Review + Thoughts: Little Nightmares 2 First Impression

Review + Thoughts: Little Nightmares 2 First Impression

I am so bad with anything that has to do with horror/suspense— haunted houses, horror games, supernatural movies. My belief in supernatural beings is that they are real. This is why I shy away from anything that reminds me of their existence. I don’t do well with horror/gore genres, it could be the monsters or oddly-deformed beings that repulses me.

However, it came as a surprise to me when I found myself very attracted to the game, Little Nightmares. The only time I heard of it was when my younger brother was playing it on PC, to which I avoided entering his room whenever he’s playing.

Little Nightmares 2 perked my interest when I saw a short clip of gameplay. It was a simple night routine before bed where I happened to see the video. Instead of being afraid, the feeling it gave me was, strangely, curiosity and temptation.

I was tempted to get the game and thus, launching me into a spiral of research about the game until I got the demo on the Nintendo E-shop here.

About the game

The story follows Mono, who must work together with Six to survive Pale City and discover its dark secrets. The game is in a 2.5D world where you must explore the world, occasionally encountering puzzles.

Storytelling

Little Nightmares 2 uses character actions to tell the story of the game. Especially in puzzle games, Little Nightmares 2 features puzzles that aren’t extremely complex which allows you to enjoy the story holistically. The story leaves you feeling a little dark due to how attached you’ll get with the character throughout the game.

Characters

In Little Nightmares 2, you’ll reencounter the character from the first game, Six. You play as Mono, a new main character and work together with Six to escape this nightmarish-place. The designs for the characters look very much human but also gruesomely distorted to stimulate a feeling of fear when they approach you.

Music

There is no dialogue in-game but the action, art, and music tells a whole lot of the setting and plot of the game. I love how they induce emotions just by using the silence and background sound. Sometimes you’ll hear faint music playing but it was just enough to fill you in on the ambience. The game does very well with how they play with elements of sound to fill your emotions.

Difficulty

As a suspense, puzzle game, I would have expected more challenges in terms of figuring out puzzles in this game however most information is fairly easy to gather if you look around before advancing with caution. Basically you’ll be hit with a game over if you die from traps, enemies or falling from high places however you restart at the nearest check point.

Thoughts

Although Little Nightmares 2 is a suspense-adventure game, I would like to say it slightly belongs in the horror genre. While there are no supernatural beings/monsters, we can say that the entire game is gloomy and scary during the first play-through. The suspense only builds up on the first time— if you encounter the same puzzle over and over again, the suspense wears out.

Ratings:
4.5/5

Wishes,

Melody