Little Devil: Foster Mayhem

Genre: Stealth

Players: 1

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Review:

Little Devil is a Stealth game released on Nintendo Switch in 2023. In this game, players take the role of a mischievous young child with the goal of absolutely wrecking the household oh his foster family, while evading his family members who would really prefer if he not do that.

The presentation here is decent, making use of slightly-cartoony 3D visuals with some nice details here and there. There’s nothing here that’s truly exceptional, but it’s not a low-effort presentation either. The game’s characters have brief voice clips that do a decent enough job of capturing their personalities (such as the father character’s “Ah-HA!” when he catches you misbehaving) but not much more than that. This is all backed by a whimsical instrumental soundtrack that seems similar to the works of John Williams (of Home Alone and Harry Potter fame), which is pretty ideal for this sort of childhood mischief.

Everything is in place here for a solid Stealth game, so… why am I not having any fun?

The first problem is one that often trips up sub-par Stealth games – getting caught simply isn’t any fun here. To be clear, Stealth games are all about avoiding getting caught, but the best games manage to make things still engaging when you do – you can quickly find a hiding spot, outrun enemies, or subdue them to get back to being hidden. However, here you won’t really be doing any of that – everyone trying to catch you is faster than you, the environments are so restrictive you usually don’t have many options to get out of sight so you can hide, and traps that can trip up enemies also get them chasing you if you see you have them, so it’s not like you can hold one in reserve in case you get caught, a problem further exacerbated by only being able to hold one thing at a time.

However, perhaps even more disappointing than this is how limited your destruction spree is. Every interactive object is either a tool you can use to destroy, or an object that can be destroyed only by a specific tool. There may be countless cords in the room, but only one can be cut by your scissors. And you could use any number of objects to wreck a TV, but the game will only recognize one… and that’s only if the particular level you’re in wants you to destroy that object. otherwise, it’s just a non-interactive background element.

Little Devil’s premise evokes the image of screaming kids scribbling on every surface, bashing every object with a hammer, throwing everything in the pool, and setting everything on fire, and excites players with the prospect of being the ones to create that sort of chaos, but in reality your ability to cause destruction here is so limited, it runs counter to the very spirit of freedom and chaos that the game’s themes are trying to tap into.

I still give Little Devil credit for having a good idea, and the game is overall very polished and features a good presentation. But even all of those positive qualities cannot make up for a game that seems every bit as dead-set against denying your fun destruction spree as its adult antagonists. Because of this, Little Devil is a game that is far more fun in theory than it is in its execution.

tl;dr – Little Devil is a Stealth game that puts players in the role of an unruly child trying to tear apart his foster home while avoiding getting caught by the adults. It’s a great idea in theory, but in practice this game doesn’t give players enough freedom to really let loose with destruction, and the Stealth elements aren’t especially well-done either. Because of this, this game falls far short of its potential.

Grade: D+

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