Hugely disappointing follow-up to the original game. Of course, maybe it shouldn't have been knowing Mikami was replaced as director, and the lead concept artist, Ikumi Nakamura, was completely absent from this project as well.
From the cornball story, to the horrible voice-acting, to the complete lack of a grimy atmosphere, to those canned animation dialogues that look ripped out of a Tony Hawk game, to the horrid enemy designs, depression hit me like a bucket of water fairly early into the game . . . and that bucket kept refilling.
The gameplay is overall fine, but the structure and design of the open world (if you want to call it that) is awful. I can tell they're trying to go for a really actiony Silent Hill 1 vibe, but it doesn't work for me at all. Exploring the town is very uninteresting, and the nonlinearity only harmed the pace.
Overall, I think the biggest misstep was trying to emphasize on the characterizations, which a lot of sequels fall into. The world never felt like a daunting mystery, but harassment from the villains that feel more appropriate for Goosebumps fodder.
From the cornball story, to the horrible voice-acting, to the complete lack of a grimy atmosphere, to those canned animation dialogues that look ripped out of a Tony Hawk game, to the horrid enemy designs, depression hit me like a bucket of water fairly early into the game . . . and that bucket kept refilling.
The gameplay is overall fine, but the structure and design of the open world (if you want to call it that) is awful. I can tell they're trying to go for a really actiony Silent Hill 1 vibe, but it doesn't work for me at all. Exploring the town is very uninteresting, and the nonlinearity only harmed the pace.
Overall, I think the biggest misstep was trying to emphasize on the characterizations, which a lot of sequels fall into. The world never felt like a daunting mystery, but harassment from the villains that feel more appropriate for Goosebumps fodder.