Disappointed with AAMFP

[Gyldenglad]

I played this game, completed it and enjoyed it. However I do not believe it is better than the first one.

Here are some key points:

The interactive gaming is almost completely removed.

I was honestly very surprised surprised about this. When I played Amnesia:TDD the rules were simple: Progress, Solve puzzles, scavenge, stay sane, hide from monsters. AMFP falls short on all these parts, it's like they were removed entirely.

Progress:
The progress in AMFP has been simplified, it is a "Go to A from B", running on rails you could say, in TDD you often had to backtrack in order to solve puzzles or gathering materials, bringing materials to different places in order to progress.

Puzzles
There are little to no puzzles in AMFP, while the ones they had seemed somehow "original" they were way too easy, because if you needed to "solve" an area the game would usually lock you in. Like if you go into new area and you are stuck, the game makes sure that you have only about 20 feet to move around making the puzzle very obvious to solve by the fact that it must be solved within a certain area.

Scavenging
There is no inventory, no keys to pick up, no tinderboxes, no oil to gather. Why would you remove tinderboxes and oil? One thing that TDD made really good, was the fact that you were under constant pressure of finding these precious materials otherwise you would go insane from running around in the darkness, which brings up the next point.

Insanity
Insanity? No, not really. While there are some parts of being "blurry" I don't think it's bound to a specific mechanic, but rather to a scripted map design. You can look all you want at monsters, you don't actually have to look away while sitting in a corner. You can study the monsters without anything bad happening. In TDD you couldn't look at the monsters, they would see you and your screen would be blurry all the time, making it harder to identify what was really out there, making it much more creepy and scary.

Monsters
Monsters you say? One of the MAIN things in TDD was that you had no weapons, your only weapon was to hide where they couldn't see you. The excitement to see if the monster would find you in your hiding spot. There are no real hiding mechanic worth to speak of in AMFP, I didn't even find a closet to hide anywhere, but why would you? I mean the monsters aren't even that scary, and at no point you actually have to face them more than you could just walk around them and leave them to their own business, it is like they are not even interested in finding you.


Story is predictable

If you played TDD you knew right from the start, what was actually going on. This made the story easier to understand, but nothing really "surprised" me. I figured out the story after playing about 20% of it. If I didn't play TDD before, then maybe I would not have guessed it so easily.

The story itself is fine, it is interesting to read all the notes and suck in the atmosphere. Some of the clues are good, I especially liked the clue about Crunching eyes and unhinged jaws and I feel some kind of achievement of paying attention to detail and understand these riddles, even if they have no direct impact of the game itself.


It is not really a horror game..

For some, and for me, Amnesia: TDD was so scary, that it induced horror and panic upon me, in such a way that I would feel physically bad when playing it. This was a good thing, I have never been quite so scared of a game. However, AMFP is sadly not a horror game for me. I have recorded my playthrough, and the most scariest thing (according to my manly screams) was a ball coming down a set of stairs.
I believe that people who want to find this "terror" that TDD delivered will not find it in AMFP, sadly.



Final judgement

Alright, so the game doesn't really bring anything new, lets be honest. Was the game a custom map, it would be considered the best of the best with big applauds. However being a stand-alone game, sold at the same price of TDD, I would much rather recommend people TDD than AMFP. People who found some enjoyment in Dear Esther might find AMFP interesting, but the average gamer who never tried the Amnesia franchise, may not.

N.B.: Please don't hate on me for my opinion, I'm really hoping that Frictional Games & The Chinese Room will be successful and continue to make great games, however I feel they deserve to know, what I think they could do better.