I really enjoyed this game a bit more than the first game despite a lot of the allure of the first one completely being gone here. the big appeal arguably for the first game was the complete mystery and obscurity for why the player is supposed to do anything which made the simple act of walking a hallway pretty nerve wrecking so it makes sense to me that they stopped trying that to push that perspective in its design completely once they explained why things work. the biggest thing I don't understand is why they changed the voice actors, it gave me big whiplash hearing Sebastian sound so energetically edgy and raspy when his original voice was monotone and quiet but I'm sure the budget cut had something to do with it. with the game revolving around the open world I think a lot of its scripted events took a big hit in quality which depends on how you view it could definitely be a bad thing however the massive improvements to the gameplay itself is something that made me enjoy exploring every minute detail (even if the scenery itself began to look a bit more repetitive with its reused assets the more I looked especially in its regard to foliage). some thing people don't point out is how all the miniscule things that could kill you instantly without warning in the first game seem to have disappeared alongside the gimicks to spice the gameplay like the turrets and hallway chases but I don't think the average person cared too much but I'm sure there exists a demographic of TEW1 fan that enjoyed that aspect. I personally don't mind the massive overhaul in its premise simply because I think it would have been really hard trying to top the first game's story and presentation. the story made sense to me from a lore sense but Sebastian's involvement in it with his family really felt janky to me at first cant lie. the boss fights here were great and I enjoyed the call backs to the first game very curious to see if a third game ever comes to existence since Ghostwire: Tokyo was initially supposed to be that & Shinji Mikami has left his own company :(. really funny how Shinji Mikami has made 2 different franchises with 2 different companies and the things they have in common aside from being horror is the fact that they both feature a greedy corporation that has police on payroll and they both had planned sequels that ended up becoming to their own separate IP