Hello Neighbor

 PlayStation 4
User Score
5.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 45 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 45
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 45
  3. Negative: 18 out of 45
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  1. Saine
    Dec 23, 2019
    0
    My god, what a trainwreck. This'll be my first time posting a review publicly, and I wish I didn't have to start with such a horrendous title.

    I bought this game with low expectations already. I'd seen the quality of the horror games released in the wake of FNAF, egged on by overacting YouTubers and their rabid fanbases, and I knew from that (and a brief bit of experience from the    My god, what a trainwreck. This'll be my first time posting a review publicly, and I wish I didn't have to start with such a horrendous title.

    I bought this game with low expectations already. I'd seen the quality of the horror games released in the wake of FNAF, egged on by overacting YouTubers and their rabid fanbases, and I knew from that (and a brief bit of experience from the newest FNAF, Pizza Simulator) that these sorts and styles of games were more meant to be watched than played. When my girlfriend picked this title off the shelf, I knew it would probably devolve into her handing me the controller after some frustrating gameplay and some lukewarm jumpscares. It took maybe 4-5 minutes of her playing and me watching before we both knew this game was an absolute bust. After I had taken over and had made my way through a portion of Act 1, I was content with never picking it up again.

    From the get-go, the game looks terrible. 'Cartoony' has now become my videogame synonym for 'I can't create the atmosphere I need so let's just do what TF2 did.' It doesn't fit the horror genre in the slightest, and it takes away from any sort of real stakes I might've been expecting, since I know I'm probably not going to see anybody dying or any real violence occurring. There isn't even the implicated threat of something even remotely terrible happening - past the stock "femalescreams.mp3" found in the beginning cutscene (which, from what I can tell based on other reviews, has absolutely nothing to do with anything), the worst thing Mr. Peterson is implied to do in the beginning of this game is place you back on your front lawn, leaving you with all of your items and leaving all of the doors unlocked (later on he doesn't even have the energy to take you back to your house, and might just leave you at the top of the stairs of his basement). This particular fact makes Hello Neighbor feel more akin to a platformer than a horror game, where repercussions are low and the difficulty is high, and you'd prefer to sprint through the game rather than make slower, purposefully timed decisions based on the environment.

    The 'puzzle-solving' is incredibly difficult and cryptic. Take note of what a minimalistic, sandbox approach to puzzle-solving actually looks like - running around clicking on every object until something unexpected happens. Without a basic tutorial or decent level design to guide the player, Hello Neighbor expects you to just know that you have to move a picture to find a hole in the wall, flip a switch in one room to activate a fan in another, find a heavy object (but not too heavy!) to place on the shelf in *front* of the fan, and use the delay to run out of the nearby window and position yourself on a platform at the far side of the house in order to get to the next area. If all that seems confusing, overly-complicated, and drawn out, then congratulations - you're a normal person, and probably not the creators of this game.

    The controls are by far the worst aspect of this game. For context, I'll talk about the first obstacle, after having consulted a video guide and now knowing my goal - stacking boxes on top of a ladder in order to reach the roof. You'd think something as innocuous as stacking one box on top of another (IN A PLATFORMER) can't *possibly* be a difficult task, but it's something I had to spend 5 minutes just practicing in the front lawn before I was courageous enough to try it for real. When the time came, boxes were being thrown every which way by the buggy sandbox physics, and it took multiple deaths to even get them in place. After somehow reaching the roof, you've got two leaps of faith across other sections of the roof to get through, still without any indication of what you should be doing, and with Mr. Peterson chucking tomatoes at you and jumping the length of a skyscraper wherever he wants.

    This game might've made a drunken "bad movie night" list somewhere if it controlled halfway decently, but instead we're left with a barely-finished, poorly ported eyesore that couldn't scrape together a good jumpscare if it tried. It's boring, it's downright unplayable, and I've honestly had more fun typing up this review than I have attempting Hello Neighbor. Pick it up for 12 cents on the Switch store when it goes on sale, play it for 5 minutes, and see what I mean for yourself.    … Expand
  2. SuperkenGaming
    Jul 29, 2018
    6
    Hello Neighbor
    Creepy, Terrifying, and Annoying
    Hello Neighbor is a stealth horror puzzle game where you play a kid that peeks inside your neighbors window to see him locking up some door, and of course you want to see what’s going on inside.. Things are changed up a bit in this newer release of the game... The original version there were tons of exploits for you to be able to take    Hello Neighbor
    Creepy, Terrifying, and Annoying
    Hello Neighbor is a stealth horror puzzle game where you play a kid that peeks inside your neighbors window to see him locking up some door, and of course you want to see what’s going on inside..
    Things are changed up a bit in this newer release of the game...
    The original version there were tons of exploits for you to be able to take shortcuts and speed through parts of this game...
    some exploits do exist but a few have been fixed such as the first level having a satellite dish in front of the area that everyone was jumping to and basically skipping most of the first act… however I feel the game is mostly to blame for this…
    This game will take you 6 to 7 hours to go through without shortcuts or knowing locations of the keys…
    The story takes place across 3 acts and one finale.. Your goal is to essentially find items and keys to help you get to new locations in an area... things start out decently simple and get more convoluted as you go one..
    For some reason players and critics alike don’t really seem to like this game but I feel like it’s actually pretty neat...
    there’s an interesting story here told through cut scenes and the occasional flash back moments when you die too many times, you’re getting the story of both you and your neighbor...
    who by the way is doing all he can to ensure you don’t succeed in collecting these items and keys or solving the puzzles in his yard and basement..
    This feels very much like an old school early 2000s game with a modern polish...
    Not to say this game is polished... it has its bugs glitches and hiccups, but for what it is its pretty solid…
    you’re free to explore the area completely however it’s up to you to figure out how it get into locked doors or find windows to climb through,
    This old school feel and freedom is the games downfall as well..
    This game explains nothing to you, it shows you a key in an attic and just lets you go... how are you going to get it… you have to figure things out on your own and for that reason many players will accidentally break the game and miss parts of it, hello neighbor does a really poor job of leading the player along or hinting towards solutions, this is what makes the game so special but what also makes it so frustrating…
    This isn’t the game’s biggest problem though...
    That lies in the hands of the over used neighbor...
    at first dealing with this neighbor is terrifying... He means almost certain death until you figure out how to dodge and set up escape routes in case he spots you... but the problem is at least during the house sections of the game... he’s seemingly everywhere...
    I’m not sure if he’s spawned into areas, but I’m almost certain he is… this means you never really get a moment away from him and therefor the game never allows tension to build... Its constant inch towards progress get caught rinse and repeat… instead of steak around his home, find out what’s going on. What you need to deal with or figure out to unlock the next part of this map, hide when he gets near and then goes back to his set path....
    I think this is key to great stealth…
    Sure you can disrupt paths... but the enemy should always return to their set paths and have a bit of predictability to allow the player to feel they are outsmarting the enemy rather than constant distract and run
    This could’ve been a way better game with this in mind.. It has the potential to be a 3d little nightmares game…
    I still enjoyed it for it was... clearly more than everyone else did...
    The stealth bit of this stealth game though doesn’t really exist...
    I give Hello Neighbor
    a 6.5/10    … Expand
  3. Cbab
    Aug 24, 2019
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Nice game, I bought it recentely and really enjoyed playing iT. IT is a hard game and deserves a way better score than What iT has now… Expand
  4. SethGrey
    Apr 22, 2021
    0
    I wasted 2 hours trying to get the platinum trophy on this garbage. The controls are janky, the gameplay is infuriating and what's worse, after a death it completely lost my progress in Act 3 requiring me to redo all the frustrating platforming I had to do for the last half hour.

    I've deleted this hame right away. Even on PS Now, it's not worth your time.
  5. Aaron4935
    Nov 20, 2018
    0
    I left 6/10 review earlier. I deleted it. It has the worst platforming, worst ai, and most annoying and frustrating puzzles ever. I can't play it at all without rage quitting. It's horrible horrible horrible HORRIBLE. DON'T BUY!
  6. EaglEBeKA
    Jul 20, 2020
    9
    Игрушка хорошая для инди проекта у игры есть смысл посил
    Хорошая стилизованная графика хорошие загадки прикольный сюжет Да проблеми есть но ано не мешает играть
  7. Benjamimo1
    Jul 14, 2020
    3
    The controls are pretty bad. The mouse was poorly ported to a joystick so it is hard to tap things.
    Also L1 is a valid key to press but it is not indicated in the menu or anywhere else. I had to google how to use keys since they didn't provide information on how to do so.
    The puzzles are not intuitive and some are just absurd. I got it for free on PS Now but I wouldn't recommend. Very    The controls are pretty bad. The mouse was poorly ported to a joystick so it is hard to tap things.
    Also L1 is a valid key to press but it is not indicated in the menu or anywhere else. I had to google how to use keys since they didn't provide information on how to do so.
    The puzzles are not intuitive and some are just absurd. I got it for free on PS Now but I wouldn't recommend. Very frustrating to be honest.    … Expand
  8. Cldcaboom
    Jul 14, 2020
    10
    It’s a pretty good game but it has bugs but esy to fix and it has a good story
  9. Elite_Soldier
    Feb 7, 2023
    5
    Played the game with my lil bro. It was alright. At the start, it was pretty fun exploring and solving puzzles but it was definitely getting boring by the end. I would have found this game really boring though if I had played it on my own.
  10. Redfloda
    May 15, 2022
    1
    A very annoying , glitchy and overall bad game! The art style is very well done , but sadly that’s all.
  11. Acrizz
    Mar 4, 2021
    6
    I liked this game a BIT. It was obviously a good game story wise. However, some things just don't make sense, and some things literally need to be Google searched ALL THE TIME. There were far too many bugs, sometimes VERY costly. Controls are fine for me. Overall this was an ok port, not the best though.
  12. ChadFlexington
    May 6, 2021
    6
    A pretty solid idea held back by extremely unpolished AI and puzzles that weren't thought through at all. This game however, does have some parts that I do actually enjoy. Exploring the house is fun, and messing around with your neighbor can actually be entertaining. I'm almost certain that the game would be way more liked if the AI was remade and fixed, and if the nonsensical puzzles wereA pretty solid idea held back by extremely unpolished AI and puzzles that weren't thought through at all. This game however, does have some parts that I do actually enjoy. Exploring the house is fun, and messing around with your neighbor can actually be entertaining. I'm almost certain that the game would be way more liked if the AI was remade and fixed, and if the nonsensical puzzles were also tweaked. Other games, like the Silent Hill franchise have proven how puzzles can (and should) be done surprisingly well, and it's a shame how poorly this turned out. I really hope some sort of update that fixes these problems does come out. The game had some pretty good ideas, and some where even done well (the house design, while ordinary and pretty big, is still fun for me to explore and mess with). I wouldn't completely recommend Hello Neighbor in it's current state, but I did have a lot of fun with it's good parts, but also got extremely confused and disappointed with the bad parts. This game was disappointing, and many reasons people hate this game for are completely valid, but there are a lot of things that keep me playing this again and again. I recommend the decent exploration, not the poorly designed puzzles and AI.… Expand
  13. Zeegamund
    Apr 18, 2022
    10
    It's a very fun and mysterious game. Its great for trophy hunting and I cant wait for hello neighbor 2.

Critic Reviews

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No score yet - based on 3 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 3 out of 3
  1. DualShockers
    Aug 10, 2018
    45
    A massive disappointment and not a very good game in the slightest.
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  2. PlaySense
    Aug 10, 2018
    30
    Conceptually and story-wise Hello Neighbor had some real potential. Unfortunately, it falls flat on its face in all other categories we can think of. Technically very messy, graphically not particularly appealing, AI that is completely unpredictable, puzzles that don't make any sense, and poor level design. The result is an extremely frustrating title that isn't worth your time or money.
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  3. Push Square
    Aug 2, 2018
    40
    Sticking with Hello Neighbor takes a lot of patience and forgiveness. While the lure of the secret in the basement is a strong one, the glitches, complicated puzzles, and problematic AI all make for a giant slog. With improvements this indie could be a spine-tingling horror game, one which plays on deep childhood fears and leaves a lasting impression, but in its current state, we wish that we'd just stayed at home.
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