Little Nightmares III PS5 Review. Unsettling and fright-filled, the Little Nightmares series has delivered delectable and unforgettable slices of visual horror for eight years now. Skin shivering spooks are at a premium in Little Nightmares, ensnaring you in a false sense of security, overlaid by an innocent-looking animated style and small child-like characters. Little Nightmares III is now allowing you to bring along a friend for this unnerving and twisted ride, but is this a ride both of you want to get off from pronto, or will both of you relish in the scares?
Little Nightmares III Review (PS5) – Recurring Nightmares
It’s important to note up front that Little Nightmares 3 is definitely not a co-op only experiences: you can see Split Fiction if you want strictly co-op affairs. However, you can invite a pal to join you in couch or online co-op and experience this haunting platformer together. Both of you can choose from the two protagonists, with one who is capable of using a bow and arrow to solve puzzles, while the other can use their wrench to smash rock and create openings through walls for you to pass through, and work mechanisms to solve environmental puzzles.
Adding an extra player is almost about as enjoyable an experience as playing alone. The only knock about playing with another person, is that sometimes you’ll have to help your partner reach the platform you’re on if they can’t reach it themselves. You may have to call your partner like a dog if using the A.I instead of a human player, which isn’t ideal, but it isn’t too much of a hassle as the A.I works well enough.
Previous Little Nightmares outings felt dread-inducing because you were alone and prone to all kinds of twisted creatures and happenings. The addition of a second player makes you feel a bit safer regardless of the two of you being reliant upon each other. The frightful delights still work, but the addition of a second takes the edge off the spook-induced trembles.
Playing Little Nightmares III is a very familiar experience despite a second player. You’re still moving around and along a 2.5D environment, solving puzzles such as finding keys to unlock doors and moving boxes to give you a higher platform so you can jump through a window. Working alongside your partner, you can both open up ventilation doors, you can both use your combined strength to pull out otherwise stubborn wooden palettes, and jump together in harmony to break through the floor to escape danger.
Team Work Makes The Screams Lurk
Working together with the tools of both characters is a cinch. Pulling out the bow for example and shooting the thread of ropes suspending boxed platforms feels really good and effortless. There are times you can use the bow as a weapon by shooting down flying pests, and that too feels satisfying.
Similarly, using the wrench can be both a tool for solving puzzles and a weapon for finishing off enemies. The wrench isn’t quite as gratifying as brandishing the bow, but works just as effectively when finding the path forward. Smashing through piles of rocks to reveal hidey holes and acting as a makeshift handle to maneuver elevators makes it a handy implement.
In the early stages you’ll discover umbrella-like doo-hickeys inside a wooden wardrobe as well, which both you and your partner can use to float gracefully upwards to reach platforms. You’ll need to locate vents with windy updrafts to use these umbrella-like instruments, but they almost feel jolly to use like you were puppet versions of Mary Poppins.
Little Nightmares III keeps it simple and straightforward, which means you can focus on escaping dangerous situations without worrying about what you need to do next. Finding solutions to puzzles and navigating through areas doesn’t take too much thought, and if you’re stuck you can rely on your partner to find the way forward. It’s unlikely you’ll both get stuck, but if you do then there are helpful prompts that appear on screen that can guide you forward.
The Freaks Come Out In Nightmares
The boss threats are a shuddering presence, using their solar-like beaming eyes to survey the environment looking for you and your counterpart, and you need to stay out of the way of this light by slinking through to the other side of the environment to escape a dreaded fate. They aren’t particularly challenging to contend with most of the time, but the freakish creatures in Little Nightmares often look more imposing than they are.
Encountering the twisted bosses of Little Nightmares III is visually imposing and memorable as they should be in a game dubbed Little Nightmares. However, the routines you saunter through haven’t evolved a lot since the first title came out in 2017, so you’re mainly threading through familiar hostile patterns and platforming/puzzle challenges. Thankfully Little Nightmares III is as short as its predecessors, but the spooks could’ve evolved at least.
The Art Of A Nightmare
Like previous Little Nightmares games, the art style and scenery are like galleries of haunts, and although the theming hasn’t changed all that much, the impact is definitely felt. Some views like the sandy desert as the camera stretches out to reveal its expanse is chilling, which is extra foreboding due to the wafts of fog blotting the landscape. The pitta patta of foot steps along the ground evoke the innocence and vulnerability of the little heroes of this nightmare. The hushing sounds as you play act as the sweeping calm before the awaiting storms ahead.
Little Nightmares III is generally a successful sequel thanks to its refined mechanics and the integration of co-op to its particular brand of horror experience. If you’ve played previous Little Nightmares games, you can rest assured that Little Nightmares III will bring you another deformed slice of horror you’ll be eager to lap up. However, the formula of Little Nightmares hasn’t changed and although it all works wonderfully well and you shouldn’t try to fix what the wrench cannot, Little Nightmares deserves something more ambitious in the future. For right now though, fill those baleful boots and enjoy this unhinged third course.
Little Nightmares III is out on October 10 for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series S/X, Nintendo Switch and PC.
Review copy was kindly provided by the publisher.