A Cavernous Horror of Ups and Downs – A Poppy Playtime Chapter 4 Review

(Image Credit: MOB Games - Via Steam)

This past month I had the privilege to let’s play Poppy Playtime Chapter Four and was lucky enough to purchase on a January sale for £12.56; and while I was eager enough as the next streamer to play it, little did I expect for the amount of flaws this next instalment suffered. Now I will fully admit that there are going to be spoilers in this article, so I do advise those who don’t want to see them to read at your discretion.

From the chapter’s beginning it started off pretty strong, ally to the player, Poppy, re-ascends to help Kissy Missy shortly after instructing the player where to go before being cut off mid-sentence to “Watch out for…”; it was enough to build both fear and hype for the player to whatever lies ahead as they explore the caverns of Playtime Co. The chapter is rich in environmental storytelling, MOB stays true to form as the player enters at first glance what looks to be a giant room littered with dead toys to suddenly be jumped by a blinding light followed shortly by sirens and an attack by mini-wuggys. Now I was fortunate enough to not get hit by any my first time through, so I wasn’t able to experience the multiple hit kill mechanic at first, however after the first encounter of the chapter’s antagonist, The Doctor, a short while later did the game slowly spiral into, as best put it, mediocre.

(Image Credit: MOB Games - Via Steam)

Once again I digress from the flaws this chapter has to offer; the foreboding atmosphere is once again present as the player enters the prison, environmental story telling is also beautifully composed in the sound design too as every now and then a shriek of a toy can be heard echoing off the cavern walls further emphasized by the first time we ever see actual dead bodies of the former factory workers; all very glamorous to horror game aficionado like myself, unfortunately that didn’t change the fact that the encounters weren’t too scary. Like the prison entrance in the chapter’s beginning, the player is greeted to another survival against the mini toys, while I will admit that the encounter was scary at first, I was half expecting to be like chapter three where a singular hit from the mini toy would kill me, to my surprise none of them did, instead I was treated to a health system (similar to the likes of Call of Duty, Outlast and Battlefield etc.) and from a game design perspective, it was understandable as to why they would include that system when multiple enemies are attacking you at once, but at no point did it justify the same system to be applied later on in the chapter when the player eventually meets The Doctor and let alone in the tertiary boss Doey the Doughman. It’s also worth mentioning that this chapter introduces us to the teased Nightmare Critters, and while it was fun seeing them attack as mini toys, I left feeling disappointed to find not a single bigger version of their sizes make an appearance in the chapter. The closest we got to a bigger version of a Nightmare Critter, was a slightly larger plush of Baba-Chops, but more on that later.

Even so, returning to the few things that made the chapter stand out, I was incredibly astonished to find the secondary antagonist, Yarnaby live up to the hype MOB gave him. Mostly down to the stealth mechanics his sections had to offer. Yarnaby shook up the gameplay quite a bit, whereas in monsters prior, consisting of just running away, against Yarnaby, you had to avoid his line of sight or risk dying and starting the section from the previous checkpoint. However, let’s not get carried away, because along with the many flaws present in chapter four, Yarnaby’s encounters does have a lot of weak points. Before the current version I played, players came across a variety of bugs and glitches revolving around Yaranaby’s mechanics, chiefs among them involved the monster seeing the player across the map or not even spawning at all.

I on the other hand was lucky enough not to run into those issues but there were a few big ones happened to be quite a bother; a peculiar case in particular happened in before being tasked to power up the machines, I was Yarnaby’s line of sight, he began to charge towards me, but only stopped short barely a foot away from me before sniffing the air round him and patrolling somewhere else. Adding to the problem was one of my most hated mechanics in video games, an inconsistent checkpoint system, where once I finished one task only to suddenly get caught by the monster to be thrown two steps back and starting the process again. Yes it was fair attempt by MOB to make stealth mechanics, but I couldn’t help but feel that making enemy patrols were still new to them and at the time of writing, released a bit too unfinished which of course leads us to Yarnaby’s final chase sequence and demise, and I have to it say, it was satisfying as it was silly.

In order to escape Yarnaby, the player as often did in Poppy Playtime had to leg it down a lengthy hall while the monster gave chase before using the grab pack to get to safety and finally killing the antagonise. Nevertheless, Yarnaby’s death only ended in stupidity as he jumps after the player to get accidently caught by a hook, flail and catch fire for no reason before falling to his doom down a chasm; and while one can argue that there was a boiling pot next to him, that didn’t change the fact that his death was more amusing than shocking like previous encounters, but hey at least it left somewhat of an impact unlike big bad fought next.

When it came to facing The Doctor, I have only to say the voice acting was absolutely spot on. Baldwin James Jr. who played The Doctor hit the nail in the head performing a character who’ s not only in control, but also politely menacing and manipulative to those he comes in contact. A particular scene I liked was how he tried to figure out who the player was, and at times attempt to get in their head about whether or not to trust if what Poppy says is true. Alas when it came to building up to the boss on the other hand, gameplay wise slowly began to take a toll, as what laid between were series of puzzles, not overly challenging, but if annoying and what I felt only could have worked better had MOB not implemented a multiple hit to kill mechanic.

I will not say too much about the first few puzzles, as they were relatively simple involving The Doctor taunting the player. The best one in my opinion involved running around a lab wearing gas mask with a limited amount of oxygen as you try to find the code to the next room, this time around however, environmental story telling was guided by dialogue, as per code fetch came a discussion between what seemed to have been orphans and their assigned doctors prior to experimentation and ultimately transformation. The downside was I wasn’t able to stick around to listen to the dialogue in full due to the lack of oxygen, and while the puzzle itself was quite confusing to complete, it was overshadowed by once again such rich storytelling from the environment.

Sadly though, out of the four leading up to the doctor, that was the only one I liked, because past that, everything went downhill. Now I previously mentioned in this article about the serious lack of bigger bodies for the Nightmare Critters, a slightly larger plush of Baba-Chops met the bare minimum, but only just, as the same multiple hits to kill mechanic was once again present through the duration of the encounter, but somehow even worse. In the likes of games such as Call of Duty, and Outlast, a red visor or blood splatter effect appears on screen whenever hit, however unlike the previous encounters with the smaller plushies, the larger plush Baba-Chops had mix of green in it; which wasn’t a bad thing on its own, presumably to distinguish how she was armed with a toxin to slow the player down.

Nonetheless the encounter was still massive downgrade from Yarnaby, mostly due to the fact that the body was slightly bigger, hence I expected a one hit to kill and not multiple. I also wish to iterate on the level design of the encounter too, as I expected much like Yarnaby’s to avoid the enemy’s line of sight while completing puzzles, to my disappointment all I had to do was run around the map while Baba-Chops continuously attempted to pounce me, which quickly became a feature I found to be annoying. Once past the puzzle, The Doctor, once again attempt to taunt our character by having them question their morality, and I have to say it was such a missed opportunity it was on MOBs part, because the character was given a choice under a short time limit: The Doctor gives a us a choice to execute the Nightmare Critter trapped in the glass case in order and obey Poppy, or wait out your own demise, and potentially start the Baba-Chops section again. Had the player actually been given the choice, there may have been a potential to affect the outcome of the chapter, to my disappointment once again, there wasn’t and the only way to progress forward was to kill the Nightmare Critter.

Then we move onto the actually fighting The Doctor, and with all the build-up of his character as the chapter’s main antagonist, it was underwhelming. Like the Baba-Chops puzzle we are thrown into a pit, running around the map while we solve puzzles. The enemies I have to admit, were a rather unique design, unlike the monsters prior to The Doctor where there is a unique toy like design, The Doctor’s minions, (Potentially himself) were more robotic, endoskeletons with TV’s as heads and eyes for screens, but like the Baba-Chops section the multiple hit mechanic was once again made present, setting the bar incredibly low for a boss fight. Meanwhile, it was incredibly difficult to see where you were going due to how quickly the player had to run through the level and the number of robots chasing and or hitting you. From the trailers of the server room, I expected it to be somewhat similar if not scarier than the encounter with Miss Delight back in chapter three, but upon release the section was boring and underdeveloped to say the least, especially on the account of The Doctor’s defeat to be incredibly underwhelming. Now you’d be expecting a boss to put up more of a fight, you’d expect the big bad to make a final stand after his minions failed him more than once, all the boss consisted of was, going to his computer, removing his chip and then just like that, the boss dies; not with a bang, not with intricate puzzles, not with a chase sequence but just a few buttons on the console and removing his core data.

Which of course finally leads us to the actual final boss, target toy of the chapter and saving grace of the story, Doey the Doughman. Now before going on about the character it is worth mentioning, that a fourth villain was potentially teased in the chapter shortly before the reveal of Doey the Doughman, but its appearance was so short-lived that even community members were appalled by the lack of depth to its character that they were crying “JUSTICE FOR PIANOSAURUS” both on and off steam. On the contrary, I was more or less confused, because judging by the game trailers I was expecting him to be much bigger, and then came Doey, and I was even more confused. His appearance was friendly don’t get me wrong, but it made no sense as to why a man made of Dough was slightly larger than the toy supposedly twice its size. Maybe as a suggestion for MOB in chapter five, the actual Pianosaurus makes an appearance and in chapter four was just mini-saurus.

Anyway returning to the character Doey the Doughman, I was once again intrigued by the amount of depth put into the character accompanied by a great design and amazing voice acting. Micheal Kovach, voice actor for Doey the Doughman, was out of the park when playing a character not only appearing to be a big ol’ softy, but also a mentally disturbed figure suffering from past trauma and multiple personalities meshed into one. Before the chapter’s beginning, the design behind Doey was already fantastic and only to continued to get better throughout the chapter’s duration. There is no denying the fact that the opening VHS ad was one of the coldest in the game, as what started off as an innocent looking family Christmas quickly descended into a nightmare, a little boy named Jack was taken to the Playtime factory as a trip organised by his parents to suddenly fall into a dough machine while on tour in Playtime. Co.

Doey’s backstory was undoubtfully messed up, and as you progress through the chapter, you discover it to be even more messed up when you realise there is more than one personality meshed in the anti-hero’s body. A collectable VHS later when discovered, explains how Dr. Harley Sawyer (The Doctor) used another boy under the name Kevin as the perfect subject for Doey, though questioned by his behaviour by other scientists. Finally upon reaching the boss fight, I could not help but feel bad for Doey, before and after defeating him. Shortly before reaching the boss fight, the player was tasked by Poppy, into luring the franchise’s big bad, The Prototype, into a trap and ultimately destroying him using explosives, only for the plan to suddenly backfire when the chapter’s main location and title, ‘The Safe Haven’, exploded resulting in every toy allied to Poppy and Doey being killed.

Doey was a tragic character, and his death too left a bittersweet taste in my mouth, as he wheezed his last words “I’m sorry”, quite a fitting end to such a sad tale, or so it could have been if the boss too hadn’t had its flaws. Returning to the aspect of character design, the genre of bodily horror makes an incredibly gruesome return, no soon before chasing the player, Doey out of anger transforms into monster with many arms, a particular feature I loved was how you were able to see the three different children meshed into Doey, who seemingly looks as if they’re trying to escape. However when it came down to the boss fight, I was once again let down by the multiple hits to kill mechanic hence removing the fear factor from Doey. Yes I confess that the boss was pretty challenging, yes I will confess that it was an interesting way to shake up the gameplay, but from a game design perspective, multiple hits to kill the player in a game like this, just doesn’t make it scary.

Nevertheless, I cannot digress to say that this chapter’s storytelling was unquestionably good, and what not better to end my critique of this game without MOB’s confirmation of fan’s suspicions, that our supposed ally, Ollie, was none other than the infamous experiment. 1006, (The Prototype) and how it was he who re-planted the explosives into the safe-haven and how he plans to put Poppy back in her case. In fact I must re-iterate how amazing the environmental story telling this chapter was, and going back to when we enter the safe haven for the first time, I must commend MOB for making such a menacing antagonist, no short after discovering that Kissy Missy survived her attacker were we greeted to another clue as to what The Prototype may look like by the casting of his shadow on the hallway wall. And what not better to end the chapter with the return of an old enemy, Huggy Wuggy, now confirmed to be alive since teased in chapter two.

I cannot fault the game for the depth of storytelling it brings, MOB’s use of sound design was pretty darn spooky, environmental story telling was tremendous, character and level designs were absolutely spot on; but despite the story’s success, I was not sold on the idea of this chapter being as scary as the others, gameplay was flawless, but it was overshadowed by buggy, broken and reoccurring mechanics. With scenarios that are repetitive, without a one hit to kill mechanic, the chapter wasn’t in any medium scary, and the hype surrounding, The Doctor, Pianosaurus and the Nightmare Critters was nothing but abysmal. If MOB made chapter four disappointing, I see no reason to make chapter five better.