This is a video game that captivated me in all its aspects since I saw its first trailer and even more when I played and finished it. Little Nightmares will make you feel endless emotions like fear, stress, sadness, anxiety, despair, disgust, tenderness and many other feelings. Join me in this Reviews and I assure you that you will have one more game on your list to play and not only that, believe me that from the moment you start playing it you will love it and you will not stop until you complete the game.
Before talking about Little Nightmares, I think it´s important to you to know it was created by Tarsier Studios and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment on April 28, 2017 for the current generation of consoles like Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and of course on PC too through platforms such as Steam, Microsoft Store, Stadia and in the humble store, now that we have this clear, let´s get into the topic.
STORY
In Little Nighmares we get into the skin of our protagonist, which we don´t know their name, age or why is our protagonist there, in fact we don´t the place we are standing, since at the beginning we only see the silhouette of a woman in our dreams as if indicating to us in a certain way that we have to get to her and we woke up being in a place built with steel and with many leaks.
Despite having seen the silhouette of a lady in our dream, nothing assures us that the objective is to find her so basically we do not even know what our protagonist has to do and all this could seem negative for the game, but in reality it is its strong point, and it is that by not knowing where we are or what we must do, it will make us feel a feeling of fear and anxiety quite strong. Having completed the game, I could say that several of my doubts have been resolved but I will not comment on more details of the story because it would be a spoiler, and the essence of this game is to discover everything for yourself.
GAMEPLAY
Regarding the playable aspect, there is something to highlight and that is that just as we know absolutely nothing about the story from the beginning, we won´t know exactly how to play Little Nightmares either; and it is that nowadays it could be said that most games are full of tutorials to teach us everything we need to know, but in this game that changes, we will have to press buttons and try all the actions that occur to us to see until what point can we do some things, only in moments where we are for a while without knowing what to do the game will give us some other indication, additionally in the menu we can see the controls, but the best way to play this game is not to see the controls and learn by yourself, I think this type of mechanics has its charm and the game was conceived to be played that way or at least in my personal opinion I feel that way.
With our protagonist we can walk, run, jump, use a lighter to illuminate our paths and light some lamps that we will find on the way to be in a more illuminated environment. Usually in the game we will have to progress by solving some puzzles that are mostly simple and will only require us to pay attention to our environment and everything around us, but there will be cases where it will make us think a little more to the point that in some situations we may not know what to do, and as if that were not enough in some moments we will perhaps have to complete a puzzle while avoiding being chased and eaten, either by leeches or much worse enemies.
In this game there is not much variety of enemies, but nevertheless it is necessary since we are not facing a game of long duration, we will have as an enemy a gigantic blind monster with extremely long arms, so to chase us and eat us you will have to be guided by the sound of our footsteps, the sound we make when we touch, lay down or throw an object, but additionally if we are something close to it it could catch us using the sense of touch to know if we are close to it.
A second enemy that we will run into is a cook with a humanoid shape which will try to cook us to eat us, and in this chaos we are facing an enemy that does not have any disability, so we must not only avoid making noise, but we also have to avoid seeing us so as not to end up being one of the dishes on their menu.
Another enemy that we will run into near the end of the game are the guests who, although they look quite similar to humanoid pigs, they differ in that they are even fatter and have a slightly more human aspect, they will try to take us with their arms and on some occasions they will jump off their chairs and crawl to take us to their mouth in an instant.
Our last enemy in this game will be the "Lady¨ who is the womqan we saw in our dream, unlike the other enemies to this one if we can kill her directly, but without using any weapon, it feeds on the dark, for reflecting light at her multiple times will be enough to kill her.
Through the game we will run into little nomes who are scared by anything they see or hear, even when they see or hear us, so we will have the option of hugging them to make them feel more confident, this without any extra benefit.
At some points in the game we will get small statuettes with the figure of the "Lady" which when breaking they will release dark energy, but really their objective is merely collectible since for each broken stature we will get a conceptual art of the game.
A curious point within the gameplay is that like every human being, our protagonist cannot live without eating, so sometimes we will end up eating raw meat and some things that could be extremely shocking.
VISUAL ASPECTS
In the graphic section, this game is simply beautiful, tender and at the same time terrifying and this is achieved by creating a graphic style that, being a bit cartoonish, is still realistic. Its settings and characters have a fairly high level of detail and despite the fact that this is a game where you see more darkness than light, the lighting and special effects section is very well done. In short, it is a visually beautiful game thanks to the fact that, while remaining realistic, it manages to be a bit minimalist and cartoonish, but all with an incredible level of detail without leaving any sloppy appearance.
SOUNDTRACK
The soundtrack section of this great videogame is made by the artists Tobias Lijia and Christian Vasselbring, who with their great musical intellect gave life to this game with 24 wonderful musical tracks that will make us feel chills, sadness, and anxiety and is that each piece of music is going to be closely related to the situation we are facing, in order to fully immerse ourselves in the game and thus having our little nightmare before going to bed.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
Despite having an average duration of 4 to 6 hours is quite entertaining and does not seek to lengthen artificially with secondary missions or things that deviate us from the main story even for a single moment, and this is very necessary in a horror game so that we do not lose the accelerated pace that it has had since its beginning, and although Little Nightmares is a horror game and in turn survival does not have all its elements since it is not a game about zombies, ghosts, we don´t have weapons to use, so it has a quite unique and peculiar style of playing that if we could frame within those genres.
Another notable point is its soundtrack and that is that without the sounds we hear when taking a few steps, when knocking down some object, being close to our enemies, sounds that generate tension, extremes, the beats of our heart when we are exposed, without all those sounds so realistic and perfectly created we would not feel the same, and on the other hand in the section of its story, despite the fact that we are not told anything at the beginning and that perhaps at the end of the game we still have doubts, its story is great and very entertaining. Get ready for February 2021, because Little Nighmares II will be released for PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Swich.
Thanks for reading until the end, see you next time!
