Great interactive fiction - Terrible Game

Really enjoyed this one. Great graphics, mind bending story, compelling characters(loved Rose and Breaker), excellent performances.

But man, anything resembling "gameplay" was pretty trash on PS5. Even "controlling" the map and boards felt terrible; unintuitive and SLOWWWW.

Combat was just super bad. Was shocked to read that, supposedly, Remedy fixed a lot of peoples issues already? Well I just completed the game and here is my critique of the combat:

* Bunch of useless weapons; only the pistol and shot gun really matter much. * That crossbow tho; ouch * Bullet sponge enemies who just.. Become more bullet spongy as the game goes on * God forbid you fight enemies because you will run right out ammo. Look, this is not Resident evil either so the entire survival in survival horror is not there. * Tons and tons of very meaningless feeling upgrades(beyond much fewer helpful ones like ammo and reload); charms and words * That horde fight * Lack of command queueing

I want to expand on those last two. Command queueing is what would allow you to "queue up" a weapon switch while the character is completing a current animation/action. This seems to not work at all and feels absolutely terrible.

Typically this isn't a big deal. You're never really fighting more than 1-2 enemies at a time and you can just run past enemies most of the game.

But holy hell that horde fight. Nowhere else in the game do you need to fight 6+ enemies on screen at once. Nothing prior prepares you for this fight which is a crazy ramp in difficulty(and it essentially crashed twice on me); weapon management, area control, etc. Compound that with the lack of command queueing, and I suspect most people will find this section incredibly frustrating even on normal difficulty.

A lot of people get really into the weeds on critiquing the gameplay. The flashlight boost sucks; it's wonky, isn't clear why it doesn't work sometimes, the batteries are unnecessary, etc. Or what's up with the wolves taking shotgun blasts to the head and just being fine. Those axe throwers.

IDK, the entire combat system just felt SO BAD.