Summary
The follow up of the previous game is as scary and cute in equal parts – but it also follows the same pitfalls.
Okay, the game is scary and that is pretty much what you’d expect. What I didn’t expect was that even knowing that the game relied heavily on jump scares, I’d still be scared shitless time and again. The pacing and world building between the cute visuals that switch into the gruesome in a blink, the sound design with heartbeats and screeches, and even the world building that guides you to the place you need to go. This is a scary game, and that’s a hard thing to achieve with 2d isometric style graphics.
From start to finish I enjoyed myself immensely. BUT – that doesn’t mean that the game is perfect.
I personally really dislike the save mechanic in the title, which encourages save scumming and lets you keep items even after dying. This removes a lot of the risk-reward in some things and diminishes the tension of the gameplay that the game relies on so heavily. Also, i am not a fan of the way they game pretends to be “open” for exploration, and then locks of everything but a few pathways for you to walk though, resulting in a lot of backtracking and wasted time for no real reason.
From a PC Perspective the lack of extended resolution support and limited options (though it has rebindable keys) is annoying to say the least. This also shows in the way the game is rendered, with the textures stretching and expanding on higher resolutions, meaning that the visual fidelity that looks full of details at 720p loses a lot of its nuance at 1080p and higher.
Conclusion
A good solid sequel to the previous title that follows mostly the same design patterns and mechanics to do exactly one thing, and do it well: Scare you. And it succeeds.
