Review for Hello Neighbor. Game for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, iOS and Android, the video game was released on 08/12/2017 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 31/12/2018 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 31/12/2018
Take a Survival Horror, mix Stealth mechanics with it to escape from an enemy that learns and evolves over the course of the adventure, a colorful and bright graphics compartment, a pinch of environmental puzzles and you will get a fun and exciting video game. Or maybe not.
Hello Neighbor is a title that has made the specialized press and gamers discuss, disappointing most of both spheres. Released in 2017 on PC, Mac and Xbox One, it arrives this summer on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and mobile devices (Android and iOS). For the occasion, we decided to get back to work to see if anything has changed, but it seems that, as expected (being a simple port), its strengths and weaknesses have remained unchanged.
Hello neighbor ...
Imagine moving, moving house. New neighborhood means new neighbors. And what would you think if, by pure chance, looking out the window, you saw the neighbor beat, gag and lock up a person? "Always greeted" does not seem the case. A normal person would call the police, we wouldn't. We will try to sneak into that house.
Hello Neighbor is divided into three acts; in each of them we will have a different setting to discover and in which the only purpose will be to solve environmental puzzles to escape the neighbor maniac and find out what really happened. In the first we will have to enter the house, while in the following the purpose will be to escape from it. All while, after several deaths, we will be shown disturbing flashbacks of the neighbor's life, to make us immediately understand the reason for his madness.
The colorful and cartoonish graphic style makes the game as particular as it is anti-climatic. Except for the very first few times, and perhaps not even those, being caught by your neighbor is more frustrating than scary. The small size of the maps (especially the first one) and its "learning" our moves will tend to make it always appear in the same places, a factor that will often force us to run around the house to escape capture.
The neighbor will indeed have a rather infamous artificial intelligence: will be able to understand when something is wrong, hear the noises of broken windows, learn our paths and place traps where needed, often in an ingenious way.
... no, just goodbye
The enemy AI and the basic idea of Hello Neighbor are perhaps its only two noteworthy merits, because we are not really into everything else.
The puzzles, for example, the central part of the game, are totally illogical and meaningless. Often and willingly we will find ourselves, in the absence of a guide, to perform completely random actions to try to find the solution to the riddle, take a key or a particular object. During the adventure, there won't be a single challenge that can be solved on the first try with a stroke of genius or orderly reasoning and we will find ourselves wandering around the maps with unknown objects to combine with as many unknown objects and so on, until, by pure chance, something happens that will carry it all forward. And on to other random attempts.
We add to the problems with inaccuracy (and calling it such is an understatement) of the commands. The jumps will be totally uncontrollable and nine times out of ten we'll slip away after a long platforming session with no real why. Stacking the boxes to reach higher floors will be a pain comparable to a multiple birth and will drive most people crazy.
The key word is therefore one: frustration. The colorful and cartoonish aesthetic sector is of no use, especially since it is surrounded by a rather simple and anonymous graphic realization and a practically absent sound sector. Hello Neighbor has gone through several alpha, port on port, but in the end it continues to look like the demo of a game that is still incomplete.
Hello Neighbor is a mass of confusing and unsafe ideas, which started from a certainly interesting base, but then collapsed on themselves under the weight of an ambition that failed to live up to expectations. The port for PlayStation 4 could obviously not change anything of what has already been said for the Xbox One and PC versions and we find ourselves, for the umpteenth time, in front of a frustrating and illogical title. Failed.
► Hello Neighbor is an Adventure-indie-Puzzle-Strategy game published by tinyBuild Games for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, iOS and Android, the video game was released on 08/12/2017 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 31/12/2018 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 31/12/2018
