b e a r d @beardalaxy@gameliberty.club

For people who don't want to read my extremely long Silent Hill 2 Remake posts, just wanted to say I got to the part where you meet Maria and she is an absolute nuisance to have around. Always throwing in quips to things you interact with, having conversations with James, telling you that you're going the wrong way (which happened to me four times even though I know damn well I'm going the wrong way and wanted to explore).

I was actually enjoying the game somewhat up until now. Her introductory cutscene was totally botched, too. Then they had to go and remove the pizza scene with Eddie. Within like a 15-minute span the game went from surprisingly good to annoying and stupid.

1. I turned the combat difficulty to easy. Puzzles are still on normal. Just like with the Alone In The Dark remake, the combat on display here is just not good enough for me you want to continue putting up with it. With AITD it was just horrendously janky with strange hitboxes and bad collision, but with SH2 Remake it's more or less cut back Last of Us combat with extremely simple AI and it's just not interesting. I haven't died yet or anything, and I feel like I've been given an adequate amount of supplies, but it is just so damn generic I don't give a shit about it anymore. It's a shame that there's so much of it, too. There are way more enemies than there were in the original and it seems like they respawn far more often too. As a side note, I've found myself doing this a lot in games recently. If the game isn't greatly focused on the combat aspect like a hack n slash or something, I end up turning the difficulty down just so I can continue through the game without spending as much time on it. I think it may that I just wanting to focus on what the game does well and that I have so many other games to get to I'd rather not waste even a little bit of time slogging through stuff. If I like a game's combat a lot I'll pump the difficulty up on subsequent playthroughs, like I did with Metal Hellsinger, but not for this.
2. The music continues to get on my nerves. There will be this loud, suspenseful music going on while absolutely nothing is happening. It'll happen in specific areas that makes it seem like there's something else to do there but there's not. Again, I wish I could just get rid of the music but I'd be missing out on some bangers.
3. There are a LOT of shortcuts that you can open up. It is appreciated, but sometimes these shortcuts are right next to the original path and it had me wondering why they were included at all. I keep thinking I'm going to have to use them to outrun an enemy or something but that hasn't happened.
4. I just got absolutely assaulted by a loud whisper that occurred for seemingly no reason and it was completely unintelligible. Creepy, definitely spooked me, but as soon as I realized what was happening I couldn't help but roll my eyes. As far as I can tell it was literally just for spook factor and nothing else.
5. The game does this thing where you'll see little set pieces from the original game and you can interact with them. They play a little melody and that's it. Pure nostalgia bait. "Hey, you remember that thing that used to be in the game? Well we did something else this time, but you can still see it here! Isn't that cool?"
6. The camera work in the cutscenes is genuinely really good, there are a lot of cool shots. In the cutscene with Angela in the mirror room, it uses the mirror as a way to show James while Angela seems to look at you in first person and it's pretty sweet.
7. The scene with Angela by the mirror I originally was thinking was not nearly as good as the original, but it's actually copied almost beat for beat. I think that feeling maybe comes from the actress for Angela? She sounds a lot more dead inside. Which I guess makes sense, but it definitely is more on the realistic side of things than the signature dreamlike nature of SH2. Probably a matter of preference and honestly they did do a good job at recreating the scene. I think part of it also might just be me lot vibing with the way the models look and how they animate. Just Unreal Engine stuff.
8. I've noticed that the game kind of likes to arbitrarily lock doors and block passageways to funnel the player to where they need to go. Normally I wouldn't mind something like this, but there are certain optional things that you get locked out of doing if you don't do them before this occurs, and you have no way of knowing when it will occur. It also just kind of happens on a whim and your map gets auto updated, so it's not like debris falls or doors become stuck or anything like that.
9. It's hard to judge the puzzles because the way they have changed existing ones and the puzzles they have added are all really good, but the problem is that there are now just so much of them. It really extends the game and changes the pacing. A lot of what this remake changes is extremely subjective, I think, and that makes it kind of hard to really give it a proper critique. Personally, I would have preferred as much as possible to remain the same, maybe with a lower budget and therefore a lower price point. I know that some people would say "what's the point of a remake then?" but I still think there is something to be said about updating the visuals and maybe changing up a few things here and there, like some QOL features.
10. They changed the location of the first Pyramid Head fight but it's pretty much exactly the same as it used to be. I did in 2 hits even on easy mode with full health so that was kind of funny lol. He's also way more active and faster, which goes along with the heavier focus on action. I will say though, it is far less imposing seeing him go through a big door instead of down into murky water.
11. Whereas the Angela scene was beat for beat perfect, they totally mutilated the first scene with Maria. To get her character design out of the way, yeah she basically just looks like a man honestly, not pretty at all and her head is too large for the rest of her model. The cutscene, though, it leaves out the flashback to the hotel and James talking about it (instead he has amnesia or something), it changes Maria's lines and they don't sound quite the same, it even changes how she pokes fun at James saying "maybe you hated Mary." This is the first time I can definitively say that the original was far better. Maria is just so much more expressive in the original.
12. Oh no... Maria and James have conversations during gameplay. I can tell that I'm going to start seeing the game sink in atmosphere. I hope I'm wrong but seeing the one leak/spoiler that I did, my hopes aren't high.
13. The game does a good job of not letting Maria get in your way. She'll either walk around you or in super close quarters you can just walk through her.
14. Holy shit I haven't been with Maria for more than 5 minutes and she's already getting on my nerves. Adding little quips to everything I look at.
15. HOLY FUCKING SHIT I WANT TO KILL HER! THREE TIMES. THREEEE TIMES SHE HAS TOLD ME I'M GOING THE WRONG WAY. BITCH I KNOW IT'S BEEN TEN MINUTES, LET ME EXPLORE IN PEACE HOLY SHIT.
16. NOOOOOO FUCKING WAY. NOOO FUCKING WAY THEY REMOVED THE PIZZA CUTSCENE WITH EDDIE AND LAURA. Instead, there's an empty bowling alley and a mostly eaten pizza where Eddie would sit in the original. Holy shit I have NEVER seen a game just fucking nose dive like this. Now you can click the pizza and James says "who could just sit here and eat pizza?" FUCK YOU.
17. Oh yeah, the last two times I've closed the game it's just crashed. So that's pretty cool.

Damn... Done for tonight. Played another 2 and a half hours or so. I'm honestly impressed with just how quickly I went from thinking "this game is like an 8/10 probably" to "wow this sucks ass." Maria seriously sucks to have around and they removed one of the best cutscenes in the game. Also I'm fairly certain that lowering the combat difficulty doesn't change damage values, but it does seem to change how many supplies you get by a wide margin. I might go back to normal if I find I've got like 20 health drinks or something.

My mom was telling me how her boyfriend got this massive TV on the wall at their new place, she's like "it's way too big, it's like 45 inches!"

Me, sitting just over a meter away from my 55" listening to her:

show me your spooky halloween wallpapers!

Magnus is a Gigachad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1FCarwVjlc

i'm sensitive to bullshit wotc, would you mind taking your writers out back for me? thanks

As cool as the ability to communicate and game online is, it'll never be better than doing it in person. I miss LAN parties so much and now my only friend who still did them with me moved across the country :(

anyone else want to help me out with beta stuff for my game? just need more peeps to go through and give feedback and report bugs.
at the present moment i'm the only one who has completed a full playthrough lol.