There's an old town wrought with mystery of
Tom The Poet and his Muse
And the magic lake which gave a life
To the words the Poet used

Now the Muse, she was his happiness
And he rhymed about her grace
And told her stories of treasures
Deep beneath the blackened waves

'Till in the stillness of one dawn
Still in its mystic crown
The Muse, she went down to the lake
And in the waves she drowned

And now to see your love set free
You will need the Witch's cabin key
Find the lady of the light gone mad with the night
That's how you reshape destiny

BBWWWAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOAAOOOOOWWWWW
CHIIILDREN OF THE ELDEEER GOOOOOOOOD

I really liked how the Alan Wale game felt. It was a thriller/mystery with a haunting elegaic undercurrent. It talked about things like depression and imposter syndrome without hammering you in the head with it like other games. While the television episodic format it tried to imitate were very much miss, it quite hit when the title card came into view with the Poet and the Muse started playing in the background. That really felt like the a point of no return / the story gearing up for the finale.

And I even enjoyed the combat mechanics however clumsy it may have been. Light never felt so powerful and welcoming as Alan Wake did. And it felt satisfying destroying the darkness and then filling the enemies with lead. And the flare gun felt amazing to use. The characters felt good, well defined. Alan even though a jerk at times, remained sympathetic. Barry had great buddy chemistry with him, and all the other characters felt vital to the story.

And all this becomes baffling because they completely abandoned everything for the second game. The elegiac tone was completely abandoned for a nightmare one. The story become extremely convulted, and the introduction of a new protagonist who didn't really have any proper connection to the previous game felt extremely forced. Alan becomes a shell of his former self, Bright Falls loses it ls charm, characters are quirky just cause, and old characters barely play a role. Even the combat mechanic was utterly revamped to an over the shoulder Resident Evil 2 third person shooter, and the light never felt as much as good and significant as the first one.

It's like Remedy just squeezed out everything that made Alan Wake standout.