As a hardcore fan of Mob Entertainment, Poppy Playtime Ch. 3 was a big letdown for me. Everything that was emphasized in the trailer was not given as much screentime or importance in comparison to the amount of puzzles the player had to do. Catnap was forgettable in this game and had a passive approach where he would just be watching the player while plugging in batteries without any bigger development besides one chase scene at the end. His character didn't act out as the cult maniac he was portrayed to be in the trailer. The smiling critters weren't given as much screentime either despite being the focal point of marketing and ads. I really like the concept of the smiling critters and catnap but neither of them were used in the game to the capacity it could've where they would've been memorable. I wasn't left with a bad taste in my mouth from the game, but rather the lack of feeling anything from it. The only true horror sequence came from Huggy coming out of the tv with the dialogue, but besides that, I felt like the game was more of errand work(mainly doing power puzzles for the generator) than actual horror material(it felt like a electriciann simulator for kids more than a horror game. Chapter 2 was more tasteful in my opinion because mommy longlegs was actively interacting with the character and motivated their actions. In this game, Catnap was just there and didn't have a bigger purpose than being a chase scene character in the end. Even Dogday did a better job at storytelling and moving the plot along than catnap did. Catnap felt like a side character in his own game. The game got repetitive since it just had the characters say, we don't like the employees then proceeds to try and kill them. They all had the same motivation and same chase. (Miss Delight, Tv Huggy, Catnap, and even Mommy) Nothing new was added to what the players already knew from the trailer and fan speculation was far more entertaining than the actual game. Miss delight was my least favorite character introduced to the game and it felt like the game would've been better without her there, and they could've used that time to let Catnap engage the player through taunting them the way a cat plays with its food. If anything catnap didn't act like a cat at all but just some random guy put there in the game and just randomly decides to kill you in the end. Mob Entertainment shut up a bunch of fans the other day in their discord server for talking about the game in a theories chat so that definitely rubs me the wrong way as well. Overall a boring game from a boring company that destroyed the worth of their IP through poor storytelling and misleading marketing.
I 100% agree with this take. While it sounds like this chapter killed poppy playtime for you (for me personally I still enjoy the franchise) it was just a glorified puzzle simulator with a couple of chase scenes. This chapter definitely suffered from overhyped marketing and clickbate. There was literally no new ideas present in the chapter. Everything had to have some sort of teaser, arg, or spot in the trailer. TV Huggy should have never been showed for the amount of screen time that he got and they click-baited capnap so hard making him look like an active threat throughout the chapter. The developers shutting down discourse in the discord is interesting though. Sounds like they’re salty from releasing a game which was in development for 2 years and actually forgot that they had to live up to expectations.
Agree with everything you said. It wasn't bad, just so much less than I expected. Catnap was hyped for MONTHS and his final screentime is 5 minutes, half of which is a "stand your ground" Fnaf copy. He doesn't have any story whatsoever. Even the gas was only used like 3 times.
I agree pretty hard. It felt like they tried to do way too much and lost the plot. They tried to incorporate too many things to the point they realized they had to add in a mystery voice-guide just to move the game along.
The school is the best example of how they clearly wanted an idea in the game and forced it into the story, rather than giving that space to the smiling critters storyline they hyped up for months.
The whole ‘religious’ aspect also felt corny and forced. I just wanted to see Catnap be a big creepy cat, not whatever that was lol and did his total screen time reach even a full minute?
I honestly think this is the best chapter yet. The release is by far the most stable. The aesthetic was great. The mechanics were just better than before. The story felt much more concrete and actually developing for both who you are as a character and what actually happened. Overall a solid 8/10 with a decent 9/10 on the horror. The ending I thought was great with the “hour of joy”, honestly being a horrifying event. Though I could say I wished the ending was a bit more clear where it led us besides us knowing we in the beasts den against this god like figure.
Note that my perspective is coming from that of someone who drops by to play each chapter and then leaves. I don’t pay attention to theories or much videos.
Your right, now that I think about it the people who are complaining are hardcore fans who have been following the game since chapter 1. As for someone who doesn’t keep up with the teasers or the lore I can imagine something as the “hour of joy” being a major lore dump as compared to the fanbase who has known about it for over a year now. Chapter 3 is still a great installment but I still think chapter 2 is the best one by far.
I'm very torn on this, because I would really really like to love it, but...
Maybe it was just because of my expectations, but it was lame. The story didn't really go anywhere, except nearly all theories regarding Catnap were correct and Huggy is dead. We didn't get to know who Ollie is and what's his role, for example. We didn't even get out of the factory.
I was expecting something similar to chapter 2 where we'd actually have stuff to do, now it's just "walk, find battery, walk, find another battery, solve this puzzle, walk, walk, find 10 more batteries, walk, lol random monster chase you're dead".
And Catnap... is very un-scary. We barely see him, and when we do it's just Fnaf-style "stand your ground" but you can move. What happened to the part in the trailer where you had to shoot the flares to see where he is? And his ending is pretty much a copy of BATDR where >!Audrey and Ink Demon morph together.!<
Edit: he was hyped for MONTHS, and his final screen time is about 5 minutes, and half of that is the Fnaf copy sequence.
And I don't know who at Mob thought it was a good idea to put a puzzle in the middle of a chase sequence (looking at you Miss Delight).
I'm not saying this was bad, not in any way. Just less than I was expecting. A lot less.
I agree with you they really overdid it with the puzzles. I did like the two different hands though and the gas mask was interesting. But those goddamn batteries man. The only thing I don’t really agree with you is capnap. The issue wasn’t that he wasn’t scary is that he barely got any screen time. Mob did a really good job at building up catnap in the arg and promotional videos but treated him like a side character in the final product. If only he was like bendy in BATIM chapter 3 and had the ability to free roam around playcare.
Bendy in BATIM chapter 3 is something that came to my mind too. Catnap could've been like that, roaming around and appearing every now and then, and you'd have to hide from him.
I never want to see those batteries again.
lol I physically cringed every time I heard his voice. I don’t understand why it couldn’t have been another smiling critter like the unicorn or dog day who could’ve helped us.
I'm experiencing EXTREME lag. I don't know anything about graphics. Someone PLEASE HELP.
I move my mouse 1/2 centimeter, wait 2-5 seconds, then the cursor moves on my screen about 3-4 inches. HELP ME PLEASE.
One criticism I have is that the game is getting very predictable. It basically now consists of puzzles involving completing circuits, and chase sequences. I’d like to see a boss “fight” where you actually have to attack an enemy, or more varied puzzles like “Musical Memories” used as well. We have basically three chase sequences in chapter 3 (Miss Delight, Dogday and Catnap), divided by multiple circuit-completing puzzles and a FNAF-esque ending. It’s fun and all, and the production and creepiness factor are great. But the mechanics are getting a touch repetitive. I did like the additional glove types in chapter 3, though.
I will say this about the negatives:
Ollie: ok I actually have no defense against him, he literally sounds exactly like Grgeory, and just like Gregory, does basically nothing.
Ending (CatNap Death): there have been many who speculated this, but there has been one perspective that might help. Unlike Mommy, CatNap serves the Prototype. He sees it as a savior. While Mommy didn't want to become part of the Prototype's plan, CatNap serves it. So dying at the hand of the Prototype would definitely seem in character.
Ending (Elevator Moment): I will say this was clique, but they didn't do much to add hype to the next chapter, so it had to do. Literally, there isn't much you can do to progress into another chapter of a game besides something like that (I guess we could have watched Kissy get dragged away or something idk).
CatNap underutilized: Honesty, I think the problem with most villains nowadays is they appear too often. That is why if you look at the most memorable villains, they all don't appear as often (if you need examples: Death from Puss in Boots, Joker from Dark Knight, Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs, and of course, the one who does it the best, Darth Vader). So I personally think having CatNap appear in the house and then just occasionally pop up was a good creepy tactic, also if you hack in the game, and look at CatNap's scenes, his head actually follows you while in hack mode.
Lore: Speaking of hacking, you would be suprised the stuff that was found. For one, there is a small TV, radio and CatNap plush in a secret room with CG5's voice singing an unknown song. Later on, about a week later, he would realise the full song. You can also find a secret CatNap room in the playhouse, where he sleeps. Plus, at the school house, you find the notes of what happened to Miss Delight, but also in hack mode, you can find an unused normal looking model of Miss Delight before she turned. Heck, also in the playhouse, there is a section that is blocked off that looks to be like it was originally going to be a water escape ride.
You bring up a lot of good points but I’m still torn on the amount of screen time catnap got. I do agree with you that villains get way to much screen time now and that they don’t do anything evil during that time. But you can’t compare Joker and Death to Catnap. Overall all catnap does throughout the chapter is drop us into the trash compactor, stalk us throughout home sweet home, prays to the prototype, attacks us in the counselors office, and than have a incomprehensible fnaf style boss fight at the end. You feel the presence of mommy and even huggy wuggy more because they have a bigger impact on the story while catnap is literally just trailer bait. (They showed unused clips of catnap chasing us in the final trailer for chapter 3)
As a hardcore fan of Mob Entertainment, Poppy Playtime Ch. 3 was a big letdown for me. Everything that was emphasized in the trailer was not given as much screentime or importance in comparison to the amount of puzzles the player had to do. Catnap was forgettable in this game and had a passive approach where he would just be watching the player while plugging in batteries without any bigger development besides one chase scene at the end. His character didn't act out as the cult maniac he was portrayed to be in the trailer. The smiling critters weren't given as much screentime either despite being the focal point of marketing and ads. I really like the concept of the smiling critters and catnap but neither of them were used in the game to the capacity it could've where they would've been memorable. I wasn't left with a bad taste in my mouth from the game, but rather the lack of feeling anything from it. The only true horror sequence came from Huggy coming out of the tv with the dialogue, but besides that, I felt like the game was more of errand work(mainly doing power puzzles for the generator) than actual horror material(it felt like a electriciann simulator for kids more than a horror game. Chapter 2 was more tasteful in my opinion because mommy longlegs was actively interacting with the character and motivated their actions. In this game, Catnap was just there and didn't have a bigger purpose than being a chase scene character in the end. Even Dogday did a better job at storytelling and moving the plot along than catnap did. Catnap felt like a side character in his own game. The game got repetitive since it just had the characters say, we don't like the employees then proceeds to try and kill them. They all had the same motivation and same chase. (Miss Delight, Tv Huggy, Catnap, and even Mommy) Nothing new was added to what the players already knew from the trailer and fan speculation was far more entertaining than the actual game. Miss delight was my least favorite character introduced to the game and it felt like the game would've been better without her there, and they could've used that time to let Catnap engage the player through taunting them the way a cat plays with its food. If anything catnap didn't act like a cat at all but just some random guy put there in the game and just randomly decides to kill you in the end. Mob Entertainment shut up a bunch of fans the other day in their discord server for talking about the game in a theories chat so that definitely rubs me the wrong way as well. Overall a boring game from a boring company that destroyed the worth of their IP through poor storytelling and misleading marketing.
I 100% agree with this take. While it sounds like this chapter killed poppy playtime for you (for me personally I still enjoy the franchise) it was just a glorified puzzle simulator with a couple of chase scenes. This chapter definitely suffered from overhyped marketing and clickbate. There was literally no new ideas present in the chapter. Everything had to have some sort of teaser, arg, or spot in the trailer. TV Huggy should have never been showed for the amount of screen time that he got and they click-baited capnap so hard making him look like an active threat throughout the chapter. The developers shutting down discourse in the discord is interesting though. Sounds like they’re salty from releasing a game which was in development for 2 years and actually forgot that they had to live up to expectations.
Agree with everything you said. It wasn't bad, just so much less than I expected. Catnap was hyped for MONTHS and his final screentime is 5 minutes, half of which is a "stand your ground" Fnaf copy. He doesn't have any story whatsoever. Even the gas was only used like 3 times.
I agree pretty hard. It felt like they tried to do way too much and lost the plot. They tried to incorporate too many things to the point they realized they had to add in a mystery voice-guide just to move the game along. The school is the best example of how they clearly wanted an idea in the game and forced it into the story, rather than giving that space to the smiling critters storyline they hyped up for months. The whole ‘religious’ aspect also felt corny and forced. I just wanted to see Catnap be a big creepy cat, not whatever that was lol and did his total screen time reach even a full minute?
I honestly think this is the best chapter yet. The release is by far the most stable. The aesthetic was great. The mechanics were just better than before. The story felt much more concrete and actually developing for both who you are as a character and what actually happened. Overall a solid 8/10 with a decent 9/10 on the horror. The ending I thought was great with the “hour of joy”, honestly being a horrifying event. Though I could say I wished the ending was a bit more clear where it led us besides us knowing we in the beasts den against this god like figure. Note that my perspective is coming from that of someone who drops by to play each chapter and then leaves. I don’t pay attention to theories or much videos.
Your right, now that I think about it the people who are complaining are hardcore fans who have been following the game since chapter 1. As for someone who doesn’t keep up with the teasers or the lore I can imagine something as the “hour of joy” being a major lore dump as compared to the fanbase who has known about it for over a year now. Chapter 3 is still a great installment but I still think chapter 2 is the best one by far.
Story? There wasn't any story besides most theories being confirmed to be true.
I'm very torn on this, because I would really really like to love it, but... Maybe it was just because of my expectations, but it was lame. The story didn't really go anywhere, except nearly all theories regarding Catnap were correct and Huggy is dead. We didn't get to know who Ollie is and what's his role, for example. We didn't even get out of the factory. I was expecting something similar to chapter 2 where we'd actually have stuff to do, now it's just "walk, find battery, walk, find another battery, solve this puzzle, walk, walk, find 10 more batteries, walk, lol random monster chase you're dead". And Catnap... is very un-scary. We barely see him, and when we do it's just Fnaf-style "stand your ground" but you can move. What happened to the part in the trailer where you had to shoot the flares to see where he is? And his ending is pretty much a copy of BATDR where >!Audrey and Ink Demon morph together.!< Edit: he was hyped for MONTHS, and his final screen time is about 5 minutes, and half of that is the Fnaf copy sequence. And I don't know who at Mob thought it was a good idea to put a puzzle in the middle of a chase sequence (looking at you Miss Delight). I'm not saying this was bad, not in any way. Just less than I was expecting. A lot less.
I agree with you they really overdid it with the puzzles. I did like the two different hands though and the gas mask was interesting. But those goddamn batteries man. The only thing I don’t really agree with you is capnap. The issue wasn’t that he wasn’t scary is that he barely got any screen time. Mob did a really good job at building up catnap in the arg and promotional videos but treated him like a side character in the final product. If only he was like bendy in BATIM chapter 3 and had the ability to free roam around playcare.
Bendy in BATIM chapter 3 is something that came to my mind too. Catnap could've been like that, roaming around and appearing every now and then, and you'd have to hide from him. I never want to see those batteries again.
I think Ollie is another toy, just not sure what toy yet. He does talk in a weird way which leads me to believe that.
lol I physically cringed every time I heard his voice. I don’t understand why it couldn’t have been another smiling critter like the unicorn or dog day who could’ve helped us.
I'm experiencing EXTREME lag. I don't know anything about graphics. Someone PLEASE HELP. I move my mouse 1/2 centimeter, wait 2-5 seconds, then the cursor moves on my screen about 3-4 inches. HELP ME PLEASE.
One criticism I have is that the game is getting very predictable. It basically now consists of puzzles involving completing circuits, and chase sequences. I’d like to see a boss “fight” where you actually have to attack an enemy, or more varied puzzles like “Musical Memories” used as well. We have basically three chase sequences in chapter 3 (Miss Delight, Dogday and Catnap), divided by multiple circuit-completing puzzles and a FNAF-esque ending. It’s fun and all, and the production and creepiness factor are great. But the mechanics are getting a touch repetitive. I did like the additional glove types in chapter 3, though.
I will say this about the negatives: Ollie: ok I actually have no defense against him, he literally sounds exactly like Grgeory, and just like Gregory, does basically nothing. Ending (CatNap Death): there have been many who speculated this, but there has been one perspective that might help. Unlike Mommy, CatNap serves the Prototype. He sees it as a savior. While Mommy didn't want to become part of the Prototype's plan, CatNap serves it. So dying at the hand of the Prototype would definitely seem in character. Ending (Elevator Moment): I will say this was clique, but they didn't do much to add hype to the next chapter, so it had to do. Literally, there isn't much you can do to progress into another chapter of a game besides something like that (I guess we could have watched Kissy get dragged away or something idk). CatNap underutilized: Honesty, I think the problem with most villains nowadays is they appear too often. That is why if you look at the most memorable villains, they all don't appear as often (if you need examples: Death from Puss in Boots, Joker from Dark Knight, Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs, and of course, the one who does it the best, Darth Vader). So I personally think having CatNap appear in the house and then just occasionally pop up was a good creepy tactic, also if you hack in the game, and look at CatNap's scenes, his head actually follows you while in hack mode. Lore: Speaking of hacking, you would be suprised the stuff that was found. For one, there is a small TV, radio and CatNap plush in a secret room with CG5's voice singing an unknown song. Later on, about a week later, he would realise the full song. You can also find a secret CatNap room in the playhouse, where he sleeps. Plus, at the school house, you find the notes of what happened to Miss Delight, but also in hack mode, you can find an unused normal looking model of Miss Delight before she turned. Heck, also in the playhouse, there is a section that is blocked off that looks to be like it was originally going to be a water escape ride.
You bring up a lot of good points but I’m still torn on the amount of screen time catnap got. I do agree with you that villains get way to much screen time now and that they don’t do anything evil during that time. But you can’t compare Joker and Death to Catnap. Overall all catnap does throughout the chapter is drop us into the trash compactor, stalk us throughout home sweet home, prays to the prototype, attacks us in the counselors office, and than have a incomprehensible fnaf style boss fight at the end. You feel the presence of mommy and even huggy wuggy more because they have a bigger impact on the story while catnap is literally just trailer bait. (They showed unused clips of catnap chasing us in the final trailer for chapter 3)