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Alan Wake 2: Night Springs This is the first DLC for Alan Wake 2. The premise is it's 3 episodes of the in-universe TV show Night Springs, and each one represents a separate failed attempt by Alan to write himself out of the Dark Place. There's one with Rose, the diner waitress, one with Jesse from Control, and one with the dude from Quantum Break. Each one is about an hour long, they all have very different tones, and are very cool. I definitely recommend it if you like Alan Wake. Grade: A

Blasphemous II As I suspected, this sequel solves just about every issue I had with the first game. The Soulslike mechanics are still there, but this game leans more into the Metroidvania side of the formula than the Souls side, which I think is for the best with this genre. The Penitent One is now more agile, the controls are better, movement upgrades are pickup items rather than hidden behind cryptic soulslike quests, and oh yeah... SPIKES AREN'T INSTANT DEATH ANYMORE. Thank GOD for that. In fact, spikes in general have much less of a presence here than they did before. They're still around and they still hurt like hell, but if you fall in them you'll be teleported back to the platform as long as you have life enough to spare. The combat is also much improved with three weapons instead of one, and now you have two swappable magic abilities instead of one. You also don't have to go back to a specific location to buy upgrades. The weapons all have their niche too and I got plenty of use out of all three of them depending on what I was fighting, though my favorite would have to be the heavy flail since it swings in such a huge arc. If there's anything to complain about, it's that certain bosses in the game are such a ridiculous difficulty spike that I was tempted to quit a couple times. I pushed through it, but I at least thought about it. It only happened with two of the bosses, but those two were so much harder than every other boss in the game that it felt like going from Elden Ring to Sekiro out of nowhere. It was painful. Really great sequel otherwise, though. I'm glad to see the developers took player feedback into consideration when making it.