Last ‘Freddy’ adds little

By: Cody Hood

The little child stares around with his flashlight in an attempt to find the monsters that have been haunting him. Running to his closet, he searches inside, finding that familiar monstrous fox jumping at him. The child slams the closet shut, waiting with each fear-inducing second. When he hears footsteps from the left side, he sprints over and unhesitantly turns on his light, showing the withered, animatronic bunny as it rises him in the air to end his life.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s 4” is the final chapter in the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” franchise, made by a man by the name of Scott Cawthon. The game costs $7.99 and goes back to its roots, creating a much more atmospheric environment with much more than just the jumpscares the franchise has grown to be known for.

The story takes place in various areas, following a boy that’s tormented by his brother in some way every day.

The gameplay takes place in a nightmare-filled version of the child’s bedroom with doors on both sides acting as ways for two of the four monstrous animatronics to get through. The other two are in two different locations: one is hidden in the closet in the front of the room, and one is located on the bed in the back of the room. It is impossible to fight the animatronics directly, so the only thing to do is to actively stop them from intruding inside of the room. Should one get inside, the animatronic that got in will grab the player and scream loudly, resulting in a Game Over.

The game relies incredibly heavily on sound, using the animatronic’s breathing at the doors as a way to hear them and take appropriate action. The two that do not come to the doors must be directly seen by using the flashlight to spot them on the bed and in the closet.

One of the positives of the game is a very deep story. It spans across all of the games that have been made thus far. It’s vague enough to leave questions to the players and for theories to be made, but still specific enough to understand what’s going on at any given time if players are to look deep enough into the story.

Another positive is the intensely frightening atmosphere. The game has a dark, quiet atmosphere that contrasts to the extremely loud jump scares in the game. The hallways are dark, even if light is shone into them, and there’s always a sense of the darkness creeping around the corners of the eyesight that add a sense of tunnel vision to the game’s perspective.

A negative to the game are the jumpscares themselves. The jumpscares are loud to the point of being deafening, causing my ears to actually ring when it occurs. I find them to never get old, though, since the dark atmosphere really brings up tension to the sudden and swift jumpscare.

Another negative is the amount of similarities to the first game. It feels as if Cawthon is trying too hard to bring back what the Five Nights at Freddy’s players enjoy, and in the process ramped up the game’s difficulty and added some mechanics to make the game more stressing to the player. It can get to a point where a player can actually get angry at the amount he/she will have to do at some points, especially on the dreaded 20/20/20/20 mode, the hardest mode in all of the games.

From my personal opinion, the game is good, but it feels like the first game along with a few extra mechanics to watch and take care of. It’s a great game for the diehard Five Nights at Freddy’s players, but, otherwise, I would buy the first game, as it is cheaper and less stressing.

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