Review: you remember the old version, But now you're dealing with the new version..
So yea, as you remember the story left off at the nightmare begins chapter 3, what happened to chapter 4 ya ask?, well the creator got sued and had to discontinue the series, So they were planning a remaster but it got cancelled, Then brought up! Then cancelled, then brought up, OK so the truth is that they couldn't make up their mind about if they wanted to discontinue the series or not, but looking at this game you can tell what option they chose.
Time to get onto the review, you'll already notice some differences in the remaster, the older version is more fast-paced while the newer version feels very slow in comparison, Which is the first flaw, it felt like there were more cutscenes than gameplay, nonetheless, the cutscene in the beggining was honestly pretty promising, In the older version they used SFM to make these animations, But here you can tell that they are made with blender.
And honestly, the animatronics are more threatening than they were in the older version, in that version they were kinda cringey and just laughable, The dialogue they spout out on our plumber man was kinda cheesy, for example, "Where are you?"I know you're here" "found you" these are lines I heard alot in past horror games, Like, cmon dude..
Whats that? Ya wanna know what else has improved? Sure I'll tell you, Guess I should get straight to the point
Graphics 7/10:
HUGE improvement, the problem with the original is that it's graphics were far from good, the rooms are very open and not well designed, textures were pretty crappy, and the still 3D images are too squished, the arcade games were far worse, OH my God you will be horrified once you go to the 2nd arcade machine, the only redeeming part were the 3D animated jumpscares
The remaster improved this all, rooms have more environment, wall textures are better, and the still 3D images also look good, and the animation, (while pretty linear) is nicely done.
Oof, not really a fan of the 2D sprites, Mario's animation for moping only consists of 2 frames, and it doesn't really look like moping, the animatronics look strange and so do the mario brothers, which is the reason why I bumped it 3 times down to a 7
Gameplay 6/10
The game is obviously inspired by mario and the music box judging from the gameplay elements. The game is a 2.5D adventure-RPG that takes a top-down view
In the old game the phone guy forces you into rooms and you'll have to normally look inside to find an item just for an animatronic to pop up at very convenient times, you're never really in danger, Mario is only in danger when he has to make a choice or run from an animatronic, the cameras didn't come in use too, they are only used in cutscenes, luckily the remaster changes this all up though,
Mario can not enter rooms with ease now, He's going to have to go on cams to check what rooms the animatronics are roaming around, he immediately dies when he's in a small room with the animatronics, though when in a big room, he can still evade the animatronics but has to stay just out of their sight,
Honestly this is way better, this seems to be the main gameplay mechanic of the game that I hope will be used more in the full game, perhaps there can be an animatronic that breaks down a cam when you stare at them for too long, I'd kinda like to see that since that'd be variety y'know?
The remaster has fewer choice-making decisions than the old game, the part where you have to hide from bonnie in the backstage is removed, hiding in the kitchen from Chica as well, there is only 1 time where you actually have to make a choice to survive, And that's in the supply closet
the game is a bit on the easy side, Sure, it's a demo, But I still see this as a flaw because I suspect that when the full game comes out it'll be pretty easy, the only time the game actually got challenging was at the moping mission you had to do, Chica was the only one coming after you there, it's a shame that there wasn't anything that could alert her to you, basically mario has to mop all the dirty spots in the dining area while avoiding chica, but wait! Mario is missing the most important ingredient of moping, water, where was the bucket of water at? It would've been more challenging if after every 2 mops you're going to have to get more water from the bucket, because you just can't clean without the water.. stop breaking the laws of physics mario!
another flaw I had with the game, is with the chase scene, Once the dialogue ends You have to quickly scoot to the bottom right before chica decides to pounce you without giving you a headstart, all you have to do is run to the office, Which isn't that hard but I hope all chase sequences won't be like that though, also the chase sequence lacks tension and is pretty simplistic, there are no obstacles to avoid, and the goose chase with mario and chica lasts 6 seconds,
hey 6 ain't a bad score though, It could've gone lower.
Sound 9/10
Honestly the best part of the game, the voice acting for mario is phenomenal and is the main reason why the game over scene is so darn disturbing, and everything sounds like it's supposed too, the music is well done and fits with the atmosphere of the game, however there's not much wrong with this category other than the fact that mario and the animatronics have the same footstep noises, I would've preferred the animatronics had robotic footsteps,
however the sound is really what makes this game, there's not really much to say about this though, but now this category has the highest score also, Don't worry because the next category will also get a good score!
Plot/story 8/10
After quitting a job because of spike offending Luigi, Mario and Luigi get their very first client, The owner of a pizzeria sends them to do some plumbing and fix some pipes, Sounds easy enough until things start to go down on the 2nd night..
Alright, the plot sounds pretty decent, the storyline? Oh that's just what I was about to get too, the developers said that the lore was gonna focus on william, Which is better because we already know alot about michael, however They use the main fnaf lore just for a storyline, Which I don't like though, in the OG game, it seemed like the lore focused more on michael, here it's gonna do the opposite,
Remember the OG game where you conveniently encounter arcade games on some of the nights? Well the game FORCES you to go too them just for lore, Honestly I'd prefer if the arcade machines WILL appear in the game, that they're just collectibles just for replay value, Speaking of, In the OG game, There was something HORRIBLY wrong with the arcade games, where does the game part come in? All you do is watch some brain dead png image goofy guys with purple shirts talking, toy know what, have the arcade games just be some optional playable minigames, but now that I talked about collectibles..
Replay value 5/10
Ok so it's a demo, of course there wouldn't be that much of a reason to come back, I know there are drawing pieces but those are the reason why I gave this a five, to start off there is no indication that you had to optionally find drawing pieces, Why not put a drawing piece icon under the chapter to indicate that there are collectibles, they are hidden at very unexpected places, To find them you have to randomly interact with an object until you hear mario say, "Whats this?" Players will only find these drawing pieces if they feel like interacting with everything, this is not good for players who just want to beat the game,
But look on the brightside! Atleast there is a reason to come back to the demo after it's beaten, (though requires it an immense amount of dialogue skipping..)
Overall:
They fixed every flaw from the original game, And managed to make something great out of it with the remaster, Unfortunately though, this game is not flawless and still has a few mistakes like it's slow pace and all, I still enjoyed the adventure nonetheless and proud that HAZAH improved over his last games, perhaps they'll also remaster the nightmare begins, Who knows?
7,0/10 a pretty good game, but I'd argue that there are better RPG or FNAF games out there.