In the past I made a statement saying that there are two forms of survival horror. The first is the more traditional form which has existed since the original Resident Evil came out. It’s where you are given weapons to fend yourself from foes, but your resources are limited and dwindle faster the more you blatantly waste them. It helps create tension as the player has to figure out the most effective way to get through a dangerous area, but save enough of their supplies so that when they are thrown into a fight they can’t get out of then they have enough to work with. This is the style of survival horror which I preferred more. It’s methodical, engaging, and the right balance between fight and flight. The second form of survival horror is what I like to refer to as runaway horror. You have no weapons to defend yourself with, so you’ll be trying to outrun or hide from foes. You no longer are given the fight or flight response, just pure flight.
This form of survival horror I ended up preferring less, because while it succeeds more in one area than traditional survival horror succeeds, but it has one major flaw which drags it down. What runaway horror succeeds at is generating pure pressurizing horror. Your heart beats faster as you enter panic mode, but there are fun moments to be had. It’s when you make it out alive by the skin of your teeth. I can understand the group of people this style of survival horror appeases to, but remember the one major flaw. Rather than be an actual video game where you grow stronger and improve overtime instead it’s trial and error. These games don’t always give you the most clear sign of what to do, and half the time you just have to throw yourself at it over and over until you get it right. Plus these games tend to lack replayability as once you figure out the correct sequence of events then you’ll be able to do it again a second time.
That’s why I strayed away from this style of survival horror for the longest time until recently. I played Resident Evil: Village a couple of months after release and rather than fully enjoy it like everybody else I didn't. The game was fun, but it started to lose the appreciation I felt from before with traditional survival horror. That’s when I noticed a problem that traditional survival horror games had. They can be scary, but there’s a point where they stop being scary. It’s when they stock the player up on so many weapons that they no longer view anything as a threat. I’m starting to reach that point where traditional survival horror is becoming tedious and I needed something to refresh my view on the genre. So I did what none of you would expect of me. I decided to buy a runaway survival horror game. I got Little Nightmares 2 and…. I absolutely f*cking loved it. I can’t believe I avoided this game for such a long time.
The creators of the Little Nightmares series is Tarsier Studios who previously worked on the LittleBigPlanet series. They didn’t create LittleBigPlanet as a whole, but they helped out a fair bit and worked on some of the DLC expansions. They could have continued working on one of Sony’s biggest sellers on the Playstation 3, but they eventually departed from Media Molecule and decided to go full on independent. Currently they have a total of fifty-five workers within the studio, but that’s still pretty small to be honest with you. Their first big project was going to take some of that childish influence they worked on before, but instead they wanted to explore a much darker tone and setting. They wanted to explore the wild extreme of childhood and child imagination, so their game was more horror focused and to help fit that childish feeling they made the protagonist a defenseless child rather than someone who was strong enough to fight against each threat. This is what led to Little Nightmares.
It was this weird mixture between runaway survival horror, physics platforming, and light puzzle solving and somehow it ended up working. The first Little Nightmares was well praised enough at release and became popular amongst the internet. I remember a good handful of let’s players and streamers playing this game, and people dove deep into what this game was about. It was a dreary mystery to unsolve. It was a little nightmare to unravel…. see what I did there? So a little horror indie game became viral for a bit. Not a big deal since indie horror games were easy to become viral, but there was some charm to Little Nightmares which helped it stick out. Right after the success of the first game, Tarsier Studios began working on a follow up. A second entry set before the events of the first game and would try to connect to it. Little Nightmares 2.
They would try to improve the categories the first game struggled with. Like the gameplay, overall length, and a couple of others. Luckily, Tarsier Studios managed to do just that to make an even better horror based physics platformer. Little Nightmares 2 garnished quite a bit of praise upon release and was generally more well received. However, I didn’t really see this game floating around the internet as long as the first game and everyone kind of just forgot about it. Which is kind of a bummer, because this is a worthy sequel and we don’t get games like this as often. Last year was not good for the Triple A industry, but a great year for independent developers. This is one of those games and thankfully a friend recommended me to play this. I’m so glad I did and my mind is filled with utter excitement to talk about this game. Today we’ll be talking about why I really liked Little Nightmares 2 and why it deserves your attention.
Story
The game starts up with a long ominous hallway. It’s dark, it’s empty, and at the end lies a door with a peculiar eye marked on it. We aren’t shown what is behind this door and why no one else is in this vision, but we are dragged away and cut to the middle of a forest. Here we find a little boy sitting in the bushes. He’s wearing a paper bag over his head and seems to have woken up from some sort of nightmare. This is Mono and he has no recollection of who he is and how he ended up in the middle of the woods. He travels further than the road and along the way he finds numerous traps and obstacles. He finds ways to get around these hazards and eventually enters a shack. He ventures downstairs and behind a wall he sees a little girl cowering alone. He finds an axe and breaks through the door to meet the girl. This is Six, and just like Mono she too has no idea of where she is and how she got there. At first Six is afraid of Mono and makes a run for it, but she discovers that she can’t really progress any further as a majority of objects in the world were made for individuals bigger than them.
Mono and Six decide to team up and both venture further into the woods. They crawl through tight passageways and abandoned shacks until they are spotted by a woodsman. He wears a straw sack over his head and aims his shotgun towards the two children. The two make a run from the large woodsman until they make it to a shack and blast him with one of his guns. The woodsman is put down and the two find a large piece of wood which they can use to leave the wilderness. They are away from perilous danger, but the further they drift out into the water the more flickering televisions they see floating about. In the distance they see a mysterious city. With buildings looming over towards the sides and a huge tower flickering at the center of it all. With nowhere else to go they both venture into the city. They find that all of the inhabitants have disappeared, and whoever is left has transformed into terrifying monsters who chase them down when spotted. Mono and Six must work together to travel across the ruined city, survive terrifying foes who want to clobber them whole, and figure out exactly what is going on. Maybe Mono will figure out the vision he had at the beginning and why he is trapped in a place like this of all places.
Gameplay
Little Nightmares 2 is a nice balance between puzzle solving, physics platforming, and cinematic chase sequences where you run because your damn life depends on it. The game has a set camera angle revealing everything in a room, and it makes really good use of lighting and object placement to guide the player towards where they need to go next. There are hazards in the environment which can kill the player instantaneously if they are not careful, so you need to have a lot of sensual awareness if you want to survive the world. The first area as an example has a lot of bear traps and rope traps hidden in the ground, so you have to pay attention to whatever bit of ground looks peculiar to you. This does mean that some hazards and traps can’t be seen or predicted unless you trigger them, but that’s the thing about these games. The events you least expect will happen and you have to be prepared when they do so.
Puzzles may range from pushing a box to get to a higher ledge, using objects in the environment to break down a door, finding a key to open up a gold lock, and some pretty unique stuff that you wouldn’t expect. Like there’s this one hospital area later on where you walk into a room full of toys. Next to the same room is an x-ray machine and by looking at one of the photos you see a teddy bear with a key inside it. You bring over a teddy bear and it doesn’t have the key. Meaning you have to scan each toy until you find the one with the key. Then you have to figure out how to get the key out of the toy. That was a really cool puzzle that took analogy and patience. Compared to every single puzzle in Resident Evil: Village. Facing specific monsters can be a puzzle itself as they have specific behaviors and you must use the environment.
Platforming is pretty explanatory. You must traverse from point A to point B without dying, but remember that we’re playing as a small flimsy child where even a gust of wind can knock us over easily. Well it’s not to that extent, but you get the idea. You don’t get a lot of air time, you fall to the ground extremely quickly, and you die instantly if you jump from a really high place. You have a grab button which is not only used to pick up and drag objects, but also grab ledges if you think you can’t jump above an object or platform. You can grab onto certain surfaces and climb them and pull yourself up. A lot of other platformers have better controls, but this game does make the most of its flimsiness. Dangling above bottomless pits only to slowly pull yourself up and tirelessly climb even higher. I should also mention that you have an AI companion to help you with a handful of puzzles and platforming sections across your journey. To switch it up and not make certain sections impossible to go through.
Finally there are the monsters which can be a hassle to go through. Not annoying, but man they are a challenge. They each have distinct traits and behaviors, and you must do whatever you can to avoid them and get out as soon as possible. You sneak around a lot in this game and you must find the right spots to hide under. If they spot you they begin to chase you down unless you disappear again, but some monsters have the ability to catch up and reach your hiding spot. Some minor monsters must be dealt with to progress like the little porcelain children and living arms. This is where you swing a clunky weapon, but it makes sense as you are a small child with no experience of fighting or the enlarged world. Your swings have the right amount of impact and defeating a terrifying little creature before they bite you at the skin of your teeth feels more satisfying than it should be. That’s a minor thing to let you know. Combat is not the entirety of this game. The monsters are all extremely terrifying and they are what make Little Nightmares 2 a tense experience besides the atmosphere and setting. Dear lord, I’ve been rambling on longer with the gameplay section than I should have. Could have just said run, jump and scream and that would have worked equally as well. Hopefully you can escape the shadowed city and end this nightmare, or don’t because horror games don’t always have happy endings. Especially this one.
Thoughts
Little Nightmares 2 is an engaging horror experience from beginning to end, and I’m not kidding when I say this is one that you really shouldn’t sleep on. It does way more right than I expected it to do, and even if you are not a horror lover there is still a lot to appreciate with this game. The environment does what it needs to do to provide a sense of dread, loneliness, and the feeling that you are always being watched. It makes good use of lighting, darkness, and objects in the world to make the build up to each scare effective. For some reason it reminded me of this animated movie I watched as a kid called Coraline. How it had this childish tone, but darkness lurking underneath, The camera angle also works pretty well as it gives you a clear visual of what is ahead, but helps set up the tone for certain moments. Classic survival horror had those janky set cameras which did the same work, but the characters weren't all that good to control as the camera could shift in awkward ways. This game managed to do it well as it looks like we are staring into a box. Maybe the box of a child’s imagination. The audio was especially good. The game doesn’t play any thrilling music unless it’s a chase sequence or story event, but when it’s quiet and you hear a screech in the distance you know something f*cked up is about to appear. Even just the the floorboards is enough.
The puzzles beyond just pushing a box as if it were a Naughty Dog game are really clever, and while the character controls aren’t the best they make sense and add more tension to each moment. Playing a child who clumsily navigates the world and does whatever he can to survive. Even if there is platforming it’s not too hard, and the game does a good job guiding the player down a linear path. It’s really fun, but I can expect this game to frustrate a majority of players. A good chunk of hazards and traps can’t be predicted easily, and you are destined to die a lot in this game. Some traps ended up killing me numerous times for how you just have to keep throwing yourself at them. One area in the hospital in particular is frustrating as it requires you deal with multiple mannequins in the room by shining your light at them. However, your flashlight has a very crappy width and length and the mannequins more quickly. Actually a good chunk of the monsters in this game move quicker than you, and sometimes just bumping into one object is good enough for them to catch up to you. It makes sense, but to a lot of people this will be frustrating towards them. However, I enjoyed it because this game managed to challenge me more than a majority of modern survival horror games. I’m used to the concept of trial and error in video games. None of the challenges are longer than they should be, and most monsters dealt with immediately.
Let’s talk about the story now. The story will vary depending on who you ask, but personally I really liked how this game presented the narrative to the player. The game has no dialogue to follow, so it makes use of a clever tactic called environmental storytelling. Games like BioShock and Prey use environmental storytelling well enough, but no other game besides Hyper Light Drifter use environmental storytelling quite as much as Little Nightmares 2. You get to slowly piece together the state of the world and how it ended up. You figure out the vision you keep having and how it’s more horrifying than it is. The little moments Mono and Six have are very cute and help remind the player that someone is out there to watch over them. Someone to not make them feel lonely and remind them that they are safe. The ending was sad as you get to see what happens for the two protagonists and the fate that was foreshadowed from the beginning. Little Nightmares 2 doesn’t answer every question and that is what I love about the story. It offers a sense of mystery, and wonder as to what could have happened. . That’s why I love Bloodborne so much because it leaves some questions unanswered and let’s us explore our imagination and fill in the gaps. It’s just such an interesting experience to unravel and I’ve seen dozens of analogies and explorations of the plot to Little Nightmares 2 and the first game.
I highly recommend Little Nightmares 2 if you couldn’t tell by now and it’s an easy game to fit into your schedule. It takes around four and a half to five hours to complete which is a good run time for a horror game. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, but offers enough time in it’s world. A lot of people seem to debate game length a lot as if they pay a certain amount then they expect to get a good chunky game. They also expect some replayability with their game, because only being able to go through a game once does diminish the value. Another problem that does arise is how they can fit that game into their schedule, but for Little Nightmares 2 it is more on how long the game is. It should be beatable within a week, but it does lack replay value and it’s hard to justify the thirty dollar price tag. Yet again, I’ve played games way shorter than this and still had a blast with them. Little Nightmares 2 is an experience that must be gone through once and I can’t stress enough how much this has refreshed my appreciation of the survival horror genre. I may as well call this my favorite survival horror game of all time. In the end I am going to give Little Nightmares 2 a 9/10 for excellence at best.
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