Let's just get this out of the way. Hello Neighbor is not a good game. I've been watching videos online about how this game is terrible, and I've wanted to try it out myself, and my God, they were right

First off, the story is a convoluted mess leaving us more questions than answers, which is probably why they always want MatPat to dissect everything Hello Neighbor has to offer, like every other indie horror game. Since there is no voice acting when you get caught by the neighbor a certain amount of times, there is a playable story scene looking at the neighbor's past and why he is acting suspicious. When playing through these playable scenes, it fails to tell me anything besides making us feel bad for the neighbor, which doesn't intrigue me in the slightest

The gameplay and story are split into 4 acts, and each act after the first gets worse once you put a little more time into the game and see all the game's flaws. Act 1 starts with a standard house with ok puzzles trying to find the key to open the door. Then the second act comes, and you have to escape the neighbor's house, and you'll notice the upgrades to the place, which is bigger and worse, especially the later puzzles that have some baffling solutions, to the point where it doesn't feel like a house anymore. And due to the house being more extensive, the neighbor will have a hard time catching you with those upgrades he has made to his place, which makes the stealth in this stealth horror game feel like a joke

I haven't even mentioned the game's physics yet, but it is also terrible. Something as simple as stacking cardboard boxes is frustrating because it feels like a game of luck trying to stack them to reach a platform part of the roof. Not to mention you'll have a moment where colliding with objects can launch you way up in the air because screw real-life physics am I right?

In Act 3, you will encounter a few minigames when you reach a specific area of the house, and clearing each of these will give you a particular ability that will be used for the final act, and playing through these minigames is the worst to come out of this game. My least favorite out of all of these is the cart minigame, where you have to pick five items and place them into your cart, which is another challenge; you can't tell which items are correct because there is no list, so it's all trial and error. There are these mannequins that kill you for some reason, and your only options to avoid them are by running or your invisibility by ducking, which doesn't even work most of the time. And you are forced to do these minigames, which makes all of them not fun to play. When I got to the final act, I just wanted to be done with the game, and I'm glad I did while being rewarded with a terrible ending. Also, the presentation and the character designs, in my opinion, look hideous. And it can't be a terrible game without bugs and glitches. I didn’t get softlocked, which would've made me have to restart the level, but I guess I was lucky because I was playing the PC version of the game, and I heard the console versions were worse

If you're looking for a good stealth horror game, I suggest looking elsewhere. I've wasted 6 hours playing this game, which feels way too much for a game like this, and the same can be said with its price of $30. I never played the early Alpha versions, but they look much better than the full release. Now there's a sequel coming out soon, so we'll have to see if it's an improvement over the original, but for the time being, my advice is don't buy the game unless you like torturing yourself by playing terrible games. It is easily the worst game I've played this year, and I don't see a reason to return to it anytime soon

Reviewed on Sep 05, 2022


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