As someone who’s a big fan of “The Messenger” when I heard that this game was made by the same dev, AND is directly connected to The Messenger, I instantly scooped it up, and boy am I glad I did.

The story and writing in this game is solid, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s endearing and serviceable.

This game is absolutely gorgeous, some of the greatest pixel art work in a long long time. Every area is unique, colorful and diverse. The music is also fantastic to boot.

The world on a gameplay level is pretty good, lots of rewarding stuff to find throughout, and it even has some nice dungeons with permanent overworld utility upgrades.

The biggest plus of this game is the gameplay. Sea of Stars has one of the best combat systems in a turn based RPG, period. It’s like Mario and Luigi on steroids. The lock system and the way the different abilities for the six characters interact with the lock system makes fights engaging and strategy heavy.

Now I’m just exited for the next game this dev puts out.

Previously I wrote a review about how I did not enjoy Alan Wake 1 very much. Well playing Alan Wake 2 made 1 worth it. Playing 1 is pretty much required to get as much as possible out of 2. Now onto the main review.

Alan Wake 2 is probably the single most definitive example of how video games are art. This game hits nearly every single mark

Let’s start with the very basics. I’m not usually one to care all that much about the graphical fidelity of games, but this game is absolutely gorgeous. The opening sequence’s graphics and atmosphere completely floored me right off the bat. I will say near the end in particular I was having some issues with textures not loading in properly, although that was likely due to my hardware.

Next is gameplay. Alan Wake 2 is now one of the greats of the survival horror genre. The combat is quick, weighty and punishing, and the game spaces our encounters enough so I always felt dread about when the next enemies were going to pop out. Exploration is super rewarding as there are tons of collectibles to find throughout that are satisfying to hunt down. As a horror game AW2 blows it out of the water. This is by far the scariest game I’ve played in years, if not ever.

Last but certainly not least is the story. There’s not a whole lot I can say here is that it is fantastic. It’s mind bending, it’s meta, it’s goofy, it’s serious, it’s quite literally everything a fantastic story can be, all wrapped into one. Switching between two different campaigns on the fly was a fantastic and unique addition, and each one is so different that it was almost like playing two games.

I’m kind of all over the place with this one, but this game absolutely blew me away, and I really can’t properly explain how great it is. Just go play it.

I guess I just don't "get" Alan Wake. I bought Alan Wake 2 on high praise from some content creators whose opinion's I respect, and Epic Games gave me 1 for free, so I felt obliged to play it. I had played Control and its AWE DLC previously, but of course I didn't really understand the Alan Wake part of that story at the time.

The story in Alan Wake is pretty good, I enjoy the writing aspect tying in with the events and supernatural parts of the plot, although I do feel that they could have done more with it, such as having Wake react to the pages he finds during exploration. This all being said I don't think the story lived up to the hype that fans of the game give it.

Past the story this game just does not do it for me. In a lot of ways it feels like a resident evil clone that does not prioritize "fun." The levels are all huge sprawling linear paths that drag on for far too long. It also doesn't help that Wake feels terrible to control, and can sprint for a whole 10 seconds before getting tired.

The atmosphere of the world is nice overall, however it is all thrown away when enemies spawn, accompanied by a shock violin stinger and slow motion, with enemies saying nonsensical random lines.

The combat in this game has potential, however it just does not cut it. Having to shine your light at enemies for several seconds before you can damage them does not work for the most part, and just makes the core of combat dodging around until you can unload and kill an enemy. This is not helped by the "deemphasized aiming" as I like to describe it. You don't actually need to aim your shots, they'll just land if you're pointing in the general direction, taking all strategy out of the combat. The game seems to pretend it's "survival horror" but not once did I have to worry about my ammo consumption.

On top of the lackluster gameplay the enemy variety is also terrible, as it just consists of small medium and large dudes with melee weapons, inanimate objects, and birds.

When comparing this game to its kind of sequel, Control, it is clear that the devs really improved the gameplay aspect of their projects, so I am hopeful that I will enjoy Alan Wake 2 much more than I enjoyed 1.