The first thing you'll notice while playing Little Nightmares 2 is its aesthetics. The universe of the series is nightmarish, but not with the coldness and "distance" of Inside (a similar game), let's say. It looks more like a perverted version of a fairy tale than an inhospitable, "dry" reality. One of the real protagonists of the game is unquestionably, the city in which most of it unfolds. This drowned, dark state is marked by a bizarre mix of realistic and impressionistic elements.
When you walk through the alleys and houses, it looks like a dilapidated Eastern European city of the 40's. This mix of realistic and nightmarish grotesque, which also characterizes the protagonists, creates a very special atmosphere: disgusting, but not completely inhospitable. It looks contradictory on paper, but the game translates it amazingly on screen.
Like Little Nightmares 1, it tells an enigmatic story, which leaves plenty of room for the player to read. To me, the series is often reminiscent of an anti-fairy tale where in the end, instead of a happy ending, it simply refuses to put an end to it, continuing into an imaginary endless nightmare. Thematically it revolves around the child trauma and its irreparable damage.
Little Nightmares 2 is presenting the vicious cycles of abuse and the representation of the inner horror and the anxieties with "sick" inspiration but also welcome nuggets of sensitivity.
The world is inhabited by disgusting, deformed people who have completely lost the human element. The game often "plays" with images of "fake", empty people. From the scattered clothes without bodies in the streets, the empty porcelain students, the "humans" from artificial limbs, to the pathologically attached to the television. And higher in the hierarchy of this perverted society, distorted auxiliary figures become symbols of control and oppression: a hunter, a teacher, a doctor and on top of that someone I would not like to reveal here. His world, a big childhood nightmare from which you'll never grow up.
The game has agony, macabre humor, but also moments of genuine emotions, not only in its highlighted "important" scenes, but also where you do not expect it, in small behaviors and interactions. Without them, it simply would not have the same power. The game often looks like a subversive, dark version of Ico.
As an experience of course, we are talking about a horror game in every sense of the word. If you can not stand the stressful situations, it is better to avoid it. Its great innovation, compared to the first, is the presence of a second character that gives designers the opportunity for puzzles that require collaboration. Fortunately, the second character works well, always doing what you expect.
Otherwise those of you who have a picture from the first, know exactly what to expect. The emphasis in gameplay is again on the puzzles, although there are some action elements this time. The puzzles all have clear logic and they are usually not very complicated. The most demanding parts of the game, have a difficulty in execution and not in thinking. This is perhaps the only shocking downside of the title.
There are times, especially in areas where the flashlight is used, that can become little annoying, with plenty of trial and error. Because the game often wants you to feel like you are escaping the "limits", it requires a relative precision in movement and does not forgive easily. Slow animation also does not help much when you are going to do something for the tenth time. However, these points are rare.
Finally, I would like to talk about the music which is a key part of the experience, as well as the sound in general. The music is used sparingly and although conventional, I can not say that it is not aptly placed, knowing when to be silent and periodically adding this important sensitivity that I mentioned above, with short, "warm" melodic breaks. These are always welcome, because the rest of the sound landscape is drowned in dullness and dissonance. Thus, sound is probably the most oppressive and stressful element of the experience. Sound is one of the most important parts of a horror experience and Little Nightmares 2 is well aware of that.
For the record, I played the PC version and technically it was very careful. It is also worth mentioning that in the future there will be a version for new generation consoles, which the owners of the current version will be able to download for free.
Box Art
Tested on : PC
Developer : Tarsier Studios
Publisher : Bandai Namco Entertainment
Available for : PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch
Release date : 11-02-2021
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