I am back talking about Little Nightmares after playing through the new DLC twice. Once as my usual natural route and second as my achievement rampage so I have a comfortable understanding of what The Depths has to offer Little Nightmares fans.
You can find my main story review here.
Spoilers ahead folks, but I will try to keep them minor.
The phenomenal gameplay and atmosphere is back in The Depths and does not disappoint. The game starts you off in a familiar area but with an unfamiliar protagonist. Instead of the faceless, mysterious Six you play as a boy known as ‘The Runaway Kid’. ‘The Runaway Kid’ is entirely what he suggests. You play as one of the unfortunate children that you have been seeing all the way through the main story as Six, but this one has a little more fight in him.
However, there is one major glaring problem with The Depths that entirely depends on whether you read the article Secrets of the Maw: Your Questions Answered that you can read in the link. In this interview it suggests that The Depths and Secrets of the Maw DLC pack in general would answer some plot elements of the main story and what is going on in the world of Little Nightmares.
To quote Stephen Haylett, ‘We needed to introduce a new character to shed some light on the darkest secrets of The Maw and give a different perspective on Six’s journey.’
Now where as this can be read as just revealing more of the Maw that players haven’t seen yet I, and I’m sure many others, was disappointed in the lack of answers or even clues to what is going on in this world. I want to know and The Secrets of the Maw DLC had a frustratingly little amount of secrets to tell.
Aside from this, the additional content held up well. The quality was equal to the main game and reasonably priced compared to other games and their obsessions with micro transactions. My only other gripe with the game was one room in particular, that goddamn crank room, was so frustratingly precise in its timing that I often got killed by the door. Yes, the door was a greater nemesis for me than the main enemy in the level. I consider a design flaw.
The main enemy of the level, however mysterious and unexplained, worked. The other enemies in the game have actual functions; a jailer to keep the children in check, the chefs to prepare the food and possibly children. ‘The Granny’, as this enemy is called, seems to have no purpose aside from being an obstacle for our character. Despite all the environment that they give her and the details within manage to make her feel more than just a reject idea that didn’t fit into the main game.
All in all, I enjoyed The Depths. The atmosphere had me terrified every time I went near a body of water and the game had ways of catching me unawares and scaring me without the use of jump scares. Also, the game may have dangled the promise of answers before me only to snatch them away, it only whet my appetite to know more about the Maw and all its secrets. Speaking of which, they appear to have a comic book series that somehow went under my radar.
If anyone here knows any answers; who are the Nomes? Who left the messages in the bottles? Why do the children and the ‘adults’ look so different? Be sure to let me know.
missjimmy 