May write a more detailed log about this game later so not really an actual review but FUCK THIS GAME RUINED ME. Everything about it appeals to me on so many different levels and I have not been this grabbed by a story before since Control. Remedy's use of the medium and playing to its strengths when it comes to storytelling is on full display with this game. It's something that simply could not be adapted into another medium without essentially making an entirely different story anyway. I also wanna briefly talk about how the use of lighting in this game is superb and really effective. One of the few games I've played to really get creative with its use of lighting to convey tone/mood and how it actually tries to have different styles of lighting throughout the game in different places with different purposes tied to the use of those styles of lighting. The game's art direction is fantastic and one of the few times where an extreme push for graphical fidelity was also done with artistic intent behind it. The game very much needed the higher fidelity and utilized it effectively. I can't really think of a game with an art direction similar to Alan Wake 2's and I'm so happy that fidelity was used as a tool for achieving their desired art direction instead of a tool for making things feel "realistic". This game is just insanely special to me and truly feels like a passion project Sam Lake always wanted to make as it never felt like the vision he had for the game was compromised. It felt insanely consistent to its themes from start to finish as well as feeling like Sam had told the entire story he wanted to tell with this game (yes there's post launch content however I genuinely feel that could easily be Alan Wake 3 shit instead. The way the game ended is fantastic especially after thinking about the wider implications of the ending and the mid credits scene)

Game still holds up today and has some surprisingly really fun singleplayer content. Mission Mode is pretty cool altho not as interesting as it was in Soul Edge/Soul Blade, but the challenges are at least a lot less annoying than the "execute all critical arts" missions from Soul Edge. Arcade mode runs are also generally short and take around 5-mins ish for each character so do give each one a go. This game has probably made me wanna get super into the whole series and it's shaping up to possibly be my future fav FG series. Definitely give it a go.

The Revelations DLC was pretty interesting and enjoyable to me overall, but it left me desiring more out of it as it felt far too short to really make me appreciate all the new things it has to offer.

Alucard's gameplay is very enjoyable and feels different from Dracula's in the base game. The meter system finally let's go of having entire moves locked to it and instead, they just serve the functions of either increasing your damage more or healing from damaging enemies. Your entire moveset can be used without having to worry too much about your meters. The issue here with this dlc though is that it doesn't have as many combat encounters to really make you feel like you got enough out of your moveset and you can't even unlock every ability on your first run. This would be fine if the game had some sort of challenge or wave mode to make you go deeper into the combat. I genuinely wouldn't have minded the short length of the dlc if it had a bonus mode to go along with it. Boss fights were also not as good as the better bosses of the base game and felt relatively unremarkable to me.

The new areas in this dlc are all set solely in the Castle and I think they're really cool just like the base game's Castle areas visually, however I think a few platforming or puzzle segments could have been handled a lot better than they already have. I enjoyed exploring those areas overall, and it's just those few segments that I didn't really enjoy rather than most of the platforming and puzzles in this dlc.

Storywise, there's not much to it. It really is just cut content from the base game that they had to make repurpose for an Alucard side story set before the main game. The purpose of the plot was to clear up a poorly explained twist/reveal from the base game and to give Alucard more of a presence in the game's story I guess. I wish it could have given at least an epilogue to the entirety of LoS2 with a flashforward of some sort so that the game would have had a better sendoff but oh well.

The dlc is worth playing in my opinion, however it really should have had more to do in it and feels lacking because of it just feeling like playing through two cut areas from the base game with a new character. The cut areas probably would have worked well with the base game itself, but not really in isolation and I think they should have taken advantage of this dlc to make a few new stuff as well to make it feel like a complete product.

Actually ended up enjoying this more than the first Lords of Shadow and it fixes up a lot of my main issues with the first game.

The meter system, while still annoying, doesn't drain as quickly and you can last entire encounters using either of the meter weapons. Platforming segments are less annoying and more acceptable than they were in LoS1. There's a shitton of less padding than the first one in general actually, altho yes the stealth segments are as annoying as people made them out, especially as you progress through the game. They aren't very long in most cases, sure but they're still annoying and a slog to go through.

Moving onto the levels/world, I think that the Castle parts of the game are easily the best and most visually pleasing parts of the game. All my favorite segments are in there and I think they actually succeeded at capturing the feel of the rest of the franchise in my eyes while still keeping to the new direction of the LoS games. I really had fun with backtracking for upgrades and exploring the castle and didn't really feel like I was forcing myself to do so.

The city parts of the game on the other hand, they felt like a mixed bag and were kinda uninspired in some areas (namely the Sciences district and Victory Plaza) and backtracking for upgrades is more annoying in the city (mostly because of the Sciences district). I really liked the Downtown and Arts districts tho, and even if I didn't feel like they were as good as the Castle parts of the game, they still felt like they did a good job with being interesting and visually pleasing unlike the Sciences district. I think those two districts also had the least annoying collectibles to backtrack to and their segments were overall much more fun than the other two districts.

As for the writing of the game, I thought that the story was actually pretty interesting and started to go into some genuinely cool territory while also taking good advantage of being an alternate universe to the original continuity instead of being a replacement to it. That said, it could have definitely been told better, especially in the City parts of the game and right after facing the first Acolyte. The final boss fight could have been more interesting than what they went with and the ending itself could have been a bit longer. I don't think there were any loose ends that I can recall with the ending, however it still could have been done a bit more to give the whole Lords of Shadow universe an epilogue. The story's basically a really interesting one just not told as best as it could have been. Still thought it was enjoyable but I'll have to admit that the first LoS was a better story.

Overall it's a flawed game that doesn't execute everything very well, but it does enough decently to be worth playing. My review for the Revelations DLC is going to be done separate to this one.

Replaying and falling in love with Castlevania Curse of Darkness again. It's just so damn good and I love searching for weird chairs throughout the world. Wish we could have had a follow-up with more platforming and varied level design. The Innocent Devil idea should be revisited again too.

It's also got the best CV story imo and it's the best 3Dvania.
Need more of the vampire killer being used for magic attacks as well cus that shit is sick, just like everything about Trevor in this game. His theme SLAPS and should be used in a hypothetical Capcom vs Konami.

If we could get a followup to it one day somehow that gives us less corridor-styled levels and with added platforming (good platforming ofc) like in the 2D Metroidvanias.

Pretty fun mod with a great art direction and varied levels mostly paying homage to Mario games, but still having a few levels themed after other franchises such as Zelda, Sonic, and Castlevania. It does however get repetitive after a while but not enough to the point where I ever wanted to drop it. I hear the sequel is a lot better with a huge upgrade in gameplay, especially with the platforming. Overall I think this mod is a must play and 100%ing it doesn't take too long so I'd recommend doing that as it unlocks more levels to play.

Overall a mediocre game with a lot of interesting ideas that were sadly executed poorly and hastily. I think the Citizen E cutscenes weren't different enough from the regular ones and overall the main plot ended up feeling rushed and confusing at times as to what it was trying to achieve. Gameplay was overall basic and while the stealth AI wasn't as annoyingly broken as it was in 3, the game overall still didn't offer much to make it stand out in any way. The personas mechanic is pretty interesting, but I think that using the assassin persona whenever you can was better as the other two felt like dumbing yourself down with worse arsenals or freerunning for the sake of easier stealth (which doesn't matter as much cus stealth is pretty easy as an assassin anyways). It very much feels like a filler type of spinoff that publishers throw in while people wait for the next big title. You can skip it if you want. I gotta say tho, the game's most interesting parts were the Tomb Raider-esque segments and I think the gameplay was a lot more interesting and unique during those parts. They are probably the most memorable segments in the whole game for me.