The British studio Supermassive Games could confuse the slightly inattentive reader with the overseas Supergiant Games, but the similarity ends with the name. While the other nominees release one seed after another (the last time they shone with a practically flawless hit Hades), in the case of Supermassive, the performances are contradictory at best.
After a number of smaller and larger projects at PS Vita, the development team flashed with success Until Dawn from 2015, which, however, was followed by years of not very successful experimentation. Who will remember today the rail shooter from the world of Until Dawn for PSVR, or the cooperative detective adventure Hidden Agenda on the dead platform Playlink? About a completely appalling another attempt to follow the mythology of Until Dawn with the VR title The Inpatient they don’t talk in decent company, just like the cooperative tactical shooter Bravo Team.
After a series of trials (and especially mistakes), the studio decided to return to the genre that brought it the most success, and announced the new brand The Dark Pictures, a kind of anthology of several unrelated haunting stories in the style of Until Dawn.
Last year we could taste the first part with the subtitle Man of Medan, which unfortunately did not reach the qualities of Until Dawn. Year after year has come together and Supermassive is entering with a second episode bearing an eloquent title Little Hope. A disparate group of heroes in need, a town with a dark past, witch trials, all this is supposed to entertain you for some 5 to 6 hours and, moreover, inspire you to go through other decisions again and again.
Little Hope, like its predecessor or the repeatedly mentioned Until Dawn, is primarily an interactive film. Playing itself is slow and is largely limited to elections in interviews, or quick-time events in more action-packed passages.
Otherwise, you will walk slowly around and look for a handful of active objects that can reveal something from the story background, or provide a brief insight into the future and warn you of possible dangers. In terms of gameplay, Little Hope does not differ significantly from previous genre iterations of Supermassive Games.
Where have I just seen it?
Although I remembered Until Dawn in the previous paragraphs, when playing Little Hope, a completely different game brand came to mind most often – Silent Hill. It’s hard to say whether the developers pay homage to her with their new work or steal it from dust, but there are a lot of points of contact: directly the plot, but also those related to the overall atmosphere or the concept of strange monsters in the deserted town (another similarity !) are lurking.
Little Hope quotes directly from Konami’s famous saga in many ways. The journey by bus (Downpour) is disrupted by the discovery of a little girl (the first Silent Hill), who apparently hides a dark secret and is constantly running away from you (again Silent Hill 1, but also Homecoming). The journey from the broken bus through the impenetrable fog and forest really VERY strongly evoked the initial journey of James Sunderland (Silent Hill 2) and I could go on, for example to a mysterious dark foreigner, who this time does not have a postal uniform, but is more than cryptic.
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There was no dark order in Little Hope, but in order for the town to gain the stigma of a curse, the Puritan witch trials that took place here in the 17th century were enough. The problems are due to the whole of local history, and when the five main characters arrive, it is long abandoned, because after the collapse of the local textile factory, there is simply no reason for the inhabitants to stay here.
Who Will Survive: New England Edition
Our group of university students, who went on a school trip under the guidance of their professor, comes to the cards dealt in this way. Get ready for the archetypes themselves: a slightly neurotic teacher with leadership tendencies, a restrained short-haired coquette, a seemingly silent young man (in the role of Will Poulter known from Revenant, for example), a tall boy with a techtle and a whole ensemble closed by 48-year-old Angela who decided to complete her education on her old knees.
Although each character has a certain possibility of development, unlockable character traits and a system of mutual relations with others, I cannot say that I would especially like any of them. Following in the footsteps of its predecessors, Little Hope has the ability to tell a story regardless of whether a character dies (or all die), and it has not happened to me that I intentionally try to get someone out of the mess.
Two heroes didn’t make it to the end. In the first case, the unchecked last sequence in the quick-time event is to blame, which resulted in a very painful penetration of the eyeball through the metal rod, but in the second case I unfortunately had to do something in the distant past because I didn’t even get a chance save. It froze me mainly because the second death occurred at the very end.
So yes, the deaths of the characters can hurt, even though, as I wrote, I didn’t have an inner relationship with them. And they didn’t have him either. I don’t know if the screenwriters planned to portray the protagonists as a group of emotionally depraved cynics, but when the monster massacres a friend in front of the girl’s eyes, to whom half of the game has been intimately cuddled
The overall impression is saved at least a little by the complete conclusion, which can surprise.
In general, sometimes group interactions are truly bizarre. Well, something could be attributed to genre clichés (the characters resemble their situation to horror movies, but they themselves make absolutely classic mistakes), but I repeatedly tapped my forehead while playing, because I simply didn’t trust the heroes’ behavior.
Time is to blame
The whole story revolves around the interweaving of time planes, the repetition of events throughout history and the discovery of one’s own inner demons. While wandering around the city, the heroes see scenes from the processes of the 17th century, in which their perfect doubles figure, but they themselves have the opportunity to influence events, and quite possibly help themselves out of a difficult situation.
But I can’t help the impression that the whole dark past of witch hunts would be much better exploited. The interesting character of the fanatical reverend will never reach a satisfactory development, a number of questions will remain unanswered and the resolution of the historical line absolutely lacks a point and a peak. The overall impression is saved at least a little by the complete conclusion, which can surprise and the pieces of the puzzle fit into the right places thanks to it.
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But I’m sorry about the way they handle horror elements in Supermassive. An old well-known lesson says that as soon as you show the viewer evil in all its beauty, it will cease to be afraid of it, and this time the authors could not stay in control long enough. The game works best at the beginning and in hints, when we see only a part of each demon of the past, from some effective camera angle.
After that, Little Hope relies too plainly on simple traps for my taste. You will see the grimaceous face of a zombified woman in a period hat so many times that it starts to bother you. The game is not a sophisticated mysterious thriller, much more reminiscent of classic slasher. Nevertheless, I must praise the design of evil beings and regret with one breath that they have not been treated better.
Action only after bites
The authors also showed creative impotence in action passages. For example, a simple escape on asphalt was phased into slow cuts, which also switch between the two characters. Escape from the infernal threat could pump blood adrenaline, but this should not be limited to simply alternating the pressing of two buttons, for which you always have an unreasonably generous time limit. Conversely, analogs are, of course, inaccurate just when you have to move the crosshairs to a marked place on the screen in a limited time to, for example, drag a naughty man with a hammer.
In addition to the fact that the playable sequences are practically constantly interrupted by animations, you also have several intermezzo repetitions in a kind of library of stories, where the Curator evaluates your progress so far, and even offers you some advice and help. Unfortunately, he lacks the charisma of Peter Stormare, who edited the role of a psychiatrist in Until Dawn. In addition, these moments have an effect that I have professionally called the “story line in Assassin’s Creed from the present” – more than anything, it arouses anger and exclamation in me: “Let me back!”
Not to be negative, thanks to the successful graphics and the game with flashlight lights, you manage to enchant a decent atmosphere, and if you sometimes like to relax with popcorn horror movies (like me), you will probably have fun for those few hours. After all, I also want to go back to Little Hope one more time and try to deliberately choose a different one to see how much the story punishes me for it. During the first pass, I went very confidently and at first glance the best route usually turned out to be the right one.
The faces of the characters and their facial expressions are definitely worth a compliment, with the exception of the scary little girl Mary, who in that flood of realism creates a slightly mutant impression (unintentionally). But the acting performances in dubbing are rather unforgettable, with the possible exception of Angela, a middle-aged woman who is so annoying and unpleasant that you simply have to look forward to the biting insult she puts out of her mouth next time.
The sum does not inspire Little Hope in any way, but it does not offend me either, and until the current gloomy days it is an interesting pastime, which you can also try out in cooperation. It will be advantageous mainly in the appropriate discount or in the Game Pass, where there is also a Man of Medan.
We already know where Dark Pictures Anthology will go next. Episode House of Ashes He will take us to Afghanistan next year, and judging by the first sample you can watch after finishing Little Hope, the authors have again chosen an interesting material for processing. Maybe for the third time it will finally come out with full parade.
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