Really disappointing when compared to the first one. There are so many sections where your weaponry is confined, which completely changes the entire point of the game. It's no longer a matter of scoping out the area and figuring out the most effective way to kill everyone, its "how do I kill everyone while conserving my ammo?" which is way more video game tropey and unfun. All of the different masks in the first game had different buffs that were helpful, but didn't fundamentally rewire how you played the game. Here the different characters only being able to use certain weapons changes everything. The core gameplay is still fun (especially during sections where you can actually steal weapons/play normally) but overall it's very flawed.




That ending went hard though.

An interesting deconstruction of RPGs that questions the notion of what a video game is, which I can appreciate, but I feel like it tries to accomplish way more than it's able to in such a short span of time. The game drops you into a world with one dimensional characters that you interact with for a few hours before beating you over the head with "oh you're LEAVING US???" and the writing just feels really rushed. Combat's fun, music's good, and the art style is appealing, but that's really all it has going for it for me.

Pretty tough to go back to nowadays (it's a LOT slower than I remember) but will always hold a special place in my heart. All of the extra love/detail put into this beyond the core gameplay is incredible. As a kid I spent hours reading trophy bios, listening to music, and learning about the history of Nintendo through this game and I love that I could do that. Not to mention The Subspace Emissary has some of the best cutscenes of all time. There's also some banger mods that make it fun to this day.

Atmosphere is on point and it controls fine but I don't think the metroidvania formula translates that well into an FPS here. Most of the game consists of following a path, hitting a dead end, turning around until you find an item and then using the item to get through the dead end only to rinse and repeat. You could argue that's what the 2D ones did but it worked fine there because not only did you move much more quickly, but building up your arsenal felt like it had use outside of just getting to another area. Here the items feel very situational and the game just feels like I'm walking back and forth through the same areas without much purpose.

Hasn't left my mind for a day since I finished it. Despite being a small freeware game made by a single person, this is one of the best depictions of dreaming that I've ever experienced in a game. Its loose structure that pretty much forces you to walk around aimlessly and just take in all of the art/music creates this disorienting feeling that's beautifully complimented by the game's presentation. Sure a lot of the areas have the same pieces of art sprawled over and over and most of the songs are just 2-5 second loops, but those qualities help build the game's atmosphere and suspense perfectly.

It's also such a creative way to build the narrative of a character. We can learn so much about our protagonist despite not a single word of dialogue being spoken throughout the game. It's truly one of a kind and has never been recreated despite the plethora of fan games/games heavily inspired by it.