this game. it introduced so many aspects I'd eventually grow to hate about the series. the over complication of the lore, 'humor', talking animatronics, futuristic technology in the early to mid 80's (despite having seen 2023 in fnaf 3 and NONE of the futuristi dtuff was presnest WHATERVBR) blah blah blah, killer killing children so he can live forever BLAH BLAH. The gameplay was MADE for streamers to only play once and never again. it's riddled with cheap scripted sections. It's the same thing every time you play it there's never a reason to replay it. (I replayed it)

admittedly it WAS fun to watch youtubers play when it came out though. their reactions to the scripted events were integral to the fanbase's hysteria it was a good game

(EDITED REVIEW, original review was the lyrics to The Beach Boys' 'Ding Dang')

Genuinely such a chore. I didn't think things could get worse than FnaF 3 but I somehow like this one less.

To start things off, this is a glorified visual novel. I really like visual novels, but this game doesn't embrace being one and shoves gameplay in your face that both isn't fun and barely explained most of the time. There are also two in particular that are extremely frustrating and require you to play nearly perfect. At the very least, one could make the argument that Night 5 (the fake ending [more on that in a bit]) is optional, but Night 4 is necessary to progress. The game hardly explains it to you, and even when you finally get it (or, let's be real, look it up) it's frustratingly precise. Even if you play perfectly, you can still lose just because you get bad RNG. It's by far the worst part of any FnaF game I've played so far. Also, I still don't get how Funtime Foxy works!

The story itself isn't anything insanely good or anything (it's FnaF) but it's pretty engaging. I like it. The way it's presented leaves a lot to be desired, though. Instead of piecing things together like in the first 3, or having it told to you in cutscenes after playing the game as in 4, the gameplay itself is the story. Most of this game is just unskippable dialogue that you will hear over and over and over again. The game has a frustrating tendency to have the most recent autosave be way earlier than they aught to be. If the game was more liberal with autosaves and had skippable dialogue I would have a much more positive view of it.

On the topic of the story, I should mention the writing. I don't know if it was Scott Cawthon on his own, or if he had a collaborator(s), but man I hate it. The game really, and I mean really wants to be Portal 2 (even down to the white chrone aesthetic!!). It really wants you to think this sit-com parody is extremely funny. It really wants you to think 'Exotic Butters' and 'Eggs Benedict' are the funniest things you've ever heard. And it really wants to manufacture memes with its jokes. Nigh every joke is groan worthy and horrendously forced, which would be fine if they were a small part of the game, but when every single scene is filled with the same YouTube meme bait jokes, it gets very old very fast. I found myself laughing more at how pathetic most of the "scary" or "unsettling" parts of this entry are. The Minireenas, or whatever they're called, might be some of the unintentionally funniest things I've ever seen in a game.

There are a few things I like about this game! Firstly, it's a huge step up in terms of polish and visuals. The environments are much more detailed, and the animatronics look better then ever! And, as norm for FnaF, the sound design is on point (if only the game had some gameplay that used it...)

The best part of the game, though, is Night 5.

Spoilers from here on!

Once you get the series mandated tedious lore minigame out of the way, you're able to get a secret ending on night 5. This leads to a secret room with gameplay!!! There's only one animatronic to deal with, but they're not a walk in the park by any means. This section was a lot of fun! I also like the little FnaF 4 easter egg :)

This, unfortunately, is almost entirely ruined by two things;

1. The power drains way too fast. You can sit doing absolutely nothing, and you'll have dropped 10% in a matter of maybe a minute or so? The night is nearly 10 minutes, by the way. If you're unlucky and have Ennard stay behind one of the doors for a long time (I had them stand in place for at least 30 seconds on multiple occasions), I'm nearly certain the night becomes impossible due to the power drainage.

2. Every time you die, you have to redo just about everything you did prior that night, outside of the elevator ride and checking the lights. Run through Funtime Auditorium. Listen to the unskippable dialogue. Wait 10 or so seconds until you can press a button. Do a puzzle that has a randomized result every time. Press a thing. Press another thing. Sit through an unskippable cutscene. Leave. Go back through Funtime Auditorium. Enter the secret room and listen to the unskippable dialogue. And now, and ONLY now has the actual game started.

Both of these paired together make this otherwise super cool and genuinely fun Fnaf 1 callback an absolute nightmare to actually play. When I finally won, after what I think was 3 hours, which is about half of my total playtime, it was only when the power had run out. This is without Ennard being particularly still, decent RNG, and minimal mistakes. Instead of feeling accomplished, I only felt relief. Relief that I would never have to do that again. And the reward? Another Dracula cutscene! YAY!

Took me longer than I expected but I finally completed FNAF Sister's Location. I got gifted this game as well as FNAF 3 and 4 from a friend of mine for the big FNAF video I am working on (stay tuned at the end of the month for that) and this game out of those 3 was my most anticipated but it is now also the most underwhelming out of the three. Sure, I like this game better than FNAF 3, UCN, and SB, but I was just disappointed. I appreciate Scott trying to do something different here when it comes to the gameplay but to me, the nights were poorly designed.

Night 1 is by far the easiest night and you can literally never die that night. Night 2 goes overboard with difficultly after a very easy night 1 and Night 3 is very mediocre with its difficulty. Night 4 gets super extreme and was the hardest night I've encountered for any FNAF game yet! That night specifically has kept me from beating the game for the past 2 and a half weeks! Constant failures and aggression had kept me from going to replay this night and then Night 5 was a nice and easy way to end the game. Maybe I have to go back and unlock the custom night to enjoy this game more than I do now but I really don't know if that will change my opinion.

Unfortunately, this definitely isn't one of my favorite games and the fact it took me 7 hours (just because of night 2 and MAINLY night 4) is insane. I'm hoping to finish Pizzeria Simulator next and I hope it isn't mid like this game.

This game was my gateway to FNaF, so there's somewhat of a bias here. But growing older has definitely allowed me to look past my nostalgia and view this game objectively. And....its not very good. Although on paper the gameplay sounds fine, there are just so many baffling design choices that just make this game frustrating to revisit. From a lore standpoint, yeah things went sorta sci-fi which many people don't like but personally i don't have problems with it. However, the custom night is EXTREMELY well designed and a much deserved W.