The reviews Elysium syndrome

[Bucic]

I've read more... And I'm waiting for the internet to get a 'slap him!' feature. People keep complaining about the inventory, sanity and inifinite lantern. Complaining about it is like complaining its setting is London! All of them were major design decisions, well known before the game has been released!

Getting rid of the sanity really affected the horror aspect in a negative way for me, I think that's kind of a universal complaint about the game. All in all I don't care all that much, but it still detracts and is a valid point.

After I played the game I'd say the sanity has not been removed completely. The breathing and soft knees make up for it without introducing gamish effects.

immersion breaking mechanics (inventory and sanity meter)

That can be disputed.

Exactly! In ATDD I was like 'Oh shit, oh shit, what will happen next? How will I find a way through the new dungeons in front of me? How will I manage? What's happening to Daniel? He acts strange.' And often it ended up like - 'Damn it, there's the GAME again... I have to fit some 3 colored spokes to some 3 colored openings :/' How this went well with the awesome story of A TDD, I don't know. And 'Ah, the lantern goes off again. 10 minutes on a container full of oil. GAAAME!' I ended up tweaking the damn lantern in config files. Not to make it last forever but to make it stop behaving like a game item. I've settled for it running for an hour or more.

And all of that with a guarantee of safety from monsters for the time of solving a puzzle. If AAMFP is not an improvement over such approach I don't know what is.

It all boils down to - hordes of critics don't comprehend that for some a gaming element will not be preserved just for the sake of it if it comes in the way.