I actually tried to play this way back when the original released but dumb teenage me thought it was a horror game and dropped it really fast when nothing scary happened. Alan Wake 2 got me interested in the franchise so I gave the game a second chance with the remaster.
I'll say this: I love the premise, and i think the "shine light at shadow people" is a cool gimmick, but the gameplay really really..... sucks. It's executed real bad, so much so that i can't give this game anything more that a 3.5 just for how obnoxious it started to become past episode 2.
What's more bizarre is that I played American Nightmare right after, and I had a good time. Enemies in that game get stunned by the light MUCH faster, and if you time your flashlight uses correctly you basically never run out and need to use batteries. I always saw batteries as a clutch when you get stressed and fuck up the optimal use, kinda like a medkit, but in the first game you kinda need to spam to batteries near the end of the game if you don't want to get comboed to death by a group of random high level enemies that just refuses to drop their shadow shield.
I don't know if they changed anything gameplay-wise between the OG and the Remaster, but whatever came out of it: that wasn't it. Could have easily reused the faster paced flashlight gameplay and made the game a much more enjoyable experience.
Hopefully all this suffering will be worth it once I'm done with the other games Remedy made over the years and get to AW2
I'll say this: I love the premise, and i think the "shine light at shadow people" is a cool gimmick, but the gameplay really really..... sucks. It's executed real bad, so much so that i can't give this game anything more that a 3.5 just for how obnoxious it started to become past episode 2.
What's more bizarre is that I played American Nightmare right after, and I had a good time. Enemies in that game get stunned by the light MUCH faster, and if you time your flashlight uses correctly you basically never run out and need to use batteries. I always saw batteries as a clutch when you get stressed and fuck up the optimal use, kinda like a medkit, but in the first game you kinda need to spam to batteries near the end of the game if you don't want to get comboed to death by a group of random high level enemies that just refuses to drop their shadow shield.
I don't know if they changed anything gameplay-wise between the OG and the Remaster, but whatever came out of it: that wasn't it. Could have easily reused the faster paced flashlight gameplay and made the game a much more enjoyable experience.
Hopefully all this suffering will be worth it once I'm done with the other games Remedy made over the years and get to AW2