that are zoomed out way too far to where you look like a tiny little speck, so that’s good.

Really, aside from its shift towards action-oriented elements, I didn’t have too many problems with the game as a whole. It does kind of suck that it doesn’t really do anything to change up the gameplay whatsoever, making it feel kinda bland in comparison to the original, and if I had to give one complaint to the game overall, I would say that solving some of the puzzles can be pretty cryptic at times. Yes, I did use a walkthrough to get through this game, just like with the original, but there were still points where I got stuck because things aren’t properly conveyed to the player well enough at points. There is this one part in the game where you can’t proceed forward until you have done everything in the specific area that you are in, and I for the life of me could not figure out what I was doing wrong. I did everything the walkthrough said, I was looking around all over the place, and I had defeated all the enemies, so I was clueless as to what to do next. However, then I noticed that there was one item that I didn’t get before, and the item in question was not only incredibly tiny, but the color of said item made it practically blend into the floor, meaning that the game wouldn’t let me progress all because of this one tiny, miniscule item that nobody would be able to see without knowing it was there to begin with. Yeah, that’s my fault, apparently.

Overall, despite its shift towards action elements, some cryptic parts that can go fuck themselves, as well as… pirates being a thing, I would still say that AITD II is a good game, continuing the same basic gameplay that the original game established, while also branching out the story, environments, and enemies that you fight to where it does feel unique in comparison to its predecessor, even if it is lacking in innovation. I would recommend it for those who were fans of the two previous games, as well as those who don’t mind a little jank every now and then, because despite how jank it is, it still manages to be an interesting example of survival horror in its earliest stages. Although, now I’m wondering, since we now have ghost pirates in this game, how are they gonna top themselves with the next game in terms of the enemies? Are there gonna be ghost aliens? Ghost ninjas? Ghost cowboys?................................... please tell me it doesn’t actually use one of those things.

Game #524

It took Resident Evil 16 years to go from innovative survival horror blueprint to cinematic action self-parody. Alone In The Dark did it in 1.

This game is absolutely awful and just miserable to play blind; many parts are still painful even with a guide. The whole thing revolves around guessing what the designer was thinking and avoiding constant softlocks.

That said, once you know exactly what to do, you can beat the whole thing in under 90 minutes and it turns into a comedy masterpiece. Dressing up as Santa to gun down mafia pirate zombies while listening to Donkey Kong Country-ass bops? Hell fucking yeah dude.

If Alone in the Dark is the first survival horror game, then Alone in the Dark 2 is the first survival horror sequel to take a more action-oriented approach. The difference is immediately evident in how each game begins. In Alone in the Dark, you’re in an attic, there are things from outside trying to get in, and you have to race to block the windows off before they break through and drag you away. In Alone in the Dark 2 you’re plonked right next to a zombie with a gun and you have to karate chop him to death before he shoots you. While the intro for Alone in the Dark eased you into exploring the mansion, Alone in the Dark 2 gives way to… what almost feels like an action setpiece, rushing down the driveway to the mansion and trying to push a statue out of the way before the guards can shoot you. If Alone in the Dark’s first major area gave you an indication of the ins and outs of combat and how the game wasn’t afraid of being cheap with traps and ambushes, the hedge maze that begins Alone in the Dark 2 tells you three key things: every space you go through is going to be rather tight. Enemies are constant. If you want to get past, and get through, you’re going to have to engage with the game’s combat.

y’know

the combat

the really good combat

…

In my review for the first Alone in the Dark, I talked about how the combat system was fairly easily the worst part of the game. You’re beholden to this system where you have to learn your weapon’s moveset and learn the timings and windups all while enemies can just walk up to you and stunlock you to death, and it becomes really clear really quick that unless you want to spend a lot of health and resources for diminishing returns you need to run from and past enemies whenever possible. For Alone in the Dark 2, it’s back, and even worse. Not because combat is now the only thing you ever really do, but because instead of enemies needing to close the gap (giving you your one opportunity to safely stunlock them), now they all have guns. All the melee weapons you get are functionally useless (except for the endgame, where they’re still useless but also you can’t use any of your guns) because trying to close the gap and use them will get you shot, which then forces you into using your own guns, which are just as bad. You need to figure out where to point so that you’re pointing at the enemy, which the cinematic fixed camera angles don’t help with. This is something the AI never has to worry about, so oftentimes you lose health trying to orient your gun so that it’s actually aimed in the correct direction. It says something that the best way to go through things is to cheese the enemies into shooting a wall between you and them, instead.

And it’s required. Not just necessarily “the door will only open once the enemy is dead” but in more subtle ways, like an item needed for progression only dropping once you kill a specific enemy. Problem is, you don’t know what enemies are the ones that drop the things you need, or, even if they do drop something, whether the thing you get will actually take you in a direction that progresses you through the game or whether it just leads to more lore or a “”””””””better””””””” weapon. This is even worse when you consider resource scarcity. More specifically, ammo scarcity: your constant need for ammo because guns are the only thing worth using far eclipses the ammo the game gives you. You’re perpetually running low, a problem that’s made even worse by how you’re always going to miss at least one or two shots because the perspective is so fucked. Oftentimes it feels like you need to savescum just to see if you can get through a fight using slightly less ammo, or losing slightly less health, or losing significantly more health because you were forced to use melee, which… even when you’re meant to use it it’s still so clunky and rough to deal with. There’s more than one segment where there are tendrils guarding things that’ll damage you if you get close, that can only be hurt by melee attacks… which usually move you forward as you do so, putting you into the damage zone with the oftentimes borked fixed camera perspective making it unclear whether you managed to land a hit on the tendrils or not. The endgame is meant to be a series of swordfights, but it’s more like a series of you using the same move over and over again to lock the opponent in place, spamming it for what feels like minutes until the enemy finally forgets to block, with absolutely no indication as to whether something was a hit or how much HP your opponent has left. Overall the combat is baaaaaaad. Bad bad bad, and the increased focus on it in this game honestly singlehandedly tanks it.

Which is a bit of a shame, because I like a good deal of what this game is attempting. I love the setting: the cloudy, early evening sky, the hedge maze, how you get to run around (and climb) a pirate ship, the fact that this game, of all games, is set during Christmas (and you spend a significant amount of it in a Santa suit)… oftentimes I feel like survival horror games tend to lean onto the same kinds of settings — primarily, those popularized by genre codifiers like Resident Evil or Silent Hill — so it’s really neat to see how even just set dressing can make what’s otherwise a fairly archetypical setting (a mansion) feel so fresh and unique compared to other takes. I like the focus on the background lore — the pirates, their curse, how that informs both the gameplay and sets the story in motion — but even regardless I’m kind of into the shift into having a bit of an active plot: characters you meet along the way, a focus on what’s happening over what happened fifty years ago. There’s also a stealth section that I liked well enough, and not necessarily just because it does away with combat for a merciful, brief moment in time and instead focuses on direct helplessness, needing to stay out of the sight of enemies, impede them when they come after you, and take them out with indirect means. It’s fun, and it does a fun job at repurposing the areas you’ve otherwise fought your way through the rest of the game, transplanting them into a different context and showcasing a little bit of versatility in how they’re designed.

None of that really makes up for how rouuuuuugh the rest of the game feels to play, though. Entirely because of how action-focused this game is: you're saddled with awful combat from the moment you start, and aside from one brief, merciful segment where the game doesn’t allow you to fight back, it never gets better. Only worse, once it becomes fully clear just how clunky the mechanics are. The original Alone in the Dark, despite suffering from the exact same issue, did well to nearly turn that into a strength, the sense of fight or flight, that question of whether entering combat is actually worth it directly inspiring the games that define survival horror today. It’s… certainly not the best game in the world, sure, but it’s still solid, and still worth taking a look at, both on its own merits and as the progenitor of the genre. Alone in the Dark 2, on the other hand, aside from some quirks, and the novelty of its setting… I feel is best left forgotten. 3/10.