The Evil Within 2 (2017)

A great return from one of the greatest psychological survival horror games of our decade. Inspired by the greats, SH and RE from the golden age of gaming, this comeback sets the tone even further, bringing a new formula to the RPG combo. Open world. Mistake? Maybe. 4 stars because of the repetition between AI interaction and AI animation and detection design. The "in your face" mechanic" and gameplay will become too familiar, too fast. Obviously heavy influenced by environment. Don't get me wrong, i like the open world, but, for a heavy psychological relying horror game, there is too much open world and clearly an imbalance between tension and freedom. I've felt this after 2-3 hours into the game. It does not deliver the stellar experience of its first title, instead, it expands it and goes far enough to make it master of its own domain.

This franchise needs a remake or a reboot but not with anything modern gaming offers currently in terms of design, combat and mechanics. It needs something bold, unique and the courage to have its own realm, like the first title, otherwise it will sink along with all the cheap copy/paste titles reaching for the stars.

P.S.: I really miss the burning enemies mechanic. Pure gold. Modern decisions ruin authentic and raw experiences

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.

I had tried the original Evil Within twice and and just couldn’t click with it. The combat especially felt really clunky, the level design (and lack of a map) was confusing and tedious, and I really don’t like the match mechanic. Evil Within 2 improved on everything and is one of the best in the genre.

It does semi-open world survival horror absolutely perfectly. No matter what direction you go, the game feel cinematic and tense. There’s so many little surprises and everything feels uniquely designed (not just copy and paste).

The creature design is horrific eye candy. The combat is super dynamic and satisfying. It even includes some resident evil type campiness near the end.

I didn’t love the last quarter of the game though. Becomes much more linear and unimaginative. But otherwise, I really enjoyed my time with it and would recommend even if you don’t like the first one.

As a sequel, The Evil Within 2 is pretty different from its predecessor. It tries to capture what was good about the first game (which in my opinion is a good deal) while improving on a lot and changing some other things up quite significantly. What results is a game that I think features some problems the first game didn't, but is overall a major improvement, which I say as someone who quite liked the first game.

The biggest issue I see with this sequel is that I think a lot of the premise is weakened by the contrivances necessary to make a justified sequel. Given the series is like a modern take on a sort of Silent Hill-esque horror that is a little more action movie than character study with elements of Resident Evil 4 throughout, I've felt the premise of STEM is a pretty interesting way to achieve that setup with a (very hand-wavey) sci-fi justification: the various characters are all trapped in a world formed from an amalgamation of their minds, including manifestations of ideas, trauma, and mementos from all of them. Given the different brain makeup of pyschopaths, some individuals have the ability to exert far greater will on the makeup and mechanics of this mental world, creating the horrors that torment our heroes. A lot of this has what's good about a fun sci-fi concept: a loose connection to real science that takes some twists that result in something interesting if we're allowed to bend a few rules, such as supposing something like STEM could ever even get off the ground. This is also cool because it's a very different approach to creating a world that's in a lot of ways quite similar to Silent Hill's in which you're navigating a spooky town full of horrific monsters in the form of terrifyingly manifested insecurities and trauma. I thought the first game did a great job with this idea, but while the core concept is definitely there, further liberties had to be taken to justify another game with a similar setup.

"Sebastian Castellanos, the Men in Black (and Juli Kidman) have a mission for you: your daughter has been taken and the only way to get her back, is to go back into STEM, because yes of course we decided to make another STEM program, what could go wrong?"

Okay so I'm being facetious, but the beginning of the game is pretty bizarre with how contrived the premise has to be to get you to go back to this hellhole of an awful idea that STEM is, a problem not uncommon with sequels that weren't really planned for from the beginning. The writers needed to justify (A) why there is another STEM (there just is, we thought maybe it'd be okay this time) and (B) why Sebastian would ever go back (because they have his daughter you didn't know about and he thought was dead and you need something to care about). Further, to keep the beginning from going on way too long, they had to rush a lot of this into a few short opening scenes. I'm not sure if it makes it better or worse, but Sebastian even repeatedly lampshades the contrivance by commenting on like "really? who in the world thought another STEM was a good idea? And you needed my daughter to act as the core of this world? Like seriously?" This all detracts pretty heavily from the narrative in some pretty noticeable ways that in my opinion go a few steps beyond even the usual contrivances video games employ. That said, while some of these sudden developments and backstory feel really out of left field for a character we've already played a 15 hour game with, there are some improvements inherent in this elaboration on Sebastian's backstory. It's not quite the difference between Resident Evil 7 Ethan and Resident Evil 8 Ethan, but there is a similar shift in which Sebastian, while not a blank state, didn't have a ton of backstory outside of being a detective in the first game whereas in this game, the narrative focuses quite closely on his own backstory and internal demons. I wouldn't say the story is great, but once you get past those initial contrivances, there's actually a pretty decent narrative with defined and progressive character arcs that fit some of the psychological horror the game is going for.

Another notable feature of the game is that it's definitely a product of its time in some ways. Releasing in 2017, it was still during the era when every game wanted to be an open-world game. The Evil Within 2 manages to do this in the confines of a horror game by making it a very intermittent feature. There are 17 chapters to the game, most of which have the same basic linear structure that the first game had. However, again aiming at that Silent Hill feel, this game's version of STEM is focused on a town in STEM called "Union," which is (now that all hell broke loose) a spooky town full of monsters. During 3 of those 17 chapters, you get a surprising degree of freedom to wander around Union, investigating side paths, hunting down strange radio frequencies, and completing side quests to get various rewards. In some ways, this all at first sounded very stupid to me, but frankly, it works super well. The side quests do a good job of fleshing out side characters and the general makeup of Union while offering excellent rewards to make it worth your while. These were some of my favorite chapters of the game and I actually was pretty excited each time I got to a new one. The only major downside I noticed about this is that the side quest conversations do at time feel very stilted and awkward. The game has decent immersion with its horror but when you're talking to NPCs and choosing dialogue options to ask more about their side quest, it just very much took me out of it and reminded me that I was in a video game. Separately, while I don't particularly mind it, this is also another 2010s "Dad Game" where you're a dad who will stop at nothing to be a good dad. Not necessarily a bad premise, but another way in which the game is "of its time."

Nice, the obligatory Dark Souls poison swamp (disclaimer: it's not actually poisonous).

Characterization in the game I think is decent, not great, but better than I expected for the game. The characters mostly aren't super eccentric and outside the box. In fact, at times they feel a bit too much like basic archetypal action movie characters. But I found they were pretty effectively and succinctly contributing to the narrative and felt like real people despite some really on-the-nose one liners at time (the worst of which probably being the fact that "I'm the team psychologist" is one character's literal catch-phrase for every time she basically reads your mind which psychologists apparently can do? Granted, I have to wonder if they were lampshading this quality for fun given how blatant a catchphrase that is and I did otherwise find her to be my favorite side character). In general, I just appreciated that the characters felt a bit more realistic and to some extent more relatable than I expected. There's definitely some over-the-top heroism (and villainry, especially over-the-top villainry) here and there, but I like that several of the characters have somewhat believable motivations and backgrounds, even when that means they aren't overly self-sacrificing "good" people and at best, are trying to make up for their part in something shitty. Ultimately though, I think I found myself most impressed because I ended up liking or at least finding mildly interesting or fitting most every character, despite also feeling like they're mostly not overly deep.

I think Stefano, the initial villain, is a very solid antagonist. Stefano is a serial killer artist who delights in photographing gruesome torture and murder after descending into madness during his time as a wartime photographer. This aesthetic is quite present with his levels full of billowing drapes that outline twisted photography in morbid imitations of art galleries. Don't get me wrong, he's not a good villain in the sense of a "bad guy" who's actually multi-faceted and you understand on some level, he's pretty clearly evil. But his consistent sadism and malicious joy in his evil acts make him an intimidating and disturbing obstacle for Sebastian with the added creep factor of worrying what he might do to Lily if he isn't stopped. As an aside, this was all extra amusing to me as my dog irl is named 'Stephano' and he's a sweetie. The biggest issue is that though he's set up as the primary villain, Stefano is practically dealt with and forgotten about halfway through the game and the segments that follow, while not bad, aren't nearly as well-done or interesting.

While I've noted some ambivalence above, almost everything else about the game I think is great. The gameplay is quite solid and I think is one of the best attempts at this scary survival horror style. Pretty much the entire game, you'll feel low on resources and options, which adds to the fear of exploring, even when necessary, but grants that sweet temporary relief when you uncover a cache of supplies. There's a detailed skill tree (partially pictured above) mostly devoid of overpowered abilities, but including some costly skills you will desperately want to aid you on your way. The environments are varied, detailed, immersive, and quite creepy with a decent variety of monsters throughout the game. The boss fights aren't too special, but are still decent iterations of the action side of the game's combat. The agony crossbow is a really cool weapon with diverse applications and upgrades. Everything just feels very scrappy in a way that adds to the horror as you must fight these awful monsters with so little at your disposal. That said, I highly recommend not playing on the easy mode as I feel making the game significantly easier does actually take away a lot from the experience. The game would still be enjoyable if you feel you need to play on easy, I just don't know that it would be ideal. The manifestations of different characters' psyches is also very interesting to witness throughout the game. Callbacks to the original (including my deadpan queen and the subject of much fan art, Nurse Tatiana Gutierrez) are often effective and add to the story while keeping the game mostly self-contained.

All in all, it's pretty clear what The Evil Within series is trying to be. I think conceptually, the first game probably does a better job. But the sequel otherwise takes things several steps further and really feels like it blossoms into the potential these games are capable of. I personally am not crazy about how the term "Survival Horror" is thrown around for just any horror game these days, but The Evil Within 2 is an excellent take on the core concept that manages to have evocative visuals, solid gameplay, and a decent story. It's been long enough I'm not sure we're ever getting a 3rd game, but this wouldn't be a bad conclusion to the duology by any means.

I finished Evil Within 2 on Nightmare; it was mostly enjoyable. As a horror game, it gives you as much as you want to accept; as a survival shooter, it lets you play both aggressively and stealthily; it's challenging, for sure. Exploration is good, even though it's the same map for almost the whole game.

Skills are, for the most part, useless and mediocre; it is also not always obvious what they do; an option to reset perks is needed. The story and villains were OK until Stefano was killed; after that, I lost any interest in the cultist mastermind / evil evil corporate world control narrative. Optimization needs to be better.

Overall, the game is lacking from non-polished game controls; for my taste, they're quite awkward, and game mechanics are preferable to being improved. The most disappointing is the camera work during game dialogs between characters.

Buying it on sale is a good choice.

I posted here yesterday how, even though I liked my time with The Evil Within, I was still left with a feeling of disappointment over the game’s severe shortcomings. Because of that, I was a bit apprehensive and not entirely sure what to expect from the sequel, which I had read on a few places was a bit divisive among fans of the franchise. The fact that I tend to prefer the first game in a series didn’t leave me with high hopes either.

After my 21 hours with The Evil Within 2, however, I can honestly say I don't remember the last time I have felt a sequel improved on its predecessor by this much. Starting from the beginning: the natural upgrade in most sequels, the jump in visuals, is incredibly obvious, and it will feel striking particularly for someone who plays both games back-to-back. Texture quality is eons better. The aesthetic is very solid throughout. And though it may not be as cohesively dark in tone (it actually incorporates some comedic moments, highlighted for example in the absurdly addictive Tetris-like target mini-game), the imagery present here is oftentimes more mature, disturbing and impactful, particularly from chapter 9 onwards. Additionally, from start to finish, the sound design is primed to elicit feelings of unease. Due to all of this, TEW2 ultimately becomes a scarier game than its predecessor, as it really nails the horror vibe with the winning combo of its minimalistic music, unsettling aesthetic and monster design.

This vibe, however, is enhanced in great part due to the mechanical jump we find in the sequel. TEW2 is a considerably more polished game when compared to TEW, meaning gameplay frustrations are rarer, thus leaving more room for the player to become fully immersed in the experience. Most mechanics feel great to engage with and are infused with a sense of usefulness, never becoming boring or annoying. Melee combat is better, stealth is better, overall movement is better, sprinting is better. Gunplay is also generally better, but a big exception here, especially on console, is handgun shooting, which is almost infuriating to get right no matter what you do or how much you adjust sensitivity (it seems like the analog sticks simply weren't properly tuned). This is much less of a problem with the other weapons, but considering how much you may need to rely on the handgun in early stages, it becomes a hinderance. I also miss the traps from the first game, especially how you could use them to your advantage, but alternatively, TEW2 does give you extra tools to deal with challenges.

Alongside this, crafting and upgrading are not only improved but also a lot more involved now, in a good way. Both systems lend themselves really well to the resource management side of things, which is once again masterfully delivered. Just like the first game, you never feel there's quite enough in your pockets to deal with the tougher enemies, especially on Nightmare mode, which felt to me a tad harder than TEW’s Survival setting. In the resource management department, very few - if any - survival horror games I've played were able to surpass the balance I found in this franchise.

A departure form the first game, and something I suspect faced some initial reservations, was the much more open and less linear maps introduced in TEW2. I was very, very skeptical about this move, especially for a genre such as this, but I have to hand it to the devs, they knew what they were doing. It’s not just that the game doesn't loose focus or tension because of its expansiveness, it’s also that this was instrumental in introducing one of its most enjoyable aspects to me, which is exploration. TEW2 does a phenomenal job rewarding you for going off the beaten path by strategically placing ammo, weapons, pouches, allies and additional sources of information, which especially in the Nightmare setting can easily mean the difference between life and death. At times, its open world visuals and systems gave me strong State of Decays 2 vibes, a game whose risk/reward gameplay loop I absolutely love. There’s a downside to all of this: the open ended nature of the hubs makes it easier to cheese and avoid confrontations (especially due to the poor enemy aggro radius), which obviously results in a less claustrophobic experience. Unexpectedly though, it was trade off I became very comfortable with as I kept playing.

Narrative is another thing that was improved as a whole, though in part this is a direct consequence of the player benefitting from TEW1’s pre-acquired knowledge. Regardless, exposition is much better handled here, and even if TEW2 suffers a bit from the same narrative urgency constraints you’d find in games like Fallout 4, the resource scarcity means every side content you get involved in is fully justified within the broader context. Besides, environmental storytelling is very well realised, so deviating from the main thread actually adds meaning to the whole playthrough. TEW2 also throws side missions and simple dialogue options into the mix, and they work really well to flesh out world and characters. Which is, again, something the sequel does better. Not only is Sebastian considerably more fleshed out as a person this time around, virtually all characters you meet are introduced and written in a manner that makes you care about their fate one way or another. All of it culminates in a bit of an epic wrap up that is more than worth the journey, even if, story wise, TEW2 isn't without its problems - the final act is longer than it should have been, Kidman’s segment is silly from a logical standpoint, one of the main villains can come across as forced and stereotypical, and as a whole the ‘disrespect' shown for the original story is hard to stomach on occasion.

When everything gets taken into account, I had an awesome time with this game. An impressive ability to create a true survival horror feeling, well designed and believable hubs, good gameplay and systems, solid story, likeable characters and an amazing risk-reward exploration experience make The Evil Within 2 stand out among survival horror titles despite its flaws. The open-ended nature works better than I ever thought it would, and I'm still surprised at how much they were able to improve from the first iteration. Very easy to recommend for fans of the genre. 9/10

“But I won’t cry for yesterday. There’s an ordinary world, somehow I have to find. And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world, I will learn to survive.”

I loved The Evil Within as it was a solid survival horror third-person shooter experience that made itself distinct with how it implemented psychological horror storytelling. Seeing how it had a sequel and with the way the story ended, it was only logical to give it a playthrough, especially considering everyone was saying it is a better game. Developed once again by Tango Gameworks, the studio founded by Shinji Mikami — the creative behind awesome games such as Godhand, Vanquish, Resident Evil 4 and The Evil Within —, he took on the role of executive producer this time around and gave the director seat to John Johanas who also directed the first game’s DLCs which were a strong addition to the main game. I can’t be sure as to which decisions were in whose hands but I can attribute the shift to a more personal story to Johanas with perhaps Mikami handling other aspects. A wise decision overall because even though both games are great with their own strengths and weaknesses, the sequel comes out in the end as an overall superior package.

Story:

Thrusting you once again into the utopian nightmare of sci-fi tech STEM, the story this time around is a lot more focused on the personal stakes of the protagonist Sebastian Castellanos. The entire premise revolves around him finding out that his daughter is actually alive and is being used in STEM so he decides to go back into that hell hole for — in the words of Dom Torretto — FAMILY. I loved it immensely because one of my major complaints if not the biggest complaint from the first game was that the protagonist felt uninteresting in contrast to the antagonist. That gets rectified strongly in this sequel as not only is Sebastian charismatic and likeable, the personal journey he goes on is a lot more fulfilling. Other characters — new or old — and his relationships with them were also fleshed out more this time around enlivening the world. The theme of regret, trauma and moving forward is beautifully told and the catharsis one gets after certain sections is sublime.

The game also boasts several antagonists and it initially duped me into thinking there was only going to be one. All of them were intriguing having their own distinct personalities and how their psyche influenced the environments in STEM. The mystery element was also not lost although it returned in a less prominent fashion compared to the captivating mind-bending storytelling of the first game.

Gameplay:

The game retains the core mechanics of the first game and appropriately adds to them in accordance with its open-world levels resulting in vast improvements in some areas — particularly stealth. I’m not usually a fan of stealth and the first game didn’t have a strong implementation of it; the second game makes it a core element and its usage paramount. One of the few games where I enjoyed stealth a great deal.

The game also ups the scare factor on the general level as the usual grunt mutated enemies are fast and have erratic movements which made shooting them harder — highly reminiscent of the normal enemies in The Last of Us. Then there were special types amongst them with some extremely similar to what Left 4 Dead 2 had — the spitter, the bloater and the witch — and that added complexity and variety to the gameplay loop. The boss fights were disappointing as a challenge but that balanced out with the strong creep factor many of them had due to their visual and audio design— the singing witch… thing raised my heart-beat the most. The game also had a boss gauntlet which was in line with my desires and I wholeheartedly welcomed it.

The AI sucked, though — not that it was superb in the first game. It was easy to lose enemies or confuse them with their reliance on sight and sound. After putting in several hours and upgrading my stats a bit, the creep factor plummeted for the open world sections save for select few encounters. It never fully goes away, though, because of well-balanced ammo scarcity as the thought of having no bullets and not having enough material to craft more of it for the next big battle always looms.

I did miss the matches; the fire mechanics of the first game gets clowned on but I enjoyed it. I played the game on the Survival or Normal difficulty.

Graphics:

The game goes for a generic art style for its open-world sections as it fits the narrative but I would be remiss if I don’t mention that I sure did miss the dark gritty atmosphere of the first game — that was a character in it itself. This game does have sections with amazing visual creativity and atmosphere, though, when you’re not in the main open-world sections of the suburban town UNION. The facial detail was improved that added to the performance of the characters, particularly Sebastian. It’s also well-optimized as I was able to consistently be in the 50–60 FPS range with most settings on High.

While the average zombie gained speed, they lost the variety in design that the first game had which was a bit disappointing but it is a good-looking game overall.

Sound:

A solid sound design overall whether it’s the voice acting, the creature noises, the environmental effects, or the soundtrack. Sound design is often half of the horror or scares and I’m glad this game implemented it properly similar to the first one. Some of the voices truly gave me the heebie-jeebies. The soundtrack surprised me with some of the tracks and how much it oozed personality in accordance with the visuals — loved it.

I was so glad to see that Claire De Lune made a return. I also loved the main song The Ordinary World which I have been listening to on repeat as it gels well with the theme of the story and I have quoted the chorus at the top.

Overall:

When I finished The Evil Within a month or so ago, pretty much everyone was saying jump into the sequel as it's better. After finishing The Evil Within 2, even though the first game did some things better, as a complete package I can safely say the sequel is indeed a better or more fulfilling experience. The element that propelled it higher than its predecessor the most was the story and how it concluded because the last few hours is what a CLIMAX should be as so often games — and other entertainment media — fumble to conclude their stories. As far as survival horror and/or third-person games go, both games are some of the best I’ve played in a long time. This sequel not only acts as a satisfying conclusion if we never get another one (I sure hope we do), but it makes the first one better too. I’d highly recommend it to anyone who likes survival horror, particularly of the psychological kind. And if I were to rate it, I’d give it a 9/10.

Unfortunately this game wasn't written and directed by Shinji Mikami and BOY does it shows, i found this game to be very disappointing, in my opinion the addition of open world ruined the experience for me, it's a collect-a-thon / fetch quest / annyoing enemy spawns / scripted haunted house sections...etc - type of game, it lacks a better direction, the story is boring and cliche, the voice acting is horrible, the characters are all made of cardboard and the tone just doesn't work, it's soo serious, it lacks the silly and charm of the first game.

TEW2 has, pretty much all the horror tropes imaginable, from scary paintings to mannequins, it has it all. The ideas are all rehashed, from: RE4, TLoU, Arkham Asylum, P.T. , The Shinning, Ringu etc... I'm not saying inspiration is bad, but it's a bit obvious and on the nose, the game's identity and personality is missing here...

As to the game's core mechanics, it's OK, and the creatures are really well designed, they look and sound great, i just wish there was more originality in other departments.

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Story= plot, engagement, characters, world-building

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

I will mainly point out in general what I liked that was an improvement from the first since it plays almost the same.

Gameplay: 3.5/5 I really liked the diversity of environments. There are times where you feel cramped (as you should), but they also give you breathing room. In areas that are larger there are meaningful things to do aside from the main story which was another new improvement. Not all games have to have "side questing", but this game did a good job of adding just the right amount to break away for just a bit.

Once again the upgrade system felt lackluster. At about the halfway mark of the game I stopped really finding any abilities that I even felt I needed to buy. Crafting was a great new mechanic that really improved the gameplay and encouraged me to explore open areas for supplies.

Story: 3.5/5 The story was much richer in character development and it felt more personal this time around. Also it cleared up a lot about the first game that didn't really make sense by the end of it.

Presentation: 4/5.5 The game looked great and the camera work and FX were so cool. Some of the close up shots of faces were a bit too long. This lead to me feeling a bit uncomfortable as the level of facial animation isn't that great. Once again the creatures are designed super well making you feel scared and grossed out all the time.

Highly recommend if you played the first and if you are a fan of Survival Horror Action games.

Despite some creepy audio effects and grotesque imagery, The Evil Within 2 is light on tension and horror. The atmosphere is all over the place, going from haunting to farcical and then to dull throughout the game. Exploration is engaging and rewarding however as you find new items, gameplay and story nuggets that build a better picture of the world, and enhance the otherwise generic characters and average gameplay.

7/10

Almost everything wrong with the first game is fixed. Storywise, albeit there is still some minor inadequacies, the narrative is compelling, the setting is consistent, the storytelling is coherent, and the characters are convincing, which is worlds better than the first game. In regards to gameplay, there is some nice addition, which includes a pleasant open-world element and sidequests, which helps keep the game interesting. The crafting and upgrade system has been nicely improved, although it seems the aiming and shooting has been gimped to a degree (maybe the devs want to promote stealth gameplay), and that Assault Rifle seems a completely useless weapon to me.

Finally, a closing thought: While the original game might have been considered a clone of other games, the sequel has many pleasant additions that seem to have been borrowed by a number of games.

Apparently when you don't get Shinji Mikami that involved... The supposed Resident Evil 4 spiritual successor somehow gets better? Weird huh? Also you seem to take a lot more liberty in making your game directly inspired by the Matrix, stuff like men in suits, phones to the real world, I can name a few other resemblances, mostly everyone has joked about how much it rips off The Matrix. (Not only that but a lot of the game takes a lot of liberty with referencing about everything from The Shining to Twin Peaks, and it's just straight up references).

This is a sequel that from the gate spoils the twist from the last game that you're in a simulation which is the excuse for the Silent Hill tomfoolery going on, and everyone who has slightly heard of this game is already spoiled on that. The first game was a claustrophobic clunkier Resident Evil 4 with bad pacing and some forced stealth segments and in general bad cheap stuff that is exactly the extreme opposite of why I liked Resident Evil 4. This one? Well from the start you'll notice the graphics are better, and I don't just mean that in terms of texture quality because both games have pretty good texture quality (this one is prettier), what I do mean is that the color tones aren't muddled, there aren't forced instagram filters that make everything brown, gray or green. The colors are warmer and more clear, which is a clear improvement.

The combat is almost about the same but feels... Smoother (and even slippier because it's like I can't keep the aiming reticle on head), also this time you actually get a melee weapon! A knife! The bare-standard of survival horror. Transitioning between the first game and this one is a bit hard (in fact me marathoning this series was probably a bad idea) at first but essentially when you are not aiming you are doing melee attacks, also the best thing about this game? Just it's improvements like more open locations (less claustrophobic places) and The Evil Within 2 unlike the first game allows you to jump anywhere!

There's no fall damage either! (I guess Sebastian learned a thing from Neo's big jumps) That was when I realized I was now cooking with fire. That is how you improve a game right there! I was slightly annoyed a lot in The Evil Within for like not being able to speed the process or just jump off because Resident Evil 4 allow you to jump below stairs or edges rather than slowly go down. But really in this game you can climb about everything, it's a nice dynamic system.

The bad news is that the annoying hitboxes are still there, the enemies still grab you a lot, but the good news is that stealth is better implemented and doesn't feel that hard to approach anymore with how open areas are now. In fact the pacing and style of this game is completely different just because of that: It's more crouch, stealth open-world rather than "SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD! SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD! PRESS A!", if anything it feels like a more polished Bethesda-design game. Things like a shooting range unlocked later on also make for a better experience.

Also if you want to make this game really enjoyable, fully upgrade your stealth tree, seriously. The green goo experience pacing is a lot more forgiving this time as it is no longer that much RNG if you get it or not, you mostly get it all the time after defeating an enemy and it gives you that extra reason to waste ammo to kill hard enemies, and that is good because you have a lot to upgrade and this alone makes the game more fun and better than the first game. And honestly? Around half-way into the game, the game is way more fun, it's an odd pacing but there some turns in tone.

Oh and at least now there is a way to get health immediately back (coffee!). The idea of zombies in a virtual reality is dumb and obviously just an excuse but a typical zombie filled city setting worked for it's benefit here. What is definitely unexpected and completely new is how much more this sequel embraces RPG mechanics to the point it almost want to be an open world RPG game with side-missions, and crafting work benches!

Which are waaay better than just green gel upgrading everything, you actually get to separately organize your upgrades rather than bundle them all together and end up accidentally only upgrading your health because you had a choice between everything using the same means, this seems like an obvious thing and it's almost as if they made that feature bad in the first game to improve it here just to say there are improvements, oh and there is Bioware-like talking which is just... There. Again it's odd and it feels like people at the office went "Hey what could we add to this game to make it more modern?" "I know! Add dialog trees!"

The dialog and plot of the game is now honestly a bit overly there, while in the first game it seemed like it was just tacked on and just randomly touched upon every now and then (AKA with almost no substance, just slight references to plot every now and then) in this case, there's a lot more dialog, most of the time I was playing this game i was like "Oh yeah that was a plot from the first game right?" Because the thing is the first game didn't touch that much at all with the exception of little notes. It was obvious the game wasn't expecting a sequel because the last game ends with Sebastian (the main character) leaving the hospital with an attitude of "Let's never talk of this again" to "I've been THINKING ABOUT it for YEARS! Also remember that little exposition of my character! Now that's the main plot!"

Sebastian is a lot more conversational than usual too, talking more to himself rather than just impulsively saying "what the f(can I swear on this site? I still don't know)", also Tatiana is back and you can even talk to her! Namely: Talk around the lines of "Wow this is just like BEACON!", you know I've just played the first game to immediately play this one and I gotta say I do have some traumatic flashbacks of those annoying events too. Even if it was just...A day.

The plot is so silly in the evil within 2, it’s like making a big deal of a very simple short concept and the result is CHEESE. Not like wacky cheese but LONG “ok I GET IT” cheese. The prolonging feel this has makes the game feel more than 20 hours and it also makes me wish for more dumb action like Resident Evil 6, although a flawed game.

Did I like playing this game? Sure. I think the aspect of me not dying due to cheap reasons adds to that (I'm still bitter about the first game being very cheap). But The Evil Within as a series feels to have a problem finding it's own identity you know? It feels as if I'm never satisfied because they're always moving a little to the right or left instead of being perfectly placed. It's moving to many places to see what it's best at all whilst carrying it's over the shoulder perspective survivor horror genre as a badge, while this game holds clear improvements over the clunky first game, it tries really hard to be a stealth game which can get a bit boring sometimes as most of the game you are crouching and stealth killing. Also why do they automatically turn on my lights if it blows my cover?!

I won't lie that the aspect of it being open world and you go around looking for supplies made it a little more gratifying but sometimes I actually miss the more Arena-like and Stage-like style of the first which was more combat oriented. Even if the first was just a bad Resident Evil 4, again, I'm never satisfied because it's obvious it's influenced by RE4 but it never finds the balances between all of those aspects. I've never played The Last of Us but I hear it finds a perfect balance in being a RE4 clone.

I think what I mean is that while the first game was too tight and concentrated, this one's too loose? And most of my complains of the first game were from genuine annoyance, in this case it was just slight moments of boredom which isn't worse because I can over look those aspects and appreciate the little moments of gratification (seriously, the small bursts of excitement between empty gaps this game have are pretty good for what it's worth). It's not a perfect game where every single moment is excitement but it'll do for like time wasting. If anything it is a game that makes you look at someone's butt because it has the quest point locator.

Also, the game doesn't tell you, but to use those shiny machine boxes, you gotta use an electric bolt. Many have gotten stuck at this.

Oh and, like The Evil Within 1, the optimization for fullscreen scaling sucks, the resolution option does not scale, but luckily enough my PC runs the lowest widescreen resolution, so in those terms it runs better than the first game.

I really like the first Evil Within. The gameplay was really polished and it had this strange otherworldly atmosphere the whole time with the environment changing constantly which kept you on your toes, not to mention some pretty creepy enemies.

Its one flaw was probably its story and characters. They were very confusing and nothing really made that much sense to me.

This second game fixes these issues and nearly knocks it out of the park. Its characters are much more interesting and the story is waaaay more fulfilling. After I beat it, I was left with this feeling like something amazing had just taken place.

Its a great game with creepy moments, memorable characters, a fulfilling story and mind-bending environmental shifts.

Its one weakness is something I think the first game nailed perfectly, the gameplay. The first game was soo polished in the way you move with the sneaking and combat controls that it was just fun to play. This one sadly doesn't have that as much, it's even a bit wonky and reminds me of older survival horror games with controls that feel sometimes like they're fighting you. But as with those old games once you get the hang of it, its not that much of a problem. I just wish they had carried over that great gameplay feel of the first one.

Regardless, this really is a great game and should be played and supported if you like horror video games or even just single player ones.