"Alan Wake 2 is a game that shows what videogames are capable of"

Well, I imagine that a large number of people, when reading this highlighted phrase, will imagine a game that demonstrates cutting-edge technology, photo-realistic visuals, or even surprising performance. But definitely not the case where I wanted to refer to that kind of thing.

Alan Wake 2 tries to push the limits of what is possible to present and (only) achieve through a game. Using different multimedia formats to convey a plot, whether through meta commentary, live action cinematic cutscenes, different forms of interaction in the environment and fourth wall breaks, may not be a new thing. But it is certainly the game that comes closest to what was idealized by Sam Lake throughout his career, by playing with these elements in a coherent way, and delivering an experience that is unlike ANY other game I have seen playing videogames for more than 20 years.

And speaking of which, I believe that the most important thing in a game is the experience it gives you, and without a doubt, Alan Wake 2 is a game that cannot be explained. I could say that it is one of the best survival horror titles of recent decades, going head to head with classics like Silent Hill 2 or the original Resident Evil, or I could even say that it has one of the best and most ingenious plots and ways of tell a story that you can find in any medium. But it doesn't make sense, nothing I can say could do him justice.

Alan Wake 2 is a game that needs to be experienced above all else, and I hope everyone can give it a chance someday.

I did not play Alan Wake 1. I played Control for 5-10 hours and didn't like it much so I gave up. I had zero interest in Alan Wake 2 throughout all of its pre-release trailers and such.

Then the reviews came out and the word of mouth spread fast. Apparently this game was awesome in plenty of unique ways. I decided to bite.

I'm very glad I did. It's fantastic, and mostly for reasons that other games don't even attempt to pull off. In some weird way, I'd describe this game as a Naughty Dog/Capcom game that for some reason Kojima was given creative control over. It's a strange mix of TLoU, RE, and a Kojima game. I guess that's just kind of Remedy's thing, but I don't think they've pulled it off til now. To be fair, I have only attempted playing one other game by them. But Control seems to be the one people claim is their best work (until this?), so I think this is a massive step in the right direction.

First, I will get a couple of my issues out of the way. I think it's odd that you are given the freedom to switch between the two characters for the majority of the game. I think it should be streamlined and forced a bit more. It might be a little more coherent if it was told in a more specific order instead of leaving it up to the player to figure out the timing of. I understood what was going on (to an extent) but it was always in the back of my mind... "should I be switching to Alan now?" and vice versa. I didn't like the added stress knowing I had to interrupt the flow I was in. I played most of Saga's story back to back to back because I preferred playing as her. Then I had to revisit Alan's story near the end and it was a bit of a weird transition. To sum that up - the pacing is a bit strange because it is self-dictated in a way. It would probably still be strange even if they made it more linear, but it would be less distracting that way.

The controls are just... fine. Fighting things didn't feel fantastic but it also worked well enough that it never really bothered me. I'm also glad they kept the combat to a minimum. I assume they knew it wasn't a strong point and wasn't going to be why people were engaged. The spooky atmosphere and the way everything draws your eye and attention is what is engaging. Heck, even the story itself is engaging which I can't say for a whole lot of games. I will say I constantly had way too many resources, though. For the last third of the game I literally couldn't pick things up because my inventory AND my storage box was full. I think they messed up on the balance in that regard. The game felt too easy, despite it also feeling stressful due to the way the enemies worked. Never really knowing when you're going to be attacked (or straight up jump-scared) kept me on the edge the entire game, which was great. Like I said, though, I was never afraid of actually dying, so that was a bit of a weird juxtaposition. Perhaps I should have played on Hard, if that was an option. I don't remember, but probably.

Those are really my only gripes. Now on to the good stuff.

I touched on it already so I'll expand on my thoughts. The plot(s) held my interest all the way through. This is a very difficult thing for a game to do for me. I generally don't care, unless the game really excels in this category. Even though I didn't play the things that lead up to this game, I fully enjoyed the story here. (I did watch a couple recaps, at least, so I kind of knew what I was getting in to.) Those claiming Alan Wake 1 must be played before hand are simply incorrect, because I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Some highlights are:
- Saga's Mind Place - it was oddly enjoyable piecing together the evidence on the board. It made it easier to keep up with all the aspects of the story.
- The way Alan narrates things while you play to help you understand what's going on without it breaking immersion because it actually makes sense in context. This is VERY noticeable in contrast to most games where protagonists talk to themselves for no reason. I hate that shit.
- Most of the characters are very well acted and memorable such as Saga, Alan, Ahti, Casey, Mr. Door, Tor and Odin, The Koskela Brothers, Rose, and plenty of other smaller characters. This is where I feel that Naughty Dog feeling creep in.
- For the most part, I enjoyed solving the puzzles. There were a decent amount and I never really got tired of doing them. I'd say there were 2 or 3 where I looked up a solution because I totally did not get it. Otherwise, they're pretty fun to figure out. A little more sensical than the way RE deals with things. Sticking random objects in random places is not intuitive.
- This might be the scariest game I've ever played. Or, at least... the most unsettling. I loved it. I always felt a sense of dread despite what I said earlier about not actually being afraid of dying due to the difficulty. It just makes you feel like you constantly need to be looking over your shoulder, especially when playing as Alan.
- The maps were the perfect size, and the game is the perfect length. I never felt as though there was too much ground to cover. I loved exploring every inch of each area and making sure to find everything there was to find. The game didn't overstay its welcome and I was satisfied when it ended.

All in all, it's a wonderful package. This game does a lot of special things that I hope Naughty Dog, Capcom (RE) and Kojima Productions take note of. Sure, other studios have a lot they can take from here as well, but those 3 specifically stand to benefit a ton if they took some cues from this.

OH, I FORGOT THE MUSIC BREAKS.

Man... I loved the musical interludes in between the chapters. It was always a pleasure to just sit and listen to each one as you reflect on what just happened. Specifically, a couple chapters in when "Follow you in to the Dark" played, this game solidified itself for me as one of the greats. I've listened to it many times since. Listening to it now and getting goosebumps again. I do think the game peaked early with the music but it was still great afterwards.

...also... that music video sequence with Alan was insanity. Seeing a few people on Twitter write about "that sequence" when the game released without spoiling it was one of the reasons I caved and bought the game. The insistence everyone had to ensure that was kept a secret but also the insistence on saying something about whatever "THAT" was sold me. It really is THAT wild as a concept in a mostly serious video game.

I guess that's my final thought. They did a GREAT job of making a game that is simultaneously very serious and very funny. They also don't let these two things step on each others toes... ever. This game is funny, scary, introspective, creepy, sensory-overloading, unsettling, and a little bit wholesome all rolled in to one very unique experience that I don't think will be replicated for a while.

Remedy just rose way up the ranks for me. Before this game, I didn't care about them at all, really.

It's fantastic. Having already played the game a decade ago, I decided to put it down half way through this version despite it clearly being the best version of the game now. There's too much else I want to play, but I love what they did here. All of the improvements to the visuals, the UI, the navigation, and the battles are greatly appreciated. I hope they do it to Persona 4 as well.

Persona 3 probably has the strongest overall tone/atmosphere of the three games. I appreciate how dark it feels. The cast as a whole is really strong, too. I just don't particularly care for any of the characters individually as much outside of Mitsuru and Akihiko being awesome. Persona 3 feels more mature in its writing than 4/5. The characters come off as older even though they aren't.

Regardless, I still think it's the weakest of "the 3" Persona games. 4>5>3. It's still a 10/10 though.

As a shooter nu-DOOM is undoubtedly better than old DOOM, as a game though there's a lot missing. Sure old doom is a fast-paced game and there's a lot of vector-based physics to the gameplay, but equally important are it's level philosophies. Old Doom levels were expansive and sprawling, and even in some cases non-linear. Equally important to your shooting ability was your knowledge of the map, what routes to take and when, resource-management for the harder encounters, when to grab the secrets, etc. 2016Doom has none of this, and most maps are combat tunnel to combat tunnel to combat arena to combat tunnel. 2016Doom is a strong enough shooter that this isn't a big problem enough to really tarnish the game, but it does limit it's potential by quite a bit. You don't have to ape the old doom 1:1, and I appreciate id is trying something different with the franchise, but the maps feels like a step-back in an important regard without anything equally good to replace it.

Oh boy, people are really sleeping on this game. Don't overlook it because it seems like a meaningless spin-off. It is probably my favourite Tactical RPG. It's pretty similar in a few ways to the Mario + Rabbids series, but it does a better job in most categories.

Unfortunately, I played the game on the regular difficulty and I totally forgot there were other options. Nearing the end of the game I was thinking "Hmm, one of my main issues is that it's too easy." By that point, I didn't feel like swapping difficulties suddenly but I have read that the higher difficulties are balanced better. I wish I would have played on hard or higher. Instead, I'll just leave this here in case this review convinces you to play the game. It's not just about health increases, it makes the game more tactical due to friendly fire and a couple other changes. Check 'em out. I don't recommend playing on normal unless you want to breeze through or have a tough time with games like this.

I would also like to point out here that I played Persona 5, but not Royal or Strikers. I did play Dancing, but that wasn't much of anything. Anways, I say this to acknowledge that I don't feel "burnt out" by P5 whatsoever, which may have made this experience better than what others may claim.

I'm gonna go with a simple positives and negatives list for this one.

+ This combat system is awesome! I love the way you move around. I love how you can strategize to take your turns in a certain order to maximize your movement. I love how you can position enemies a certain way to consistently enable "1-more!" attack and extend your turn.

+ With your team of 3, you can use your mobility options to maneuver the map and then triangulate your position. If you make sure you are surrounding at least one "downed" enemy - anyone within the triangle you have created will be eviscerated by an All-Out Attack. It's probably the most fun and engaging thing I've done in an RPG of this nature. It's so satisfying every single time. It made me feel like a genius consistently. Ensuring your team is spread out is more risky, as you are less able to help one another; but it allows you to cover the entire map in a giant deadly triangle.

+ Partially related to the above comment is how much I liked certain levels in this game. For example, navigating an arena that has tons of rising/falling platforms that can only be accessed from certain directions is actually really fun. It turns the battles in to a maze of sorts, but in a good way. It adds to your sense of mobility. It makes it harder to move around, but it also allows you to really feel like you're solving a fun perspective puzzle at the same time. This isn't always executed well in games; but it's great here.

+ ... and partially related to THAT comment is just my general enjoyment of the verticality of the battle arenas. I love using height to your advantage. There are multiple ways they use the vertical nature of levels to give you ways to advantageously position yourself. Rising/falling platforms, ladders, attacks that take advantage of height, etc. all make for really fun ways to turn the layout of the map in your favor.

+ Fine-tuning each characters stats to suit the role you want them to fill is very rewarding. They all have strengths built in, but you can customize them a bit to do exactly what you want. Whether it be firearm usage, Persona usage, melee attacks, or mobility. There are lots of options in terms of the crafting of your team.

+ Not only that, but in a miraculous turn of events that most games fail to do... YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE JOKER! It's painful when you're playing a Mario RPG, for instance, and you have to use Mario. Ew. The supporting cast in most RPGs are almost always my preferred team to use, and it's rarely an option to ditch the MC. Funnily enough, I actually like Joker so I used him frequently. Actually, this leads me to my next point.

+ The game encourages you to not use the same team every time, by incentivizing you with bonuses. Most missions consist of 2 or 3 back-to-back fights. Between them you can tweak some things. One of those tweaks you can make is your team set-up. However, if you swap to a new team member at this time - you get an HP and SP (Skill Point) bonus! What I did was switch up my team every single time. You can use 3 party members at once so I swapped between Makoto, Erina, Haru, Ryuji, Joker, and Ann. Use 3 of them, then swap to the other 3. Love it. Morgana and Yusuke were only used when I was forced to in a side mission. I really don't care for them as characters, so I was happy to leave them out. Ann isn't the best either, but I prefer her to them. To wrap up my point - not only did I not HAVE to use the main character, but I was also able to reasonably use all the characters I like! Not only was I not punished for switching up my team all the time, but I was encouraged to do so! This might be my favourite implementation of the way a team is structed in an RPG. Good stuff.

+ As always, the art style, UI design, and animation quality is top-notch. Love it. I'm not a HUGE fan of the "chibi" nature, but it doesn't really bother me. It's only really present in a couple of cutscenes and it doesn't subtract much from the experience. Otherwise, it's beautiful in every way. I will never get over the way Persona games look. The Persona team are untouched in this category. Actually, Hi-Fi Rush managed to match it, tbh.

+ I enjoyed the Persona fusion system. What was even more fun is something you unlock a bit later that I won't spoil, but it involves your weapons. It's a cool feature that I'd like to see more of.

+ Great music, as per usual. I will say nothing stood out as a uniquely fantastic track, but overall it's one of the better OSTs this year.

+ The two new characters introduced in to this game are excellent. Erina especially is a lovely addition to the cast. Toshiro is cool, too. I won't spoil anything about them here.

+ Additionally, the voice acting is great. It is mostly voice acted outside of side activities, which is greatly appreciated. Again, the 2 new characters specifically do a great job here.

+ It's written well, though it does get a bit repetitive with its messaging at times. Mixing wholesome with humour is something Persona always does well, and it's no different here.

- At what turned out to be about 75% through the game, I was satisfied with the games length. I thought it was ending, but then it continues for another 5-8 hours in classic Persona fashion. I kinda wish it didn't. I was happy with the 25 or so hours I had spent with it, but it ended up being about 32 hours (I think?) I'm glad it's as short as it is (as opposed to it being 100 hours), but it does get a bit repetitive in the later missions.

- The enemy variety is a bit lackluster. One of the enemies in particular is just annoying, as well. It isn't really satisfying to deal with; it's really just there to block your path which kinda sucks.

- Contrary to one of my positive points, a couple of the levels are annoying to deal with, particularly when you're presented with doors that open/close. Some are by your doing, and some are based on what turn it is. Either way, they impede movement. Your movement options are a highlight of this games combat system, and you're pretty restricted in the levels with doors. Not a fan.

- It's too easy. But again I don't know if this is truly valid as I didn't play on a harder difficulty, which I totally should have. I wish I could comment on the added features of the higher difficulties.

Overall, if you like Persona or you like tactical RPGs; I highly suggest you do not skip this. It's one of the best of both of those things, though it does have its fair share of issues. I could see a world where I could give this game a 5/5. If I had played on a higher difficulty... it may have happened. Although the game does suffer from a problem of repetition, which might just be too big an issue for a more glowing review to occur.

Video version of this review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBQOJsowE0

I decided to play this game after seeing the great reviews it was getting at launch, and I'm definitely glad I did, as I was craving a good creature-collector and this feels like a good in-between of the simplicity of pokemon and the complexity of something like SMT.

The game has you in an open world, with progression to certain parts of the map barred by getting upgrades to your movement by capturing certain monsters in each zone. These include simple things such as swimming in water, to more advanced tools like a magnetism field, that can pull certain objects to you, and pull you to others. The way I found these tools felt natural, and I never felt like it was going to take me ages to unlock a new tool to get where I needed.

Before I talk about more I want to quickly praise the combat. The game has the standard formula of types with resistances and weaknesses, but instead of affecting damage, the game gives you buffs and debuffs. For example, hitting a water monster with a fire attack creates steam around the water monster, increasing their evasion. However, hitting them with a grass attack gives you a health leech at the end of their moves. The game has an incredibly large amount of status effects you can achieve through this, leading to a lot of strategy. This is increased due to always having a partner with you, allowing a lot of experimentation with combos. You can also build a meter to fuse with your partner in battle, combining your two monsters into one for a power boost.

There are two main things you'll be searching for in the world. One are the ranger captains, 16 people that serve as the sort of 'gym leaders' for this game. You'll find them in the overworld, and instead of being focused on a type they each have their own playstyle you have to work around. Some of these were pretty hard to work around, with them abusing some strategies that can be really strong.
The other main quest are the archangel boss fights. These are more traditional bosses with large health pools, and usually with some sort of gimmick that you have to work around. While the fights themselves are fun, I would especially like to commend the designs for the archangels, with each one being done in a different artstyle, from a mish-mash of collage images to a realistic-looking puppet, they all looked great and I often looked forward to seeing the new design more than the actual fight.
It's also worth noting that, as far as I could tell, these fights scale to the current level of the player to an extent. This alleviates the issue of finding a boss in a beginner area that you missed and steamrolling it, which is really nice to see.

You travel through the game with a companion, of which you have six. You unlock them throughout the game by completing a side-quest for them, and can swap them at the main hub. They also all have their own social-link style friendship system, which unlocks new conversations with and a boost to your fusion power with them each level. While this is a nice system to have, and the characters are all charming, the conversations you get are pretty short, and it would've been nice to see more development through them.

I'd also like to shout out the games music. It has a variety of vocal tracks which naturally fade in and out of instrumental tracks. Most of these kick in during battle when you fuse, but there's one that plays in the hub town which is definitely the standout for the game.

Overall, a really fun game! I enjoyed pretty much everything about it, with my only main gripe being the lack of extra development that I would've loved to see your party receive. I haven't played many creature-collecting games outside of pokemon, but if more are up to this standard, I'll definitely be trying them.

Easily the best Harry Potter game. Obvious nostalgia for some of the set pieces, but also just generally a lot of stuff to do that I enjoyed. The weakest part is the usual where dialogue options don't usually give different consequences. Not the largest issue if you're just going through to enjoy the plot & side quests, but I was trying to be a bit more of an evil character (because roleplaying as your character can make games better). Multiplayer would be a nice touch to it all.

Also, I would die for Sebastian Sallow. He deserves everything.