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Watched a livestream of Parasite Eve 1 and 2. Apparently it's a bit of a hot take to like PE2. I only ever head people poo poo talk Third Birthday but I can see why fans of 1 wouldn't like 2. I actually think I preferred 2, though. If I were to choose which to play, I'd absolutely play 2. 1 just felt so clunky in both gameplay and storytelling. 1 is certainly unique, though. I get the appeal all too well. People want remakes but I can't see 2020 Square-Enix ever trying to do a game like that. I know nothing about Third Birthday but when guessing about why it might suck, I suggested it's like Alien 3 where Newt and everyone die off-screen. Maybe same happens to Eve and Kyle. I bring it up here because Parasite Eve 2 is like Aliens to PE1's Alien; Horror becoming Action and there is a bit of a rivalry between the fans of he movies. (I actually prefer Alien to Aliens, though. But those are movies so the actual game of PE1 vs. 2 is a big consideration for me) Also, while I loved 1's soundtrack, it just didn't ft a Horror game sometimes, especially the normal battle theme. 2 was better about that for sure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxj15MkkU2c But yeah, I'd love to actually buy and play PE2 myself. It's way more expensive than PE1. They probably made more copies of 1.
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Oct 10, 2023 03:33
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third birthday sucks because it's a dull shooter missing half its script, rewrote a recurring character into a drooling pervert, has a damage system that revolves around aya's clothes exploding off her until she's in her underpants, and then reveals at the end that aya was in fact dead all along and the half-naked woman you've been playing as is actually her twelve-year old foster sister possessing her corpse
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Oct 10, 2023 03:55
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man, I wish The 3rd Birthday was as good as Alien 3 people not liking what's done with the characters is the only point of comparison there though, the thing I'd reach for is Other M
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Oct 10, 2023 04:09
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Oxxidation posted:third birthday sucks because it's a dull shooter missing half its script, rewrote a recurring character into a drooling pervert, has a damage system that revolves around aya's clothes exploding off her until she's in her underpants, and then reveals at the end that aya was in fact dead all along and the half-naked woman you've been playing as is actually her twelve-year old foster sister possessing her corpse Also there's a once-per-chapter shower scene starring said twelve-year old in an adult's body. Not only do you have to do specific in-game tasks to unlock these, you can watch it on-demand in the scene viewer by beating the game 50 times. A lot of T3B is sheer distilled 
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Oct 10, 2023 05:02
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and they are trying to run a Parasite Eve NFT grift with it too.
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Oct 10, 2023 05:08
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There is one good part of 3rd Birthday, but you can just listen to it on YouTube. https://youtu.be/5g9chSjOcBQ?si=bMqRlCTNanYnsQxY
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Oct 10, 2023 09:36
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Finished Alice: Madness Returns over the weekend, ended up being a perfect spooky season game. Kind of ran out of steam towards the end and turned into more of the same platform puzzles than was really necessary but it was still a good time. I would say 'fun' but uh the story sure took a turn towards the end, never been so glad to see a guy get pushed under a train. Sadly it was also blatantly rushed and unfinished, multiple times it set up a boss fight or big setpiece that never happened, to the point where I was surprised they actually managed an end boss. Seemed like maybe they had bigger plans for the weapons but all the upgrades ended up being 'does slightly more damage'.
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Oct 10, 2023 09:57
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Well I didn't mean to spark a whole discussion of the third game. lol I wanted to talk about 1 and 2, their strengths and weaknesses, and if I was alone in preferring 2. Oh well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr8EaoC8JYU Good final boss theme, too. I think my biggest criticisms of 2 are that it has a bit too much combat. Feel it gets a bit repetitive at times. Might be more interesting on the Scavenger Mode. I'd love to try that out myself. Also the presentation for investors or whatever was...well, I can see why somebody would support Jurassic Park. I'm not sure "people wanna turn into these monsters and have their skulls explode to attack their enemies" is gonna win over a lot of capital. Still, it was interesting, and the enemies which didn't have genuinely creepy sounds sounded hysterical so it's a win-win there.
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Oct 10, 2023 09:57
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PE2 has a certain atmosphere but never escapes trying to be Resident Evil but not as good. The first game may play clunkier but had more it's own identity.
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Oct 10, 2023 09:59
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PE2 was my first ever Playstation game (actually I ran a disc someone gave me in an emulator), so I'll never not love it with all my heart. Tried 1 much later - lovely, but not quite the same...
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Oct 10, 2023 10:24
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An interesting part of PE1 for me as a lifelong RPG player who mainly plays Square JRPGs is the common theme it had with other Square JRPGs of the time. This big question of "are humans part of nature or opposed to it? In tune with the planet or its greatest enemy?" FFVII asks this, Chrono Cross asks this (albeit clumsily) and it's definitely here in Parasite Eve 1, too. I'm not sure if it was in the original novel as well but this was a big idea in Square games of the late 90s. I don't think any of their games really touch on it before then or after then.
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Oct 10, 2023 10:27
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IShallRiseAgain posted:and they are trying to run a Parasite Eve NFT grift with it too. I thought it had nothing to do with Parasite Eve in the end and that was all just the Internet deciding it was a new game?
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Oct 10, 2023 10:41
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I really liked PE2 to the point of running through it multiple times to get all the stupid high end weapons. It's not as GOOD as RE1/2/3 but I enjoyed the combat more because of the variety of weapons and powers you got to play with.
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Oct 10, 2023 11:02
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NikkolasKing posted:Well I didn't mean to spark a whole discussion of the third game. lol I wanted to talk about 1 and 2, their strengths and weaknesses, and if I was alone in preferring 2. I definitely think 2 is a good game, it doesn't deserve being consigned to the bad sequel pile. I think it probably has better gameplay in general too. I still prefer the first one though, the setting and atmosphere and story are too good.
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Oct 10, 2023 11:02
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Part of what makes PE2 good for me is the sheer amount of flavor text in Aya's internal monologue. You get a very good sense of her character and she's a lot of fun. I think they're both great games. I also enjoy Neo Ark just for being completely loving nuts. Much like I love Melissa/Eve still being a crazy opera singing show-woman.
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Oct 10, 2023 12:06
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Night10194 posted:Part of what makes PE2 good for me is the sheer amount of flavor text in Aya's internal monologue. You get a very good sense of her character and she's a lot of fun. I think they're both great games. The flavor text is awesome, absolutely. I noted that while watching the livestream. Aya has changed a lot from who she was in 1, becoming a lot more spunky. I can't recall it exactly but I know she has a snarky line about something being a "travesty." I think it was because there was some uneaten pizza or something? But the key is she notes while in a rom full of monsters or poo poo. Some of her examination dialogue is very RE4 Leon and that is very high praise from me.
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Oct 10, 2023 12:13
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I might be alone in this, but I loved the combat system in PE1 and have searched for other games with combat like it. Not quite fully turn-based, not quite truly free movement. I prefer PE1 to PE2, but a good chunk of that is likely due to nostalgia. The jump scares in the opening of PE1 got me so bad as a kid I didn't touch the game for a week. There's just something about evil mitochondria that creeps me out. A virus or bacteria you can attempt to avoid infection or develop treatment. But the organelle that allows life to function?There is no escape, it can happen any time. It creeped me out the same way urban legends about spontaneous combustion creeped me out as a kid, and there's a reason the game uses that very imagry. Dienes fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Oct 10, 2023 |
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Oct 10, 2023 12:48
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The only other thing I can think of close to PE1 combat is Vagrant Story, though that's mostly melee.
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Oct 10, 2023 12:50
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Sakurazuka posted:Finished Alice: Madness Returns over the weekend, ended up being a perfect spooky season game. Kind of ran out of steam towards the end and turned into more of the same platform puzzles than was really necessary but it was still a good time. I would say 'fun' but uh the story sure took a turn towards the end, never been so glad to see a guy get pushed under a train. Yeah I liked the ending, although her going back into the delusion at the end was kind of questionable. She fought to break free but then just went back into a delusion of her own making. which is a certain kind of liberation but still a problem. Regardless having the fantastical adventure dripping with symbolism culminate in something extremely grounded, with the guy just getting pushed in front of a train, was a great stylistic choice. they very easily could have had the final battle end with her cutting back to reality and finding that she had stabbed him in the chest, but that would have been lazy. It's definitely one of those moments that makes you go "oh this game could have been so much more"
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Oct 10, 2023 13:30
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CuddleCryptid posted:Yeah I liked the ending, although her going back into the delusion at the end was kind of questionable. She fought to break free but then just went back into a delusion of her own making. which is a certain kind of liberation but still a problem. I never took it as her retreating back to delusion, instead I think she's merged her worlds - she's still in London but the confident, powerful Wonderland idea of Alice is here and ready to take her life back. After all, she's got something that most troubled people never have a hope of achieving: she's pinpointed the actual source of her problems and she pushed him in front of a train. Her trauma isn't over but she knows the how and why and she's in control now. Bumby can even tell something has changed right before he gets splattered, almost as if he can see Wonderland too, but is more likely shocked at suddenly being confronted by Alice in a way he didn't think she was capable of. The art book for the game is amazing and the cut content I'm saddest about is there would have been a Moon level, made of cheese with little spaceman mice running around as enemies or NPCs.
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Oct 10, 2023 13:43
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SkeletonHero posted:I never took it as her retreating back to delusion, instead I think she's merged her worlds - she's still in London but the confident, powerful Wonderland idea of Alice is here and ready to take her life back. After all, she's got something that most troubled people never have a hope of achieving: she's pinpointed the actual source of her problems and she pushed him in front of a train. Her trauma isn't over but she knows the how and why and she's in control now. Bumby can even tell something has changed right before he gets splattered, almost as if he can see Wonderland too, but is more likely shocked at suddenly being confronted by Alice in a way he didn't think she was capable of. I think I consider it to be a retreat because this is the second time this has happened. The entire first game was her learning to deal with the trauma of her parents burning to death and her guilt involving it, but she didn't actually leave Wonderland afterwards. Now it was to deal with the assault, but it's still something that she is dealing with through the lense of her delusion. It's better than retreating into apathy like all the other kids, in a sense, but she wields Wonderland like a knife against her problems. While some moderate delusion is probably healthy in a situation like she is in, she keeps snapping awake in random locations and generally is running around out of conscious control for long stretches of time. If she is able to engage with the world with a Wonderland filter then that's probably for the best, but if she keeps snapping into these manic delusions then she's going to end up in the river eventually. Even the cat gives some sinister edge to it, saying "Long live, Alice... long live, Wonderland..." Speaking of which, the voice actor for the Cat had been wasted on random minor characters for the last few years. He voiced Cat in Returns and it sounds like his tone has changed in time so that might be part of it. CuddleCryptid fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Oct 10, 2023 |
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Oct 10, 2023 13:48
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madness returns had a staggering amount of cut content. shame, because the art design was top notch
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Oct 10, 2023 13:57
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End of Chapter 1 is always the biggest lol when you're stood on an obvious boss fighting platform and a giant robot piloted by Doormouse and Hare rises up... and Hatter destroys it straight away in the same cutscene.
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Oct 10, 2023 14:01
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Len posted:I thought it had nothing to do with Parasite Eve in the end and that was all just the Internet deciding it was a new game? Oh, I thought it was just a NFT only but still a Parasite Eve thing, but I guess not.
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Oct 10, 2023 14:27
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Morpheus posted:Cranking up the difficulty on White Day really makes it insufferable. The janitor becomes near-omnipotent with the speed of an Olympic sprinter, so if he sees you you're pretty much done. I didn't think hard mode was that bad. I don't remember the janitor being that much faster or harder to escape and all the health items / save markers from normal mode are still there. I have no clue why they decided to remove most of the ghost encounters when you play normal mode. That's the entire point of the game.
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Oct 10, 2023 15:27
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Sakurazuka posted:Finished Alice: Madness Returns over the weekend, ended up being a perfect spooky season game. Kind of ran out of steam towards the end and turned into more of the same platform puzzles than was really necessary but it was still a good time. I would say 'fun' but uh the story sure took a turn towards the end, never been so glad to see a guy get pushed under a train. Sakurazuka posted:End of Chapter 1 is always the biggest lol when you're stood on an obvious boss fighting platform and a giant robot piloted by Doormouse and Hare rises up... and Hatter destroys it straight away in the same cutscene. I fuckin' LOVED this game when it came out, and have recently been getting an urge to re-play it. The combat and traversal was SO satisfying to me (plus the hair animation!), and the weird statues in the Japanese wasp level freaked me out. Controversial opinion, but boss fights is probably my least-favorite mechanic in video games (I play games to explore and discover! Trapping me in an arena to fight a dude interrupts that!), so I was over the moon when I realized most of the boss fights had been cut.
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Oct 10, 2023 16:33
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Based on the one boss fight they did have maybe it was for the best....
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Oct 10, 2023 16:46
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Sakurazuka posted:PE2 has a certain atmosphere but never escapes trying to be Resident Evil but not as good. The first game may play clunkier but had more it's own identity. I remember reading about Parasite Eve at the time, because anything PSX/Squaresoft was a big deal, but I never played it. My brother was all about Squaresoft games and could grind through things I didnt have the patience for, like Vagrant Story, and I picked up PE2 through him. I could happily stomach its RPG-lite mechanics, delivered through a tank-controlly sorta survival horror RE lens, but what I most remember is the atmosphere. They really nailed a mood in that game, running around that remote desert trailer park hotel, I should play it again.
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Oct 10, 2023 16:53
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I think Parasite Eve and Parasite Eve 2 are very different beasts but I also think that's fine as they both have their strengths. Parasite Eve 1 is a more distinct game. It's an JRPG set in New York City and it leans hard into that. New York is given a sense of scale and weight that you don't really see in a Resident Evil game, especially at the time. It has a greater focus on an ensemble cast and a heavier cutscene focus and in general is far more of a standard RPG with a unique setting. In terms of general design it is far more designed like a movie, built around a few distinct setpieces and with some clear homages to popular horror movies at the time. The whole 'it's a Christmas horror-action movie' thing gives it a ton of unique atmosphere. It also leans far harder into the RPG mechanics with a weird gun system that really has little to do with guns as a thing and more to do with skills and stats. Parasite Eve 2, in comparison, is far more of a Resident Evil RPG. This isn't just in gameplay but also in general design, with a greater emphasis on evil corporations creating mutant bioweapons where the final act takes place in an evil lab. The atmosphere and design of Dryfield is more in line with a Resident Evil game too, including somewhat silly puzzles, fixed camera angles, and so-on. Weapons are more unique and specialized, secrets are plentiful and even when you have magic powers available they've been downplayed a bit. In terms of being a "Resident Evil" game though it actually does a great job, I'd argue on its own terms it would be up there with RE2 in terms of atmosphere, design and gameplay. They both do what they are aiming to do well but it's very possible to enjoy one and not the other because they are pretty drat different. The Third Birthday, beyond all the ways it is abhorrent in plot and design, also doesn't have a clear design idea behind it. The first two games are fanciful but they're fantasy-realism. Parasite Eve is closer to Die Hard than Final Fantasy and PE2 neatly could slot into Resident Evil series with minimal trouble. 3rd Birthday eliminates all sense of realism or place. The Twisted are a weird borderline incoherent threat, the time travel aspect eliminates most sense of 'place' and in general it just doesn't have anything that grounds it. Hell, one of the absolute basic concepts, that the protagonist swaps bodies, isn't remotely played for the horror it should be. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Oct 10, 2023 |
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Oct 10, 2023 17:05
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Third Birthday also critically has absolutely nothing to do with Mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. The sad thing is PE2 very clearly set up 'There are going to be more people like Aya' as a sequel hook and then there was never a sequel.
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Oct 10, 2023 17:18
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The thing that gets me about T3B is that the super mode is called Liberation. In PE1 Liberation was your ultimate spell that turns you into a cool looking mitochondria monster and punch explosions into everyone. In T3B Liberation just... gives you dual pistols and lets you do ninja flips.
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Oct 10, 2023 17:20
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"Detective Aya Brea turned into a mitochondria angel and uppercutted a T-Rex so hard it exploded, after first weakening it with a machine-shotgun that fired acid grenades." is a thing that could, and did, actually happen in PE1.
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Oct 10, 2023 17:30
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“What if the powerhouse of the cell goes Chernobyl?” is an inspired question and I’m glad someone attempted to answer it even if that answer is a bit too anime for me.
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Oct 10, 2023 18:01
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weekly font posted:“What if the powerhouse of the cell goes Chernobyl?” is an inspired question and I’m glad someone attempted to answer it even if that answer is a bit too anime for me. If you read the book it's based on; it's way less anime and way more biology textbook.
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Oct 10, 2023 18:06
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Lil Swamp Booger Baby posted:If you read the book it's based on; it's way less anime and way more biology textbook. I kind of get it tbh. It's the wrong part of the cell if you want to talk about someone being able to rewrite their own genetic code, but I can see it being the focus because of the theory that mitochondria evolved from captured bacteria. Since it's a "foreign" body it implies it's not entirely a "natural" part of the cell and therefore who knows what it could do? If you're talking about rewriting DNA then you'd imagine that the EVE could give people cancer or cause them to destroy their own cells but having it so that their bodies do the Kreb cycle at 600000 RPM and burst into flame is more fun. CuddleCryptid fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Oct 10, 2023 |
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Oct 10, 2023 19:16
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Sakurazuka posted:End of Chapter 1 is always the biggest lol when you're stood on an obvious boss fighting platform and a giant robot piloted by Doormouse and Hare rises up... and Hatter destroys it straight away in the same cutscene. Honestly I think it still works as a gag but yeah the cuts are very obvious in the game and it's a shame that the third one is 100% dead at this point. Although I suspect even if it wasn't it still would have run into the same budget issues as Madness Returns. EA is very weird about the series where trying to find a legit copy of the first game is borderline impossible even though they absolutely have one that's configured to run on modern systems (you got it for free with a special edition release of the second game that's no longer available). They also were apparently not interested in just selling the rights to McGee after deciding they didn't want to make the third game so the whole thing is trapped in an IP graveyard. Which is extra stupid given that the reason the whole concept was able to exist in the first place was the original books being in the public domain.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:18
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Bad news. Alan Wake is in Fortnite.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:27
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Read After Burning posted:Oh, I know a sequel was announced! I just don't think there's been an update on it for a long time. Speak of the https://twitter.com/PlayRavenscourt/status/1711754938492092838#m
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Oct 10, 2023 21:30
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mutantIke posted:Bad news. Alan Wake is in Fortnite. Thomas Zane probably needed the money, who can blame him?
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Oct 10, 2023 21:38
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Read After Burning posted:Speak of the Is the first one any good? Feels like something I've seen in every single PSN 'Indie Sale'
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Oct 10, 2023 21:47
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