When “Little Nightmares” was originally announced back in twenty-fourteen, it instantly reminded me of “Coraline” thanks to the doughy exaggerated art style and the main character’s yellow raincoat. Ever since then I’ve been keeping my eye on it, soaking up the drip feed of marketing and promotional materials that have come out over the past three years hoping that it could live up to my expectations. After playing through it in one sitting, I’m happy to say that it not only delivered on them but in a few ways it actually exceeded them.
It’s actually pretty easy to describe what “Little Nightmares” is because you’re given so little info from the beginning. You play as Six, a hungry little girl in a yellow raincoat who is trapped inside a nightmarish underwater dream world called The Maw. She’s offered the chance to escape, and she takes it knowing full well how hard it will be.
“Little Nightmares” is presented in a 2.5-d perspective and it mixes platforming and light stealth to create a tense, extended game of hide and seek. This reference sounds crazy, but the way Six controls feels a lot like “LittleBigPlanet.” It actually makes sense though because Tarsier studios is responsible for “LittleBigPlanet Vita” which is arguably the best game in the series. The art style is also reminiscent of games like “LittleBigPlanet” and “Tearaway,” almost like it’s a darker, more sinister world in that universe. Thankfully, Six is a little less floaty than Sack Boy and the whole platforming aspect feels a whole lot tighter.
The game is broken up into three distinct worlds within The Maw, each of them featuring their own bizarre boss. First, there’s The Janitor, a blind man with extremely long arms who steals children and sniffs out his prey. After him, you’ll face the Twin Chefs who squat like pigs as they chase you around their disgusting kitchen. Finally, you’ll take on The Lady, a tall woman in a Kabuki mask who haunts Six’s dreams.
Each of Six’s enemies are pretty evenly matched in terms of how fun they are to confront and/or sneak past, and the different tactics you’ll have to employ while playing the sickest game of hide and seek of all time with them keep things fresh and interesting. The fact that the levels are 2.5-d really helps here because you always know the general direction you should be headed in. In fact, I never really got frustrated or spent too much time on one section because if I thought of a tactic, it usually worked. The checkpoint system did cause me some trouble though. It’s very generous, but some of the levels have a Metroidvania feel to them and the game isn’t very good at determining which checkpoint it should place you at when you die. The problem is most prevalent in The Twin Chefs section of the game, and it was only a minor annoyance.
If you’re looking for an experience that will outright scare you, “Little Nightmares” isn’t going to deliver on that for you. I honestly don’t think there’s a single jump scare in the game. The fear comes from tension. It’s the kind of tension you can feel when you’re hiding from someone and you know how easily they could find you, but at the last second they turn the wrong way and you make your daring escape. Calculated risks like that are the only way you’ll actually make it through “Little Nightmares,” and it was surprisingly refreshing to be rewarded for playing that way.
In terms of longevity, I’ve seen reports that “Little Nightmares” can take you anywhere from 3-6 hours depending on whether not you want to hunt down each and every collectible. I kept a pretty steady pace and was able to complete it in just over three hours, and I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. Much like “What Remains of Edith Finch,” the experience is so great from start to finish, that I instantly started over as soon as I finished it.
If you told me we’d get three incredible horror games released in the same week a few months ago, I would’ve laughed. But between “What Remains of Edith Finch,” “Outlast 2” and now “Little Nightmares,” it’s a great time to be a fan of scary games. Each of those games have their own strengths and weaknesses, but at this point “Little Nightmares” is my favorite of the bunch and you should definitely check it out.
“Little Nightmares” is out today (April 28) for PS4, Xbox One and PC.