I liked the more Shinji Mikami-in-your-face of the first game. It had more enemy variety with crazy diverse level designs that were literally schizophrenic. However, I really did enjoy this game even though it felt more AAA than the first one. The story still makes no sense, but I got 56hrs out of level grinding for synaptic focus (bullet time), so I got my money's worth. Word of warning! Survival mode is too easy! Play at least Nightmare for the true survival experience.

The Evil Within 2 is what it sets out to be: a Resident Evil-like game with fresh imagery and gameplay. It's solid enough, with some good survival horror, some good action horror, and phenomenal acting and world-building. It's a bit overly cinematic, which is not that much of a problem in the first two thirds, since there's so much to do and explore. But the final third of the game felt to me ilke just one long movie that required me to click on my mouse or E button every so often. That got a little boring, to be honest. The game has a good story, but the gameplay in the final third of the game is very anticlimactic. Definitely frontloads the most interesting gameplay. Also not particular scary. The imagery is creepy, and the sound design downright terrifying, but it never really creates that sense of dread and vulnerability that makes survival horror such a copelling genre. Because of the RE roots, at the end of the day TEW2 wants to be an action game. But it's fun, and a solid 20+ hrs of great entertainment.

TEW2 is a decidely "better" but less interesting game than TEW1. While the first game felt like a messy experimental love letter to grimy slashers and Mikami's previous work. TEW2 shrugs all of that off for a cleaner, more fluid and decidedly less interesting take on the world established by the first game. The jank is toned down, no more faux widescreen ratio you will want turned off. It feels like a modern game complete with a semi open world. While this modern push is undoubtedly the reason people champion this game over the first, I feel it's actually very jarring and doesn't compliment the first game either. Gone is the gritty Texas Chainsaw Massacre look. Gone is the classic survival horror focus on ammo preservation entirely. No more shooting a monster in the legs for a cheeky match, or using matches on suspicious corpses. It actually feels like a step down and more limited at times and the focus on resource preservation almost entirely gone. Even in the story department, 2 feels like a very different game starring completely different actors. Beyond the main premise and some names. None of the tone, writing or characterization of the first game carry over to the second. I actually think it would have been beneficial if they brought in entirely new characters to star in this. It would have felt better. That said. I do think this is a good game. Better in some aspects. Worse in others. I think your enjoyment will hinge on how much you enjoy the first game. Ironically this feels like it was made for people who didn't like the first one. So if that is you, great. If you did like it though. This might feel a bit offputting at times.

More FPS than survival horror for me which is a good thing. The only thing I recommend is that you play TEW 1 before playing this one, the story will make much more sense and the appreciation for all the improvements will be obvious. The tip I give is to focus mostly on stealth kills with your melee weapon, it's more fun and ammo will not be an issue also seek out and kill everything the upgrades are really worth it in this one.

Played this game with keyboard and mouse and didn't have any problem. But the game wasn't good as I expected; the first half was fine, played on nightmare difficulty (recommended for those who liked the first one normal difficulty, I did, but the first had matches), the second half was a chore and I lost my interest. I stopped playing it on chapter 11 because I was just rushing trough it, bored. Not a horrible game but a forgettable one, the first TEW was a way better experience. Gonna finish in the future. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ?"