SPOILERS AHEAD!
It is a very atmospheric horror game, doing a really good job at making me think that something bad is going to happen, something will scare me, jump out, but no, the tension just keeps on building, adding more and more over time. I really liked this aspect in the first game as well.
I also really liked the cutscene work, especially with the end boss fight, the sound design and the animations fit really well.
I don't quite understand the intentional low resolution and lof frame rate thing going on, I know it's a retro-like style, and I kept the low resolution because it said it's intended for the game but I appreciate the option to lock on 60 fps instead of 20 which made my experience way better. At least for me.
I also found some little flaws, like the phone ringing sound coming from the opposite of the actual phone, I even checked if I didn't put my headphones in reverse, but no. The "Vacation Diary .." text covers the actual text of the diary, and the fishing rod doesn't play any sound in that area where you go to with a submarine. I guess this is just some feedback to the dev to consider whether this is ok or needs fixing for the full release. As much as the game is detailed in the important parts of it, with the maggots and trash in the park and what not, that's great, but I just can't seem to not notice the stretched or squished textures on some railings, objects or buildings. I bet some people would say it's a retro style but this type of thing was never a thing with old games and I just feel like it needs more work on this stuff. (It just looks like the developer took a default Unity box and adjusted the scale of it and put it in place without and the UV maps got squished as well).
Back to the positives, I like the addition of weapons, the fishing rod didn't seem like a weapon at first but it was used very uniquely I'd say in the boss battle, again, really liked those animations. The combat itself wasn't hard to handle the range of the axe is quite big so I didn't have any trouble with dealing with enemies, which is good that it didn't get frustrating, but also maybe needs something more to it.
I hope I didn't focus on the negatives too much, because the game is really well made as a horror game, if you haven't played the first game then you might not get some things regarding the story itself, but I have so I had no problem following what's going on and I'm looking forward to play the full game!
I also love that less eyes = more axes haha