I've never been the biggest fan of the first game because the combat was never the strong suit of Alan Wake. So I feared that the sequel would have the same problems and sadly it did.
But first of all I really liked the way the story was told through the manuscript pages, especially Saga's. It was such a unique approach and an interesting of telling the story. Saga's part in general was really fantanstic, I enjoyed her detective gameplay and how you solve the cases through her mind palace. This was easily the best part of it even though case boar gets pretty overloaded and whenever I got a new hint I just clicked on everything until it fits. But I still loved her gameplay and story so much that I only played Saga until the game forced me to play as Alan Wake because her part of the story was done. The one problem was that I found Alan Wake's gameplay and story a lot weaker compared to Saga. I didn't like the puzzles and a lot of the time it was too much searching and not clear what you are supposed to do. One example was the chase scene in room 666 chase scene. The route made no sense and I died like 15 times before I had to go to YouTube to figure out what I should do. But I did like his We Sing chapter and how meta the story is. The other problem that I had with Alan Wake 2 was the combat as mentioned in the beginning. The combat felt really stiff which didn't work well with the Taken teleporting around in the often too dark and confusing forest, how they could spam attacks and on top of that you have the wolves which were almost too fast. During fights or boss fights in the dark forest I was often disoriented and died because of that which was frustrating. The result was that I decided to avoid the combat as much as I could. The game is also filled with jumpscares which never worked on me and they felt kinda lazy. Many other horror games decide to turn off your flashlight whenever it get's dark or the flashlight just stops working. Convenient isn't it? But Alan Wake lets you choose when you want to turn off the flashlight and when not. The game still is too dark most of the time but at least I can choose when I want to have a black screen and when not.
Overall I still enjoyed the story a lot and Saga's detective gameplay was awesome. I also liked the art design how Remedy included real life cut scenes. The soundtrack was great, let's hope Old Gods of Asgard will perfom at the Game Awards. The Atmosphere was fantastic, especially at Watery. It was so lonly and you could really feel that in the atmosphere. But the flawed combat ways heavy and I also don't know how I should feel about the fact that Alan Wake's gameplay was shit in a game about Alan Wake. So yea a decent game but not the masterpiece everyone makes it out to be and in no way of form is it a Goty contender.
Games I finished in 2023 ranked
But first of all I really liked the way the story was told through the manuscript pages, especially Saga's. It was such a unique approach and an interesting of telling the story. Saga's part in general was really fantanstic, I enjoyed her detective gameplay and how you solve the cases through her mind palace. This was easily the best part of it even though case boar gets pretty overloaded and whenever I got a new hint I just clicked on everything until it fits. But I still loved her gameplay and story so much that I only played Saga until the game forced me to play as Alan Wake because her part of the story was done. The one problem was that I found Alan Wake's gameplay and story a lot weaker compared to Saga. I didn't like the puzzles and a lot of the time it was too much searching and not clear what you are supposed to do. One example was the chase scene in room 666 chase scene. The route made no sense and I died like 15 times before I had to go to YouTube to figure out what I should do. But I did like his We Sing chapter and how meta the story is. The other problem that I had with Alan Wake 2 was the combat as mentioned in the beginning. The combat felt really stiff which didn't work well with the Taken teleporting around in the often too dark and confusing forest, how they could spam attacks and on top of that you have the wolves which were almost too fast. During fights or boss fights in the dark forest I was often disoriented and died because of that which was frustrating. The result was that I decided to avoid the combat as much as I could. The game is also filled with jumpscares which never worked on me and they felt kinda lazy. Many other horror games decide to turn off your flashlight whenever it get's dark or the flashlight just stops working. Convenient isn't it? But Alan Wake lets you choose when you want to turn off the flashlight and when not. The game still is too dark most of the time but at least I can choose when I want to have a black screen and when not.
Overall I still enjoyed the story a lot and Saga's detective gameplay was awesome. I also liked the art design how Remedy included real life cut scenes. The soundtrack was great, let's hope Old Gods of Asgard will perfom at the Game Awards. The Atmosphere was fantastic, especially at Watery. It was so lonly and you could really feel that in the atmosphere. But the flawed combat ways heavy and I also don't know how I should feel about the fact that Alan Wake's gameplay was shit in a game about Alan Wake. So yea a decent game but not the masterpiece everyone makes it out to be and in no way of form is it a Goty contender.
Games I finished in 2023 ranked