Oh yeah, it's Unchained over-analyze time. With yesterday being my first time seeing the ride in an officially open state, I think...
The ride is in the best shape I've seen it. I have a few minor grievances but for the most part, the ride is perfect now.
- Overall the lighting is SIGNIFICANTLY better now. Could still be a BIT darker, but the scenes all look fantastic now with the new lighting. In particular- Phantom, Creature, Wolfman, and most of all, the second Dracula scene, but we'll get to that later.
- The ride's audio has both been made much clearer, and a lot louder now, and it's incredible. Definitely gave a much more dangerous and chaotic feel, as it should.
- Almost every single scene has haptic feedback in the seats now, and while for the most part it's fine, it definitely gets overused.
- While not completely fixed, the first Dracula scene is staged much better now. The way the vehicle is now angled makes it harder to see the robotic arm for Drac, and you get much closer to him now, it added a great sense of scale that the scene was missing. Black curtain is unfortunately still very visible, but you whisk by it very quickly now, so... problem kinda solved? Hoping to still see an actual themed wall replace this sooner rather than later.
- New alarm audio that plays after Dracula escapes, once again adding more to that sense of danger.
- The bride attacking Victoria also looks much better now thanks to the new lighting, which hides the arm almost completely now.
- While sadly inconsistent (I only felt it in 1/5 ride-throughs yesterday), very pleased to report that there is indeed now a breathing effect in that space between Victoria/Bride and Gillman!
- You get closer to Creature and his new lighting puts more emphasis on him, and his robotic arm is completely hidden now. Much better.
- The first Wolfman now completely waterboards you with blood if you're in the vehicle's left seats.
- Lunging Wolfman gets closer!
- The Mummy sequence is absolutely perfected now. The candles surrounding the sarcophagus now go dark as the coffin opens, and they've added a slow rumbling in the seats that does it make feel like there's snakes crawling beneath you, and it genuinely got me. I actually put that suggestion in a survey back in May, so part of me likes to think they saw that and added it
- The second Dracula animatronic... this scene is even better than it already was thanks to the attraction's new lighting. Before you turn to Drac, the vehicle stays looking at the wall for a moment, and his shadow is now cast across it, which you can see begin to rise before you turn to him. Absolutely beautiful.
- New blood splatter effect from the first bride that gets zapped by the daylight.
- Now we get to what I said earlier with the haptic feedback being overused, the entire finale it's going off like crazy in your seats, and it's just too much. It's no longer scary and more just begins to distract from what's going on. Only bad change made for the opening.
- Finale Drac was unfortunately in B-mode.
- Not sure if this is new or just never heard it, but they've added Dracula quietly laughing as you exit in the hallway. They already had it in the ending of the ride itself, but it now echoes through the exit hallways as well. Quite creepy.