The souls games are pretty non-repetitive, mostly cuz your rage won't allow you to get bored but they're still fun

Hey guys, I've been practicing my writing for a while and I wanted to know how I did (what better place to have a quality check for a review than a video game forum?) so in the spirit of a sequel coming out this fall, here is my review of The Evil Within

As I run from a lunatic with a chainsaw into an elevator that will hopefully bring me to safety, all I can think is “this is only the game’s opening?” and that is when The Evil Within hooked me. The Evil Within is a survival horror achievement that is a key step in reviving an endangered genre, nearly killed by faux survival experiences turned shooters, such as Resident Evil 5 and 6. But the Evil Within is able to be a boost in the arm of survival due to the game getting many of the key aspects of horror right, including lighting, atmosphere, enemy variety, and a feeling of hopelessness at times.

Technical

With all of that said, there is one area where The Evil Within steps down in a significant way and that is the graphics. The problem with the graphics is that you can tell there was not a whole lot of detail put into them and you can tell by things looking very ugly at times. This is not to say the game is bad in all technical levels though because it is not. In fact, the game has tremendous atmosphere that is boosted by the superb lighting and chilling sound. The sound truly adds to the experience because it gets louder at just the right times to make you think something is gonna happen but nothing does. Something else I have to mention is the frightening music that you'll hear as you make your way through the world and in the hub. Also Tango Gameworks did a very good job of placing clutter in just the right places to maximize the spooks. An example of this are the wheelchairs in the hallway during the intro that are all arranged in a way to slow you down and be uncertain about the fate of your character. Another thing I have to talk about are the controversial blackbars that the developers included for cinematic value and I personally don't mind them one bit and got used to it after the first hour. Overall the game’s graphics are poor but all the other technical components are done very well.

Story & Characters

The story and characters of The Evil Within are the parts of the game I'm most torn on. On one hand, we get a lot of background on the main character, Sebastian as well as the villain, Ruvik but on the other hand, we barely learn anything about the world we're in, the side characters, and their motives. The worst offender of this is Joseph, Sebastian’s incredibly boring and static assistant that is just there for the occasional partner mission. Then there’s Kidman who, albeit is a little better but we barely learn anything about her in the main game and have to buy dlc to learn her motives. Back to Sebastian though, we read a lot of his journals and find out that he actually is quite an interesting character with a real story but he does not show it in any of the cutscenes or dialogue throughout the game. I'm fine with this being the case for Ruvik however, because he is the main villain and I'm sick of mainstream cliche villains telling their whole life story and all their motives. The game also does a fantastic job of really showing how damaged and broken this character is as well as how twisted his mind has become. Then there’s the story, which is actually pretty cool once you realize what it's all about. The only problem is it's more of a souls-esq story in the sense that the storytelling is done through bosses, the environment, and collectibles. This means that you will be very confused and not have any idea what's going on for a majority of the playthrough. I am going to excuse this, this one time but next time don't do your storytelling with things that most people aren't gonna find all of.

Gameplay

Now the most important part of the Game, the gameplay. The gameplay is done very well for the most part with me having some gripes here and there. One problem is that the movement is very stiff and It’s two extremes, you're either sprinting or you're walking at a snail’s pace. I understand that they don't want you just jogging your way through each level but if they could make the walking speed just a little faster that would be great but this is just nitpicking. My main problem with the gameplay is that when you start the game it feels very dated and it's not until you start to upgrade Sebastian a bit that the game starts feeling much smoother. This includes the stiff movement, the way your character can only sprint for a few seconds at the beginning, and the difficulty to aim when you first start. Once you start to get yourself upgraded though, you're going to start having a blast sneaking upon enemies, blasting their heads off, and fighting bosses. The boss fights are another thing done superbly well and truly reward the thinking player. For example, there is one boss that you fight in a barn and you CAN fight him there or you can lead him outside the barn into a multitude of environmental traps. This isn't even just one boss that you can go at in different ways, you can do that with a lot of them. The Evil Within truly rewards finesse and I love it for that. Something else you can do is, instead of wasting some ammo on killing an enemy legit, you can just shoot it in the leg and burn it with a match. I have also heard about people complaining about the game being too hard but it really isn't, you just have to play smart and explore a lot so you never have to struggle with ammo. Oh and on top of all the endorsements I've already given the game, it also has great enemy and weapon variety to make sure you don't get bored.

Conclusion

Like all good opening installments do for their franchise, The Evil Within creates a very solid establishment for a sequel to improve on and I'm very excited to see where the series goes next.

9/10. (Sorry if the formatting ends up being a mess, I did this on my phone)