I wanted to talk about the two scenes that I dislike in greater detail, and there's no way to do that without full spoilers.

The first one is Dyne's death. I'm okay with changes if they're done well, but those Shinra troops popping up out of nowhere to shoot him completely destroyed the moment for me. It also felt like an excuse for Dyne to go out in a blaze of glory rather than the sad, intentional suicide of the original game. I will admit the part where Dyne falls on top of Barrett as he's dying was really well done, but that moment was also given no chance to breathe. Instead of having time to process the scene you just witnessed, you're immediately thrust into a boss battle with Palmer slapping his ass and taunting you.

The scene becomes even more of a clusterfuck as Dio rides in on his monster truck to tell Barrett he's sorry, and we have to engage in an Uncharted style shootout with Palmer, the Turks, and more Shinra troops. By the way, all of this is happening while Dyne's body is still lying on the ground a few feet away.

The other scene I want to talk about is Aerith's death. Whether you think she survived in an alternate timeline, or she becomes a figment of Cloud's imagination, it doesn't change the fact that the death itself had no impact. They play the sad death music from the original, but it doesn't really work when you have no idea what just happened. It's hard to get emotional when the game is trying to tell you she might've survived anyway.

After the Sephiroth fight, we skip to the whole party in mourning except for Cloud, implying that she's dead in this timeline. But then Cloud sees Aerith sitting next to him, and he's clearly convinced she's still alive. Their happiness next to everyone else's sadness was extremely uncomfortable. Something about it just felt creepy and wrong to me.

The final scene cg scene is also strange, because it starts playing triumphant music as Aerith says goodbye to Cloud, but something about it feels off. It's hard to tell what they were going for here. Are we supposed to be happy like Cloud, that Aerith maybe survived somehow? Or is he just in extreme denial, and she's actually dead in all timelines? Red being able to sense Aerith implies that she's in the lifestream, so who knows?

I don't think the game ends on a happy note, despite the music seemingly trying to convince me otherwise. The rest of the party, particularly Tifa, is so distraught about Aerith's death that she doesn't even want to speak to Cloud. I think he's in denial that he put Aerith's dead body into the water, which is why we skipped that scene for now.

Hopefully part 3 has answers to all of these questions, because this ending is kind of a mess on its own.

Update: I still agree with everything I said in my previous review, but there is a more generous reading of the story that I thought of. In the very first cutscene of the game, Harry says, "If this doesn't work, take me out." In reference to the symbiote.

We know what happens at the end though. Harry's chances of coming out of his coma are slim, but Norman decides to keep him alive anyway. He can't deal with the grief of permanently losing his son, so he keeps his life in limbo.

If you read it this way, the ending has something much more interesting to say. In everyone's attempts to keep Harry alive, he ended up right back where he started. He just traded floating in a tank for being trapped on a hospital bed forever.

The story was a mixed bag for me. Kraven had an interesting motivation, but he felt less like a good character and more like a vehicle for us to fight a bunch of goons. I wanted a narrative that focused on the symbiote from start to finish, but instead that's only the focus for half the game. It messed with the pacing and made the Harry/symbiote part of the story feel rushed.

I like the conclusions of Kraven and Martin Li, but I'm not a fan of the writers being afraid to let both Spider-Men kill. The worst offender of this was the ending. Remember Aunt May's emotional death from the first game? What if Miles was there to just shock her back to life instead? That's how I feel about the conclusion to Harry.

It could have been an emotional climax where Peter would have to accept killing Harry in order to save the world. Instead, Harry is still technically alive. We can't have the heroes face any actual consequences, right? This felt like a cheap attempt at a happy ending that wasn't deserved. The first game has a vastly better conclusion.

Also, what's up with Doc Ock? At the end of the first game, it was stated that he would soon lose the use of his limbs. Now he seems fine, and is going to be a main villain again in the third game? That just feels like a retread.

On the bright side, everything else about the game is much better than the first. The side missions, traversal, combat, and even the MJ sequences were vastly improved. The Venom level was also a huge highlight.

I wish each suit still had a unique ability instead of moving everything to a skill tree, but the suits themselves are great. Fast travel and switching between the two Spider-Men is incredibly seamless and makes the open-world feel fully connected.

The game is still worth your time if you really enjoyed the previous ones, especially for the enhanced gameplay experience. I just wish the writers were willing to take more risks in the story instead of relying on a bunch of tired cliches. Every time the story threatened to do something truly groundbreaking, the writers backpedaled to a less controversial solution. It felt too safe for me to call it a truly great Spider-Man story.