“Little Nightmares III” from Supermassive Games and Bandai Namco is a puzzle platformer game set in a surrealist world of dreams and nightmares. Players take on the roles of Low and Alone as they set out to overcome fears from the real world represented in twisted, horrific forms in the dream world. 

This was my first time playing a “Little Nightmares” game, and initially, I had a false idea of what this series was. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this is not straightforward jump-scare blood-and-gore horror, which so many games are these days. It’s a tense exploration of the fears of a mistreated child experienced through engaging world design and intuitive puzzles — wrapped in a nice six-hour package. My favorite part of the game was the world itself; it’s an expertly crafted atmosphere that completely draws you in, and it’s far less scary than I had anticipated. (Though there’s some spider characters I was not okay with — but “Little Nightmares III” managed to actually scare me, which is awesome.) 

For the most part, I was able to breeze through this game and take it in at a comfortable pace. But every now and then, I got stuck. The problem is that every stray object looks like it could be the solution to a puzzle. I needed the game’s accessibility features more than once to figure things out, which was a first for me. There were also times when I just had no direction of where to go or what the game expected of me, and I spent way too much time on trial and error to be having fun. But I had these issues only a few times, and they didn’t really take away from my overall enjoyment of the game. 

I wish I could switch between characters. In single player mode, you pick a character at the beginning and are stuck with them the whole way through. While the NPC (nonplayer character) that controls the other character is useful and demonstrates how to solve some puzzles without being annoying, Low and Alone have unique abilities, and I would have liked the chance to play as both in one playthrough. 

“Little Nightmares III” was not what I expected, and now I want to go back and play the first games in this series. It’s not perfect, but it’s a nice, short experience that many players will appreciate.