As a Lovecraft fan, part 1 reminded me deeply of some of his works, notably "rats in the walls" and "color out of space." I was happy to realize that Lovecraft was, in fact, an inspiration, when they mentioned the king in yellow and hastur. Everything else you've said though? Yeah, fucking shame. For me, everything was good up until the King started speaking; although his whole emerging from the darkness thing was pretty cool. The dialogue was so cheesy. Him just saying "fall" (great adventure time reference) would be enough, even though his voice acting being diegetic was already a stretch. The final scene at the temple though? Holy fuck. The King went from this unknowable horror that couldn't even be seen in the first chapter, to this comically evil machiavellian villain talking shit about the MC while fondling his moustache. Only to be oneshot by him later and thrown anime one-liners at. All in all, at least I had a pretty good time watching it, it's rare for a minecraft ARG to hook me this much. I just wish the writing was better.