Alan Wake/YMMV: Difference between revisions

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(Smug Snake is NOT a YMMV trope)
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* [[Alas, Poor Villain]]:
** It's hard to stay mad at {{spoiler|Mott the fake kidnapper}} once you realize that the only reason he tried to wrestle a manuscript out of Alan was because {{spoiler|Hartman was manipulating him to}}. Additionally, he runs into the Dark Presence shortly before he and Alan meet for the last time. We don't see what the Dark Presence does to him, but by the time Alan catches up to him, he's broken and sobbing, begging for mercy.
** This can also apply to {{spoiler|Agent Nightingale}} if you have access to ''[[All There in the Manual|The Alan Wake Files]]'' from the Limited Edition. {{spoiler|He feels guilt over his partner's death and is taking it out on others on the job. Of course, Alan receives the full brunt of Agent Nightingale's behaviour}}.
** Mister Scratch of all people is a helpless slave to the way he's written. As a self-aware fictional character, it bothers him enough that he tries to bring it up with Alan but ''can't''.
* [[Anticlimax Boss|Anti-Climax Boss]]:
** The final boss of the main game only has a flock of crows to defend itself once you get within shooting range, and you get a chest with unlimited flare gun ammo.
** The final boss of "The Signal" can be dispatched with a few flare gun shots and boosting the flashlight for about 15 seconds or so. There's a reason one of the achievements requires you to beat it in a minute and a half. The final boss of The Writer is legitimately difficult, though certainly not in [[That One Boss]] territory.
* [[Badass Decay]]: When the kidnapper, Mott, is introduced, he kills multiple Taken in quick succession, and is quick to display that [[Genre Savvy|he knows how to effectively defeat them]]. Later, he's {{spoiler|effectively killed offscreen. But then again, he was confronted by the [[Eldritch Abomination|main host of the Darkness]], so he was rather outclassed.}}.
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: Alan defeats the Dark Presence and saves Alice, but at a price. {{spoiler|He is stuck under the lake writing to appease the darkness... for now}}.
* [[Breather Level]]: There are several places in the game, albeit brief ones, where Alan moves about during daylight. These sections are safe, allowing the player to relax a little while some exposition goes on, and occasionally enjoy some [[Scenery Porn]] of the local environment.
** The very last level of the main game has no danger whatsoever, just various things to shine the flashlight on which causes objects to appear.
* [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch]]: There are quite a few complaints about being in the forest for the entire game, but this is ''not'' the case; Youyou're only in the forest for about three levels in the game. The rest of the game is spent in much more varietal environments after the three forest levels.
** Plus those are [[Nothing Is Scarier|really]] [[Malevolent Architecture|good]] [[The Lost Woods|forests]], so the people making said complaints were missing the point even if they knew what they were talking about.
* [[Complete Monster]]: The Dark Presence. [[Bonus Points]] for being a literal monster.
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* [[Goddamned Bats|Goddamned Crows]]:
** The Dark Crows, which are about as close to the trope namer as possible without actually being mammals. Also those damned [[Bear Trap]]s in certain parts of the woods.
** In "The Signal", it becomes [[Goddamned Bats|Goddamned Books]]
** In ''American Nightmare'', the [[Goddamned Bats]] are literal [[Demonic Spiders]].
* [[Gorn]]: None in the gameplay, but near the end of the game, {{spoiler|in his attempt to silence Barbara Jagger after she was Taken by the Dark Presence, Thomas Zane cut out her heart}}.
* [[Harsher in Hindsight]]: "Rusty used to be human, but now he's just black coffee wrapped in skin."
* [[Hate Dumb]]:
** There are people out there who dislike the game for some very odd reasons such as not enough gore, different weapons, or that there are lots of trees around. It becomes really bad, however, when a person buys the $80 limited edition and complains about the overall tone of the game. Apparently, they didn't even read the ''box'' before they bought it.
* [[Hell Is That Noise]]: When the wind starts blowing hard, and the shadows start moving of their own accord, it's time to ''run like hell.''.
* [[Hilarious in Hindsight]]: The episodes ending with a musical track just makes the game's ''[[Twin Peaks]]'' nods even stronger, seeing as how that's how every episode of ''The Return'' ends.
* [[Inferred Holocaust]]: Hundreds of townsfolk from the surrounding landscape are Taken and gunned down over the course of the story. However, in "The Signal", Alan states that he wrote a "happy ending" for the town, and we know that the {{spoiler|dead can be resurrected if you know what you're doing when writing a story; the ending implies that Alan brought everyone who was Taken in Bright Falls back to life.}}.
** {{spoiler|Debunked in ''The Alan Wake Files''. Clay Steward saw three funerals his first day in Bright Falls, and that he heard there were numerous deaths and disappearances leading up to Deerfest.}}.
* [[Internet Backdraft]]: PC gamers were bitter about ''Alan Wake'' being moved from a [[Direct X]] 10-only Windows title to the Xbox 360 console. Thankfully, Remedy would eventually release it on Windows.
* [[Memetic Mutation]]: He's Alan Wake. He's written books, y'know.
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* [[Nausea Fuel]]: In one of Mr. Scratch's recordings in ''American Nightmare'', he slashes the throat of one of Alan's female fans while gently massaging her head. The gurgling noise she makes as she dies is ''very'' disturbing.
* [[Nightmare Retardant]]: Having a deranged hybrid of [[Kingdom Hearts|the Heartless]] and [[Resident Evil|the Ganados]] flail at you wildly with a rusty sickle is unnerving right up until he kindly informs you, "Omega-3 fatty acids are GOOD for your health!".
** But then swings back to [[Nightmare Fuel]] when you realize that the random phrases are ''all that's left of the original person.''.
** But then another shouts "It's rabbit season!" to which you reply, "No it's duck season!" and blow his beak off with a hunting rifle.
* [[Non Sequitur Scene]]: In ''American Nightmare'', during your final trip to the observatory, you fight a horde of Taken while "Balance Slays the Demon" plays seemingly from nowhere. Does Rachel [[Source Music|play it for you over the intercom]]? Is Alan hearing it in his head because [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|he enjoyed the Children of The Elder God fight more than he let on]]? Or perhaps it's [[Fridge Brilliance|part of the soundtrack to the episode of Night Springs he is living]]?
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** After finishing Episode 1, fighting off the Taken in the middle of the night, you're probably still tense and maybe a bit afraid of the dark. Episode 2 starts in a flashback at Alan's apartment. Alan's looking at cover mock-ups done by Alice - when the lights suddenly go out.
** Near the entrance of a logging camp, there's a large machine with a claw for carrying logs. Stepping near it causes the claw to open and close menacingly while an Elite Taken starts yelling in his constantly shifting voice. While the machine [[Nothing Is Scarier|doesn't do anything else]], the Elite Taken is nowhere to be seen.
** After Alan ends up in the Sheriff's Station, he walks out into the lobby, and the lights flicker. {{spoiler|It's just Cynthia Wheeler, local [[Talkative Loon]], checking the bulbs.}}.
* [[Scenery Porn]]: Some of the forested mountain vistas, particularly in the daytime, are quite pretty [[Shown Their Work|and accurate]] representations of rural areas of the Pacific Northwest.
* [[The Scrappy]]:
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*** According to the manuscript, Barry thinks of himself in one scene as [[The Hero]]. Or at least ''a'' hero. Also, making jokes is and actually one of the healthier reactions to a crisis, as long as it's still being taken seriously.
** Agent Nightingale is seen by quite a few for being an especially obnoxious and [[Trigger Happy]] [[Inspector Javert]], though Remedy may have special plans for him [[Rescued from the Scrappy Heap|in a possible sequel]].
* [[Special Effects Failure]]: There are a few points where you can see the taken spawn from the aether before they attack you. Might've been done intentionally though, to add to their otherworldliness.
* [[Survival Horror]]: Though given one discussion over at Gamasutra, your mileage may vary on whether Alan Wake is survival horror or whether it would be better to call it a psychological thriller. The distinction being along the lines of Halloween versus The Shining. In some ways, Alan Wake is best played like ''[[System Shock]] 2'' or ''[[BioShock (series)]]'' rather than ''[[Max Payne (series)|Max Payne]]'' [[Recycled in Space|in the woods]].
** A discussion that seemingly isn't hampered by the fact that Alan Wake bills itself, right on the very cover, as a Psychological Action Thriller. It isn't helped that some game reviewers / websites take any remotely scary game and slap "survival horror" on it, then complain that it isn't scary or horror enough.
* [[That One Level]]: The battle after you find the radio that plays "War". It's a very cramped warehouse full of the large Taken that take forever to light up and have a tendency to bum rush you. It's also full of smaller, faster guys who can sneak up behind you very easily. Oh, and did I mention that you have recently lost all of your stuff and only get three flares to go along with your revolver? If you're lucky, you'll find a shotgun just before the radio, but it doesn't help that much.
** That is, until you realize you can simply run past/dodge them all to the checkpoint outside, but you'd be forgoing the items inside. Although you can simply go back in, lure them outside, kill one, stand under the checkpoint to make them all despawn, then repeat until they're all dead, but that takes a while.
** The [[Bear Trap|Bear Traps]] are typically a minor annoyance. Getting caught in them doesn't do much damage, but you have to button mash your way out of them plus they spawn a Taken next to you that you have to deal with after. A [[No-Gear Level]] covered in bear traps, however? Brutal. Get caught in one, you have no way of fighting the Taken that spawns, so you run away, leading you to get caught in more bear traps since you aren't moving slowly and carefully, which summons more Taken.
** Getting caught by the [[Bear Traps]] is annoying, since it spawns a Taken each time it happens. However, in one part of the game with bear traps, you also have no weapons, and they still spawn Taken when you get caught by them.
* [[Uncanny Valley]]: Multiple reviewers have made note of the somewhat "off" character models in the game, particularly Alice Wake. The poor lip-syncing, particularly in the first few cutscenes, doesn't help matters either.
* [[Villain Decay]]: A minor example. The Taken who has a specific grievance against Wake in the beginning of the game, during the nightmare, and who speaks lucidly, is more intimidating than the ones who randomly shout gibberish based off of their lives.
 
** It's never quite clear if this is actually a Taken or just a part of Alan's nightmare. It could be intentional decay on Alan's part, remembering the nightmare and making that into what the Taken are, or it could be that this is what the Taken really are but he toned them down in his book. Suffice it to say [[Mind Screw|the game isn't going to explain it]].
*** It's just a part of Alan's nightmare. "The Writer" ends with a [[Boss Rush]] of {{spoiler|Dr. Hartman, the Anderson Brothers (both at once), and then Barry three times in a row; all of whom are lucid Taken, and the DLC takes place in Alan's nightmares.}}
** Might also be a case of [[Not Brainwashed]]. The guy was pretty butthurt about Alan killing him off in his book.
* [[X Meets Y]]: [[Metroid Prime|Metroid Prime II]] meets [[Misery]] meets Bag Of Bones meets [[Infected]].
 
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