If you love horror games, you don't want to miss The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope hint.
At the very beginning of the game we play a small practice part where we see the tragic story of a family. Then we start the real story in a school bus. The bus, which had to leave the main road due to an accident and pass through the town called Little Hope, is off the road because of a little girl jumping on the road and we meet our heroes.
Watch Out for Little Kids Jumping on the Road
Four college students and their teachers who took them on tour survived the accident unscathed. Shaken, but in good shape, the group decides to go to the nearby town of Little Hope and seek help, as the bus driver is missing and their phones are not working. After a while, realizing that the strange fog around them directs them to a certain point, the group begins to learn about the mysterious past of Little Hope town and its impact on them. Meanwhile, they try to escape from the town by getting rid of the strange creatures they encountered and finding the missing bus driver.
I would like to give more information about the story but there is not much that can be told without spoilers. I found the similarities between the victims of the witch hunt that took place in the town's past and our main characters and the story of the constantly emerging little girl intriguing. A slightly better job has been done, according to the story of Man of Medan. In addition, the problem that we had in the first game, when a wrong character died, the story becomes unintelligible is not in this game. You have to do the right things to unravel some of the events, but no matter what happens, the end of the game connects.
Each of the characters has a different personality and they develop with the effect of the decisions you make throughout the game, or they turn out to be a complete mess. The features that are unlocked as a result of their relationships with each other and the choices you will make affect the decisions they will make at key points of the game. They did a good job, but don't expect in-depth characters. Especially in the beginning, there are strange scenes such as some characters throwing themselves into the pit with the slightest rattle, seeing a cat and running to death, which does not fit the character that the same character displayed two minutes ago.
I briefly touched on the story, let's see what innovations Supermassive Games has made in gameplay. If you have played Until Dawn and Man of Medan before, I have to state that you will not have any problems with the gameplay. This is not a good thing at all. There is no major innovation over the previous games. You travel around in free roaming mode, and you proceed by collecting hidden clues. You make decisions on behalf of your character in various dialogues and enter Quick Time Event events in action scenes. There is also an activity where you have to press the key at the right part when you need to be silent, and I could not complete it successfully.
Many of the key events found in the game are determined by how well you succeed in QTE events. The producers, along with Little Hope, made a small but useful change to the QTE system. Now you can see what the action you will take a few seconds ago and prepare yourself accordingly. The icon, which appears close to where the key you need to press shortly before you press the key, shows what the next move will be, such as jumping, dodging or attacking. For example, the jump icon I see in the left corner while playing with the Xbox controller tells me that the character will jump a little later and that the key to press is "X". It is nice that a system such as QTE, which is important in terms of story and widely used, has developed this kind of development for players who have problems.
We move from a ship with narrow corridors to a town with open spaces, and the camera angles are also affected by this change. The actor is allowed to have some say in camera control, although it still uses a more cinematic camera angle. In this way, we can examine the surroundings and characters more easily in open areas. Fixed camera angles continue in closed areas and at some points. From time to time, there are spots that make it feel like we are seeing our characters through the eyes of someone watching us through the bushes.
We can play the game alone or with our friends. The single player story shows almost all the important parts of the game. According to the episode we play, we take control of a character and try to solve mysteries to get out of the town. However, to see the whole game, you have to try the multiplayer mode. The multiplayer mode, in which all five characters can be controlled by a separate friend, allows you to witness the small details of the story. Its main fun is to gather and play in the same house with friends, but I could not try it because of the period we are in. We had a lot of fun playing Man of Medan like this, but in Little Hope I could only try it online and I can say it wasn't bad.
Finally, the episodes where we wandered outside in fog reminded me of the times I played Silent Hill 2. Of course, we do not have the same experience, but when looking for hidden objects, "I wonder if something skips from here?" Strolling around the ruined town amidst the constantly surrounding fog and the points that I was nervous about, revived my beautiful memories.
We Go on a Witch Hunt
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope, which I played on PC, is much better optimized than Man of Medan. Load times are short enough, the graphics look good and the performance is smooth. I usually played with a gamepad, but it seems comfortable to control it with a keyboard-mouse. My biggest complaint with the PC version was that the mouse pointer constantly pops up in the upper left corner. Although I play the game with a gamepad, the mouse pointer that appears with the slightest movement does not disappear unless you take a hand. If you are stuck in even the smallest point on the screen like me, you have to get up from where you sit and straighten it every time.
Although there are some uncomfortable points about the ending of the story, I will close it by saying "not bad" because it is interesting and engaging. I liked the conclusion that Man of Medan tied things up more, but there is nothing to do. In order not to give spoilers, I cannot focus too much on it. There is also a lot of jumpscare in the game. Even the cat in your home becomes an element of tension when exposed to so many similar jumpscare moments in a day. I even started to react to the animal that jumped in my lap at night. The bad side was that the jumpscars in the game lost their influence after a while and became so ordinary that they were greeted with "Oh, someone shouted again" reactions.
It is a pity that the game deprives me of some small details just because I am playing it alone, and does not show some small details that give an idea about the characters' personalities. You don't have a huge loss, you don't miss things that deeply affect the main story, but it's not nice to be hit in your face when you're playing alone.
Result
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope, which is about the strange events that happened to five characters seeking help, was a good game in general. You feel like you're playing one of the popular horror thrillers. The Curator character, who emerged after critical decisions and made comments about what I did, adds a pleasant atmosphere to the game.
, 😯💘OK 🆗