Unsettling Problem-Solving Adventure
In Bandai Namco’s Very Little Nightmares, a puzzle-solving adventure awaits you, but only if you are willing to escape the occasional nightmarish creature chasing you in your wake. Despite the title’s overly sensitive controls, it’s an overall fun experience and is full of complicated puzzles and deviously quick monsters that try to prevent your escape.
The protagonist, the girl in the yellow raincoat, begins her terrifying quest by waking up surrounded by Nomes, small skittering shadows, in a mysterious place. It doesn’t take long to run into a few simple puzzles, but the brain straining tasks follow soon after. The music for this game lends an ominous tone to the story, but the visuals also keep the player feeling unsettled throughout, despite the title’s cute aesthetic. Each room in the game has multiple step puzzles for you to solve and several creatures to avoid in the process.
Touchy Controls Are the Scariest Monster
Although the main point of the game is puzzles and scares, Nightmares’ gameplay might be the scariest thing of all. The touch controls take some getting used to, but you have little time to get the hang of them before your first real chase. The screen tends to feel a bit too small when you need to make quick decisions and tap the correct square. Many a chase sequence is a struggle when you tap what you believe is the correct spot only to have the device register a different one. The touch controls do add a pleasant, yet anxious, feeling of control over the protagonist’s movements, but this may be a title that requires a stylus or a much larger screen.
There is also the matter of design. A game that looks as incredible as Very Little Nightmares runs into a simple problem that comes from its stunning production values. Its interactable items blend into the gorgeous background. There is a highlighted border that appears around items in the game, but being able to see them remained a recurring issue throughout my playthrough. Running from a creature while trying to find a puzzle item tends to be a bit more tedious when you are unable to see exactly what you need. This is a simple problem, but one that does hinder progress at times.
Very Little Nightmares suffers from its platform but does not let that hinder the exciting puzzle element of the game. Playing through each cleverly constructed room gives you a strong sense of achievement, especially when you do not need to use walkthroughs to escape them. A polished game this might not be, but an entertaining brain tickler it most certainly is.
