Tahseen Control Resonant Review

One of the more devise remedy games, but my favourite one so far. I have always preferred the world of Control to that of Remedy's other titles, and the original Control will always hold a special place for me. Resonant is a sequel, but it differs in a lot of ways from the original. Not everyone is a fan of the world or the story or the combat, but I find myself loving the game for all those flaws and for once, I actually am having fun with a Remedy game’s combat system. It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is my favourite remedy game to date. Perfect in my eyes despite all the imperfections. You play as Dylan Faden, the brother of Jesse Faden, protagonist of the original Control. He is tasked with helping the FBC and finding his lost sister. We go through a fun adventure in one of gaming most unique versions of Manhattan you will ever see. The whole games design philosophy is just the movie inception dialled to a million. The building and roads bend and shift in such a crazy way. Paths are doing up, down left and right and all over the place. Giant **** and streets being patterned to create mind bending panoramas as far as the eye can see. A world that can only be created in a video game, and only by the masterminds at Remedy. Not only are they gorgeous to gawk at, but traversing them (once you have unlocked all the fault movement abilities) is amazing. The ability to switch gravity on a whim, zip to another plane and flipflop between the ceiling and the floor feels so satisfying. One moment I’m battling the hiss on the wall and the next moment I’m upside down rightside up fighting mould enemies on the roof. This is a testament to the amazing and fluid traversal system they have created. Not once in the 100+ hours I’ve played did I once feel any motion sickness despite me flipping the gravity constantly. The later parts of the games really bring these mechanics to the forefront. Those last few areas in the game are unexplainably complex and magnificent. I got a taste and I was fiending for more. The combat is really fun. I had a blast with the simple yet soundly structured combat system. Its a little bit more complex than just button mashing and not as complex and some other melee action games. For me it struck a sweet spot somewhere in the middle. It has more target prioritisation which surprised me. The target prioritisation reminded me of the modern Doom games. The way in which you have to switch to the right type of weapon and have to priorities certain enemies. The little fodder enemies keep respawing, while the bigger enemies are the main targets that you have to focus on. The way I would play is but using the smaller enemies to stack my buffs and then go after the bigger ones. There is a few different weapon types and a handful of different weapon abilities that you can mix and match to create some really unique play styles. I had no issue at all with the difficult, and at some point I tried turning the difficulty up as I was breezing through some encounters. Then again I am the type of person to do a bunch of the side missions and side quest so I was a bit over levelled at times. The main critique I have of the combat has to be the optional boss fights. They’re amazing put together both story and presentation wise, but they don’t play that well. There were 2 bosses that I did have some fun with but those are the two final ones. The others were boring to fight if I am being honest. Story wise I had a great time. It’s a little bit light on the weird Remedy that you get from something written by Sam Lake, but I am honestly happy with that. It is a mostly coherent story with well acted main and side cast of characters. I loved seeing Dylan come to terms with his past and work with the FBC to try and save both Manhattan and his sister. It doesn't have that same blockbuster feel that Alan Wake 2 had, but honestly I am glad that its a lot less flashy. I liked what remedy did here, making me care about some character and hate others and keeping this grounded. Or well as grounded as you can in a situation like this. Definitely nothing ground breaking but sometimes simplicity is simply enough. Favourite character has to be The Board. Who knew the omnipresent otherworldly entity in my living weapon would become so endearing to me. If I had a nickel for every time some mysterious otherworldly primordial entity preferred the brother in a sibling duo, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice (I’m looking at you Zagreus and Chaos) My favourite game of all the games remedy has made so far. 10/10