Today's game is Alan Wake II. I beat it today. I'm going to try and put how i feel about it into words but the game was as close to perfect (for me personally) that i feel a game could get. Most likely it will come out as a jumbled mess because i haven't had any time to properly format any sort of essay form to this, but i wanted to get my thoughts on it out there.
I'm going to put any possible spoilers in lemmy's built in spoiler box so people who don't want to be spoiled can at least somewhat understand my points (it will just be lacking the explanations).
Before if i was forced to pick between Alan Wake I or II, it would have been hard but i would ultimately go with Alan Wake I because of Nostalgia. But Remedy's writing and attention to details in this one have knocked it out of the park. There were some points where it legitimately left me holding my breath.
spoiler
There's one segment where Alan gets out of the dark place, and is running through the woods. He makes a mention of how it's just like he started and then the Song Water Pressure plays, which is the same song that plays in the first one, like when he started. I also found myself smiling at his narrations while int he woods. it made me so nostalgic.
Then the game also has a remix of Departure playing in some places which did the same thing. I legit stopped at the Jukebox playing it and went "hey! that's departure from the first game!"
Also, Alice's "Death" genuinely creeped me out though, and the way it was executed had me genuinely believe she might be dead despite seeing the background and saying to myself "That's cauldron lake, maybe she went to the dark place?"
Then with Alan's death, i love how it saves the answer to the question that it might be a loop for an after credit's scene. It left time for the fear that he might actually be dead to sink into my stomach like a weight.
And then there was Saga's segment in her mind palace. It was so well done, because the game spends the entire time setting it up as a safe place kind of like what Fable 3 did with it's sanctuary. Then it rips the safety and control you have over it out from under you. The jumpscare of the cultist legit got me, and i appreciate they only did it once.
I'm so glad i avoided spoilers for this game, because it's one of those games that after beating it i'm left with a pit where it used to be. I unlocked the Final Draft (Basically the game's New Game Plus) which from what i understand adds to the story, i already am making plans to jump straight into that because Alan Wake II has left me wanting more.
As is tradition for what i've been doing with Alan Wake II, i took a couple more portraits too:
It’s hard for me to do that too. I found setting regular reminders for it on my phone helped, at least once I get over that initial hump of forming a pattern, then it just becomes a simple “oh. Today’s my day to run laundry”. Of course, if I break that habit it becomes hard again, but it does help a lot. But also I’m no psychologist, so for all I know it could be a case by case basis