Five Nights at Freddy's (Clickteam era)
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EXOTIC BUTTERS
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Five Nights at Freddy's (often abbreviated as FNaF) is a point-and-click horror game developed and published by Scott Cawthon. The first game was released on August 8th, 2014 for Microsoft Windows, initially on IndieDB and later on Steam. Since its release, the game has spawned multiple sequels. In 2018, Cawthon announced that his next FNaF games would be developed by a studio that initially didn't say their name but it was later revealed when Help Wanted was revealed on a State of Play in March 2019. The franchise received widespread critical acclaim and is often considered one of the best indie horror franchises of all time and is ranked on multiple lists among the best horror game franchises of all time. This will focus on the Clickteam era, when the games were made with Clickteam Fusion, all of them being made by Scott Cawthon himself, which ran from 2014 to 2018.
Why It's Ready for Freddy
Overall
- The franchise is heavily responsible for popularizing horror point-and-click games and possibly the entire indie horror genre. You have to thank this franchise for the fact that games like Tattletail, Bendy and the Ink Machine, CASE: Animatronics and Boogeyman exist.
- The concept of a night guard surviving from 4 possessed animatronics is amazing, which is inspired by Chuck E. Cheese's.
- Fantastic lore and is considered one of the best and most interesting lore in a video game. Rather than telling you directly like in most games, the story is told through easter eggs and mini-games and players have to analyze it.
- Because of this way of understanding the story, the franchise is very popular for spawning a massive amount of theories about the lore. There's a reason why YouTubers like MatPat (a.k.a The Game Theorists) became so popular.
- Not only is the lore fantastic, but it also popularized the use of hidden easter eggs and secrets to reveal the lore in several indie games.
- Thanks to the popularity of the franchise, it spawned a huge and devoted fanbase and made tons of FNaF fan games, and while most are poorly done, there are also fan games that are equally as good as the original games themselves.
- Even though the games used the Clickteam Engine, which was considered outdated, the graphics are very good, especially in later FNaF games, such as Sister Location and Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator (FNaF 6).
- The gameplay is simplistic yet enjoyable. While using the mouse to control the game doesn't sound exciting, it becomes challenging in later nights. The gameplay also changes in each entry, with Sister Location changing the furthest.
- Despite the gameplay, the controls in the console and mobile versions are pretty good and don't feel clunky.
Five Nights at Freddy's 1
- Before Sister Location, it was the only FNaF game to be available in widescreen.
Five Nights at Freddy's 2
- It has more animatronics than the first game combined, such as the Toy animatronics, the Withered animatronics, and the Shadow animatronics.
- It introduces us to The Puppet, one of the creepiest animatronics in the franchise.
- The cutscenes that take place between nights are disturbing thanks to the moody and dark lighting and horrifically distorted sounds of laughter and singing.
- It was the first game in the series to introduce 8-bit mini-games, which would become a staple in the series.
Five Nights at Freddy's 3
- The concept of having one animatronic tracking the entire pizzeria is admittedly a bit creepy, especially when you realize the origin of it.
- The Phantom Animatronics do a good job of being distractions, helping the difficulty to increase.
- The graphics are an improvement over the first game and the second game.
- It's the first game in the series to feature multiple endings, in this case, two. And these two endings are the bad ending and the good ending.
- Night 6 is no longer just a typical night but much harder, and instead explains a lot about the lore, and that is, the Fazbear Fright was burned down and Springtrap survived the incident.
Five Nights at Freddy's 4
- The graphics are now much more realistic, making the gameplay a lot scarier.
- Good Nightmare Animatronics designs, which do fit the style of the game.
- Simply gives the backstory of the Afton family and one of the reasons why William Afton murdered the children at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.
- On that topic, we finally get to see how the creation of Golden Freddy came to be, as it happened in the most disturbing, yet depressing way: The Crying Child gets his frontal lobe bitten by Fredbear thanks to the Spring Locks in the animatronic and due to being hold onto by Michael Afton and his friends as a prank.
- Up until Sister Location, this was deemed the most disturbing game in the series, thanks to the terrifying sounds and atmosphere, which were inspired by A Nightmare in Elm Street.
- The Halloween DLC introduces more animatronics and a harder version of Fun With Plushtrap called Fun With Balloon Boy.
Sister Location
- The gameplay improved tremendously, as instead of being stuck in an office, you now have to do multiple tasks each night, which makes the game more fun and far less repetitive.
- The lore expanded tremendously and was done very well and in a different, as instead of using easter eggs and secret minigames, the game now tells you stuff while at the same time, you have to analyze the secrets of the game.
- Speaking of which, it is by far the installment with the most amount of theories due to it being a major contributor to the lore.
- The graphics have improved tremendously and are much better than ever.
- The jumpscares are also a massive improvement over the cheap ones from FNaF 1, 2, 3, and, to some extent, 4. They have a lot of variety and don't use just one cheap sprite with one jumpscare and put them in every animatronic, rather, they all have different animations, with different jumpscare sounds, which are scary and make the jumpscares much scarier.
- Like Five Nights at Freddy's 4, it gives the backstory of the Afton family and also gives the backstory of Michael Afton, one of the most important characters in the lore.
- The Custom Night is no longer just a simple bonus for completing the entire game, but an important mode to expand the lore.
- The ending in the Golden Freddy mode (V. Hard) from the Custom Night is an excellent way to tease Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator.
Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator
- It is the first mainline FNAF game to completely be free to play.
- Springtrap returns from FNAF 3, and is as scarier as ever thanks to his design, however, he only appears during the ventilation shift.
- Helpy is a fun character who provides the game's mood whiplash from the disturbing imagery.
- It's the first game to feature more than two endings and isn't clunky like Five Nights at Freddy's 3.
- The Completion Ending is excellent and would have been a good way to end the lore if it didn't continue past this game.
Ultimate Custom Night
- The concept of a giant custom night with most of the animatronics from the previous games with no limits is a great idea and is great for people who want challenges.
- Like Sister Location and FFPS, instead of using a regular mouse to play the game, you now have to use the entire keyboard to play, which contributes to the game being fun.
- There are 50 animatronics in the game, making it the best character roster in the entire franchise.
- Like Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, the game is free to play, although it's paid on mobile and console.
Jumpscared Qualities
Overall
- While the gameplay is simple yet enjoyable and fun, it can be boring at times, especially in early nights. However, it becomes more challenging in later nights.
- The earlier mobile versions (the ones developed by Scott Cawthon himself) are mediocre, due to downgraded effects, the jumpscares missing several frames, and more aggressive animatronics. Thankfully, they've been removed and replaced by the ones remastered by Clickteam USA.
- Another annoying thing is that both versions of the mobile ports feature microtransactions despite being paid (except Sister Location, which doesn't have them) and have a cheat mode that removes all the challenges in the game but thankfully they're pretty optional, to the point they're not needed.
- Due to the nature of being extremely hidden, the lore, despite being great, is also confusing at times due to it not being very direct. The later installments (SL and FFPS) are connected to the lore of the first 4 games, making it more confusing to newcomers.
- Much like Among Us (albeit it's inverted), Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator and Ultimate Custom Night are free on PC but they're paid on mobile and console due to the latter versions being coded by Clickteam to converting said platforms.
- The jumpscares from FNaF 1 and 2 are rather cheap and lose their scare factor shortly after you progress. Although the game is still pretty scary.
- This is also noticeable in FNaF 3, where the jumpscares feel less scary due to the annoying use of J Major from the Phantom animatronics, this issue was also carried over to Ultimate Custom Night.
- For some reason, before Sister Location, many of the games were only playable in Fullscreen, and stretched Widescreen, while this could be due to want for some gamers by having a more primitive atmosphere of said games, it feels a little bit cheap since the first game was Widescreen.
- The jumpscares themselves can come off as annoying nowadays.
Five Nights at Freddy's 2
- Artificial difficulty: Despite the game telling you to use the mask to avoid the jumpscares from the Toy Animatronics and most of the Withered Animatronics, you will still get jumpscared when you put it. This is because the game wants you to put it instantly, which is extremely difficult for those who aren't fast enough to avoid the animatronics. As a result, this causes cheap deaths and tons of jump scares.
- The graphics, while decent, feel a bit inferior to FNaF 1's graphics.
Five Nights at Freddy's 3
- The jumpscares are underwhelming at best.
- If the Phantom Animatronics are excluded due to being hallucinations, therefore, there is only one animatronic in the game, which is pretty barebones.
- The way to get a good ending is pretty difficult: To get said ending, you must play ALL the minigames each night, which are scattered through secrets and easter eggs.
- Despite what WIR#2 says, the game is really easy to beat, making it one of the easiest entries in the series.
- Even though the graphics are an improvement over FNaF 2, they're unfortunately ruined and they're mainly disliked due to the ugly color palette, as well as the game overall looking unappealing.
Five Nights at Freddy's 4
- The fact that you have to listen closely to hear breathing is underwhelming, not helped by the fact that the loudness of the jumpscares could destroy your eardrums.
- Some of the designs of the animatronics look less scary, especially Plushtrap which looks more cute than terrifying.
Sister Location
- One word and one number: Night 4. It is considered the most difficult night of the entire game due to it wanting the player to click on the spring locks, which is extremely difficult due to the player not being that fast to click them all in once.
Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator
- For some reason, the game had a lower age rating than previous titles, despite containing jumpscares and blood.
Ultimate Custom Night
- There are plenty of missing animatronics in the game, such as Funtime Freddy, Bon Bon, Withered Freddy, Withered Foxy, and others.
- Due to the game's heavy focus on gameplay and challenge, the jumpscares stop being quickly scary and look cheesy at times.
Reception
On Metacritic, the reception of the games is varied, ranging from 78 to 52. However, the user scores are much higher. Outside of Metacritic, the franchise received widespread critical acclaim and is often considered one of the greatest horror franchises of all time. It was praised for its scary atmosphere, great graphics, simple yet enjoyable gameplay, and most importantly, the impressive lore. It was featured on multiple Top 10 Best Horror Game Franchises of All Time lists.
Trivia
- There was a question most fans asked back when UCN was released, and that is if the game was canon or not, although some theories confirm that the game was meant to be a purgatory/hell for William Afton for murdering the kids.
Videos
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