izigame.me

Bad things happen to small children
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Little Nightmares is the debut release from Tarsier Studios, gaining recognition for its original concept and dark, obscure premise. It is a stellar outing that combines good platforming with creepy characters, a superb environment, and a never-ending feeling of dread that will surely chill your bones as you run, crawl, and slide your way to safety from the nightmares that lurk within The Maw. It is absolutely one of the best platformers to grace, even if its controls are slightly clunky, and sits up there with the genre greats such as Limbo, Inside, and Unravel.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Rating: Enjoyable
Click here for the complete Rating Chart


Hit
Miss


✔️Haunting, introspective narrative
✔️Tense cat-and-mouse style chases
✔️Platforming sections are well-paced and satisfying
✔️Enthralling visuals and dark atmosphere
✔️The lighting and use of shadows are excellent
✔️Sounds design heightens the tension, giving you the right amount of instruction as to what to look for
❌Puzzles are too simple and their solutions are often too evident
❌Controls are slightly clunky but it's something you get used to


A grim adventure
Trapped in an underwater hellscape is a little girl in a bright yellow raincoat. Her name is Six. The background details are never explicitly explained but it's clear from the beginning that you must escape. That vagueness continues throughout the game's runtime, inspiring you to keep pushing forward in search of answers, as you observe vague narrative details in the places you visit. How did Six get trapped in the Maw? What is the Maw's purpose? And who is Six, exactly? These questions persist until the game's thought-provoking conclusion, and they're likely to remain with you afterward. This lasting ambiguity drives an enticing narrative that keeps you engaged even if all your questions are left for interpreting and theorizing.
The Maw itself is something like the world’s worst doll’s house, made to reflect a small child’s view of a giant, adult world. It's a gigantic vessel of grotesque creatures, where everyone is clamoring desperately for their next meal—including you. Six needs to climb back up the various levels, past multiple areas of danger and several deformed creatures who inhabit it in order to get to the top and leave. All while fending off her extreme hunger pangs and those who stand in her path towards freedom.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2374632573
A place that is both prison and playground
Tarsier Studios previously worked on LittleBigPlanet series, and a lot of that platformer-puzzler DNA carries across. It's a side-scroller but differentiates from its counterparts as it adds depth to its 2D mechanics. Instead of purely going from left to right, you can go towards or away from the screen as well. There's a heavy stealth element too with Six having to evade the creatures at all times. Her skill set is pretty straight forward. She has the ability to illuminate rooms with a lighter. She can pick up items and throw them, push or pull moveable objects, climb, run, and crawl.
Those that inhabit the Maw fuel some of the game's most harrowing moments. The blind caretaker known as the Janitor has long, slender arms with a very adept sense of smell, while the chef twins are hulking, grotesque creatures with a love of violence and a feeling for meat. To evade their clutches, you must sneak past them and solve basic puzzles under their noses. When it comes to platforming during the encounters with these creatures, the controls feel a little bit off at first with being unresponsive or slightly delayed but it's something you get used to. This makes certain sections of precision platforming simply irritating, specifically when you jump slightly at the wrong angle and fall into a clumsy death.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2374651011
The adrenaline-packed chases you have with the monstrosities are thrilling. However, the moments spent on solving puzzles are often brief and straightforward—unlike off-the-hook platforming sections that are well-paced and satisfying. The puzzles themselves just aren’t that puzzling to put it simply and were re-used quite often. Most times you're simply finding a crank to open a hatch, climbing up containers to reach a vent, or finding a key to open a locked door. That in itself wouldn’t be bad if the solutions weren’t plainly obvious and simple to complete on your first try. That’s not to say that the gameplay is bad but some of its elements aren’t that taxing as a puzzler.

Heart-pounding terrors
Visuals
For what Little Nightmare lacks in depth, it makes up for in an incredible presentation. Whether you're examining what's hanging from the ceiling plunged in shadows or the hideous monsters that reside there, the art design is strangely unique and dark—by both literal and figurative meanings. The lighting and use of shadows are excellent both on a technical level and from the gameplay perspective. The Maw is an impressively detailed horror locale and the environments feel downright sinister.
Sounds
The sound design is equally great. For the most part, it uses subtle ambiance, which puts a focus on the environment sounds such as the footsteps, the floor creaking, breathing, and falling objects. Those sounds make every move significant since any wrong step or knocked-over objects can spell your doom. It heightens the tension when it needs to, giving you the right amount of instruction as to what to look for.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2374633957
Technical
🔹Specs🔹
GTX1050 2GB - Athlon II X4 645 - 8GB DDR3 RAM
The game isn't resource-demanding and should run flawlessly on modern low-end PCs. However, it requires SSE 4.1 instructions for CPU which locks out very old architectures like my Athlon II from playing it. There's the "Emulator" workaround but at the cost of a huge performance hit down to 15-ish FPS.
🔹Bugs & Issues🔹

Clunky controls and delayed responsiveness at times. Six might clip onto objects due to this
In The Residence DLC, gnomes get stuck near the conveyor belt several times. Restarting the game should fix it

The bottom line
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Little Nightmare has a satisfying platforming that might have a few noticeable problems holding it back, such as clunky controls and unchallenging puzzles. Although, it is a deeply imaginative horror experience that carves itself into the mind with an incredibly dark and distorted world.
I couldn't get into details about the "Secrets of the Maw" as I've run out of space. This expansion pass ties into the main story and sheds a light on secrets to make you understand the original game better. However, the clunkiness of controls becomes more frustrating here and the simple puzzles from the base game lose the little variety they had. Buying the base game is worth your money and time which is already a steal at its regular 80% discount, though, go for DLCs only if you want more lore.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.