The ICO-like genre has become so swollen at this point that it threatens fatigue. It reminds me of the post-Jim Jarmusch indie films, before Quinten Tarantino released Pulp Fiction and turned the indie scene towards more of his genre film flair (although, let's face it, the Jim Jarmusch style didn't quite end there). After Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise, there was a myriad of imitators looking to capture the mundane days of odd-ball characters up to absolutely nothing. It's a style that eventually moved into the more impressionistic and the more realist, with genres such as mumblecore. And it all got tired quickly. It trended so hard that it felt like, regardless of how interesting a newer low budget film looked, there was that tinge of anxiety that you may have to dig for what was interesting through the same familiar style and execution that had long since lost its most effective presence.
So, too, has the ICO-like become since the release of Limbo, and although there may be an argument made that what I'm actually referring to is the cinematic platformer, I contest that there is a difference between ICO and those that came before it, namely games like Another World and Oddworld. Particularly, ICO-likes prefer expression through verbiage as much as scenery, allowing most aspects if not all of the controls to work as symbolic or emotional expression. Think ICO's hand holding, or the slow, lumbering way Limbo's protagonist climbs and pulls. The identity is by some technicality that of the cinematic platformer, but of a hyper specific kind. Much like Jim Jarmusch falls under similar categorization as John Casavetes, despite their films feeling entirely different.
With the release of each new ICO-like, I find myself simultaneously excited while releasing a groan of dread. It's the thing that puts off my playing games I feel a pull to play, because I know that with ICO-likes it either pulls you in relatively early, or leaves you in the cold hands of boredom. Little Nightmares manages something unique, being both a game I rather liked while still holding within it a number of complaints I feel as though I shouldn't have. What it does well contradicts the reason these types of games are played, and while I find it a strange case, I can't help but recommend it.
Spoilers below, as the game is too short not to give up what's inside.
Little Nightmares isn't just an ICO-like, but an even more specific type of copy. It is so like Limbo that it could ostensibly be called a Limbo-like. You play as a small child (named Six not in the game itself, but in the store page, a habit with these types of games I'm not too fond of) sneaking and scurrying her way through a dark and twisted world, trying to avoid death. You have your usual repertoire of verbs, such as crouching, sneaking, climbing, jumping, or pushing and pulling objects. It strikes very similar notes to that of Limbo, but, despite its apparent unoriginal nature, there was something about the game that grabbed me at the very start.
The verbiage, for one, works slightly better here than it did in Limbo. Where Limbo used it as a limited set of tools, in Little Nightmares it feels equally expressive. Grabbing objects to pick them up equally lets you hug little Nome creatures that appear throughout the world (often to breadcrumb trail your way to the next location when the environment would rather spend its efforts making an impression than showing a clear path). Turning on your lighter lets you light the dark corners of whatever room you are in, but also lets you light lanterns if you walk up to them with it out. Climbing feels incredibly responsive, but is probably where it is spot on in par with Limbo, albeit with a slight Shadows of the Colossus feel to its controls. Throughout Little Nightmares, it is easy to almost forget that you are holding a controller, rather that you are interacting with an eerie animated film.
The style, which does ape the creepy, dark, adult aesthetic with child in a horrific land that Limbo won awards for in part, the style itself is much more distinct. The game feels something along the lines of a Studio Ghibli film based on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, but directed by Guillermo Del Toro. Although that sounds incredibly awesome typed out, in execution it leaves a little to be desired. Locales are effective, with their German expressionist bendy and stretched decor, and Del Toro's sense of grotesque creates a noticeable film of grime on all things, especially the lumpy, warped "humans" that act as antagonists. The Janitor, one of the first antagonists you encounter in the game, has short, stumpy legs and extremely long arms. His being blind means he will search the room with his gross appendages whenever you step on a floorboard rather than the intended path of carpet or cloth. He also has the unsettling tick of grinding his teeth and clicking his jaw. The Chiefs, meanwhile, are grotesquely obese, to the point of being distasteful, depending on your particular perspective on things. After all, their grotesqueness isn't meant to be that they are obese, but rather their obesity is supposed to show the grotesque nature of their diet. The game effectively remains creepy and child-like throughout with its ambience and horrifying adults, fulfilling its marketing promise of being a horror game in the vain of a children's story. The unfortunate bit comes from the game's symbolism.
What the game means is plainly meant to be up for debate. While I enjoy art that doesn't give you concrete answers, there is a rather sly line between artful expression and borderline laziness. I would certainly not call Little Nightmares lazy, but it feels particularly obvious they went in with an idea for aesthetic before they did any sort of expression. Most of everything reads rather obviously on an impressionistic level, rather than keying in on resonate emotions. Aristocratic people eat children, and do so in a grotesque, almost pig-like way, and that alone is fine. But children are also kept in cages, starved, and Six's hunger gets so great she eventually abandons traditional food for rats, Nomes, and even a person. Her development through the world of going from struggling survivor to monster herself was so obvious it threatened to turn me off of the experience altogether. But I will give the game one little bit of credit, and that's that the game seemed to have given me a slight of hand, whether it was intentional or not. The way I was reading it up to the end was an alternate take on The Jungle meets an "eat the rich" metaphor, which I thought was far too obvious to be effective outside of novelty. It was fine enough as I enjoyed the game, but I found it more than a little disappointing that the game was putting so much effort in to what amounted to something so incredibly obvious that just making the comparison was enough to have experienced the story. On reflection, I realized there may have been another form of symbolism that had passed me by, and while I think it was much better handled, it was also not nearly as well supported by the text.
Seen as a depiction of child abuse and its effect on a young person's perspective is far more resonate, distorting the world and its inhabitants into tortured symbols of suffering and aggression, warping the young person to be an aggressor herself. There are the consumers, who want to take the girl and eat her, and the long armed janitor who wants to grab her, and with these alone we have ample amount of metaphors most of us would rather not think about. The ending has her confronting the woman running this prison/food processing plant/dining establishment/residence. It is implied somewhat that Six is the woman's daughter, although I'm not positive this is the case. In the end, you destroy the Lady running things by showing her herself in a small mirror, because apparently she's so vain she thinks this game is about her.
The oscillating thickness-to-thinness that the game's metaphoric language takes is enough to nearly write the thing off as a good try, but not quite. But oddly, despite this, I find the less metaphor heavy aspects to have the most impact. The game lingers with you, and it conveys both what the game wants you to do next in each section and its atmosphere with a professional stroke, and its incredibly admirable. Flawed experience as it is, you cannot take away a good experience by logic alone, and with that I can't help but admire Little Nightmares, reservations be damned.
7.0
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