REANIMAL felt like the fresh start Tarsier Studios needed to build off of the strengths of the Little Nightmare games in a new setting with enhanced gameplay. Sadly, what we got instead was a game that really doesn’t evolve their original formula, and in some ways even seems to like a step backwards for the studio.

I was really hoping this game would feel distinct from Little Nightmares, but if they had just called this a sequel nobody would say that it feels out of place. I thought they would really lean into the animal theme in interesting ways, and while there are definitely some compelling elements at play here, there are also enemies that feel like they were lifted straight from Little Nightmares. The Sniffer, skins, soldiers, swimmers, petrified kids, and spider kids all feel like they could have been cut content from those previous entries that ended up getting crammed into this one.

Speaking on the game’s strengths, I do feel like the overall direction on display here is pretty top class. The way that the camera moves you between scenes with its fixed angles is masterfully done and the way that some of these chase sequences are shot gives the game a cinematic flare that really ratchets up the tension when needed. Most of the environments here were also really well designed and felt very oppressive as you fought your way through them.

The narrative seemed promising at first, especially when you realize that the characters can actually speak and communicate with each other. Sadly this just seemed like another aspect that was totally squandered. You could take all 10 or so voice lines in this game, remove them completely, and it really wouldn’t change a thing. The overall story, just like in Little Nightmares, is pretty hard to parse and is very abstract in a lot of ways. You can kind of piece together what they were going for by the end, but the overall story just kind of felt disjointed and the themes were all over the place.

Combat here was really disappointing across the board. Most of the time you’ll just need to mindlessly mash the attack button to get through combat encounters. They eventually introduce some spears that you can use on your boat, which operate in a similarly mindless fashion. It would have been nice if the boss fights were a bit more involved, but the handful that are there just have you repeating the same simple actions over and over again until the game decides the fight is finished.

I ended up going through the whole game by myself, and I really can’t imagine this being a worthwhile co-op experience. With the severe lack up puzzles, there’s really nothing in play that would warrant working together with another player in a meaningful way. There was a single instance where the thought crossed my mind that it would be a bit more enjoyable to play through with another person, but most of the time the AI was doing just fine without having someone taking control of them directly.

It would have been nice if there was at least some extra content here. I beat the main story in about 3 and half hours, which is pretty rough for a game that they’re selling for $40. It’s even worse when you realize that Little Nightmares 2 takes about 5 hours to get through. While there are a ton of collectibles to uncover, it doesn’t really change the fact that you can be done with this game in a single sitting pretty easily and be perfectly content with never picking it up again.

I was really looking forward to REANIMAL and it’s sad to see that it didn’t build off of the strengths of Little Nightmares in meaningful ways. I’ll probably check out the story DLCs as they drop throughout the year, but my expectations for those have definitely been tempered.

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