
Creepy Tale 2: Creepy Brother’s Exceptional 2D Horror Game – Review
July 16th, 2021
Creepy Brothers
Solve clever puzzles to help Lars rescue his little sister
Enjoy narrative-focused, accessible gameplay suitable for newcomers and veterans alike
Explore a magical kingdom inspired by the legends of Central European oral tradition, once compiled by the Grimm Brothers, where magic creatures try to coexist peacefully with mankind — and sometimes, even protect them from evil forces.
Feel the gloomy essence of this creepy tale through its decadent cartoonish art style.
Creepy Tale 2 is a creepy cartoon puzzle adventure inspired by ancient European fairy tales, a new chapter in the Creepy Tale series. As Lars goes over his land in search of Ellie, his younger sister, and other females stolen by an unknown evil, guides him through a spinning carousel of horrible events. Fight your fears, find new allies, and solve a variety of riddles to uncover the truth.
Creepy Tale 2 is a significant advance over its predecessor, which was inspired by Brothers Grimm folklore. It gets off to a solid start, focusing more on its narrative and puzzles, but it is unable to maintain the same level of excellence throughout. Despite this minor hitch, the makers have created an overall outstanding experience that highlights the game’s brilliantly macabre art style.
Players take on the role of a young child named Lars and are rapidly immersed in his seemingly idyllic life. Everything appears to be safe and secure in the modest cabin where he lives with his father and young sister Ellie… until catastrophe strikes. Ellie is soon under the power of an unknown malevolent force after his father is beaten. Lars has no choice but to hide and flee, trailed by his now-villainous sister.
This is the start of Lars’ quest in Creepy Tale 2 to save his sister from the clutches of evil. He finds himself in a greater struggle, much beyond the limits of protecting his sister, as he is determined to combat everything that dares to stand in his way. The entire forest is under siege, with many young girls becoming unwitting partners to the terrible diabolism, and a large number of children missing.
During his travels, Lars experiences the forest’s gloomy and frightening impact. With few options for defending himself and a large number of hostile individuals, he must outsmart the sinister beings by any means possible in Creepy Tale 2. Continually pressing forward in order to reconcile with Ellie and spare her from an untimely death.
Creepy Tale 2 felt a lot better than the developer’s debut game. It felt like a good combination for fans of the series, sticking to a more traditional approach in the puzzle adventure genre and now with voiceovers. It takes between 2 and 5 hours to complete, with two different endings and three chapters that auto-save every 15 minutes. There are also various milestones that are easy to overlook, which encourages replays.
Players control Lars using only the keyboard and can interact with the environment, acquire, combine, and use items throughout the three chapters. With only keyboard inputs in Creepy Tale 2, we found some of the puzzles to be a little fiddly at first, but we quickly got used to it. The puzzles were similar to those in the original game in terms of creativity and variety of aspects, but they were never unreasonable. The more in-depth puzzles were quite nicely done, aside from the normal finding and using objects in specified areas. To avoid spoilers, some examples include figuring out the sequence to pull colored handles by interacting with various items in the environment or reading a diary article to apply newly acquired knowledge to the current scenario. For the first half of the second chapter, we had no problems; the story and characters were well introduced, and we were absorbed in the dismal fantastical world.
Unfortunately, this was our only problem with the Creepy Tale 2 game, and we found it to be really aggravating, negatively influencing the rest of my experience. Puzzles between the halfway point of chapter 2 and the end of chapter 3 feel rushed, as they lack the same level of ingenuity as those seen previously. The setting, art, sound, and everything else remain similar throughout the game, but the riddles, which are the most important element of the gameplay, become increasingly sour.
Puzzles become trial and error scenarios with many deaths before the correct answer is discovered, rather than relying on a rational method. It’s annoying because it’s not a sequence or something you can actually work out; instead, it’s a pre-programmed series of steps that you must follow or you’ll die. Forcing you to try again and again until just one solution remains. Having to hide while an evil entity pursues and hunts for you is an example of this. The opponent will always follow a pattern and hunt for areas in random order… yet players will be unaware of the pattern until they become a victim and die. Having to repeat it four times, each time memorizing the exact location to hide in order to avoid capture, and then repeating the process. This stuck out to us since it contrasted with the excellence of the previous chapters and required little skill. Furthermore, other problems were downright ridiculous, with combinations that were so ambiguous that we couldn’t figure out what was expected of us. It’s unclear whether the developers simply ran out of ideas at this point or if it was rushed owing to possible time constraints, but the quality of Creepy Tale 2 has suffered as a result.
This is what developers are so good at, and it’s what hooked us to the title. The art is eerily appealing and absolutely stunning. The combination of a dismal design and cartoon-like characters perfectly emits the aura of a fairy-tale, but one devoid of color and joy. It matches the bizarre story of Creepy Tale 2 and, because of its almost childlike graphic style, it softens and obscures the story’s horrific events, which is exactly what is found in fairy tales today.
The gloomy soundtrack, which can be purchased as DLC, is also ominously lovely. In comparison to the original game, we thought the sound was the most visible improvement. Not only is the soundtrack eerier, but each character now has their own distinct voice in Creepy Tale 2. The voice performers are eager and passionate, perfectly capturing the dramatic tone of the characters.