What a disappoinment. I liked the first game, it was a surprisingly good narrative experience, visually stunning for it's time, with some chunks of combat and simple puzzles, exploring the themes of love, loss, grief, peace, etc, on a short destination journey through the struggling mind of a mentally ill protagonist, delivered by a small team of 20 people. It was great for what it was - a short indie game.
The sequel, on the other hand.. Much bigger budget, much bigger team, 6 years of development, and... we get LESS of the same. Getting the obvious out of the way - the game does look amazing, but that's about it. I didn't want to play an Unreal Engine 5 tech-demo.
I don't have a problem with the game being a walking simulator, sometimes I'm in the mood for an "interactive movie-game", but GOD.. I do have a problem with the story. It's awful. Basically non-existent. I couldn't care less about it, about the characters, about the "emotions", which just felt forced.
The voices, that were a cool addition for some banter and a character growth in the first game, became a constant annoying chatter that doesn't say anything at all. They just cycle 2 types of sentences about "light" or "darkness", and it's getting old really quick.
The whole "schizophrenia" stuff of the first game that the devs were so proud to show and represent in the game, loses it's point once tons of characters appear and participate in the fantasy plot.
The game is 5-6 hours long, and you spend half of it slowly crawling in a dark CAVE holding "forward", I'm not kidding. But honestly, I wouldn't mind crawling even more, just give me an ENGAGING STORY, it's your ONLY job with a game like that. Did they really spend 5 years photoscanning Iceland to deliver a realistic environment, and the most realistic and detailed cave I've seen in a videogame..? I mean, cool, I guess.. was it worth it, though.
The sequel, on the other hand.. Much bigger budget, much bigger team, 6 years of development, and... we get LESS of the same. Getting the obvious out of the way - the game does look amazing, but that's about it. I didn't want to play an Unreal Engine 5 tech-demo.
I don't have a problem with the game being a walking simulator, sometimes I'm in the mood for an "interactive movie-game", but GOD.. I do have a problem with the story. It's awful. Basically non-existent. I couldn't care less about it, about the characters, about the "emotions", which just felt forced.
The voices, that were a cool addition for some banter and a character growth in the first game, became a constant annoying chatter that doesn't say anything at all. They just cycle 2 types of sentences about "light" or "darkness", and it's getting old really quick.
The whole "schizophrenia" stuff of the first game that the devs were so proud to show and represent in the game, loses it's point once tons of characters appear and participate in the fantasy plot.
The game is 5-6 hours long, and you spend half of it slowly crawling in a dark CAVE holding "forward", I'm not kidding. But honestly, I wouldn't mind crawling even more, just give me an ENGAGING STORY, it's your ONLY job with a game like that. Did they really spend 5 years photoscanning Iceland to deliver a realistic environment, and the most realistic and detailed cave I've seen in a videogame..? I mean, cool, I guess.. was it worth it, though.