Game #1263: Little Nightmares Complete Edition

 No children were harmed in the making of this game... I think.

 You thought I was done with my Halloween Horrorfest because of a few outliers? You thought wrong, as me and my girlfriend just got done with Little Nightmares: Complete Edition. The game is sort of a cinematic platformer, think Prince of Persia, but in 3-D, and with a few stealth elements thrown in for good measure.

 In the game you play as a tiny, literally, girl named six. Everything around her is enormous, even the tiniest of chairs towers above her. The environments are grey and blue, they look and feel damp and cold, a stark contrast to Six's yellow raincoat. She is only armed with a lighter, that can help you look around you, but it's not too soon before strange creatures start appearing. And man, oh man, does the art direction deserve praise, the humanoid creatures Six must avoid look disgusting without resorting to gore. In some ways, the game reminded me of Chihiro/Spirited Away, albeit doubling down on the horror elements and removing any whimsical element.

 Besides her lighter, Six can jump, sprint and grab, be it objects or ledges. That's all the tools you get, and the game is a nice mixture of puzzle solving, platforming and stealth, in order to avoid the creatures that mean you harm. For the most part it works relatively well, although sometimes it can be a bit finicky. You might jump towards a ledge, but if you are too close to a corner or something, Six won't be able to pull herself up. It's not too bad, and during the most tense and exciting set pieces the controls always worked.

 The game also includes every DLC chapter, which amounts to three bonus chapters in which you play as another kid, the Runaway Kid. Everything I said about Six's adventure holds true for the DLC, although you do face a few other creatures. That said, the DLC is more challenging, and I don't in a good way. We had to look up guides numerous times, for instance, near the end of the first chapter there's a TV. And a monster breaks down the platform in which it stands, much like it did with a previous platform. The TV falls down and electrifies the water a short while, then you have to run over the TV as it spins in the water in order to survive. And then you can't do anything other than die, 'cause even though the TV electrified the water the monster is still alive. What were you supposed to do? Push the TV on top of the monster to drop them both together, and this time it will actually fry the monster. Why does it work this way and not mine? How would I have noticed I was supposed to push the TV on top of the monster before it broke the platform instead of staying on top of it? I don't know.

 So here's the thing... despite some finicky movement here and there, the game is very original thanks to a very strong art direction, and it has some very exciting moments... but the nature of the beast is that this game, just like the 2-D cinematic platformers of yesteryear, is very much trial and error. You'll be presented with obstacles that might not always be quite so obvious how you are supposed to proceed, so you are expected to die a bunch of times, sometimes even seconds after respawning.... but the Switch port has horrendous load times that makes every new attempt a chore. This was fine since I was playing with my girlfriend and we could entertain ourselves in between load times, but otherwise this is a huge drawback for the type of game that it is.

 Little Nightmares can be really fun, and the creature design is phenomenal. Sadly, the loading times in this Switch port makes every new attempt somewhat of an annoyance. It's a shame, 'cause this version runs very smoothly and looks fantastic too.

 6.5