I grew up watching films from the aptly named Disney Renaissance—I'm talking The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, and Mulan—and then got to enjoy some bangers like Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, and Atlantis as I got older, so this style of 2D animation is a pretty formative part of my childhood.
So I was ready to play Bye Sweet Carole the moment I saw its old-style, beautiful 2D animation, choosing to disregard the warning that it was also a horror game.
There aren't many signs that Bye Sweet Carole is much of a horror game at first. Finding yourself in a quaint flower garden, talking to cute little birds, and chasing a rascal rabbit that has stolen an important letter you were reading, you run across fields of flowers and bask in the glory of Bunny Hall, an old, seemingly well-kept estate.
I was enjoying every second of this brief introduction, feeling as if I were playing through one of my favourite childhood memories. But this is a horror game after all, so that feeling of contentment was rather short-lived.
Soon enough, I found myself wading through waist-high swamp water running from a gooey tar man who wanted to rip me limb from limb. And it didn't get much better from there. Stuck in an orphanage where she's bullied by the other girls and harassed by the staff, the protagonist Lana often finds herself in locations that are dark, dusty, and decaying.
With no one to rely on, you have to get creative to solve the situations you find yourself in. Whether that's moving boxes so you can climb to reach helpful items, triggering timed traps to reach new areas, or combining the few items in your inventory like cheese and a mousetrap to lure out a poor unsuspecting rodent to use as bait for a particularly aggressive owl that manages to always make your life harder whether that be by blocking your path or just looking spooky with its blood-red eyes.
But you have to keep going forward, no matter how unnerving the settings get, and it's not just because you're usually getting chased by some freakish humanoid rabbit or tar-man, what spurs Lana on is the search for her only friend, Carole. People say that she's run off or left of her own free will but a mysterious and ever-elusive letter from Carole suggests otherwise. So Lana is hot on her trail.
While Bye Sweet Carole isn't the scariest game I've played in the run-up to Halloween, it's a fun experience and one I'd recommend, especially for those who prefer a richer narrative experience and more eerie horror rather than relentless jumpscares. The platforming can be a bit finicky at times, but that in no way stopped me from having a great time solving little puzzles and exploring Bunny Hall, even if it has made me look at this old 2D animation style in a different light.
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