Little Nightmares 2 review – IGN

Horrors lurk around every corner Little nightmares 2 spooky city setting. This deadly game of hide and seek picks up where the original left off, this time with an all-new set of twisted executioners chasing you through a variety of spooky locations. It’s a formula that works, and Little Nightmares 2 certainly has its fair share of exhilarating moments during its fleeting four-hour duration, but it also plays a bit safe, using plenty of puzzle-solving mechanics and of stealth from the original. . Instead of being a shocking new horror, Little Nightmares 2’s stalking through the shadows ultimately turns out to be a bit of a retread.

The new protagonist Mono may look different from the Six in the original game, donning a paper bag mask in place of his signature yellow raincoat, but his skills are largely the same. The main difference here is Mono’s ability to pick up and wield a handful of different weapons to either crush specific sections of the landscape or take out smaller enemies like the Disembodied Hands that stalk you at the Hospital level of Little Nightmares 2. Additionally, Mono is equipped with the services of Six herself, as she is an AI-controlled partner for much of the journey. Six’s role is that of a slightly more proactive version of Ico’s Yorda, but his relationship with Mono doesn’t really evolve into the partnership that made the classic PS2 so special.

Look at your six

Instead, Six acts as a handy guide whenever one of Little Nightmares 2’s adult antagonists chases after them, opening up a trail a few yards in front of you and indicating, for example, which crate to hide behind for a split second. before a forest farmer could unload a shotgun spray. This obviously helps to minimize trial and error in higher pressure sequences, but its camaraderie doesn’t really introduce much teamwork when it comes to puzzles. Yes, there is a dedicated entry to invite it to your post, but I really don’t remember ever needing to use it to coordinate a path to a puzzle solution. There are no complex mechanisms that require to be operated in tandem, and it never gets more dynamic than simple synchronized acts like climbing up a piano housed among broken planks and timing your jumps so that the combined force of your landing can propel it down into the basement. It’s admittedly quite adorable how Six sometimes mimics Mono’s actions; when he picks up an important puzzle piece, she often picks up a wooden building block and walks behind it, watching him like a younger brother. But just like a little sister, Six often finds herself getting in the way, standing stubbornly still to block your way while you drag a piece of furniture, or accidentally pushing yourself out of your shelter when trying to stay hidden. the watchful gaze of a wide-eyed guard.

While the inclusion of Six ultimately has a surprisingly paying off story late in Little Nightmares 2 – in a way I won’t spoil here – its presence seems vastly underutilized for most of the adventure. It also breaks the immersion somewhat that Mono is so easily spotted the moment he sets foot out of the shadows, but Six can seemingly stumble in the spotlight right under an enemy’s nose and attract as much attention as he does. ‘a broken TV.

Big problem in little nightmares

Speaking of which, broken chest tubes lie littered your way through Little Nightmares 2’s grim tale, which seems like a sardonic commentary on modern society’s screen obsession. This leads to hilariously darker moments later when Mono has retrieved an abandoned TV remote he is able to turn these glasses on and off to get the attention of certain types of enemies and lure them to their death like lemmings passionate about the media.

And as was the case with the original, it’s the villains who really are the stars of Little Nightmares 2. There are a number of really terrifying creations that were keen to sniff you out, but the one that got me the most. pissed off was the school teacher with the serpentine neck. Just hearing the leathery grinding of his spine stretching out of the camera was enough to make me wince, but the appearance of his dead-eyed grimace floating at the end of it and twisting towards my elevated hiding place. in the rafters of the classroom was a truly frightening sight.

However, how you avoid these towering towers of terror is by essentially relying on the same simple stealth techniques established in the original; crouch down to calm your steps and run between the dark undersides of tables during the short windows where their gaze is diverted. A remarkable section of Little Nightmares 2 satisfactorily deviates from the norm by giving Mono a torch that freezes prosthetic hospital patients whenever they get caught in his beam. It’s a surprising effect to see them go from inanimate statues in the light to mixed figures in the dark as you quickly turn the torch to stop their approach from all angles, and I wish there were some more interesting departures like this along the way. .

Even so, Little Nightmares 2 is still far better in flight than in combat, and the small number of fights on offer failed to engage me to the same degree as the ever-ruffling stealth. While I certainly savored the visceral thrill of feeling my controller growl as I dragged a heavy hammer along the floor before smashing the porcelain skull of one of the school section bullies, I found the arc judgment of my swing frustratingly inaccurate whenever an enemy was over or under Mono from the 2.5D camera point of view, often leaving me open to a counterattacking leap d ‘an enemy and instant death. Spatial awareness issues also let me accidentally swerve off ledges during certain platform sections, an issue that is unfortunately a hangover from the original game. At least this time the checkpoints are frequent and the reload times are much faster, so awkward moments like these aren’t as boring as they could have been.