2.5/5 ★ – FoofDeckman's review of Little Nightmares III.

Little Nightmares 3 is a mess. On one hand it desperately tries to recapture what made the original 2 games so great and on the other it misses the point entirely. Little Nightmares is one of, if not my favorite horror series. I'd go as far as to say the first game is a near masterpiece and even the second, while not as good, is still up there in my eyes. Unfortunately Little Nightmares 3 is a major disappointment for me, even if I wasn't expecting much to begin with. For those that don't know, the first two games were developed by Tarsier Studios while 3 was developed by Supermassive Games, the creators of Until Dawn and the Quarry. Now I can't lie, Supermassive Games is a studio I'm not particularly fond of as I found pretty much every game in their catalog, even Until Dawn, to be beyond mediocre. Sure they have their corny charm to them at points, but they never clicked with me like they clicked with so many others. So when I heard they were being put on to develop the third game, immediate red flags started flooding my consciousness. Luckily without a doubt this is their best game, even if that's not saying a whole lot. To start with the positives, I appreciate the fact they went in their own direction with the story instead of haphazardly continuing where the second game left off. It was a risk, and while the story isn't great here, it is original and I appreciate Supermassive's attempt at creating something new, even if it felt somewhat hollow. If they nailed anything its the visuals, between the creature designs and the looks of the levels, everything is visually striking. On top of this the music, while not created by the previous composer Tobias Lilja, is still pretty good, even if it's not as memorable as the previous two games. Co-op is also a ton of fun, I wasn't really sure how It would play out here since I can't think of many Co-op horror games that truly work, but I'm glad to say it does here. If I could describe Little Nightmares 3, I'd describe it as wasted potential. There's so many little hints of greatness, but it's squashed with so much mediocrity sprinkled throughout that it never truly clicks like I wish it did. So many mechanics are presented only to be thrown out the window immediately or barely used at all. For example there's some newly introduced combat mechanics that barely play a role in this game. I counted maybe 2-3 times you're locked in an arena and forced to fight enemies, keep in mind these sections last maybe 30 seconds at most. Not that Little Nightmares needs combat, but if you're going to include it at least utilize it. Speaking of enemies, it feels like there was no time to really get a grasp of any of them, before you know it they're gone and out of the game entirely. None of the enemies are utilized like I wish they were because they barely serve a purpose to begin with. There's this spider lady that I thought was particularly well designed, but her total screen time is maybe 10 minutes, and that's me being generous. It's so disappointing to have all of these great creature designs and yet they're barely used, it's such a waste. Little Nightmares is usually classified under horror/puzzle, yet here the "puzzles" are barely anything. The most this game asks of you in the puzzle department is "shoot button" or "push thing to climb up", it's really dumbed down here compared to the first two games. One of the biggest highlights from the entire game is one section during the final chapter, I won't get into specifics because I don't want to spoil it, but the mechanic introduced is so unique yet it's only used twice and very briefly. I feel like a broken record, but every aspect that feels like it could have been something ends up being underutilized or underdeveloped. My friend mentioned that this feels like a "Little Nightmares Inspired Game" rather than an actual Little Nightmares game, and I couldn't agree more. Between it's clunky controls that don't seem to ever work the way you want it to or the lack of Identifiable areas, It can be a pain in the ass to play certain chunks of this game. 3 just lacks that polish the other two games had when it comes to it's gameplay and set pieces. There's several moments where you're running from something and the game will be unclear on where you're supposed to be running to or where to go. It's incredibly frustrating to basically bang your head against the wall over and over again just because the game isn't clear enough. Now I'm not asking for yellow paint or anything too obvious, but half of the time there's no visual cues, and at other points when there are visual cues it's too vague to really make a difference. Without getting into spoilers, the final boss is one of the worst offenders of this and it's honestly one of the reasons my rating is the way it is. Overall Little Nightmares 3 let me down, It's one of those games I probably won't remember after a week, which sucks because even after years of not playing those first two games I can picture them clear as day in my mind. Even if you're a fan of these games, $40 is a lot for only 4 hours of gameplay. I truly hope the two future DLC levels are able to Improve on everything I mentioned here because as it stands this just feels like an imitation of Little Nightmares rather than a worthwhile sequel.