"improves" on the more polarizing elements of the original by almost completely removing what it excelled at and made it so unique while having nothing special to offer of its own.

combat gameplay sees an almost universal downgrade from the original (even after some considerable skill upgrades) so it's nice that the AI is so braindead and you can stealth almost everything. when you can't it's probably tragic but at least you should have plenty of ammo if you've been stealthy or even avoiding combat like i was.

the varied grab bag of horrific settings and aesthetics is (mostly) thrown out for a bland town based hub with side quests, enemies that you won't want to bother with, and random shit everywhere. in the later chapters of the game things become more linear in addition to finally getting somewhere in terms of having standout visual design but then it's over.

new Sebastian is a bit of a bummer both in terms of voice over and characterization. the sad dad thing feels like the most boring possible thing to have done. whereas TEW1 felt like a breath of fresh air when it released, this was blatantly of its time. (and that time was a bit shit lmao)

not unplayable but a massive disappointment regardless.

the story is kind of a mess with villains that are not established well and some predictable writing. also the enemies' ability to detect you while you're trying to sneak up on them and do an instant 180 could be pretty frustrating sometimes. however the gameplay is pretty fun just like the first game and i enjoyed the environments and resource management (i played on nightmare so i did get really low on ammo sometimes). same appeal as the first game with the mindfucky flow of events and general design, which i greatly enjoyed, but i feel that some of the set pieces and boss fights could have been more striking as they didn't invoke the same sense of terror as the first game

Less consistently scary, but more fun, both in its stealth and shooting.

Yet I found myself missing the highs of fear from the first one or the constant dread I felt walking down the unpredictable villages, city streets, and hospitals of the first game.

The story manages to somehow be even hammier than the first one, but I can’t deny that as a parent the start of the game really worked for me - running into a burning building, knowing I’d die trying to save her, I thought, if it was my kid yelling for her daddy to help, I would to it instantly, fuck all my chances of survival. And while the finale of the game felt mechanically lackluster (especially the shooting gallery parts), as a parent and married, I found it touching and my love for Sebastian, the protagonist, was higher than ever before seeing the way he carried his daughter. And to think I actually missed the moody serious Sebastian from the previous game at first.

Some of the story stuff about overcoming grief and understanding that you are not at fault for things that you didn’t have any power over is also pretty good. And this time it also didn't take 6 hours for the game to finally start explaining something or giving you a proper goal.

Everything with the administrator is whacked though (and what is it with his animations? What is he doing with his hands all the time? Why? Nobody gesticulates like that). And I kinda low-key hated where the story went with most of the side-characters, thinking “fucking bullshit” more than once.

But I did like Union the city, even though I think it doesn’t do enough to stand out as a memorable video game place. There were some moments though where I had the same kind of nostalgic-for-stereotypical-life-from-the-movies feeling that so heavily pervaded my experience of Control (even though covid isolation has long since ended in my country), but the downside of the stealth and open maps is that the rules governing the enemy AI become more clear and the game itself through that feels safer. A horror game is less effective with its horror when it’s approached as just a set of mechanics and rules meant to create an experience. You’re supposed to fear the monsters, not think how juking them in unrealistic ways can allow you to backstab the whole gang without wasting any ammo.

Ultimately it’s this gaminess that proved to undermine the game for me. As the end was approaching, I was ready to be done with it, so facing another small area with a new enemy filled me with dread not for the monsters, but the boredom. There’s not enough ammunition to really enjoy it as an action game (at least not on Nightmare) so you’re forced to mess around with the AI in silly ways to succeed.

Crafting is another part of the game where I appreciate them trying something new, but with it is also gone the precise balance of ammunition from the first game where you always had too little to feel good but enough to survive that made it feel so great and added to the constant dread. Here there are times when I had to scavenge around before I could do sidequests because I just didn’t have enough ammunition to survive them; and bosses take so long that they have to magically keep refilling ammo drops for you to be able to survive.

I still enjoyed the game and coupled with the first Evil Within (which is in many ways a very different game, in some ways worse and in others better) I quite like this series. I’m both sad that there’s no third Evil Within, but also glad that poor Sebastian didn’t have to return to this hell again.

something about the way straight combat feels in this game made me want to avoid it pretty much universally, and in particular the claustrophobic defense against assault portions like in the cabin or with the yukiko escort section it honestly felt kinda broken to me, so most of the game experience here was me sneaking through the maps, stealth killing, gathering crafting resources to upgrade equipment and make sure i had enough syringes/medkits/ammo for minimal pain in the boss fights. and for the most part i baseline enjoyed it but compared to the first game (especially after booting that up right after i finished this one) this one felt a little banal, and especially given its length i'm not too likely to ever play through it again. there are open world games i love but the maps and gameplay dynamics here just don't hold together in a very compelling way to me.

Uma sequência bem sólida pro primeiro jogo, praticamente melhorou todos os aspectos do anterior, especialmente no gameplay, apesar de eu sentir que a narrativa ficou um pouco mais fraca (a história é boa, mas achei que foi mal executada em alguns momentos e tive dificuldade de me apegar aos personagens ou me importar muito com o que tava acontecendo. Não tem mais o mistério do S.T.E.M do primeiro jogo, então também quebra um pouco do seu interesse).

Não diria que é um jogo espetacular, certamente não chega no nível dos survival horrors mais aclamados, mas é um bom jogo mesmo assim, não me arrependo de ter jogado, e em geral gosto bastante dos dois Evil Withins, espero que saia um terceiro!

this game is SO MUCH BETTER than the first one.
It's not a corridor shooter that assaults you with QTEs, but feels like a solid Resident Evil-type game. Different yet similar enough.

A shame that it frontloads you with its best level - an open district of a city where you can go into quite a few buildings (think RE Village with less lock-and-key crap). After that, the locations become smaller or way more linear. A few other districts are about half the size, and there are a few dungeon-type areas.

Still, the gameplay was satisfying, the collectables meaningful, and the story personal (as opposed to original's... Kinda nothing). The creatures still kick ass. I remember when they showcased the safe-head in the trailers for 1, and it felt like a Pyramid Head ripoff. It sorta is, but EVERY creature is so unique and cool, that one dude in a coat with an object for a head doesn't really bother me.

It's not a very scary game thanks to more emphasis on combat, but there are still tiny linear spook-visions that are a microcosm of The Evil Within 1, which was effectively a haunted house ride. I didn't really like them gameplay-wise, but atmospherically they were definitely great.

The only thing it did worse is that none of the NPCs can replace Joseph from the first game. He was a cute twink detective who was a really great character. Also, like, the ONLY character in The Evil Within 1, but he's still memorable on his own, even if he were placed into a game with bigger and cooler cast.
No one in TEW2 is as cute. Well, there is a kitty, I suppose.

Honestly, if Tango's JoJo is directing Part 3, I'm down.

Its kinda funny, my thoughts on this game are similar to my thoughts on the dishonored games (1+2) .....

1 is superior in every way besides gameplay
2 is superior in gameplay alone

The story of this game was def more grounded, which isnt bad but isnt as interesting to me at least. I loved how insane the first game was, and that things didn't make perfect sense, it felt so trippy and fun. Whereas this game's story was uninspired and dragged on (esp the beginning and the ending which were waaaaay dragged out)

But like overall this game was more fun to play for sure, I loved the areas and the gameplay itself was super fun. I do wish it was a bit more gorey and visceral horror like the first but the change wasn't bad per se.

Would recommend even tho it lost some of its artistic flare of the first imo

After recently playing the first game, TEW2 was a bit of a disappointment for me. The former established a unique aesthetic and niche in survival horror, with excellent, balanced gunplay, level design and pacing, and while this game keeps some of that, it falls flatter than the first in several ways. I enjoyed parts of this game for sure, particularly the last few chapters which I think were the best part across both games, especially the final boss, but my enjoyment was far less consistent than the first.

The Evil Within 2 does have some really neat ideas, and the better parts of the game in the more linear, scripted segments of the world akin to TEW1. For example, the first villain of the game, Stefano, is super neat. An artist using murder as his medium is an awesome, disturbing idea that fit right in-line with what I'd expect from these games.

Unfortunately, in between some of the more interesting ideas is the bland, frustrating, and poorly constructed 'open world' part of the game that I really could have done without. TEW2 focuses a lot more on stealth than the first, especially because you don't get nearly enough ammo, crafted or not, to take out all the enemies you encounter, and so in most situations it is best to either wait to sneak kill everything or just run past the enemies. I do really like the combat in these games (although I found that the combat did 'feel' better in the first), so not really being able to participate in it much to play optimally was frustrating. Going through the open world ends up just being a race away from enemies while trying to go from location to location, especially when trying to avoid the Guardian and other 'rare' enemies.

This ammo problem is present all throughout the game, particularly in boss fights. There are a lot of enemies and bosses that have huge health pools, and for a couple fights I had to basically just loop around the areas that respawn a few handgun shots for like 30 minutes to finally be able to kill them. Sometimes you'll track a fallen soldier to get some ammo, only to get one single shotgun shell, often not even enough to kill a single enemy. Of course ammo management is a part of the survival horror genre, but I haven't had it be nearly this big of an issue before and I just found myself getting very frustrated, much more than in the first game, at both that and the designs of some of the enemy encounters in general.

Despite my issues with the game there were certainly a lot of positives as well. While it loses the grittier aesthetic of the first, which I do prefer, there are some pretty beautiful moments that exemplify what makes both of these games pretty unique. As I mentioned earlier, the final few hours of this game are my favorite in the franchise. There is some absolutely gorgeous scenery, storytelling, and excellent combat sequences of which I wish the game had more of. The final boss I think is my favorite final boss in any horror game I've played, and not only fixes the ammo issue but is easily the best designed fight in the series.

I would say that overall The Evil Within duology is somewhat underrated, and any survival horror fan should play these games, especially the first. I don't like how different some of TEW2 is compared to the first, and I do feel like it lost some of the magic due to a kind of 'triple-A-ification' of a lot of mechanics. While I am a bit disappointed with this I am comfortable saying that I am a fan of this franchise, and would love to see a third entry one day.

7.5/10