Little Nightmares II

Genre: Puzzle-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Little Nightmares Collection, along with Little Nightmares Complete Edition)

Little Nightmares II, like its predecessor, is a Puzzle-Platformer that puts players in the role of a small child in a dark, gritty, and dangerous world full of deadly traps and monstrous enemies. However, this time around players are joined by an AI character, another child who works with you to get past obstacles. This game was released on multiple platforms in 2021, including Nintendo Switch.

Much as with the first game, this game does a good job building its creepy, nightmarish atmosphere, with grotesque creatures and oppressive environments. However, the second time around doesn’t feel quite as impressive as the first. Everything is still dark, but what little color is here feels more muted, and the lighting is still good but doesn’t impress the way the first game did. I don’t know, perhaps this is diminishing returns. The sound at least is every bit as good here as it was in the first game, doing an excellent job building the intense feeling of danger and decay in everything around you.

As with the first game, the Puzzle-Platforming gameplay here is comparable to the likes of games like Limbo and Inside, with a similar style of puzzles, although the co-op mechanics seem to bring this game closer to the likes of Unravel Two. Unfortunately, there’s not really anything here that reaches the same levels of brilliance as some of the puzzles in those games, and even the new elements added by the second character don’t often seem to amount to much.

While Little Nightmares II adds that new mechanic to keep the gameplay fresh, it also seems to compound the problems the first game had. Once again, the use of 3D gameplay with a fixed camera instead of 2D makes for frustrating platforming and even navigating the environments can be more difficult than it needs to be. But adding the second character also seems to make much of the actions your characters can perform context-sensitive in an inconsistent way. One obstacle may require you to have both characters push a box to jump over it, while the next obstacle of the exact same kind simply requires your AI partner to give you a hand up. The fact that it’s often unclear what objects in the environment you can interact with makes things even more frustrating here.

At the very least this game doesn’t seem to have the same issues with loading times that the original game had on the Nintendo Switch – dying and trying again is a fast process, which is good because you’ll be doing it a lot. However, there’s another problem with the Nintendo Switch version in its place – occasionally, your character will “glitch” at the edge of scenery, making them visibly jump around. For a game where so much of its value is in its atmosphere, this is something that rips you right out of it and reminds you that you’re playing a videogame, and a flawed one at that.

In the end, Little Nightmares II is a good sequel that mostly maintains the great atmosphere that was the first game’s greatest strength, and builds on the mechanics of the first game to make this feel like more than just a retread. However, the formula feels more tired this time and the flaws more apparent. On top of that, there’s still nothing novel about the gameplay to differentiate it from the greats of the genre that it draws a direct comparison to. If you were a fan of the first game, this sequel may satisfy you, but everyone else will find there are better games like this to focus your energies on.

tl;dr – Little Nightmares II is a Puzzle-Platformer that has players taking the role of a young child moving through a dangerous world filled with grotesque monsters and deadly traps, this time with an AI-controlled friend to work alongside. Like the first game, there’s some good atmosphere here, but the flaws are harder to look past this time, as they have an even greater effect on both the gameplay and presentation. Fans of the first game may still enjoy this, but most are better off sticking to games like Limbo, Inside, and Unravel Two that formed the inspiration for this game.

Grade: C

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