Reanimal - Before You Buy

And we're back with another episode of before youe Buy that show where we give you some straight up gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games releasing.

It's me, Jake Baldino, and today we're talking about Reanimal. This is the newest game from Tarsier Studios, the masterminds behind Little Nightmares 1 and 2.

They didn't make Little Nightmares 3 that released back in 2025. They've been off making their own new thing here with Reanimal.

This is a new adventure, but the framing is still sticking to what they're good at. You as vague, creepy little kids wandering around scary places.

But conceptually this time around it goes way bigger and way weirder. And some gripes aside, I really enjoyed playing through this.

If you're like old Jake here, just, you know, a fan of the weird genre of cool art games where you wander around as a little guy and see some messed up stuff, you know, like a little nightmares or a limbo or an inside or whatever, then this game might be for you.

And just so you know, I've been playing a review copy and this footage is captured, running on PC and is spoiler free.

I mean, you're gonna see some stuff here, but I'm trying to only show the earlier stuff and not like as many of the bigger surprises.

Now in this game, you start out as a little stranded boy and girl. The girl with a kind of broken bunny mask and the boy with a sack over his head.

You can play the game solo with an AI companion or play it cooperatively, which is how I experienced it.

You can do it online co op or thank God, couch co op, which is a type of way to play that is near and dear to my heart.

And I'm just glad it's a thing here.

That's how I played it. It works really well. And you take you and your little people, you navigate through these creepy, actually kind of realistic world, encountering all manner of horrors.

And you're running from them, you're hiding from them, occasionally fighting them with simple melee, kind of like Little nightmares too, and solving some light environmental puzzles with keys and stuff.

And for lack of a better phrase, the vibes are incredible here. While it feels distinctly from the guys behind Little Nightmares, it's a new flavor of horror.

One that's a little less in your face and more dread inducing and sadder somehow. And it totally works.

It's. It'll sometimes go for the less is more approach, giving you that pit of your stomach dread as you only see shadows moving around in the distance, or you're trying to navigate your way through pitch black hallways, or you're navigating an environment that implies something really gross or really nasty, but lets your imagination fill in the blanks.

It also goes bold with like these big wide open areas and sometimes some brightly lit areas. And it all still manages to maintain that level of uneasiness.

Then the game also occasionally pulls the trigger with some wildly gross and weird stuff that just downright works.

In a cool addition, your characters actually speak in small moments throughout the story. There's like still that little button you can press to whisper to your buddy, but along with that you'll occasionally get real dialogue from the characters.

When they announced that they were doing this, I was skeptical because, well, you know, less is more.

And the beauty of these games are the simplicity. But I'm happy to say that the way they handle dialogue is perfect here and it distinctly fits the storytelling and atmosphere.

It doesn't get lost in dialogue sequences or drawn out cutscenes. It's just little vague bits of chatter here and there.

And I actually really enjoyed the execution of it.

Now my main gripes with the game are pretty much the same as I've had with their previous games. This style.

After a while, the trial and error gameplay can feel a little tedious if you're stuck. Some enemy encounters or moments require some real precision.

And if you or your co op partner keeps screwing up, you die. And then you start over with that gentle little shot of your kids waking up and standing up and going at it again.

That can get old after a while, especially in instances where your screw ups don't feel like it's on you, like a missed jump or something like that, but something that you just can't figure out.

So you bang your head against the wall in one area or over and over again, dying over and over again, repeating over and over again until you figure it out.

It can be kind of maddening, especially cause a few instances in the game the path or you know, like what you're generally supposed to do, what the game wants you to do isn't very clear or telegraphed very well, leading to, you know, a little frustration depending on your tolerance for this stuff.

If you played Little Nightmares 1 and 2, you get it. I think it was a little more pronounced than this one here and there, but it's just something to point out.

It can be frustrating if you're the type of person like your gaming sessions are limited to like an hour a night, but like everybody's different.

Look the Bigger world means you're traveling by boat sometimes too, which is like a unique thing. It's pretty simple and it works with one character controlling the boat and the other.

If you're playing with someone managing the light in terms of exploration, you know, it's still not a massive game, but it feels big.

The wide open shots of these seemingly massive, big dreary worlds where you're just a little speck. That's where the game does a good job.

But gameplay wise, it's not like a massive open world or anything like that. There are little diversions here and there, but they're not too much like.

You can find additional masks for your characters if you're clever and you can equip and then change them right in the pause menu.

Other than that, you can find pieces of concept art that you can collect and view in the extras menu.

That really seems to be about it. And they're not really all that enticing or exciting to hunt down. Puzzles seem way less involved this time around, which may disappoint some fans, but I found the other shakeups along the way made up for it.

And just generally the way the game was paced. I like the enemy encounters using different tools and.

And a few other surprises. I think some of the hide and seek moments are a little less stress inducing here and like they're not as drawn out, but I absolutely loved the design of all these weird freaks.

They go a totally different direction here, but it works. They look. They look really cool. There are also some interesting creative bits here and there where you work cooperatively with your little buddy that are actually a little more involved.

Think kind of like a very light it takes two or split fiction puzzle here and there. Also, the game really ups the ante with camera work.

Some of the camera transitions to areas are great. Like really ambitious stuff where the camera will swing through a window.

Like, it's just cool to see in action. If you're playing co op, sometimes you can lose where you are for a second because maybe you're not the character in frame as it's transitioning, but it's really kind of a nitpick.

The arch atmosphere and soundscape are worth the ride here with. Worth the experience. You know, the environments, the creatures, the mood.

And just seeing where this weird little journey goes, I think is worth playing through. Like their previous games.

It's only a handful of hours though, so be warned, that launch price tag might not be for everyone, but I think you should still definitely play through it at some point when it works.

For you, Reanimal is cool as hell. And while familiar for me as a Little Nightmares fan, the real joy was in the more unexpected moments.

And I think it has it in spades. And I just really appreciated playing through something that has a little bit of a different flavor of horror.

And I think there really is something to the way these guys make games. I did the before youe Buy for Little Nightmares 3 from last year, which of course wasn't made by them.

It was made by a different studio and it immediately felt totally different.

It's.

I was worried about like whether or not that energy like that this studio's energy. You could really feel it in a completely new ip, like a new game.

And thankfully you do. They really did stick to what they know, stick to what they do best. But it wasn't just rinse and repeat.

They had some fun with it here. But I mean these games are simple. I don't need to make like a big long video about it because it's pretty straightforward.

I definitely recommend it for you at some point. This is a before you buy, you know how this goes. By now I give you some pros and some cons and some personal opinion and now I want to hear yours down in the comments.

Let me know your experience with Tarsier Studios. Like you know which. Let me know your experience with Tarsier Studios.

Little Nightmares or just this little sub genre of of game style, whatever you want to call it. Hit us up down in the comments if you like this video and seeing the gameplay on screen here, you know, hearing some info and some opinion, maybe it informed your purchase or whatever.

Clicking the like buttons, all we ask, it legit helps us. Thank you. But that's it. All I can say now is thanks for watching and we'll see you guys next time.

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