A retrospective of the game.How not to a write a story.

First time positing here so don't attack me but I want to give my thoughts on the game,note this is not a review of chapter 5 but rather all of poppy playtime as a whole.Note:There is a TLDR as this post is very big.

Poppy playtime to me was a game I always saw potential,and I mean this,I have been a fan of the game aince chapter 2.

But as of chapter 5,I have been starting to have doubts if I should continue being a fan.And no,this is not becouse of Markiplier cause I don't even watch that guy to begin with,but becouse of what the game has become.

Anyway,I was always here for the story but throughout the months I have realized that Mob entertainment really doesn't know how to tell a story and actually sacrifises storytelling ovee game theory bait and profit.

Let me acknowladge this is not a hate post and there good things about the game.The animation is good for the first 3 chapters,some of the lore is great,the backstories of the characters are great,the grabpack mechanics at the beginning of the franchise was a fresh take,and there are a few elements I enjoyed such as safe haven.

But now let's get into what the game has that is a problem with story telling:The game doesn't know where it wants to go with the story.There are many criticisms in recent chapters that contribute to this.

Confusing lore through storytelling.

I have seen a lot of people here defend the story saying that the lore and backstories are good for the characters and carry this game,and while I agree there are good aspects,lore is NOT the same as active storytelling.

This is the biggest factory and before you say "Nice try cheeseyeen" I am aware of the guy and he does get stuff wrong and he is a bit bias,but is he completely wrong?No.The game has ultimatily become a game theory bait game where the game only relies on tapes and notes as a crutch for a ultimatily weak story.

For example in this chapter,most players and even let's play streamers COMPLETELY MISSED the most important tape that reveals everything about the prototype,why?Becouse mob thought it would be a very smart idea to put it in the most random place ever.And this isn't the only tape,tapes such as the lily is miss gracie tape,the poppy and ollie tape in chapter 4,the case tape,and the sisters tape are all hidden in the most random places you could imagine.

Unless you for some reason want to search the entire place in a room,you would obviously not go into a section and say "Oh I need to search for lore tapes or notes here",any casual player will continue along and will remain confused,for example you will say "Why is there a skeleton in lily's room,oh well who cares it probably means nothing." And you only learn everything when you watch a playthrough or collect the tapes which is a pain in the ass I tell you.

If this was project playtime,I could forgive becouse lore is served as the backstory of a game,the how this happen meanwhile the story is the what is happening.And so far,the game has a very weak story to begin with.

We make almost 0 progression in this chapter,infact when you think about it,chapter 5 is actually a very short chapter in story,becouse if you think about it,we could have skipped through all of this crap,this whole thing could have been summerized in the first 30-40 minutes,everything involving learning about the negation formula,the prototype's identity,getting captured from lily,and poppy being captured and huggy's arc,all could have been summerized in the first 40 minutes.

How?Well we are on to the next point to find out why!

Unecassary/useless new additions.

Mob seems to have a fetish for introducing new characters just to either kill these guys off or just underutilizing these guys.

For example,the nightmare critters and Painosaurus from chapter 4,and in this chapter we meet the most NOTHING,and when I mean nothing,I mean the most nothing characters ever.Drum roll*The wrongside outimals,pure merch fodder.

What about the outimals,well let's just say,these guys are nothing,these characters were supposidly suppose to reprsent the prototype's experiments and his way of punishment yet not only do the designs suck,but these guys have zero to no purpose aside from being just enemies and that's it,we only sees these guys for one section and that's it.

And what about our two good old buds,Chum and Giblet,okay maybe Chum is a fan favorite,but aside from this,bro only appears 3 times in this game and one of these times is a blink and miss situation.

And Giblet,oof,why is this guy here?He only spews out things we already know,dissapears 80% of the game,only to just keep saying hes a not a hero despite never being here and we never saying he was one to begin with.He keeps going on and on about him and poppy going way back despite poppy never mentioning him ever.He is literally the definition of filler.

I respect mob wanting to not kill new characters off,but seriously,atleast DO SOMETHING with these characters other than merch.

The ridiculous amount of areas.

Least offensive yet still a big criticism.Man,what are we doing mob,we got big areas such as sweet street,lily's gigantic ass house,a whole ass city down here,what is this?Garten of BanBan?What are we going to see next?A giant utopia?

I get this is a big company but man,why would we need a giant ass lamer version of playcare???This is ridiculous,and what's more stupid is how these fucking trailers lied to me,where is the fucking labs,the labs are barley in this game.

These areas have zero purpose and only serve for yet again,more filler,and no I don't care about the worldbuilding or lore becouse a casual player will not realize this or care.

The player.

This is most biggest and most harshest thing I can give,**what are we doing here????**We first need to find our coworkers,the coworkers are dead,we need to now rescue the orphans,the orphans are beyond saving,we need to kill the prototype,we fail,this is a whole mcguffin quest with no ending.

We are 5 chapters in and we have no idea **who we are,what are motive is,why we are still here,and why we are just following what we are told.**We are essentially here for the orphans becouse we are consumed with guilt,but what is that guilt,what did the orphans mean to us?

The player has no cohesive thinking and seems to just do whatever we are asked to do as if we are just a robot,infact,I think a robot makes more sense than a human,anyway so far I have been trash talking chapter 5,but let's go a bit earlier,chapter 4.

Man,safe haven was a well thought out idea that was badly executed,we are led to believe that we are guilty of the misery,how we are the reason safe haven is is gone,but again how are we suppose to be engaged in that,we never need to explore safe haven,we don't interact with the npcs,so we don't feel a connection,sure doey carries this entire chapter but what about the rest,the entirety of save haven is just there and we feel nothing.

Infact,we are not attached to any of the characters,we have no emotional depth such as poppy,giblet,or anyone.

Also this chapter attempt to do a "choose this and this will be your consequence" tone yet this never happens.For example when the doctor traps us in a room to kill one of the nightmare critters and we are forced to choose if we want to have morality or be selfish and kill just to survive,well,we have no choice duh.

Up until this point we feel nothing towards the orphans,no connection,nothing,we have been killing kids just in bigger packages since the beginning and we feel unfazed becouse these were our enemies,and besides,that nightmare critter was an enemy so ofcourse we are going to kill it,don't know what the doctor was trying to do there,if it was a smiling critter and was begging maybe there would be empathy,but no,there isn't.

This is the problem with a silent vessel protagonist,we have no morals,we have no connection to the characters,no cohesive logical thinking,NOTHING.

If I was the player,I am would escape the first chance I get,who cares of the orphans,the orphans are probabley beyond saving and I killed dozens to begin with,selfish yeah,but atleast that gives me more than 2 or even 0 dimensions.

There are other things I can criticize chapter 4 such as the way the doctor was handled and his forced come back but this is the porminent one.

Conclusion.

Theres more I can go on about,but man,what is there to say,all this made me rewrite the entirety of poppy playtime,and I have,and looking at my rewrite,I can see that mob truly never released potential,I am one fucking guy and I have better storytelling ideas that entirety of mob entertainment.

Let me ask you a question to end things off,would you have minded this was the last chapter if it was handled properly?

I mean the prototype's design wouldn't be used for the last time,and we can have more worldbuilding in spinoffs,but why just why couldn't chapter 5 be about:

-Elliot,the prototypr,and poppy's arc.

-Huggy's redemption arc.

-The player's character.

-The labs.

-Maybe some of lily.

But no,instead we went through a lot of garbage ass puzzles,losing a grabpack only to get another one and guess what,the obni hand was worthless,no emotional depth,only filler,filler D list characters,an extremely rushed huggy arc,and only hype moments.

I don't care about giblet's nom existent arc,I don't care about this vine things in the labs that are never seen again,I don't care about sweet street,the large city,or the outimals,these dumb collectables,Th-this chapter 5 SUCKS!It's a whole fucking mess.

And it's sad,becouse as I said before,this franchise COULD.HAVE.BEEN.GREAT.

This chapter would make poppy playtime rival against bigger games.This game had a lot of potential that was either not used,or severly implemented,not to mention this game also is getting less and less scary and appealing more to a younger audience despite being a fucking horror game not meant for kids.

This chapter's progressing also was just luaghable,it's just as Markiplier said "We are the chase sequence gane" it's just chase,chase,chase,chase!It's as if the game thinks the only way to progress is chase sequences.

Just so you all know,I know this fandom can't take critcism,I will get down voted,I know,but hey,atleast take knowladge to this.

If you enjoyed this,I respect your opinion,if you want to maybe rebutall some of my arguments or share your points of view or dissagreements,I can take a look.

I will give chapter 6 a chance,if it's anything as the last two chapters or worse or we even get a chapter 7,I will genuienly never talk about this franchise ever as I will be dissapointed,maybe I will make my version of a rewrite and some ocs but other than that,no,I will be done.

Tldr;The game got to big for it'self,confuses story with lore that a casual player won't find,the player's character is luaghable,the "morality" and character depth is a joke,new filler additions,new D list characters,badly written story as the game goes on,and lack of coherent outline on how to end this.

Thank you.