>>15524573
The gameplay wasn't that bad, although I cannot really comment on it as I absolutely suck at spectacle fighters and I have never been that much into the genre, I will need to get into it someday. The narrator lacks subtelty, it is definitely trying to ape Stanley's Parable, but it does it in a far worse manner, the endings presented by the game are too short to actually justify him getting so annoyed, and he gets annoyed by the most stupid shit. Besides, the game is incredibly inconsistent on how much he actually knows, on one hand they try to paint him as a ignorant character who thinks that everything is just a game, and on the other he mentions things like the dark star and Carcossa, and then loops back to being ignorant in the true ending. So does he know that everything is just a ploy for Icey to take part in a grand master plan of a Lovecraftian cult? Or does he really think that he created the game and he thinks that Judas is just a last boss? Because the game is incredibly inconsistent about that. The scenes with the narrator and Icey finding the letters were probably the best endings, but they seem to be completely contradicted by the "destroy the radio" ending, as they present two different version of what the narrator knows. Generally, the narrator seems like an unnecessary and unlikeable dick, who grows even to be completely pathetic in the "Are you ready?" ending, which probably was supposed to make him sympathetic but failed incredibly. Also the way that the narrator realizes that he is just a part of the game is laughable as well, he is just throwing exposition with little to no fucking emotion in his dialogue.
In Stanley Parable, at the very least, the game was consistent on what the narrator knows. He knew that he was inside of a game, and he thought that he was the one that created it, and that he was in full control. He was an asshole, with his head incredibly high up his ass and a very sadistic side, but he was also just as much of a victim as Stanley was, and only really wanted to tell his stupid story. His motivations were clear, and his role in the story was made clear as well with the endings in which he realizes that he is not the one controlling the game and the one where you have to kill yourself to keep him from being at peace. The way that he is made sympathetic is better, because first of all, he just wants to stop fighting with the protagonist and stop the endless resets in the ending that tries to make him sympathetic, which is far better from "MUH PLAYER IS BEING MEAN TO ME", and he doesn't spew nedless exposition when he learns that he is also a puppet.
It really feels like it did everything worse than it's inspiration.