Game EXP: Little Nightmares: Complete Edition [Six's Story] (NS)

Just to warn you all before you start in on this article.  This will not be a traditional Game EXP article (whatever that means).  I will only somewhat be talking about my experience playing the first half of Little Nightmares by Tarsier Studio, but I will be talking about my thoughts about the game, the story, the lore, and then a bit of how I played.

Now, it has been a little while since I finished Six's story in Little Nightmares: Complete Edition on the Nintendo Switch.  I should preface first though that when you start Little Nightmares: Complete Edition, you have the option to play as either Six or The Kid, with The Kid's story being the DLC to Little Nightmares.  Because I did not look too much into what was included in the game when I bought it, I did not know this, but I did decide to play as Six, the little character in a hooded yellow rain slicker because that character seemed slightly more prominent in the trailers that I watched but was also the character depicted in the logo for the game, so that was who I went with.  I genuinely thought that the game was going to be the same, just the look of the playable character was going to be different, but The Kid's story is a complete DLC game that I will cover after I find a way to get away from the Janitor in his workshop.

Shortly after I started Six's story, I realized that there was a lot of information in the trailer that is not conveyed in the game, mainly because there is zero spoken dialogue, no notes to find, and no signs to read in the game.  I was kind of expecting some type of narration with phrasing similar to a children's book that has gone off the rails.  Names like "The Maw," "The Lady," "The Residents," and "The Janitor" are spoken in the trailer as if you already know about these locations and characters, but at the very least that you will find out about them when you play the game.  The furthest you get to find out any of this information is that you do meet The Lady and the Janitor, you are in The Maw, and you do pass through the Residence.  But again, there is nothing in-game to give you any of these proper names either by being spoken to the player or from any in-game text because there is no reading involved.  The reason why I sound ever so slightly bitter about this is that again, based on the trailer, I was fully ready to find out all of the information about this location, who these obese characters were, who this yellow rain jacketed character was, and why they were there, and why this Janitor figure has such touchy-feely arms.  Now, there is a good chance I missed some of the more subtleties (as I have done with Dark Souls), but I like to think of myself as a semi-attentive person, but everything ended up feeling more interpretive by the player.

And I am somewhat okay with there being no recorded dialogue or reading notes, signs, or other communication beyond utterances, grunts and exclamations from an inclusive perspective because this means that there is no localization required and anyone who speaks any language could play Little Nightmares and have the same experience, although their own background and experiences they bring to the game are what could make it unique to themselves.  On the other side of things, I am a little disappointed because I want to know more about The Maw.  Why is it there?  Why are people so much larger than Six and is it only because Six is a child and that is how children perceive adults?  What is up with the Janitor?  Did Six have a vendetta against The Lady and why was she having nightmares about her at the start of the game?  I guess the fact that the game had given me a lot of questions to think about is not a bad thing that may or may not be covered in Little Nightmares 2.  

On the surface, Six progresses from a suitcase she wakes up on, wanders through areas of a place, is captured by a long-armed villain who wraps up other children and sends them to two chefs who grind them up into sausages and other meats for a ship full of obese people who are observed by a Geisha-looking villainess who Six ends up killing.  Oh, and during that time, our protagonist Six has their own evolution of accepting help from other caged children, to eating trapped rats, to eating live creatures (referred to as Nomes) who are trying to help her, to consuming the life-essence of The Lady and murdering nearly all everybody who comes in contact with her on her way out.  Why?  There are a number of sites/articles that have analysed the story in Little Nightmares so I am not about to try to start that now this far into the article, just know that I have talked a bit about it with Conklederp who has a better interpretation than my, "I ran around and did stuff while trying not to get killed."

One of the things that really kept me going through the game was how good everything looked, even on the Switch in hand held mode, there was just this aesthetic that reminded me of little puppets moving about in a diorama.  My biggest complaint though was that the load times were noticeably long.  From starting up the game to have to reload after every death (which happened semi-frequently with The Janitor and every now-and-then with the Chefs and the Residents), the load time averaged between 25 - 30 seconds.  I have not tangentially heard anything about load times associated with Little Nightmares on any system so maybe it is a handheld Switch issue?  But the load times have persisted with the DLC chapter which I have recently started.  The Runaway Kid's story in the DLC portion of Little Nightmares: Complete edition and two of presumably five chapters in, I have gathered very little additional information outside of a single picture from the Concept Art Extras portion of the main menu that I will not share here and probably will talk about in one of the two articles for Little Nightmares: Complete Edition [The Kid's Story]."

So until then, I look forward to continuing The Kid's story, and hopefully, my interest will continue through to eventually picking up Little Nightmares II, see how it connects if at all to the story and events in Little Nightmares: Complete Edition, and find out if the load times have been improved at all.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
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