The Evil Within 2 (2017)

Getting back to the second half of this after taking a little break to play The Bureau, and it's occurred to me that The Evil Within 2 is the Terrifier 2 of video games.

Allow me to explain.

In both instances, the previous incarnations of these franchises were, at best, middling to downright awful. The first Terrifier film, and I say this as an independent artist who doesn't like criticizing people doing their best to make their work seen, is pretty bad. It's not even bad in a "so bad it's good" kind of way, it's just plain kinda bad. Aside from a few rather impressive practical visual effects, and a fantastic performance by David Howard Thornton as Art the Clown, it's an extemely low tier C budget (it's that bad, it's not even a B level movie) indie splatter horror one might've seen air in the mid 2000s late at night on some obscure cable channel.

The Evil Within is much the same way. The first game, while being relatively enjoyable to play and works pretty well mechanically - it's only saving grace, really - is so incoherent and convoluted that it borders on outright nonsense at times. Even by the end, when everything is explained and the DLC goes even further to shed light on things, it's still an absolute mess of a story. I do believe there was a way for them to tell that story in a far more palatable and understandable manner, especially seeing how they handled the story in the sequel, but alas, there's nothing we can do about that. The damage is done. But the game is enjoyable. It's just got narrative dementia.

BUT, both sequels build on their predecessors so much that they completely validate the outright existence of them. Terrifier 2 managed to create an entire lore, not just for Art but for the lead girl, and tying them together, while The Evil Within managed to take what little thread of plot the first game had and weave it together in an actually believable (well, as believable as something so outlandish like this can be) way that makes it not feel like it's forced in any way. In a way it kind of reminds me of the narrative jump in quality between Portal and Portal 2. Valve somehow managed to take a game with relatively no plot and one joke, and turn its sequel into a surprisingly heartbreaking story with real stakes at play. The Evil Within 2 is doing the very same thing.

This is rare, by the way. It's not only rare for a sequel to outperform its original, but even rarer to truly validate the existence of an original that, by all standards, wasn't that great to begin with. I'm fully impressed, and The Evil Within 2 is easily one of my favorite games of all time, much like how Terrifier 2 is one of my favorite films of all time.

I still have about 7 chapters to go, but as it stands, I don't think there's any possible way they could drop the ball hard enough for my opinion of it to lower that much. Even if it starts to wobble towards the end, narratively, it's built on such strong conviction of its need to make the previous version worthwhile, that it's gonna be great no matter what.

In a world where things are often far more of a disappointment these days, be they media or just real life, it's nice to find something to gush about now and then.

I feel like Control took a TON of inspiration from this game, specifically the shifting environments. I mean, within the first few minutes of being in the hotel in the opening, I said out loud, "This reminds me so much of the Ashtray Maze". Obviously I can't prove one inspired the other, but it just seems so similar in so many ways, mechanically.

Also, it's really rare these days that I start something and immediately get sucked in, but this is one of those times. I don't wanna stop playing this. I'm enjoying it so very much and I hope it stays this good all the way through. This pseudo open world with still linear story was definitely the right direction to take this franchise. It just feels so much better and is much more enjoyable to explore in.

But yeah, for once I'm actually really enjoying something again, and that happens so rarely these days that I have to brag about it when it does lol

I have to say...it seems my plan paid off.

While The Evil Within was a fun ride in spite of its many issues, it certainly dragged on longer than it needed to. But I'm glad I got through it for the contextual necessity of its sequel, which is one of those very rare instances where I can't believe the same folks are involved because the two are so vastly different. Sure, one could chock the first ones weird tonal disjointment up to that transitional period of console gaming where the 360 was on its way out and more cinematic in depth games for the new generation of consoles were being released. And one probably wouldn't be entirely wrong in making that assumption. For what it's worth, The Evil Within is a very old fashioned game. It has levels, it has extreme linearity (not a bad thing, though) and overall played like a game from that era.

But then you get into the second one, and you start to realize that the first almost feels like a demo of sorts. The second really plays into the whole new generation of consoles hyper realistic visuals and open world storytelling that you would only later see in full from games like "Control" (actually, that was the first thing I said upon starting TEW2 was that it reminded me of a Remedy game). It still carries over some of those aspects from the first - primarily its weapon upgrade tree, its ability upgrade tree, etc - but it houses it within a much more understandable narrative and a hub world of sorts. And that hub world is the sole distinguishing factor between the two, I have to say.

In fact, I read a review that said that the second game was worse simply because it's based in a dull, empty open world, and for once I disagreed. I'd much prefer an open world full of color and exploration to that of disconnected grey and brown levels of nothingness. And I say this despite admitting that I'm a sucker for linearity, and honestly prefer that hardline linearity where I'm guided to every single little thing, The Evil Within's problem wasn't so much its linearity as much as it was that it was so completely disjointed. The first game is nothing but concepts thrown in a blender and none of which fit together. Sometimes you're in crumbling old churches, sometimes you're in old timey villages, sometimes you're in a modern city. None of it makes any sense. But the second game solves that by simply creating this hub world of a small town and then having you exist within it, within the machine. Perfect. And if they'd just taken that same approach for the first, and explained the villain and the backstory for everyone within the game that way, then the first could've been great.

But this is a real rare example of something not just outshining its predecessor but being so unlike its predecessor it's hard to believe they were made by the same folks. Same thing with the movies Terrifier and Terrifier 2. The first is low budget, over the top queasy late night trashy horror, whereas the second is a truly interesting and in depth psychoanalysis of grief and family trauma with horror as a backdrop.

So yes, I'm glad I played through the first if, for no other reason, than the contextual necessity, but the games are night and day, and frankly, it's no wonder anymore why the sequel is so highly praised when compared to the original.