man what a disappointment

alan wake was definitely something that I looked forward revisiting after the release of the second game but the more I went on with the game the more its seams started to break apart

this is a remaster of the OG game and as a remaster its pretty chill you have that new texture work 60 fps shiny graphics definitely the most interesting part of the game if I gotta be honest and also kudos to remedy for making a remaster that works wonders on the pc because after playing those shitty ports for ff7r and ff15 I really needed this to play accordingly and it did

in its premise this game has such a great introduction alan is a writer that slowly descends into schizophrenic madness after the disappearance of his wife during a holiday trip in idk where probably twin peaks (I've never watched twin peaks I have no idea what yall are talking about)

bomb subject matter that may or may not be enhanced by the fact that apparently a ghost manuscript somewhere allegedly written by alan is influencing the course of the story and making every single part of the game a nightmare

now there's a lot of different points and ropes to untie here and there but it never really get more interesting than that the many side characters are only a way for alan to keep being delulu or a way to contrast his schizophrenic frenzy and there's that his trustworthy pal is a dipshit the cop is atrociously underdeveloped there's an old woman somehow and the psychiatric doctor is probably the most based character because he goes to alan and tells him “gurl you delulu” and gets punched in the face rip

the main plot is basically what I said alan searches for his wife the end theres some degree of backstory and explanation to what is happening but the game really loves remaining confused to the fucking end to the point that you can't excuse its pretentiousness anymore I really LOVE the story here but there's not enough tension or insight for you to actually make a cliffhanger open ending

and adding to all this there's a kingdom hearts typa script with stuff like “his heart is full of darkness… only the light can stop the darkness” youre tripping this is so surface level it makes me want to tear my hair which is a shame because the fact that the game is segmented in different chapters and subsequent recaps makes it feel like you're watching a TV series alright

that being said the art department is pretty alright they're really going for a realistic based type of experiment because wow thr environments are so boring for a guy experiencing schizophrenia like theres a lot of woods and woods and woods sometimes there's some points of interest like structures here and there or natural formations like falls or cliffs but it's really sedimented into the reality aspect of things and honestly that was really a disappointment particularly for a game which has a lot of focus on “light and darkness” and the answer to that is literally streetlights in the forest ok whatever

last but not least the gameplay is pretty fun . for 5 minutes before you realise all you're gonna do is get from point A to point B doing this sequence of actions: shine light on enemies -> shoot at them and OPTIONALLY try to not get killed by phantom pieces of trains or construction machines or lintels rinse and repeat sometimes the game is gonna introduct new stuff like weapons or new ways of shining lights like a bigger flashlight or unmovable spotlights but apart from that this is what you're gonna do the entire game and all that while you run through woods until a cutscene or a mob of enemies tries to kill you while saying shit like “I love McDonald's burgers but they're not healthy” literally I'm not joking here

when the gameplay and art direction are not hitting and not even the narrative gets as gripping as you want it to youre left with a mid experience and I'm pretty sad because I remembered seeing this game around on youtube when I was younger and thinking it was absolutely groundbreaking but experiencing it again after all this years maybe I set my bar too high and was left empty ended

still !!! didn't hate it please fans don't kill me also the interlude songs are definitive bops