Little Hope is the second entry in The Dark Pictures Anthology, meaning it’s a horror adventure game that plays largely the same as Man of Medan and Until Dawn. Gameplay segments are mainly divided into exploration and cutscenes. In exploration segments you walk around the environment, searching for clues to help you out of your predicament. In cutscenes you make dialogue choices and perform quick-time events.
As with the previous games in the series, you control one character at a time, but the character you control changes from scene to scene. This gives you a taste of everyone and helps foster a connection with each of the characters without getting to invested in any single one since, as a horror game, the characters can die.
I wouldn’t call Little Hope a branching narrative, but “variating” narrative. In every playthrough the same scenes will play out in the same order, but they will vary depending on the choices you make and events that happen—such as allowing a character to die. The game is designed to accommodate all possible variations, meaning you can make it to the end no matter what happens. The ending may not be a good one, but you’ll get there.
Little Hope is a horror game, so the world is working against you. Unlike a visual novel where you get to make explicit choices, decisions in Little Hope are much more obscure, which is where a lot of the magic comes from. There are a lot of choices you need to make in the game, and a lot of them don’t matter—but they camouflage the choices that do. This means that you always need to be on your toes and consider your actions, since you don’t know what sort of effects they’ll have.
While I generally liked Little Hope, there are two main sticking points: the ending, and the comparison to Man of Medan.
The ending is abrupt and unsatisfying from both a narrative and a gameplay perspective. It’s almost like the game is missing its final act. You reach a certain location, and it feels like the game is gearing up for a big climax… and then it throws a big twist at you and ends. Normally you’d expect some grand fight or escape, but the “climax” is just a series of dialogue choices. And I think something like that can certainly be pulled off, but in Little Hope it feels like just another cutscene; it’s missing the gravitas of a climax. (There is a climax for the action sequences, but it happens before the narrative climax so you don’t realize what it was until the game is already over.) In terms of the story, the ending could be viewed as invalidating the entire narrative, and hits a bit too close to what they did in Man of Medan.
Which ties into the other point, Man of Medan. To put it (perhaps a bit too) bluntly, Little Hope feels like a downgrade, mainly in scope. Little Hope is shorter and doesn’t have any branching paths. Man of Medan uses the co-op features of the game to do a few cool things, but Little Hope never takes advantage of co-op to do anything interesting. It feels like Supermassive wanted to make a great first impression and so put all their neat ideas in Man of Medan, and so had to make Little Hope a straightforward game because they had no ideas left. As a straightforward horror game Little Hope is fine, but it’s a bit disappointing that it didn’t employ any neat tricks the way that Man of Medan did.
Unfortunately, those two main points aren’t the only issues with the game. The character writing is a bit inconsistent. As the characters proceed through the town, they see visions of witch trials that occurred in the late 1600s, with most accusations caused by a little girl. The group often discusses whether they think the girl is at fault or not (whether she’s intentionally and maliciously making false accusations, or doesn’t realize the gravity of what she’s doing and/or is being manipulated), but characters often flip-flop between whether they trust or distrust the girl, sometimes in the same scene. Part of this is unavoidable, since you get to make dialogue choices (so if a character says they trust the girl in a cutscene, and then in a dialogue choice you make the character say that they think the girl is evil, you can’t really blame the game for that), but a lot of instances occur automatically without your input. Another time near the beginning, a character remarks that their situation is just like a horror movie… and then immediately suggests that they split up. And that characters continues to want to split up even when another character points out that that’s how people get killed in horror movies. I understand that consistent character writing can be difficult in a “variating” narrative structure, I think they could have done a better job than they did.
My last complaint ties to a gameplay mechanic that’s a bit of a spoiler. I’m not sure I can discuss it at all without violating my spoiler policy, since even the fact that it has gameplay effects isn’t clear to someone coming into the game completely blind, so the next two paragraphs will be rot-13. (On the other hand, this mechanic ties into how the ending is determined, and since Little Hope doesn’t have much replay value, perhaps it is helpful to be “spoiled”. Either way, it’s up to you.)
Gur Qnex Cvpgherf Nagubybtl tnzrf unir n “genvg” flfgrz jurer rnpu punenpgre unq n frevrf bs genvgf, juvpu ner nssrpgrq ol gur pubvprf lbh znqr juvyr pbagebyyvat gung punenpgre. Genvgf anghenyyl nccrne naq tebj fgebatre ol znxvat pubvprf pbeerfcbaqvat gb gung genvg, naq tebj jrnxre naq qvfnccrne ol znxvat pubvprf bccbfvat gung genvg. Zl haqrefgnaqvat vf gung gur genvgf nssrpg gur “pubvprf” rnpu punenpgre znxrf juvyr lbh qba’g pbageby gurz va fbyb cynl (fb gurl qba’g unir nal rssrpg va pb-bc, fvapr nabgure cynl jvyy or znxvat gubfr pubvprf). Ohg Yvggyr Ubcr rkcnaqf hcba guvf jvgu “ybpxrq” genvgf, juvpu ner erprvirq sbe znxvat pregnva pubvprf ohg pnaabg or erzbirq ol abezny zrnaf. Gur zber ybpxrq genvgf n punenpgre unf, gur gbhture guvatf ner sbe gurz. Arne gur raq bs gur tnzr, rnpu punenpgre vf cerfragrq jvgu n pregnva pubvpr jurer znxvat gur pbeerpg qrpvfvba jvyy pyrne nyy bs gurve ybpxrq genvgf.
Juvyr V yvxr gur vqrn bs gur ybpxrq genvgf, gurve vzcyrzragngvba vf n ovg gbb funyybj. Creuncf gur pheerag vgrengvba bs gur tnzr qbrfa’g unir rabhtu ehagvzr sbe guvf fbeg bs rkrphgvba, ohg engure guna n fvatyr pubvpr gb pyrne nyy ybpxrq genvgf, V ernyyl jvfu rnpu ybpxrq genvg unq gb or pnapryyrq jvgu n eryrinag qrpvfvba. Sbe vafgnapr, n “terrql” genvg jbhyq arrq gb or haybpxrq jvgu n pubvpr gung qvfcynlf frysyrffarff, be n “pbjneqyl” genvg jbhyq arrq gb or haybpxrq ol fubjvat pbhentr. Nf vg fgnaqf, gur ybpxrq genvgf whfg fubj jurgure be abg lbh znqr gur “pbeerpg” qrpvfvba ng gur pevgvpny whapgher, jvgubhg glvat vagb gur fhofgnapr bs gur genvgf ng nyy—zrnavat, zrpunavpnyyl, gur ragver ybpxrq genvg flfgrz pbhyq or ercynprq jvgu n fvzcyr fgbel synt, whfg yvxr rirel bgure pubvpr va gur tnzr. Nf V fnvq rneyvre, gur genvg flfgrz vf onfvpnyyl cbvagyrff va zhygvcynlre fb V guvax vg’f n tbbq nern sbe gur tnzr gb gel gb rkcnaq, ohg guvf vzcyrzragngvba vf fgvyy n ovg gbb onfvp.
But, as I said earlier, I generally liked Little Hope. You have a semi-dysfunctional group of people navigating a spooky, abandoned town while being chased by monsters. While it would’ve been nice if the game had stuck the landing, the atmosphere and aesthetic alone are enough to make the experience enjoyable, and the threat of consequences for your actions (generally, not just the potential of immediate death) constantly looming over your head keeps things tense and engaging. The monster design is pretty neat, and there’s even one monster that has two forms that can show up, depending on your choices.
Co-op narrative adventure horror games are not particularly common, and if you’re interested in them I think you’ll have a good time with Little Hope, but it won’t draw you in if you’re on the fence. Even if there are issues with the ending, the journey to it is still enjoyably dark and spooky, at least providing one (but probably only one) solid playthrough.
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