unfortunately, it's very much a Lucius 2 situation where the first game becomes somewhat of a cult game and the sequel instead of trying to understand what made the first game work and improve it, instead trying to be different and throws a bunch of mechanics at the wall whilst doubling down on the story it's crazy there is a 6-year difference between this and the original and the combat still feels as clunky still just as easy to be stun locked into a corner, honestly, I think it's every worse hears way too many of the ghost enemies rely on randomly attacking you from off-screen it is dread---full they also added a bunch of stuff mechanically like I mentioned stealth and melee combat is now a thing none of these ever working together it's usually either a camera or melee or stealth not of them great another thing lost in this game is a bit of the charm of the graphics in a goal of improving to look more modern you lose that cool "retro" look that now seems a lot less intentional but honestly despite this being a pretty mediocre horror indie game I am not gonna lie I still kinda enjoyed I think there is still a charm there with the world design being so unique and some of the monsters who ever did the drawn art for the monsters you can look at in the beastiary they look so good but still very hard to recommend this to anyone unless they are just survival horror fiends finding for something different even if it doesn't work out

1 step forward 2 steps back situation
while the new bosses have some cool designs it seems none of the issues with the original gameplay were addressed at all still clunky and easy to get stun-locked, especially in some of the tight corridors, the format of this one is also not my favorite some kind of mix between an open-ended boss rush game and a litle bit of your standard looking for items in a horror game trope just did not work for me it takes away most of the scares as levels feel more like arenas then real places also these arenas they are just repurposed levels from the original game also the sound design just annoying its so loud we get it your trying to scare me its not working ...its giving desperate sis

a bit of a throwback game obviously very inspired by games like Fatal Frame with the base gameplay being taking pictures of ghosts but also very inspired by Silent Hill 3 in ways I will not spoil also visually it looks like a ps2 game which I kind of like there is also a much bigger focus on an Indonesian setting and horror which is a nice departure for a genre that is so dominated by Japanese horror but it's still not an amazing game the combat is often more annoying than tense enemies attack patterns border on stun locking. there 3 acts 0,1,2 with 0 just being the tutorial/demo for the game it's a fairly short game which is for its own good tbh the first act is a pretty average fatal frame level walk around this place full of ghosts until you figure out the puzzle and get the key to get out nothing special but then act 2 is where the game gets experimental not in the way of experimenting with the genre more like experimental in the way that the devs didn't really know what to do and where just making stuff up as this act opens with like an uncharted type chase sequence lol but then the game has more dialogue despite being a lil cringe and they start experimenting more with the type of enemies and puzzles and It started growing on me despite some of its combat problems that most definitely did not get fixed act (I say this because act 2 came out about a year after act 1 even when you are playing this as one game you can like these 2 acts where made at completely different times) honestly I am curious to see how the sequels handle this world moving forward I hope they keep leaning in on the things that make it more unique like the weird enemies and focus on indionisian folklore/horror instead of just being a fatal frame rip off which act 1 very much felt like

honestly, even though this is generally a good game Idk if I would've finished had I not already invested so much time into it I felt I had to. the missions are just too repetitive and the menus are terrible there's just a lot of friction for what could just be a more fun casual version of Monster Hunter, also for a "remake" of sorts this feels too much like a PSP game the game does get better at the "rage burst" part of the game aka the new content to this version which I did for the sake of getting the true ending but that's like saying the game gets good after 30 hours
the soundtrack is pretty good though

ironically enough I was eating a bowl of cereal while I played this.
I had the sequel to this wishlisted on Steam and then the creator just gave away all their games for free a couple of months ago on itch.io so that's nice

as for this game a unique visual novel despite a fairly abstract representation it's very grounded in its themes and makes for a fairly honest feeling take on mental health it's also short enough that it never feels like it drags so that's a plus its not for everyone but at this price and length its hard to say no to at least giving it a try

this was like my third time going at this I played it years ago on PC got bored moved on then it was free on PS Plus tried to give it another go got hard locked in a scene early on in the game and I just didn't care to replay the 2 hours or so I had already sunk into the game now years late I beat it in an afternoon and its fine the combat is really boring the there's a cool concept but the overall story is not all that, as per usual from don't nod there's hints at good writing that get buried under cliches and just straight up cringe

deadly premoniton 2 is like when a person does something really well the first time by pure luck and then when they go to do it again they get overly confident and fail spectacularly.
I started playing this on the Switch back when it came out and I am now finishing it on PC so that puts into perspective the Switch port of this is borderline unplayable it is migraine-inducing idk how anyone can finish that at least with the PC version it's like you get all the bs but at least the frame rate is decent and the funny thing is this game if we look at it on paper very similar to the first game similar plot progression similar combat and exploration but and dare I make too allegories in the same review this game flew a bit to close to the sun it just does everything a lil bit too much, the combat is a lil too repetitive, the dialogue is a lil too drawn out, the exploration and moving around in the open world is a lil bit too slow. if the first game is a so bad that's its good then Deadly Premonition 2 pushes it over the edge into just being bad... A Blessing in Disguise it is not also I found the story annoying this time around lol like the first one gets away with being like this weird nod to David lynch but this one doesn't

a fairly fun unique take on like colllectathom/management games with catching fish to then use for sushi lol that being said the gameplay loop does get repetitive there are some more linear moments with the story to break up the pace and the game also realizes some of its repetitiveness and adds in some ways to automate some bits of the game but by end of it I was done with this game and I am not dying to 100%it also something I really like was the attention to detail like even stuff you wouldn't think off have their own lil animations, the combat is fine but not something I was ever happy to engage with but the bosses on the other hand are fairly fun despite following very videogamy tropes