#ln vr

This dissection of my thoughts on this game will be divided into sections discussing its varying aspects.

Gameplay

Being a Little Nightmares game, Altered Echoes has you navigating through specific environments, solving puzzles in order to proceed, and avoiding large, hostile enemies as you do so. It very much sticks to the traditional LN formula and executes it in a natural way—one that feels closer to Tarsier's games rather than LN III, thankfully.

The environments and puzzles are each adapted for a VR setting but still have you feeling like a small child exploring a world not made for them and using the environment around them to survive. I'll discuss the aesthetics of the environments later, but they do this having you squeezing between bookshelves, vents, and under tables; in comparison to LN III, which feels less like you weren't made for the world around you and more like convenient openings and passages were constructed specifically with you in mind.

The puzzles are perhaps the game's weakest point, but still stand relatively strong. None of them stumped me to the point of looking up the solution but none of them were boring, either. One of my favorites was in chapter 3: you enter a kitchen setting, complete with a boiling soup on a stove like in LN I. Ingredients you can interact with are scattered on the floor and countertops. I was having fun tossing random objects into the soup before I realized a recipe book was propped up against the wall, with pictures of specific ingredients drawn out and pointing to a drawing of the pot of soup. Putting them into it caused a Resident in the next room to burst in through a service window, distracting them and allowing me to progress safely. It wasn't a complicated puzzle by any means, but it was fun and made great use of VR's ability to have you pick up and throw digital objects. In fact, many of Altered Echoes' puzzles make use of the fact that you're playing a VR game—having you pick up, move, and interact with objects in ways that feel unique and more immersive in a VR setting.

One very notable downside of this is that a lot of the game's puzzles involve cranks. A majority of the chapters had at least one puzzle involving you turning a crank to raise or (sometimes) lower an object. Oftentimes part of the puzzle was locating the handle of the crank first—which isn't a bad thing by any means, but it is quite repetitive and gets stale fast, especially when the game doesn't have that many puzzles to begin with. I will admit, turning the big cranks in VR is fun, but I really would've liked to see more creative or thought-provoking puzzles other than "find the handle and turn the crank to open up the way forward".

If you play LN games for the puzzles, this may not be the game for you—both because of this repetitiveness, and the fact that puzzles simply aren't the game's focus. A very large majority of Altered Echoes is simply navigating environments and sneaking around monsters. In order to illustrate this, I'd like to go through each chapter of the game and discuss not only my personal thoughts on each one, but their individual strengths and weaknesses. Note that the names I'll be using for each are unofficial.

Chapter 1 — The Tower

This chapter serves more-or-less as the tutorial for the game. You navigate through the Signal Tower trying to find Six, learning the basic mechanics of the game (crouching, running, grabbing and throwing objects, climbing, etc). I would argue the only proper puzzles here are the same door + music puzzles from LN II's Tower chapter, but that doesn't make the gameplay lackluster. It is such a treat getting to revisit the Signal Tower, especially in VR; you really get to feel how disorienting and strange it is when you turn a corner you had passed earlier, only for the hallway to have changed. There are some segments that bring back the Petrifying Eyes from prior games, and they're perfectly fine. Exactly what you'd expect from those sorts of sections.

I also quite enjoy how the Signal Tower and the Thin Man are infamous as the final portions of LN II, but here they serve as an apt introduction to the game. The Thin Man being a slow, confident pursuer allows the player to get a proper feel for how future chase sequences will work, while also making room for how slow moment is in VR. It's incredibly smart and works very well.

Chapter 2 — The School

It makes complete sense why, out of all of LN II's bosses (besides the Thin Man), they would choose to bring back the Teacher. She is just as terrifying as ever. The first time she killed me, it scared me so badly I was locked in a hunched-over pose for about a minute. ...Whether that makes me a pussy or this chapter a great horror experience is up to you.

Altered Echoes does a great job at making the school feel like it did in LN II, but there's definitely some things missing. You do go through different hallways and rooms of the school (one of which IS a classroom with the Teacher teaching), but the second half of the chapter is almost entirely spent in a library. I didn't mind this while playing—and maybe it's because I didn't do chapter 2 in one sitting—but looking back I do wish there was a bit more environmental variety in the second half of the chapter. It isn't anything devastating or game-breaking, though.

The bullies are also inexplicably dead? There are dozens of them everywhere but all their heads are smashed in. Again, not a huge issue or anything, but it was strange walking around the school and watching the floorboards and lockers for traps, only to find none. It does also make sense all the bullies would be dead given the scene likely takes place in Six's subconscious and/or memories, but still something to note.

This chapter has what felt like a large emphasis on climbing, which was very fun. It was such a blast climbing up bookshelves and ropes to progress and avoid the Teacher. The chase sequence at the end of the chapter is also almost entirely climbing, with the Teacher pursuing you with her long neck as you climb up an impossibly large tower of books in a massive room. It's one of my favorite moments in the game! Likely one of my favorite moments in the series, too. I'm unsure if it's as scary as the original Teacher chase sequence—though it is absolutely terrifying—but man was it cool.

Chapter 3 — The Train

This is, in my opinion, the weakest chapter by a significant margin. The chapter begins with you navigating through an empty train station, before boarding a train (which you summon by setting the time on the station's clock through a simple but neat little puzzle)—which is the bulk of the chapter.

The train is extremely linear. You travel from the rear to the front of the train, going from room to room in a straight line. While, yeah this makes sense—you're on a train—it does get old REALLY fast. This is also where a majority of the cranks are in the game and is, unfortunately, the reason they become so repetitive. Quite a few of the train doors have you turn a crank to open them. This is fine in itself, I had fun doing it, but becomes a problem when a lot of your other puzzles also use cranks.

The Conductor is also not an intimidating threat, I'm sorry. His design is neat and I enjoy the way he moves (big lizard!!!!!!), but he's not a scary or innovating LN enemy. I'm alright with an enemy not being scary, but I'm not okay with a huge crawling monster not noticing me as I hide under a table standing alongside the corridor he's patrolling up and down. He also has very little character beyond being a "boss". The Doctor in LN II took care of his patients as you navigated the hospital, and the Teacher not only taught students but played piano; the Conductor does nothing beyond patrol train cars up and down, crawl in and out of vents to enter and exit rooms, and chase you at the end of the chapter. I payed attention to environmental details to see if that told me anything about him too, and as far as I could tell there weren't any.

I do quite like how you have to crawl under seats where Residents are resting, though. It was very tense sneaking around and being unsure if your movements would cause one of them to wake up. This is also the chapter where the aforementioned kitchen puzzle happens, so I have to give it props for that.

The chapter ends with a Conductor chase sequence that's... hmm. I can't in good faith call it "bad", but I do think it fails as a traditional LN chase. It is, however, absolutely fucking hilarious. This monster slowly crawls after you on the top of a TRAIN while you run forward and dodge street signs and similar obstacles. When you reach the engine, you detach it from the rest of the train cars and the Conductor just. Kinda stands there angrily and watches you speed away. In my heart it's a top tier chase sequence, even if it's not an accurate LN one.

Chapter 4 — The Mansion

This is my favorite chapter in the game I think. The train scared me with how the quality of the rest of the game's original settings and bosses would be, but the Mansion was a BLAST to navigate. Waking up in a red room immediately tells you the kind of Resident you'll be dealing with; and lo and behold, moments later you meet them by watching them eviscerate a Nome by taking a picture of it. Absolutely fantastic introduction.

Speaking of which, this chapter has Nomes. Immediately elevates it above the others.

I love pretty much everything about the Naturalist. Their design feels straight out of Very Little Nightmares or the first comics. The way their steps make a heartbeat noise, their breathing sounds, the way their hunched back shuffles and moves in ways it shouldn't when they stop moving, the way they have traps set out everywhere as a means of catching Nomes—it's all great. I genuinely think my only complaint would be how their movement feels less like they're looking for Nomes and more like generic enemy movement? It isn't bad enough that I can't look past it, however.

The big mechanic with this chapter is using matches to light up your surroundings to avoid bear traps and trip-ropes with bells on them. It's certainly not the first time a LN game has had you navigate a dark space, but MAN is it fun. Having to physically hold the matchbox and strike the matches against them feels AMAZING. You can also throw matches to intentionally set off bear traps, which is incredibly satisfying. Sneaking around in a dark environment while the enemy threatens to kill you with a flash of light is so smart, and it's very well executed here.

Chapter 5 — The Music Box

There's not a ton going on gameplay-wise in this chapter, but god did this section blow me away. You repeatedly navigate through the innards of the music box before reaching Monster Six at the end, who flees from you. Each time you navigate the section it becomes more distorted and difficult to traverse. A big part of navigation is climbing onto the cylinder of the music box as it's rotating, and avoiding the comb plucking at it by moving up or down. It's incredible. The moment I realized I was quite literally inside the music box was such a standout moment for me.

I'll discuss the story aspects of this chapter later, which is a large portion of it unfortunately. Instead I want to quickly mention the "chase" sequence at the end of the chapter, since it's easily one of the best moments in the game. You pursue Six down a distorted, warped path transitioning through the areas of Altered Echoes in reverse order, with shadow versions of Monster Six's arms reaching out and attacking you as you run. Story-wise it's a standout moment, but from a gameplay perspective it was great! It's an excellent test of all your movement skills acquired, requiring you to quickly react to moving objects and climb over things. A couple of moments had me stuck as I was unsure where to go or just didn't move fast enough, but I don't think that detracts from it—especially since, during the former, I did feel a little stupid for not figuring out the intended path. This sequence felt like a perfect way to cap off the game and I'm very impressed by it.

Lore

Pretty much all of this game's lore relevance is left completely up to interpretation. Major events will occur that have implications about the Cycle or Dark Six's existence, but the specifics of such are unknown.

To a lot of people who are deep into LN lore this might be disappointing. Personally, I LOVE this; especially after LN III's heavy ties to The Sounds of Nightmares. I would argue the cutscenes and "lore moments" in particular strongly show off that the developers of Altered Echoes really understood what made LN I and II so phenomenal. Yes, the games have lore, but ultimately each of the games are representative of a bigger theme, a bigger message. A lot of the games' scenes never explained things directly because the details of the lore wasn't what was important (for example: we don't know why the Cycle exists, just that Mono has a key role in it). Among many things, LN II is about cycles of abuse and how Mono perpetuates his. However you interpret it Altered Echoes very much feels like it's about Six's half of that same cycle, as well as how trauma influences peoples' actions, relationships with others, and their sense of self.

Having its scenes be vague and up to interpretation is also a brilliant way of adding onto Six's story while not disrupting the integrity of Tarsier's games. It allows players to decide for themselves how the narrative fits into their perception of LN I and II's story—changing canon without actually changing canon. I genuinely think this was the perfect way to respect Tarsier's vision with Six and Mono while still adding onto existing Little Nightmares' stories.

Scenery

This game NAILS the LN feel and artstyle. I mentioned earlier that the game excels at making you feel small; I don't think simple videos of this game quite capture how huge everything is. It almost completely shifts my perspective on previous games and makes Six, RK, Mono, Low, and Alone feel MUCH smaller. The world around you has that exact same feeling previous games have of being familiar, but incredibly wrong.

This combined with the accurate recreation of LN's artstyle had me spending a lot of my playthrough just looking around and taking in the environment. It really does fit right in with prior games in that regard. Even the brand new environments—the train station, train, and mansion—feel straight out of a Tarsier LN game. They're captivating but haunting in the perfect way. It's a blast just walking around and really feeling like you're in the Nowhere thanks to VR.

Music

I'll keep this section short, since I have yet to listen to the music outside of the game. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the music of this game! Some tracks from LN II are reused in this game, but even the new tracks really caught my attention. I really liked the track that plays while sneaking around the Naturalist! The theme that plays during the game's final chase sequence was also such a cool composition; the way it changes to reflect each of the prior chapters is INCREDIBLE. The music throughout the game had me questioning a handful of times if Tobias Lilja was the composer for this game.

Final Thoughts

I know the game is still new and not very many people have access to VR headsets to play it for themselves, but it saddens me not more people are talking about this game. It's really evident the developers of this game put a lot of care into it and took the time to make it a title that respects LN II while still bringing something new to the table. Altered Echoes is just a great game. Perfect? No. A good sign after LN III? Undoubtedly. It's some of the most fun I've had with the series, at least in a long while. It's scary, it's thought-provoking, and it does an excellent job at putting you directly into the Nowhere via VR.