Mechanically it would have been like the original in combat. It would have been reamed at reviews for being a "copy and paste" job. They'd be contending with the lukewarm mid reviews the remaster received, and the hostile needling the game has received over years for being a former Xbox exclusive.
I don't mind the Saga Anderson character at all, her character fits nicely in helping draw out the FBC angle in the story, and her connection to the Anderson family is also important, and the Anderson family itself along with Wake and Thomas Zane really open up the part about Cauldron Lake's past and need for artists by the dark presence.
Overall I liked the game but it has some annoying quirks. Mostly just design choices as far as how they code the supply drops based in players carried inventory which is stupid, one ammo box gives (depending on player inventory) 10 bullets if carrying 9 or less bullets, 5 bullets if carrying 10-19, 1 bullet if carrying more than 20. Shotgun shells are 6 per box if carrying 5 or less, and over that one or two shells per box. The game requires mapping inventory to D-pad manually to access on the fly. This is a contradictory design because the game doles out supplies only when the player is in dire need of it, but you can't always access your random pick-ups in the moment (like a flare, health pack, fuel tank, flash bang, etc) because it requires it be mapped to the D-pad, so your out of luck if in a pinch and what it gives you is not mapped on the D-pad. Plus the game doesn't always work to this balanced approach because you can be in pinch and it still gives players squat. The game almost never gave me batteries so I had to resort to reloading checkpoints when I hit them because that was only way to refill flashlight power.
Also, when playing as Wake in the Dark Place, I thought the world covered in shadows was stupid. The flashlight is worthless to dissolve them at anything short of just outside of arms reach unless you wanna waste the batteries you never get with focused light which would eat up batteries you never get, and then you have to waste a lot of ammo on each one that turns out to be a tougher bad guy, which sucks because there's no pick-ups. This is such conflicting design. You have to go out in the world traveling light to get ammo drops but then you're ill prepared to deal with a meatier fight, but if you go prepared you burn up all your supplies and get nothing back in return.
To get through the game I had to figure out the way these quirks worked and then exploited them. I'd walk away from a save room with little inventory to forage for ammo then drop it off in my shoe box before going back out to look for more just before I could think of advancing toward the plot drive points prepared. Worst is if you forage while carrying too much you relinquish any ability to get anything substantive from that ammo loot location for good.
Of course maybe on might say I am not playing game as intended, but I'd argue back it isn't working as intended. When I had my fight with Nightingale it wasn't giving me any shotgun ammo, just handgun ammo and I kept dying before I could finish him because he was a bullet sponge. I reloaded from the save hut before the fight and went to the boss fight again, this time the boss area had ammo drops for the shotgun and I finished him no problem. I think this game just has issues with the logic of ammo drops. In this case I think because I used my shotgun ammo up the first time before Nightingale fight it wouldn't even calculate shotgun shells into the ammo drop due to the ammo absence from inventory the first time. When I backtracked and returned with ammo, suddenly boss area was rich with shotgun ammo. Ammo drop rate are a big issue in this game, and ruin what would otherwise make a much more enjoyable experience.
I would have loved more gameplay like the original. But, people don't stick up for original except Xbox fans, and they couldn't just pander to that crowd. Overall I liked them drawing in Remedy's other works. Alex Casey felt like Max Payne from a parallel world, as did Agent Breaker like a parallel of the Quantum Break protagonist, and of course bringing the FBC to Caulfron Lake. The story was good, the technical craft was excellent, but the gameplay side felt wanting. I'd of rather they been more generous with the ammo and weapons and made up for it with more bad guys. They decreased enemy presence greatly, maybe to make it feel more challenging with lesser but tougher enemies. I would have preferred they went a more action focused route when it came to combat. I felt they had to go this route or risk being accused of rehashing.
Anyhow, for all the bad things I said I still really enjoyed it, but didn't find it as great as everyone said mostly do to these issues. These issues could be very easy to fix though with some proper tweaking. Perhaps others didn't have this issue as maybe because perhaps the issue is platform specific.
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