Now finally the 2nd game came out on the Switch and I'm torn between hating and loving it. Loving it because it's basically Deadly Premonition again. You have York being York again and the characters I have encountered so far all have their own eccentric ways. The cel shaded look they have given to the characters is a pretty huge improvement too and QTEs have been largely done away with as far as I can tell.
Unfortunately there is a lot to hate in the game too. The biggest elephant in the room that has to be addressed is the awful performance. There is just no fucking excuse that the game runs even worse than it looks. As you can see, the draw distance is a goddamn joke and the game itself doesn't look that special either. The fps outside drop to what feels like single digits too. This is the 2nd game and in my opinion, there is just no excuse that it runs as bad as it does because cheap mobile asset flip cashgrab games run and perform better than this, which is a dedicated console game which is supposed to utilize the hardware at hand as best as possible which just isn't the case.
The world itself seems to be badly designed too. I stumbled a few places where the pavement of the road is physically floating above the actual ground which makes skateboarding a pain in the ass (driving into that road counts as a crash, reducing your board's durability). On the subject of the world itself, Le Carre - while it is claimed that it's a small town - doesn't feel that small at all. There are too many fluff buildings and unnamed NPCs to evoke the same small town feeling that Greenvale evoked. It rarely happens that I run into NPCs outside of their homes or their daytime job.
As for the otherworld and combat, it really is down to personal preference. The otherworld looks a bit more polished this time around and the FPS indoors are a lot better than outdoors. Downside is, outside of a minimap you have no other way of orientation. The otherworld now look a bit more colorful and they always seem to resemble the same location - so which otherworld you like more is down to personal preference. The enemies so far are jokes. The two enemy types I have encountered so far go down in 1-2 shots or a couple of melee hits and their offense isn't that great either. To stay within the voodoo theme the game has going, they resemble colorful and deformed clowns. If you are afraid of clowns that it most likely a plus, otherwise I prefer the japanese styled ghost Shadows from the first game. Their way of talking and moving was a lot more eerie.
The Otherworld also leads me to another point of frustration. The inventory. As I've said, the offensive power of the enemies isn't anything special so you rarely have to use first aid kits and are more concerned with keeping bullets. That's where the game begs to differ - according to the game, you're supposed to eat through first aid kits at a steady rate. In both Otherworlds I had to resort to using melee attacks because I ran out of ammo but had 20 First Aid Kits in my inventory so something is quite fucked up as far as that is concerned.
As for the game as a whole, I have the sinking feeling that there is more padding in there and the game seems to assume that you take your sweet sweet time when there isn't all that much to do. The game starts on a Monday and I finished the first chapter on a Wednesday in the same week. Story progression in chapter 2 was only possible on a Monday so I had to piss a lot of in game time away and the few side quests and material farming just don't cover that time frame. The same applies to certain events. I received a call after the 2nd boss and the whole mood was pretty urgent so I went to the meeting place but, as it was past 10 pm the place was closed and I couldn't progress the story until the next day - so much for urgency and suspense.
Overall I have very mixed feelings about this game and I'm not quite sure if the annoyance is worth the journey. There have been two patches so far and all the last patch seemingly did was
- Cause cars to randomly drive off the road or on sidewalks
- Have NPCs stand on top of their cars while driving