Is FNAF as good as everyone says?

Horror Fanatics

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Phoebe Winkler, Writer, also Batman

It all started on August 8, 2014 when Scott Cawthorn uploaded a game titled Five Nights at Freddy’s to the Desura and Steam platforms. This would be the start of the widely successful game series, but are the games really as good as everyone says they are? To evaluate this we’re looking at three categories; Lore, gameplay, and since they’re horror games… scare factor.

 Lore

We’re starting off by looking at the Five Nights At Freddy’s (FNAF) lore. For those who don’t know, lore is the story behind the game. Lore is the thing that FNAF is famous for above anything else. The lore is sprinkled between each of the games, and out of order, so it’s not the easiest to understand; unless you want to play detective of course. There’s currently Nine games in the fnaf series, yet enough lore for MattPat and FootofaFerret to have a Thirty Minute video just explaining the lore in order; Also, this video was made before FNAF security breach came out, so it’s currently behind by a whole game. The lore does keep the games interesting though, as the game-play is typically 1 – 2 hours, they sprinkle in little cut-scenes to add to the lore. In my opinion, the lore can be interesting, but it’s confusing and incredibly lengthy. !!SPOILERS!! We already know about how William Afton is a mad man who sent an animatronic possessed by his daughter to a testing facility. Tested on Golden Fredbear who possessed his son, Killed five+ children and stuffed their bodies inside animatronics, etc; Yet, the games are still on going to this day. It feels like they’re stretching out the lore too much as they keep making games. It felt like the story was mostly complete, that was until they released Security Breach of course. That added new questions, but it feels like Security breach is the “end game” of the series, meaning that it takes place at the end of the story. It feels like there’s a big gap between Fnaf 3, To Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Simulator, and To Security Breach, even though they all take place around the same time. I think Scott Cawthorn will continue making games, though it feels like the lore is already mostly complete.

Gameplay

Now, let’s take a look at the game-play. The game-play in the FNAF games is actually pretty nice; the controls are easy to understand. The games get harder as the night progresses, but the difficulty and overall play time varies depending on the game. For example, FNAF 4 is much harder than FNAF security breach, but FNAF security breach has a much longer play time. I would say that the average game play time is 1-2 hours, with a few exceptions to that. One issue I do have with the game play though is that it feels repetitive. FNAF 1, 2, and 3 have the same base game (security office, security cams, animatronics, etc) with only a few differences. The other FNAF games take a bit of different approaches, yet it still feels a bit repetitive, like you’re doing the same thing over and over again. I think that there’s just been so many games that even if you went in the completely opposite direction, it would still feel the exact same.

Scare Factor

It wouldn’t be a horror game without a scare factor, and FNAF’s full of it. From distorted images appearing on screen, to every type jumpscare in the book, FNAF’s got it. If you don’t close the doors in time, or don’t do whatever you need to do to keep the animatronics away, you’ll get jumpscared. My one issue with this is that it feels like the only scare factor in the FNAF games is jumpscares. Sure there’s that feeling that you can’t run away, but it just feels like the whole game revolves around jumpscares and that there’s nothing else to them.  I think the lore was also supposed to make it scarier, but it doesn’t. The games remind me of the ghost face mask you can get at Spirit Halloween that pumps blood in it, meaning that it’s supposed to be really scary, but they’re not. I just wish that there was another way to scare people other than jumpscares in the game.

So are they really as good as everyone says they are? Well in my opinion, no. Now I’m not saying that the games are bad, but I just think that they’re over hyped. When games are as repetitive as they are, have incredibly confusing lore, and only have one thing to make them scary, they just get boring fast. This game seems more like a game you would get hyper-fixated on for a week, a month at most, then forget about them for the rest of the year, then a game you would play consistently. My recommendation would be to play a couple of the games, but don’t waste your time on all nine of them.