THE DARK PICTURES ANTHOLOGY - LITTLE HOPE Review: Dark Times Repeating

PS4 Review Code Provided by Supermassive Games

One of the developers that never fails to deliver something interesting each year has finally dropped the latest title and it is the next story in their Dark Pictures Anthology series. While it is thanks to Bandai Namco that this series continues, it is Supermassive Games who is creating these horror-based, choose-your-own-undoing titles. The latest game in the series is Little Hope and they definitely went pretty dark with this one. But did they do well at making it an entertaining experience as a game? Let’s dive deeper to answer that question.

Story

During the return trip from a college field trip, a small group of five survivors finds themselves stranded in the strange town of Little Hope. Forced to head in the direction of this town due to a roadblock detour in the first place, this place wasn’t exactly on their route. Now that they have no choice but to go into town for help, they find that things aren’t quite what they seem and the option to leave has been stripped away. With the aid of flashbacks, this unlikely group must work out the truth to what is happening and what has happened in this town if they wish to be granted the opportunity to leave the town alive!

Gameplay

This game plays out just like the series first title, Man of Medan. You will have to make choices and successful a series of quick-time events in order to proceed through the story. However, these choices and quick-time events will alter the course of the story from minor changes to getting a character killed and all the way up to providing a completely different ending. However, there are some differences.

Just like before, you can also find pictures throughout the game during the free-roaming segments. These pictures will give you a glimpse into a possible future for one of the characters and leave it to the player to make their best judgment on how to proceed with the tiny bit of information these glimpses provide. Finding these pictures and various aspects in the environment, including hidden items for inspection, collection, and consideration, can be done by walking up to it and hitting the interaction button. You will always have a flashlight of some sort to use as well, so looking around is only as difficult as getting used to the controls.

When you are in a free-roaming section of the game, the flashlight movement and the camera angle are both the same control. This can be frustrating at first, but it is something you can adjust to. Also, the direction of your movement will be based on where the games camera angle is set. The difference between these two angles is basically one is the scenery camera and the other is the character’s view.

Visuals

Everything from character models to the environments themselves was all very well made and had an even look to them. It was like watching and controlling a high-grade CGI movie. This level of visual quality is the same as it was in the previous game, except this time there was no performance drop that was in the first game of the series - so, definitely improved quality overall.

Sounds

One thing they are really good about is making the music and sound effects match the ton and scenery around you. When things are calm it is quiet, when danger begins to become active the music correlates, and everything in between. It all blended and matched up very well with each scene.

Replayability

Of course, it has replayability! There are multiple endings, pathways, and choices to make throughout the game. There are plenty of reasons to play through the story more than one time, be it to get all the collectibles, find all the secrets, attempt to get everybody out alive, and so on.

What Could Be Better

There did seem to be a shortage in choice-making and quick-time event moments throughout this game in comparison to the first. I even had times where I didn’t understand why it wasn’t having me do anything to make the scene progress. Definitely can be fixed with an update, but I suggest they look into giving the player the opportunity to mess up more often - even if it is a false moment where the choice or event doesn’t affect the story.

Quick-time events also seemed to be pretty easy in this game compared to the last one. I don’t know if they slowed them down or what, but it would be cool in the future if they would add a difficulty option to their games. This way players can choose how difficult they want their decision and quick-time event timers to be. I, personally, like there to be very little time in these moments so that I feel more challenged to make the right decision quicker.

Also, stop repeating the same jump scare over and over. I get that you made that the transition style into the past era scenes, but add some more variety to how you scare players into those scenes. Using that same style every time went from scary to annoying throughout the storyline.

SPOILER MOMENT BELOW - SKIP TO CONCLUSION TO AVOID

That last moment of the game was so incredibly cheap feeling. Although I successfully kept all my characters alive, some of the decisions I made along the way locked in certain traits that gave a couple of them an instant death at the end. I don’t know if I think trait-based survival is a solid move as it is, I do have to say they could have done more with it than just kill the players in such a blatant and quick fashion. If John ended up being Fearful, then have him cowering somewhere in that house when he gets grabbed. Stuff like that would have made it feel less cheap, but since they didn’t do that, I just had to watch as two characters were killed because I didn’t maintain the right personality traits for their character.

Conclusion

Little Hope had an incredible story, but a questionable set of moments in the end. While it may have just been the choices made along the way, the sensation of being cheated hit as the ending played out. I really enjoyed everything leading up to the ending, but I hope they don’t choose to stick with that kind of ending. Bring back the ending style of Until Dawn, but keep your stories vastly unique like this one was. Definitely a choice-based game I recommend, but be ready for some things that you may not agree with to happen.