What the hell is going on with the reviews here? I agree with bitterbatterdog, it boggles the mind that people prefer the first game and dropped this one. Both games are worth your time, but Echo Night 2: The Lord of Nightmares takes most of what Echo Night achieved and drastically improves upon it.

The very first thing I noticed upon playing Echo Night 2 was how clearly structured the story was. The first game barely explains how you even end up on a ghost ship or what your connection to the ship is until later. Echo Night 2 on the other hand firmly establishes your motives immediately - finding your girlfriend - then succinctly explains why you go to the mansion the game takes place in. From there the story develops quite naturally and comes to a fairly satisfying conclusion. Some might argue that it's not very "Fromsoft" to have a front-and-centre story, but in the case of a story-driven mystery game I think it only works to its advantage. There's still plenty of discoverable bits of story (the Church is a big one) so, in my opinion, it hasn't lost that Fromsoft charm.

The next very noticeable thing was how much more integrated the mechanics of light and dark are into the gameplay. It was barely a thing in the first game, often completely bypassed by a quick 90 degree turn and a flick of the light switch. In Echo Night 2 you are often forced to play in the dark, avoid aggressive ghosts and find a way of turning the lights on. There are even candles to give you a brief respite from the darkness in choice locations. Not only does all this make the darkness mechanic actually worthwhile and add significant depth to the game, it makes it far more of a horror game than the first one was. There are some genuinely tense moments in this!

Even further, the sequel expands on its initial premise and adds a much increased variety of gameplay. There are segments where you find and use a handheld lamp, segments where you're chased in a similar fashion to Clock Tower and more. You are also not isolated to a single location this time and you can travel (ok, teleport) around a lake to a small selection of different areas. Just to rattle off a few more improvements, we also have full voice acting this time (not just ghosts!) and the graphics have had a minor but noticeable glow up. Even the map is better! All of this stuff serves to prevent monotony in its core formula and it works - the game is about twice as long as the original and it never felt stale.

Of course there are some drawbacks. I agree that a cruise ship is probably more interesting than a manor (honestly the manor in Echo Night 2 is not all that dissimilar to the Spencer Manor) and I personally found puzzles to be less intuitive, occasionally regressing to finding a needle in a haystack. Not to mention you can and probably will miss certain ghosts and lock yourself out of the true ending.

So yes, perhaps you are sick of mansions or the puzzles frustrate you more. But my God is Echo Night 2 mostly just a straight shot better game and absolutely worth your time if you enjoyed the first, especially if you were after something a bit spookier.

From a high level and modern perspective, Echo Night isn't all that strange. At its core we have a fairly typical adventure game where you slowly work your way around a cruise ship inhabited by ghosts and solve their many problems. Occasionally you may get attacked by a vengeful ghost, but most of the time you can quickly flick the room's light on and the ghost will disappear, allowing you to focus on the puzzles again. There are no RPG elements or combat segments that most would generally associate with Fromsoft (with good reason!) and the actual horror of the game is paper thin so I imagine some might be put off from playing it. Reviews and sales from the time of its release certainly reflect that hypothesis.

This is a pretty unfair assessment of Echo Night however and it deserves your attention for the sheer amount of creativity involved here. I have neglected to mention one of the coolest things about this game - while the main game is set on a cruise liner, you constantly jump back in time and into the memories of the ghosts you're trying to help and explore a huge variety of visually interesting locations. Moving trains, graveyards, old castles, a library... there's lots of places to visit and it's always exciting when a jump happens. With such a short runtime too (~5-6 hours) the mechanic never grows stale.

Not only that, but this game is a visual treat. Sure, it's a PlayStation game so it's heavily limited in its rendering capabilities, but they managed to create a first-person perspective game with fully 3D graphics that doesn't run like arse. Every room is full of detail and visually distinct so navigating the ship as a result was a breeze. The entire reason this game even exists is because Fromsoft wanted to reuse the technology they created for King's Field 3 (King's Field 2 in the west) but push the visual fidelity to its limits.

Not everything is perfect though. The controls for instance are incredibly dated, using shoulders and triggers to control the camera. If you are emulating I highly recommend rebinding things to use the analogue control sticks. Some of the puzzles are a bit obtuse too and I wouldn't blame you for cracking out a walkthrough to get past those sections.

The definite worst offender is the casino. There are 3 ghosts you can optionally save in here but if you want the best ending it's a must. With the fruit machine or roulette table you can quite easily save scum your way to victory. However, this is impossible with the blackjack and good lord does it feel like the odds are stacked against you. Now I'm not too bad at blackjack, but the amount of times I was dealt obviously losing hands was astronomical. Either save up your tokens until the very end and do this or, if you play emulated, use save states and save yourself a headache.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet is the story. I'm in two minds about this - while I enjoyed solving the individual ghosts' problems and unravelling the mystery of the ghost ship, it was all incredibly predictable. There were also an awful lot of characters presented to you and it was very difficult to follow who's who, so I was constantly referring back to the helpful notes the game provides on each ghost encounter. I came away feeling like I understood the basic main plot but missed a lot of subtext while I was lost in my notes. Others may have a better experience with this!

Saying all that, I came away from Echo Night with a very positive outlook. Maybe it's just because I fell in love with its aesthetics, but I believe Echo Night deserves your time. If you love the PlayStation and the weird experimentation of developers, take a couple of evenings to wind down and explore the world of Echo Night and I don't think you will regret it.

Afterdream is short and sweet coming in at around 3-4 hours runtime and in general I had a good time with it. If it weren't for the fact it was a horror game I might even call it relaxing, as most of your time is spent enjoying the unfolding story and solving simple puzzles. There is a constant implied threat that occasionally manifests itself but you're never in any real danger. I don't see this as a bad thing however - in fact I think it fits the game well.

The focus is clearly on the story in Afterdream. You play as Jennifer, whom awakes in a mysterious, dilapidated building that almost feels like a dream. Donning an unfamiliar suit, you venture out of the eerie bedroom you woke up in to unravel the mystery surrounding you and your whereabouts. On your journey you will encounter interesting characters with varied personalities, unsettling and seemingly disconnected locations, and maybe the occasional scare. The story is mostly told through textual dialogue - either Jennifer monologuing about her current situation or in conversation with one of the many vibrant characters you meet. While the story itself is quite simple, the people you meet and the constant slew of events kept me hooked for the game's duration. Nothing here is going to blow your mind but the stable pacing and dream-like theming meant by the time I hit credits I was mostly satisfied. Mostly. Occasional hiccups in grammar, spelling, writing style and more brought me out of the experience. Stuff like saying "eatable" instead of "edible", "electroshocked" instead of "electrocuted" or even alluding to getting a noble prize for... sculpting something? Hell there was even a verbatim Lord of the Rings quote thrown in at one point. It's all minor stuff, but it was constant enough that it detracted from my enjoyment somewhat.

Gameplay-wise things are very simple. It is essentially a point-and-click adventure with a few bells and whistles, and puzzles are typically solved in a linear fashion. Every chapter you arrive at a new location and solve puzzles one after another, each leading into the next, until the end. There is plenty of variety here too - of course we have the classic "use item on thing" type puzzle, but we also have a plethora of unique, self-contained, Resident Evil-style puzzles that I enjoyed solving. I never particularly found myself stuck, but with the aforementioned linearity your experience may vary. A significant amount of the puzzles also involve the use of a special camera that, upon taking a photograph, might reveal hidden objects in the environment to help you on your way. Maybe half the time there are contextual or dialogue clues that encourage you towards using the camera. However, you quickly learn it's advantageous to use it in every nook and cranny regardless as there are plenty of situations where there are no hints towards a room containing a hidden object. This became a point of frustration - if you're stuck on where to go next, more often than not it's because you missed an unannounced hidden object.

Visually, Afterdream is very distinct. Everything is drawn in a pixel art style and then heavily manipulated and distorted with layers of post-process visual effects. A lot of love went into this - characters are smoothly animated and each room is noticeably different to the last, full of minute details and animations that bring them to life. It was all thematically consistent too; everything felt grimey and well-lived in and the visual effects constantly remind you of the dream-like scenario. My only criticism is that sometimes the post-processing was so heavy it obscured some of the scares. Often this was definitely the intention, but other times I got the feeling not so much.

Finally we come to the audio. Audio is always incredibly important in horror to build atmosphere and Afterdream succeeded tremendously. Ambient drones were used to great effect to build tension, with layers of atmospheric foley like a log fire burning or your echoing footsteps on a hollow wooden floor. Dialogue indications pleasantly blended into the mix and even the little ticks as you scroll through your inventory felt satisfying. When tensions rise a cacophony of sound assaults the ears and draws you into the moment, greatly enhancing the visual onslaughts the game loves to indulge in. If it isn't clear yet, the audio was a definite highlight for me and I massively encourage anyone playing to take the game's advice and wear headphones for the best experience.

Getting down to brass tacks, Afterdream is what I would call "accessible" horror. Everything about it is non-taxing: it probably won't get your heartrate up, the puzzles are varied but simple and the story is engaging but relatively one note. At the end of the day Afterdream is well crafted and entertaining, despite some minor fumbles. If you enjoy a mystery and are up for some light spooks, then I highly encourage you give it a go.