Backrooms: Exploration you'll start the game and be upset to find out that there's a long cutscene that's been here since the beginning of this game's release. I've had to sit through this cutscene several times because I've replayed the game for achievements, etc.
Energy and stamina system, which is extremely tedious and slogs the game out. You're subdued by the stamina mechanic, where you have to walk very slowly if you've been running for too long, which is still not even that fast. I'd expect this is to dodge the Steam game refund window, which is 2 hours, so you don't beat the game too quickly (lame). This makes it very walk-simulator-fueled. They need to make running at least slightly faster, as it's not good enough and makes the process much more time-consuming and dreadful.
Level 0: The Lobby, which is the classic Backrooms area. There are arrows on the walls, and when you follow them, they don't lead you to the exit of the level and waste your time. So much so that I'm sure people who have purchased the game would've quit on the spot and would've been disappointed. Your efforts to make people not refund have actually likely caused the opposite and made people even more likely to refund and not play again.
Graphics, Performance & Settings: I believe the last time I played the game, around a month ago or so, there were no settings, or at least no extensive settings, so I'll give credit there for the improvement of the game. There's also a few graphical bugs and errors, but it's somewhat polished.
More Gameplay & Experience: You'll notice that if you played this game a month ago or before, it's different, and it has had an overhaul. Some things have been improved, and new level modifications have happened. I'm glad they removed the awful voice acting from the prior version of the game. Even CaseOh cooked it when he played it and gave it some prominent exposure.
Lvl 2: Office Maze with a few windows and a fake sky. I actually managed to do a full 180 and find my way back to the start of the level. For a second, I thought it was the exit, but it was where I had begun. Truly bizarre. It gets to a point where it's just mindless, and I don't recall Level 2 being this appalling. I'm willing to admit that I'm not the best at navigating areas; however, this is just stupid. In this level, you realise you can't go left, so you go right, only to then realise that everywhere is a dead end and you have no clue where to go. After 10–15 minutes, I finally found the exit when the black creature/entity waved their hand around a corner.
Lvl 3: Quick level, if you would even call it one. Level 3 includes a newly modified version where you are inside a large room with hills, houses, and liminal music playing, closely resembling Motion, aka Level 94 or Level 55. Mindless hills.
Lvl 4: Another short area and journey, which appears like "The Lobby," except there's red lighting on the walls. It's a quick experience to the following level. However, even though it's the lobby-looking area, it's pretty straightforward where to go. You'll eventually traverse to the exit. Before all of that, you will see a row of windows with a weird, unsettling sound that almost sounds like something from a spaceship.
Lvl 5: More Lobby area shenanigans, yet still a quick journey to the following level, which I don't mind. You then follow a bridge to the next part, where you hear the same strange extraterrestrial buzzing sound with the creepy liminal atmosphere. You're just following the red light, and it's not really engaging. It's just a walk simulator to the next door, but in a way, I prefer it over the endless mazes. It's definitely possible to make it less tedious, but they don't (still not god-awful).
Lvl 6: You then teleport to a road/street where, once more, you just walk forward. There are homes. One or more has a bug where you can see the red light going through the wall, which is certainly a bug and is quite a shame. The red light just generally appears to emit through the streetlights, which literally aren't red. Yeah, just silly. They're literally yellow/white.
Lvl 7: The classic "The End" liminal space that everyone loves. I remember the last time I played, they had a small little puzzle where you had to check the books since it's a library area; however, this time around, they just decided to remove that entirely, which is fine, I guess. But I thought it was more engaging for the game, and I didn't mind it, as it wasn't that bad. So this one is just another transitional level where it's straightforward to find the door exit.
Lvl 8/9: Perhaps 80s-style walls and flooring, potentially resembling an American fast-food restaurant. You'll travel to an area which is known as Pitfalls, and you then basically have to fall (as far as I'm aware), which will then kill you and teleport you to a new area with a Happy Birthday sign and the classic city-map play-rug carpeting all over. In this section, there's creepy music playing through the speakers. You'll see a monster that I'm not sure has lore or is a recognised character in the Backrooms fandom; however, it's pretty creepy. It spooks you, and then, as you easily find the exit with the flickering lights, you hear a silly line of dialogue from the character you're playing, saying, "Stay away from me."
Lvl 10: Transitional level with another waving monster (not that scary), a lot of seemingly randomly generated areas, and objects like chairs glitched into walls, etc., which captures the essence of the Backrooms and liminal spaces.
Lvl 11: The mall, and this time, to another elevator. Including the Nettspend shop again is certainly a highlight, but in all seriousness, it's a nice, pretty liminal mall. I like the trees and the skyroof.
Lvl 12/13: After entering the elevator, the elevator breaks, and you teleport to the Poolrooms. The character immediately says the words, "Now I am all wet," which is very hard to take seriously. The Poolrooms level design here, I believe, has changed drastically since last time, and they removed the beloved unicorn floaties in the pool. Huge RIP. A lot of these levels... maybe I'm being too harsh on the gameplay, as I should give it sympathy and let it use the exploration card, but I think it's a bit flawed and dry.
There's definitely more that's not been included in this review, especially after the overhaul, but I think I've covered a lot. Honestly, I feel like I'm mixed on this review. Here in this playthrough, I achieved a new ending where I phased through the floor and found myself in a blissful-looking field. The ending was quite pathetic, in my opinion, and overall, I don't even think this overhaul, if you'd even call it that, is much better than before. I feel like the standard to make a good Backrooms game is just kind of low. These developers make these games praying that CaseOh or another YouTuber will touch it after minimal development. Still, I understand it's hard to make a game. Even as someone who's never made one, I feel disappointed.
Sorry, HNStudios. I'm feeling a 3/10.
What I praise:
1. Graphics while being far from perfect and having several bugs, it's one of the highlights.
2. The new addition of extensive settings.
3. The development effort and ambition to improve the state of the game (while it hasn't been made even 10% better, really, in my opinion).
4. Removal of most of the terrible dialogue from your character and camera bug.
I genuinely had this review up to 9,500 characters long. I had to remove a lot of stuff so that I could publish the review!
WARNING: There are many major spoilers in this review. Consider not reading it if you don't want anything to be spoiled in any regard.
