Eu gostei bastante do jogo, da história, da jogabilidade, etc. Senti medo algumas vezes, mas em outras não, isso porque a ambientação do jogo não era muito boa.
Achei os gráficos muito infantis, parecia que eu tava jogando uma creepypasta de pokemon em alguns momentos, e acho que isso não era proposital. Além de muitas piadas, alívio cômico desnecessário que quebravam todo o clima do jogo.
Também achei o design dos personagens muito preguiçosos, a maioria era igual; eu sei que é difícil variar em rpg maker, mas já joguei vários outros rpg maker que os personagens eram bem únicos. Mas eu gostei do design dos monstros.
Acho que a intenção dos criadores era fazer um jogo de terror do começo ao fim, mas não conseguiram, ficou parecendo mais um jogo normal com momentos de terror.
Mesmo com todas essas ressalvas não é um jogo ruim, achei bem divertido de jogar. A história conseguiu me prender até o fim para descobrir o que tava acontecendo, foi bem instigante.
É um jogo legal e eu comprei na promoção, então achei que valeu o preço.

I've mildly enjoyed the Killzone games throughout the years: the PS2 original didn't impress me at all, but Killzone 2 and 3 were solid FPS games that had just enough personality to make it feel memorable, particularly in its heavy gameplay feel. Shadow Fall was pretty average in comparison, sadly. But before I played any of these games, there was Killzone Liberation, which is my entry to the series. I enjoyed it back then on the PSP, but never got to finish it. After finishing the PS5 port, I can say that it actually holds up quite well.

The most obvious difference in the gameplay from the mainline titles is the isometric view. It plays like a twinstick shooter, except it's single stick, since the PSP only had one. Moving and aiming are one and the same, but you can lock to a target you're currently aiming so you can strafe around said target. You can also lock on objects in the environment, like an exploding barrel, but only when you're crouching. Crouching is also used for hiding behind cover, and you can roll forward to dodge some projectiles if needed. With all of these mechanics in mind, its a heavy, relatively slow paced shooter that is more about executing a plan you thought of in the moment rather than just fast reflexes. The most flawed part of this is that the targeting system can be a bit flimsy and awkward sometimes.

The gunplay experience depends on the weapon you have, like being forced to get close to enemies if you use a shotgun. There's good enough enemy variety to make you want to change weapons before/during the gunfights, which I thought was a fun way of pushing the player to be more adaptive. You can only change weapons at specific weapon caches throughout the level. You also don't have regenerating health so you have to find medkits. Even when you have a lot of ammo and grenades, its not that easy to properly defend yourself, so the game always keeps a decent level of challenge.

There's a solid selection of weapons available, and more are introduced as you go. All the weapons offer their own style of approach, and that's cool, but there's just certain weapons that are obviously better in most scenarios (looking at you, Helghast Chain Gun). I particularly take issue with the sniper rifle, which is not very fun to use because of how slow it is. But hey, it's real fun to blow up enemies with explosive weapons and see them fly around in classic late 2000s era ragdoll fashion.

You can pick which weapon to start a level with, but you need to unlock enough collectibles in the levels to do so. There's also unlockable extra perks if you do well enough in the challenge missions. I'll say that these side objectives are worth doing for the rewards. Unloading my 8 bullet hard-hitting upgraded revolver with unlimited ammo makes me real happy.

I think the biggest weakness of this game (other than the boring story) is the variety of the missions. The level design are usually decent, but there's a few missions early on that backtracks through previous levels, and when that is over, the missions are usually still along the lines of finding an item that allows you to move on, like a C4 or a keycard. But the last chapter does have more interesting objectives and level structure, which is nice to see. And I do appreciate the relatively short length of the missions, which fits the intended portable experience.

Playing this makes me appreciate these kind of portable spinoffs more. Back when portable systems had limitations other than just a lack of power, the difference in designing a game for handhelds compared to console/PCs were much more obvious. Liberation is a good example of a spinoff that respects the best qualities of the mainline games, but succeeded at being a good handheld game first and foremost.

Bloober Team seems to really love their Layers of Fear series because they thought it was big and important enough to remake both games and tie them into each other with a third overarching story. If either game was confusing enough, nothing is cleared up in the story, and it all comes together to feel mostly poetic, vague, and abstract. While the writer's overarching story makes sense as she's trapped in the lighthouse that was meant to be an inspiration, the painter's or actor's stories aren't improved much if at all.

Trying to describe Layers of Fear is a challenge unto itself, as the gameplay is about as abstract as the story it's trying to sell. The game is full of excellent visual effects, disappearing acts, illusions, the opening and closing of many doors, jump scares, and anything else you can think of to make a game feel like a lot is happening when really nothing is. The game is all flash with no substance, and the remake didn't do anything to change this. It leaned into the flash at full tilt thanks to the Unreal Engine 5 upgrade and ray tracing. It looks pretty (mostly in the first game, The Painter's Story), and that's about all this game has going for it. I thought it would be scarier to push the supernatural themes a bit more, but instead, Bloober chose to just give us an enemy that can hurt us in each story, but it doesn't add anything. They are slow; you can run from them, and you can also banish them with light, but they come back.

Layers of Fear came out when P.T. clones were rampant. You start out in a seemingly harmless house with rooms you can walk into, the bare sound of ambient noise in the background, lights flickering here and there, and drawers and cupboards you can open. You end up wandering around the first house a bit until you discover the painting room and dive into the first chapter. There's a lot of narration in the background, disembodied voices, and notes you can pick up and read to help with context and exposition. Every interactive object has a white circle over it, and you can twist it, pull it, and turn it. Essentially, Layers of Fear is a Bop-It® simulator in disguise, but I digress.

There are rarely any puzzles to challenge you. There might be a large hub with doors that branch off and you need to get an object from each room, or there might be a code you need, but they are always right in front of you by opening a door or looking at the correct object. Layers of Fear's only challenge is not getting bored to death because the story is too busy trying to be poetic and pretentious over telling something interesting. Once you've opened the 100th door, most may turn the game off, especially when no other gameplay is introduced outside of crouching in the second story. Sure, the second story has fewer illusions and parlor tricks and feels more like an adventure, but I also understand the painter's story is a trip through madness and insanity, but you sure wouldn't be able to tell if it weren't for the visual rollercoaster.

I even felt the DLC from the first game didn't add anything known as The Inheritance. It was 45 minutes of frustrating mazes that didn't deliver anything new or exciting. The new DLC called The Final Note is just more of the same without giving us anything unfamiliar or appealing in the slightest. Even the overall story for the writer that's supposed to tie all of this together is very short, linear, and completely unnecessary in the long run. With two games to get through and the second story being much less interesting, I don't see many players finishing this at all.

There are collectibles in each game that can get you achievements, but many are easy to miss. If you don't look at the right object, open the wrong door, or just walk past something, you can miss it. They don't give any additional facts, story bits, or anything noteworthy, so outside of achievement hunting, there isn't a reason to do this. I honestly would have preferred an entire third entry rather than a remake after spending around 2 hours in each story. The game just becomes a slog of cheap thrills and poor storytelling.

The visuals are a treat at least, but for some reason, they don't look as good when you get to the second story, which is Layers of Fear 2. I'm not sure if it's because the graphics are just more plain here. Things are less colorful and trippy and are a bit more grounded, but the first story looks so good with great lighting effects and better textures. Once I finished the first story, I did look forward to what was happening with the writer's chapter, but these segments are so short and don't give us any more meat for this already scrawny game.

Overall, Layers of Fear is a remake no one asked for. Remaking an already mediocre and mostly bad sequel and trying to tie it together with a half-assed third story just doesn't work. We get the first game's DLC that feels pointless, a new DLC that feels aimless, and monster chases that are now dangerous but don't need to be. The game is barely a horror title. Without the lighting effects done the way they are, you wouldn't know. I didn't ever feel scared; there were occasional moments of urgency, but that's about it. The stories are convoluted hollow shells that do a bad job of telling a story in a game that you feel imprisoned in with no gameplay, and the only thing to look forward to is the story. This should have been a third game and not a remake.

The Witcher hasn't aged well. The storyline and the atmosphere are very well done. It has the darkest atmosphere in the whole trilogy, just as it should be. I love the old-school vibes and mechanics. But that's it.

The combat is clunky and too easy even on the hardest difficulty. If you play it right, you can become immortal. Even the boss fights feel like fighting a normal enemy. It took me around 1-2 min to beat the final boss. The dialogues are bad - did a child write them? At least the voice acting is good.

I encountered some annoying bugs. For example, sometimes I couldn't talk to anyone nor loot or draw my weapon. The only way to fix it was by saving and restarting the whole game. I had to redo the whole last 20 min of the game because of this (and because I didn't feel the need to save). Sometimes instead of a cinematic, I would get a black screen and again have to restart the whole game. In some of the more populated areas, my FPS would drop from 110 to 40. I understand it's an old game but it's still annoying.

In terms of equipment - don't expect much. There are only 3 armours, the last one you get is in the final chapter. Not much choice in weapons either. You end up with a lot of coins... and nothing to do with them.

Despite everything, I will still recommend it simply because it's The Witcher. For people who are just entering the world of The Witcher - don't hesitate! Read the books by Andrzej Sapkowski and continue with the games. It was cheap on sale (2€ only). With an open mindset, it's easy to get used to the old mechanics and clunky combat. The Witcher made me appreciate even more what a masterpiece The Witcher 3 is!