so hard to rate this one. it excels and improves tremendously over the previous chapters as a horror game, offering more tense build up and interesting and terrifying scares through huggy, catnap's stalking, and the various areas of the playcare we start to explore. the moment you start playing, you can FEEL how much the developers have taken their time with this and crafted something that feels bigger than just another "mascot horror" game.

despite this, poppy playtime 3 fails as a game. the puzzles themselves are interesting and decently fun, albeit a little glitchy at times, but it irks me how little catnap featured despite how excited I was for him as an antagonist. he was genuinely terrifying, but his final boss fight is anything but. i dont want to spoil much, but its so underwhelming when compared to how wonderfully executed mommy long legs and huggy wuggy's chase sequences were. i think the new direction they chose to give catnap fits the cat character more, yes, but its just so painfully boring. it reminds me of the whack-a-huggy minigame in chapter 2, except that one was actually fun and didnt overstay its welcome. the playtime devs are definitely able to create fun and stressful minigame situations (especially obvious thanks to chapter 2) but they really missed the mark on its ending which sullies my feelings of positivity for chapter 3.

regardless, it is pretty fun and genuinely very scary when it tries to be. i really admire the direction the poppy devs are taking the series!