The sequel to the wildly popular Hello Neighbor,Hello Neighbor 2promises to live up to the first game but with better AI, a wider map, and even more secrets. This time, playing as Quentin the journalist, you have a whole town of suspicious occurrences to investigate, as well as rescuing Aaron from the villainous Mr. Peterson.
Related:Hello Neighbor 2: Relatable Things Every Player Does
However, as with most games, there are parts that make absolutely no sense, no matter how many hours you play or threads you scour. Often you have to suspend disbelief and play into game logic, but some things are just too big to look past.
5Police Ignore Everything
In Act One, Quentin goes straight to the sourceand a familiar narrative plays out as you creep through Mr. Peterson’s house for clues. This time it’s already part of a crime scene investigation, with police tape and a frustrating police officer roaming the place.
Despite plenty of evidence being categorized and huge padlocks on multiple doors, the police officer doesn’t seem too concerned with solving the case. If a scrawny journalist like you can find the keys to these secret areas then why haven’t the police simply used bolt cutters? A child has been kidnapped, quite possibly by a known kidnapper, and there’s only one person eating donuts at the crime scene.
The introduction to the game has you crashing into a barn and then being knocked unconscious. However, your van is still stuck halfway into a building for the rest of the game and no one seems concerned that you’ve been attacked after a potentially fatal accident. You’re not exactly innocent in all of this though, as the game has you climbing into people’s homes and playing with their kids' toys in plain sight. Again, the police don’t seem bothered by you spending all of your time trespassing on multiple private properties.
4No Consequences Of Trespassing
Then, if you do get noticed by an NPC, whether that’s the sole police officer, the owner of a bakery, or the actual mayor, the worst that happens is you get thrown outside. Every character seems to be hiding intense secrets and certainly none of them want you snooping around, but then they don’t call the police, remove their possessions from your bag, or walk you back home. The worst trouble we can hope to get into is when Mr. Otto pulls out a shotgun, which is a significant step-up in terms of consequences.
Well, it would be, if getting shot actually affected the player in any way. Instead, after five bullets hit you, you suffer fall damage, which means you have to stand back up again and walk a little slower. This is very frustrating when you’re trying to navigate the old man’s house, but not exactly anything threatening. This all means that an NPC catching you holds almost no weight — it’s an inconvenience and you have to restart some puzzles, that’s it. For people that are keeping children locked up and assaulting innocents, it doesn’t seem nearly serious enough.
3You Wake Up In Bed
This point might be for the conspiracy theorist fans to debate as there’s some speculation that Quentin is suffering from PTSD from the crimes committed in Hello Neighbor. However, upon completing an Act or getting beaten up by Mr. Peterson, you will wake up in your own bed, in your own house. Quentin never seems sure how he got back there, and is sometimes greeted by upsetting flashbacks or nightmares about Mr. Peterson.
Related:The Best Items In Hello Neighbor 2
Let’s consider that most of the time, when you get caught snooping, all that happens is you’re thrown out with no chance to struggle, ask questions, or explain yourself. At this point, the progress made on any puzzles inside the building is lost and some of the items you collected end up where you first found them. So how is Quentin making his way to bed after certain situations? In the introduction you get hit with a shovel, and yet you wake up fine in your home. Is Mr. Peterson dragging you back there? Why not tie you up with the missing kids, if he’s the one kidnapping them?
2No One Ever Checks The Closet
So, you’ve just found someone creeping about your home, cutting up your quilts, and rearranging your neatly set up puzzle trap system. You run after them upstairs, where you know there’s nowhere to escape. At which point you don’t see them in plain sight and so give up, returning to your menial wandering. Every building has at least four closets, and most buildings have a strategically placed closet in every room, as well as corridors. However, the NPC never checks these totally empty closets unless they watched you climb inside. They also don’t check under their beds, behind doors, or behind a table Quentin is peering out from.
It seems that every character is hiding some nefarious secret, or maybe even that the whole town is on this weird series of events involving birds and missing children. This is a self-professed horror strategy game. However, where other games in this genre have enemies sniffing you out, hauling you down from hiding places or enacting justice, these NPCs don’t really seem to care if you figure out the mystery.
1Where’s The Horror
As previously stated, there are no consequences for being caught snooping, and the NPCs look like they were designed for kid’s shows. There is no desperate chase because you can always start over, and the other characters couldn’t really care less if Quentin destroys their homes. The most you’ll get out of them is a non-threatening growl or the kind of gun you might use at a carnival game to shoot coconuts.
Even the music isn’t particularly tense or creepy, meaning the game feels more like an annoying puzzle adventure. You simply dodge the NPCs if you can, or run outside, wait for them to reset, and continue what you were doing. The prequel to Hello Neighbor 2 felt much more sinister and unsettling, whereas this game has you jumping on a trampoline on a sunny fall day surrounded by butterflies. It doesn’t make sense that the tone would change entirely after the success that Hello Neighbor found in the community.
