I continued Alan Wake II today. I've been avoiding spoilers for this game so i have no clue if i'm near the end or not, but i'm loving the entire thing and i already don't want it to end. I'm hoping to get a second part of going back to play as Alan but with where i got too in the story i have a feeling i'm close to the end sadly. I also took a ton of screenshots (Though i do that everyday, i just have a lot that i feel are "share-worthy").
Overall i'm enjoying Saga's half of the story just as much as Alan's. While Alan's section allowed for stealth, Saga's embraces combat with boss fights and such.
This screenshot doubled as a experiment, i wanted to see if since it's a dark photo if a bit more grain could help it look realistic. I did a similar thing when the hallway filled with blood, but i think i put too much grain in it:
I also played around with the portrait mode some more and took a photo of Tor and a enemy. I really like this game's photo mode because it feels like it encompasses it's whole theme of art. So it's very appropriate that it allows for that:
I also took this screenshot of the road which i loved because i feel like it showcases how pretty this game is. Some of these photos i (personally) feel like could pass for real life at a glance. I think for sure tricks like the motion blur help:
Bonus pic of a deer head i took because it caught my attention:
One thing I forgot to ask last post was the music, in particular the between-chapter songs. They were all written specifically for the game by various artists based on poems about the story Sam Lake gave them. I've seen lots of streamers just immediately skip and go to the next chapter, but I really recommend listening through each song. They're all amazing, and it kind of makes me sad it didn't get the award for best music.
I always listen to the music. With the way remedy is it plays such a vital part in it that i would be caught dead before skipping them. It may be nostalgia bias for the first one but particularly Poet of The Fall's Heroes and Villains was my favorite, RAKEL's Follow You Into The Dark knocked it out of the park too.
spoiler
Then there was this stage at the end, which was playing a remix of Departure from the first game which i would by lying if i said it didn't make me sad and nostalgic
Then there was a segment in the game that used the same music from the first episode of Alan Wake I, and that to me felt really clever because of the parallels too it. Overall i feel like remedy knocked it out of the park in all departments, and the music especially was no exception.
Totally. And between stuff like the stage fight in AW1, the Ashtray Maze in Control and We Sing in AW2 Remedy has gotten so damn good at integrating music and gameplay too.
I personally was blown away by POE - This Road as well. The track is mesmerising and every time a new variation on it played after an Alan chapter I had almost goosebumps. I still regularly go back and listen to the whole 9 minute track on YouTube.
Definitely. The way Remedy executes the stage moments doesn’t feel too out of place either. I feel like it would be hard to execute that in a horror game in a way that doesn’t take you out of the moment, yet remedy keeps doing it over and over again