A beautiful little throwback JRPG that maintains the spirit of the games that inspired it. It can be very challenging and unforgiving if you aren't paying attention to your party's abilities and composition, but the difficulty never really reaches an unfair level.
I didn't do all the side content and grinding necessary for the platinum, just because the game is leaving PS+ in a few days and I don't really want to be grinding until it leaves, but I do feel like I've seen what the game had to offer me and I was content with it. It was a pleasant experience, and the story was surprisingly touching, especially the ending.

A decent enough horror experience. A sort of "spiritual successor" to Dead Space, you can really see some of the DNA from that franchise here, but unfortunately just not executed as well.

The story is pretty boilerplate, with bland characters and cliche plot threads. In the year of our Lord 2023, I didn't think we'd ever get another boring, shaved-head, gruff-voiced main character, plucked straight from 2008.
The combat is heavily melee-focused and meaty, but it does get old and repetitive quickly as there are about 5 or 6 enemy types in the entire game - most of which you don't even encounter that often.
The scares are also lacklustre and unimpactful, which is something you DON'T want in a horror game. There was never a single moment that gave me actual dread or made my heart race.

Overall though, I didn't hate the game by any means. It's just very lacklustre and I was kinda hoping for something more the entire time I was going through it. Thankfully, it's not too long, although it can feel padded out at times. It also looks very good, even on PS4, with some nice, claustrophobic area design.

Excellent follow-up to the rest of the series.
I really enjoyed the hell out of this game, and getting to explore some of the larger world outside of the Moscow Metro was hella fun. I also really loved the group dynamics and the game did a really good job of making me care about Anna and her well-being. You can literally sit for hours and listen to the crew yap at you about their lives and what they think about the situation - which is something I've always loved about this series.
I will say that the ending is a little lacklustre in comparison to the previous two entries, but the overall journey was very enjoyable.

I'm honestly not the biggest fan of visual novels, but this one has one of the strongest stories I've ever seen. It's a nice mix of sci-fi tropes, interesting and unique characters who all have their own perspectives and objectives, and enough twists to keep you interested at every turn. It was a blast to play through the story and piece together the plot as you learn little tidbits of information from each character's storyline. Vanillaware's signature art style and adorable character animation are a joy to watch as well, they just do not miss ever.
The only real downside of the game is the combat sections which were serviceable at best, but get pretty bland and repetitive after a while. Overall though, had a ton of fun with this game.

I had an absolute blast with this one and glad I finally got to play it. I never owned a 360, so I never got the chance to, but best believe I have been itching to ever since Control's DLC. It was a joy to go through and experience this story.
The only bad thing I can say about the game is that the controls are clunky as hell, and some of the combat encounters are unnecessarily unfair and frustrating, but overall that didn't hurt my enjoyment of the game too much. I didn't do the Nightmare playthrough to get the last of the manuscript pages, but that might be something I'll look into in the future.

Super excited to get Alan Wake 2 as well. Probably won't get to play it on release, but I'm gonna be playing that for sure.

As someone who is generally very shit at puzzle games, I actually had a good time with this. The story and the philosophical discussions you have with "Milton" are some of the best parts of the game. I do admit I had to get help with some of the later puzzles, especially when the record feature was in play, but I genuinely had a great time with this and completed all of the endings. It's just a very addictive gameplay loop as the puzzles are not too long and the small dopamine hit you get when solving them makes it all worthwhile.
I did try out the "Road to Gehenna" DLC as well that comes packaged with the PS4 version of the game, but I was literally lost from the first puzzle already, so I think I'm just gonna skip it.