It's a dark, dreary world full of monsters and dangers,
all waiting to end the short life of an equally short child protagonist. With such a hazardous
adventure ahead of you, and with us running out of ideas to get our in-house challenge
guy to do with quarantines still in effect, we turned to your favorite lab rat and told
him to make us better at playing one of our newest, favorite game- Little Nightmares II.
Warning, spoilers ahead!
Hey InfoFans, time for another challenge- sort of. Today I'm challenged with making you,
or at least everyone at the Infographics office that sucks at puzzle platformer games,
better at not dying in Little Nightmares II. I'm a recent fan, I never played the original
and it totally flew under the radar for me. But I am completely impressed with this game,
and if you don't own it, you should. But alright, let's get into the survival and
stick around at the end for a compilation clip of a bunch of my deaths and fails .
Survival Tip No. 1: Cardio is Life
If you're one of the people who've never played a platform game before, then surprise-
because you're in for a lot of jumping, pulling, dragging, and specially running. You better
get good at all of these activities, because there's plenty of sections of the game where
making critical jumps or not sucking at running means the difference between life and death.
Take for instance my own introduction to jumping, and watch me fail to realize you
had to hold the R1 button to hold on to a ledge so you can pull yourself up. Listen,
puzzle platformers are not my genre of game, ok?
But you better get good at tricky jumps too, with the added difficulty of trying to tell
depth in a non-3D world. My advice? Try to get reference points from the environment-
there's some rooms with tile floors that you can use as a sort of grid and
make things a lot easier. Other times, you just have to fail a lot, like me.
You also have to pull and push objects, though some of them aren't that clear. If you are stuck
in a section and can't seem to progress, look for something to push/pull your way to victory. Check
every single handle you can find, and try to drag or push every box you come across with R1 button.
Or you can do like me and spend a minute trying to get stupid Six to give you a
boost only to realize you were supposed to pull out the drawer to a chest and hop on top of it.
You better get your coordination down with running and jumping, as well as trying to
get some sense of depth in a mostly 2d world, because your life literally depends on it. Also
it helps if you don't smack straight into a wall when you're aiming for the door.
Survival Tip No. 2: It's a Trap!
For some reason this entire world is hellbent on capturing children,
and while the lore never really explains this and lets us extrapolate our own conclusion,
one thing is for certain: if something seems suspicious, it definitely is.
That's no moon, that's a bear trap waiting to deliver a horribly agonizing death.
Most traps are fairly obvious- if there's a thick patch of leaves then there's probably
a good reason why you shouldn't step in it. Now you can typically spot an obvious trap because
the game will give you lots of subtle hints about how to bypass it- like for instance providing an
absolutely ludicrous amount of pine cones when you haven't seen a single one yet. Gee, I wonder what
they could be used for? Or by giving you obvious walkways that keep you off the floor. Anyone who's
ever played the game 'the floor is hot lava' should see these traps coming a mile away.
Of course you could just be like me and have a morbid curiosity
about what would happen if you walked into one of these traps.
Also, make sure you watch out for 'baited' traps. Video games have hardwired us to look for things
obviously out of the ordinary that we can grab, because those things are typically
useful later on. Fall prey to this instinct in Little Nightmares though and you could
find yourself on a one-way ride to the grim reaper- or get stupid lucky like me.
Or not so lucky other times because clearly I didn't learn my own lesson...
Then again, there's a thing called 'dumb luck' for a very good reason.
Never hurts to also look up occasionally though...
Survival Tip No. 3: Stealing Is Good
As in most survival games, you want to be a kleptomaniac. If something looks
like it can be taken, take it, and don't let your morality give you much trouble over it.
Matter of fact, in one of Little Nightmares II's biggest weak points,
there's rarely if ever consequences for you taking things even when it looks downright scary.
All I'm saying is, that was a golden moment for a good scare and to add some tension, but as you'll
see while playing the game, while there are very terrifying moments of adrenaline pumping action
and horror, these are highly scripted and almost always predictable. When I started playing I was
sneaking around everywhere, and cursing whenever I accidentally knocked over a cup or kicked a shoe.
However, it became quite clear that outside of specific instances, you're free to throw,
kick, and steal anything you like. One of the detriments of this game, in my opinion.
Survival Tip No. 4: Sometimes You Really Do Have To Be Sneaky
Pretty sure this one's obvious to anyone who's ever played a Metal Gear Solid game,
but while for most of the game you're free to run around and make as much noise as you want,
you better sneak when the game tells you to. The general rule is that if you can hear or see a
monster around, it's time to hit that crouch button and slow-walk to your destination.
Oh, and stay out of the light. Duh.
Also, moving slowly isn't the same as moving sneakily.
Along the same vein of being sneaky, sometimes you gotta find a good spot to hide. The game will make
it obvious where you're supposed to hide- if you actually pay attention to the background.
Look for boxes laying on their side completely filled in with shadow, or open cabinets that are
dark inside. Trust me, finding a good hiding spot is absolutely necessary.
I don't want to tell you how many times it
took me to figure out that you're supposed to hide inside boxes...
Seriously, JUST GET IN THE DAMN BOXES.
Survival Tip No. 5: Teamwork Makes The Dreamwork
You start the game by rescuing Six, your compatriot in this adventure through a hellish,
twisted Pale City. Six is a good friend, and you make sure you rescue her every time she
gets into trouble. In exchange, she's there to give you a friendly boost, a helping hand,
and NEVER EVER BETRAY YOU COMPLETELY OUT OF THE BLUE.
Sorry, I've still got some PTSD from a certain section of this game. Anyways,
look for opportunities for Six to help you leap across wide chasms
or give you a friendly boost up into ledges that are just out of reach.
Survival Tip No. 6- Learn To Aim
Little Nightmares II is what's known as a 2.5D world, meaning it's not
quite 3D but it's not quiet 2D either. There's an amount of depth to each scene,
but the camera never really moves in a way to let you explore the area in three dimensions.
This is a bit of a problem when it comes to aiming. My advice is to use things like
the grid-like pattern of tiles on a floor to orient yourself, or try to pick out objects
casting shadows that are on a same X axis to figure out how 'deep' in the scene you are.
Given that the game includes many fast-paced action sequences where you need to be very
accurate with attacks or aiming things, you better figure out fast how to aim.
Or you can do like me and almost quit your writing job because you couldn't get past a single scene.
By the way, I did this scene over fifteen times before finally
'winning' the fight as you get to see here.
Sometimes the game will give you cues that let you know you're aiming in the right direction,
like when you have to throw things to activate buttons too high up for your tiny arms to reach.
Look for Mono looking up as you approach a button and you know
you're in the right spot to throw an item and activate the switch.
Let's talk about the flashlight for a second. Flashlights are great survival items,
they light up the dark and let you see where you're going,
as well as showing you if any monsters are waiting to eat you up.
However, it's greatest use in Little Nightmares 2 is not to navigate- after all,
this entire game is about you on a long journey to the right-
but rather to stop mannequin monsters in their track inside the hospital level.
And if you are bad at aiming that flashlight, there's going to be dire consequences.
My advice is to use a mouse and keyboard for the flashlight segment- and you probably know
exactly what segment I'm talking about. Unless you're a whiz with the controller,
aiming accurately with the flashlight to stop hordes of mannequin monsters in their tracks
is going to be a nightmare. The precision of a mouse though will make this one section of
the game a breeze, further proof that PC is truly the master race.
Survival Tip No. 7: It's Always Hammer Time
There's lots of discarded trash laying around in the world of Little Nightmares,
from loose shoes to balls of wadded up paper to glass cups you can have fun smashing with zero
consequences- seriously, real missed opportunity for causing enemies to be alarmed by all the sound
you're making. However, there's three items that are definitely not trash, and definitely not an
accident when you come across them. If you see a pipe, an axe, or a hammer, you pick that bad boy
up and get ready for clobbering time, because odds are you're going to face something that
really needs a hammer to the face- wether a small, clay child, or a stubborn obstacle.
Special note about fighting hand monsters, because you'll eventually end up fighting two
of them at the same time and they can be some of the most annoying encounters in the whole game.
I don't want to talk about how hard I failed at this encounter, but eventually
I discovered a strategy that made fights against hand monsters a breeze.
As hand monsters prepare to leap on you, they will pause and flex their fingers,
then leap in the direction the hand is facing. Now, the hand monster will stop tracking your
movement as soon as it prepares to leap- so simply move up, down, left, or right from the
hand monster as it prepares to attack and it will miss you completely, leaving itself vulnerable for
a good smashing. And we mean killing it, not what our British friends across the pond might mean by
that expression, odds are they've got their own hand monsters- and only hand monsters- for that.
You can consider that sick burn the last shot of the revolutionary war.
Last Survival Tip: Walk Away
Seriously, just walk away from the game when you've died one too many
times to the same mechanic you can't quite nail down. The autosave feature in Little
Nightmares is fantastic, and sometimes you gotta cool off before going at it again.
That's it, our survival guide for Little Nightmares 2. Follow these basic tips and
you'll be beating what's definitely one of the better games to come out in recent years,
and my favorite 'sorta' survival horror experience since Silent Hill.
Now enjoy a compilation of a bunch of my deaths, and trust me,
this is only when I happened to be recording and but a fraction of my total deaths...