I'm a bit more jaded talking about this game than most others I've talked about and loved, because seeing some of the reaction towards it has really soured me. It took them a while, but Remedy has finally made a game that I enjoy from every angle. Max Payne I found too janky (mainly due to its age), and Alan Wake's gameplay really ground me down, but this just got everything right. Everything it takes influence from it does in wonderfully unsubtle ways, but in no way does that take away from the end result. I really can't stress just how fucking cool it is that we had a AAA company who saw a rinky dink little fan wiki and decided to make an entire game this openly inspired by it, AND to tie it into one of their preexisting IPs. The Oldest House is like a cross between The Overlook Hotel and the House (of Leaves), and is one of my favorite settings in any video game for that alone. To all the people knocking the combat... lmao, no. The abilities you get are delightfully open for comboing and pulling off stunts with, and it makes for some very fun, high-octane gameplay, even if I did admittedly find myself using one ability (you know which) way more than others. Still, at its worst, it was frustratingly difficult, and that was typically a fault of me rather than the game.

Yeah man I dunno, everything about this just kinda rocks. I really, really don't get people's beef with it, it soars over the other games in Remedy's catalog for me and is one of the coolest, most visually interesting, engaging, and inspired games I've ever had the joy to play.