My History with FNAF - World, Sister L.

(DeviantArt version here)  

Here we are again. No need to bog down with the intro, other than recapping my thoughts on previous games quickly. I swear, DeviantArt needs a folder feature for journals—it’d make things so much better. All these changes they make to that bullshit site, and they can’t add helpful features?

Fortunately, WDC has them all like I need.

I’m nostalgic for FNAF 1-3; I don’t consider them great games, but I think they’re largely alright. They got by on their lore for the most part, and it worked because they were so simple. FNAF 4 is bad. It’s pointless in the grand scheme of the franchise, and it’s just a repetitive experience. I know the other three are repetitive, but FNAF 4 gets boring real quick. Also, fuck the Bite of ’83 nonsense; it was clearly meant to be ’87, I was there for those teasers.

Now then, we’re going to cover two games in one journal because one of them is a spin-off. An important spin-off because it helped change the direction of the series, but a spin-off nevertheless.

Let me be clear: I haven’t played FNAF World, so my knowledge of it is nil. But I can tell you what I think of it based on the knowledge I do have.

FNAF World Prelude

While it felt like the huge “jumping the shark” moment due to the cute art style, it would’ve been fine as long as this game wasn’t canon to the others. And outside of some bits, it doesn’t impact the other games. It shouldn’t be canon in the first place, but it’s tolerable compared to some other entries that involve loads of text.

The game was not good at launch. This was where Cawthon’s rushing of games bit him in the ass. A major blow was that Markiplier refused to play it. Love him or hate him, he is and always will be known as the “King of Five Nights at Freddy’s”. YouTubers provide free marketing, and his not playing the game crippled its reach. Even if he did play it, I don’t think it would’ve garnered many fans.

This is one of the most barebones RPG experiences I’ve seen. It makes the original Final Fantasy look like Final Fantasy IX. The game is so overstimulating with lights flashing, constant movement and jarring art style switches. The original release had a retro game style for the overworld, even though the battle system exclusively used 3D renders. Also, said battle system didn’t explain what a single move did. How did a 2016 game make the same mistake as Pokémon in 1996?

Bad RPGs exist, but they usually have an engaging narrative at the bare minimum. Not even good ones, but ones that you care for or that contain characters you want to see do their thing. FNAF World offers none of that. It’s full of quirky writing, but it doesn’t lead to anything interesting. The game is full of embarrassing “LOL, random” humour.

I believe and RPG with FNAF characters has potential. If it’s a spin-off, there’s no reason to limit them to the scary animatronic gimmick. However, Cawthon failed to deliver, and eventually FNAF World was made free with an update. I’m not sure what all it changed other than adding move descriptions, adding more minigames and having a consistent art style.

I respect that Cawthon made this move, getting Steam to refund people for the original release. He learnt his lesson, as the spacing in later FNAF games is decent. He never tried to make another RPG again. Whereas you can pump out an arcade-styled FNAF game in months, you can’t make RPGs in that short a time. They have alternate scenarios, dialogue, battle mechanics, sidequests and far more to consider.

FNAF World is an important game. It and the upcoming release highlight a change of tone in FNAF.

It’s important to remember that Scott Cawthon was not a horror developer. In fact, he openly expressed disdain or disgust for the horror genre. He’s a devout conservative Christian, so what would you expect? But to be thrust into the limelight as this indie horror developer must’ve bothered him. It sucks to only be known for one single thing, after all. The stuff he was more passionate about—the innocent religious stuff and the sci-fi stuff—failed compared to his last-minute horror content. FNAF World was no different, with many viewing this cutesy and safe game as the black sheep of the franchise.

As an artist, I relate to this feeling. I don’t hate producing foot fetish content, but it’s annoying to know that it’s the only thing most people will care about me for. If I try to depict other deviant acts, most won’t care.

The tip is to accept this and try to do what you want in spite of that. But this isn’t my job. I’m not bound to a schedule or expectations outside of commissions. Cawthon was doing this for money, to support his family, so he had to decide on either changing FNAF to the tone he wanted, or he had to make a new franchise.

He chose to alter the moneymaker franchise, and it was with the next game that the decision was firm. In October of 2016, we got Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location.

Presentation

I’m skipping the lead-up because I don’t remember much of it. I definitely saw the trailer and maybe a few theory videos before the game launched, but not much else. As I said in the previous journal, FNAF 4 was when the series had hit oversaturation, so I was very burnt out.

Now, Sister Location continues what FNAF 4 attempted. Cawthon slowly tried pushing the engine to its limits, including a few more movement options into the game. While this is an admirable effort, the execution leaves much to be desired. In fact, it looks worse than FNAF 4 at points.

I believe the game is back to a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is a good thing. There was no reason for the past three games to have a an ugly 4:3 ratio; 4:3 is fine, but the games stretched themselves on all widescreen monitors, making them look too fat in most videos.

However, the edges of the screen cause things to curve, which is like a fish-eye lens. This is very distracting when 2D sprites go near the corner of the screen. The mouse is also affected. The game uses its own custom mouse cursor, and yeah, it’s terrible. Not only does it feel downright inaccurate, but it warps with the screen on the sides. There’s no reason why a standard mouse icon couldn’t have been used.

Aesthetically, Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental is okay. It utilises a lot of blues and has this futuristic yet dated vibe. You see so little of the place that I come away not having a great impression of it. FNAF 1 still does the best job where you see just enough to be unsettled, but not too much to where nothing is scary.

There is only one minigame, so the part I found most unsettling of the past three games is pretty much gone. The one minigame that there is has this bright and chipper music, only becoming unsettling at the very end. And by that point, it’s too late.

I can talk a lot about the audio here. For one thing, in FNAF videos online, people really love using this game’s soundtrack for some reason. It’s not a bad one, just not one I never gave much thought to. Though I appreciate that most if not all the compositions here are original. I didn’t mind FNAF 1-3 using public domain scores, as it gave this creepy nostalgic feel. But this is an alright substitute that sets the mood.

Oh, but there is more. This is the first FNAF game to have voice acting. Technically FNAF World included some, but this is the first game entirely voiced. Almost every single character you see can speak.

And here comes the salt, ladies and gentlemen. I’m not against FNAF having voice acting, but in execution, it makes this game a lot less scary. The intro cutscene with Mr Afton is fine, especially compared to his later performances where he doesn’t know about subtlety. But Funtime Freddy’s goofy voice, while fitting, causes me to not feel terrified. I barely remember what Ballora sounds like, I swear Funtime Foxy has no voice, and Baby needs to shut up. Listening to her speak gets very draining after a point, as she doesn’t change tone.

None of the voice actors do a poor job given their material. I just don’t think they enhance the game.

Animatronics

Overall, the faceplate concept is strange. I don’t know how these guys were meant to entertain children when they look so unsettling. But in terms of being horrifying, they can work. Some better than others.

The Bidibabs are stupid. They are some of the worst animatronics in the series. Very unmemorable, very lame name, very lacking designs, and they got the honour of getting a coloured variant in the Custom Night mode.

Funtime Foxy and Funtime Freddy are the least effective. I also don’t think much of Bon-Bon, other than finding it funny that he has an abusive relationship with Funtime Freddy. Poor thing getting hurled at walls.

Ballora is nasty to look at, but she works as a creepy mother figure animatronic. Good design. Same goes for the Minireenas.

Now, for the main meat. Circus Baby is a huge bitch—a giant clown. While this would scare most normal people, I am not normal. I’ve loved her design from the beginning. When you get past how creepy she is and the fact there’s probably still a rotting child in her, she is adorable. How can anybody hate such a chubby, tall clown? I think she rides a fine line of being both cute yet terrifying. It’s only a shame that the horror side of her doesn’t come out for most the game. This game really needed to utilise her more. I don’t get what Cawthon was going for by having the player never actually see her. The Night 5 segment with her eyeless suit doesn’t count since she’s already part of Ennard by then.

In fact, not seeing Baby is a major story issue. We know that Mr Afton’s daughter possesses her, but the connection is all in her eyes. In the minigame, Baby has blue eyes. After killing the green-eyed British lass, what happens to her eyes? They become green. But you never see Baby’s green eyes within the actual gameplay. You only ever see it in renders or the trailer. Why?

Ennard is also just silly. I think it’s at its creepiest during the Night 5 scooping cutscene, but every other time, it looks like a dopey clown dude. Whereas Baby does a great job mixing the horrifying and cute nature, Ennard is too cute for its own good.

But this game is unique compared to all the past ones. We have actual characters within the story now. FNAF 4 dabbled in this with the cutscenes between the nights, but here, the animatronics are the ones with personality. Funtime Freddy is a psychopath, Baby is cunning, etc. I understand why this happened, as a fifth game with lifeless animatronics could feel rather limited. I’m not against giving them personalities, and for what little they have in this game, I think it’s an appropriate amount. They’re just lively enough to be interesting while robotic enough to be menacing.

Gameplay

Sister Location is a bad game. What’s the most important part of a game? Having fun gameplay. A good story can enhance mediocre gameplay, but your gameplay should still be fun in its own way.

The biggest problem with Sister Location is that the player never learns. A staple of game design is that a player can do better once they learn how to play. And that makes gameplay more satisfying. For example, if you play Super Mario Bros. 2, you’re likely going to struggle at first with the item throwing gimmick. But by the end, the game is testing you to master your timing skills in its levels and boss fights. You’re rewarded for learning the game’s mechanics.

The other FNAF games do the same, just ramping up difficulty as the nights progress. But Sister Location can’t do that because every single night contains a different gameplay style. You’re not learning anything that you can use on later nights.

Now, I’m not against Sister Location having more variety than the past games. But it needed far more than five nights in order to achieve that well. While further in the future, I will praise Security Breach for ditching the five nights formula since it didn’t make sense for that game. It might as well just be a branding trait at this point.

What results is that whenever the game does have difficulty, such as in Night 4 with the Minireenas, the game is wildly unfair. It tosses a brutal section at you, does a poor job explaining it, and expects you to beat the night flawlessly with mechanics you’ll never use again.

Night 4 is infamous for a very good reason. Even with the post-launch patch, it’s obnoxious how quickly the springlocks will unwind. Additionally, clarity was an absolute must for this game. How is a player supposed to know that they’re supposed to shake the Minireenas off the sides of the suit, yet the ones coming inside are to be ignored? Who would think about that? Nobody, especially not on the first few goes. It doesn’t help that regardless of how you die—be it the springlocks unwinding or the climbing Minireenas—only one animation plays, implying the Minireenas kill you each time. And since the night lasts for so long, retrying it gets very tedious.

While Night 4 is trash, the rest of the game is super easy to the point of feeling boring. Night 2 is probably the most engaging, dealing with Funtime Freddy in the breaker room, but it’s not that tense of a scene. All you’re ultimately doing is holding a button, releasing it, checking for Funtime Freddy, then repeating it. Most of this game can be summed up as holding buttons.

The older games don’t have the deepest mechanics either, but they are way more involved than anything Sister Location has. At least FNAF 2’s endless chaos is stimulating. And you get something for learning its mechanics, namely victory. There is no such satisfaction to be had with Sister Location.

It’s not about repetition. There are plenty of indie games meant for one or two playthroughs, like the indie game Presentable Liberty. But that first playthrough needs to feel special, and Sister Location’s doesn’t, not for me.

And the checkpoints suck so much ass. Night 5 is the worst example because if you die during Ennard’s challenge, you start from the very beginning of the night. That lame keypad sequence with Baby—which you can’t skip since the number is random—is cruel to replay. The awful mouse cursor makes it easy to accidentally screw up the input. I have to imagine this was done to pad out the already short runtime, as there is no defence for such atrocious design. Considering Security Breach repeated the mistake years later, this franchise is just allergic to good checkpoints.

Also, despite making it seem like you have more freedom, this game is as linear as the previous ones. You can’t move around the place freely aside from a very specific section. I think that was a huge missed opportunity. Granted, maybe it’s also good that Cawthon realised the engine had limits, so he limited the scope. But then the game shouldn’t have tried to give the illusion of freedom. From playing the Pokémon games on the Nintendo Switch, I can reaffirm that the illusion of freedom is worse than just admitting the path is linear.

Ennard’s challenge is the most stimulating part of the game, but it’s ruined by that checkpoint situation. It’s also ruined by the fact that it is not the ending most players will get. You have to go completely out your way to find it, and it leads to a fake ending at that.

To give Sister Location credit, at least brightening the credits flat-out tells you it’s a fake ending. It’s not vague like what later games would end up doing. But still, what is the point of multiple endings in a story-based series like this?

Sister Location eventually got a Custom Night update two months later, in December. By that point, I was not playing the game, so I’ve never touched this mode. I believe it is free, though.

Aside from lacking Baby and having some of the worst jumpscares in the series, people seem to praise this mode a lot. It really is similar to the older FNAF games, which is an improvement to the base game. If I’d played it, I’d have more to say about it. But at least it’s a more substantial update than FNAF 4’s Halloween DLC.

However, there is one complaint. You have to complete the secret minigame in order to unlock Ennard’s challenge in the base game. And the only way to access Custom Night is to get both the real and fake endings.

I wouldn’t mind this too much if the secret minigame wasn’t, you know, secret. What the actual hell was the reason for making this a death minigame? Firstly, if a player never dies, they’re never going to see this minigame. Secondly, beating this minigame is so difficult that most aren’t going to achieve it on their first attempt, so why lock it to death during the main playthrough? When you beat the game, a hidden icon appears that you can click to re-attempt the minigame. But again, that just makes you question why it’s a death minigame. It feels way too off the beaten path to be related to unlocking the fake ending.

The minigame itself is brutal, containing a very strict time limit and requiring you to strategise stuffing these boys with cupcakes. It’s main reason for existing, outside of gameplay, is to give story context to Baby’s origin. We’ll get into that later.

If Sister Location had more nights, tighter gameplay and less clunky design, it could’ve been the best FNAF game in the series in this regard. Unfortunately, even on a first playthrough, it’s a surprisingly shallow experience.

Story

I’m not going to give a summary of the story from here on out. I will assume you’re reading this because you already know the story of FNAF. It saves me time, and this game has a lot more story to talk about than the others. The short version: a brother goes to his father’s animatronic rental facility to “free” his little sister’s soul. Then the animatronics reverse-vore him, taking control of his body until they leave. He finally repossesses his own corpse.

I hate this game’s plot.

Firstly, Cawthon claims to have wanted to make Sister Location as an apology for FNAF 4’s cryptic nature. If that was his goal, he failed. Sister Location is one of the most confusing games in this series. You know your game is messed up when fans can’t agree on when it takes place eight years after its release.

That right there is a significant issue. I believe Elizabeth Afton’s death occurred in the early ‘80s, likely before Crying Child’s. However, the game itself is another story. The events of Sister Location—those with Michael Afton—could’ve taken place after FNAF 4 or right before Pizzeria Simulator (FNAF 6); that timeline spans from 1983 to 2023. So you mean to tell me that Michael Afton’s body could’ve been rotting for about 30 years? Nobody that that was strange in-universe?

Let’s just jump right into that plot point. I don’t believe that FNAF World was the “jumping the shark” moment of the series. Sister Location earns that title.

FNAF World, as jarring as it is, is ultimately a spin-off. What connections it has to the main FNAF lore are trivial at best. Sister Location, on the other hand, is the fifth main entry, and therefore needs to have a more grounded story. I’m able to suspend my disbelief for many things in this series. Hell, the very concept is unrealistic, as pizzeria animatronics could never walk around like the FNAF ones. At least everything was still grounded in some sort of reality, however.

Cawthon tried to hint that Michael Afton isn’t literally purple, but then he doesn’t know his own story. Corpses rot. That man was walking down the street, gradually turning green and purple over time. You mean to tell me that nobody called the police or an ambulance to check this man out? Just talking to him would’ve allowed Ennard to have been caught, as Ennard can’t mimic Michael’s voice.

And how exactly is he supposed to be living going forward, after he repossesses his dead body? This is where that timeline issue comes into play. Either Michael only had to deal with this weird state for about a year, or he had to deal with it for more than twenty years.

Even putting this plot point aside, there are other problems with Sister Location’s narrative. I don’t understand Michael’s goal here.

In the past games, the goal was simple: survive the night. In Sister Location, Michael is sent to the underground facility in order to try and “save” his sister. I keep using quotations because I don’t know what any of this implies. Elizabeth Afton is dead. She possessed Circus Baby. There is no saving her whatsoever. Maybe their father intended for Michael to destroy Circus Baby in order to release her spirit; the fifth night hints at that, but by that point, it’s way too late.

Part of this goes into an issue that will plague this series going forward: the characters have no character.

What can you tell me about Michael Afton other than the things that happen to him? Don’t tell me he was scooped. Tell me about him as a person. Think about it for a bit, then come back.

Now that you’ve thought about it, I bet you that whatever personality you came up with was a fan interpretation or your own ideal version. Michael is an absolute nobody. A lot of the things people think about him have never been confirmed. From what I can tell, there is no confirmation that he’s the older brother from the FNAF 4 minigames; it makes sense for that to be him, but a connection is never drawn.

And regarding Mr Afton from the beginning, we don’t learn much about him in this title either. Elizabeth gets the most personality, but she’s also already dead by the time the game begins. And by the way, I’m using Elizabeth’s name for simplicity, but last time I checked, it was never revealed in this game. So we know even less about her at this point. It seems most the personality goes into Circus Baby and Funtime Freddy, but one is an exposition machine and the other could be removed with not much changed.

Also, let’s talk about Baby’s cunning personality for a second, as it is not consistent. During Night 4, the night with the Minireenas, Baby goes on about how she kidnapped the player. Why? Wouldn’t she try to act worried for Michael in order to further gain his trust? The quickest way to make someone not trust you is if they put you in a life-or-death situation that you only survive by the skin of your teeth.

Yes, the characters in Sister Location are a major problem, and the events ultimately make no sense. But there is another elephant in the room I’d be remiss to not mention. The tone.

Sister Location is when FNAF made the jump from supernatural horror to sci-fi horror. Later FNAF games still include some supernatural elements—the ghost element exists in this very game—but there would be a greater emphasis on science fiction going forward.

I am not inherently against this style of horror. Sci-fi horror can be interesting, and I think that plenty of the later games have cool ideas utilising it. My biggest problems are that I don’t think the execution is good, along with how out of place it is in FNAF. Cawthon clearly didn’t want to make a new series to reflect these views, as FNAF was still bringing in truckloads of money. If Cawthon made a new game, then he wouldn’t get all that free advertising from The Game Theorists, after all.

So, this theme was shoehorned into FNAF, where it simply doesn’t fit. I won’t reference remnant here, as that was actually added in the next game. But the concept of Ennard going inside Michael is very much sci-fi, having a robot possess a human instead of a human spirit possessing a robot. And like I said, that plot point makes no sense given the rules of this franchise.

It also drastically changes the killer, who we know is Mr Afton thanks to the Custom Night. To me, he seemed a lot scarier when he was just slashing children and stuffing them into these gross suits. I find the concept of him being this guy who builds robots to capture children—something that Funtime Freddy’s and Baby’s bodies are meant to do—not as horrifying. It loses that touch of realism that we can relate to.

The silver lining I can give to Sister Location is that while I consider it the “jumping the shark” game, it wasn’t the point of no return. A lot of the truly irritating elements would come later on, with Sister Location being the foundation. A shaky foundation, but I can’t fault it for what future games do.

On its own though, Sister Location’s characters and plot are a mess, and the tone change remains baffling.

My final point is that this game is so disconnected from the rest of the series. It doesn’t build on anything from the first game. Its connection to the second game is minimal, with Funtime Freddy resembling Mangle. Most damningly, it offers no explanation about FNAF 4. Only FNAF 3’s story is influenced, and even then, that only came in the Custom Night expansion. It doesn’t better FNAF 3’s narrative either, as players could already hint that Springtrap survived the fire based on the newspaper.

Theories and Fan Content

I’ll have to skim over fan content again, as my connection with this game is even lesser than with FNAF 4, due to the series’ oversaturation. I’ve only heard one fan song for this game, and it’s “I Can’t Fix You” from the Living Tombstone. I think it could’ve served to be longer or have more variety in the melody, but I like it all the same. My favourite cover of it has to be from Aki-Chan, a Spanish speaker. I don’t know what it is about that language, but those lyrics flow much better, and I love her singing.

Because of Sister Location trying to cram in more humour, it resulted in a lot of memes stemming from this game. Controlled shocks, exotic butters and “Hey Bonbon, go get ‘em!” I didn’t and don’t care for most of them aside from the last one, just because that resulted in truly funny stuff. Exotic butters never made me laugh; I don’t hate that it has become something often referenced, but I just never got the joke.

Concerning theories, a prevalent one that lingers is that Ballora is possessed by the hypothetical Mrs Afton. Frankly, I think there were Game Theory videos that promoted this, and that’s why it’s so widespread. Many fans, especially the more casual ones, can’t understand that Game Theory is just that: a theory. There is no evidence to support that Mr Afton’s wife possesses Ballora. And years later, we’ve never even seen a wife of his.

The most infamous theory, by far, is that Michael Afton is the Purple Guy. While it has been debunked, in between Pizzeria Simulator and this game, my God, it was rampant. And I was one of the people who believed it.

Scott Cawthon is to blame for this theory entirely. In a series where colour is so important, it was a dumb decision to have Michael turn purple during Custom Night. He could’ve turned magenta or dark green, but he shouldn’t have been purple, realistic as it would’ve been. The killer was always portrayed with purple. It’s clear now that Cawthon intended to create a parallel, with Mr Afton being figuratively purple while his son is literally purple (which debunks his attempts to claim that Michael isn’t really purple). However, when the storytelling is so vague, he should’ve anticipated people would draw this conclusion.

The other issue is the final cutscene. In it, Michael Afton is the one talking, and his voice starts to sound mechanical and weary at the end. At that same moment his voice gets distorted, Springtrap lunges forward. The logical conclusion was that we were seeing Michael in his prison, going forward to find his father. I don’t know how that cutscene could’ve been altered to convey the intended meaning, but we definitely shouldn’t have gotten the one we did.

I’m glad this theory has been debunked, as it would’ve made the story ten times worse. To know that either Michael began to randomly kill kids or that he was wrongly imprisoned because he looked like his father… It would’ve been so unsatisfying, especially after FNAF 3’s ending.

I guess this game also did put an end to the whole Vincent craze. You know, that was what fans—namely obsessed younger girls—lovingly called Purple Guy. We didn’t get a look for him yet, but he didn’t sound anything like the sexy serial killer they had in mind. He just sounded like some old British dude. Boy, I would’ve loved to have seen some heartbroken reactions to that reveal.

This game also sparked more human art just because we finally saw a female human. An important female, actually. Sure, Elizabeth Afton may not be the oldest… Ah, but screw it, I’m for lewding her. Unless you have her interact with her father, in which case I feel deeply uncomfortable. Nothing immoral about it, but ew…

On that note, I swear her design gives me major Blossom vibes. Yes, the PowerPuff Girl.

Conclusion

Kingdom Hearts comparisons are in order. FNAF World is like Coded while Sister Location is like Birth by Sleep. It is scary how similar these franchises have kept in sync so far.

FNAF World is just as unimportant and disliked as Coded. It has its fans, but most couldn’t care less of a damn about the game due to not having anything to further the main story. Truth be told, FNAF World got it way worse than Coded, as at least it and its DS remake Re:coded have solid gameplay in parts. FNAF World is worse than some of the oldest RPGs. Plus, the cutesy art style changed the way many saw the series for the worse.

Sister Location is like Birth by Sleep; both titles completely changed the direction of their franchises going forward. With BBS, KH would trivialise the crossover elements and focus on over-explaining its lore while introducing new lore that is just bad. And aside from the crossover stuff, that describes Sister Location to a T. We didn’t need a deep science backstory for this killer. And events like the fourth night or Michael’s scooping make no sense.

At least BBS has fun gameplay and lots of content. Sister Location is the least replayable FNAF game by far. What little gameplay it has is shallow, and when you mix that with a poor story, you’ve got a bad game.

While these games are both poor, I will say that the series could’ve improved after Sister Location. It wasn’t locked into this heavy sci-fi route. Did it change? You probably know the answer, but let’s see if I can appreciate what came later in spite of that.

Going forward, I’m entering these games blind, as I’ve never played them. I’ll therefore keep gameplay discussions to a minimum while focusing on the story. Hell, that’s what most FNAF fans do anyway.