This happens to me every now and then in the world of gaming. I start a game off and am initially impressed with how the game functions and get a certain amount of distance into the game. The game isn't "difficult" per se, but it is challenging enough that there are parts of it that seem as though they are downright unfair.
Also, in some games the controls just aren't very tight and after playing Little Nightmares 2 for 5 hours and completing the game I can say that this particular title is plagued with control issue, loading issues, and bugs that make it something that once I was done with it, I was extremely happy it was over.
I've played both LN 1 and LN 2 and normally when you have a game that is a surprise hit, the next installment is normally an improvement in some ways, particularly with controls, over the original. Tarsier Studios, the developers behind the game, apparently went the other direction with this one because the 1st installment of the game was pretty tight on the controls or at least enough to the point where I don't recall ever really having a gripe about that sort of thing while I was playing it. LN2 on the other hand, is an exercise in frustration because of a number of things.
There is a certain amount of distance that you can cover when run jumping. After just 10 minutes of playing you start to understand what this distance is and don't attempt anything beyond that. But since you have a sidekick that is computer controlled in certain parts of this game, you are indicated that you are meant to jump to their extended hand and they will pull you up. These gaps are substantially larger than others that you could clear on your own and something kind of glitchy happens when you do them where something takes over and almost throws you across these gaps in some sort of animation "takeover" to propel you further than you would ever be able to jump normally.
This is frustrating to me because why not just make the gap smaller? It's dramatically further than I have been able to jump up to this point. Also, if you time your jump just slightly wrong you are going to fall to your death. That's great and all and I understand the need to do it properly, but by failing, if you do (and most people will) it simply respawns you at the other end of the gap and you just keep trying it over and over again until you get it right. There is nothing pursuing you, there is nothing else to this jump other than getting the timing EXACTLY RIGHT but about the 4th time that you had to sit through a 7 second respawn you start to get really frustrated with the game design.
This frustration gets even worse once there are chase scenes where you are being pursued and you must make very excellent time in order to get through a certain section.
These sequences are fun and you will die a few times because at the start of the chase you don't even know what is around the corner nor do you have any idea about which way you need to turn or what obstacle is in front of you. If that was the only aspect of it (and if the load times were improved radically) it wouldn't be so bad, but now we have to contend with all the clutter of crap that is on the floor.
In many of the scenes there are loads of discarded stuff on the ground and you get hung up on almost any of them. It's really frustrating when you are going a run away sequence and you get stuck to something that you can't even see, and the physics of said item isn't the same every time. I don't know what the "hitbox" of these items on the floor are, but it just seems retarded to me that since you can't interact with them anyway, that they would impede your progress. Whosoever was in charge of that decision in the dev department needs a paddlin' and the minimum.
Being chased by some terror of the sort of things nightmares actually are made of is seriously cool, but this introduces another aspect of this game that I could do without and at is the input lag as far as the buttons are concerned. I don't know how many times I have hit the jump button only for it to not actually happen when I pressed it and the jump i do end up doing misses the very essential platform that I absolutely needed to nail in order to escape the grotesque giraffe lady that is chasing me. I read into this online and apparently the reason for this lag is that the animation in this game is not fluid and that in certain strides that your character is making it isn't actually possible for the jump to be initiated during certain portions of your stride. Therefore, there will be a lag that will activate said jump at a certain part of the animation where said animation IS possible.
That is lame as hell and resulted in my shouting at my television multiple times and probably irritating my neighbors.
As far as I remember, hitting enemies with some sort of weapon was not part of the first installment but it happens many times in this one. You will see and axe or a stick or pipe of some sort lying around and you automatically know that you are going to need to smack someone with it. The problem here again is the input lag as well as the fact that all enemies that you will face in this sort of situation are much faster than you are and if you swing and miss, that's it, it's game over and back to the respawn point for you! I don't know how many times I went through these sections where I hit the attack button, missed, and then was immediately pounced on by whatever I swung and missed on. Your recovery time after a swing it honestly far too long and once again you are subjected to certain input lag because the animation wasn't designed to be able to have you swing from just any point in your stance.
These things are necessarily difficult, but they are tedious and annoying. None of the sections except for the infamous hospital ward with the flashlight are particularly long but between the load times, the animation input lag, getting stuck on random objects on the ground, and the fact that everything kills you immediately, results in a rather unenjoyable playing experience.
There are also certain things that happen in the game such as various traps that instantly kill you that you couldn't possibly know about unless they have already killed you. Then, you return to that same spot and step away from the trap only to have another trap get you anyway. The path you have to take in such rooms are very specific and the only way you can figure them out is by doing them wrong. This is not challenging, this is tedious and annoying.
In the end when you do actually make it past a certain part I found myself kind of hoping that the game was going to be over but it just kept going. When I did finally get past an extremely annoying running away from some giant blob thing that was chasing me, this sequence is quite long and a case study on all of the problems that I indicated above including and especially getting hung up on literally ANYTHING on the ground, resulted in my finally, after 20 - 30 tries, getting past it and then being shown yet ANOTHER area. Thankfully it was just an area that lead you to the climactic ending and there was no other platforming or fighting to be done.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the credits rolled and immediately deleted the game.
I was so angry by the time it was over that I went online to see if it was just me that was so frustrated by this but no, it was everyone else as well. I found loads of clips of streamers that absolutely lose their shit and end up being bitchy with their subscribers because of the intense frustration that this game brings out of people.
It is an absolutely beautiful and uniquely terrifying experience but it comes at the expense of your own sanity. I was so worked up last night after playing it that I actually had difficulty getting to sleep because of it.
I don't think that video games, or anything else you do in your life for that matter, should affect someone so negatively, especially if it is mean to be fun in the first place.
I think if you want to see the amazing graphical style of Little Nightmares 2 then just go watch a YouTube video of someone else completing it. Save your brain the frustration.
This game was so maddening to me that I have already decided that I will have nothing to do with the launch of the supposed upcoming Little Nightmares 3.
