Compare Another Eden Begins vs CONTROL Resonant

Resources generally support steady progression, but late-game shop limitations can leave parts of the large roster less prepared even when currency is plentiful.

Upgrade materials are criticized for being overcomplicated and awkwardly distributed, making some desired upgrades harder to complete than the rest of the progression system suggests they should be.

The premium conversion generally avoids mandatory grinding and is less grind-heavy than the mobile version. Character growth still takes time, but normal progression is usually enough to keep moving.

One critical take finds progression too dependent on repeating activities and combat to keep pace with enemy scaling, turning advancement into unwanted grind.

Exploration is held back by linear routes, dead ends, and repeated backtracking. Attractive environments and collectibles help, but the sense of discovery is inconsistent.

Exploration is a major draw thanks to vertical movement, hidden routes, bespoke side stories, and dense environmental storytelling. Confusing entrances and map limitations occasionally turn discovery into circling the same blocks.

The basic turn-based structure is easy to grasp, so new systems layer in without making the game difficult to understand.

The opening can be daunting because movement, builds, enemy pressure, and RPG systems arrive before the combat fully blossoms. Once more tools unlock, the learning curve becomes far more rewarding.

The writing is one of the most divisive areas: its clearest version handles complex developments without excessive exposition, while harsher takes call it predictable, clichéd, and shallow.

The writing is strongest when it balances human vulnerability, bureaucratic absurdity, and strange lore. Some dialogue and thematic beats are less elegant, but the overall character and world writing earns substantial praise.

Fast travel is one of the strongest quality-of-life features, working from many places and cutting down on the backtracking demanded by quests.

Requiring physical fast-travel points can be inconvenient, but it also nudges players to stay in the world and stumble into side content rather than teleporting past it.

The systems can produce excellent synergy-driven combat, but they do not always come together consistently enough to overcome repetition and weak balance.

The strongest mechanical moments come from combining traversal, gravity shifts, powers, combat, and environmental ideas in ways that feel purpose-built for this world.

The opening can feel slow or underwhelming before the fuller combat kit and broader world open up, making first impressions weaker than the later game.

Newcomers get helpful recap material and can follow the core story without exhaustive Remedyverse knowledge, though the early combat and build systems are not always explained as clearly as they could be.

The game wears its classic JRPG influences openly. Its personality and time-travel identity can still feel distinctive, but familiar tropes and structures keep it from feeling especially original.

Even skeptical critics repeatedly call the game singular. Its collision of character-action combat, non-Euclidean Manhattan, paranormal comedy, and art-house spectacle gives it an identity few other open-world games resemble.

The game deliberately favors classic JRPG design over reinvention. That familiarity works for many players, but those seeking fresh systems or storytelling may find it conservative.

The sequel earns broad credit for refusing to repeat the original: its melee focus, warped open zones, gravity traversal, and structural experimentation feel unusually bold for a major sequel.

Cats are the standout collectible and can be genuinely fun to hunt, but some completion tasks feel more like checklist work than meaningful discovery.

Documents, recordings, hidden reports, and other collectibles make exploration feel worthwhile by feeding the world's mysteries rather than functioning as empty checklist filler.

Full main-story voice work helps pull players into the story, though individual performance preferences can weaken that effect.

One critic found repeated combat and progression interruptions strong enough to pull attention away from the world and story, reducing immersion despite the striking setting.

Upgrades are easy to understand and usually feel tangible, keeping character growth noticeable without turning progression into a complicated subsystem.

Upgrades provide plenty of specialization on paper, but restrictive respecs, material requirements, and number-focused improvements can make the system feel cumbersome or less transformative than expected.

Animation quality is uneven. Combat can feel brisk and readable, but story scenes and character models are often criticized for stiff, repeated, mobile-like motion.

Movement and combat animation generally look polished and energetic, with finishers and traversal selling Dylan's speed and force. A few rough character-animation moments keep it from being uniformly pristine.

Playtime varies with side content, from roughly mid-20s to 50-plus hours. Longer playthroughs can feel worthwhile, though some find the main arc shorter than expected.

The roughly 25-to-40-plus-hour scale gives the world room to breathe, but the campaign can outlast the combat system's depth. Late repetition makes the length feel excessive for some players.

The environments and upgraded lighting often look excellent, but character models and mobile-derived presentation divide opinion. The visual package can look charming or cheap depending on tolerance for the style.

The game is widely praised as a visual showcase, especially for lighting, surreal geometry, and dense effects. Lower-end modes can introduce softness, artifacting, or weaker lighting that undercuts that presentation.

Lighting, painterly backdrops, and era-specific scenery are repeatedly praised. Even critical takes on the graphics tend to find the environments attractive and distinctive.

Manhattan is packed with strange signage, abandoned interiors, warped streets, and small physical details that reinforce the setting, though some sewers, warehouses, and city blocks repeat too visibly.

The colorful storybook look and portraits win plenty of praise, even from people who dislike the chibi models at first. The style is distinctive, but its mobile roots remain visible.

The warped Manhattan, Patterning effects, impossible architecture, and surreal set pieces are among the game's clearest triumphs. Its visual identity is repeatedly described as bold, gorgeous, and unlike almost anything else in the genre.

The eras, party members, and combat systems add variety, but side quests and dungeon interactions repeat heavily. Variety is much stronger in setting and party building than in optional activities.

Side stories, altered objects, puzzles, bosses, and strange one-off scenarios keep the world varied, though a layer of repeated activities and combat encounters can feel like busywork.

Character-focused quests do much of the heavy lifting, giving optional allies personality, history, and relationships with Aldo. The main story integrates that development unevenly, so some characters feel much stronger outside the central plot.

Dylan's growth from damaged FBC test subject to a more self-directed person lands strongly, and his evolving relationships give the story a clear emotional spine.

Overall enjoyment is sharply split. Some find it a charming, addictive throwback, while others lose interest because easy battles, repetitive dungeons, and uneven pacing blunt the stronger story and party systems.

Most sources found the game highly enjoyable once its systems open up, especially when traversal, powers, and side quests click together. A few harsher takes found the repetitive combat too intrusive to sustain that fun.

Pacing is uneven across both story and side content. Some enjoy the briskness, while others find chapters too abrupt, optional quests too long, and early progression either rushed or slow to open up.

Pacing is a recurring weakness: the opening can be slow, progression sometimes stalls the story, and several late sections drag. Other sources find the game accelerates impressively once it opens up.

Enemy presentation varies well across eras, but some dungeon stretches repeat too many similar foes. Visual distinctiveness is stronger than encounter variety.

The roster has memorable supernatural designs and multiple factions, but ordinary encounters can still feel repetitive. Reused archetypes and endless smaller enemies weaken the sense of variety over time.

The premium version preserves the original story and identity while removing gacha systems and adding new combat and New Game+ content. It feels recognizably Another Eden without being just a straight port.

Despite changing protagonist, setting, and combat style, the sequel usually retains Control's strange humor, paranormal logic, lore, and visual identity. A smaller group feels the open-world structure leaves too much of the original's magic behind.

The visual restoration can feel tastefully polished, but the combat conversion is also criticized for needing more refinement. Polish is strongest in presentation and weaker in balance.

The game generally feels polished for its scale, but scattered technical hiccups, stuck enemies, audio cuts, and other small scuffs prevent it from feeling immaculate.

The game saves its most elaborate effects for major attacks and encounters, making those moments stand out without overwhelming ordinary battles.

Reality warping, particles, reflections, shadows, and large combat effects create spectacular scenes, though the sheer visual noise can occasionally hurt clarity or expose platform-specific image issues.

The combat foundation is widely admired for Chain Skills, party swapping, elemental planning, and build synergy. The main weakness is balance: many encounters are so easy that the deeper systems are not always necessary.

Combat is responsive, aggressive, and capable of spectacular build-driven highs, but opinion splits sharply on its staying power. The strongest criticism targets repetitive strings, damage-spongy enemies, and a system that can feel shallower over a long campaign.

Lore is introduced at an engaging pace, giving the time-travel story enough mystery and background detail to keep curiosity alive.

Documents, recordings, side stories, and environmental details keep the FBC mythology rich, with the best optional material adding texture to Manhattan and the broader paranatural world.

Skill trees provide useful build direction but can feel shallow or overly linear. The wider party-synergy systems create more depth than the individual trees themselves.

The skill tree supports multiple builds and can be satisfying to optimize, yet several critics find its apparent depth overstated or its upgrades less transformative than the sprawling layout suggests.

Difficulty is the most consistent gameplay concern. The opening and many regular fights are too easy, with only later bosses or special enemies regularly forcing full use of the combat systems.

The default difficulty is one of the most disputed elements, especially in the opening hours and against tanky late bosses. Better builds and extensive Assist Mode settings help, but progression walls can still feel abrupt.

Free 360-degree movement makes traversal feel smoother and less restrictive than the original mobile game’s lane-based movement.

Traversal is one of the game's most consistently celebrated strengths. Double jumps, air dashes, hovering, grappling, and gravity shifting make moving through Manhattan fast, expressive, and frequently exhilarating.

Story reception is strongly divided. Some find the time-travel plot captivating, clear, and heartfelt, while others see it as shallow, abrupt, episodic, and too dependent on familiar JRPG beats.

The story is broadly praised for Dylan's redemption arc, surreal set pieces, and powerful character moments, but the central plot is less consistently loved. Some critics find the overarching tale, finale, or emotional transitions weaker than its best individual scenes.

Progression is mostly straightforward and rewarding, with equipment, ability points, and party growth easy to understand. The main criticism is that some paths are more linear than they first appear.

Zone leveling, skill points, powers, and build choices often make exploration feel purposeful and Dylan's growth tangible. Criticism focuses on opaque power-level tracking, restrictive respecs, and progression that can become busywork.

Heartfelt character subplots and an attachment-friendly cast give the game more emotional weight than its simple presentation initially suggests.

Dylan's guilt, childhood trauma, bond with Jesse, and search for redemption produce some of the game's most affecting scenes. Several critics describe moments that hit harder emotionally than they expected from a Control sequel.

Music, sound, and era-specific locations create a strong sense of mood. The game leans successfully into nostalgic JRPG atmosphere without relying on technical spectacle.

The sequel keeps Control's uncanny blend of cosmic dread, bureaucratic absurdity, and offbeat humor alive across Manhattan. A minority feel the broader city setting dilutes some of the Oldest House's concentrated unease.

Optional characters benefit from dedicated stories and relationship-building content, giving supporting cast members more personality than the main plot alone provides.

Zoe is the standout supporting character, with her radio banter and evolving bond with Dylan giving the journey warmth. Some sources find that relationship rushed or uneven, but the supporting cast is usually viewed positively.

At its best, the loop of exploring, fighting, upgrading, and moving the story forward stays engaging. Low difficulty and repetitive dungeons can also make that same loop feel monotonous over time.

The combat-exploration loop can be exciting once a build comes together, but repetition is a persistent concern. Several critics felt the same encounter rhythm and combo patterns wore thin well before the campaign ended.

The turn-based systems are easy to approach, party-wide experience reduces roster friction, and the game is designed to be welcoming even to less experienced JRPG players.

Assist Mode is a major strength, with granular sliders and presets that can soften damage, dodge timing, resource pressure, and other difficulty spikes. It gives story-focused players unusually fine control over the experience.

Post-game and New Game+ content provide a strong reason to continue, especially through added story material and alternate outcomes.

The postgame gives completion-minded players room to keep exploring, finish side stories, refine builds, and chase remaining discoveries after the main campaign.

Small timeline-sensitive changes, such as altered NPC dialogue and consequences across eras, make the world feel responsive rather than purely decorative.

Physics, destructible scenery, telekinesis, and gravity manipulation make the environment feel like part of the action rather than a static backdrop.

Preorder bonuses favor Steam, while Switch buyers outside Japan miss the linked mobile-game bonuses. That platform split feels unnecessarily uneven.

PS5 Pro receives especially strong praise for ray-traced reflections, shadows, reconstruction quality, and a cleaner presentation, while Steam Deck support is notably less convincing.

Base-game value is debated: preservation, a full first arc, and New Game+ support the asking price, while expensive character DLC and perceived incompleteness weaken the case for some players.

Positive value comments point to the substantial campaign, side content, replay potential, and localized pricing, making the package feel generous to players already invested in its style.

Missing Italian and German text support is a notable limitation for a dialogue-heavy RPG, especially because understanding the story is central to the experience.

The Portuguese localization is received positively overall, including the dub, but the reviewed build had enough missing or inconsistent localized lines to keep it from being fully seamless.

New Game+ is one of the most consistently praised additions, with extra story material, alternate branches, and numerous endings creating a strong reason to return.

Build experimentation, postgame exploration, missed side content, Resonant cycles, and New Game Plus-style interest give enthusiastic players clear reasons to return after the credits.

Level design is a recurring weakness: many areas are narrow, linear, and structurally inherited from the mobile game. A few gimmicks help, but they rarely transform exploration.

Level design is a standout, from folding streets and gravity-shifted city blocks to stranger interior spaces that turn perspective itself into a traversal and puzzle mechanic.

Character quests can be rewarding because they deepen the cast, but their structure often repeats the same travel, dialogue, and battle pattern. Backtracking and long quest chains are frequent complaints.

Side quests are a major strength, often delivering the funniest, strangest, and most memorable stories in the game. A smaller layer of repeated tasks and weaker rewards keeps the optional content from being uniformly excellent.

The interface is generally readable and controller-friendly, but larger rosters and inventories expose friction. Basic navigation works better than deep inventory management.

Progress and power-level information can be buried too deeply in menus, making it harder than necessary to understand whether upgrades are meaningfully changing Dylan's strength.

Later bosses are among the better combat moments, pushing party swaps, buffs, debuffs, and elemental planning harder than ordinary encounters.

Bosses are visually memorable but mechanically divisive. Some fights are inventive spectacles, while many others are criticized for huge health pools, limited move sets, and late-game battles that turn into endurance tests.

Puzzles are rare and usually trivial, so dungeon progression rarely asks for much problem solving.

Puzzles can be clever and visually inventive, especially when gravity and perspective are involved, but they also produce some of the game's most confusing or progress-stalling moments.

Combat effects give attacks useful weight and clarity, but inconsistent voice-line balancing keeps the audio mix from being uniformly polished.

Hits, metal transformations, spatial ambience, and supernatural effects are repeatedly praised for giving combat and exploration weight. The audio mix helps sell both spectacle and unease.

The multi-era setting can feel cohesive and tangible when changes carry across time, but some takes find the broader plot threads too disconnected to form a fully unified world.

The FBC's bureaucracy, Manhattan's altered neighborhoods, scattered documents, and small survivor stories deepen the setting at nearly every turn. World-building remains one of the sequel's most dependable strengths.

Maps are serviceable but often lack enough guidance about where paths lead or where optional objectives are located. Quest navigation can be more frustrating than the combat.

Navigation is one of the most consistent pain points. The flat map, unclear entrances, multi-level spaces, and gravity-bent geometry can leave players lost even when the world itself is visually compelling.

Optimization concerns are mentioned but not described in depth, making this a minor caution rather than a well-documented technical problem.

Technical performance is usually strong, particularly on high-end PC hardware and PS5 Pro, with ambitious effects running smoothly in many accounts. Some platforms and heavy scenes still show frame pacing, image-quality, or optimization compromises.

The soundtrack is one of the strongest areas, with memorable melodies and strong era-specific themes. Repetition bothers some players, but overall music sentiment is highly positive.

Music and licensed tracks remain strong and often memorable, but some critics miss a single transcendent set piece on the level of Remedy's most iconic musical moments.

Aldo is earnest, kind, and easy to root for, especially when side quests let him bounce off stranger party members. He can feel bland in the central plot, but his personality improves through character interactions.

Dylan is deliberately awkward and damaged, and most sources warm to his vulnerability, guilt, and dry personality. A vocal minority strongly dislike his writing, voice, or demeanor and would rather have stayed with Jesse.

Voice work is mixed but generally positive. Main-story performances often add personality and atmosphere, while English delivery, missing side-quest coverage, and uneven audio balancing draw criticism.

The cast is usually praised for grounding the strange material, especially the supporting performances, but Dylan's delivery is unusually divisive and receives a few pointed complaints.

Snappy inputs and quick attack animations keep battles moving without unnecessary delay.

Inputs are consistently praised for immediacy: attacks, dodges, air movement, and cancels respond quickly enough to support the game's fast, aggressive action.

Inventory and roster management are weaker than the core systems. Limited sorting, filtering, and lots of scrolling make large collections of badges, proofs, and characters harder to manage than necessary.

One source specifically criticizes loadout management for making important changes more cumbersome than they need to be during an action-heavy game.

Codex completion feeds into Steam achievements for enemies, gear, food, and cats, giving completion-focused players a solid checklist to chase.

Enemy behavior draws a sharp complaint for leaning on hectic pressure rather than convincing intelligence, making some fights feel artificially chaotic.

Technical bugs are not portrayed as constant, but the glitches that do appear can be disruptive, including enemies getting stuck, traversal oddities, and occasional postgame or loading issues.

The camera and targeting can struggle when arenas get crowded or fights move vertically. Mis-targeted attacks and awkward framing around large or airborne enemies are recurring frustrations.

Most English performances land well, but a few casting choices feel slightly off and keep the voice track from being uniformly convincing.

The 18-character roster spans different eras, races, roles, and backgrounds, giving the party a broad mix of identities and playstyles.

The cast is large but usually feels justified because party members differ in personality and combat function. A smaller premium-game roster also feels easier to integrate than the original mobile game’s much larger pool.

New Game+ and its many endings give choices meaningful consequences, with decisions affecting relationships and narrative branches rather than only changing a final cutscene.

The package feels complete to some because Part 1 reaches a conclusion and New Game+ adds more material, while others still feel the first-arc focus leaves the premium release incomplete.

Crafting is simple and useful for regular upgrades, but its organization and camp-only access can make it feel less convenient than the rest of the progression.

Dialogue is uneven: the best exchanges give Dylan and Zoe warmth and personality, while snarky banter and some overt thematic writing can feel forced.

Facial work is one of the visual weak spots, with some expressions looking stiff or strange compared with the quality of the environments and effects.

Performance is generally smooth on stronger hardware and PS5 Pro, while base-console stress scenes and Steam Deck play can show dips or compromises. The overall picture is solid rather than flawless.

DualSense feedback is used effectively to reinforce powers and supernatural moments, adding tactile texture without being treated as a defining feature.

The strangest spaces still generate strong cosmic-horror unease, using impossible geometry, isolation, and paranormal imagery to make exploration feel unsettling.

Loot and world rewards can make exploration satisfying, especially when discoveries feed upgrades, but some reward placement and generic material boxes feel less thoughtfully integrated.

Removing banners, pulls, energy systems, and other gacha friction is one of the clearest strengths of the premium release. The main campaign can be played without the spending pressure associated with the mobile version.

The best missions keep escalating into strange, memorable scenarios, giving the campaign a strong sense of surprise beyond standard combat objectives.

The move to a one-time-purchase RPG is broadly welcomed because it removes the original gacha structure. The separate character DLC is a caveat, but the core release itself is viewed as much fairer.

Global physical availability is limited, with the talked-about worldwide edition pushed far later than the digital launch. Collectors currently have a better path through Japanese imports.

Precision platforming becomes frustrating when gravity changes, tight trajectories, or awkward geometry demand more exact movement than the traversal system comfortably provides.

Recruitment is easy to understand and feels more natural than random gacha pulls, with characters joining through dedicated encounters and side stories.

The conversion is polarizing but substantial: it removes gacha, rebuilds combat, adds voices, freer movement, and New Game+. Some still feel too much mobile structure survives, while others consider this the best version of the material.

Weapon forms offer different rhythms and build possibilities, but critics disagree on how meaningfully those choices change combat. Some forms feel expressive, while others seem like variations on the same basic loop.

Party building is one of the deepest strengths, with dual skill paths, badges, proofs, accessories, and multi-party synergies creating many viable combinations.

Imported physical and special-edition releases have appeal for sentimental collectors, even though current global availability is limited.

The console-focused controls are a clear improvement, with fluid menu navigation and combat inputs that feel naturally adapted to a controller.

Routine world events and chore-like objectives can clash with urgent story beats, making some mission structure feel like open-world padding rather than purposeful adventure.

The zoned Manhattan is admired for feeling hand-crafted, vertical, and distinctly Remedy rather than like a generic checklist map. Still, some critics see bloat, repeated activities, or a loss of the first game's tighter spatial focus.

The character DLC is the clearest value problem: $10 packs and a roughly $45 season pass feel expensive next to the base game. Even positive takes on the core game see the add-ons as a weak deal.

The game’s use of Masato Kato’s name is treated as legitimate rather than empty marketing, with his writing and direction directly tied to the finished story.