After recently playing the first game, TEW2 was a bit of a disappointment for me. The former established a unique aesthetic and niche in survival horror, with excellent, balanced gunplay, level design and pacing, and while this game keeps some of that, it falls flatter than the first in several ways. I enjoyed parts of this game for sure, particularly the last few chapters which I think were the best part across both games, especially the final boss, but my enjoyment was far less consistent than the first.
The Evil Within 2 does have some really neat ideas, and the better parts of the game in the more linear, scripted segments of the world akin to TEW1. For example, the first villain of the game, Stefano, is super neat. An artist using murder as his medium is an awesome, disturbing idea that fit right in-line with what I'd expect from these games.
Unfortunately, in between some of the more interesting ideas is the bland, frustrating, and poorly constructed 'open world' part of the game that I really could have done without. TEW2 focuses a lot more on stealth than the first, especially because you don't get nearly enough ammo, crafted or not, to take out all the enemies you encounter, and so in most situations it is best to either wait to sneak kill everything or just run past the enemies. I do really like the combat in these games (although I found that the combat did 'feel' better in the first), so not really being able to participate in it much to play optimally was frustrating. Going through the open world ends up just being a race away from enemies while trying to go from location to location, especially when trying to avoid the Guardian and other 'rare' enemies.
This ammo problem is present all throughout the game, particularly in boss fights. There are a lot of enemies and bosses that have huge health pools, and for a couple fights I had to basically just loop around the areas that respawn a few handgun shots for like 30 minutes to finally be able to kill them. Sometimes you'll track a fallen soldier to get some ammo, only to get one single shotgun shell, often not even enough to kill a single enemy. Of course ammo management is a part of the survival horror genre, but I haven't had it be nearly this big of an issue before and I just found myself getting very frustrated, much more than in the first game, at both that and the designs of some of the enemy encounters in general.
Despite my issues with the game there were certainly a lot of positives as well. While it loses the grittier aesthetic of the first, which I do prefer, there are some pretty beautiful moments that exemplify what makes both of these games pretty unique. As I mentioned earlier, the final few hours of this game are my favorite in the franchise. There is some absolutely gorgeous scenery, storytelling, and excellent combat sequences of which I wish the game had more of. The final boss I think is my favorite final boss in any horror game I've played, and not only fixes the ammo issue but is easily the best designed fight in the series.
I would say that overall The Evil Within duology is somewhat underrated, and any survival horror fan should play these games, especially the first. I don't like how different some of TEW2 is compared to the first, and I do feel like it lost some of the magic due to a kind of 'triple-A-ification' of a lot of mechanics. While I am a bit disappointed with this I am comfortable saying that I am a fan of this franchise, and would love to see a third entry one day.
7.5/10
The Evil Within 2 does have some really neat ideas, and the better parts of the game in the more linear, scripted segments of the world akin to TEW1. For example, the first villain of the game, Stefano, is super neat. An artist using murder as his medium is an awesome, disturbing idea that fit right in-line with what I'd expect from these games.
Unfortunately, in between some of the more interesting ideas is the bland, frustrating, and poorly constructed 'open world' part of the game that I really could have done without. TEW2 focuses a lot more on stealth than the first, especially because you don't get nearly enough ammo, crafted or not, to take out all the enemies you encounter, and so in most situations it is best to either wait to sneak kill everything or just run past the enemies. I do really like the combat in these games (although I found that the combat did 'feel' better in the first), so not really being able to participate in it much to play optimally was frustrating. Going through the open world ends up just being a race away from enemies while trying to go from location to location, especially when trying to avoid the Guardian and other 'rare' enemies.
This ammo problem is present all throughout the game, particularly in boss fights. There are a lot of enemies and bosses that have huge health pools, and for a couple fights I had to basically just loop around the areas that respawn a few handgun shots for like 30 minutes to finally be able to kill them. Sometimes you'll track a fallen soldier to get some ammo, only to get one single shotgun shell, often not even enough to kill a single enemy. Of course ammo management is a part of the survival horror genre, but I haven't had it be nearly this big of an issue before and I just found myself getting very frustrated, much more than in the first game, at both that and the designs of some of the enemy encounters in general.
Despite my issues with the game there were certainly a lot of positives as well. While it loses the grittier aesthetic of the first, which I do prefer, there are some pretty beautiful moments that exemplify what makes both of these games pretty unique. As I mentioned earlier, the final few hours of this game are my favorite in the franchise. There is some absolutely gorgeous scenery, storytelling, and excellent combat sequences of which I wish the game had more of. The final boss I think is my favorite final boss in any horror game I've played, and not only fixes the ammo issue but is easily the best designed fight in the series.
I would say that overall The Evil Within duology is somewhat underrated, and any survival horror fan should play these games, especially the first. I don't like how different some of TEW2 is compared to the first, and I do feel like it lost some of the magic due to a kind of 'triple-A-ification' of a lot of mechanics. While I am a bit disappointed with this I am comfortable saying that I am a fan of this franchise, and would love to see a third entry one day.
7.5/10