rating based on my experience up to chapter 8...which is where i'm putting it down because i feel like i've gotten everything i wanted from the game (and borrowed it anyway)...up to this point, and with no context of any other games in the series, i feel that as a pure survival combat experience this is well-designed and fluid...nothing revelatory but certainly fun and even without playing the original game the mid 00s vibe is palpable and charming

but the primary takeaway, and most valuable to my overall gaming and art journey, is that i'm stopping because i don't really enjoy killing hordes of weird creatures over and over again, however engaging it may be...feels a bit soul-draining and i prefer killing to be a bit more abstracted or light-hearted (or otherwise discouraged i guess)...not that i'm a pacifist (especially in the context of fiction because it aint real) but it's just a taste i've come to accept...i can do this shit but maybe this genre is outside of what i want out of immersive art

that being said, i'm still gonna try other things in what i assume are a similar mode (Bloodborne etc)...but overall i'll be prioritizing other stuff for a while to see where that directs my taste :)

genuinely blown away how much better this is than not only its predecessor but also Remedy's Control...which this feels like a complete evolution of on every level...essentially taking the aesthetic flavors of that game and merging it with intuitive gameplay that reinforces its thematic dispositions rather than fighting against them

the whole spiral not loop thing works brilliantly to sell me on the game as not just enjoyable flash and splendor but worthy of its hefty ambitions to fuse the strengths of multi mediums into a powerhouse experience that could only be delivered via a video game...subjectivity is utilized expertly to transform a clear linear progression into something that uses cyclical loops (er, spirals) to great effect

i also found myself fascinated by the lore and collectables in a way that i haven't ever felt during a game...something in the way information is delivered feels constructive rather than redundant toward the overarching point, but it also never feels like surrounding context is absolutely vital to getting it on an intuitive level...there's a fantastic balance struck between immediate accessibility and the urge to collect and learn everything for the sake of deepening immersion

and putting all that aside i just fucking love the way this game uses light and darkness and color...and space, fucking space!! these impossible spaces in which perception becomes reality and we shape our own progression mirrors Wake/Saga's inverse struggles beautifully...i'm still kinda blown away Lake and company had something this beautifully constructed in them, will uhhh probably just play this again for fun sometime i crave the comfort of its mazes and riddles and metamodern conviction in genre fiction