- Rachel Resendes
To compare Poppy Playtime and Five Nights at Freddy’s is like comparing an apple to an orange. Just like the fruits, they both have similar traits as they reside in the horror genre and tell a story about a company with dark secrets, but their gameplay and overall style are incredibly different. Even with both Five Nights at Freddy’s and Poppy Playtimes having their ups and downs, the one that comes out on top is Poppy Playtime. The idea sounds crazy, due to how massive Five Nights at Freddy’s is as a whole and how the community has built and adapted over the years creating multiple games inspired by the series, with Poppy Playtime being one of them. However, looking into gameplay and mechanics, immersion, style, and overall storytelling it’s hard not to see Mob Entertainment as the winner.
Consider the gameplay of Five Nights at Freddy’s. It’s simple and keeps you in the same environment throughout each night. Only you have to protect yourself from outside threats that are trying to make their way inside the security room. This premise continues to the second and third games making a minor appearance in Sister Location, FNAF 6, Ultimate Custom Nights, and the Help Wanted Games, one and two. They steer slightly away from the concept in the fourth game, where you get some 2D/8-bit gameplay and have more movement, by running up to the doors and closet. Then, of course, they steer away completely from the original gameplay in Security Breach and Ruin. When it comes to Poppy Playtime, the gameplay is consistent with each chapter with minor additions each time. For example, you continue to roam through the factor through each chapter and continue to face bigger body projects throughout each of them. You also continue to use the grab pack, except each chapter introduces a new feature or new hand that will aid you later on. To me, the consistency is what brings me back, not because of knowing what I’m in for, as that could get boring pretty quickly, but because it’s not going from a horror game to an adventure puzzle game. Such as the first Five Nights at Freddy's game that eventually turns into Security Breach where you work alongside the animatronic you were originally supposed to get stuffed into. Poppy Playtime doesn’t do this and keeps its consistent gameplay interesting with each chapter.
When it comes to the game mechanics, it’s similar to the gameplay where it has its ups and downs from both games, but it's easy to see that Poppy Playtime has the better of the two. Because, just like the gameplay, the mechanics are just as inconsistent when it comes to Five Nights at Freddy’s. Where the player is restricted to the security, except as the series continue, the player is no longer restricted to that room. Effectively turning a non-roaming game into a free-roam game only to scrap everything that once made the game so iconic. While not much can be done with Poppy Playtime’s episodic nature to begin with, it’s actually something I appreciate as a player. Especially when I don’t have to learn new mechanics with every new game which can more stress onto the player when already placed in a survival situation. So not only were the mechanics interesting and unique in the beginning compared to Five Nights at Freddy’s but Poppy Playtime had also been able to keep similar mechanics throughout the game keeping it pretty consistent throughout the series. This is where FNAF had fell short as they not only had multiple different games that were created based on the main games but also ones that told completely different versions and sides of the story which contributed to different gameplay mechanics to be needed in the game. For example the complete difference from the first Five Nights at Freddys with Ultimate Custom Night, Security Breach, and Into the Pit. With all four taking on completely different styles, themes, gameplay, and the core mechanics.
Again, Poppy Playtime comes out on top with the immersion and storytelling factors. When playing through the chapters, I felt fully immersed with the story and loved the tapes as they dumped more bits and pieces of lore. I also appreciated how the story was pretty straight forward in comparison to Five Nights at Freddy’s, which still felt confusing even after watching a ten hour explanation going through each one of the games. However, this could easily contribute to the fact that a lot of the story from Poppy Playtime was fully fleshed out and written while they probably didn’t start on a real backstory until the second Five Nights at Freddy’s game. Again Poppy Playtime is inspired from Five Nights at Freddy’s so they will have a lot of similarities, but overall Mob entertainment wins when it comes to style and theme. Especially when it utalizes the child-like aspect when it comes to the mechanics and tools in the game. Making it colorful and appealing while also making it extremely horrific and terrifying. While it feels like Five Nights at Freddy’s is either one or the other. With it being mostly horrific in the beginning then tapering off to a more colorful and child-like look; such as the first game and Security Breach.
Overall, looking through some other factors, as Poppy Playtime was a major hit when it came out with Five Nights at Freddy’s taking a bit to get to where it was. Gaming was also in a slight “rut” when Poppy Playtime came out, so seeing a new Indie Horror game was pretty exciting compared to Five Nights at Freddy’s. However, due to the concept being slightly similar to Five Nights at Freddy’s they most likely have around the same audience, but it’s easy to say while FNAF had a bigger community allotted over time, Poppy Playtime had built a community overnight as the “hot” new game. It’s easy to see that when Mob Entertainment, had been able to build their game up, fully fleshed out with a cohesive story and release it when games were at an all time, all but guaranteed there success.