Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 Review
Played on Xbox One (base)
Developed by Scott Cawthon, Scottgames, Clickteam
Released 11th November 2014
After the success of Five Nights At Freddy's, a sequel was quite inevitable. The immense success of the original was so grand that it only took a month's time for Scott Cawthon to confirm a sequel was in the works. As the trailer dropped in October, Cawthon handed out a special demo to certain YouTubers like Markiplier, however, this seemed to complicate things as it resulted in the game releasing a month earlier, and the half-baked nature is quite visible in the final product.
Story
The story of this game further expands on the rich and subtle storytelling that the first game debuted with. You can be impressed by the level of detail that went into the story within the first few minutes of your playthrough. FNAF2 is when the series first struck a goldmine of mystery and theories, getting people to debate whether this game is a sequel or a prequel (and that's just the tip of the iceberg). Once again you are hired as a guard working the night shift from 12 am to 6 am. At first, it may seem like you're there to stop intruders and odd occurrences from happening but that's just a ploy for you to be attacked and hunted by the now roaming animatronics of the pizza chain establishment, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Once again, the game manages to nail the environmental storytelling to a peak, with the creepy imagery from the cameras, to the subtle drawings and details hidden among the animatronics. This once again leads to theories and verdicts to be concluded all while leaving questions unanswered and creating a thirst for a sequel.
Gameplay
The gameplay has both improved and downgraded from the original, simultaneously. The improvements include the game having a greater number of micromanagement in order to survive, testing your skills at dealing with the now numerous animatronics: a mask that wards off certain animatronics while leaving you vulnerable to others, and winding a music box to keep an unstoppable animatronic from coming after you, are all interesting features.
The downgrade includes the unnecessary difficulty spike that ruins the immersion of this game. While it only took me 5 attempts to beat nights 4 and 5, that was mostly due to my luck and the RNG (Random Number Generation) of those attempts. You barely have the chance to soak up any appreciation for the environment when you're getting jump-scared left, right and centre, but even those get repeated so much that the flavour and impact of the jumpscare became oversaturated, inadvertently ruining the element of the scare for the rest of the series. The game can be seen as so hard that not many people make it past night 2 as you're expected to of mastered the game's mechanics at that point and adapt to the new troubles thrown at you.
While you're being panicked and stressed (which the game does a fantastic job at doing), you're forced to ignore the phone guy's calls which offer story and gameplay advice that was enjoyable to listen to in the first title. However, if you look past the intense challenge, the game manages to once again make you feel vulnerable for the demonic-esque supernaturals to come at you, deceiving you with great audio and design. Even though it may seem safer now that you have a brightly lit office, the lack of doors to block these "things" coming after you is a terrifying execution. Finally, to replace the energy-consuming infrastructure of your office, you're simply now equipped with a flashlight that, when depleted, will have you succumb to the attacks of Mangle and Foxy.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere is nowhere near as chilling or frightening as the first game. It makes you feel (somewhat) safe by residing in a well-lit room and having an easy view to see incoming threats, whereas the first game makes you tense and clenched through the whole experience. The only fright and terror you'll experience are the jump scares, which as I said, become obnoxious very quickly. While the sound design and creativity of the animatronics look to blossom with great attention to detail and care when making them, the rest isn't. Other than the well-detailed backgrounds in the cameras, everything is nowhere near as scary, giving you no chance to see certain animatronics' horrifying glare into the cameras as you are too preoccupied with not dying and focusing purely on one camera. This removes the tension and atmosphere the first game built up.
Story- 7.5/10
Gameplay- 5/10
Atmosphere- 5/10
Subpar
It feels like the success of the first game got to Cawthon's head too much and resulted in a successful attempt to fuel theories but a significant drop in both mechanical and horror experiences.
