Pros
Amazing visuals and style
Constantly introducing new enemies/levels

Cons
Slow beginning
A lot of trial and Error sections
Unexplained plot

Evil Within 1 is a fantastic survival horror game. It experiments more than most in the genre. You will be getting constantly barraged with new monsters to fight and strategies to develop. The style and gameplay hold up 10 years later extraordinarily well. The only things holding it back from becoming a classic are primarily related to the messy plot and beginning. You won’t understand most of what and why things happen until about half way through and the end. The start of the game is a very slow stealth section that doesn’t necessarily transition well when the game becomes more action focused after the first 1-2 hours. Overall, it’s a underrated horror title that is worth giving a shot.

Aesthetic is incredible. Art is really nice and some set pieces are quite inspired. The gameplay feels so focus group tested. Like I can see glimpses of the new tango talent sandwiched between safe forced trend design choices that seriously hurt the game. Game has a lot of cheap one touch deaths and stuff. It lacks a lot of polish. Yet I still wanted to see it end. It took a lot out of me but I'm glad I did. Wish it lived up to what it was advertising as a survival horror. This game is a betrayal of that. Wish mikami got to fully had control over this. Hope he gets another game one last time. The letter box is cute but the forced 30 is really dull. Thank god for PC

Just wanted to go out of my way to review this since Microsoft shut down Tango. Has to be the most baffling closure I've witnessed in a while.

On to the game. I hate to say it but this is just a mediocre feeling RE4. Which is crazy to say since this was made by the same director as RE4 but if anything it goes to show sometimes a game is more than just its director. I wish I could tell you what makes this feel mediocre compare to RE4 but I can't put my finger to it. Maybe it's the shooting, environments, and story not being as good as RE4. This game is also more a phycological thriller so it tries to mess with your understanding of what's going on.

I'm going to be honest and say you should probably skip this and just play 2. TEW 2 I feel has pretty separate story so there's nothing really missed by skipping this one. For 2 is just a massive improvement in everyway, which is crazy since it has a new game director.

Tenho muito carinho pelo primeiro Evil Within, mas sempre que jogo ele de novo, sinto a mesma sensação de "poderia ter sido muito melhor". Parece que é um jogo que precisava de mais alguns meses no forno porque ele tem vários problemas pequenos de balanceamento e polimento que se acumulam e acabam deixando a experiência menos prazerosa.

Isso e o fato de que o jogo se promoveu como sendo "um retorno ao verdadeiro survivla horror" e acabou lançando exatamente igual a todos daquela geração: Com ação demais e terror/puzzles de menos (o que não me incomodaria tanto se não fossem os problemas pequenos que eu mencionei).

Sabe aquele meme do homem minerando por diamantes e desistindo faltando apenas alguns centímetros pra achar? É mais ou menos o quão perto Evil Within esteve de ser um dos melhores jogos daquela geração.

Enfim, descanse em paz, Tango Gameworks!

The Evil Within is a drab and oppressive horror game, quite contrasting with director Shinji Mikami's more recent work of the time. I just didn't expect the guy who made the last ten years of his career off of hot guys doing backflips to out-creep the first Resident Evil game.

The game is quite what you would expect a Shinji Mikami joint post RE4 to be, a fast and frantic over the shoulder shooter with emphasis on resource management and making every shot count. What separates it from RE4 is that the art style is much more abstract, and the story is told much more non-linearly as the game takes place in the consciousness of a man molded into a monster by the world around him. You play as Sebastian Castellanos, a shadowy and gravely detective taking on an order that seems a little too out of the ordinary. Him and his team roll out to a mental hospital, where they are taken by the supernatural Ruvik and are split up and tortured. Sebastian must survive this decaying and fractured brain world that keeps throwing nothing but Ruvik's screwed-up vision of the world at him.

The Evil Within account for replayability much better than RE4 by having a deeper upgrade system and more difficulties to mess around with. If you find yourself craving more TEW (which you will) you can boot up the new game plus, or one of the new harder difficulties for a fresh experience.

The Evil Within is a must play for Survival Horror fans, it may not stick every landing, but it sticks most of them.

the evil within is a very polarising game for me, at times i feel like im really enjoying this with a naturally paced levels with decent design but at other times it just feels like such a slog to get through.

i think the main reason is there is just no items in the game, i get thats taken from resident evil but ive just started playing the first one and the thing is theres other way to progress through the game with the evil within, it is all extremely ammo based and how many bullets you have. you can often get stuck on a level just from having nothing at all; it's even more annoying when you've searched everywhere.

But the game does have it's pros: it is very fulfilling to defeat the bosses and they are in that sweet spot of not too difficult while still being a challenge and there is an interesting array of bosses. the levels do vary alot, having it just be inside someones head you can really go anywhere and they do, for parts of it you're in an old town then a lab, a castle and a city.

It is atmoshperic at times and in different ways, for like the first couple hours when you're checking everything and the world is changing around it does suck you in (and the aslyum is very good and a great way to have you save) but then after a couple of hours it gets very predictable and you can just breeze through.

Ultimately, a good time but not enough for me just to jump straight onto the second one but I might go for the second one in a couple of months. fuck you ar zombie

Really interesting game, kinda janky here and there but overall it's good.
The main problem for me is that the story only starts to make sense by the last chapters, and even after collecting the documents it feels fragmented and confusing. This issue is somewhat addressed in the DLCs by giving us light of some past events and more overall context.
But what the game really gets right is the atmosphere, made me feel like I was in hell, very overwhelming and disturbing, as if you're never safe no matter what

Most mainstream reviewers brushed the game aside for some of its technical issues, at times janky presentation, story being somewhat confusing, and just being very punishing; which are fair criticisms.
Even with that, I really love this game and feel that a lot of people didn't appreciate what the game gets right.

The atmosphere is spot on and completely pulls you into its world, the music is great with moments of dread and action being captured perfectly with the score, when the shooting and stealth segments work out correctly it can feel very satisfying. The graphics can be a bit dated here and there, but the lighting and art direction are top notch. The enemy variety and boss designs are solid as well. Towards the end it's just set piece after set piece, random little quirks or gimmicks in certain chapters; with level transitions and environments that are different and unpredictable. The first playthrough will leave you guessing what will happen next and I love that about this game.

One of the biggest issues I think people had was just how punishing the game is. Simple mistakes or lack of knowledge will kill you more than once throughout the whole game; especially in boss fights and even in scripted sequences. I'm fairly confident The Evil Within was designed to disrespect and abuse the player. The game is full of clever trap and enemy placements to throw the player off and it might even get you killed. Items will be put into absurd and unappealing locations to taunt the player because the designer knows the value if it to the player. I think it's quite hilarious.

The game has a lot of variety going for it, but I guess it might have been at the cost of polish and focus. The game is sometimes a power fantasy and killing dozens of enemies, sometimes It's a stealth game and you should avoid detection. Sometimes It's a slow burn horror game, with atmosphere and music as the focal point and nothing else. The story has some great ideas and themes, but it gets convoluted rather easily.

Animations can be a bit stiff and inconsistent, floating objects at times, flickering textures or shadows, sometimes odd hit detection, unsatisfactory performance on consoles and even PC, and some questionable design decisions. It feels like Tango Gameworks didn't have a QA department and overlooked things trying to meet their deadline.

It's a great game with flaws that I don't think are big enough to bother me or an experienced gamer. The Evil Within is enjoyable with such high replay ability that I don't think most people would have the time or patience to do it all; but you'd definitely get a lot of value out of this game.

Caramba, esse jogo calou minha boca e me surpreendeu de uma forma inexplicável! Quando fui jogar esse game, estava na vibe de jogar jogos de terror, como tinha ouvido falar muito bem dele, fui de cabeça com uma expectativa muito alta. Logo de cara o jogo me impressionou com os gráficos, pois mesmo sendo de 2014 são lindos. Após um certo tempo de jogo, fiquei meio confuso, pois eu não estava sentindo aquele frio na barriga, medo ou levando sustos. Cheguei até a pensar em deixar para joga-lo outra hora, mas depois de pensar um pouco decidi seguir e prestar muita atenção na história. Logo me caiu a ficha e percebi que estava cometendo um erro enorme em querer abandonar essa maravilha. Avançando no jogo percebi que ele consegue misturar os gêneros de terror, ação e história de uma forma maravilhosa. Fiquei maravilhado desde então e me diverti muito, tentando aproveitar o máximo. Também percebi que ele não é pra brincadeira, o nível de dificuldade me surpreendeu bastante até o fim do jogo. Passei por altos e baixos até completar o jogo, oque tornou minha experiencia ainda melhor. Ele ainda possui uma gameplay única e um estilo que mais nenhum jogo consegue fazer igual. Consegui me apegar aos personagens e entrar na história de uma forma que quase nenhum jogo conseguiu fazer igual. Amei o jogo, se tornou um dos meus jogos favoritos sem dúvida nenhuma. Super recomendo!