Tag: video-games

A review by Colton Sylvester

Introduction

Shortly after the release of Little Nightmares (2017), Bandai-Namco announced that the game would be receiving an expansion, in the form of 3 new chapters. These chapters were released one-by-one over the course of about 8 months, with the first dropping on July 6, 2017 and the last dropping on February 22, 2018. This expansion takes place in the same location as the original game, the enormous ship centered around preparing and serving children to guests. However, this time, the story would not be focused on our favorite yellow raincoat-wearing protagonist, Six. Instead, our protagonist is a young boy only ever referred to as “The Runaway Kid”. This fresh perspective allows us to learn a lot more about the Maw and its inhabitants, including some new faces. The DLC chapters are also a lot more difficult than the base game, especially when it comes to some of their puzzles. The chapters are also much longer (which isn’t always necessarily a good thing). I don’t want to give too much away so, without further ado, let’s begin! Oh, and spoilers are ahead, of course.

Chapter 1: The Depths

Chapter 1: The Depths begins in a similar way to the base game: with a nightmare. You’re going to notice a lot of parallels between Runaway Kid’s story and Six’s. Instead of having a vision about The Lady, this time the nightmare consists of Runaway Kid swimming until an unknown entity in the water grabs him, pulling him under. Unlike the original game, this isn’t a teaser for the “final boss” of his story, but instead is a teaser for the enemy that you’re going to encounter in just a few minutes. The Runaway Kid wakes up in an area of The Prison, which is where the first game started. You’ll come across a familiar all-seeing eye as you make your way through the same area that Six did in the original game. The key difference between your adventure and her adventure is that you go towards where Six came from. Eventually, you reach a pipe that you slide down until you reach the literal depths of the ship, which have flooded. I will admit that landing in the water was kind-of nerve wracking, knowing that at some point, there would be something in there. But what IS that something anyway?

The first (and only new) major antagonist in Secrets of the Maw is The Granny. The name likely stems from the fact that she looks like a creepy grandmother, rather than anything about her character. In terms of her character, remember The Shoe Monster from the original game? Yeah, that’s The Granny’s whole gimmick. That portion of the original game was so creepy and beloved that they made an entire chapter based on the concept. And yeah, this is easily the scariest chapter in the entire franchise, in my opinion. Knowing that The Granny is always there, waiting in the water, is absolutely terrifying. Especially, considering the entire chapter revolves around Runaway Kid making his way through the never-ending water. 

Before you meet The Granny, you have to wade through tons of water as you wait for her to finally show herself. Eventually, you reach a room where the water goes off-screen and you can see multiple things that you can stand on inside the water. This is it. If you shine the flashlight that the game gives you over the water, you can occasionally see her swimming around. The rest of the chapter mainly consists of you swimming through and climbing above the water, trying to avoid her grasp. This is made even more terrifying because The Granny will hit any object that you stand on for too long. At one point, you move to another room full of water, you can even see her head peeking out of the water for a second before going under again. At a later point, her shadow can even be seen sitting in a floating chair until you enter the room and she dives back in.

Ultimately, you reach a point where you power up a TV which you plan to push into the water and electrocute her. As you make your way across multiple wooden platforms, she starts to come out of the water as she rips them down and destroys them. As you push the TV in, she desperately pulls on the legs of your platform, finally showing her full body in the light. Finally, you push it in and you see her entire body get electrocuted as she falls back into the watery depths.

This chapter ends on a major twist that finally reveals exactly what this DLC’s story is going to be. After Runaway Kid climbs a massive ladder that leads out of The Depths, he is instantly met by The Janitor’s hands, which reach out from the shadows. “But, The Janitor lost his hands in the original game! How is this possible?” is likely the question that the player is asking themselves at this moment. That is until the scene changes to a familiar room.

After Six is captured by The Janitor in Chapter 2 of the original game, she wakes up in a cage, surrounded by other caged children. You can see The Janitor’s arms reach over from the right side of the screen and grab one of the cages, which has a young boy inside. The final moments of this chapter reveal that this boy is none other than The Runaway Kid. This DLC isn’t a sequel or a prequel. It takes place at the exact same time as the original game.

Chapter 1 is easily the strongest of the DLC chapters. My biggest issue with the other chapters, which we will get into, is that they tended to overstay their welcomes. They are needlessly long in comparison to the chapters in the original game and don’t present enough new ideas compared to the original game, as well. However, Chapter 1 is a perfect introduction to this story. It brings us to this new area of the ship, it introduces a new antagonist, it expands upon a beloved idea from the original game, and it is genuinely scary. This is probably my second favorite chapter in the entirety of the first game (only second to Chapter 4: The Guest Area). I’m sad to say that it only gets worse from here, but it’s the truth.

Chapter 2: The Hideaway

Chapter 2: The Hideaway genuinely might be the most boring chapter in Little Nightmares history. This chapter is essentially entirely puzzle-based, with barely any scares. And the scares that are here are mostly just repeats from the original game, as The Janitor is our main antagonist here.

The chapter begins with Runaway Kid being in one of The Janitor’s wrappings, hanging on a hook as he heads up to the kitchen. For some reason, Runaway Kid can just push his way out of the wrapping, which he does. This has always bothered me because it, first of all, doesn’t make any sense. If he is completely wrapped up from head to toe, how can he just push his way out? And on that note, if he could just casually do it, what’s stopping literally every other kid from doing the same. Anyhow, his breaking out of the wrapping results in him falling further down in the ship once again, where he lands on a pile of something surrounded by Nomes. 

Here’s the point in which I normally would discuss the story and gameplay of the chapter. But, to be honest, there isn’t much to really say about it. It’s just a bunch of tedious puzzles involving minecarts and Nomes that really aren’t all that interesting and are much weaker than puzzles in other chapters of the franchise. The most engaging moments in the chapter revolve around The Janitor, however his appearances are incredibly brief and don’t really amount to any interesting gameplay. There is one portion where you are in a dark room with him and have to do some parkour jumps above him as his hands search for you. This bit is actually fun and somewhat scary, however that is really the only memorable part of this chapter.

After befriending a bunch of Nomes and forcing them to complete labor for you, you manage to escape this area of the ship. The “Hideaway” name stems from where the Nomes bring you once you all escape the area of the ship you were in. The Nomes bring you to their “Hideaway”, where they all relax around a furnace. After chilling with the Nomes for a bit, you slip through a crack in the wall and find yourself on top of an elevator. The chapter ends with the elevator starting to go up, as the camera zooms out to reveal that The Lady is standing within it.

As I previously stated, this chapter is a slog to play through. For all the good and interesting aspects of this chapter, there are way more terrible aspects. While Chapter 1 introduced us to the depths of the Maw, Chapter 2 opted to introduce us to where the Nomes hang out. Little did the players know when this chapter was released, Runaway Kid befriending the Nomes was major foreshadowing.

Chapter 3: The Residence

One of my biggest complaints with the original Little Nightmares was that we barely get to learn anything about The Lady, which was disappointing considering she is both the final and the most intriguing antagonist in the game. Thus, you could imagine my excitement when I learned that the final chapter of the DLC intended to teach us way more about this character and her origins. What I didn’t expect was the most NEEDLESSLY DIFFICULT AND ANNOYING chapter in the series. Like, seriously. This thing is full of complicated puzzles which are made even worse by the introduction of the most obnoxious enemies in the game.

This chapter starts off right where the last one left off, with our character having taken a nap on top of the elevator. Upon entering the Residence, which is where The Lady presumably lives (it seems as though the Lady’s Quarters from the first game is attached to this area). Players immediately have a run-in with the main woman herself, as you once again have to sneak past her, just like the previous game. As you sneak past her, you will notice a key sitting next to her. You cannot get this key quite yet, though you will need to remember it. You are then met with a very intimidating wide-shot of The Residence, which consists of 3 levels. Essentially, you will have to complete the different puzzles throughout this area, in order to escape.

At first, this seems just like the previous chapter. A chapter where you can go around and complete the puzzles in an area in any order in an attempt to escape. However, after completing a few, things will quickly take a major turn (for the worse, both for the player and gameplay-wise). Before we get into that, however, I want to talk about one of the puzzles in the first bit of the chapter. This puzzle requires you to only light up certain portraits on a wall in order to unlock a door. What’s interesting about this puzzle is that 2 of the portraits that you don’t light up feature antagonists from Little Nightmares II. This sequel was still a whole 3 years away at this point but this was likely intended to tease the characters. All of the portraits feature very memorable distorted faces, so I actually recognized them once I played the second game.

Getting back to talking about the chapter’s story, after completing the puzzles, the lights in The Residence all go out. And here, you encounter easily the worst enemies in the Little Nightmares series. Genuinely, these guys actually make the remainder of this chapter absolutely miserable. These enemies are none other than the Shadow Children.

In dark areas of the chapter, these little Shadow Children will appear. They appear as, well, shadows. They are easily identified by their white masks. However, these guys are actually awful to play against. They are one of the few enemies in the series that you can actually fight. However, this fighting is far from optional as these things will keep spawning constantly and are incredibly fast. How do you fight them, you ask? Well, throughout the DLC you have had access to a flashlight. Now, you must aim this flashlight at them in order to kill them. However, the controls for the flashlight are absolutely ABYSMAL. It is incredibly difficult to control and it is made even worse based on the fact that it takes forever to kill the Shadow Children and they will try and move away from your light when you aim it at them. The only viable solution to combat this is to sit in a corner and wait for them to approach, because otherwise there’s a good chance you get surrounded.

These guys appear for basically the entire rest of the chapter which makes the remaining areas hell to get through. There’s one portion that genuinely might be the worst portion in the entire series. You have to spin this wheel in order to open a door. Seems simple enough, right? Well, whenever you let go of the wheel, it will begin to turn in the other direction and close the door. Alright, then just don’t let go of the wheel, duh. Well, you’re going to have to because Shadow Children are going to spawn continuously around you and if they so much as slightly graze you, you’re dead. This turns a chapter that was just kinda meh into easily the worst chapter in the entire series.

Eventually, you finally complete every puzzle in The Residence and can finally move on to the grand finale of this year-long DLC story. After leaving The Residence, you enter a room to find a shattered mirror. As you move towards the other side of the room, you will find yourself walking past a curtain. Through an opening in the curtain, you can see The Lady staring into another mirror.  As you move closer to the opening, you will quickly see in the reflection that she isn’t wearing her mask. She will instantly notice you as you walk past and scream as you get a good look at her incredibly distorted face. Her terrifying scream results in the mirror shattering and the lights in the room going out.

You are left with only your flashlight as a light source as you run through rooms of mannequins, with The Lady occasionally appearing and moving among them, leaving you on edge. Eventually, you enter a room and your character gets frozen in place. Your flashlight turns off and falls to the ground as you are lifted into the air. The Lady enters from the shadows, reaching out to grab you, as the screen goes black and the music goes silent.

After a few seconds of silence, the scene slowly fades in. As it comes into focus you see a Nome sitting in the place where you just stood, surrounded by your clothing. That’s right. The Nomes are the children that The Lady catches. You don’t get any big finale like Six did. The story of the Runaway Kid ends just like that. But believe it or not, the game has one more twist up its sleeve.

Now, you are able to move around as the Nome. You make your way through parts of the ship, including past a few Guests who are stuffing their faces. Eventually, you reach a certain area that instantly sent a shiver down my spine on my first playthrough. You reach the elevator that The Lady enters at the end of Chapter 4 of the original game. That’s when I realized what was about to happen.

As you enter through a crack in the wall, you enter an all-too familiar room. A room with a sausage sitting in the middle of it. As you enter the room, multiple Nomes run out of the hallway to your left and past you. Your character walks around the room for a bit before stopping next to the sausage. The DLC ends on a shot of the Nome staring down at the sausage.

That’s right. This entire 3-chapter DLC, where you are introduced to a new kid that you become attached to, was all in an effort to make the most devastating moment of the original game even more devastating. This DLC is pure evil. And it’s absolutely brilliant. I find it absolutely hilarious that the game devs made this purely to make the player feel even worse about something they had no control over. Though it isn’t enough to save this abhorrent chapter, it is a perfect finale to the DLC as a whole.

Conclusion

Though this DLC isn’t anything super special, it accomplishes everything that it was going for. We got to learn more about The Maw and its residents. We got to learn more about the lore, including the origin of the Nomes. And we got an absolutely fantastic ending. The biggest issue with the DLC as a whole really is just the gameplay. Chapter 1 is absolutely fantastic, which is why it shocks me at just how bland and redundant Chapter 2 is and how absolutely terrible Chapter 3 is. The DLC genuinely takes a nosedive in terms of fun. Though I loved all the areas of the DLC and the fact that it often was pretty scary, I can’t stand actually playing through Chapters 2 and 3. Regardless, the amazing quality and passion for the series is omnipresent among the entire DLC and it is definitely worth playing for any fans of the original game, specifically for Chapter 1 and that ending.