Little Nightmares

Little Nightmares excels at building tension rather than going for cheap jump scares. It’s fascinating game that unfortunately is bogged down by some serious technical issues at times.

You play as six, a girl whom I assume is going through a personal nightmare in her sleep, as this world she’s in is obviously not real. The game has a fantastic atmosphere that is reminiscent of games like Limbo and Inside, but lacks the polish that those games have. Part of the problem with the lack of polish isn’t necessarily the issue, the game is also running a modified version of unreal engine 4, which has a very proven track record of not being the best engine for console gaming. Six is a 9-year old girl trapped on “The Maw”, a surreal resort that houses sick and powerful creatures. You wake up in the lower depths of the maw, and your journey is one of escape.

Little Nightmares best aspects are its chase sequences, which lead to some of the best tension building I’ve seen in a game in a while. The game features about six different stages, (no pun intended) and has various bosses that you have to defeat in order to progress.

One of the most refreshing things about video games in 2017 has been the lack of hand holding. Between Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild having more in common with the Dark Souls franchise, and something like Nioh not explaining anything and letting you figure it out for yourself, Little Nightmares is no different. Nothing is explained. There is no tutorial, and the controls are simple enough that you’ll learn as you go. I found myself stuck at one part of the game for about fifteen minutes not understanding how to progress until I figured out that you can climb ropes and chains in the game.

However Little Nightmares isn’t all gravy. The game has pretty clunky controls at times. Controls rely on you to use the right trigger (or R2 if you’re on ps4) to hold items and it’s also how to you latch onto things to climb. The other major problem of the game for me is the depth of field. The game is basically a 2.5 D game, but with a more modern graphical style, one in which I appreciate. However, this lead to a few platforming problems for me as there are several times you are walking horizontally along pipes and they are circular, so that can lead to not being able to judge the depth perception of the game, and can lead to cheap and frustrating deaths. The game also has various performance issues. Because Little Nightmares relies heavily on lighting and shadows, areas of the game that involve a chase sequence can bog the frame rate down significantly. While it never deterred from my enjoyment of the game, it was noticeable enough that it took me out of the experience several times.

But I have to praise the games’ artistic style. This is the embodiment of a video game that Tim Burton would make, and it looks and feels like that through and through. It’s dark, it’s weird, I don’t quite understand everything that it is going for, but I like it. In fact the final boss of the game involves some of the best tension building in the entire game, and is a pretty memorable sequence to boot.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Little Nightmares. It’s relatively short, taking me about 3 hours to complete, and for compilations looking to 1000 the game or platinum it if you are on Playstation, it’ll take you closer to ten hours. But I feel for the price at $20, it’s very reasonable. There is also a limited edition version of the game you can get at Gamestop or Amazon for $35, that comes with a physical copy and some other goodies.

However Little Nightmares gets a thumbs up from me.