This game is insanely WACK, nothing really works as you would imagine. Inconsistent dodge roll, poor hit detection, weird world geometry lead to irritating fights and platforming. Many basic jumps require the absolute apex of your jump, which has you just barley missing the lip of a platform and falling. Grappling hooks disconnecting, letting go of nets randomly, and jump sponges having predetermined directional velocity regardless of your momentum which will fling you in the opposite way that you may want. Tons of enemies placed on small ass platforms with large knockback attacks. Enemies have an orbit that push you back when they move forward leading to some weird fights or just slipping off cliffs. Also Enemies will just hog the tops of ladders like their life depends on it leading to annoying deaths. Most levels/areas last way to long sometimes and hinge on mechanics that don't make the area cool or fun. Furthermore severe stuttering and lagging occurs when moving to new areas. The hammer attachment for your fork weapon is almost always worth having on but it is nearly impossible to simply attach a new piece of junk to your fork mid combat. Not being able to do multiple heavy attacks back to back and having a lack of combos or flow between light and heavy attacks dulls combat. Lock on is almost useless when there are several enemies as you will always attack the closest dude rather than the one you are lock on too even if that are behind you. Bosses are really easy, expect for when the spam one shot attacks.

overall this game is a huge pain in the ass in all the wrong ways but some how I still liked and appreciated it enough to 100% it. The world was detailed and imaginative with silly cute humor (even tho it was mostly all references). It's clear the devs really cared, I hope for the best in their next project. it's overall a very soft recommendation for souls like fans.

While is was a very memorable and worthwhile experience, most its flare is found in its story and presentation. So if you're light on cash I could possibly recommend on a Youtube playthrough as the general gameplay is not your traditional survival horror. As most of the game is watching cutscenes, talking to people, or walking around. While the gunplay and puzzles are very flashy, I can easily say that they're not good enough to hold up the whole game. Alan Wake 2 is most definitely a very good game but as a survival horror game it won't really be competing with this year's Resident Evil remake.

I find it really disheartening how gamers and critics have been so harsh on this game. As I found it to be a overall worthwhile experience that shows off a unique way to expand the souls like genre (such as the very unique checkpoint system, and dual worlds). As someone who played the first game, I viewed this as a huge step up for the Devs in effort and presentation. The world in this game is almost top notch with some incredible locations and visuals, and the umbral only adds to that. Unfortunately exploring this world is probably the most frustrating and unbalanced middle finger to anyone who dares to beat it. The player will be constantly stacked up against 3-4 dogs, 2 big motherfuckers, and at least one archer. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the boss are all mostly fairly easy. Ranging from really fun and rewarding to fight (Pieta, Tancred, and Drevla for example) to absolutely god awful and disappointing (The Hollowed Crow and Adyr). I fully believe that this game is really good, and can most definitely be great if 3 things happen, 1) fix that damn lock on. 2) reduce enemy density by a fair bit. and 3) fix the frame drops as that costed me several lives.

Truly this game is far from the many 4/10s it has received and the Devs have already announced in a few weeks time, all 3 of my issues with the game will be updated and hopefully fixed. So I will most definitely return to The world of Axiom for another playthrough after everything is said and done.

Had to lower my score after my 3rd Playthrough for new game ++ (All Mind route) simply because of how disappointing the secret campaign was. Many missions for example like "Protect The Strider" had me really excited to start, only to be let down to not do anything cool nor new and just do a large gank fight with a ton of tedious enemies. Furthermore the Final secret boss is by far one of the lamest final fights I've ever done, filled with way too many enemies that are just there to pad out the fight and waste your ammo. And with all that the fight is rendered completely pointless with our main character basically siding with the dudes who just tried to kill him. I just wanted to write that experience down, the rest of the game is incredibly well made.

God awful. I played this years ago when I became free with Xbox Live Gold right off of the high I had with Dark souls 1. It was utterly terrible and I drop it less than 2 hours in. However in the last year I tried playing it again and my opinion was still far from changing. I still couldn't beat it because of its clunkiness, but I became way more appreciative of the world and art direction for this game. so now almost 10 years later I am kinda really excited to see the sequel of this mess, and I hope to god it surprises everyone.