I love a good narrative, when the gameplay and the game design can follow up. My problem with Rockstar games is that the gameplay and the game design are really basics. It's not a problem for RDR, but it will be in RDR2...

Here, I love the Sergio Leone vibe. It's almost like playing The Good, The Bad and The Ugly or One Upon in America. The influence of those movies is everywhere, and it's just great. You travel through a changing far-west, land of violence, and your mission is to capture one the last gang leader. In the direction, everything goes in the direction of modernity. You arrive by train, you help a revolution, you put an end to a life of crime, and Rockstar knows it's cinematography well.

RDR let's you explore with pretty good things to lead you, just like the treasure maps. No marker on the map, it's just you and your memory, and it feels great when you fing a chest. It's the same when you find some easter eggs or just little details in the world.

But with the gameplay, it's basic. Point and shoot, there is an auto-aim anyway. I don't feel powerful when I just need too press X to be a badass cowboy, and that is the big fault here. I can look away in this game, but not in the following ones...

I really love the game, and I wanted to give it 5/5, but I objectively can't. And even 4/5 might be a bit too high.

Il love it because of the well written story, enjoyable through the eye of 4 main characters. It's a great depiction of war and it's complexity. No choice is easy, every character has a strong personnality and you get attached to most of them. The style of the writing itself is really good, at least in the French localisation. I usually play games in their original language or in english, but I love the quality of the language in French localisation (accessible because well, I'm French...). Just for the story, you can play 300+ hours !

That said, the game is realy good in it's gameplay and game-design. If you play with permadeath. And I'm not a fan of letting the player choose such an important part of the game design, but at least the game is accessible. Every battle allows you to try various and more or less complex strategies. But if you play in normal / beginner, you can just force your way, witch is regrettable, but hey, just pick the difficulty you need ! The real fault is that every mission is just "kill everyone" or "kill the boss". Previous FE Fates - Conquest was way more interesting with "survive X turns" or "go to that square" or "don't let that ennemy run away"...

And, the real bad point of the game is purely technical : the monastery. Poor textures, emptyness or still character, this hub feels a bit poor. Not bad, but could be better in the way you interract with the students, the guard or the other teachers. More diverse (and useful) activities would have been great.

A pretty good non-linear story, very imaginative and deeply inspired by Stephen King works. Tou collect novel pages that describe past actions, or actions yet to be lived. The story is backed by a great atmosphere by the way it's told, built on a dark night and a troubling sound design. Murmurs follows you and ennemies come to you saying strange banalities.

If the story and the atmosphere are great, the gameplay is not always convincing. 60% of the time, it's a basic TPS. Too much ammo and battries make the gun fights very easy in "normal", witch is a poor game-design choice. Alan Wake is rigid to control, that does not help either. But there is some good part : the poltergeist, the birds attacks or the electrical plant are inspired pieces of gameplay.

Overall, Alan Wake is a really good experience, just a bit repetitive, witch deservce to be known or it's great narrative design and storytelling.