These Game Titles Don’t Prepare You For What You’re Really About To Experience

Video game titles have one main job: to tell you a little bit about the game, while still maintaining an air of mystery, so you’re intrigued enough to find out more. Lots of titles do this fantastically; others shoot too far and end up just being exactly what it says on the tin. Looking at you, Triangle Strategy.

Some titles, however, go in the opposite direction, and completely undersell the experience you’re about to have. They’re good at the mystery and providing intrigue part, but they’re not preparing you for what you’re really in for.

Some spoilers below.

10

Little Nightmares

In some ways, ‘Little Nightmares’ is a great representation of what the game is about. You’re playing as a little child, going through some nightmares. However, those nightmares are not little. Not in the slightest. In fact, I’d go so far as to say they’re very big, humongous nightmares that I’d never want to experience ever in my life.

Being grabbed by a creature with long, spindly arms is horrific. Being chased by brainwashed humans who only want to consume, consume, consume is even worse.

Little Nightmares 2 is slightly more accurate. There certainly are twice as many nightmares.

9

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers Of Sky

Sure, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky has dungeons. And every time you enter them, their layout and floors will be a mystery. We’re even doing a lot of exploring. But you know what’s not mentioned anywhere in this unassuming title? How much a spin-off Pokemon game aimed at children will break your heart.

When you start playing a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game, you don’t expect the characters to tug at your heartstrings, or to really have any kind of depth at all, which is why this game is so undersold by its title. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Heartbreakingly Sad Character Stories would be much more accurate.

8

Spiritfarer

Spiritfarer is a game about ferrying spirits to the afterlife. You can glean that from its simple title, but you know what you can’t glean? The absolute emotional turmoil it will put you through. Seriously, this game needs a warning. I wasn’t prepared for my heart to be put through the ringer like that based on the title.

Not only do you ferry these spirits to the afterlife, but you also care for them in their final days and give them all the home comforts they could ever need. You bond. You grow attached to them. And then leave you. Where was that in the title?!

7

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

The Kingdom Hearts series gets a lot of flack for its naming conventions, and I’m not about to pile on (I am, in fact, Kingdom Hearts’ biggest defender), but 358/2 Days does not prepare you for the ordeal you’re about to go through.

358/2 Days refers to how you play through 358 days, experienced by two people (Roxas and Xion). What it does not refer to is how harrowing those 358 days end up being. If you’ve played, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t played, change that ASAP.

6

Mother 3

Mother 3 is an innocent video game title. Following in the footsteps of Mother (EarthBound Beginnings) and Mother 2 (EarthBound), it refers to the planet and how it’s the third game in the series. After the prologue of Mother 3, however, there are no more mothers in this game for Lucas, let alone three of them.

Sorry to everyone I just severely hurt with that sentence.

What follows is a lovely RPG journey with a motley crew. And then, oh yeah, an absolutely soul-crushing ending. ‘Mother 3’ really isn’t capturing all that.

5

Papers, Please

‘Papers, Please’ is an unassuming title. You’re just inspecting documents and doing your day job, right? …Right? On paper (pun fully intended), that’s true. But your day job isn’t as innocent as it seems.

Papers, Please quickly devolves into tough decisions. You know what you have to do, but do you feel good about it? No, not at all. Suddenly, you’re a pawn for the state and there’s not a thing you can do about it.

4

Life Is Strange

Yep, life is strange. Anyone could have told you that. But what does that tell me about the game, Life is Strange? Uh, not a lot, really. Strange events happen, that’s for sure, but there’s not even a slight hint about the protagonist having the power to rewind time, and that’s what the game’s entire premise hinges on.

How about a hint about the life-altering choices Max has to make? Or the disappearance of a student she and Chloe are investigating? It’s a very non-chalant title for a game with such dramatic events.

3

Professor Layton And The Curious Village

One of the best parts of the Professor Layton games is slowly unveiling what kind of wacky reason is behind the game’s main mystery. As the first game in the series, none of us had any expectations going into The Curious Village. And yet again, the title doesn’t prepare you for just how ‘curious’ this little village is.

If you still haven’t played Professor Layton and the Curious Village all these years later, then warning: I’m about to spoil the whole thing.

All the people you meet while wandering around the village? Not real. All robots. Every single one of them. I thought Professor Layton was about puzzles, not solving the wildest missing persons case ever!

2

Detention

Detention conjures up memories of secondary school (high school for you Americans). Maybe you were causing trouble and landed in it yourself. Maybe it was whole-class detention. You sat there and thought about what you did. Detention in Detention, the game? Nowhere near as simple and innocent.

In fact, it’s set in 1960s Taiwan, when the country was under martial law. Playing as a high school student, you explore a nightmare version of your school that’s become overrun with monsters as you uncover more about your lost memories. Doesn’t sound like any kind of detention I’ve ever had.

1

Silent Hill

Do you remember walking up hills in Silent Hill? No, me neither. Sure, you walk around Silent Hill. Check, that’s the title. But is Silent Hill an actual hill? No. It’s a weird town with weird culty people. Not exactly silent with all the strange ambience and creepy monster noises, either.

It also ends up being about more than just Silent Hill. Think summoning a god in the most horrific way possible, and you’re much closer to what the game’s actually about.