As Jeremy Fitzgerald, you are now the security guard of the re-opened Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. The old animatronics are scrapped and are being used for parts, but have been replaced with new animatronics, the "Toy" models. These have shiny plastic exteriors and apparently have cutting edge facial recognition technology and are tied to a local criminal database. However, there's a glitch and you still have to make sure they don't kill you while you're watching then. Additionally, have we seen the last of the old animatronics? And who's that kid that keeps saying "Hello!"
So if you've played the first FNaF you know what to expect. Check the cameras, check the lights, close the doors. Or you
would be able to close the doors
if you still had them around. In exchange for removing the power limit from the first game, you now no longer have doors and instead have a Freddy Mask that you must put on when an animatronic gets in the office. In my opinion, the mask adds a lot more tension than the doors, especially since you basically have to watch as an animatronic looks you over before you can take it off again. Or at least it would've if the animatronics looking at you were more than just a single frame of animation sliding out in front of you. Replacing the power requirement are two new things to look out for: The Music Box, and The Flashlight. The Music Box has to be constantly wound and replaces the "out of power" death from the first game if the song stops. The Flashlight has batteries, but it has a pretty decent life and it's mostly used for scaring off or slowing down the animatronics. One thing that I really like is the use of audio cues. While the first game had them, this game does a much better job of preparing you for what's up ahead, from the sound of an animatronic crawling through an air-vent to the radio sounds Mangle gives off.
In terms of difficulty, this game ups the ante. FNaF gave you 4 animatronics to look out for (5 if you include the easter egg, Golden Freddy). This game gives you a whopping
10 non-easter egg* animatronics to check for (not counting the Puppet that's kept in check with the music box). You have the four new robots, obviously, but you also have the old animatronics who get progressively more aggressive as the game goes on. Probably your biggest annoyance, however, will come in the form of Balloon Boy, a new animatronic who doesn't actually attack you directly, but will disable your flashlight so that a death from Foxy is inevitable. There's definitely a lot more going on to keep track of.
Which brings me to my biggest complaint about this game: there is way too much shit to keep track of. I mean, yes, it's challenging, and it does a good job at testing your reflexes. But in all the checks, you lose out on the potential horror and it feels more like a job. Remember how I mentioned that I beat the last game with a pattern? It's completely possible to play the game legitimately and still win. You can track the animatronics through the restaurant, try to beat Foxy running down the hall, etc etc. In this game, you don't have a pattern, you have a set of reflexes, and that's ALL you can do. The music box mechanic prevents you from ever using the security cameras for anything else, especially in the later nights. And until you get used to that, you will die a lot, and while it's kind of alleviated by the randomly occurring Atari games that come after it (which are pretty simple but do a good job exploring the lore), the new jumpscare kills are for the most part
complete shit. Seriously,
this screen is something I wish girls would do to me in real life! There are some decent ones, but for every
kinda cool screen, you get ones that
look like they could've been placeholders.
So in the end, instead of a scary game, I get something that feels like it could've been on WarioWare. It's a fun game, yes, but it betrays the concept that attracted me to the franchise in the first place. It's like the game took a few steps forward but then took those same steps backwards. If you want a fun, fast-paced game with occasional jumpscares, you'll like this game. If you want a game that actually connects you to the experience, look elsewhere.
7/10Spoiler: * (click to see content)
Yup, there are three [!] Easter Egg animatronics. The first two are Shadow Freddy and Shadow Bonnie, who will crash your game if you look at them for too long (I mean literally, the game exits out). The third is an endoskeleton that sometimes shows up from time to time. It cannot hurt you at all, but it's a red herring that might distract you from actual threats.
