FA+
Shop
Evil Within 2
8 years ago
Eeeeyy I know you all come here to read in depth reviews of games that I don't think anyone cares about, so here we go ! I finished The Evil Within 2 and here’s what I think :
Eh.
It’s a far less interesting game than its predecessor was and doesn’t really improve in the way I would have wanted. The first game was a 3rd person shooter that stood out from the crowd in how you could be effective with your very limited ressources while NOT playing stealthily, essentially being Resident Evil 4 again rather than the Last Of Us, which was cool. Nothing too special, but it was fun if janky and had some pretty decent level design to accompany it, good visuals and pacing even if the story and characters were non-existent. Evil Within 2 has removed a lot of the jank but a lot of the fun too, it alos removed the tight level design, visuals have their moments still but there’s nowhere near the amount of variety that was present in the first game, story and characters are arguably better but still not good. It ends up much closer to The Last Ofu Us rather than RE4, so fuck me I guess.
Evil Within 2 removed some of the options that made stealth merely an option. So you’re forced into it. And it’s better than it was in the first game ! But a lot less enjoyable than the action is, said action suffered as a result of the looser level design and enemy that stagger much less than they did in the first game and move a lot more making headshots a lot harder to pull off. So it’s all about stealth, which I only ever used to get a lay of the land in the first game to know where to lead enemy around once I start shooting. Here, there’s nothing to lead them to. There are hardly any traps to lead them into, no point in clumping them together to take them out in one swoop, so you just single them out and knife them. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun in some respect but it’s not what I wanted, and its easily abusable.
When push comes to shove, the level design doesn’t hold a candle to that of the first game. It was always very tight, very linear with occasionally some more open spaces which offered you some small amount of exploration. The second game now has a lot of its playtime spent inside large open levels, which largely serves to fuck up the pacing of the game by forcing you into safe zones to save often so that you don’t have to re-do all you just did.
Still there remains linear levels focused on being approached one way, too bad they’re just worse than what we saw in the previous title. A similar situation occurs in both games around the same time. You’re stuck in a room and you know enemies will soon flood the place. In the first game it’s obvious due to the amount of traps around which you will have to make use of, so you make a plan first then start the wave and kill em all efficiently, it’s all gamey and dumb but it’s also fun. In the second game, you see the enemies on the floor and behind locked doors, you’ll know they’ll come, there’s nothing in the level to help you, it’s basically a flat space full of nothing. The best you can do is kill the few in your reach before the wave starts, perhaps placing a bomb there if you have any…
One asks you to use the environment carefully as to make sure you waste as little ressources as possible, the other just asks you to throw your ressources away without any more subtlety to it.
Speaking of ressources, the first game had crafting ! … Well you could craft bolts for your crossbow. So it was simple, and it worked fine. This sequel has crafting ! The typical kind. The annoying kind. You grab some shit here and there to make bullets later. I don’t see what’s fun about that. Just give me bullets. I don’t need to make them myself, just give me fucking ammo. You also have two other ressources to gain some new abilities and improve your weapons, both of which were a snigle ressource in the first game forcing you to choose between firepower and defense. Now you don’t need to.
Story wise, it’s mediocre. The basline is cliché but whatever, a story is only as compelling as its characters, if you care for them, then you care for what happens to them. Problem is the voice acting is average, character design is average, the dialog are typical video-game fare, only serviceable and sadly completely devoid of subtlety. It’s just pretty damn meh. There’s nothing special in there.
The plot does nothing to improve that. You’re chasing after your daughter ! Who, as players, we have never seen, so fuck if I care. The first game had this problem as well, often making us chase after a mentally handicapped character without ever bother to show us why we should care about his well being beyond the fact that “it’s a hummaaan beeeeing”. You’d think they’d learn. But they didn’t.
What they did improve on was simply putting MORE plot in there. The first game felt aimless for the most part. This one is much easier to follow, way more talkative than was the first as well. To the point where the main characters just has this video game habit to mutter to himself all the time. He seemed strangely disconnected from everything in the first game, now he can’t shut up.
The antagonists could have saved it all I suppose. But they don’t, they don’t impact the world as heavily as the first game’s antagonist thus they feel less relevant, they’re not particularly charismatic and they come at you one after another, which makes the second villain feel so utterly forced. He could easily be written off the script without anything of substance being lost, the hallmark of a great character ! He’s not the only character like that, they’re all expednables and add nothing much to it all but break the silence.
It all sounds pretty damning, more than I wish to be since in all honesty I enjoyed my time with the game. It’s fine enough. It often looks very good, sounds good, feels good, there’s nothing too wrong with it. It’s just bland, blander than the first game. It’s sad given that imagination is at the center of the games since it all happens within the character’s minds and yet it’s formulaic as hell. I would have hoped the sequel would be wilder than the first game, make true on the promise that was shown then, expand on the ideas thrown rather than them just being window dressing. I’m not mad, not even that disappointed. But looking at it objectively, I can’t praise it as much as I can bash it.
Eh.
It’s a far less interesting game than its predecessor was and doesn’t really improve in the way I would have wanted. The first game was a 3rd person shooter that stood out from the crowd in how you could be effective with your very limited ressources while NOT playing stealthily, essentially being Resident Evil 4 again rather than the Last Of Us, which was cool. Nothing too special, but it was fun if janky and had some pretty decent level design to accompany it, good visuals and pacing even if the story and characters were non-existent. Evil Within 2 has removed a lot of the jank but a lot of the fun too, it alos removed the tight level design, visuals have their moments still but there’s nowhere near the amount of variety that was present in the first game, story and characters are arguably better but still not good. It ends up much closer to The Last Ofu Us rather than RE4, so fuck me I guess.
Evil Within 2 removed some of the options that made stealth merely an option. So you’re forced into it. And it’s better than it was in the first game ! But a lot less enjoyable than the action is, said action suffered as a result of the looser level design and enemy that stagger much less than they did in the first game and move a lot more making headshots a lot harder to pull off. So it’s all about stealth, which I only ever used to get a lay of the land in the first game to know where to lead enemy around once I start shooting. Here, there’s nothing to lead them to. There are hardly any traps to lead them into, no point in clumping them together to take them out in one swoop, so you just single them out and knife them. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun in some respect but it’s not what I wanted, and its easily abusable.
When push comes to shove, the level design doesn’t hold a candle to that of the first game. It was always very tight, very linear with occasionally some more open spaces which offered you some small amount of exploration. The second game now has a lot of its playtime spent inside large open levels, which largely serves to fuck up the pacing of the game by forcing you into safe zones to save often so that you don’t have to re-do all you just did.
Still there remains linear levels focused on being approached one way, too bad they’re just worse than what we saw in the previous title. A similar situation occurs in both games around the same time. You’re stuck in a room and you know enemies will soon flood the place. In the first game it’s obvious due to the amount of traps around which you will have to make use of, so you make a plan first then start the wave and kill em all efficiently, it’s all gamey and dumb but it’s also fun. In the second game, you see the enemies on the floor and behind locked doors, you’ll know they’ll come, there’s nothing in the level to help you, it’s basically a flat space full of nothing. The best you can do is kill the few in your reach before the wave starts, perhaps placing a bomb there if you have any…
One asks you to use the environment carefully as to make sure you waste as little ressources as possible, the other just asks you to throw your ressources away without any more subtlety to it.
Speaking of ressources, the first game had crafting ! … Well you could craft bolts for your crossbow. So it was simple, and it worked fine. This sequel has crafting ! The typical kind. The annoying kind. You grab some shit here and there to make bullets later. I don’t see what’s fun about that. Just give me bullets. I don’t need to make them myself, just give me fucking ammo. You also have two other ressources to gain some new abilities and improve your weapons, both of which were a snigle ressource in the first game forcing you to choose between firepower and defense. Now you don’t need to.
Story wise, it’s mediocre. The basline is cliché but whatever, a story is only as compelling as its characters, if you care for them, then you care for what happens to them. Problem is the voice acting is average, character design is average, the dialog are typical video-game fare, only serviceable and sadly completely devoid of subtlety. It’s just pretty damn meh. There’s nothing special in there.
The plot does nothing to improve that. You’re chasing after your daughter ! Who, as players, we have never seen, so fuck if I care. The first game had this problem as well, often making us chase after a mentally handicapped character without ever bother to show us why we should care about his well being beyond the fact that “it’s a hummaaan beeeeing”. You’d think they’d learn. But they didn’t.
What they did improve on was simply putting MORE plot in there. The first game felt aimless for the most part. This one is much easier to follow, way more talkative than was the first as well. To the point where the main characters just has this video game habit to mutter to himself all the time. He seemed strangely disconnected from everything in the first game, now he can’t shut up.
The antagonists could have saved it all I suppose. But they don’t, they don’t impact the world as heavily as the first game’s antagonist thus they feel less relevant, they’re not particularly charismatic and they come at you one after another, which makes the second villain feel so utterly forced. He could easily be written off the script without anything of substance being lost, the hallmark of a great character ! He’s not the only character like that, they’re all expednables and add nothing much to it all but break the silence.
It all sounds pretty damning, more than I wish to be since in all honesty I enjoyed my time with the game. It’s fine enough. It often looks very good, sounds good, feels good, there’s nothing too wrong with it. It’s just bland, blander than the first game. It’s sad given that imagination is at the center of the games since it all happens within the character’s minds and yet it’s formulaic as hell. I would have hoped the sequel would be wilder than the first game, make true on the promise that was shown then, expand on the ideas thrown rather than them just being window dressing. I’m not mad, not even that disappointed. But looking at it objectively, I can’t praise it as much as I can bash it.
Lellerz
~lellerz
Nice a Von game review. You really need to do these more often, I enjoy them.
