3.5/5 ★ – deathbringer_265's review of Poppy Playtime - Chapter 4.

Definitely a solid game, but also the most mixed one in the series so far. It’s frustrating, because I feel like with every other game they’ve always improved upon the one before it on both a story and gameplay level, but with this one it took huge steps forward on a story level, but also took took multiple steps back on a gameplay level. The story here is legitimately great with some very interesting new elements to the lore and several standout new characters. I thought The Doctor was a super interesting new villain with really intimidating presentation to him and the twist with The Prototype was very well done and made him more intimidating of a main antagonist than he’s ever been. Characters like Poppy and Kissy were very well done too, but it’s Doey who really stole the show. His backstory was really compelling and tragic which made him an incredibly sympathetic toy for a change and what happened to him in the climax actually got me teary eyed. The game easily has the best story and characters in the series, but it unfortunately has some of the weakest gameplay. Instead of evolving the gameplay from the previous one like every other game has done, this game doesn’t add any new mechanics to make it fresh. It doesn’t introduce any new mechanics for the GrabPack and actually just replaces the unique puzzles from the green hand with much less interesting puzzles with the red hand. The puzzles in general are much simpler since they removed multiple gameplay ideas and just replaced them with the annoying ass Nightmare Critters bothering you while you’re playing. Speaking of the Critters, this game absolutely butchered them since they no longer one-shot you, which changes them from an actually terrifying edition to an overused nuisance. The gameplays not a complete negative since there are still a couple really good sequences like the Yarnaby fight, The Doctor fight, and the entire climax; but it was still disappointing due to several unfortunate missteps. So overall this game is still good because of the story, characters, and some standout moments even though it could’ve been the best in the series if it bothered to evolve the gameplay. Hopefully chapter 5 ends this series on a high note.