Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 – An Involved Prequel-Sequel

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 takes place before the first installment in this series. This is the first of the series with a more developed, more involved plot, and plenty of new ways to die. To combat this, there are new mechanics designed to help players–now playing a different Night Guard–make it through the week (and beyond, really).

The old meets the new with more animatronics than ever before. The original animatronics return, consisting of Withered Bonnie, Withered Chica (not an official name, but she’s missing her hands and some other bits so it seems fitting), original Foxy (who is still Out of Order). and Freddy Fazbear. Each of the original animatronics now has a Toy counterpart, save for Foxy who has a sort of alternative (The Mangle). The doors are gone, the flashlight is more important than the door lights ever were, and Foxy is far more of a pain in the ass than in the first game.

The Plot

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza is sparing no expenses in 1987, investing heavily in facial recognition software for their signature animatronics–the Toy animatronic line-up. The originals, featured in the first game, are out of order at the time of the game. Bonnie is missing a good portion of his face. Chica has no hands. Foxy looks about the same as in the first game, given that nobody apparently felt like fixing Foxy. Freddy’s about the same, if only a bit worse for the wear, while Golden Freddy and Shadow Freddy are appropriately creepy. All of this creepiness makes sense as it surrounds the disappearance of five children and a series of cover-ups. Mini-games made available between death screens–which will be something players become familiar with, as this game is significantly more difficult than its predecessor–give some insight as to who killed these children and why the animatronics are behaving as they are.

The Mechanics

This is where Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 makes me a little less thrilled than other installments in the series. There are ten animatronics out to kill you. Checking the hallway, the vents, the cameras, and keeping the music box wound so the Marionette doesn’t pop up and insta-kill you. Golden Freddy, The Mangle, and Foxy complicate things by being a bit erratic, and the possibility of the Exoskeleton just popping up to be creepy and distracting. It’s easy to die to the old animatronics (Foxy aside) because putting the Freddy Fazbear head on even a second late means death.

The Rookie Killer

I’ve only played Night 1 of this game, and it was spent dying a whole lot. The old animatronics never really got a chance to off me. Balloon Boy ruined my shit more than once. Paying too much attention to one area was made worse by someone popping out of the vent and killing me. And so on. Alternatively, I did get to see all of the death minigames. I think the best summary of how frustrating FNAF2 can be is Markiplier’s 10/20 Mode playthrough, which shows just how wicked this game can be.

Misadventures In Failure

Not even getting past Night 1. Good god. That’s so embarrassing.

Overall Rating – Buy This Game FIRST

Shocking, I know, but it can’t hurt to play this game before the first one. It gives more backstory to the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise while adding its own fun (and frustration) to the series. The mix of new things being bad while old things fall apart (I won’t go into game theory stuff here as there are more posts to be had this week) is fun, but Mangle is like the older, more awful version of Foxy that I think most players are happy to never see again. There are few things as terrible as shining light on the right vent and seeing that damn thing. The jumpscare noises are significantly less painful on the ears, but the flash of time between Withered Bonnie or Withered Chica appearing and putting on the Freddy mask is always a tense moment. Those things in mind, this is still my least favorite installment in this franchise. I have tremendous respect for Scott Cawthon for creating this games in such rapid succession, but this one feels out-of-place compared to the others.