The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope

Little Hope is the second entry in the Dark Pictures Anthology of horror graphic novels, and pretty much on the same level of lameness as the first entry. There is a very clear stepdown in quality when comparing it to Until Dawn, ranging from the animation quality, to the writing, to game feel.

This game feels terrible to play, at least with mouse and keyboard. It works on a point and click step up, without the ability to control the camera, and I must say that it gets increasingly frustrating when the characters refuse to move to where you click them. It also gets annoying having to interact with objects in the world, as you need to be right on top of them for the correct prompt to show up.

Visually there is a lot of unintentional humour given how uncanny the facial animations are. The rest of the game is just average and unmemorable.

You really play these games for the story and acting, and in this one I must say that the story isnt anything to write home about and the ending is pretty unsatisfying. The mystery just isnt that interesting or spooky to uncover, and you are exposed to a lot of bad attempts at old english dialogue. The voice actors seem to put some effort in, but thats just not enough to carry the whole experience.

I cant really recommend this one.

kinda boring. stayed for will poulter tho

“Little Hope” has slightly better dialogues and a way more compelling atmosphere than the previous “Man of Medan”. The foggy abandoned town reminded me of “Silent Hill”, and despite the jump scares being pretty ridiculous, there were moments of tension along the way. The infamous plot twist at the end wasn’t as terrible as everyone says, but I agree that it doesn’t combine well with a game where the player’s choices are supposed to matter. Keeping everyone alive felt rather worthless.

I said I expected the stilted dialogue and overall lesser consequences compared to Until Dawn to stick around for the entire Dark Pictures saga when I completed Man of Medan, and Little Hope lived down to those expectations. The character writing plain never makes any sense, with characters randomly going from stoic to scared to boisterous and heroic at the flip of a switch. It seems that in trying to account for all outcomes, they just threw every possible character combination into one playthrough. The pacing is also, like Man of Medan, lifeless and just drifts from one repetitive setpiece to the next, arguably moreso here as nothing seems to happen for hours at a time.

It feels like the whole game was built around a late-game twist that changes everything, and while it's a bit more interesting than Medan's big reveal of the source of the danger, it undercuts the very idea of playing the game again for a different ending. The psychological scope of the twist will probably make this game more appealing in the long run, but actually sitting through Little Hope is a big chore. Even the conveyance of the plot itself isn't all that great, which is a shame because all the backdrops are once again very interesting, with supernatural mysticism clashing with contemporary politics, but it just doesn't add up to much when the controller is in your hands.