October 22, 2025 • 54 mins
On this episode of The Old SwitchAroo: Lite Switch, we take a break from our usual quest to cover all 300+ games in the Nintendo Classics catalog to explore the horrific secrets of the Little Nightmares series with Twitch's RiRiYells!
We explore the obscurest regions of Mike's horror movie collection, draw parallels between Six and the demons she fights, and theorize the ways the latest entry, Little Nightmares 3, could come to a chilling end!
Be sure to check out Riri on Twitch and tune in at the end of October to watch her and Jaymo roll credits for the first time on Little Nightmares 3!)
Find RiRiYells on Twitch: https://twitch.tv/ririyells
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I don't know where my Genesis could be.
I haven't seen my Super Nintendosince 2003.
That's all right. I don't mind.
I've got a Switch in the old Twitch room.
(00:22):
My friend Mike and Jamo too. And I'm going to say welcome
back to the old Switcheroo wherewe're talking gaming retro with
Mike and Jamo. I'm Mike.
And I'm Jamo in this episode of the old Switcheroo Light Switch.
Instead of our normal focus on the over 300 retro games
available on Nintendo Classics, we are celebrating Spoopy Ween
(00:44):
2025 with a special episode all about a one-of-a-kind horror
series available on the NintendoSwitch.
Bandai Namco's Little Nightmaresin an episode we are calling The
Kids aren't All right. Now, Mike, you have very little
familiarity with Little Nightmares, but I believe you
have a long history of survivingscares with our returning
guests. Would you like to reintroduce?
Her. Yeah.
(01:05):
So we're bringing back RiRi. Hi, thanks for having me again.
For surprisingly little Zelda. Yeah, Zelda is forbidden from
the topics. So we're all horror fans, are we
not? Correct.
Yeah. What, what, what, what's your,
(01:25):
what's your flavor of horror like?
Little Nightmares is very much like Tim Burton, kind of spooky,
not scary, as my wife would callit.
And that's her jam. She doesn't like to be
terrified, but she likes to be kind of gently creeped out.
So RiRi, what are some of your favorite franchises?
It's funny that you bring up TimBurton because I'm told when I
(01:45):
saw A Nightmare Before Christmasin theaters as a kiddo I cried.
So that was a bad start to horror.
So I didn't really care for horror until I was an adult.
And I'm going to be painfully honest on the Internet, it
wasn't until I started anti anxiety medication that I could
even watch a horror movie. Interesting.
So when I did, I dove in head first.
(02:06):
I watched the entire Conjuring series in chronological order in
universe with a friend of mine. I started off great, right?
And ever since then, I have justbeen trying to find the best
horror movies. I saw one or two with Mike when
he lived close to me at some very indie Strange Ones, which
(02:28):
also became a fun interest. Right?
Like, it's supposedly a horror movie, but that camp is really
fun. So I really fall into scare the
crap out of me. And also sometimes I want to
laugh. Like, it can go either way,
right? Yeah.
So Mike has a big influence on that for sure.
All right, so Mike, I want, I want your weirdest horror movie
(02:49):
because you are an aficionado atBizarre Horror Movies on DVD.
So unfortunately the first one, I think it was one that I own
but haven't yet watched, which is called I bought a Vampire
Motorcycle. You see, this is the kind of
stuff he introduced me to and I've I've never looked back.
(03:11):
And the fun part is one of the people in that is Anthony
Daniels. 90% of his IMDb is C3POroles.
Right. And this.
What's what? What's the year?
Is it the 70s? I would have to double check I
think. I want to say I think it's 80s.
(03:32):
Wow. And you haven't, you haven't
cracked into that one. You've just been just been
sitting there waiting. Yeah, because there's certain
movies where you find them and you're just like, this needs to
not be by myself. Yes, absolutely.
Like I think the last two that were in that category, one was
more slasher, which is kind of, I don't think of it as horror,
(03:56):
but as close is Psycho Beach party.
OK. Which is basically some
combination of sort of like Gidget and Beach Park, like the
Beach Blanket movies inspired, but then also there's a killer.
OK. It is.
I tried watching like 3 times onmy own.
(04:18):
I get about 3 minutes and be like, right, This is the kind of
movie that I shouldn't watch by myself because this is going to
be fun. Movie night at Mark's house.
We're doing it. Tell me when I'll fly out.
And then the other one was one that has much more reputation,
which is House, which is a, it is a Japanese movie that didn't
(04:40):
make it to the US to like the 2000s, but it's from the 70s, I
think. Mike has all the deep cuts.
Also has a very famous poster amongst people that are into
movie posters for just did this distinct look of like this white
cat and just bright red poster that is basically a group of
(05:05):
schoolgirls go to a house and itdoesn't go well for them.
I've seen this poster. Yeah, Ribi just pulled it up
too. That's that.
Yes. That's so interesting that the
poster is almost more known thanthe film itself.
Wow. I'm actually I'm I'm mad I see
these pictures because this looks like an incredibly weird
movie. So you've seen it and you like
(05:26):
this one? Yeah, I picked that up as a
Criterion Collection. That thing sat around for like a
year until I had the chance to be like, here's the movies to
watch. I'm like, yeah, I'll watch that.
It's like, OK, we're definitely this needs to get watched with
people because I knew it was weird.
Yeah, so my favorite horror gameis Silent Hill Two.
I've mentioned it before on likemy top 20 episodes, but I think
(05:47):
that like Silent Hill 2 has thisgreat sense of atmosphere and it
gets under your skin better thanit like jump scares you.
And I think that Little Nightmares owes a lot to the
Silent Hill in terms of like tension building and
storytelling through the environment, not through like
spoken word, but so for those. Wait, Jamo, wait.
(06:10):
You asked us what our favorite horror movies were?
So on the Record, your favorite horror movie is the second
Silent Hill movie on the underrated podcast, right?
Look, Derek is wrong, OK? Derek, I love you.
I love you, Derek. That movie.
I had to do it. I had.
No, no, I'm glad. I'm glad, you know, let's plug
dance, let's plug Derek's Patreon, sign up on the
(06:30):
Underrated movie podcast Patreon, and hear me defend
Silent Hill to the film because I hated that movie when it came
out and now I am a reluctant defender of it.
That's too funny though. But so I'll.
Defend it with you. That's why I had to do it.
Oh, you like that movie too? Yes.
Oh, I thought the Silent Hill movies were so underrated.
Speaking of underrated. Anyways, another time.
(06:51):
Another time. What's up?
What's your favorite horror gamethen?
Is it this franchise? The first little nightmares is
legendary in the RiRi Yells lore.
That is in fact why I am called RiRi Yells was I?
I had a previous username that was hard for people to say.
So I was thinking of like, what can I make my username that's
(07:12):
easy for somebody to read, right?
Because a lot of streamers are just reading usernames.
And that's the thing you don't think about when you make up a
username is how is somebody going to read this aloud?
So River Yells was a simplified a version and my chat's favorite
thing became that I would yell so much and get scared so much,
(07:32):
and that's why it's gotta be a little nightmare one.
It's the birth of the brand a little bit and.
It was a rebrand, yeah, I guess.And it's funny because like my
memories of little nightmares one and two have become very
much blended together like they're they're it's it's it's
such a kind of one piece in my mind.
So it's a 2.5 D puzzle platformer series in which the
(07:55):
player controls children being pursued by nightmarishly large
adults and otherworldly creatures.
The devs at TARS. How do you say this Really TARS
i.e. R Tarzer Tarsier.
I'm just gonna look it up. Well, that studio cited the
(08:16):
Studio Ghibli film Spirited Awayas a major inspiration,
including the maze like environments, the deformed long
limbed adults, and the themes ofgluttony and neglect.
Mike, you said before you're a Ghibli guy.
I assume you've seen Spirited Away.
Yeah, it's been, it's been a while, but I can kind of see
some of that. Yeah, at least like the visual
language of it. You got it.
Rhode Island, Rhode. Island, Yeah.
(08:37):
So a tarsier is just an animal. So it's a tarsier.
A tarsier? A tarsier studios?
Yep. It's got like big eyes and
stuff. They happened.
I mean, it could be a foreign studio, and it's a different
word too, but there's an animal.Yeah, it's got big eyes.
So anyway, sorry, I had to look it up.
I got to know. Yeah, I wanted to know.
So RiRi, how did you come acrossLittle Nightmares?
(08:59):
Like I just stumbled upon it on the E shop and was like, it's on
sale. This is interesting.
This is like my new favorite thing.
How'd you find it? So I have long been an indie
games fan and when Little Nightmares one came out, it was
it made a quite a bit of buzz inthe games journalism universe as
being this like you have to try this indie game.
It's so different, it's so good.Like it falls into that category
(09:24):
of games as art for a lot of people.
And I would absolutely agree with that.
It is, but it is also so, so scary.
And if you're scared at all, theplatforming becomes very
challenging. The puzzles, you know, you're,
you know, you're freaking out. So it's harder to solve a
puzzle. So it feels a little bit like
haunted house escape room, right?
Which was exactly in line with things that I like to enjoy.
(09:48):
The first time I played it, I gave up.
I had to revisit it to to beat it at one point when I was less
freaked out. And the exact same thing
happened with Little nightmares too on stream.
So there's recordings of this where I got to a section.
I just couldn't do it. I just was too freaked out and I
abandoned it. And then the next spooky month
came around and I tried again and I beat it so.
(10:09):
Wow. I mean, that's awesome you
conquered your demon. I did, I did.
I was brave. I'm so glad that RiRi mentioned
viewing this series of games as art because it has this very
almost claymation look to it. You know, the the polygons are
so wonderfully rounded and kind of have this kind of soft look
to them. And I love, I think the thing
(10:33):
that makes this game so visuallyappealing for me is the camera
angle, because the camera is sort of locked in one spot and
it's it's, it will move, but it's always kind of looking at
you from the same thing. It kind of creates the sensation
of looking into a dollhouse. And you know, if you can imagine
(10:54):
you were playing a dollhouse andyou're controlling what was
running around inside the rooms,but you're always just outside
of it. I think that works thematically.
So well-being these little kids and being pursued by these
really, you know, frightening giant creatures.
Mike, so you've mentioned beforeon the Wild Mouse podcast that a
(11:15):
big appeal of Halloween events for you is the artistry of it.
So you watched Brevi and I play the game.
Did any of that kind of appeal to you?
I. Feel like for me not too much
and I think it's just the style that it goes for is kind.
(11:39):
It feels like it's a lot of sortof grey brown rabbits to me.
Yeah, it's like Corpse Bride. I wish you could have seen some
more of Little Nightmares. One, because there is a little
more color, a little more saturation.
Yeah, I think. And I think unfortunately, you
were watching a very desert beige, right?
(12:00):
Sad beige section. Yeah, for sure.
That's OK. That's OK though, that it wasn't
for you. I do agree with Ribi though.
I think that visually you would be more interested in the other
games in the series. So I have created, or I should
say with the help of Gemini, I feel like I need to say that
created brief summaries of each game.
And so Ribi and I being fans of this, I kind of just wanted to
(12:23):
get her take on each game. So the first game is 6.
A small girl in a yellow raincoat awakens and begins her
escape from the dark depths of the Maw, A sinister ocean
vessel, after evading the sightless long armed janitor.
Who's is this too much? This feels like a lot.
I it's, it's very detailed, Yeah, you could back off on the
(12:44):
minutiae, I guess. Yeah, for sure.
All right. I'm sorry Mike, I forgot we
don't edit these well anyway. That criticism lives forever
now. There we go.
It's in the ether. But anyway, breaks the premise
does that you're this little girl escaping from this kind of
horrific cruise ship where thesegiant gluttonous people are
trying to eat everything. Including you.
(13:07):
They're not very discerning, certainly.
No, no, there's this amazing moment, my standout moment from
Little Nightmares. One was the avalanche of dinner
guests. Oh, absolutely.
The I can see that hallway whereyou're running down and and the
arms just reaching for you. The fat, pudgy, disgusting.
(13:28):
They're hardly even human. They don't look like they're
wearing or they look like they're wearing an Edgar suit,
right? Yeah.
There's all of the characters kind of don't look like their
skin fits right. Yeah, it's just, it's so
visually striking. And I got to that point in the
game, Rhode Island, Rhode Islandwithout realizing you could run.
No. And and that's crazy because
(13:48):
most of this game is escaping. And so at that point I'm like,
oh, this is literally impossible.
What's going Oh my God, has there been a run button?
Because Mike, For context, that's several hours into the
game. That's almost the end.
That's that's the the penultimate kind of level there
before the final boss. Yeah, but I also think like
Little Nightmares is the most interesting from like sort of a
(14:10):
commentary sort of perspective. Oh, there's so much symbolism,
absolutely. It's hard to ignore.
Yeah, they just the the themes of gluttony and the 1% and like,
you know, literally feeding on those that are less fortunate
than you. RiRi, what's your take on the
Lady? The final The final quote UN
quote monster. All right, so spoilers for a
(14:30):
game that's been out for a long time, but I guess if you're
listening to a games podcast, you probably don't care about
spoilers. But at the end of A Little
Nightmare 1, you defeat a seemingly dark magic lady and
you absorb her power, and then you begin to attack the people
that have been attacking you this whole time.
That puts you in this underclasssituation where you're kind of
(14:54):
meat in a lot of ways. They treat you like a snack with
legs. So I, I would say it's an
interesting twist in that the whole time you're playing six
and there's this feeling of I'm just fighting to survive where
I'm in this situation. I can't control it and I'm doing
the best I can to escape. And there are ways to escape.
(15:17):
There's clearly other trapped children that have been where
you are that have helped make escape routes.
Like the ladders look very handmade and they're only going
to fit the little people. They won't fit the people trying
to capture you or eat you, right.
So you're hanging out with the rats and the and the vents and
stuff that that kind of vibe, right.
And then in the end, when you defeat her and you absorb her
(15:39):
power to take over seemingly herposition.
That's pretty. That's a pretty big twist.
That definitely was a jaw on thefloor moment.
Who the lady is and why she doeswhat she does.
Unclear. Was she a previous child as the
cycle just started over? Right.
Don't know, I love that it's left to play your interpretation
(16:01):
though. I think that's part of what the
magic is. And those matrix things like
they, they let one out just to reset things every so often.
A little bit, a little bit. It was intentional, just to see.
But then if one makes it, then that's the new queen of them
all, I guess. I don't know what you would call
her. I don't know if there's more
lore written somewhere to know about that, but the game itself
(16:22):
is very narratively rich. Visually.
There's no text really. There's not much spoken other
than the word hey, I believe. And I think that's what makes it
so intriguing is they can tell us a narrative through
environments and, and they're not relying on a they're telling
(16:46):
you, they're just showing you and letting you kind of form
your own conclusion in a lot of ways.
And it's really cool because every room teaches you a little
bit more about where you are andwhat's happened, and there's not
really a wasted moment. So it really feels like this
kind of interactive story with no real words.
And I love the parallels betweenthe lady and six.
(17:08):
So Mike, the crazy twist in the end of Little Nightmares.
You don't mind if we spoil it, right?
No. OK, so you're playing this
little girl who's fighting to survive, fighting not to get
eaten, but she's also herself getting hit with these really
intense hunger pangs. And they'll get worse and worse
as the game continues. And there's parts that's
genuinely hard to watch because you're watching this little girl
(17:29):
you've grown attached to keel over with hunger.
And so she starts eating questionable things.
She eats raw meat. She eats a live rat and the big
jaw-dropping moment is when she has offered assistance from
these little friendly characterscalled the gnomes.
And this gnome is offering her food and you're like, Oh my
gosh, I know my character is starving and this is such a
(17:51):
precious moment. And she slaps the sausage out of
his hands and goes straight for his neck and just eats him.
And it's like for that moment onright And you're like, now I'm
uncomfortable with the characterI'm protecting.
This is really interesting narratively and kind of those
you've played to the end of Silent Hill too.
(18:11):
You know how interesting it is game wise to have kind of that
unreliable narrator character. But then you know, 6 and the
lady, also visually similar. They both hide their faces.
There's something kind of monstrous underneath, but like
the lady, it's like, did you play the DLC for the first game?
I did. And you played the little boy?
Yes, Zach. What is his name?
(18:34):
I remember. Yeah, well the the Mono was the
kid with the sack in the next game.
That's the next game. See, I I also blur these two
because they're very tied together narratively, one and
two, right? But yeah, the little boy and,
and you see him, it kind of teases him, like you're
separated by bars at one point in the story.
And it kind of seems like you might be able to help each
other, but you can't, can't you just kind of pass by him And in
(18:56):
the DLC you get to play him and experience what he sees and what
he goes through. And, and it is not at all the
same to what 6 experiences whichyou, you're kind of led to
believe that, that all the little people are trying to
escape like 6 because there's these passages that have kind of
been built for you. There's these ways around that.
People have made it this far. Can you go even further?
(19:16):
Who's going to make it all the way out?
And, and when you realize, oh, you were just trying to take
control all the time, that's a, that's a woof.
Is so is is that DLC sort of like a parallel story in that
sense? A little bit.
It's happening simultaneously. It seems to me that's the way I
read it. Kind of like Ender's Game has
(19:37):
the Ender's shadow, which is basically like, here's someone
else's perspective the same timeand you just get a different
angle on it all. Well, and Mike, you'll, you'll
appreciate this twist because I know you'll have a good clever
plot twist like that DLC has maybe the biggest gut punch in
gaming because you are playing and fighting to survive through
this whole time. And then it's revealed in the
(19:57):
final moments of that game that you are the little gnome that
she's about to eat. And so, like, you fought to keep
this character alive only to learn that he was doomed the
whole time because you've already seen him be devoured.
And it's just like, oh, I'm thatguy, No.
And it it that DLC sets up too. So.
Well, yeah. So if you didn't play that DLC,
and you played too, you were stunned at what happens to those
(20:21):
two little kids. So before we get to the second
game, I wanted to know if RiRi has ever played the mobile very
little nightmares, the isometric2D Sprite 1.
Nope, it's it's pretty sick. Like I mean it kind of reminds
me of the comics. I'm a kind of a little
nightmares lifer like I've read the comics, I've played the
mobile game. OK, super into the series, but
(20:44):
it's isometric on your phone andit's 2D sprites instead of 3D.
But it has a lot of really interesting ideas that would
later get borrowed by Little Nightmares too.
So just as a development of the series, it's interesting for
them to try things out in this game.
Mike, do you ever play games on your phone?
(21:04):
Like Pokémon Go. OK, but nothing ever like
narrative. No have.
You ever played the the room games that are?
He's played those. Yeah, those are great.
Those are also phone. You might have played them on
Steam. They're on Steam too.
They're on Steam. They're also I perfectly good on
a phone which is really fun. Fun puzzle game.
Yeah, but even though little nightmares is apparently like
(21:28):
their original game completely on mobile, if you're a fan of
the series, I I recommend you don't sleep on it.
It's it's pretty cool and works better than you think it would.
So then little nightmares 2 cameout in 2021 and I could have
sworn Ribi didn't you think thisgame was two player couch Co-op?
I could have sworn it was. I don't remember doing Co-op, I
(21:54):
remember it having two players and I remember saying this seems
like it should have been. Right.
It seems like it was designed tobe and it for whatever reason
didn't work out. Wasn't I might have swapped
controllers like couch Co-op in that way where like I tried the
new try, I tried the new try. I might have done it that way.
Brian and I have played a coupleof games that way, but it's just
so funny because it's like it's a very bare and stain bear
(22:16):
situation where like if you had asked me if did the Little
Nightmares 2 have two player mode, I'd be like, yeah, of
course. I think I remember it wasn't
because that's why I was so excited for three Yeah, that it
would have Co-op. So yeah, I think, I think I did
know that in the recesses of my mind that it was single player.
So Little Nightmares 2 was wherethe series delves deeper into
the supernatural elements of thegame.
(22:37):
You are playing as this young boy who is trying to make it to
the center of this very It's notdystopian.
What is it if it's just? That you pop.
It's, it's nightmarish. And that's the way I would
describe it. I mean, little nightmares,
right? Like it's it's, it's a surreal
(22:57):
nightmare scenario where it's you against the world and
literally everyone is four or five times your size.
Right. And so this is the game with the
twist that you are drawn towardsthese televisions, these sort of
spectral televisions that are taking over all of society.
Everyone's obsessed with watching these to the point
(23:19):
that, like, their faces start tosag and they get physically
deformed by exposure to the broadcast.
And this is the game where it reveals that this little girl
you've been protecting the wholetime is actually the protagonist
of the first game. Yeah.
That reveal was crazy. You didn't know that going in
Ruby. Nope, no, did not know that was
(23:41):
6 wasn't. And then when that's when you
find out that's six, you go, Oh,my God, the little boy I've been
with this whole time is that. And it's not.
It kind of sets you up to wonder.
Yeah. But it's just a sad of betrayal,
unfortunately. And once again, 6 is a real
bastard because it betrays your ally at the end of the game.
(24:04):
You're fighting against this very Slender Man sort of
overworld boss, and Six is holding onto your hand and
deliberately lets you fall into this love crafty and chasm of
pulsing flesh and eyes. Like your inside organs kind of.
It's very weird. It's very hellish.
(24:25):
It's like this boy has just fallen into hell and you sit
there alone tragically until your body warps into the thin
man and he becomes the thing that 6 was fighting against.
Time travel element where it's you know, the reason he's after
you is you betrayed him. Yeah.
Did you like that? I thought it was brilliant.
I wasn't ready for that because while there have been portals,
(24:48):
the televisions were a little bit portal like, right?
You didn't know what the televisions were kind of going
towards and that the television made one of the protagonists
evil. 6 started evil in a lot ofways, right?
That protagonist was created. That villain was created by 6
(25:08):
sitting there like it. It's like you can tell time is
passing and passing and passing and passing as you morph into
the villain that's been chasing you the whole time.
So we know the little kids can turn into other things can be
turned. So I am curious to see if what 6
becomes after the end of the first one.
Right. What happens to Six?
(25:30):
What does she look like after that?
Will we find out in Little Nightmares 3?
I would tell you if the game would let me beat it.
RiRi and I got to the last levelI.
Wonder if that opens things up for the interpretation on the
first one to then also be a timeloop thing specifically.
Yeah, but so Mike, you made a joke about the Matrix and
(25:55):
letting one out, right? So I think you might be more on
to something than you meant to be, because the Thin Man
character, the the the monster in, I think he's the reason 6
becomes monstrous because there's a moment he grabs her
and there's this frightened shadow left behind.
(26:17):
It's almost like 6's innocent self.
Yeah, yeah. So it could be, it could be
stuck in a time loop, right, right.
The Slender Man tries to get herbecause she betrayed him but but
but to her perspective, Slender man to hurt her first.
Right, but that I think, and I'll be so stoked if I'm right,
I feel like we might eventually learn that mono slash the thin
(26:40):
man didn't do that to out of revenge.
He did that to empower her to defeat something else.
Or to stop her from hurting the kid and stop the loop.
Break the cycle. That was my interpretation.
This was trying to break the cycle.
Break the cycle. But he's they're stuck in a in a
time loop. Yeah, or.
At least he is. So then that leads us to the
(27:02):
Little Nightmares 3, which came out just a few days ago.
As of recording, it was like it's ten days old.
RiRi and I have been fighting like hell to play this game and
stream it. Not for lack of trying, I'll
tell you. Yeah, the the the big gloopy
adults are not the scariest thing about little nightmares 3
for our experience where you canyou kind of share your pain for
(27:23):
us. So we have Jamo and I have
played Co-op, we have played solo, we have played on switch
to we have played on PC. None of those games will let us
progress past certain bugs. I tried it with with another
person, another PC and so I think we could have beaten this
(27:46):
game easily last night had the bugs not prevented.
So many save files I lost. An entire save file couldn't be
restored from a game crashing bug and couldn't go back and and
fix it. We've had to restart several
levels. I I thought through some
(28:06):
glitches that were not game breaking, but yeah, this game is
so buggy. It's I suspect it was released
unfinished because it's October and they wanted an October
release. And to bring up a fairpoint,
this is not the same studio thatmade Little Nightmares 1-2.
This is a fully different studiothat has released Little
Nightmares 3. So a big grain of salt there.
(28:30):
This is not, not to disparage the previous studio at all, but
I I suspect that may have been what was going on.
I mean, it's notorious in the games industry to to crunch a
game, especially at the end whenyou're doing bug testing and
you're, you know, when you're inbeta testing.
And I, I very much feel like this is an unfinished game and I
(28:55):
am very sad about it. I wanted to like this game so
much. So to ask about like one of
those bugs that you guys were having, that the one that was
involved in having to restart levels, which seemed to be that
events that needed to happen forlike cutscenes and stuff would
not trigger right? For one person but not the
(29:15):
other. Is that what that was doing?
Or well, no, every time it's it.I think it is possibly related.
These glitches are possibly related to a desyncing issue
between Co-op. That that was something I
suspected until I played solo and something still happened.
But it's possible Co-op makes them easier to trigger these
glitches. Some of them were fully in
(29:38):
gameplay. Some of them were cutscenes
didn't trigger. Some of them were a cutscene
triggered, but our character models weren't correct in the
cutscene, which was odd and awkward.
And I have, I have a few clips of some of these, Mike, if you
haven't seen them all and Jamo, you may not have seen all of the
ones I've got. And we can, we can watch them
(30:01):
and you can see what we were struggling up against.
We can't really with our setup. Yeah, so let's watch.
OK, so let's watch those later and we can pick to them.
And yeah, but my favorite was last night on the Switch version
and I found the Switch 2 versionto be less buggy than the PC
(30:21):
version. Yes, but it led to its own
little heartbreak of re re having to download the friend
pass because that's the nice thing.
So this is the next line of thistrend that you know, it takes to
and split fiction has been capitalized on of like let's
make a really rich Co-op experience that you couldn't
really do split screen. Everyone needs their own system,
(30:44):
but we're going to give your friend a freeway to play the
entire game as long as you're playing with them.
I like this idea. I'm totally on board for it.
But so reread downloaded these Little nightmares 3 switch
friend pass and was told she could not play with me because
she did not download the switch 2 version of the friend pass
which it. Didn't explicitly say that.
We had to troubleshoot for a minute to figure out that's what
(31:06):
happened. And the icons on the Switch home
screen Identical Identical. Identical.
Identical in the in the Switch home screen on the eShop, there
is a little red banner for Switch 2, but the Switch 2 is so
new IT didn't even occur to me to look for a separate game.
Yeah, or that the title was so long like, well, let's not
(31:27):
forget if you search for little.Nightmares 3 on the E shop.
It doesn't come up. Doesn't come up if you do the
numeral. Three, it does not come up, so
you have to do Roman numerals orjust little Nightmares and
you'll you'll get a whole bunch of things.
There's a lot of DLC. There's a ton of content for
this game that you can pay extrafor.
If you could get the base game to work, you could see all those
things. So all this is to say that.
(31:48):
To get the game started together, it was like an extra
hour and a half of legwork and then we're playing.
And my favorite glitch that RiRihad was that her character sat
on the ground for some reason, being a cool kid, and she's
scooting around like a like he'sdriving a Mario Kart.
It's just. It's sliding across the ground
(32:10):
so. I'm I really hope they patch the
hell out of this thing and get this to a point that that's not
interfering, but I think I cracked the glitch.
Rhode Island, Rhode Island of the vent and the event that was
not occurring when we were in the chase sequence and you had
to so so there was a villain chasing.
You and something had to happen to be able to progress and the
(32:32):
villain was not doing the thing that allowed us progression and
at one point it did suddenly we went Oh my God, that was how you
get away the whole time. So I don't think it was a glitch
I. Think it was bad programming
because I noticed when I went that's a glitch that's.
That's a fancy word for glitch. Let me explain why when?
I went back through alone to getto where we left off on the PC
(32:54):
version so you and I could jump to the switch version.
I realized that she will only break that pipe if she's in the
background, but the depth of field is near impossible to tell
that you need to do that. So I feel like that's that's,
that's not that's intended. No, there's no way that's
intentional. Especially because I I have the
clips she grabs that pipe every time she walked by.
(33:18):
It just didn't break every time.OK, I.
Didn't see that. See you got the receipts.
OK. So no, that was absolutely.
Game breaking and the only way to resolve most of these game
breaking glitches was to reset to a checkpoint, which means you
had to do something again. I mean, we were already doing it
over and over again because we were dying getting caught.
I ran into one with my husband where resetting to checkpoint
did nothing. The glitch persisted and there
(33:39):
is no way farther back than thatthat that ended that game save
and we had not made it out of the first level yet.
I was so upset again. I will, I will put this out
there. I it could be my my computer.
This could be fully my P CS fault.
I built it myself. It might be haunted, I don't
know. So I'm not saying this game is
(34:02):
broken on Steam. Don't buy it.
I am saying this was my experience and I am pretty
disappointed with it. Well, and you know, and again.
A huge fan of the series, so everything I'm complaining about
I really want them to fix so people can enjoy this game.
Yeah, Oh, give me a. Patch I'll replay it and I will
rewrite this game. You know, I'll I'll revise but
(34:23):
but what's not a glitch? Is the stinginess with the
checkpoints because you solve puzzles in this game through
trial and error and error and error and error as you get
killed and grabbed and crushed and twitched time and time again
until eventually you figure out,oh, this is what you had to do.
But to make me reclaim the same tall ladder and throw the same
(34:48):
heavy object, it's just like that was not fun and it was
killing the tension and you're ahorror game.
Don't do that. Don't kill the tension.
I agree that is the. The best feeling in that game
was your first couple of times through a puzzle, Yeah.
And so when it is working smoothly, when you're you're
(35:09):
tracking at the same rate as thegame is, that's very fun.
The background environments are very creepy, very spooky.
I would say the music is probably not quite up to par
from 1:00 and 2:00. There's a sequence in one where
you're in a kitchen and there's a chef chasing you and the music
doesn't change the melody, but it changes it the tone, right?
(35:33):
And it's it, it feels, Oh my God, I'm being hunted.
I have to run. Like it's very heart pounding,
right? That music is so scary when we
listen to the soundtrack. I said, I have to skip this one.
I can't listen to it because it's still, it's still got me.
Just the music, you know, I never felt that in three.
And that was kind of sad becausethat was part of what made one
so special is that that immersive environment, including
(35:58):
the music. And the music wasn't bad, it
just didn't do that right, whichis a hard thing.
That's a rare thing for a game to do right.
How much that do you think? Is what the like the music
itself versus if you're already kind of getting frustrated with
the game that the music isn't able to sort of piggyback, not
(36:19):
able to penetrate? I I do think that that is part
of the factor. I also know, I mean, I told you
I I quit the first time, the first time I tried to play both
of them one and two and I came back to it.
I was obviously frustrated. Those runs as well.
And that that chef chase sequence is especially like that
(36:41):
one stuck in my mind, Right. And I didn't know the music had
done that until we were listening to the soundtrack.
I didn't realize what an effect that music had had until we like
to collect video game vinyl soundtracks if if they're made
and we were listening to it on vinyl.
And you can't exactly, like, skip a song on vinyl, right?
Yeah, I'm just going. To pick up the needle and put it
(37:03):
down. Somewhere else, because I can't
listen to that. It's it's too much.
It's too reminiscent of the of my experience with the first
game. And you you also have a theory.
About the music being plot important because you said when
there's a tune that's heard it'slike has a hold over people or
something. There's a couple of things.
So in the first one there's humming.
(37:25):
There's a humming little song, and once you hear it, it kind of
gets stuck in your head. It's a very simple tune.
It's almost Mary Had a Little Lamb simple.
But if I hear it, I'm like, that's a little nightmare song
that you hum. And of course we find out at six
humming it, and she's evil the whole time.
So it's meant to be a spooky song.
And there's also ATV, where one of the characters is kind of
(37:45):
entranced on the TV, and in order to get past the sequence,
you have to turn the TV off. And he gets mad and he chases
you, right? But the little song on the TV is
very insidious. In the same way that in two you
saw the people kind of melting into the screen.
He was doing that in one and that little song that plays on
the TV absolutely needled its way into my brain and.
(38:09):
And if I I couldn't sing it if I'd tried.
But if I hear it, I'm like, I know immediately where that's
from. Gets into your psyche a little
bit. Yeah.
Yeah. And.
And hopefully that pans out withthe your predictions of the
third game is that you're you have a theory that someone
working at the Dark Carnival in the second or third game might
have a tie to that song and thatwhole hypnotism.
(38:30):
I I do wonder is that where? The TV show was made.
Is that where that spooky weird TV show is filmed?
Because it had a very similar vibe and that was the first real
tie in to the other games that I'd seen.
I know it's a stretch. I was reaching for something I,
I will fully admit that. But I, I was sad the way one and
two tied together in such a fascinating way.
(38:52):
Right in an unexpected way. I hadn't seen that yet from
three and I, you know, obviouslyI haven't beat it yet.
Boy, would I love to. I don't know if I if the
glitches will allow it. I mean, we're gonna.
We're gonna. Finish, right?
Yeah, we're gonna try. We're gonna do our test.
We're gonna. I mean, I gotta get.
To the end. I'm at the last level at this
point, I know. I know so do you have any
(39:14):
predictions so I. I thought of a pretty banger
prediction for the way the game is gonna end.
So permission to to guesstimate.I don't know if this is true or
not. Please.
So throughout the story, you keep Mike.
Did you see in the streams you watch that like it seems like
there's a little boy. Well, I guess he's always a
little boy, but the main character, his name is low.
(39:35):
He's the one who wears the plague mask.
He's got kind of a map that he's.
Trying to follow yes and he's trying to find these.
Mirrors. And it keeps flashing to him in
some room, and there's someone outside.
You know? I'm talking about Mike.
Yeah, Yeah. So it's.
Almost. Implying that like this is all
his nightmare and Rhode Island, Rhode Island, and I just got to
(39:56):
the last level called the Institute and we don't know
what's in there, but I think that LO is dream walking and
you're going to rescue yourself and we are going to break him
out of the Institute and save him from whatever is after him.
That's my prediction for the last level.
(40:17):
What do you think? I love that.
I would love for that to be the case and and it would be
contrast to two where seemingly the cycle is infinite.
If you can break the cycle in three, that would be satisfying,
wouldn't it? And you would definitely are in
a padded cell. When you wake up from your
nightmares, kind of in several cutscenes where it seems like
(40:38):
you've got unconscious for a minute and you come back,
there's a glimpse of this paddedcell.
But we don't know what's going on and you don't know who's who
has you captive yet, right? But.
And then also, what if 6 is an adult running that place?
That's my. That is my.
Expectation that 6 will be the main villain.
(41:00):
It'd be dope it. Would be great.
I think it. Like I was saying, I was, I was
looking for tie ants. There was another hint to that
in the the carnival level, you start finding ceramic dolls.
Oh yeah, Which are the collectible from one?
You have to smash them to get kind of an achievement.
You have to find them all. They're kind of hidden in the
(41:22):
level. Same with finding the gnomes.
Find all the gnomes. So there's there's little
collectibles along the way. They're very minor.
That's the only side quest ever in Little Nightmares is these
collectibles, right? We also had this.
You thought thought what you thought was a tie into that with
the sausage somewhere and. Jamo Jamo was seeing.
(41:44):
References, right? Really, I would say it's the
sausage, it's the. Little nightmare sausage.
I'm not crazy for going. No, you're not crazy.
And I I think it's an intentional reference.
I'm not saying it's not intentional.
I just don't think that that's narratively relevant.
I think it was a gamer Easter egg, right?
Yeah. Like to remind you.
Of that scene. Because it is kind of legendary.
Yeah. What happens with the sausage?
(42:06):
I just think and when you. Find out what the sausage is
made. Of too.
Oh yeah, yeah, but. I just, I, I didn't want to hold
it because I'm like, well, I know what happens if I hold this
thing. Someone's gonna you take the
sausage, Riri's gonna eat you again.
That, and that was something that you know to bring up as
well, is you go through these environments in three and they
are seemingly unrelated. They don't seem to serve a
(42:29):
greater purpose. As you go through one, you're
like, Oh my gosh, this is a meatproduction factory and these are
the steps. And then there's the buffet on
the cruise ship at the end. And these disparate areas don't
seem to connect at all. Like, why is there a lollipop
factory? Like, I get it, It's creepy.
It's weird that there's mountains of lollipops and that
(42:50):
has a sinister implication, but why?
Yeah, it doesn't come up. Again.
So far, maybe it will, and I would love for that to be the
case, but I think the disparate.Disparate.
Is that the word disparate? Disparate nature of the levels,
it kind of takes you out of it because the other game, it's
almost like this one steadicam shot as you just escape.
(43:12):
And so you're really in the tension.
And so going from like, you're basically going through the
Mario 64 paintings into the nextWorld.
Yeah, a lot. You lost something there.
You lost that sense of oppressiveness because now I.
But then again, though, it was also heartbreaking when Lowe
finds the broken mirror and is just so despondent.
And you're like, oh, buddy, it'sgonna be all right, I will say.
(43:34):
Mirrors do have a little bit of symbolism in little nightmares,
you know, and there that's how you defeat the villain in one,
the lady in one. So and TV's are often, you know,
a Black Mirror. So there's there's tie insurance
there for mirrors to also be portals.
Why not? The TV's were kind of portals.
So thematically, yes, but not strong narratively.
(43:58):
Does that make sense? Yeah, Yeah, I think so.
That's my thoughts on that. So, so Mike hearing us.
Talk about it and watching it. Do you think you're gonna ever
give it a try? I don't think so.
I think because it feels. Like, a whole lot of this relies
on stealth elements. Yes, very much.
So, and that's just. Like that's mechanic that has
(44:21):
never particularly appealed to me.
Like it's it stands out as the part that I get frustrated with
when it works its way into othergames where I'm like why did you
have to put this in here especially?
Because the controls can be a. Little janky even in one and two
right they're they can be a little finicky.
What we experienced in three wasbeyond a little jank yeah,
right. It was a lot to forgive, but.
I mean, I'm I'm excited to finish it.
(44:43):
I love this series. Like I just feel like the
constant endorphin release of frustration.
I did it like every little room is its own little emotional
journey. And so did you feel like the
rooms were kind of easy, though?Most of the puzzles were a
little simple. I'm OK with that.
(45:03):
I. Really am?
No, that's fine, That's valid. Yeah, I I've.
Really, as I get older, I've come to appreciate a game that's
a little gentler with me. And like, I think that this
series, we didn't really talk about it, but through all three
of them, I think most of the puzzles are just challenging
enough that you feel just kind of naturally clever.
(45:26):
And it never really feels like, like the term moon logic for
solving things. Sierra.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah, I feel. Like the game is never.
Really guilty of that. There's always some cart or
something to light or something to climb or pull on and I don't
know, it's just, I think it's like an escape room and that's
why I thought Mike might like it, because I feel like you're
(45:47):
good at those. How much that is?
Puzzles in the sense that you really feel like you have to
sort of sit there and work things out.
Or is it just try things until you find out what works?
I don't know, Ray Ray. I feel like it's more like try.
The timing until you don't get caught is most of the puzzle
solving. There are some puzzles.
(46:08):
Where it's a little more like, OK, see if this will reach that
button, OK, see if this is the way to get up to that lever.
Where it's a little more take your time and, and really just
assessing the room that you're in.
There's nothing chasing you. There's no time pressure.
I'm thinking of particularly theone where I had to figure out
where to move ATV to block a door so the door wouldn't
(46:28):
automatically shut. Like that was a good puzzle.
It was obvious the TV moved, butyou had to move it in the right
way, right? So there are a lot of things
like that that I think Mike would enjoy.
But I would say that's that's maybe 30% of the yeah, the
challenge it's it's much more often you're doing all of that
and there's somebody in the roomwho will grab you if you make
(46:51):
any noise. But I've done.
Escape rooms like that where there's like a live actor in
there to mess with you and it really adds a lot of tension.
Hey rudo, so then really I know I didn't prepare you for this,
but if I don't mind, you know ifI can put you on the spot.
So little nightmares three it kind of feels like right now
it's an intend don't for you absolutely until.
(47:12):
Then patch it. Patch it.
OK? I can't in good conscience
recommend this game when I was so heartbroken when we defeated
a tough section and we're forcedto restart from checkpoint
because some some mechanic outside our control didn't
trigger and there was no way to have known that there was no way
to fix that. And again, I ran into it was 1
(47:36):
instance out of maybe 10 or so. Pretty rough glitches.
There was one instance where thesave file was irredeemable.
We could not. There was no resetting after
that. And again, I will give the huge
caveat, I played it on PC and I built my own PC and there could
be ghosts in the machine, I don't know.
(47:56):
At one point doing stream, my computer just shut down on its
own. So like there's there could be
other issues going on in my computer.
I don't think that would make the game run like it does, but I
can't eliminate that. Yeah, You know what I mean?
It feels like the sort of thing that.
Shouldn't it's one thing like this is running badly.
It's not running badly, but it'slike if no I had.
I mean the graphics were. On Ultra, right?
(48:18):
Just naturally the settings of my PC, you know, it's got good
hardware. It was running on ultra.
That was just what it started meon and I didn't change it
because it was running fine. But yeah, like it.
Until it wasn't. Something.
Where? Something's supposed to trigger
and it doesn't that that doesn'tseem like a graphics.
Issue. That doesn't sound like a
computer. Issue.
(48:38):
To me it doesn't sound like it to.
Me, which is why I'm saying this.
If I thought it was just my setup, I'd be like, you guys,
wasn't that so funny how my computer pooped itself trying to
play this little indie game? I don't think that's the case.
I think other people are also experiencing these bugs from
what I have seen so well. Let us know in the comments.
If you're also being tortured bythe bugs, I, I, you know what I
(49:01):
mean. Look, I'm easy to please and I
don't have the integrity that RiRi does, so I will recommend
this game even in his janky ass state.
At least on the Switch 2 I have not encountered enough problems.
Good point. It was better.
On Switch 2 than my PC for whatever reason.
The real littlest nightmares. Are the glitches we saw our long
(49:22):
ago. My God they are nightmares.
I will say my experience with Little Nightmares one was it
didn't run great at all on Switch.
Yeah, so my inclination was to run on PC.
Oh, and they just released like a.
Enhanced edition or something? I haven't tried.
I haven't tried that. I haven't.
Tried OK, but the loading screens on one were almost
intolerable because dying was such punishment to have to wait
so long to try again. So for whatever that's worth,
(49:47):
well, So we'll make that a. Tie So join our Discord and vote
on whether or not Little Nightmares 3 is a Nintendo or a
Nintendo. Don't anything else to say about
Little Nightmares the series, you guys?
I'm still a huge fan. I, I hope nothing but the best
for, you know, the future of this game to get patched and to
(50:07):
do better and maybe we'll have lots more.
It'll be awesome. I want that.
I would love to see that. But I'm also very much looking
forward to Reanimal, which the original dev team from 1:00 and
2:00 is putting out soon. So Reanimal, Reanimal.
What is that? For it.
Oh, it's. A new spooky game.
You might like it. That sounds good.
Mike, anything else about Littlenightmares?
(50:29):
Here's my question on it. So with three.
Games and I guess now it's sufficiently being treated as a
property that it's different studio developing if it's
different developers and you mentioned comics earlier.
Do you think that this would getand do you think it would
actually work to be either like a show or a movie or something
(50:52):
of that format that is not interactive I.
Mean I think so. I don't.
Think so. I don't think so.
I think I think the beauty of itis in the game.
That's why I put it as the gamesart category.
Games as art, right? Because the escape room element
of it is completely lost if you're just watching somebody
solve it. I think though you could inject.
(51:13):
Enough emotion into these children characters that like
you kind of get your blood pumping and you know, the the
connections between them and just the visuals.
I mean, especially if they did something like stop motion.
Like I feel like I'm not saying it's not possible.
I just. Don't.
I don't have faith that it wouldbe a good adaptation.
(51:34):
I'm going to make AI make a trailer.
That you're going to like, I mean, I think they're going to
have a problem. Starting with the using AI to
make the trailer. Like, yeah, I already don't like
that party. Oh yeah, absolutely.
That's the real little. Nightmare.
Yeah. Well, I think we're going.
To call that game over for todayuntil next time, everyone
remember to like, follow or subscribe to the old Switch a
(51:56):
Roo and rate or review the show wherever you get your podcasts.
RiRi, can you tell our listenerswhere to find you?
Sure, you can find me on Twitch.My name is Ririyells.
RIRIYELLS. If you head over to my page you
will see a highlight clip of me yelling at Little Nightmares
too, right at the top. So if you like indie games,
spooky games, come hang out. It's always fun.
(52:20):
All right, awesome. And Mike went on about our
website. Yeah, so you can also find.
Find the website at the old switcharoo.com.
You can find links to all our social media there, links to the
discord. You can reach us through any of
that. Let.
Us know what you thought of thisepisode, what you're hoping to
hear in future episodes as we'refilling in before we start the
(52:43):
next season. Yeah, it's gonna be fun and.
Season 4 premiere. I mean, it's a ways away, but
Rhode Island. Rhode Island come back for
Majora's Mask. It's gonna be a thing.
I'm very excited. And then of course you at.
The website www.withtheoldswitcheroo.com
Like Mike said, you'll find a link to our discord where you
can talk games, play games, and even make a friend or two.
As always, thanks for listening to the old switcheroo where
(53:04):
we've been talking gaming retro with Rhode Island, Rhode Island
Mike and Jamo. I've been Mike and I've.
Been Jamo game. On everyone.
It's a matter of what. Gets under your skin and what
(53:26):
unsettles you and I'm. I'm so glad you emergency is
Mike OK please no earthquakes. Mike, are you all right?
Yeah, that they. That just does that from time to
time. OK, like.
Your building is safe to remain in, Yeah, we just ignore that a
lot. And it stopped.
(53:47):
So that's not safe, but. OK, OK.
Don't love that. Well.
No, jeez. Anyway, is your mic?
Yeah, it stopped. So OK.
I don't know where my Genesis could be.
I haven't seen my Super Nintendosince 2003.
That's all right. I don't mind.
I've got a Switch in the old Twitch room.
(00:22):
My friend Mike and Jamo too. And I'm going to say welcome
back to the old Switcheroo wherewe're talking gaming retro with
Mike and Jamo. I'm Mike.
And I'm Jamo in this episode of the old Switcheroo Light Switch.
Instead of our normal focus on the over 300 retro games
available on Nintendo Classics, we are celebrating Spoopy Ween
(00:44):
2025 with a special episode all about a one-of-a-kind horror
series available on the NintendoSwitch.
Bandai Namco's Little Nightmaresin an episode we are calling The
Kids aren't All right. Now, Mike, you have very little
familiarity with Little Nightmares, but I believe you
have a long history of survivingscares with our returning
guests. Would you like to reintroduce?
Her. Yeah.
(01:05):
So we're bringing back RiRi. Hi, thanks for having me again.
For surprisingly little Zelda. Yeah, Zelda is forbidden from
the topics. So we're all horror fans, are we
not? Correct.
Yeah. What, what, what, what's your,
(01:25):
what's your flavor of horror like?
Little Nightmares is very much like Tim Burton, kind of spooky,
not scary, as my wife would callit.
And that's her jam. She doesn't like to be
terrified, but she likes to be kind of gently creeped out.
So RiRi, what are some of your favorite franchises?
It's funny that you bring up TimBurton because I'm told when I
(01:45):
saw A Nightmare Before Christmasin theaters as a kiddo I cried.
So that was a bad start to horror.
So I didn't really care for horror until I was an adult.
And I'm going to be painfully honest on the Internet, it
wasn't until I started anti anxiety medication that I could
even watch a horror movie. Interesting.
So when I did, I dove in head first.
(02:06):
I watched the entire Conjuring series in chronological order in
universe with a friend of mine. I started off great, right?
And ever since then, I have justbeen trying to find the best
horror movies. I saw one or two with Mike when
he lived close to me at some very indie Strange Ones, which
(02:28):
also became a fun interest. Right?
Like, it's supposedly a horror movie, but that camp is really
fun. So I really fall into scare the
crap out of me. And also sometimes I want to
laugh. Like, it can go either way,
right? Yeah.
So Mike has a big influence on that for sure.
All right, so Mike, I want, I want your weirdest horror movie
(02:49):
because you are an aficionado atBizarre Horror Movies on DVD.
So unfortunately the first one, I think it was one that I own
but haven't yet watched, which is called I bought a Vampire
Motorcycle. You see, this is the kind of
stuff he introduced me to and I've I've never looked back.
(03:11):
And the fun part is one of the people in that is Anthony
Daniels. 90% of his IMDb is C3POroles.
Right. And this.
What's what? What's the year?
Is it the 70s? I would have to double check I
think. I want to say I think it's 80s.
(03:32):
Wow. And you haven't, you haven't
cracked into that one. You've just been just been
sitting there waiting. Yeah, because there's certain
movies where you find them and you're just like, this needs to
not be by myself. Yes, absolutely.
Like I think the last two that were in that category, one was
more slasher, which is kind of, I don't think of it as horror,
(03:56):
but as close is Psycho Beach party.
OK. Which is basically some
combination of sort of like Gidget and Beach Park, like the
Beach Blanket movies inspired, but then also there's a killer.
OK. It is.
I tried watching like 3 times onmy own.
(04:18):
I get about 3 minutes and be like, right, This is the kind of
movie that I shouldn't watch by myself because this is going to
be fun. Movie night at Mark's house.
We're doing it. Tell me when I'll fly out.
And then the other one was one that has much more reputation,
which is House, which is a, it is a Japanese movie that didn't
(04:40):
make it to the US to like the 2000s, but it's from the 70s, I
think. Mike has all the deep cuts.
Also has a very famous poster amongst people that are into
movie posters for just did this distinct look of like this white
cat and just bright red poster that is basically a group of
(05:05):
schoolgirls go to a house and itdoesn't go well for them.
I've seen this poster. Yeah, Ribi just pulled it up
too. That's that.
Yes. That's so interesting that the
poster is almost more known thanthe film itself.
Wow. I'm actually I'm I'm mad I see
these pictures because this looks like an incredibly weird
movie. So you've seen it and you like
(05:26):
this one? Yeah, I picked that up as a
Criterion Collection. That thing sat around for like a
year until I had the chance to be like, here's the movies to
watch. I'm like, yeah, I'll watch that.
It's like, OK, we're definitely this needs to get watched with
people because I knew it was weird.
Yeah, so my favorite horror gameis Silent Hill Two.
I've mentioned it before on likemy top 20 episodes, but I think
(05:47):
that like Silent Hill 2 has thisgreat sense of atmosphere and it
gets under your skin better thanit like jump scares you.
And I think that Little Nightmares owes a lot to the
Silent Hill in terms of like tension building and
storytelling through the environment, not through like
spoken word, but so for those. Wait, Jamo, wait.
(06:10):
You asked us what our favorite horror movies were?
So on the Record, your favorite horror movie is the second
Silent Hill movie on the underrated podcast, right?
Look, Derek is wrong, OK? Derek, I love you.
I love you, Derek. That movie.
I had to do it. I had.
No, no, I'm glad. I'm glad, you know, let's plug
dance, let's plug Derek's Patreon, sign up on the
(06:30):
Underrated movie podcast Patreon, and hear me defend
Silent Hill to the film because I hated that movie when it came
out and now I am a reluctant defender of it.
That's too funny though. But so I'll.
Defend it with you. That's why I had to do it.
Oh, you like that movie too? Yes.
Oh, I thought the Silent Hill movies were so underrated.
Speaking of underrated. Anyways, another time.
(06:51):
Another time. What's up?
What's your favorite horror gamethen?
Is it this franchise? The first little nightmares is
legendary in the RiRi Yells lore.
That is in fact why I am called RiRi Yells was I?
I had a previous username that was hard for people to say.
So I was thinking of like, what can I make my username that's
(07:12):
easy for somebody to read, right?
Because a lot of streamers are just reading usernames.
And that's the thing you don't think about when you make up a
username is how is somebody going to read this aloud?
So River Yells was a simplified a version and my chat's favorite
thing became that I would yell so much and get scared so much,
(07:32):
and that's why it's gotta be a little nightmare one.
It's the birth of the brand a little bit and.
It was a rebrand, yeah, I guess.And it's funny because like my
memories of little nightmares one and two have become very
much blended together like they're they're it's it's it's
such a kind of one piece in my mind.
So it's a 2.5 D puzzle platformer series in which the
(07:55):
player controls children being pursued by nightmarishly large
adults and otherworldly creatures.
The devs at TARS. How do you say this Really TARS
i.e. R Tarzer Tarsier.
I'm just gonna look it up. Well, that studio cited the
(08:16):
Studio Ghibli film Spirited Awayas a major inspiration,
including the maze like environments, the deformed long
limbed adults, and the themes ofgluttony and neglect.
Mike, you said before you're a Ghibli guy.
I assume you've seen Spirited Away.
Yeah, it's been, it's been a while, but I can kind of see
some of that. Yeah, at least like the visual
language of it. You got it.
Rhode Island, Rhode. Island, Yeah.
(08:37):
So a tarsier is just an animal. So it's a tarsier.
A tarsier? A tarsier studios?
Yep. It's got like big eyes and
stuff. They happened.
I mean, it could be a foreign studio, and it's a different
word too, but there's an animal.Yeah, it's got big eyes.
So anyway, sorry, I had to look it up.
I got to know. Yeah, I wanted to know.
So RiRi, how did you come acrossLittle Nightmares?
(08:59):
Like I just stumbled upon it on the E shop and was like, it's on
sale. This is interesting.
This is like my new favorite thing.
How'd you find it? So I have long been an indie
games fan and when Little Nightmares one came out, it was
it made a quite a bit of buzz inthe games journalism universe as
being this like you have to try this indie game.
It's so different, it's so good.Like it falls into that category
(09:24):
of games as art for a lot of people.
And I would absolutely agree with that.
It is, but it is also so, so scary.
And if you're scared at all, theplatforming becomes very
challenging. The puzzles, you know, you're,
you know, you're freaking out. So it's harder to solve a
puzzle. So it feels a little bit like
haunted house escape room, right?
Which was exactly in line with things that I like to enjoy.
(09:48):
The first time I played it, I gave up.
I had to revisit it to to beat it at one point when I was less
freaked out. And the exact same thing
happened with Little nightmares too on stream.
So there's recordings of this where I got to a section.
I just couldn't do it. I just was too freaked out and I
abandoned it. And then the next spooky month
came around and I tried again and I beat it so.
(10:09):
Wow. I mean, that's awesome you
conquered your demon. I did, I did.
I was brave. I'm so glad that RiRi mentioned
viewing this series of games as art because it has this very
almost claymation look to it. You know, the the polygons are
so wonderfully rounded and kind of have this kind of soft look
to them. And I love, I think the thing
(10:33):
that makes this game so visuallyappealing for me is the camera
angle, because the camera is sort of locked in one spot and
it's it's, it will move, but it's always kind of looking at
you from the same thing. It kind of creates the sensation
of looking into a dollhouse. And you know, if you can imagine
(10:54):
you were playing a dollhouse andyou're controlling what was
running around inside the rooms,but you're always just outside
of it. I think that works thematically.
So well-being these little kids and being pursued by these
really, you know, frightening giant creatures.
Mike, so you've mentioned beforeon the Wild Mouse podcast that a
(11:15):
big appeal of Halloween events for you is the artistry of it.
So you watched Brevi and I play the game.
Did any of that kind of appeal to you?
I. Feel like for me not too much
and I think it's just the style that it goes for is kind.
(11:39):
It feels like it's a lot of sortof grey brown rabbits to me.
Yeah, it's like Corpse Bride. I wish you could have seen some
more of Little Nightmares. One, because there is a little
more color, a little more saturation.
Yeah, I think. And I think unfortunately, you
were watching a very desert beige, right?
(12:00):
Sad beige section. Yeah, for sure.
That's OK. That's OK though, that it wasn't
for you. I do agree with Ribi though.
I think that visually you would be more interested in the other
games in the series. So I have created, or I should
say with the help of Gemini, I feel like I need to say that
created brief summaries of each game.
And so Ribi and I being fans of this, I kind of just wanted to
(12:23):
get her take on each game. So the first game is 6.
A small girl in a yellow raincoat awakens and begins her
escape from the dark depths of the Maw, A sinister ocean
vessel, after evading the sightless long armed janitor.
Who's is this too much? This feels like a lot.
I it's, it's very detailed, Yeah, you could back off on the
(12:44):
minutiae, I guess. Yeah, for sure.
All right. I'm sorry Mike, I forgot we
don't edit these well anyway. That criticism lives forever
now. There we go.
It's in the ether. But anyway, breaks the premise
does that you're this little girl escaping from this kind of
horrific cruise ship where thesegiant gluttonous people are
trying to eat everything. Including you.
(13:07):
They're not very discerning, certainly.
No, no, there's this amazing moment, my standout moment from
Little Nightmares. One was the avalanche of dinner
guests. Oh, absolutely.
The I can see that hallway whereyou're running down and and the
arms just reaching for you. The fat, pudgy, disgusting.
(13:28):
They're hardly even human. They don't look like they're
wearing or they look like they're wearing an Edgar suit,
right? Yeah.
There's all of the characters kind of don't look like their
skin fits right. Yeah, it's just, it's so
visually striking. And I got to that point in the
game, Rhode Island, Rhode Islandwithout realizing you could run.
No. And and that's crazy because
(13:48):
most of this game is escaping. And so at that point I'm like,
oh, this is literally impossible.
What's going Oh my God, has there been a run button?
Because Mike, For context, that's several hours into the
game. That's almost the end.
That's that's the the penultimate kind of level there
before the final boss. Yeah, but I also think like
Little Nightmares is the most interesting from like sort of a
(14:10):
commentary sort of perspective. Oh, there's so much symbolism,
absolutely. It's hard to ignore.
Yeah, they just the the themes of gluttony and the 1% and like,
you know, literally feeding on those that are less fortunate
than you. RiRi, what's your take on the
Lady? The final The final quote UN
quote monster. All right, so spoilers for a
(14:30):
game that's been out for a long time, but I guess if you're
listening to a games podcast, you probably don't care about
spoilers. But at the end of A Little
Nightmare 1, you defeat a seemingly dark magic lady and
you absorb her power, and then you begin to attack the people
that have been attacking you this whole time.
That puts you in this underclasssituation where you're kind of
(14:54):
meat in a lot of ways. They treat you like a snack with
legs. So I, I would say it's an
interesting twist in that the whole time you're playing six
and there's this feeling of I'm just fighting to survive where
I'm in this situation. I can't control it and I'm doing
the best I can to escape. And there are ways to escape.
(15:17):
There's clearly other trapped children that have been where
you are that have helped make escape routes.
Like the ladders look very handmade and they're only going
to fit the little people. They won't fit the people trying
to capture you or eat you, right.
So you're hanging out with the rats and the and the vents and
stuff that that kind of vibe, right.
And then in the end, when you defeat her and you absorb her
(15:39):
power to take over seemingly herposition.
That's pretty. That's a pretty big twist.
That definitely was a jaw on thefloor moment.
Who the lady is and why she doeswhat she does.
Unclear. Was she a previous child as the
cycle just started over? Right.
Don't know, I love that it's left to play your interpretation
(16:01):
though. I think that's part of what the
magic is. And those matrix things like
they, they let one out just to reset things every so often.
A little bit, a little bit. It was intentional, just to see.
But then if one makes it, then that's the new queen of them
all, I guess. I don't know what you would call
her. I don't know if there's more
lore written somewhere to know about that, but the game itself
(16:22):
is very narratively rich. Visually.
There's no text really. There's not much spoken other
than the word hey, I believe. And I think that's what makes it
so intriguing is they can tell us a narrative through
environments and, and they're not relying on a they're telling
(16:46):
you, they're just showing you and letting you kind of form
your own conclusion in a lot of ways.
And it's really cool because every room teaches you a little
bit more about where you are andwhat's happened, and there's not
really a wasted moment. So it really feels like this
kind of interactive story with no real words.
And I love the parallels betweenthe lady and six.
(17:08):
So Mike, the crazy twist in the end of Little Nightmares.
You don't mind if we spoil it, right?
No. OK, so you're playing this
little girl who's fighting to survive, fighting not to get
eaten, but she's also herself getting hit with these really
intense hunger pangs. And they'll get worse and worse
as the game continues. And there's parts that's
genuinely hard to watch because you're watching this little girl
(17:29):
you've grown attached to keel over with hunger.
And so she starts eating questionable things.
She eats raw meat. She eats a live rat and the big
jaw-dropping moment is when she has offered assistance from
these little friendly characterscalled the gnomes.
And this gnome is offering her food and you're like, Oh my
gosh, I know my character is starving and this is such a
(17:51):
precious moment. And she slaps the sausage out of
his hands and goes straight for his neck and just eats him.
And it's like for that moment onright And you're like, now I'm
uncomfortable with the characterI'm protecting.
This is really interesting narratively and kind of those
you've played to the end of Silent Hill too.
(18:11):
You know how interesting it is game wise to have kind of that
unreliable narrator character. But then you know, 6 and the
lady, also visually similar. They both hide their faces.
There's something kind of monstrous underneath, but like
the lady, it's like, did you play the DLC for the first game?
I did. And you played the little boy?
Yes, Zach. What is his name?
(18:34):
I remember. Yeah, well the the Mono was the
kid with the sack in the next game.
That's the next game. See, I I also blur these two
because they're very tied together narratively, one and
two, right? But yeah, the little boy and,
and you see him, it kind of teases him, like you're
separated by bars at one point in the story.
And it kind of seems like you might be able to help each
other, but you can't, can't you just kind of pass by him And in
(18:56):
the DLC you get to play him and experience what he sees and what
he goes through. And, and it is not at all the
same to what 6 experiences whichyou, you're kind of led to
believe that, that all the little people are trying to
escape like 6 because there's these passages that have kind of
been built for you. There's these ways around that.
People have made it this far. Can you go even further?
(19:16):
Who's going to make it all the way out?
And, and when you realize, oh, you were just trying to take
control all the time, that's a, that's a woof.
Is so is is that DLC sort of like a parallel story in that
sense? A little bit.
It's happening simultaneously. It seems to me that's the way I
read it. Kind of like Ender's Game has
(19:37):
the Ender's shadow, which is basically like, here's someone
else's perspective the same timeand you just get a different
angle on it all. Well, and Mike, you'll, you'll
appreciate this twist because I know you'll have a good clever
plot twist like that DLC has maybe the biggest gut punch in
gaming because you are playing and fighting to survive through
this whole time. And then it's revealed in the
(19:57):
final moments of that game that you are the little gnome that
she's about to eat. And so, like, you fought to keep
this character alive only to learn that he was doomed the
whole time because you've already seen him be devoured.
And it's just like, oh, I'm thatguy, No.
And it it that DLC sets up too. So.
Well, yeah. So if you didn't play that DLC,
and you played too, you were stunned at what happens to those
(20:21):
two little kids. So before we get to the second
game, I wanted to know if RiRi has ever played the mobile very
little nightmares, the isometric2D Sprite 1.
Nope, it's it's pretty sick. Like I mean it kind of reminds
me of the comics. I'm a kind of a little
nightmares lifer like I've read the comics, I've played the
mobile game. OK, super into the series, but
(20:44):
it's isometric on your phone andit's 2D sprites instead of 3D.
But it has a lot of really interesting ideas that would
later get borrowed by Little Nightmares too.
So just as a development of the series, it's interesting for
them to try things out in this game.
Mike, do you ever play games on your phone?
(21:04):
Like Pokémon Go. OK, but nothing ever like
narrative. No have.
You ever played the the room games that are?
He's played those. Yeah, those are great.
Those are also phone. You might have played them on
Steam. They're on Steam too.
They're on Steam. They're also I perfectly good on
a phone which is really fun. Fun puzzle game.
Yeah, but even though little nightmares is apparently like
(21:28):
their original game completely on mobile, if you're a fan of
the series, I I recommend you don't sleep on it.
It's it's pretty cool and works better than you think it would.
So then little nightmares 2 cameout in 2021 and I could have
sworn Ribi didn't you think thisgame was two player couch Co-op?
I could have sworn it was. I don't remember doing Co-op, I
(21:54):
remember it having two players and I remember saying this seems
like it should have been. Right.
It seems like it was designed tobe and it for whatever reason
didn't work out. Wasn't I might have swapped
controllers like couch Co-op in that way where like I tried the
new try, I tried the new try. I might have done it that way.
Brian and I have played a coupleof games that way, but it's just
so funny because it's like it's a very bare and stain bear
(22:16):
situation where like if you had asked me if did the Little
Nightmares 2 have two player mode, I'd be like, yeah, of
course. I think I remember it wasn't
because that's why I was so excited for three Yeah, that it
would have Co-op. So yeah, I think, I think I did
know that in the recesses of my mind that it was single player.
So Little Nightmares 2 was wherethe series delves deeper into
the supernatural elements of thegame.
(22:37):
You are playing as this young boy who is trying to make it to
the center of this very It's notdystopian.
What is it if it's just? That you pop.
It's, it's nightmarish. And that's the way I would
describe it. I mean, little nightmares,
right? Like it's it's, it's a surreal
(22:57):
nightmare scenario where it's you against the world and
literally everyone is four or five times your size.
Right. And so this is the game with the
twist that you are drawn towardsthese televisions, these sort of
spectral televisions that are taking over all of society.
Everyone's obsessed with watching these to the point
(23:19):
that, like, their faces start tosag and they get physically
deformed by exposure to the broadcast.
And this is the game where it reveals that this little girl
you've been protecting the wholetime is actually the protagonist
of the first game. Yeah.
That reveal was crazy. You didn't know that going in
Ruby. Nope, no, did not know that was
(23:41):
6 wasn't. And then when that's when you
find out that's six, you go, Oh,my God, the little boy I've been
with this whole time is that. And it's not.
It kind of sets you up to wonder.
Yeah. But it's just a sad of betrayal,
unfortunately. And once again, 6 is a real
bastard because it betrays your ally at the end of the game.
(24:04):
You're fighting against this very Slender Man sort of
overworld boss, and Six is holding onto your hand and
deliberately lets you fall into this love crafty and chasm of
pulsing flesh and eyes. Like your inside organs kind of.
It's very weird. It's very hellish.
(24:25):
It's like this boy has just fallen into hell and you sit
there alone tragically until your body warps into the thin
man and he becomes the thing that 6 was fighting against.
Time travel element where it's you know, the reason he's after
you is you betrayed him. Yeah.
Did you like that? I thought it was brilliant.
I wasn't ready for that because while there have been portals,
(24:48):
the televisions were a little bit portal like, right?
You didn't know what the televisions were kind of going
towards and that the television made one of the protagonists
evil. 6 started evil in a lot ofways, right?
That protagonist was created. That villain was created by 6
(25:08):
sitting there like it. It's like you can tell time is
passing and passing and passing and passing as you morph into
the villain that's been chasing you the whole time.
So we know the little kids can turn into other things can be
turned. So I am curious to see if what 6
becomes after the end of the first one.
Right. What happens to Six?
(25:30):
What does she look like after that?
Will we find out in Little Nightmares 3?
I would tell you if the game would let me beat it.
RiRi and I got to the last levelI.
Wonder if that opens things up for the interpretation on the
first one to then also be a timeloop thing specifically.
Yeah, but so Mike, you made a joke about the Matrix and
(25:55):
letting one out, right? So I think you might be more on
to something than you meant to be, because the Thin Man
character, the the the monster in, I think he's the reason 6
becomes monstrous because there's a moment he grabs her
and there's this frightened shadow left behind.
(26:17):
It's almost like 6's innocent self.
Yeah, yeah. So it could be, it could be
stuck in a time loop, right, right.
The Slender Man tries to get herbecause she betrayed him but but
but to her perspective, Slender man to hurt her first.
Right, but that I think, and I'll be so stoked if I'm right,
I feel like we might eventually learn that mono slash the thin
(26:40):
man didn't do that to out of revenge.
He did that to empower her to defeat something else.
Or to stop her from hurting the kid and stop the loop.
Break the cycle. That was my interpretation.
This was trying to break the cycle.
Break the cycle. But he's they're stuck in a in a
time loop. Yeah, or.
At least he is. So then that leads us to the
(27:02):
Little Nightmares 3, which came out just a few days ago.
As of recording, it was like it's ten days old.
RiRi and I have been fighting like hell to play this game and
stream it. Not for lack of trying, I'll
tell you. Yeah, the the the big gloopy
adults are not the scariest thing about little nightmares 3
for our experience where you canyou kind of share your pain for
(27:23):
us. So we have Jamo and I have
played Co-op, we have played solo, we have played on switch
to we have played on PC. None of those games will let us
progress past certain bugs. I tried it with with another
person, another PC and so I think we could have beaten this
(27:46):
game easily last night had the bugs not prevented.
So many save files I lost. An entire save file couldn't be
restored from a game crashing bug and couldn't go back and and
fix it. We've had to restart several
levels. I I thought through some
(28:06):
glitches that were not game breaking, but yeah, this game is
so buggy. It's I suspect it was released
unfinished because it's October and they wanted an October
release. And to bring up a fairpoint,
this is not the same studio thatmade Little Nightmares 1-2.
This is a fully different studiothat has released Little
Nightmares 3. So a big grain of salt there.
(28:30):
This is not, not to disparage the previous studio at all, but
I I suspect that may have been what was going on.
I mean, it's notorious in the games industry to to crunch a
game, especially at the end whenyou're doing bug testing and
you're, you know, when you're inbeta testing.
And I, I very much feel like this is an unfinished game and I
(28:55):
am very sad about it. I wanted to like this game so
much. So to ask about like one of
those bugs that you guys were having, that the one that was
involved in having to restart levels, which seemed to be that
events that needed to happen forlike cutscenes and stuff would
not trigger right? For one person but not the
(29:15):
other. Is that what that was doing?
Or well, no, every time it's it.I think it is possibly related.
These glitches are possibly related to a desyncing issue
between Co-op. That that was something I
suspected until I played solo and something still happened.
But it's possible Co-op makes them easier to trigger these
glitches. Some of them were fully in
(29:38):
gameplay. Some of them were cutscenes
didn't trigger. Some of them were a cutscene
triggered, but our character models weren't correct in the
cutscene, which was odd and awkward.
And I have, I have a few clips of some of these, Mike, if you
haven't seen them all and Jamo, you may not have seen all of the
ones I've got. And we can, we can watch them
(30:01):
and you can see what we were struggling up against.
We can't really with our setup. Yeah, so let's watch.
OK, so let's watch those later and we can pick to them.
And yeah, but my favorite was last night on the Switch version
and I found the Switch 2 versionto be less buggy than the PC
(30:21):
version. Yes, but it led to its own
little heartbreak of re re having to download the friend
pass because that's the nice thing.
So this is the next line of thistrend that you know, it takes to
and split fiction has been capitalized on of like let's
make a really rich Co-op experience that you couldn't
really do split screen. Everyone needs their own system,
(30:44):
but we're going to give your friend a freeway to play the
entire game as long as you're playing with them.
I like this idea. I'm totally on board for it.
But so reread downloaded these Little nightmares 3 switch
friend pass and was told she could not play with me because
she did not download the switch 2 version of the friend pass
which it. Didn't explicitly say that.
We had to troubleshoot for a minute to figure out that's what
(31:06):
happened. And the icons on the Switch home
screen Identical Identical. Identical.
Identical in the in the Switch home screen on the eShop, there
is a little red banner for Switch 2, but the Switch 2 is so
new IT didn't even occur to me to look for a separate game.
Yeah, or that the title was so long like, well, let's not
(31:27):
forget if you search for little.Nightmares 3 on the E shop.
It doesn't come up. Doesn't come up if you do the
numeral. Three, it does not come up, so
you have to do Roman numerals orjust little Nightmares and
you'll you'll get a whole bunch of things.
There's a lot of DLC. There's a ton of content for
this game that you can pay extrafor.
If you could get the base game to work, you could see all those
things. So all this is to say that.
(31:48):
To get the game started together, it was like an extra
hour and a half of legwork and then we're playing.
And my favorite glitch that RiRihad was that her character sat
on the ground for some reason, being a cool kid, and she's
scooting around like a like he'sdriving a Mario Kart.
It's just. It's sliding across the ground
(32:10):
so. I'm I really hope they patch the
hell out of this thing and get this to a point that that's not
interfering, but I think I cracked the glitch.
Rhode Island, Rhode Island of the vent and the event that was
not occurring when we were in the chase sequence and you had
to so so there was a villain chasing.
You and something had to happen to be able to progress and the
(32:32):
villain was not doing the thing that allowed us progression and
at one point it did suddenly we went Oh my God, that was how you
get away the whole time. So I don't think it was a glitch
I. Think it was bad programming
because I noticed when I went that's a glitch that's.
That's a fancy word for glitch. Let me explain why when?
I went back through alone to getto where we left off on the PC
(32:54):
version so you and I could jump to the switch version.
I realized that she will only break that pipe if she's in the
background, but the depth of field is near impossible to tell
that you need to do that. So I feel like that's that's,
that's not that's intended. No, there's no way that's
intentional. Especially because I I have the
clips she grabs that pipe every time she walked by.
(33:18):
It just didn't break every time.OK, I.
Didn't see that. See you got the receipts.
OK. So no, that was absolutely.
Game breaking and the only way to resolve most of these game
breaking glitches was to reset to a checkpoint, which means you
had to do something again. I mean, we were already doing it
over and over again because we were dying getting caught.
I ran into one with my husband where resetting to checkpoint
did nothing. The glitch persisted and there
(33:39):
is no way farther back than thatthat that ended that game save
and we had not made it out of the first level yet.
I was so upset again. I will, I will put this out
there. I it could be my my computer.
This could be fully my P CS fault.
I built it myself. It might be haunted, I don't
know. So I'm not saying this game is
(34:02):
broken on Steam. Don't buy it.
I am saying this was my experience and I am pretty
disappointed with it. Well, and you know, and again.
A huge fan of the series, so everything I'm complaining about
I really want them to fix so people can enjoy this game.
Yeah, Oh, give me a. Patch I'll replay it and I will
rewrite this game. You know, I'll I'll revise but
(34:23):
but what's not a glitch? Is the stinginess with the
checkpoints because you solve puzzles in this game through
trial and error and error and error and error as you get
killed and grabbed and crushed and twitched time and time again
until eventually you figure out,oh, this is what you had to do.
But to make me reclaim the same tall ladder and throw the same
(34:48):
heavy object, it's just like that was not fun and it was
killing the tension and you're ahorror game.
Don't do that. Don't kill the tension.
I agree that is the. The best feeling in that game
was your first couple of times through a puzzle, Yeah.
And so when it is working smoothly, when you're you're
(35:09):
tracking at the same rate as thegame is, that's very fun.
The background environments are very creepy, very spooky.
I would say the music is probably not quite up to par
from 1:00 and 2:00. There's a sequence in one where
you're in a kitchen and there's a chef chasing you and the music
doesn't change the melody, but it changes it the tone, right?
(35:33):
And it's it, it feels, Oh my God, I'm being hunted.
I have to run. Like it's very heart pounding,
right? That music is so scary when we
listen to the soundtrack. I said, I have to skip this one.
I can't listen to it because it's still, it's still got me.
Just the music, you know, I never felt that in three.
And that was kind of sad becausethat was part of what made one
so special is that that immersive environment, including
(35:58):
the music. And the music wasn't bad, it
just didn't do that right, whichis a hard thing.
That's a rare thing for a game to do right.
How much that do you think? Is what the like the music
itself versus if you're already kind of getting frustrated with
the game that the music isn't able to sort of piggyback, not
(36:19):
able to penetrate? I I do think that that is part
of the factor. I also know, I mean, I told you
I I quit the first time, the first time I tried to play both
of them one and two and I came back to it.
I was obviously frustrated. Those runs as well.
And that that chef chase sequence is especially like that
(36:41):
one stuck in my mind, Right. And I didn't know the music had
done that until we were listening to the soundtrack.
I didn't realize what an effect that music had had until we like
to collect video game vinyl soundtracks if if they're made
and we were listening to it on vinyl.
And you can't exactly, like, skip a song on vinyl, right?
Yeah, I'm just going. To pick up the needle and put it
(37:03):
down. Somewhere else, because I can't
listen to that. It's it's too much.
It's too reminiscent of the of my experience with the first
game. And you you also have a theory.
About the music being plot important because you said when
there's a tune that's heard it'slike has a hold over people or
something. There's a couple of things.
So in the first one there's humming.
(37:25):
There's a humming little song, and once you hear it, it kind of
gets stuck in your head. It's a very simple tune.
It's almost Mary Had a Little Lamb simple.
But if I hear it, I'm like, that's a little nightmare song
that you hum. And of course we find out at six
humming it, and she's evil the whole time.
So it's meant to be a spooky song.
And there's also ATV, where one of the characters is kind of
(37:45):
entranced on the TV, and in order to get past the sequence,
you have to turn the TV off. And he gets mad and he chases
you, right? But the little song on the TV is
very insidious. In the same way that in two you
saw the people kind of melting into the screen.
He was doing that in one and that little song that plays on
the TV absolutely needled its way into my brain and.
(38:09):
And if I I couldn't sing it if I'd tried.
But if I hear it, I'm like, I know immediately where that's
from. Gets into your psyche a little
bit. Yeah.
Yeah. And.
And hopefully that pans out withthe your predictions of the
third game is that you're you have a theory that someone
working at the Dark Carnival in the second or third game might
have a tie to that song and thatwhole hypnotism.
(38:30):
I I do wonder is that where? The TV show was made.
Is that where that spooky weird TV show is filmed?
Because it had a very similar vibe and that was the first real
tie in to the other games that I'd seen.
I know it's a stretch. I was reaching for something I,
I will fully admit that. But I, I was sad the way one and
two tied together in such a fascinating way.
(38:52):
Right in an unexpected way. I hadn't seen that yet from
three and I, you know, obviouslyI haven't beat it yet.
Boy, would I love to. I don't know if I if the
glitches will allow it. I mean, we're gonna.
We're gonna. Finish, right?
Yeah, we're gonna try. We're gonna do our test.
We're gonna. I mean, I gotta get.
To the end. I'm at the last level at this
point, I know. I know so do you have any
(39:14):
predictions so I. I thought of a pretty banger
prediction for the way the game is gonna end.
So permission to to guesstimate.I don't know if this is true or
not. Please.
So throughout the story, you keep Mike.
Did you see in the streams you watch that like it seems like
there's a little boy. Well, I guess he's always a
little boy, but the main character, his name is low.
(39:35):
He's the one who wears the plague mask.
He's got kind of a map that he's.
Trying to follow yes and he's trying to find these.
Mirrors. And it keeps flashing to him in
some room, and there's someone outside.
You know? I'm talking about Mike.
Yeah, Yeah. So it's.
Almost. Implying that like this is all
his nightmare and Rhode Island, Rhode Island, and I just got to
(39:56):
the last level called the Institute and we don't know
what's in there, but I think that LO is dream walking and
you're going to rescue yourself and we are going to break him
out of the Institute and save him from whatever is after him.
That's my prediction for the last level.
(40:17):
What do you think? I love that.
I would love for that to be the case and and it would be
contrast to two where seemingly the cycle is infinite.
If you can break the cycle in three, that would be satisfying,
wouldn't it? And you would definitely are in
a padded cell. When you wake up from your
nightmares, kind of in several cutscenes where it seems like
(40:38):
you've got unconscious for a minute and you come back,
there's a glimpse of this paddedcell.
But we don't know what's going on and you don't know who's who
has you captive yet, right? But.
And then also, what if 6 is an adult running that place?
That's my. That is my.
Expectation that 6 will be the main villain.
(41:00):
It'd be dope it. Would be great.
I think it. Like I was saying, I was, I was
looking for tie ants. There was another hint to that
in the the carnival level, you start finding ceramic dolls.
Oh yeah, Which are the collectible from one?
You have to smash them to get kind of an achievement.
You have to find them all. They're kind of hidden in the
(41:22):
level. Same with finding the gnomes.
Find all the gnomes. So there's there's little
collectibles along the way. They're very minor.
That's the only side quest ever in Little Nightmares is these
collectibles, right? We also had this.
You thought thought what you thought was a tie into that with
the sausage somewhere and. Jamo Jamo was seeing.
(41:44):
References, right? Really, I would say it's the
sausage, it's the. Little nightmare sausage.
I'm not crazy for going. No, you're not crazy.
And I I think it's an intentional reference.
I'm not saying it's not intentional.
I just don't think that that's narratively relevant.
I think it was a gamer Easter egg, right?
Yeah. Like to remind you.
Of that scene. Because it is kind of legendary.
Yeah. What happens with the sausage?
(42:06):
I just think and when you. Find out what the sausage is
made. Of too.
Oh yeah, yeah, but. I just, I, I didn't want to hold
it because I'm like, well, I know what happens if I hold this
thing. Someone's gonna you take the
sausage, Riri's gonna eat you again.
That, and that was something that you know to bring up as
well, is you go through these environments in three and they
are seemingly unrelated. They don't seem to serve a
(42:29):
greater purpose. As you go through one, you're
like, Oh my gosh, this is a meatproduction factory and these are
the steps. And then there's the buffet on
the cruise ship at the end. And these disparate areas don't
seem to connect at all. Like, why is there a lollipop
factory? Like, I get it, It's creepy.
It's weird that there's mountains of lollipops and that
(42:50):
has a sinister implication, but why?
Yeah, it doesn't come up. Again.
So far, maybe it will, and I would love for that to be the
case, but I think the disparate.Disparate.
Is that the word disparate? Disparate nature of the levels,
it kind of takes you out of it because the other game, it's
almost like this one steadicam shot as you just escape.
(43:12):
And so you're really in the tension.
And so going from like, you're basically going through the
Mario 64 paintings into the nextWorld.
Yeah, a lot. You lost something there.
You lost that sense of oppressiveness because now I.
But then again, though, it was also heartbreaking when Lowe
finds the broken mirror and is just so despondent.
And you're like, oh, buddy, it'sgonna be all right, I will say.
(43:34):
Mirrors do have a little bit of symbolism in little nightmares,
you know, and there that's how you defeat the villain in one,
the lady in one. So and TV's are often, you know,
a Black Mirror. So there's there's tie insurance
there for mirrors to also be portals.
Why not? The TV's were kind of portals.
So thematically, yes, but not strong narratively.
(43:58):
Does that make sense? Yeah, Yeah, I think so.
That's my thoughts on that. So, so Mike hearing us.
Talk about it and watching it. Do you think you're gonna ever
give it a try? I don't think so.
I think because it feels. Like, a whole lot of this relies
on stealth elements. Yes, very much.
So, and that's just. Like that's mechanic that has
(44:21):
never particularly appealed to me.
Like it's it stands out as the part that I get frustrated with
when it works its way into othergames where I'm like why did you
have to put this in here especially?
Because the controls can be a. Little janky even in one and two
right they're they can be a little finicky.
What we experienced in three wasbeyond a little jank yeah,
right. It was a lot to forgive, but.
I mean, I'm I'm excited to finish it.
(44:43):
I love this series. Like I just feel like the
constant endorphin release of frustration.
I did it like every little room is its own little emotional
journey. And so did you feel like the
rooms were kind of easy, though?Most of the puzzles were a
little simple. I'm OK with that.
(45:03):
I. Really am?
No, that's fine, That's valid. Yeah, I I've.
Really, as I get older, I've come to appreciate a game that's
a little gentler with me. And like, I think that this
series, we didn't really talk about it, but through all three
of them, I think most of the puzzles are just challenging
enough that you feel just kind of naturally clever.
(45:26):
And it never really feels like, like the term moon logic for
solving things. Sierra.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah, I feel. Like the game is never.
Really guilty of that. There's always some cart or
something to light or something to climb or pull on and I don't
know, it's just, I think it's like an escape room and that's
why I thought Mike might like it, because I feel like you're
(45:47):
good at those. How much that is?
Puzzles in the sense that you really feel like you have to
sort of sit there and work things out.
Or is it just try things until you find out what works?
I don't know, Ray Ray. I feel like it's more like try.
The timing until you don't get caught is most of the puzzle
solving. There are some puzzles.
(46:08):
Where it's a little more like, OK, see if this will reach that
button, OK, see if this is the way to get up to that lever.
Where it's a little more take your time and, and really just
assessing the room that you're in.
There's nothing chasing you. There's no time pressure.
I'm thinking of particularly theone where I had to figure out
where to move ATV to block a door so the door wouldn't
(46:28):
automatically shut. Like that was a good puzzle.
It was obvious the TV moved, butyou had to move it in the right
way, right? So there are a lot of things
like that that I think Mike would enjoy.
But I would say that's that's maybe 30% of the yeah, the
challenge it's it's much more often you're doing all of that
and there's somebody in the roomwho will grab you if you make
(46:51):
any noise. But I've done.
Escape rooms like that where there's like a live actor in
there to mess with you and it really adds a lot of tension.
Hey rudo, so then really I know I didn't prepare you for this,
but if I don't mind, you know ifI can put you on the spot.
So little nightmares three it kind of feels like right now
it's an intend don't for you absolutely until.
(47:12):
Then patch it. Patch it.
OK? I can't in good conscience
recommend this game when I was so heartbroken when we defeated
a tough section and we're forcedto restart from checkpoint
because some some mechanic outside our control didn't
trigger and there was no way to have known that there was no way
to fix that. And again, I ran into it was 1
(47:36):
instance out of maybe 10 or so. Pretty rough glitches.
There was one instance where thesave file was irredeemable.
We could not. There was no resetting after
that. And again, I will give the huge
caveat, I played it on PC and I built my own PC and there could
be ghosts in the machine, I don't know.
(47:56):
At one point doing stream, my computer just shut down on its
own. So like there's there could be
other issues going on in my computer.
I don't think that would make the game run like it does, but I
can't eliminate that. Yeah, You know what I mean?
It feels like the sort of thing that.
Shouldn't it's one thing like this is running badly.
It's not running badly, but it'slike if no I had.
I mean the graphics were. On Ultra, right?
(48:18):
Just naturally the settings of my PC, you know, it's got good
hardware. It was running on ultra.
That was just what it started meon and I didn't change it
because it was running fine. But yeah, like it.
Until it wasn't. Something.
Where? Something's supposed to trigger
and it doesn't that that doesn'tseem like a graphics.
Issue. That doesn't sound like a
computer. Issue.
(48:38):
To me it doesn't sound like it to.
Me, which is why I'm saying this.
If I thought it was just my setup, I'd be like, you guys,
wasn't that so funny how my computer pooped itself trying to
play this little indie game? I don't think that's the case.
I think other people are also experiencing these bugs from
what I have seen so well. Let us know in the comments.
If you're also being tortured bythe bugs, I, I, you know what I
(49:01):
mean. Look, I'm easy to please and I
don't have the integrity that RiRi does, so I will recommend
this game even in his janky ass state.
At least on the Switch 2 I have not encountered enough problems.
Good point. It was better.
On Switch 2 than my PC for whatever reason.
The real littlest nightmares. Are the glitches we saw our long
(49:22):
ago. My God they are nightmares.
I will say my experience with Little Nightmares one was it
didn't run great at all on Switch.
Yeah, so my inclination was to run on PC.
Oh, and they just released like a.
Enhanced edition or something? I haven't tried.
I haven't tried that. I haven't.
Tried OK, but the loading screens on one were almost
intolerable because dying was such punishment to have to wait
so long to try again. So for whatever that's worth,
(49:47):
well, So we'll make that a. Tie So join our Discord and vote
on whether or not Little Nightmares 3 is a Nintendo or a
Nintendo. Don't anything else to say about
Little Nightmares the series, you guys?
I'm still a huge fan. I, I hope nothing but the best
for, you know, the future of this game to get patched and to
(50:07):
do better and maybe we'll have lots more.
It'll be awesome. I want that.
I would love to see that. But I'm also very much looking
forward to Reanimal, which the original dev team from 1:00 and
2:00 is putting out soon. So Reanimal, Reanimal.
What is that? For it.
Oh, it's. A new spooky game.
You might like it. That sounds good.
Mike, anything else about Littlenightmares?
(50:29):
Here's my question on it. So with three.
Games and I guess now it's sufficiently being treated as a
property that it's different studio developing if it's
different developers and you mentioned comics earlier.
Do you think that this would getand do you think it would
actually work to be either like a show or a movie or something
(50:52):
of that format that is not interactive I.
Mean I think so. I don't.
Think so. I don't think so.
I think I think the beauty of itis in the game.
That's why I put it as the gamesart category.
Games as art, right? Because the escape room element
of it is completely lost if you're just watching somebody
solve it. I think though you could inject.
(51:13):
Enough emotion into these children characters that like
you kind of get your blood pumping and you know, the the
connections between them and just the visuals.
I mean, especially if they did something like stop motion.
Like I feel like I'm not saying it's not possible.
I just. Don't.
I don't have faith that it wouldbe a good adaptation.
(51:34):
I'm going to make AI make a trailer.
That you're going to like, I mean, I think they're going to
have a problem. Starting with the using AI to
make the trailer. Like, yeah, I already don't like
that party. Oh yeah, absolutely.
That's the real little. Nightmare.
Yeah. Well, I think we're going.
To call that game over for todayuntil next time, everyone
remember to like, follow or subscribe to the old Switch a
(51:56):
Roo and rate or review the show wherever you get your podcasts.
RiRi, can you tell our listenerswhere to find you?
Sure, you can find me on Twitch.My name is Ririyells.
RIRIYELLS. If you head over to my page you
will see a highlight clip of me yelling at Little Nightmares
too, right at the top. So if you like indie games,
spooky games, come hang out. It's always fun.
(52:20):
All right, awesome. And Mike went on about our
website. Yeah, so you can also find.
Find the website at the old switcharoo.com.
You can find links to all our social media there, links to the
discord. You can reach us through any of
that. Let.
Us know what you thought of thisepisode, what you're hoping to
hear in future episodes as we'refilling in before we start the
(52:43):
next season. Yeah, it's gonna be fun and.
Season 4 premiere. I mean, it's a ways away, but
Rhode Island. Rhode Island come back for
Majora's Mask. It's gonna be a thing.
I'm very excited. And then of course you at.
The website www.withtheoldswitcheroo.com
Like Mike said, you'll find a link to our discord where you
can talk games, play games, and even make a friend or two.
As always, thanks for listening to the old switcheroo where
(53:04):
we've been talking gaming retro with Rhode Island, Rhode Island
Mike and Jamo. I've been Mike and I've.
Been Jamo game. On everyone.
It's a matter of what. Gets under your skin and what
(53:26):
unsettles you and I'm. I'm so glad you emergency is
Mike OK please no earthquakes. Mike, are you all right?
Yeah, that they. That just does that from time to
time. OK, like.
Your building is safe to remain in, Yeah, we just ignore that a
lot. And it stopped.
(53:47):
So that's not safe, but. OK, OK.
Don't love that. Well.
No, jeez. Anyway, is your mic?
Yeah, it stopped. So OK.
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