Little Nightmares (PlayStation 4) Review

Little Nightmares is so confusing at first, but amazingly atmospheric right from the off to make up for it - visually and aurally - with dark, dank locales and minimal use of music to great effect, giving a strong sense of isolation and ramping up the tension levels considerably. Other than bare minimum in terms of explaining the core controls, nothing else is explained, leaving those in control to discover the purpose of the strange goings on during the journey ahead.

A small child in a yellow coat is controlled, running around (stumbling at times, and even struggling with pangs of hunger…) what seems to be some underground industrial facility, squeezing through ventilation shafts and iron railings, dodging around discarded paraphernalia (mountains of shoes, being one of the weirder examples), and encountering weird sights, like strange beings that look like mini-tents with legs, as well as numerous disturbing visions. Expect to see things like legs dangling from an out-of-shot upper body hanging from the ceiling, deformed beings with long pincer-like arms, random pieces of raw meat lying about with blood stains nearby, obese guests scoffing their faces and chasing the kid at the merest of sounds made, trying to capture and devour the little 'un, and even a sinister Geisha figure that appears every now and then in the background, to name but a mere handful of the creepy elements that are witnessed.

The aim is clearly to keep people guessing, and Little Nightmares does indeed do a great job of hitting that goal, mixing in extremely tense moments of being chased or quickly having to dodge oncoming flailing arms, for instance, and even including some clever platform-puzzle elements to up the skill requirements (timed jumps, moving objects around rooms, hide-and-sneak sections, and so on). There are times where the hooded lead will not grab a ledge as desired, or run into an object that did not seem quite as close by as it really was due to the lower camera angle, and navigating narrow pipes or wooden slats with the camera then zoomed out can be an exercise in patience as one tiny wrong move and its either drop to your death and back to the previous checkpoint again, or down to the previous area to complete a tough task again, slowly climbing back up. It is by no means the perfect game, yet the cracks are well and truly smoothed over by how engrossing the action is, and that desire to figure out the reasoning for all of the eerie happenings. Also, though, checkpoints are very useful, and not far apart enough to cause much frustration from any control foibles, thankfully.

As Little Nightmares progresses, it becomes apparent that there are lots of little secrets to uncover, plus collectibles to gain, making for a need to explore more diligently rather than just attempting to dash past enemies or traps, and, thus, it becomes a greater test. The slow pace is still required at times, but mainly to sneak by the large, scary-looking 'human' monsters before having to grab a key item (sometimes even…a key!) and then making a dash for the next area. Some of the scenarios later on will have people tearing their hair out, but it falls on the side of satisfying when complete, as opposed to giving up in a huff.