Nintendo Switch – Sleep Tight #203

Sometimes going back to sleep is the better option…

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Sleep Tight – Nintendo Switch – Released: 7/26/18 – $14.99

Review

When was the last time you laid in your bed and thought a monster was going to come from under the bed or from a closet to attack you? Take your time… Yeah, you likely don’t remember since it was when you were a child. I don’t remember having any memories of that since my father would wake me up with the idea that spiders were coming to attack me. So now I have a fear of spiders… thanks Dad!

Sleep Tight takes this one step further by taking control of a child and defending your room. It isn’t a bad concept and made me play at least a dozen or so runs. From building turret walls, huge couch forts while I shoot from behind, and upgrading weapons for more destructive damage. The problem with this is that is all you do. You defend your area and if you are lucky you can complete a full run and decide to start over again or not.

Being a product of the quarter popping arcade hungry era, this type of gameplay reminded me of Smash TV or Robotron 2084. The only added benefit is everything you have can be upgraded and each child has different stats to suit any players needs. Do you want a child that will focus on more ammo? Do you want a child that will focus on building turrets? What about more upgrades? What about more health? There is a child for you! While this is a great way to get people to replay the game multiple times with other children… they must be unlocked to be used. Some of these unlocks aren’t very easy either. Two being especially brutal with surviving 45 nights and the other getting an “A” grade on 6 children. If you are unable to beat a run you will likely never unlock those two children since the game only gives you an A grade after around 40 nights.

There is one fatal flaw to this game, it doesn’t allow you to start at any wave with a set amount of upgrades. I enjoy doing a run and it is really rewarding to finally reach those last few stages but the amount of time required to get there is ungodly. My run that got me to Night 45 was over 2 hours long. This was after many many attempts since you will likely not make it through 25 nights your first time through. If you check out my gameplay video you will see that 20 nights takes around 45 minutes. 45 MINUTES! That is way too long for a game that wants you to reach Night 45 to unlock a new character and hope for an “A” grade. Fine, if the game doesn’t allow me to start at a certain way allow for restarts at that way so I don’t lose all my progress and take me down a letter grade.

Upgrading is another issue that presents some flaws but can easily be looked over if you decide what works best for you. I found my method was to create walls of turrets and couches so they can do all the work. This works really well but having to pick up stars present a new issue which is you need to pick them up so you can use for upgrading once you finish a wave. Suns are the other type of upgrade that allows you build prior to starting a wave.

On the other hand you can likely see an issue with my method… it is boring as hell! I don’t purchase any ammo and if I do it is low enough to not halt production of turrets. So the bulk of that 60-120 minute run is me setting up and letting it run as I do something else. The game plays itself when you build turrets once I get closer to around 30-40 nights is when I stock up on ammo for my basic gun and I easily get to Night 45.

Simple, easy, and boring so not the greatest game if you are a fan of wasting time.

It doesn’t help that enemies don’t have many different forms. You got the standard slow guy that is your basic first enemy. You got your slow huge guy that tanks and does a lot of damage. You got your fast enemies with little health. Finally you got your “boss” type enemy that will easily one shot turrets and couches. The game does offer some challenge with the Red Moon Nights which happen every 10 stages. This is when you are typically introduced to a new enemy type and enemies get health and damage upgrades.

Now the real question… is Sleep Tight, a bad game? Depends on what you are looking for but for me it is a simple pass and just reminds me that sometimes things are better left in the past. Sleep Tight tries to recreate that arcade feel but nights feel really long, modern updates like select-able stages is missing, and the best method I found was sitting back and watching the game do its own thing for 5-10 minutes each night.

Cocktail?

I am still debating on this one since it is a kids game but for now it is on ice! I am trying to think of ways to make non-alcoholic drinks for these types of games but those would require a bit more effort in creating.

My Gameplay Footage:

Trailer:

End Credits

If you didn’t notice I took a few days off to work on somethings. I have been talking to another person about my writing and decided to go with something like this. This is a basic outline for future reviews but this is just my first attempt at it. So give some feedback and tell me what you liked and didn’t like.

Going to keep this short since this is my rough draft for this style I am working on so look forward tomorrow for my review of Dead Cells which will be a culmination of what I have learned. It is pretty special and I had a lot more fingers poking and eyes looking over the review to see what they thought about it. Things will be changing for the next 200 reviews and I hope you like it. The website will still be about how I feel but hopefully more personally from here on. I always wanted my reviews to be pretty basic since people enjoyed them and no one gave feedback. Last night I got basically a slap in the face about my writing and how I could do better. Someone believes in my writing and I don’t want to disappoint.

Some minors changes as you can tell but no longer going to break things down, scores will be something that will be added if/when I take the step forward to bring them to other websites. Reviews will be a bit more personal from here on, cocktails will be a staple for 75% or more of reviews depending on if they are kid friendly or not. So games like Super Mario Party will not likely be getting a cocktail but games like Flipping Death will be. That is one of the key aspects that make my reviews and website stand out so hopefully you enjoy them as well.

This year is new for me, for you, and hopefully changes everything!