I should start by saying I love the game. The game play is really solid but flaws do start to become quite noticeable on nightmare and akumu.

These are some of the positives and negatives I came across during my time with the game. (excluding talk about black bars/fps/technical issues). If anyone disagrees with these thoughts I am happy to hear their own thoughts. It is always interesting hearing what game play elements make a game fun for different people.

positives:

- No QTE. Quick time events are so notoriously disliked that is is unbelievable they keep putting more of them in these types of games. Very happy that the only gameplay elements resembling QTE in appearance do not actually behave mechanically like the QTE that people hate. The wall bombs are almost as bad as QTE which I'll talk about later.

- Having to conserve ammo and health items. The overall balancing for ammo and items is really well done.

- Variety in game play especially on chapters like 3 and 4 where multiple methods can be used to kill enemies and get through the chapter. There is a lot of new enemies and areas that keep the game fresh.

- The agony cross bow. This weapon adds a lot of options for experimenting.

- Bosses. During the game there is always new enemies that keep things fresh and interesting. The boss fights are all unique. All around the bosses and enemies where a lot of fun.

- Graphics/Art. It is subjective but I personally love the graphics and the art direction.

- Stealth. I personally love having the option to use stealth rather then shoot everything.

- Optional fights/not fighting. It is great being able to have the option to (and in some cases having to) not fight at all and bypass enemies.

- Scary/suspense moments such as the start of chapter 4 and the introduction to the Laura boss.

-Scares that don't kill you like the room with the chair and the girl laughing on chapter 4. Laura crawling past on a window outside in chatper 10 was also creepy(no pun intended). these moments do a lot to build suspense and add to the tension.

Flaws:

-Bomb disarming. personally this is my number one issue though I know others disagree. It is mechanically very similar to a QTE and it just isn't very fun. The chest bombs are ok, but blowing up to the bombs on the walls with a split second miss click (especially on akumu where you need the parts) is the one thing that make me stop playing the game in frustration. People who play the game streaming live or those that start trying to speed run on akumu often just skip the bombs completely. others taking their time on akumu use save points to disarm them, usually dying many times in the process which is not fun at all.

-Suspense/action balance. The action scenes are not bad but there is not enough suspense before enemy encounters to balance it out. Probably a controversial issue considering a lot of people like non stop action. But in a game like this, for those that like scares and suspense it would add a lot to slow things down from time to time and allow players to appreciate the atmosphere.

-Exploration. The game could have really used some areas that can be explored a lot more (being able to go back and forth between some areas and backtrack) before moving on to new areas. Like in the original RE games where suspense built up over not being able to access/unlock certain areas straight away. This gave more control to the player and helped the story to be told in a less linear fashion.

It also gave plenty of opportunity for more unexpected scares in areas that where previously thought to be safe. I did hear that TEW was planned to have more exploration in the beacon mental hospital. Not sure why this changed but that sounds like it would have added a lot to the game.

-Kicking bodies while trying to use an axe, torch or punch. This caused a lot of deaths for me. it is very hard to use the torch when Larua spawns without kicking for example. Which leads to an instant death due to Sebastion doing something ridiculous (trying to kick Laura when he is holding a torch).

-Lack of variety in stealth kills. At the moment there is only 2 stealth kill animation, with the 2nd only happening with hard hat workers. it gets very repetitive for players that love stealth.

-Sebastian pausing when sniper fire is near by which completely removes control from the player. Any other moments that take control from the player during a fight which can lead to a lot deaths that are out of the players control. Especially on akumu difficulty.

-Punching/kicking haunted/zombies. This is not a major issue or anything but when they try to grab you or swing a knife/axe it is a lot more fitting to a scary game then a zombie doing a ninja kick. it often just looks silly.

-Ruvik teleport combined with instant kill. It made ruvik not so much scary as he was annoying. Having him chase you = scary. Having him teleport right on you and kill you instantly = annoying.

Well that sums up my overall thoughts. All around a great game. Personally it is my favourite game this year. I really hope it is selling well because we need more games like this.