Hannah Review – Cries and Dolls
Hannah by Spaceboy
I want to say upfront that Hannah has a lot going for it. As a spooky 3D platformer and puzzle game in the vein of the Little Nightmares franchise, one of the key things that this kind of experience needs to nail is the aesthetic, and the developers at Spaceboy have absolutely done that.
The game has gorgeous, twisted environments, memorable character designs, great music, and a compelling story. Unfortunately, this is a stunning game largely let down by its gameplay.
The Nightmare of Being
Taking control of the eponymous Hannah, you have to dive into this little girl’s nightmares to both rescue her doll and make sense of her past. You do this through a combination of platforming, puzzle-solving, and occasionally stealth, with some of the paths you take and choices you make affecting which of the game’s four endings you get.
It’s a simple premise that evokes cult classics like American McGee’s Alice, and as I said before, all of this works on paper. The problem, however, arises with a bunch of small issues that bog the experience down.
For starters, the exploration and platforming in Hannah feels very unpolished. The game’s environments make it difficult to parse what you need to interact with and what you can’t at all, and the actual control of the character makes platforming imprecise. However, the biggest problem here lies with the game’s camera. You’re encouraged to zoom in and out to get a better view, but many of the zoom options given to you are far too distant to be useful at all.
It’s a struggle I dealt with throughout the entire game, and it never stopped being frustrating.
A Nightmare to Remember
Even aside from my issues with controls, there are some fundamental design issues with Hannah that impact the experience quite a bit.
For starters, getting killed by an enemy just respawns you exactly where you died (with the enemy often dying in the process), turning this into less of a threat and more of a time-wasting annoyance. Annoyance is also how I would describe the game’s numerous box-pushing “puzzles,” though thankfully there are much better puzzles as the game goes on.
Similarly, its much-touted moral choice system doesn’t ultimately amount to much other than some graphical changes and a different ending cut-scene. I honestly wish the developers had just settled on a set story instead.
The Verdict
As I said at the beginning of the review, Hannah isn’t an outright bad game. It’s just unfortunate that the experience is let down by gameplay that feels like it needed more time in the oven. It’s a gorgeous game, but playing it is a bit of a nightmare.
Hannah is available via Xbox Live and Steam.
Watch the trailer for Hannah below:
