Dead Space (2023) is like the perfect ideal of what a remake can do for a game. You can really feel the love and care that was poured into revitalizing this experience for a more modern audience. Even on the low graphics preset, the game is disgustingly beautiful to look at, and to listen to. The distant pained cries, the screaming of engines and gnashing of machinery, and the subtle flickering of lights and shuffling in the ceilings - the atmosphere crafted here is breathtakingly terrifying. It feels like the ship itself is alive in some sense. Maybe it wants to cry for help, but it can only speak in the droning voice of the computer, as Necromorphs burst from its every vent and vein. The opening had me scared so bad, I nearly wet myself the first few times my comms violently roared to life upon receiving a transmission. However, that fear quickly turned to excitement, as the writing is really top-notch. I was truly engrossed in the story of the unsettling setting that unfolded before me, in how each character interaction would further the plot, and the mystery. Something to note, the facial animations are very impressive, and I think they really helped to humanize and further the characters in my eyes. I also thought it was super cool that Isaac has different voicelines dependent on his health, sounding hurt when on low hp. The voice acting overall is phenomenal, and I especially love the little expletives Isaac shouts when stomping sometimes. Alongside direct comm transmissions, there are lots of text and audio logs scattered across the Ishimura to really help you get a sense for life on the ship, and to piece together how the tragedy surrounding it began to take shape. Some text logs can be very long and interesting, however, the audio logs are pretty unintrusive to gameplay so even if you aren't super interested in the lore I would still pick those up. Onto the gunplay, Dead Space's iconic limb dismemberment feels so good to play with. Alongside your other tools, Kinesis and Stasis, and the plethora of weapons you can find across the ship, there are many creative ways you can defeat your foes. Thin and crispy Necromorph: you're gonna wanna remove as many arms and legs as you can (remember to use the hands for skewering!), then a light flambé with a Hydrogen Torch, cut through the bigger chunks with the Ripper, and tenderize thoroughly with your boot. Enemy encounters are very fun and engaging, as different enemy types often require different solutions to deal with effectively, leading to divergent gameplay. Unfortunately, this encouragement of experimentation is a little bit at odds with the game's upgrade system. You can find nodes scattered across the ship, which you can slot into both your guns and your suit in order to power them up. This is forgiving enough, as you have the ability to remove your allocated nodes on a given piece of gear for a fee. The real problem I have is that on top of this price, upgrade parts for those weapons in the shop also carry a decently hefty price, and there's no in-game description to clue you into whether those upgrades are even worth buying or not. Also, given that you only really receive ammo for weapons you have equipped (which is a good thing) means that if you want to try, or swap over to a new weapon, you will likely have to either wait to accrue ammo for it, or buy it. All this to say that, especially in the early to mid-game where money is a lot tighter, your experimentation can be limited if you want to give those weapons a try closer to their full potential. In my playthrough I kinda locked into 3 weapons and hardly used the other 5. Granted, I think all of the weapons are very enjoyable and I don't feel bad about this decision, but I wouldn't blame someone for feeling like they missed out on not using a different weapon. I do believe that resources should be tight of course, it is a survival horror, after all, but I think maybe the ability to convert ammo types would've been nice, and personally I don't see a need for the node respec to carry a cost. I would also like to say that the upgrade nodes themselves felt a bit lackluster at times. The suit upgrades all felt decently good and impactful, I was always excited for more stasis charge or duration. However, when it came to weapon upgrades it felt like I was just going through the tree to get to damage nodes and maybe some special nodes - everything else didn't really matter. Some of the aforementioned special nodes did actually change how I played the game, but other than that it was all just small numbers increases that were not very interesting. It's a bit disappointing to think that the game's experimental freedom in combat is hamstrung in order to include a mediocre progression system. On the whole I'd say it's pretty inoffensive, and serves as a good incentive for searching around the ship alongside supplies. I just feel like a bit more could've been done with it to really spice up gameplay, and feel like a more necessary and fleshed out mechanic, but in the end I'm not all that disappointed. I'm not a game designer of course, but I wonder what this game would look like if all ammo drops were totally randomized regardless of what you had in your inventory, and the weapon upgrades were freely transferrable; meaning the player would be naturally pushed away from only using the same things over and over, and forced to experiment with new weapons. The thing all of the potential experimentation does seems to encourage is subsequent playthroughs, both in New Game+, and in the "Impossible" challenge mode, which do seem quite fun and offer more unique content. I think my only other light critique of the game is that it may drag a little bit towards the end. This may just be because, even on "Hard" difficulty, I was swimming in credits and ammo, and all of my gear was basically fully upgraded. Despite in-game rewards basically having lost their value at this point, I still felt the need to search for loot. In the final chapters, this began to feel extremely tedious, however I'm not sure this is as much the game's fault or more just a flaw with my compulsive mindset in playing it. Despite this, the finale was still pretty spectacular. This game suffers from the survival horror plague of having extremely easy bosses, but they are still an awesome spectacle, and satisfying to overcome. The game is overall great, there's nothing here for me to point to as especially lacking, just a few minor flaws. Dead Space (2023) is an amazing game, and I'm looking forward to playing New Game+ for the alternate ending. It does a lot of things well, and even more things fucking great.