Review/Analysis on Little Nightmares 3

!! SPOILERS AHEAD.!! This will be a game review as well as a story analysis and comparison! Be warned! 

Ok, I want to start off with this: I'm a long time fan of Little Nightmares as a franchise! I've been a fan of it since 2017 when I found a no-comentary let's play of Little Nightmares and absolutely CHUCKED into an obsession at like 7 years old. Ive been here on my mom's crusty phones and countless now-crushed iPads and Kindle fires getting my meaty paws on (not-so-valid or even really possible) theories on what's happening. I was one to make theories in my head, make storylines, janky fanart, stupid Undertale, FNAF, and other fandom aus of little nightmares just for myself. THIS IS RELEVANT, BARE WITH ME! Just some background info for my own justification of being so passionate about these cozy-tense platformer games without even basic dialogue... 

BUT. The hate towards little nightmares three is OVERBLOWN!! yes, OVERBLOWN.

Little Nightmares Three is the weakest of all the console games, for sure. It can hardly stand alone without background knowledge from podcasts and comics(which I HAVE TO READ UGHH💔) , a lot of the main plot points are given away before they happen, too. A lot of this is because it isn't Tarsier Studios that made the game unlike the last two. I can't tell you off the top of my head who produced the third game, but I can tell you that a lot of the charm Tarsier Studios brought to the game is lost.

First problem I have is that it really doesn't have the "The Tarsier Touch". Everything is self contained, open ended, just makes you want to know more. 

Basically, Tarsier has an amazing way of storytelling in the first two games.

 right off the rip you understand your goal, your need to escape. You might not know exactly WHY you need to get out, how you got there, or really what's going on, but you jump start in a small room with some clutter and only one direction. OUT.

You're crawling through leaky, damp, probably soggy mildewy walls as Six. Sneaking through corridors, leaving other kids behind in persuit of your own chance at survival. You deal with horrible hunger pains that just seem to get more desperate, more horrible, more... well, MONSTEROUS. 

everything is pointing to hunger, supporting themes of selfish survival, downright gluttony, the dangers of something chasing insatiable wants to boot. 

In two you get the feeling of being lost. You wake up next to a TV in the forest as Mono. You maneuver traps, find grotesque bait and human catches. Dodge baretraps bigger than you are, dodge snares, explore fallen logs and little side caverns. Once you find the Hunter's house, it's more of an unclear goal... But you still get the feeling you're looking for something, a way out maybe... but SOMETHING. More curious than Six's survivalist goal, though. 

You go through a school, you go through a town. A more "normal" setting... but it's all warped and twisted by the light of this giant tower in the middle of the blue-toned city. "People" glued to TV screens, jumping off of ledges to get closer to the sickening yet dazzling glow, a tv sitting at the edge of a bathtub, the viewers tripping over slick streets for the only thing they see is this blue light. Everything points to the center, the main theme of escapism and neglect. Taxidermy, stuffed and fake family members, the moth to a flame mentality. 

Now, what is the main theme of LN3? 

You find yourself as playing either Low or Alone. A boy in a mismatched and creatively put together costume or a girl in a hazmat suit. Here is where things get a little rocky. 

You find yourself in a desert with your new friend. You've been with them for as long as you can remember it seems? Or maybe you've found each other on the way to...somewhere. (I'll use Low as an example.) 

You come through a portal in a mirror, clearly already going through some sort of adventure. You end up finding your footing in each other... eventually you unwravel a paper and point to it, urging Alone to look as well. You start off your adventure, breaking down walls, shooting buttons with precision. This feels more playful, less urgent still. 

You and your buddy run through a huge, desolate desert with the remnants of a once-bustling city. Except these people wear clothes reminiscent of Greecian robes and some even mondane poses. Whatever that was once here didn't get the chance to change...

After running through houses, small shops, ect, you find a doll's hand. Still, unmoving... as you creep closer it moves! 

A huge, odd baby. A monster that isn't like any other one in ANY of the games. A doll with an eye reminiscent of the ones seen at the Maw(The main location of the first game). It has orange pig tails like your friend. It's babbling, curious, playful, it wants to play. It picks up our little protagonists and drops them around, and eventually it gets shown off by... crows? Random chance? THAT'S RIGHT. YOU are not the cause of it's denature, the animals didn't like it. (Maybe foreshadowing? I'm genuinely unsure as to what its deal is besides having hints.) 

During this chapter you wake up as Low in a cutscene. You wake up in a white room with a bed and nothing much else. Low scrambles under his bed at the sight of a shadow peeking in through the small window of his door, but then it ends.

Next up you get slotted into an alleyway filled to the brim with wet, discarded candy. You get in, you see a woman's silhouette behind a dimly lit window... as she reaches for the shutter with more hands than she's aught to have. In this facility you see security cameras lining the halls, "the herd " aka workers strung up on pulleys for their bodies are too rotund to move efficiently on their own. They pull levers, watch TV's, put away files and such all from systems of pulleys and harnesses. You see them toppled over, shoved in chutes. You also find out the candy's not made from syrup. It's their meat. (corruption of innocence, being overworked to survive). 

The cameras aren't actually too important in practice sadly, mostly just puzzle fodder.:( Its a lot of sneaking from here... 

BUT you do get chased by the for mentioned mechanical-tpp-many-armed-lady dual fisting files and clipboards. But she never gets too close. If she does it's game over, there's no juking her or anything...:/ You make it through and land in an alleyway to lead to another stage. It leads to a mirror, a broken one. 

low has a reaction to it. He gets upset, he gets discouraged. He looks at the map, he looks around, he sees no way out. He throws the map, Alone tries to comfort him, taking the map and putting a hand on his shoulder. He shoves her hand away, though. A moment passes and Alone eventually convinces him to try to find another way, but she now has the map.

You go through this door and you see carnival tents. You see games, those herd guys again, but this time as guests, also still largely minding their own business. You see the candy and other snakes, you see these bumbling herds bobbing for apples and watching shows, you can even interact with (too little) games for achievements and stuff. But it's a lot of absolutely STUNNING nothing burger scenery sadly... Eventually you go through this room where a man in purple and an ugly, UGLY  fleshy puppet sits in front of a TV. 

I originally thought he'd make more of an imprint because of how prevalent he was in the podcast, The Sound of Nightmares, but no... he was just a normal and easily evaded foe with a dog-like puppet. You go through these rooms and eventually come to vents.

You scramble through, the puppet fumbles, gas pipes break in the nick of time, no thought needed, (>:/), and you make it through these weird vents. You and your friend balance on a beam and get into an air balloon. You see this same type of balloon in Very Little Nightmares, too (I was happy to see it honestly! :D). 

The man in purple (the Kin, I guess?) goes into a small room, sloppily lugging a shotgun and pointing blindly at the air balloon as the mini Kin (the puppet) crawls and claws at the air balloon. You burn it, but as you do the Kin fires a missed shot into the air balloon. 

You take off and land directly where you need to be... :(

the Institute.. 

a barren, foreboding, eerie and worn down place. There's no other way through besides the angry sea and whatever lies behind those doors.

You go through, you eventually find that there are places where the floors are completely caved in. The place is falling apart at the seams. You wander, you find breakers and lights, but you also find something else. A doll.

Not any doll. Your friend, Alone. You pick up the doll and you see into the past? Everything is fixed, lights are on, everything. Honestly I thought it was the real world peeking through, but i guess not.

what sucks, though, is somewhere in this sequence you see him pick up the doll in a real-life cutscene. It ruined the entire point of the reveal, but WHATEVER, it was a cute scene ig.>:(

You eventually see a huge hand and yada yada blah blah snake hands it's Otto from the podcast.

See, I was watching gameplay with my sister that doesn't listen to the podcast, and she was just confused as to what was happening. It was jarring for her. She was left confused about what had just happened, not curious as to what was happening next. And it just ends with Low sitting morosely in front of the broken mirror cuz surprises surprises, alone wasn't real. :/

THAT is the issue. The ending threw the story off kilter because there was NO build up. In the first two games there was reason, suspense, motivation. Here? You find out the goal when it's revealed to be impossible. 

The story is lacking, but the cutscenes and interactions themselves were great. It saved a lot of moments for me. 

Where the story lacked in places, you did get attached to these characters whether you liked it or not. They were fleshed out like nothing before with no dialogue.

they showed genuine friendship, personality, identity, and distinct actions. More could have been done with gameplay, though.. Narratively it wouldn't make sense to split them up, but giving them better moments and puzzles to shine in game wouldn't have been great.

But that's not what I'm here for, I'm here for LOREE.... 

Story wise, I think there's potential for growth. This is a new studio to the franchise, and there was effort put into the production of this game. If it was a cash grab, we'd just have it following Six again. No, the studio made new characters, new storylines, and tried their best to keep In-universe despite their slight misuse of Otto's character from what I'm aware(unless I missed something from the comics, that's possible,) and they gave a decent salvage game on short notice. It's unfair to nitpick the game for not being the exact same as the og and saying it's terrible, ruining the entire franchise. here's hope that the studio just had a hard time adjusing, this isn't Hello Neighbor level bad. Things could come back around in future installments. We're lucky we didn't lose LN as a franchise. The game deserves critism and tips, but you guys saying it ruined the entire franchise as a whole is overblown. This isn't Tarsier Studios, this is a large studio that covers a LOT different IP. 

Hold hope for the franchise, don't discard it! The game is rough around the edges, not trash. Think Security Breach and how janky it could be and then Secret of the Mimic. Smth like that can happen!! 

side note, this game was NOT shorter than the first one. Stop saying it was, it wasn't:/