The Evil Within 2

[Multidirectional]

When I played EW2 I didn't even kill all of the enemies. Some of the tougher enemies in open areas I left alone because I felt I was too low on resources to engage so I had to keep sneaking around them when backtracking through these parts. Maybe I simply sucked, though I did play on hardest.

 

[Zlaja]

I when I played EW2 I didn't even kill all of the enemies. Some of the tougher enemies in open areas I left alone because I felt I was too low on resources to engage so I had to keep sneaking around them when backtracking through these parts. Maybe I simply sucked, though I did play on hardest.

You're really supposed to backstab those flamethrower guys. Takes like 5-6 stabs. They take way too much ammo to take down otherwise.

 

[Multidirectional]

You're really supposed to backstab those flamethrower guys. Takes like 5-6 stabs. They take way too much ammo to take down otherwise.

I don't remember how I dealt with those dudes. I was talking more about these big bitches with saws on their hands. But yeah, I probably wasted too much ammo on some enemies that I would've been better off backstabbing.

 

[Average Manatee]

Not great in the sense of a real stealth game where things like sound on different surfaces/camo/etc matter but you can handle the vast majority of enemies through either sneaking past or stealth kills. Think of it as a Resident Evil 4 except with slightly larger areas and enemies susceptible to the usual sneak behind them and takedown gameplay.

Thanks. I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm not a huge fan of the combat in games like Silent Hill and RE, or the mechanic of running past shit awkwardly. I saw videos of TEW2 though where you're avoiding enemies stealthily, or sneaking up behind monsters and gutting them, and that's the kind of shit I can get down with.

Well its not like SH/RE speedruns where people just run past 90% of monsters who are too slow to turn and catch people (though you certainly don't have to play any of those games that way, except possibly RE1, you can gun down/melee down most everything). But TEW2 does have kind of a shitty AI in its semi-openworld areas, where large groups of zombies decide to stop chasing you after 30 feet or so (due to scripted limitations on how far they can move) and otherwise almost nothing behind able to damage you if you run away from it at the standard job pace. TEW1 was mostly solid.

You're really supposed to backstab those flamethrower guys. Takes like 5-6 stabs. They take way too much ammo to take down otherwise.

I don't remember how I dealt with those dudes. I was talking more about these big bitches with saws on their hands. But yeah, I probably wasted too much ammo on some enemies that I would've been better off backstabbing.

IIRC if you were conserving ammo and had cleaned out all the previous areas in order to maximize what damage upgrades you could have, you could take them on directly without too much trouble. But I also recall a bunch of environmental traps that could do about half of the work in the open areas.

 

[Wunderbar]

 

[Daedalos]

sign me up for EW 3

 

[LESS T_T]

It's just them making sure they don't lose the trademark. IIRC just keep selling EW 1 & 2 is accepted as continued use. It's not necessarily an indication of a sequel.

 

[Wunderbar]

Not continuing with the IP would be a waste. Even though TEW 1-2 weren't all that great, I'd still buy the potential TEW-3 just because those games are so rare these days.
The niche of survival horror genre is basically empty, RE series is the only one currently occupying it.

 

[Wunderbar]

https://sea.ign.com/ghostwire-tokyo...eveloping-its-next-game-after-ghostwire-tokyo

Tango Gameworks Is Already Developing Its Next Game After Ghostwire: Tokyo
Headed up by the director of The Evil Within 2.

As fans continue to wait for the release of Ghostwire: Tokyo from Tango Gameworks, studio founder Shinji Mikami has revealed another new title is already in the works, and it's being led by Evil Within 2's director.

Mikami appeared in a video with Xbox head Phil Spencer as part of Microsoft's livestream event during the first day of Tokyo Game Show and hinted at a new title, saying that John Johanas, the director of The Evil Within 2, is working on it.

Mikami mentioned Johanas when prodded by Spencer to talk about the Tango Gameworks’ philosophy of fostering young new talent: "Right now John is in the middle of working energetically on a new game," Mikami told Spencer.

 

[Morgoth]

Evil Within 2's director

That's the shit one.

 

[Wunderbar]

The sequel lacked in uniqueness, but was head and shoulder above the first game in terms of competent game design.

 

[Terenty]

The sequel lacked in uniqueness, but was head and shoulder above the first game in terms of competent game design.

Can you post a link to the game you played? Because i played an ugly, junky, westernized game(open world, side quests) with broken stealth and shooting, brain dead AI and dialogue options(lol).

 

[Wunderbar]

The sequel lacked in uniqueness, but was head and shoulder above the first game in terms of competent game design.

Can you post a link to the game you played? Because i played an ugly, junky, westernized game(open world, side quests) with broken stealth and shooting, brain dead AI and dialogue options(lol).

still better than an incoherent mess of the first game, where you are trapped in overly small, linear, nonsensically-designed locations, and forced to fight waves of zombies while not being able to carry more than 10 spare bullets for your revolver.

 

[Average Manatee]

still better than an incoherent mess of the first game, where you are trapped in overly small, linear, nonsensically-designed locations

That describes all of the RE games as well as TEW2 for 75% of the game. Open world was a failure.

and forced to fight waves of zombies while not being able to carry more than 10 spare bullets for your revolver.

git gud. Game provides way more than enough resources to kill everything.

 

[toughasnails]

I think that TEW2 was all around improvement in the gameplay department.. Ideally, I'd have the game design of TEW2 with the art direction of the first game. The second game looked too clean and mundane.

 

[Wunderbar]

still better than an incoherent mess of the first game, where you are trapped in overly small, linear, nonsensically-designed locations

That describes all of the RE games as well as TEW2 for 75% of the game. Open world was a failure.

you gotta be blind to miss all the shit design decisions and inconsistencies in TEW1.

and forced to fight waves of zombies while not being able to carry more than 10 spare bullets for your revolver.

git gud. Game provides way more than enough resources to kill everything.

I finished the game on hardest difficulty. It's beatable, but that doesnt mean it was fun or engaging.

The only moderately good locations in this game are two or three stealth-focused levels in the first third of the game, where you actually can sneak past zombies. Other than those locations, the game is almost on-rails linear and doesn't give you freedom to properly sneak. Main character can't run for more than 2 seconds without getting winded. Un-upgraded revolver has a morrowind-tier random accuracy, which is a fucking bullshit in a game where you can't carry more than 10 bullets by default.

The basic structure of TEW1 is "arena with zombies where you blow all of your supplies" -> "linear scripted section" -> "arena with zombies where you blow all of your supplies" - "linear scripted section" -> etc etc. Resource management doesn't exist, because enemies drop ammo/syringes depending on what you're currently lacking, and your carrying capacity is very low. It's like in new Doom games, where Doomguy can't carry a lot of ammo and is forced to chainsaw mooks for ammo drops.

TEW1 is RE4, except janky and badly cobbled together from assets initially made for a different game. It has some neat aesthetics and a good (but utterly wasted) idea of exploring someone's mind, but other than that it's a janky, frustrating and mediocre game.

 

[Multidirectional]

It's been a while since I played either but I do remember enjoying second one more overall. Cannot be arsed to refresh my memory with first one because I remember finding a lot of parts in it more annoying than fun to play. Also, calling second game "open world" is fucking moronic. These levels are way too small to be called that.

 

[Roguey]

I played TEW 2 on Ed123's recommendation and found it an okay mashup of RE4 and The Last of Us. It has two wide open levels (and they're both pretty good), it's not open world.

 

[Average Manatee]

I finished the game on hardest difficulty. It's beatable, but that doesnt mean it was fun or engaging.

The only moderately good locations in this game are two or three stealth-focused levels in the first third of the game, where you actually can sneak past zombies. Other than those locations, the game is almost on-rails linear and doesn't give you freedom to properly sneak. Main character can't run for more than 2 seconds without getting winded. Un-upgraded revolver has a morrowind-tier random accuracy, which is a fucking bullshit in a game where you can't carry more than 10 bullets by default.

The basic structure of TEW1 is "arena with zombies where you blow all of your supplies" -> "linear scripted section" -> "arena with zombies where you blow all of your supplies" - "linear scripted section" -> etc etc. Resource management doesn't exist, because enemies drop ammo/syringes depending on what you're currently lacking, and your carrying capacity is very low. It's like in new Doom games, where Doomguy can't carry a lot of ammo and is forced to chainsaw mooks for ammo drops.

TEW1 is RE4, except janky and badly cobbled together from assets initially made for a different game. It has some neat aesthetics and a good (but utterly wasted) idea of exploring someone's mind, but other than that it's a janky, frustrating and mediocre game.

You can sneak kill like 2/3rds of the enemies in the game if you want with no resource expenditure. The pistol is accurate, your aim is just crap. The crossbow is incredibly versatile at taking out multiple enemies with a single of the right type of bolt, and you can hold infinite parts for it. Even simple bottles let you easily kill tons of enemies, you can land a headshot with it and then sneak kill them while they are blind, you can throw it at an explosive barrel then taken out a half dozen enemies clustered around the barrel with a single pistol shot, or just throw it at the ground and take them all out with a single crossbow bolt.

I beat the hardest non-akumu difficulty on a completely upgradeless run (got the achievement to prove it) and it was very fair even with limited ammo capacity and no damage/accuracy bonuses (also beat akumu but it's kind of bullshit and not meant to be fair, you just spam the really overpowered upgraded crossbow stuff in hard areas). Usually when I end up shooting enemies in segments that aren't forced action it's because I'm capped on ammo and might as well spend some. Resource management does exist and benefit you because you'll get more XP goo if enemies aren't dropping ammo instead.

I agree that the overall gameplay is a bit wonky. Stealth-oriented gameplay where you can kill enemies without expending resources doesn't mesh well with survival horror that is intended to be based on resource management. But then as you point out RE4 kind of screwed the pooch on resource management to begin with, so all I'm really judging it on is some decent tense gameplay and areas that are fun to stealth through or otherwise figure out a way to get through.

 

[Ash]

I played the second TEW and felt it was uninspired shit, same cookie cutter game design as most any modern game. However, I did not play it for long (2-3 hours). So don't have the full picture.

 

[Sunri]

first one was better

 

[Barabus]

The intro to tew2 was one of the creepiest things I ever played. Then it just goes into the open world and it’s stilll a decent game but not scary

 

[Wunderbar]

You can sneak kill like 2/3rds of the enemies in the game if you want with no resource expenditure.

you are still trapped in a linear corridor, and the encounters are pretty awful for the most part. It's usually either a gimmicky room where you must walk past rotating blades or other traps, while killing fodder zombies inbetween. Or a linear section where you must abuse AI.

And i'm not sure about 2/3rds, there's awful lot of open combat sections - the time you are trapped in a burning house, the part where you gun down dozens of zombies in a ruined city, the turret section, the part where you fight off a giant enemy crab while sitting in a bus, etc etc.

The pistol is accurate, your aim is just crap.

then what the hell is this?

I beat the hardest non-akumu difficulty on a completely upgradeless run (got the achievement to prove it) and it was very fair even with limited ammo capacity and no damage/accuracy bonuses (also beat akumu but it's kind of bullshit and not meant to be fair, you just spam the really overpowered upgraded crossbow stuff in hard areas). Usually when I end up shooting enemies in segments that aren't forced action it's because I'm capped on ammo and might as well spend some. Resource management does exist and benefit you because you'll get more XP goo if enemies aren't dropping ammo instead.

it's very trial&error-ish and metagamey.
Trying to optimize your gameplay will result in a constant save-load, and the game is actually designed around constant save-loading because the checkpoints are very abundant, main character dies very fast, a lot of bosses and even non-bosses have insta-kill moves, and the movement/gunplay is inconsistent. I did the survival and Akumu runs too, and enjoyed some of the encounters where I could reliably sneak past all the enemies, or take down a crowd with one well-placed crossbow bolt. The game feels wonderful when it works, the problem is that but it mostly doesn't.

Stealth-oriented gameplay where you can kill enemies without expending resources doesn't mesh well with survival horror that is intended to be based on resource management.

why is that? It's a risk-reward system - you can either spend your resources by killing enemies in relatively safe conventional way, or you can save on resources by being upclose and personal.

 

[Average Manatee]

And i'm not sure about 2/3rds, there's awful lot of open combat sections - the time you are trapped in a burning house, the part where you gun down dozens of zombies in a ruined city, the turret section, the part where you fight off a giant enemy crab while sitting in a bus, etc etc.

There's a handful but the vast majority of areas are stealthable.

Granted if you go by pure numbers then the turret section and bus section has more zombies than the rest of the game put together, but if we're ignoring stuff like that and looking at most levels you can backstab or avoid most things.

Also I think the straight out combat is actually quite good in the few places where it is utilized well. The final Icon of Sin-esque room for example is loads of fun.

The pistol is accurate, your aim is just crap.

then what the hell is this?

You're not supposed to snipe with a pistol. Wait for them to get closer, 5 degrees of inaccuracy is nothing at normal combat range in this game. Most of the time you want them to group up because you can shoot a single one in the legs as it runs at you to make it fall, then you throw a match at it to finish it off and kill nearby enemies. 1-2 pistol shots + 1 match = 2 or 3 kills reliably this way.

I beat the hardest non-akumu difficulty on a completely upgradeless run (got the achievement to prove it) and it was very fair even with limited ammo capacity and no damage/accuracy bonuses (also beat akumu but it's kind of bullshit and not meant to be fair, you just spam the really overpowered upgraded crossbow stuff in hard areas). Usually when I end up shooting enemies in segments that aren't forced action it's because I'm capped on ammo and might as well spend some. Resource management does exist and benefit you because you'll get more XP goo if enemies aren't dropping ammo instead.

it's very trial&error-ish and metagamey.
Trying to optimize your gameplay will result in a constant save-load, and the game is actually designed around constant save-loading because the checkpoints are very abundant, main character dies very fast, a lot of bosses and even non-bosses have insta-kill moves, and the movement/gunplay is inconsistent. I did the survival and Akumu runs too, and enjoyed some of the encounters where I could reliably sneak past all the enemies, or take down a crowd with one well-placed crossbow bolt. The game feels wonderful when it works, the problem is that but it mostly doesn't.

Stealth-oriented gameplay where you can kill enemies without expending resources doesn't mesh well with survival horror that is intended to be based on resource management.

why is that? It's a risk-reward system - you can either spend your resources by killing enemies in relatively safe conventional way, or you can save on resources by being upclose and personal.

Because, as you stated, with constant checkpoints everywhere it encourages save/load to make perfect runs, and rewards you with extra goo due to how the drop system works. There's a reason games like old RE had limited saves and you could only save in certain rooms, or how System Shock 2 had res stations that charged you cash to use. And in both games killing enemies didn't drop loads of free resources (worst of all, dropping XP that made you more powerful and therefore more able to improve your resource management, snowballing your power past the difficulty curve of the game).

I disagree that movement is inconsistent. Sprinting is quite good at avoiding attacks if you watch the animations. Obviously some animations like spider lady are really hard to read but if you pay attention you can avoid instant kills.

 

[Wunderbar]

The pistol is accurate, your aim is just crap.

then what the hell is this?

You're not supposed to snipe with a pistol. Wait for them to get closer, 5 degrees of inaccuracy is nothing at normal combat range in this game. Most of the time you want them to group up because you can shoot a single one in the legs as it runs at you to make it fall, then you throw a match at it to finish it off and kill nearby enemies. 1-2 pistol shots + 1 match = 2 or 3 kills reliably this way.

even at a short range the pistol only works if you shoot exactly in the middle of enemy's head (or a leg). If you aimed a few pixels to the side, you may miss.

if timestamp doesn't work, fast-forward to 24:31