alright so i liek this game a lot but it comes with a good chunk of problems. the story i find to be frankly nonsensical and hard for me to take seriously. i find everything with the cult to be very uninteresting, and a lot of times things just happen or people are just at places with no rhyme or explanation and nobody questions it. That, along with the usual sloppy dialogue and odd voice acting that is typical of SH really makes the story hard for me to enjoy at all. I like heather a lot though, or at least the idea of her. Sometimes again, she doesnt really feel like an actual human being with how she reacts to a lot of the story, but her general attitude to everything is a huge breath of fresh air compared to the blank nothingness that is harry and the depressed james.
What really amplifies this as an experience is actually playing the game. Apart from the boss fights, which suck, because SH bosses always suck really badly, the moment to moment gameplay is so fun. My least favorite part of the games beforehand was having to slog through the fog dense town itself, searching the streets for supplies and just weaving through enemies. Especially in 2 where it felt like it took forever to navigate through the town, espeically after the hospital. This is mostly ripped out of 3, and whats left is just a sequence of different liminal space-like locations, each more interesting and scary than the last. The hospital in this game deserves a special shoutout.
The enemies also feel like much more of a real threat, since your weapons, especially your melee ones, feel a lot weaker than the previous games, and the amount of ammo and health items your given feel much lower, especially without the town to explore. It makes exploring these locations feel much more tense and overwhelming. Although this bites back a bit when it comes to bosses, which are such a slog, and some enemies are very annoying, specifically the crawlers.
In general i feel this game is much scarier and its moment to moment events are much more memorable. Some of the scenes already feel burnt into my brain. I really loved actually playing and exploring through. It lacks the introspectiveness and raw emotional impact that the plot and characters of SH2 had however, and if it couldve pulled through with a story of the level of SH2, this could have been one of my favorite games ever. For now though, this is just a really good time. Difficult to say if this is my favorite out of the trilogy, or SH2. Leaning towards 2, but this is very close
What really amplifies this as an experience is actually playing the game. Apart from the boss fights, which suck, because SH bosses always suck really badly, the moment to moment gameplay is so fun. My least favorite part of the games beforehand was having to slog through the fog dense town itself, searching the streets for supplies and just weaving through enemies. Especially in 2 where it felt like it took forever to navigate through the town, espeically after the hospital. This is mostly ripped out of 3, and whats left is just a sequence of different liminal space-like locations, each more interesting and scary than the last. The hospital in this game deserves a special shoutout.
The enemies also feel like much more of a real threat, since your weapons, especially your melee ones, feel a lot weaker than the previous games, and the amount of ammo and health items your given feel much lower, especially without the town to explore. It makes exploring these locations feel much more tense and overwhelming. Although this bites back a bit when it comes to bosses, which are such a slog, and some enemies are very annoying, specifically the crawlers.
In general i feel this game is much scarier and its moment to moment events are much more memorable. Some of the scenes already feel burnt into my brain. I really loved actually playing and exploring through. It lacks the introspectiveness and raw emotional impact that the plot and characters of SH2 had however, and if it couldve pulled through with a story of the level of SH2, this could have been one of my favorite games ever. For now though, this is just a really good time. Difficult to say if this is my favorite out of the trilogy, or SH2. Leaning towards 2, but this is very close