Video Game Review: Little Nightmares 2

Horror Puzzle-Platformer

Developer: Tarsier Studios

Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Nintendo Switch

I’ve long said that the best sequels are the ones that manage to retroactively make what came before better in some way. This almost always happens in terms of story or world-building, through the revealing of new details that recontextualize or help to make more sense of old details. Little Nightmares 2, perhaps unsurprisingly, does just that for the first Little Nightmares game from 2017. Like its predecessor, Little Nightmares 2 is a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer horror game with an odd but appealing sort of diorama-style presentation to it, set in a world where children are hunted by enormous, monstrous adults. Whereas the first game is set entirely on a cruise ship known as “The Maw”, the sequel opens in a creepy, trap-filled wilderness before moving into a creepy, trap-filled city.

Even aside from the expanded scope of the setting, Little Nightmares 2 does a phenomenal job of expanding upon the world, especially in ways that I hadn’t even considered before. For instance, there was one point very early on where I stumbled across a crow in the woods, roughly the same size as I was. When I saw this, I thought to myself “oh jeez, that’s how big animals are in this world?” While this ultimately wasn’t too important to the story or worldbuilding, it was still a cool moment and effectively set up my expectations for the rest of the game, especially by being something that might not have even registered if I was paying less attention. That’s one of the things that Little Nightmares does very well – rewards paying attention to the little details, things in the background that provide clues for both puzzles, and figuring out the story.

Even aside from the minutia, the environmental design is phenomenal. A combination of a washed-out atmosphere and a plethora of familiar items made strange instills a feeling of dread in the player, to the point that even things that might make one feel at ease in a different game are cause for concern here. Another early moment in the wilderness saw me come upon a patch of brighter light in a clearing of the otherwise dark and oppressive forest, and my reaction was mistrust. I proceeded cautiously, waiting for the other shoe to drop, to find out how the game would twist this on its head – and it was utterly exhilarating. All throughout the game, it makes excellent use of tension and breaks in the action to continuously replicate that feeling, to build to the intense moments and make you wonder when you’ll get jumped out at such that the quiet moments are the scariest – in other words, exactly what good horror should be.

In addition to excellent visual environments, the sound design is phenomenal, especially when playing with headphones. Fans of the first game may be familiar with the work of composer Tobias Lilja, who returned to score this entry as well. Now, I won’t say that he did a bad job with the first game’s soundtrack since the complete opposite is true, but it pales in comparison to the score for Little Nightmares 2. Lilja kicked it up a notch this time around, and the use of musical elements from the first game really helps to aid the story’s sense of continuity and cohesion across both titles. Speaking of, the story is just as quality as fans would expect from the team at Tarsier, with lots of details to theorize and guess about long after you finish playing.

Now, I wish I could write a review that is purely praised for Little Nightmares 2, but unfortunately, I cannot. Though the gameplay is fine for the most part, with well-designed puzzles and platforming that feels good, the addition of combat sections is a big detractor from the experience. An opening letter I received from Bandai Namco along with the review code noted that the weapons are adult items that “remain quite tough to use for a kid of that age” and that the intent is to maintain a certain feeling of defenselessness. While I can certainly appreciate the thought process behind these design decisions, the result just ends up being frustrating, especially since the combat sections are mandatory as far as I could tell. Personally, I think it would have been better served by leaving combat out entirely, as the first game did, but what’s done is done and the game is a little weaker for it. On another note, the resolution wasn’t great playing on the switch’s TV mode, which is my preferred way of using the console, and the framerate dropped a bit during one particularly busy sequence. For the sake of thoroughness, I went back and replayed a bit of the first chapter in handheld mode, but I actually found that to be worse than the big screen. I can’t speak to how it looks on other platforms. One more thing worth noting is that, while this game is roughly twice as long as its predecessor, that still makes it very short, especially given the asking price.

It’s easy to forget sometimes that “creative” is a word that can be applied to horror stories. Creativity is more typically associated with the whimsical and optimistic, but as I played Little Nightmares 2 it repeatedly struck me how genuinely creative the setting and story of the series is. I deeply appreciate that it was able to give me that revelation amidst all of its macabre and somber glory, and for that reason, I have to say that it’s truly something special.