Little Nightmares 2 – Bandai Namco Entertainment
Children have a sense of wonder and creativity that we lose as we get older. Children are fascinated by everyday life, and wake up to learn new things and really explore the world around them. Through a child’s eyes, objects in life are much larger than they appear. They are rarely complacent and that’s how I feel playing this game. Scale is thrown out the window in order to tell a story. Authoritative figures and adults appear larger than life and much scarier than perhaps they really are.
Little Nightmares 2 is much bigger in scope than its predecessor. No longer stuck to the confines of the boat, you control a young boy named Mono. Mono is a small boy who wears a paper bag over his head. Eagle eyed players will be able to find more hats for him as the game progresses. Players will traverse an incredibly depressing town called Pale City. You’ll soon meet the girl from the first game, named Six except she will be missing her trademark yellow coat.
You won’t be able to play as Six, but she helps you out along your adventure. She is great for giving you clues when you’re stuck and for distracting enemies. Her AI is really great, and she never seems to get stuck or lost, you will need to depend on her to complete your journey. Despite there being no dialogue the game does a wonderful job of building their bond visually and you can tell these two characters really care for each other.
Little Nightmares 2 – Bandai Namco Entertainment
Because I’m playing a pre-release version of the game on the PS5 I’m not sure how this will affect your play through but the game got incredibly buggy by the second chapter. My character would disappear, get stuck on walls, clipping was very obvious. Lots of nitpicking here and not enough to ruin the experience but it was very apparent. Hopefully a patch will fix that shortly.
Another problem that has crossed over from the original is the platform mechanics are still a bit iffy. I often found myself dying by misjudging the depth of the level. The controls do feel a lot tighter and less floaty but that still didn’t help the overall experience. Thankfully the checkpoint system is so much better this time around. Once you die you will usually restart pretty much where you died in no time at all. This really helps speed up the game but I did find myself dying quite often. It’s one part hard and one part frustration rolled into one.
The world is bigger but it also makes it harder to see what to do. A zoom button would have done wonders here and allowed the player to really take in all the intricate details. I often found my character getting lost behind objects, or confused on where to go as I couldn’t get a good sense of scope.
Little Nightmares 2 – Bandai Namco Entertainment
Even if you haven’t played the original game (I highly suggest you do) you won’t be overly lost in the story here. There is surprisingly a lot of lore in the Little Nightmares universe despite the lack of actual dialogue. It’s visual storytelling at its best. But you can go in blind and have a good time. It’s a solid game for those who just want a creepy horror game, to tide them over until Resident Evil releases. This sequel doesn’t really answer questions you may have from the original but instead create more questions. The embargo does not allow me to talk about what comes after Chapter 3, but I certainly have questions. A lot of them. Hopefully we will see where this plays out in the future. I love this world and want to keep exploring it.
Overall Little Nightmares 2 does everything the original did but bigger and better. What’s keeping me from being more positive about the game is it’s still very much the same. I didn’t find myself falling in love with the game like I did the first time around. I felt like I’d played this game before and the new additions weren’t enough to really wow me. The combat felt tacked on and not important enough to warrant. It also didn’t help answer any of the questions it acts. If there is to be a trilogy of games this certainly feels like The Two Towers of games.
They say, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, but I would have loved a bit of newness here. Perhaps on my second playthrough I will discover a secret ending that shows off more of the world and help answer some of my questions. Here’s hoping my nerves can handle it.