even worse than the original somehow. can't speak as to the narrative since there's no way in hell i'm sitting through the rest of this to see for myself but whereas the first attempt had at least some promise amidst its mess that wasn't really the case here.

the game looks Better at the cost of some of the stronger environmental design while the gameplay itself plays like they decided to take the heavily scripted encounter at the end of the last game as the framework for the whole thing. busted stealth mechanics with awful stalkers, misguided boss battle attempts, unexplained mechanics, and so forth.

playing this today was a severely unpolished experience in regards to bugs. in the two or so hours i gave this i encountered doors that wouldn't give a prompt/open, freezes after cutscenes, multiple broken QTEs, and more. if this is how it is now i can't even imagine playing at launch.

gonna play an actual Clock Tower game as a palate cleanser soon probs.