In the time since the last post, I've finished Lego Marvel - which I absolutely need to write up a breakdown for - and I've gotten sucked into Costume Quest 2 and The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (both great games)... but here I am, grinding away in Evil Within, a game that's the very opposite of fun. I have to force myself to play, and getting trophies in it isn't satisfying. There is nothing here. Just a tedious, repetitive, unfair slog.
I haven't even gotten to the hard stuff yet, either. I walked away from this game for quite a long time just to remember that games could still be fun and enjoyable. But we have snow coming in this weekend. And Christmas is just around the corner. That's my deadline, by the way. I have until Christmas to get the Platinum in The Evil Within. I'm not sure that's long enough. When I turn my PS4 on, I have Minecraft, Costume Quest 2, and Isaac sitting there. I would rather play any of those! I still have trophies in all of them! ...Although Isaac did have a bug where, after I got Golden God, the trophy never popped. That's actually what drove me back to TEW. It's pushed me far enough that it'd only take until tomorrow to finish the game again, but god damn it's so awful that I feel like I'm wasting my time.
And when you feel like you're wasting time doing a hobby that's already one of the most time wasting things imaginable, something has gone horribly wrong.
I'm playing NG+ on Easy, because Easy is what I went through the first time on. That was a mistake. I should've done Normal, because now I have to run the game on Normal in addition to Hard, Akumu (one-hit kills from everything, including environmental objects), Speed running the game in under 5 hours, and a run where I don't upgrade anything. Man, I don't want to finish this game a second time, let alone that many times! Granted, I think I can get the trophy for Normal by just playing Hard, which I'll probably do... but I'm not doing a no-upgrades run on anything but Easy. The speed run one will be NG++ since it apparently resets your clock each run. This way I can start with all of my weapons upgraded. It won't keep me from dying to stupid nigh unavoidable traps, but it'll help.
I have miscellaneous trophies I have to mop up, too. Killing enemies with each type of Agony Bolt, doing chapter 2 without fighting, and doing chapter 8 without fighting, to name a few. This run has mostly been keys and collectibles. And, of course, upgrading. Knowing that I'm almost done with this NG+ run doesn't make me happy because of how many more I have to do. No amount of guides will help you through the truly difficult parts of the game.
Chapter 6 starts with a double gauntlet. If you don't have the ammo to keep yourself from getting touched, you'll be stuck there and possibly will have to start from chapter 1 again. Then it has a long outdoor sequence that ends with another Sadist fight. That's only the halfway point, too. Chapter 9 has you in a mansion, and Ruvik can appear at any time to chase you. He can teleport in front of you and grab you whenever he wants. Chapter 10 is one of, if not the longest in the game, consisting of a section where you have to deal with multiple snipers, then giant enemies that can charge and fight at range (which are also bullet sponges, so good luck getting past two to mash open a switch), then you have to skirt around dealing with Laura again (and she's faster than you are on Akumu, so you'd better know the exact order), and then you have the actual boss fight in the garage area. Chapter 11 has you swimming through water infested with Amnesia: The Dark Descent style monsters. Only, like so many other things in this game, they instantly kill you if they catch you.
Chapter 12's short, but it has a trophy at the very end. It's for driving a bus through a very short sequence without hitting any of the Haunted on the road. That's easier said than done, because the draw distance for the zombies is short. If they're in set locations, and I haven't watched Youtube videos of different people doing the sequence to find out if they are or not, then it becomes trivial. If not, then it becomes one of the most frustrating trophies in the entire game. Why? Because no one involved in the game thought 'hey, let's put a checkpoint at the start of that sequence.' No. If you reload the last checkpoint, you'll be going through the turret sequence again. While it isn't the longest thing in the game, it is incredibly tedious.
The game is full of sequences like that, though. Things that could just be made more tolerable with the use of intelligent checkpoints. Any major transition deserves one, and TEW simply doesn't have them. I have not cussed at my TV this much while playing a game in my entire life. Not even when Catwoman's final Campaign in Arkham City was driving my blood pressure through the roof (13 hours to complete it, by the way. Spread across about a week). Hell, I had an easier time perfecting Aliens: Colonial Marines, to give an indication of where I'm at with Evil Within. I genuinely think TEW is worse than A:CM. You have to mess with its systems, but there's actual fun to be had in A:CM. Not much, mind you, and it definitely had more than its fair share of rage-inducing moments (mostly concerning Challenges, of course) but Evil Within takes itself so seriously and has so many moments where you wonder if anyone who worked on it had ever played a game before that it just becomes a nightmare.
It's frustrating and slow-moving and the letterboxing makes things so much harder than they need to be. I literally cannot say anything good about The Evil Within at this point. Upgrades are middling, collectibles are often in insane spots you'd never find without a guide, and it's too fucking long. Oh my god it's too long. The game has 15 chapters and should've nixed about five of those. Especially when it expects you to play through it so many times for trophies.
Christmas will bring fun games. But I have to finish Evil Within before I can let myself move on to something else. I will not let Evil Within beat me. No matter how difficult it is, I've faced games that are technically harder. The difficulty in TEW comes from the lack of ammo, the bullshit traps, and the letterboxing cutting off your view. The levels themselves are what they are. Not simple. Not hard. Some are too long. Some are too short. There's never a stage that feels the 'right' length. Some stages feel like they should've been merged with others to keep the flow going. As it is, with a save point at the end of every chapter, the flow never even has a chance to start.
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