Meet Little Nightmares. Originally titled Hunger, but the name was changed later on in development to avoid confusion with Hunger Games. Anyway, Little Nightmares is a horror- sorry, "atmospheric adventure" game developed by Tarsier Studios and published by Bandai Namco, and released on April 28, 2017. The reason Tarsier Studios refuse to call their creation a horror game is because simply put, they wanted a video game with a dark, whimsical atmosphere, and as such they specifically went out of their way to avoid horror cliches such as jumpscares and gore, feeling that horror games that rely on either or are just plain gimmicky and lose their charm (take that, Five Nights at Freddy's!). As such, Little Nightmares relies on it's striking visuals, haunting soundtrack, and aforementioned story to create a feeling of unease and dread. Speaking of the story, let's cover that, shall we?
The story, while lacking almost any kind of dialogue or text, tells the tale of a 9-year-old girl in a raincoat who, as revealed in a series of comics Bandai Namco published to simultaneously promote the game and give players context to the premise, is named Six. Six is trapped aboard a submarine-like fortress that, also revealed in the comics, is known as the Maw. The Maw is a underwater domain that visits the surface once a year, where the crew of the Maw prepare an elaborate feast for eldritch creatures known only as the Guests, who could pass as humans, if it weren't for the fact they are all twenty feet tall, impossibly obese, and seemingly have no qualms about devouring actual humans such as Six (or, if a theory I read about not too long ago is true, then the Guests are just obese humans and Six is a tiny humanoid creature, like a Gnome or something). It's up to you to help Six survive her ordeal and ultimately escape, but along the way, various things happen that make you question if helping Six escape the terrors of her prison would actually be a good idea.
The first thing you'll notice about this game is the fact that everything is huge when compared to Six. From the Maw's nightmarish crewmembers, to the furniture, to even the food prepared for the Guests.This ties in perfectly to the game's overarching theme, when you are a small child, everything looks bigger and scarier than it actually is. This motif is shown just about everywhere in the Maw, which I must say might be one of the most creatively designed locations in a video game I've ever seen. The Maw is equal parts resort, prison, and battleship, and seeing these concepts mesh together is a real treat. The story itself is also surreal and vague, with few definitive facts going on and almost everything coming down to personal interpretation. One thing that is a fact is this game has a surprisingly potent metaphorical lesson about gluttony and greed, specifically about how both of these can turn you into a horrific monster. I would love to talk more about the story, but despite it's lack of dialogue and reliance on personal interpretation, there ARE some things that you could spoil. Like the scene where Six- *gets dragged of by the Janitor*
Unlike a lot of "traditional" horror games, which hide the villainous monsters from the player's view until it's too late, Little Nightmares's puts a lot of emphasis on being able to see your adversaries almost at all times. This is because, if you want to categorize Little Nightmares, the best way to do so is as a Stealth-Based Puzzle Platformer. In fact, the simplest way to avoid unnecessary heart attacks is to simply take your time and move around foes silently and sneakily. Unless you get spotted, in which case, run like mad.
The gameplay is oddly reminiscent of LittleBigPlanet, of all things. Yeah, believe it or not, this game, with it's dark mood and Tim Burton-style aesthetic, draws inspiration from a franchise famous for it's bright, happy-go-lucky attitude. Six basically has five main abilities: Pushing/Pulling, Crouching, Grabbing, Climbing, and turning a lighter off and on.. These abilities are pretty self explanatory, but basically, you can Crouch to get underneath furniture or through small holes, and walking while Crouching silences Six's footsteps, making it easier to sneak around. Climbing let's Six grab a hold of any ledge and climb up, or use shelves, dishes, and other items that are normally stacked on top of each other as a makeshift ladder (such as in the picture above). Pushing and Pulling lets you move objects around in the environment to solve puzzles, and last but not least, the lighter. It's technically not needed to solve any puzzles or defeat any baddies, but it helps you see in the dark and is needed to 100% the game (you get a trophy for using the lighter to light every candle and lamp in the game).
The controls and abilities are really simple on paper, but Little Nightmares does a good job at spicing up the puzzles and encounters with the various denizens of The Maw, as they never reuse the same concept for a puzzle or encounter twice. For example, you could be tiptoeing through the rafters while making sure nothing falls down to alert the Maw's Janitor, whose incredibly long arms could easily grab you if you expose yourself. Another example, and one of my personal favorite moments in the game, is when you have to run for your life from a Guest and before the other Guests realize what's going on, you have to run across the table, jumping over and ducking under their swipes at you, and basically parkour your way to safety. The situation only gets more insane from there.
The game's main selling point is it's vast number
of mysteries put into the game to get you pondering
the true meaning behind everything.
You're not always on the run, though. There are plenty of puzzles to contend with. The puzzles, keeping with the simplistic nature of Six's arsenal, are also pretty simple to figure out, but serve as nice breather moments and let you truly appreciate the thought that was put in to the world of the Maw. Plus, none of the puzzles feel stale or repetitive, due to making sure the player has to use Six's abilities in the right combination to make everything work. I really like the puzzles, and I feel they help Little Nightmares stand out more.
You remember when I said that greed and gluttony play a big role in the story? Allow me to elaborate on that note. Every monster aboard the Maw wants to kill Six, either to cook her, eat her, or feed her to the Guests. But Six herself is also starving throughout the entire adventure, needing to stop to eat during scripted parts of the game. But when I say she's starving, I don't mean "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" kind of way. I mean "literally on the brink of dying of starvation". But to tie in to the anti-gluttony/greed message, what she is forced to eat gradually becomes darker and darker, going from a bread crumb, to a slab of meat, to a rat. And it only gets more gruesome from there. Frankly the main reason the game avoids gore is to avoid a potential M for Mature rating. Because eating rats and other things is gruesome. And unhealthy.
The last major thing I want to say about this game before we discuss the presentation is the game's length. Little Nightmares is an incredibly short game, averaging 4-5 hours length and it's actually possible to beat the game in less than one hour (the world record is currently 43 minutes). Some people don't mind, others will wish there's more, and given the vast size of the Maw there are definitely areas that Six never gets a chance to explore. Besides, this is actually Tarsier Studios first ever original game, and they themselves admitted they wanted a quality over quantity approach for the game's length. Those 4-5 hours were some of the best I've had in gaming, actually.
Now for the presentation! The visuals are simply amazing. They capture the signature charm of a stop-motion film, which when combined with the camera being locked at what can best be described as a dollhouse angle, make every single waking moment of Little Nightmares look like an intricate stop-motion set. The animations for everything is also top-notch, such as the Chefs cooking food, the Janitor playing around with his collection of... wooden... doll... things, and the eerie but graceful movements of the main villain of the game, The Lady. The environments are creative in their design, and the various denizens of the Maw look distinct and grotesque (sans the Lady, who is unnaturally pirstine and elegant compared to her greasy, brutish employees/customers). The Maw is already one of my favorite locations in a video game, thanks to it's intricate design, and just the idea of a prison/resort/battleship hybrid fortress cruising about is really novel to me.
Sometimes, all you can do is run.
The sound is also really good. It's creepy, but it's good. Then again, since it's a NOT-horror game, it kind of needs to be creepy. The main theme, "Prison Toys" is a ominous music box tune that pretty much let's you know what you're getting yourself into. "March of the Guests" is a slow, almost tribal beat that displays almost perfectly how the Guests, despite being presumably rich and living lavish lifestyles, are restricted by a a primal hunger that never ceases. Heck, even the hipnotic humming of the Lady is catchy. The spookiest song in the game, however, is "Six's Theme, Part II". That gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. And those are just the songs that stand out the most. Almost every song in the OST amplifies the atmosphere of the situation, and the two dozen heart attacks I had against the Janitor wouldn't be the same without the music. The Sound is also really good, which is a good thing, as sound plays an important role in staying stealthy. If a denizen of the Maw hears your footsteps, they'll spot you shortly after words. And some of the sound effects are really unnerving, such as the Janitor's strange clicking noise, or the Chefs' boar-like squeal. Even the sound of the metal of Maw grinding against itself gave me more jumps than I would like to admit.
Overall, I give Little Nightmares, a 10/10. This game might actually be my personal Game of the Year for 2017, even with Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Super Mario Odyssey competing against it. But the only real flaw in this game is arguably the short length. But I didn't have a problem with the short length. It felt perfect for what Little Nightmares set out to do. Be an unconventional surreal horror/stealth-based platformer hybrid cleverly disguised as a love letter to the stop-motion works of Tim Burton. And I strongly recommend you play this game because A) It's a horror game with no jumpscares or gore, so in a way it's kind of like a family friendly horror game or even a "Baby's first horror game". And B) It's literally a Tim Burton movie in video game form. Which is amazing.
P.S. Did I forget to mention that there's a DLC campaign? Because this game actually did well enough and garner a large enough fanbase to convince Tarsier Studios to make a DLC campaign titled Little Nightmares: Secrets of the Maw. I'll be reviewing that eventually.
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