Thanks for the support - let me know if I sounded a bit harsh in this one? The game truly was a great experience but I get a little into the weeds with some of the points and am worried I come across as more negative than positive.
@@kaldini Im near the end still so maybe you compeltely trash it at the end, but from what Ive watched so far you seem to be breaking the vid up with reminders that the game has many unique positive qualities so I think its clear you havent approached it with intention of just saying its bad, but to describe what it is, good and bad
Havent finished yet but you are bang on about Alan's sections. I feel like I should look back on Alan's side and have realized that in 'changing the story' to help Alan, I did so by making Saga's life harder. If the story is blocked, Alan needed to write the return of Taken coming from the lake. He needed to rewrite his tragic end stuck in the dark place with a new tragic background for Saga. Maybe have the detective enamored by the cult in his story, which manifests as Alex Casey possessed by Mr Scratch at the end. Instead I feel like Alan's sections are Remedy Universe material. I assume the Max Payne remake will include some references to make us say 'omg this is one of Alan's stories!'. Control 2 will have some throwaway references to Warlin Door and Shawn Ashmore will be in a future new IP and wink at the camera. I love the game btw
Expanding on what you said - the detective being enamored by the cult would also mirror Saga in a lot of ways because she gets hyper fixated on the manuscript pages and wanting to be involved in this weird case. Interesting thoughts as well. I hadn't considered that the Max Payne remake would be looped in as I had the impression Alex Casey was their way of having their cake and eating it too. I am a bit disappointed that they as a studio seem to be taking on a bunch of different projects now as it means the wait for followups to specific games is going to take even longer. We'll just have to wait and see.
As someone whose GOTY was Alan Wake 2, I really appreciated hearing all of your critiques! I've been thinking about the ending ever since I beat it and I'm inclined to agree with you on it. In the moment it felt abrupt and I'm still not sure what the game is ultimately trying to say. But I just love the fact that it IS so weird and has so many themes and layers to it. I really enjoyed the journey more than the destination, I think.
I very enjoyed the video and I kind of agree with what you said. "Kind of" because for me, AW2 is a mess. So I 'll share my thoughts on it. First I will compare it with the first one, gameplay, visual, storywise. Despite its beautiful visuals, AW2 failed to make the presence of the Dark place, and the threat of the Dark place tangible. In AW1, there was that dark windy visual effect (and the sound with it) that create the sensation that the forest is becoming alive due to an obscure maleficient force ready to swallow everyone who lost their way in. That effect plays a role in the horror and the tension I felt while playing AW1. In AW2, the visuals are much more beautiful, but also too clean, too static, that effect is lost in the sequel. The forest doesn't feel threatning anymore, I don't have the sensation that I am against a weird non physical mysterious dark presence. Also, in AW1, I like the lighting of the flashlight and the lamp pole (but also the neons and all) because it works very well with the "windy effect" by contrast, and the lights have this purity to it, it really support the idea that my flashlight (and all the lights) do have the power to defeat the envading dark force. The gameplay of AW1, while being repetitive, allows for moment of tension that AW2 doesn't have. I recall the feeling of walking in the forest with my flashlight, no enemies in sight, and then out of nowhere, there were fives approaching (with the camera reveal), and suddenly my heart rate goes up, and I am asking myself: do I run to the next lamp pole, or do I fight ? Those moments of AW1 are not present in AW2, and there are nothing that replace them in AW2 (and even if the repetitivity of the gameplay of AW1 decrease the tension of those moments, at least AW1 do have those high peaks in its gameplay...AW2 don't have anything like it). Storywise, while AW1 is very basic and straightforward, the fact that the story doesn't try to be complicated, means that I am following along, and therefore I am invest in the characters, and the emotional journey up to the end was there. What Alan does, why he want to do it, and the ending itself is well executed. Multiple times, the game states that Alice is trapped under the lake. So the goal of Alan is to free Alice out the lake...but how ? Well, by finishing the story of Departure, but he need to work with the constraint of the story...he choose to let himself emprisoned in the dark place in order to free Alice, a trad off, and then with have the sentence "it's not a Lake, it's an ocean". Either one can see it as Wake realise that the Darkness he chose to let himself in is much much bigger that he thought, making his sacrifice more tragic, or it is himself by writing that sentence, transform the lake into an ocean, making the looming threat of the Darkness beneath Bright Falls bigger also as a trad off for saving Alice. In AW2, Saga and Wake have an idea for the ending but They do not communicate it to the player, I very feel excluded as a player during that sequence, then they execute the plan, and then there is that cliffhanger, the emotional momentum of the climax is not there. Then afterwards, I start to think how does what they did connect with the talk they had earlier (about hero, sacrifice and saving everyone....) ? Also why a cliffhanger ? what motivates it ? How does that consitute an ending ? And as you pointed out, the ending feels rush and not earned. "It's not a loop it's a spiral" What was that about a loop ? The game never introduce the idea of the loop, what constitutes the loop in the story. Sure, they were looping elements in overlaps and all, but at any point the game present the loop being narratively significant. And it turns out that the loop in question is the entire game, like the Final Draft new game + suggest, and the photo of the Alan magic bullet taken by Alice. But also the word "loop" is a bit misleading because in the game, the "loop" always have very obvious changing elements, so progress is being made...I mean every day I wake up on my bed, and every night I go to sleep, Am I "looping" ? Well, I may be looping, but there is nothing threatning about it, it is just how it goes...and the loop in AW2 feels very much like that, the game does a poor job of making the looping dramatic, returning in place in a contrived manner (by following a path that cannot exist in the real world) doesn't mean you are looping (in a dramatic sense), you just come back where you were, and on top that there is always something different to judge that you are not looping....I don't know, the word feels forced. let's talk about Zane. In AW1, Zane have the appearence of a diver suit with light that comes out of it, guiding Alan with a mysterious and calm approach, and he is known to be a poet. In AW2, he is now a frivolous filmmaker...and that change was apparently introduce in Control...and at the time when played the DLC of Control, I didn't know that Remedy was planning on doing a connected universe so I didn't pay any more attention to it (for me it was like Spartan 117 VS Doom guy, who win ? kind of thing), and when playing AW2 I was surprise by that version of Zane. It is quite a drastic changes since the relation Alan-Zane was nothing like that in AW1, there were even ambiguity regarding if Alan was summoned by Zane, or if it is Alan that create Zane, whatever what is true, that dynamic between the characters installed in AW1 is reduce to nothing in AW2... Also Cynthia Weaver who knew Thomas Zane didn't mistook Alan for Tom...so I am not sold with Zane being Alan, and AW1 doesn't seems to have started that kind of link between the two characters. Also, we know that the murder sites are related to Zane, he guided Alan towards them, and at the ending of every murder there is a poem..., and those poem finish with the line "he will meet your friends when you are gone" which is a line Zane pronounce in AW1 when he presented Scratch to Wake...So his true motive are not really clear and...intriguing to say the least. Also, on top of just playing his role like you said, he is the one who play with the revolver since the first encounter, he is the one who said "Make him pay for what it did to both of us", basically putting Alan in the state of Mind of pushing the trigger as soon as he sees "Scratch". What is a real person ? A character in AW2 ? does the game properly makes us understand the difference ? No, and it is used in the climax "Casey is not my proper creation so he is not the best fit for the Dark presence"...How does he know ? What are the criteria that allows us to see that Casey is not fictional character from the Mind of Alan Wake ? In fact, the game let the status of ALL of the character of AW2 being fictional...for example, when Alan is in Zane cinema, in the overlap, "If the detective is fictionnal character, and if you (alan) took the place of the detective, are you fictional too ?", and this is supported through a lot of dialogues (like one when Casey said that he feel that maybe he is in amovie of some bastard, and he want to say fuck off but don't know where to look for the cameras, which is also a line from Max payne , If I am not mistaken) and through the meta elements present in the game (the presence of Sam Lake...talking about adaptation...the movie of Zane...), but I will come back to that.
Does AW2 have a good story ? I cannot judge a story independently from it support, and for me AW2 story is not great, at least not that great as people like to brag about, and it is certainly not an improvement of narrative integration in videogame. When it comes to AW2, it feels like people like to talk about it like its not a videogame, just the concept of AW2 stripped away from the support it exist from. The best analogy I have is of a tattoo artist who have a book of his tattoos, and people like to talk about how the tattoos look good in his book, but yet never talk about if the tattoos will look good on one skin, the support its suppose to be on, and in fact in the analogy, the tattoos on the skin are not that great (its not awful, but its not as beautiful as it is in the book). AW2 and AW2 discourse looks like that to me. The gameplay of AW2 is so disconnected from its story. The only moment when the gameplay becomes meaningful is the sequence when Saga is in the Dark place, and she has to fight in her Mind Place. In that sequence the function of the Mind Place as an assistant tools for investigation is subverted for narrative purpose, so we can see the struggle of Saga and the effect of the Dark Place on her thoughts without using a cutscene of her struggling, or without using an "hypersequence" of the basic gameplay (that sequence is mirroring the two episode bonus of AW1, where the struggle of Alan is presenting with the same gameplay of AW1, just recontextualized and with fancy levels). And then, the use of the flashlight is also subverted, she is putting light on the very loving memory she has that the Dark place has hidden from her,...and the player. Because those memories were there since the beginning, and odds are that the player already explored her Mind Place, and saw those memories, and so when the sequence happen, and when they realize that they can reveal those memories, they will be more like: "hey where was those memories located ? there was one in the table, I remember that" and making that sequence much more organic. This is the narrative beat that I respect in AW2. The typewriter sequences that allow to change the levels and all, I do not count those as gameplay, because the game could just switch without the need of the player every time Alan reach the adequate places. Those sequences are cool and appropriate narrative beats, but it is not gameplay per se. And as a result the story of AW2 is very weak when I take into account how it is implemented in a videogame. Gameplay does have a narrative force, and I cannot see how a game like AW2 that barely does anything with it is pushing narrative in videogame forward. AW2 is just doing the same like AW1 but with more fancy tools, gameplay is about shooting things, the narrative is about writing things and there is nothing that connect the two, and I saw games that do much better than that (for example, The talos principle II who came just after AW2 does a better job of implementing its story in a videogame than AW2). When it comes to metanarrative, AW2 didn't need to be fill with any meta content. We already have a very self referencing concept of "what if fiction can become real, and the one who experience that fiction is the writer himself". The meta narrative are not necessary, makes everything more confusing, and more than that, it defeat itself. More than once in the game, we hear "be the hero", "do not just be in the story, make the story", and the ending, without going on a metanarrative level is about taking control of the story, being active in that process, writing an ending. The thing is, on a metanarrative level Saga have no power for making the story, the story is made by Lake and the other writers, therefore she doesn't have the power to save her daughter...So does Alan, he is not capable of anything...it's not glorious for her or Alan, they are both defeated, and the dark presence, the monster is none others than Remedy writers themselves. On a metalevel we are not following the story of Alan and Saga, we are playing the videogame AW2, which is an adaptation of two books, Initiation and Return by Alan Wake, and again in that adaptation it is clear that he or Saga doesn't have any power to change the reality of the story, that power belong to Remedy writers....It is bleak, especially when you consider the fact that the very core of the story of AW2 is to take back the control of the story, "to be the hero", like Tor said, like the different messages you find in the Alex Casey Lunch Box, like Saga who fight back the Dark presence....On the metalevel they have no power, on the metalevel the power fantasy of "taking back the control of the protagonist life" is nullified. And I can even recontextualized the final sentence of Alan in AW1 "it's not a lake, it's an ocean", what is that ocean ? it is the Remedy connected Universe. Where does that lead me ? Nowhere interesting, or it is interesting if one very like the pessimistic view that arises, but even myself, a pessimistic, I'll pass. As for you interrogation about Wake appearing back in time, and therefore having some sort of self retro causality and particularly "this is not side content but fundamentaly sets up the story the way that it is told. If Wake doesn't get sent back to that past moment, then almost none of the plot occurs". Well this is not the only part that should bother you. In fact, the very first page Saga find is a page about her, and she is added by hand, by Wake probably (who else ?), and Saga and Wake didn't make at this point... so that page, and the next pages that help her to set up the ritual is imbued with the same paradox that you are dealing with. Wake said "Saga was already there", "in Initiation but not in Return, I will write her in". The story of Saga the way it is told seems to imply that Wake took the opportunity to write her in after they talk and all, at least at first glance, but the pages we found before Saga meet Wake suggest that Return have already started, somehow Wake already have been influence by the presence of Saga, she is already in Return the first frame we played, even the first frame she appeared, the chapter of Saga parts is called Return.....So if you are bother by the order of event of the summoning (and people should, and shouldn't dismiss this with a wave of hand), then you should be bothered by the very beginning of the game, and the very first event that unfolds. The Final Draft new game + double that aswell, since now Wake somehow have a different speech, that relate to the end of the "original draft", so the final draft start with the very ending influencing the very beginning of the game. Are the time looping ? there were loops in AW2 but nothing that dramatic, the loops were continously flowing. So maybe he is not looping, in that sense at least, like a time loop. My way of explaining this is first the sentence: "Time is a story" that the future Wake calls Wake at the end of the game. If time is a story, and the influence of the dark place is already much bigger to the point of having effect in the begining of the game then all causality we should usually expect to hold for time, doesn't necessary hold anymore. People can write a story with causality broken without creating a paradox (I mean not how it should hold if the story was real, but writing it doesn't break anything in the physical world, and the dark place is not a physical world in the common sense of being physical), the minimum expected is to be consistent. The second thing is something that I intuited for myself, is that the rules of the Dark place are the rules of Drama, since it feeds on fiction then it is the rule of fiction that the Dark place follow, and like you said, the summoning recontextualized the events that occurs in the motel, it recontextualize Alan behavior, it has dramatic impact (this is not necessary to the explanation, it is just an idea that the game seems to push, and that I like, and it fits with that retrocausality thing). The final sentence is in the ending of the final draft, Alan says "Every choice you make affect everything that comes both BEFORE and AFTER you make it, like it does when you change a detail in a story". This is a non-ludovician time travel (it is the technical terminology) in some way, the dark place twisted time into a story, and a story follow the heroes journey, there is a "present", it is the present of what's being told, the moment it is told, like the moment when you are reading this very sentence. So when we play the final draft, we play the corrected version of the previous Draft, we play the event of the new version of the draft, like there is a godly hand that has written a new version of the story, and we are just reading that story again from the beginning to the new end...This is the best I can do, this the best I understand anyway, but the game does a poor job of making things clear, and the meta narrative and all just add confusion that should had better be certainly avoided. Finaly, the NG+ ending. How does the NG+ ending again connect with "sacrifice that the heroes need to pay"....? Also in the murder site, there is a poem that said "his story ends, her story does not", is this suppose to mean anything....? Why does Alice be able to help Alan with the cloudy dark presence...? Why suddenly is this about "choice", isn't all the point of AW series to be about writing taking effect ? I don't know, I don't understand. it's a mess. The game is very enjoyable obviously, and Remedy had a lot of fun doing it, and there is a lot of very cool thing to love in the game, but yet there are still a lot of little details that have bothered me, bu the essential is cover and I have been already writing for too long.
I really didnt expect to enjoy this game as much as i did. Not so much for the gameplay but the narrative i thought was phenomenal. I'm really loving what Remedy is doing with the whole connected verse. Oh and i would love to hear your thoughts on Alien Isolation someday.
Kaldini showed up on my subscribers feed, and I was like… when did I subscribe to someone named Kaldini…? Let me the channel-oh shit it's the channel with the brilliant Control and Dishonoured videos! Heck yeah, I've been looking for someone to analyze Alan Wake 2 instead of just reviewing it or blabbing about it in a podcast.
@@kaldini I don't think harsh is accurate? Definitely not cutting much slack for the game's flaws, but you also make sure to mention the good parts too.
@@Warclam Appreciate your thoughts! There's definitely substantially more that I liked about the game than disliked. The discussion for flaws are just always larger due to providing justification and evidence where possible. Thanks for watching the vid.
Oh hey, just one point of feedback: I think you got to make that thumbnail pop more. Keep the red outline but make the base of the letters in your title white so they stand out from the dark background. I think that would really help visibility and attractiveness to potential new viewers! Otherwise its simply complementary dark colors but so much so that my eye turns away from it
I mostly agree with you on this. Alan’s sections always seem like you’re achieving next to nothing whereas Saga pushes the story forward. I did like Alan’s scene-changing mechanic though but the Alex Casey stuff seemed forced. The links to AW1, Control and Quantum Break are everywhere though! It would be great if Remedy could get the rights to QB back! Love the critique, it’s refreshing to find a video that doesn’t just get on its knees for Remedy. This isn’t a perfect game by any means and the comparisons to Kojima are justified.
Playing AW2 actually made me watch Raycevick's video on Quantum Break to learn more about it - seems super interesting and creative. Wish there was a way to play it on playstation. Thanks for watching and commenting! Appreciate it.
@@kaldini hey man you’re welcome and thank you for your reply! Such a shame QB is locked to Xbox especially given the implied(?) link between Mr Door / Martin Hatch. There’s a connected universe there for Remedy but they need the IP rights for Max Payne and Quantum Break back to fully realise it I think. The DLC will be interesting and I agree with you that Sheriff Breaker will be a big part of it. Edit: oh and thank you for the recommendation of Lacuna, I’ll be playing that!
Ahti is a Finnish god of the ocran in folklore - I always assumed he was an interdimensional god because of that. The water imagery is also very strong with him. I don't really think of him as a lazy plot device but I may just be too much of a fangirl. (haven't seen the entire vid yet - I'll keep watching)
@@kaldini Well as it happens, just finished it :) You bring up good points and more imporantly: valid points. I don't like the game less because of it, I kinda like it more. It's always good to know the flaws of your favourite games. You also are incredibly fair in it's assessment - at least imo. Personally, I liked Control more, but perhaps that's just because the only other survival horror game I can compare AW2 to is Re4r (which I liked more than AW2) - and I love Re4r equally as much as Control (they are my favourite games of all time). I also discovered that there's just aspects I simply don't care about - like the case of why Alan landed on the shore in a different time. To me, the explanation that the dark place is a bit timey wimey is enough - I never really considered others being bothered by it. Or by Athi being a mysterious entity. Or in general the dark place fuckery. I guess I personally am not bothered that much by plot holes - at least as long as they are not plot craters. But good to know about them. I didn't notice most of the inconsistencies myself. So... yea I agree with most of your points and good video! (except the musical - I love the musical as much as I love the Ashtray and nothing can change that. Sam Lake you lunatic I love you.) Fun little addon that has nothing to do with the video: Alan Wake got integrated into Dead by Daylight and they wrote his lore like it was canon to what happened in AW2 or well... will happen. I find that incredibly cool personally. They also decided to make it ambiguous if Alan was responsible for the story of DBD. To me it's funny. Silly little writer accidentally creates/summons an eldrich horror to escape another eldrich horror. Also: have sub dude. I love good video essay channels.
@@avocadothecat I worried a lot about coming across too harsh in this video because I genuinely really loved Alan Wake 2. I still listen to the soundtrack and think about it often. I'm also eagerly awaiting the DLCs. Thanks for taking the time to watch both this and the Control video as well as give your thoughts on them. It's appreciated!
1:08 I think that cautious recommendation, is to put it mildly, the game is not a fine survival horror, if a survival horror at all. Fights are tedious and not in a good way (there are some exceptions, but there's like 2 of them and personally for me those were a letdown, compared to Control or first AW). Running sequences are horrible as the direction where you're supposed to run is poorly telegraphed if telegraphed at all. There's nothing that scary apart from the cheap jumpscares that overstayed their welcome. The game would spam your inventory with items, only taking into consideration quantity of items you have on hands (or lack of those). Bosses are mediocre at best. I did play some old and new survival horrors and that's a bad example of this genre.
I agree completely in regards to the chase sequences, jump scares, and inventory item issues (I discuss all three later in the video in the combat portion and express similar opinions to what you just stated, with some examples). That being said, I personally would still consider it a survival horror, largely because of the atmosphere. I don't think it capitalizes on this atmosphere as well as it could however. I also am apparently in the minority in that I greatly prefer this combat to either Control or the original AW. Thanks for watching and commenting!
I'm just starting this video and I really need to keep hearing everyone's thoughts on this, especially when they're not brown nosing. I adore Alan Wake and its lore but something about 2 felt both incredibly brave but also reckless with some of the established lore. It also felt like Twin Peaks: the Return in its sometimes callous use of side characters in Saga's campaign or retconning of certain things. It's like the best you could hope for from Remedy in their post-Control way of doing things, but it's lost a little of its 2010 charm in the process. and the Final Draft ending seems almost like wish fulfillment, whereas the OG ending feels needlessly hopeless.
I do think I come across a bit harsh in the video, particularly about the ending but I really did adore the game. If it hadn't been for BG3, this would've been my favorite game I played this year. It does a lot of stuff right and is an experience I keep thinking about. In that way I think it's actually better than the original for me, which I played, enjoyed, and then largely put down. Appreciate you watching man and I'm looking forward to watching your upcoming video on the game too.
@@kaldini i'll get through all of it and let you know what I think. I'm likely similar to you: I think this is a really solid game in a lot of ways but there's just something off about it to me, especially as a longtime fan. even when its doing what i want, it feels like it betrays its new direction or makes certain plot points nonsensical and vice versa
@@MidnightMedium I almost wonder if I'd have personally liked the game better if it had been a new IP and just followed Saga. It's hard to say for sure since the plot is so interwoven, but the Saga parts are what I enjoyed the most
Definitely a skill issue on my end then and perhaps not recognizing signs. I even included some footage of that fight where I shoot him multiple times with my gun and it doesn't do anything, just so people wouldn't think I was crazy for my criticism haha.
To add with the retro causality thing, they have been experimenting with it with Quantum Break aswell, and it kind of work the same way, it is self consistent, but it is made much clearer and better handled I would argue, it "flows better", and despise all its problem it is the game I enjoyed the most from Remedy.
