#3010
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Another proof, that your mood can affect the perception of a media. Not like I needed proof of that, but still.
I played original game around the time it came out. Pirated it at first, but then bought it right away, because I enjoyed it so much. I also liked the 2nd game. So much, that I started writing a story (sadly, still incomplete), that could fit into a similar type of game. Once the remake hit a good discount, it was a no-brainer to buy it and replay it, although I rarely replay things. And I was disappointed.
First of all, visually the game is amazing. Previous ones were good, as well, but better lighting, higher resolution textures and HDR support make it look even better. We also still have all these hallucination(-like) stuff and some stylization here and there, that gives you a visual feast. Very artistic and very atmospheric. The latter is extremely important, since this is a horror game. But, unfortunately, that's all there is to it. Or at least, that's how I felt this time.
Artist's story felt quite a bit disjointed. Some areas were different compared to what I remember from original, but maybe I made "different choices", that is went in different directions. That can be a factor to different perception. Although, coherent story-telling should be there regardless of your choices, IMHO. And it's not like the foundation is bad, no. There are several heavy topics here, that are intertwined to make them even heavier, but they are scattered all over the place. I think chapters are supposed to provide focus to different aspects of the story, but they did not feel that focused to me.
"Inheritance" chapter seemed even more disjointed and chaotic, and almost random. Or at least it took way more effort to understand what the game was trying to tell me (visually warped perspective in some segments did not help). And to me it seemed impossible to understand the logic of the painting flashback (which colors you are supposed to use), and the crayons thing. Reading some guides, it also looked like I did not have some of the interactable elements, but maybe I did not do something to unlock them, no idea. But either way, things seemed a bit too convoluted.
That was a huge factor for me to decide not to continue playing, but 3rd writer's segment was another one. Once artist's story is completed you gain control of the writer again, and the notes and a single dialogue felt like some huge chunks of the story were skipped. Maybe I needed to get the "good ending" in the artist's story to get more sense from them, but it still did not fit into the idea of writer's story being the connection between the other parts of the game. What's worse, once I completed "Inheritance", writer's segment was just reset. Meaning it was not really working as a glue anymore.
This is a bit sad. It is possible that the actor story is still as good, as I remember it, and maybe more focused, than the artist's story. But having the writer's story that was advertised a glue, I hoped to get a "connected" experience. Without it I might have bought the remake to support devs, but would not be trying to replay the games. Since my expectations turned out to be false, I lost the motivation to continue. As such, I am not sure I would recommend the game. It is possible, that it will be better to play the original 2 games and get a somewhat "standalone" experience with them instead.
